Hellhound (Supernatural #1)

7: Bad Things Come in Three

*Small spoiler alert*

There is a small Castle reference in here. It's pretty far along, season 7, episode 8 and later. If you haven't made it that far but still want to watch everything without ever the slightest spoiler alert, watch before you read.

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To Flirt, verb.

1. to court triflingly or act amorously without serious intentions.
2. also, flirter, noun. a person who is given to flirting.

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Relaxing back on his elbows, Tate looked both utterly comfortable and utterly tense. It was all pretense. The posture, the pause before telling me anything at all; he wasn't comfortable with what he was doing. He was tense and apprehensive for some reason. The way he stared at the ceiling could have been misinterpreted as nonchalance. I might have believed it if he bothered to blink. He didn't. He stared straight ahead like he was counting all the glow-in-the-dark stars and planets I had on my ceiling.

Okay, so maybe my room wasn't as grown-up as I wanted to believe it was.

"You know that episode of Castle," Tate started, catching me completely off guard, "where Castle works with criminals in order to catch the killer? After that, Captain Gates tells him that he is no longer allowed to work at the police station. Do you know what he does after that?"

I nodded, before realizing he wasn't actually looking at me. "Sure, he becomes a P.I." Of course, I knew; I was a huge fan of the show and had seen all the episodes. Which was a good thing. If I hadn't I would have slapped him so hard for not even giving me a spoiler alert.

"Well, my parents are of the same profession. Sort of." Tate frowned to himself like he wasn't too sure himself. There were plenty of kids who weren't too clear on what their parents did, especially when it was some vague desk job. But P.I. was pretty straightforward, wasn't it? He ought to know if his parents were P.I's or not. "My brother and I kinda rolled into it, you know. We never really had much of a choice in the matter, but that's okay. It's fun. Sometimes. Most of the time." He trailed off a little at the end, sounding like he was trying to convince me that being a P.I. was fun but didn't see the fun in it himself.

"Are you seriously telling me you are a P.I.? Tate, if this is a joke to you, get out!"

Right then he looked at me for the first time in a few minutes. His gray eyes turned to meet mine before I even finished speaking. They held my gaze with such an intensity that it made my gulp and lean away from him. There was nothing scary about him, but he definitely wasn't trying his best to put me at ease either. Those gray eyes told me to shut up and listen; if I didn't things might get ugly. Those a gray eyes told me that he didn't think this was a joke.

"They are like P.I.s but it's a lot more complicated than that. If I told you, there is no way you would believe me. Not yet anyway, so that will have to wait."

"Can't you just tell me?" This was frustrating. He was supposed to explain things to me, not make me more curious with more things to wonder about.

"Remember, I am only giving you the corners to this big puzzle," Tate grinned. The weird vibe I had gotten from him a moment ago had disappeared, and he seemed to have relaxed a bit. "Let's move onto the next TV reference. Ever watched the Finder?" I shook my head; for some reason, I couldn't stand the guy so I had never seen more than the trailers. "People find him, and he finds people. That's how it is for us. We get wind of something and we go check it out. Then people like Devin approach us. And from there on out, we move further."