Balance
For: Iron Fic #5
Thank to Rooster455 for betareading~!

Note:
This story is based very loosely on the recent horror film The Haunting in Connecticut. If you've seen the movie, note that it is in no way a "fanfic" for that movie, but uses it heavily as inspiration all the same. The names of characters have been used, and their appearances, but their dynamics are all screwy if you go by canon. For all intents and purposes this is just a story. I made no money from this story, nor am I affiliated with the movie's company/sponsors in any way.

"…Jonah?"
I blinked and glanced up from my backpack. Everything seemed to be in order, but hey, no harm in checking twice. Or three times. Having a forgetful streak can make you a bit touchy about making sure you have everything… but it all seemed to be there. I gave Matt a silent tilt of my head and he sighed.
"Go home."
"No."
"Jonah…"
"This is my job. I'm tough. Now go on, shoo." I flicked one hand back and forth at him, using the other to balance as I climbed to my feet. "Don't you have something to do? You know, give testimony, set up voice recorders, talk to the family…?"
He twitched. "You spent how long last night bent over a toilet making unearthly sounds that frightened the whole séance? And after that I stayed with you how long to make sure you were gonna be okay?"
"You didn't have to do that," I shrugged, taking another Chloraseptic cough drop out of my back pocket and putting it into my mouth. As soon as my throat went numb again, I continued. "I even told you that you didn't have to…"
"And leave you there? What kind of friend would I be if I did that?" Matt pulled his phone out of his pocket and brought up a dark picture of a white-as-milk girl, her lips stained red and crimson spots on her hands and arms from where she'd covered her mouth to cough, her expression a picture of agony that bordered crying out. I winced. He did have a point… but…
"Matt, delete that thing before someone sees. You got my bad side and I look ten pounds heavier."
"Bah. You're just trying to change the subject—this is why I stayed with you." He stepped closer, putting one hand on my shoulder and rocking backward, forward, left, right—the same order as crossing oneself. "Balance check," he said, nodding when I kept my feet. "Okay, fine, I'll quit bothering you. But maybe you should sit it out tonight, eh? If we even need a séance… it wouldn't hurt to let someone else tackle it."
"What, like you? And how do you think I'll feel when you seize like a drug addict and start throwing up ectoplasm, eh? You have no reflex control so it'd get all over the table, the medium—that's you, Matt—and the family… yeah… no. I'm not putting you through that. And with the possibility of it igniting…"
"That only happened once, in a movie might I add."
"The Haunting in Connecticut is not just a movie. It's a well-researched horrorfest."
"Mhmm… Sure… But you'll put yourself through all that, Jonah. How interesting that you'd take battery acid and lumps of fiberglass insulation clawing its way up out of your stomach, very nearly choking you, and at times leaking out your nose or ears via the Eustachian tubes… all for little old me. I don't know, Jonah, I think you're just a masochist…"
"Shut up. It's my job."
"You job is as the team's demonologist, not a necromancer, and you know it."
"It's my power then." I broke the cough drop in two between my back teeth and sucked hard for a few seconds, the increased surface area helping out any lingering sore spots in the lower reaches of my throat. Ahh… "The point is that it's not yours, and as a medium—which allow me to remind you you're not that good at anyway—you're not the most powerful person on the team. If they need me, I'll help out. Period."
"Jonah—"
"Period, mister mother hen."
"If you weren't such a stubborn mule—"
"Period."
Matt gave me a long look, sighed. His job was not that of a medium most of the time, to begin with. It was that tricky job of being the glue that held our scrappy little team together. We weren't the Ghost Hunters but we got the job done, for a low price, quickly and quietly. And with my help we provided the family with a few thrills.
Which was fun.
A lot of fun.
Sometimes it was just using my or Matt's sneaky, silent ways, turning out the lights, making the radio flicker on and off [fishing line and glue are cheap and wonderful things to have], stuff like that. Sometimes, it was something a little more… coaxing someone or something free from its binds a little more forcefully than I ought. Not enough to hurt them, threats mostly… hellfire and brimstone like an old man. Which really, should have been Aickman's job, or the Reverend's job, but they're both cursed with zero stage presence…
Sometimes we didn't need special effects. In those times we cleared the whole family out, sent them to a nice hotel for the night, and proceeded to cleanse the whole house.
That wouldn't be happening tonight, though, we were fairly sure. Aickman was the team barometer and he was completely calm, joking with the family, putting on a big show. Beyond him, Popescu was the team worrywart—Reverends tend to be like that, I guess—and even he didn't seem too apprehensive. I'd get around to setting up anything I might need later; right now I could afford to try and strike up a quick conversation.
Being a necromancer by trade or by talent means you get to know a lot about spirits and the like. Most of this knowledge is intuitive, learned the hard, stumbling way over years upon years. The upside is that very quickly, finding and drawing in nonphysical entities becomes… well, second nature. Like learning to listen to one voice in a crowded room, or keep your eyes on one line of print in a book.
