Medium Awareness
Haunted House - part 3

THEN

The night air was warm and damp, clinging to Valerie's skin like sweat. Whenever the slightest breeze came by, the relief made her sigh. She really wanted a shower.

Valerie was sitting outside on a bench, trying to remain unnoticed. Back in the RV, Danny and Jazz were yelling at each other.

She knew how that would end. Jazz had made up her mind already.

It didn't make listening to them any easier.

As a bonus, she felt like she was intruding.

Ergo, sitting outside without the comfort of the occasionally working AC that Jack Fenton had built himself out of a microwave or something.

It was no surprise when the door to the RV was flung open and Jazz exited, carrying her bags.

Valerie got up, deciding to at least say good bye properly.

Jazz's head snapped towards the motion. She relaxed when she saw who it was, and closed the distance between them.

"You're leaving."

It wasn't a question, but Jazz nodded none the less.

"Look after him, will you?" Jazz spared a look back towards the Assault Vehicle.

"That goes without saying."

Jazz's lips thinned. "I know, I just... I worry about him, especially now that mom and dad..."

Once again, the feeling that she was an outsider looking in at things she had no right to intrude on hit Valerie hard.

"Just... take care of each other."

Her throat felt like it had tied itself into knots, making it hard to swallow and impossible to say anything. Valerie nodded in lieu of trying to force the words out.

Jazz searched her face, and seemed to find what she was looking for. "I'm trusting you with this, you know he's not..."

Not normal, but Jazz wouldn't put it like that. Danny might, if he was in one of his self-hating moods, but never Jazz.

"Other hunters might not understand. Please protect him, even if it's from-"

"As I said, that goes without saying."

NOW

Valerie's hands closed around her shotgun. She didn't touch the trigger, it was common sense to keep your finger away from it unless you were actually planning on shooting something, but the weight of the weapon in her hands was a comfort.

The two hunters, who she had secretly nicknamed Tall and Shorty, herded them away from the rundown mansion and towards their car. A small part of her mind noted that it was a very nice car.

The phrase 'don't get into cars with strange men' echoed in her ears. It was said in her daddy's voice.

Danny looked like he wanted to take his chances with the murderous ghosts, but he squared his shoulders and got into the back seat without protest.

Valerie followed him, while keeping a suspicious eye on the other hunters.

Shorty got into the driver's seat, and drove off at speeds Valerie had only ever experienced when it was Danny behind the wheel.

Tall, on the other hand, rummaged through the glove compartment. Valerie had to stop herself from tensing.

"I didn't get a good look at the ghosts." Tall passed them a folder. "Do you recognize any of these?"

Valerie simply handed the papers over to Danny, who nodded.

"Do you know where they're buried?" Danny was focused on the files, to the exclusion of everything else.

"We're on the way right now," said Shorty, who wasn't actually all that short if you weren't comparing him to his hunting buddy.

"I'm Sam Winchester. This is my brother, Dean." Tall gestured towards the driver, who gave them a sarcastic salute.

"Valerie Gray."

"Danny F-Foley." Despite the stutter, Danny's lie was pretty smooth. Hopefully the Winchesters would discount it as remaining adrenaline from the fight, or just normal hunter paranoia.

The tires screeched as Dean pulled them to the parking lot outside of a church, and the town's cemetery.

Valerie kept her guard up as the Winchesters went to the trunk and pulled out two shovels.

"You keep watch while we dig." Sam handed over his shotgun to the woefully under-armed Danny.

Valerie was all too happy to agree.

Danny was distracted, but he snapped out of it when she introduced her elbow to his side. He glared at her, though there was no fire in his eyes. If anything, he seemed exhausted.

"Look alive."

That earned her a loop-sided grin. "Thanks, you really know what to say to lift my spirits."

"Don't you dare." She rolled her eyes.

Danny smirked.

They ran into the dark cemetery. The light of four flashlights trailed over different tombstones, quickly enough to glance at the name and move on.

"Found 'em." Dean's voice sounded over the graveyard. "Him and the wife were buried together. Thank God for small favours."

"Here's the other one," Valerie called over Sam, while his brother started digging at the one he found.

Danny tensed, and Valerie had her shotgun ready even before he said anything. After a few hunts, you got used to paying attention to even the smallest reactions of the guy who could sense ghosts.

"We've got company."

Sam dug, the muscles in his shoulders protesting.

It was hard work, especially when in a rush, but it didn't take a lot of thought.

As such, it wasn't nearly distracting enough for him to not notice that Danny was consistently shooting the ghosts before they became visible.

Some kerosene, a lot of salt, and two dropped lighters later, the ghosts exploded into flames.

Sam was exhausted, but they could take a break before reburying the burned corpses. There were more important things to deal with first.

"So, you're psychic?" Sam leaned on his shovel, trying to appear casual.

Despite his efforts, both Danny and Valerie tensed.