So you'll understand, at least a little anyway, when I say that I had no qualms about sitting right down against the nearest wall, opening my mind to the house and hiking up my shirt in the back to press my bare skin against the drywall. There's very little risk in that.
Hmm.
I closed my eyes, half-asleep in a way. A girl… she had a bright orange shirt, cocoa brown skin. Denim shorts that just passed her knees, yellow flip-flops with sequins. She gave me a nervous grin and I smiled back.
She hadn't died here… she'd lived. Now the only question was why she'd left this part of herself behind. Obviously, she wasn't very unhappy… this child here had lived in this house until the day that her heyday had ended when the person had grown up.
Usually, people keep their inner child with them, locked away inside, or sometimes just below the surface. Trauma, or simply a person's disposition sometimes, can cause them to be left behind. More likely it's trauma. So what had happened? Bullying, divorce…
Tall dark and decomposing. I gulped and shuddered at the sudden appearance, and cringed when he put his hand against the girl's shoulder. She looked up at him—blackened skin, dripping exposed sinew and all—and smiled a sunny smile, beginning to chatter to him in words I couldn't make out, could barely hear. Sound was never my strong suit; I'm a visual person. He picked her up on his lap, held her close, hugged her and took a deep breath of her hair. He'd obviously died here. They shared some connection.
He stroked her back, his hands seeming so large against her thin young frame. He eased her shirt off. I bit my lip and hoped there was something else going on… anything else, please…
He covered her mouth in a kiss and she whimpered and when he pulled away her lips were stained black. I choked on a gasp of anger and indignation, winced and broke the connection, standing and going to find Aickman. Angry, embarrassed, pained energy coursed through me. Ohh, this bastard would pay. He would pay dearly. I would drag him out of this house by his thumbs if I had to channel someone out of my depth to do it, box his ears good and hard, and shove him feet first into the next world… hopefully one filled with fire and gnashing of teeth. Rrrgh. But first the rest of the team needed to know that we weren't just dealing with your garden variety poltergeist here.
I could have spoken to the Reverend about it, but…ehh. He was having a good time so far and I hated to spoil it. Aickman lived for the chance to help tortured souls, so he'd be happy, in a way, to hear about it. I found him in the kitchen, talking to the family: a girl, a boy, and their parents, plus a big black and white bird dog. The perfect familial unit… sick bastard must be so pleased with those two little kids…
"Aickman."
He tilted his head back and gave me a sidelong glance. "Jonah."
I sighed. "Got a minute…?"
"All the time in the world," he smiled, turning back to the family. "Did you need something?"
"As a matter of fact," I muttered, tugging his sleeve until he got the hint and followed me with a derisive chuckle. "That I do. C'mere."
"So impatient…"
"Yeah, yeah. We have a problem. The family can't sit in and they can't get a full story. They need to go." I explained as best I could, knowing that Aickman would eventually want more from me. It could wait. Hopefully, it could wait for a very long time. He nodded and rubbed his hands together thoughtfully as if massaging sore joints.
"Yes, I suppose. We'll try to get them set up with a hotel, but mainly they need to stay out of the house, eh?"
"If at all possible."
He nodded. "Okay… I think I can do that. Most importantly, at all costs, I'd say we need the kids out of the house, right? They're the liability here. What I'm seeing is that the kid had at least one adult on her side… he found out… killed the man who was hurting her… but her inner child was dead already and trapped in these walls forever."
"Real nice," I muttered, and Aickman shrugged. "Now about the kids…" I glanced back at them, bouncing around at the parents' feet and making "Wooooo" ghost sounds. "They probably need to be occupied… we could send them all to a movie or something."
"Bah. No. I'm not paying for tickets." Aickman nodded decisively and led me back into the kitchen. "Are you kids bored?"
"Yeah!" They chorused together, jumping up and down. "Can we play with your fancy camera?"
"Er… no… but you can play with Jonah here!" He shoved me forward and I barely had time to kick him in the shin before I was at his arm's length, staring down at a six-year-old girl and a three-year-old boy, both of whom stared right back up at me.
"Jonah is a boy's name," the girl informed me. I twitched.
"I know, but my parents really wanted to name me that. They named me after—"
"I know! Jonah and the whale."
"Splash," her brother chirped.
I had been going to say that they named me after a very powerful, manifestation-based medium of the 1920s whose life, and death, had been shrouded in mystery in his small hometown somewhere in Connecticut. But then again, looking down at these two kids, that would have been a bad idea. I nodded and turned back to Aickman, glaring murderously.
"I hate kids and you know it," I hissed under my breath.
"You were the one who wanted them out of the house," he shrugged, adjusting his old granny glasses. "And besides, we won't be needing you anyway—"
"Yes you will!"
"You are not going to run yourself into the ground, Jonah. Matt or myself will take over for you tonight."
"Matt."
"Matt."
"I'm gonna kill him—"
"Now, now. You need to be looking out for yourself… besides, Matt is better at this than you give him credit for."
"He's a puppy!"
"Says the 22-year-old necromancer."
"Demonologist."
"Oh, like fun you are." He sighed. "Now come on… you wanted justice, did you not? And justice, Jonah m'dear, is just a matter of keeping things in balance, is it not? It's not always so much punishing the offender, as it is making sure the victim makes a full recovery… don't you agree?"
"Yeah. Balance. What's your point?"
"My point is that these kids have been through hell. Young children compartmentalize and ignore easily, but they've been frightened, they've been hurt… who knows how badly…"
I winced and lowered my gaze.
"And now people are coming in and stirring up their nightmares, making them real, assuring them that it wasn't just a bad dream… come on, now, that's not justice. They aren't making a full recovery. They're getting the short end of the stick… don't they deserve, at the least, a game of hide and seek?"
"…Fine. One game."
"Can we play Follow the Leader too?"
"I—"
"Racin' too?"
"Er…"
"Go on, you three. Outside. Let's go!" Aickman grinned and herded us out through the back door into the large, clear yard. I sighed.
"Okay… what do we play first?"
"We can play Follow the Leader. I'm the leader." The girl drew herself up, dark blonde hair streaming in a gentle breeze. My own thick, chocolate brown bangs fell into my face and I twitched. Little Miss Boss Lady already… oh well… I lined up behind her brother, marching like she did with my knees coming up as high as they would. Maybe this wouldn't be so hard…
And after all—spin, bow, cartwheel, spin, walk in a zig-zag line—this was, in a way, the justice that we couldn't otherwise give. Someone else could take care of the ghosts and the energies. If Matt had some kind of an accident, well, who better to help him recover? And thinking about his short blonde hair soaked with sweat, his warm skin under my hands as I worked on him… his half-open pretty, hazy eyes, short delicate lashes fluttering, and a deep crimson stain to his pale lips… his thin frame lying limp across my outstretched legs, those long legs of his sprawled wide and his shoulders against my hips…
Hmmmmm…
"You missed a step!"
"I—eh?"
The girl smirked at me. "You missed a step. But it's okay, so did Bubba." I sighed and followed them again. Airplane arms, stomp around like an angry person, walk like a sleepwalker or zombie. Handstand, splits, kneel, tuck and roll… jeez, what a workout. I'd forgotten that kids have that boundless energy…
"Let's race now, okay?"
Right… boundless energy. Then again, a perfect summer evening like this was too good not to waste. I was having some fun, in an odd sort of way. Sighing, I nodded and stretched. "Sure. Where do we race to?"
"We do car racin'! Track's round," the younger one said proudly. I glanced down at his shirt, which featured a CGI red racecar and the words, "Ka-Chow!" Okay. Car racing. Fine.
"How many laps…?"
"I dunno," he grinned. "Readysteadygo!"

Sometime later, we all collapsed into the grass, panting. The kids jumped back up after a second but I stayed down, nursing a huge stitch in my side. The youngest, a boy who resembled his sister but with lighter hair and sun freckles, grinned and whooped.
"I win, I win!"
They were so happy…
Good lord, though, this was painful. Not in the same way the aftermath of a séance could be painful—soreness, hot, stabbing pains when your nerves misfired in the calamity, the pain caused by manifesting ectoplasm—I've never understood why any medium in their right mind would want that, and for a more powerful worker like a necromancer, it's more of an unfortunate side effect. Probably a very good explanation of why the majority of its use in the media was as fake as a movie star's smile.
This was… a very different pain, very real somehow, a localized ache in several areas. It'd been a while since a lot of pain had been dealt by the physical world… I needed to learn to bear it. The kids were happy and they weren't worried as much, and the sun was setting. Soon the parents would come to get them, and I could go back inside and help out with the observation, the eletromag readings, the séance… if they hadn't already given my spot to Matt. Bah, that kid has no idea what he's getting into.
"Let's play racing again!"
"Let's play tag!"
"Yeah, and Simon Says and Leapfrog and Hide and Seek and Rocket Ship…"
"Yeah yeah! But first we play tag."
"Tag!"
I felt the grass under me, nice and soft, and considered requesting that they not make me get up. But… they deserved this… this justice.
A small hand touched me and a high voice shouted, "You're it!"
I stood and winced, put another cough drop in my mouth. Justice in its more gentle and fated form was still justice, even if it was a bit tricky to administer, and it healed rather than caused more pain and suffering. It was just as important, maybe more so, as the justice I'd been itching to deliver hours before.
However…
"Have you kids ever played the Quiet Game?"
Even justice has its limits.