Dean's head shot up. He walked over to them, glancing between Sam and the other hunters.

"That makes it sound like I can see the future, I'm more of a medium." Danny's smile was thin.

Valerie looked like she was considering shooting both Sam and Dean and burying them in the holes they'd so helpfully dug.

"Relax." Sam raised his hands in what he hoped was a placating way. "He's not the only one."

"Sammy." Dean's tone held a warning.

"He might be one of Yellow Eyes'."

"He was obviously not born in '83."

"So he's a later generation, like Rosie Holt."

"Maybe you should ask him about specifics, before spilling secrets." Dean lowered his voice. "We don't want hunters knowing about your demonic mojo."

Sam nodded, before turning back towards the kids. "Was there a fire in your house when you were six months old?"

Danny raised an eyebrow at the very specific question. "Nope."

"When did you first start-"

"Seeing dead people? When I was fourteen."

"There you go." Dean squared his shoulders. "He's just a regular medium."

"As opposed to?" Valerie tilted her head, and sent a questioning look at her partner. Danny shrugged in reply.

"None of your business." Dean glared at them.

Danny frowned. "Calm down. You've got nothing to fear from us. We're ghost hunters, and you're clearly not dead. I would sense it."

Valerie shuffled slightly, her shotgun visible, as if to show that she wasn't in complete agreement with the previous statement. That she was someone to fear.

"So there won't be some kind of Shyamalan twist where it turns out she was a ghost the entire time?" Dean smirked and inclined his head towards Valerie.

"Oh no, Val is no ghost." Danny smiled, somewhat smugly.

"Wait," Sam blinked. "You're ghost hunters? Only ghosts? Though I guess that makes sense, if you can sense them..."

Danny and Valerie shared a long meaningful look. An entire conversation passed in the silence between them.

Valerie cleared her throat. "You say that as if there's..."

"Other stuff out there..." Danny was frowning.

Sam blinked. They didn't know. These kids were out hunting, and they didn't know.

"You don't know?" Dean's eyes were wide as he turned towards Sam. "They don't know."

Sam could only nod as Dean echoed his thoughts. This wasn't acceptable. They needed to do something about it.

"There's a lot of other things out there." Sam tried to keep a calm tone. "Demons, werewolves, shtrigas..."

Danny's knees buckled, and he sat down on a nearby tombstone.

"We'll fill you in properly, over coffee?" Offered Sam, earning himself two shocked nods.

Danny's thoughts were racing.

The bright lights of the still open diner, the cheerful music coming from the outdated jukebox, the smell of coffee... All of it seemed very distant and unimportant.

Valerie seemed to be taking it better than he was, but she was still new to the world of ghosts. That someone else was waiting to go bump in the night wasn't such a big shock to her.

Danny had lived his entire life knowing about ghosts.

Just ghosts.

The coffee tasted good. Heat spread across his body as he gulped down the liquid.

Sam and Dean had stopped by their motel room to shower, ridding themselves of several layers of grave dirt and sweat, before bringing their group to the diner. They had also picked up a beat-up journal, filled to the brim with information about supernatural creatures that weren't ghosts.

"Are you okay?" Valerie put a steady hand to his shoulder.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." He nodded, convincing himself of the fact. "Just surprised. I can't believe that I... that my parents missed all of this."

Valerie flipped through the journal.

"Your parents were hunters?" Dean leaned forward in his seat across the table.

Danny nodded. "They died on a hunt, a few month ago. Maybe they ran into something like this."

"Other hunters should have told them-"

"We didn't have a lot of contact with other hunters." Danny interrupted him. "My parents were... rather eccentric. They didn't get along with your standard hard-boiled monster hunter."

Danny didn't mention that they'd avoided other hunters ever since the Amity Park incident. There was no way he was going to explain that to Sam and Dean. No matter how friendly they seemed, he didn't know them. He hadn't even told Valerie the details.

"We mostly end up fighting ghosts, too." Dean frowned at them. "But it's not safe to go around hunting if you don't know about the other stuff."

"It's never 'safe' to hunt." Danny's eyebrows rose.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Well, kid-"

"You're not that much older than us."

Dean ignored the comment. "-there's a difference between the risk of a normal hunt and going into a situation blind. We're not just gonna let you run around until we know you know what you're doing."

"So get your people to contact our people." Valerie rolled her eyes. "I'm sure everything can be solved over e-mail."

"Yeah, our people don't know how to e-mail."

"Ash does." Sam looked at his brother.

"I don't want them getting information on monsters from Ash."

"So what are you saying?" Danny exhaled, a bit too tired after the night's world-shaking revelations to argue about it.

"You're going on a demon hunt with us."

AN: Stephen King has forever destroyed my ability to spell 'sematary'. I keep thinking it's supposed to be 'cemetary'. (In my defence, by virtue of English being my second language, Pet Sematary was the first time I came into contact with the word.)