Little Things

Chapter Fifteen

Tuesday was torture. The special presentation took up all of first period, and Dean could see people turning to look at him, feel eyes on him the entire time. Cas, understandably, stayed home again, and Dean sat moodily in the cafeteria without him. Whispers swirled around until Dean couldn't take it anymore. He slammed his hands on the table, then stood up.

'Listen up!' he yelled. 'Unless any of you actually knows who did this, then you can all shut the hell up! It's none of your business!'

The room fell silent and Jo put her hand on Dean's arm.

'Get off,' he said gruffly, yanking his arm away from Jo. He started to leave, but one of the cheerleaders caught his eye. She was the only one avoiding looking at him, and was nervously playing with her ponytail. Dean waited until the chatter started up again before he approached her.

'You know something, don't you?'

She glanced around. 'I - I don't know... Maybe,' she said.

'Tell me.'

She bit her lip. 'Well... it might be nothing, but... I don't think it was meant for Cas.'

'What do you mean?'

'I think it was meant for me,' she said, almost whispering. 'I have this stalker, he doesn't go here, but he saw me at an away game and he's been following me ever since. I thought I saw him at the party, but only for a second and it might not even have been him. I had a drink, but I put it down to play ping pong, and it was gone when I went back for it. I didn't think much of it at the time, but Cas started acting really weird after that.'

Dean nodded. 'Do you have a picture of him?'

'Yeah, sure...' She pulled out her phone and sent a picture to him.

'Thank you so much,' he said, then went back to his table. 'I gotta go,' he said to them, shouldering his bag. 'I'll explain later, see ya.'

He hurried out of the cafeteria, calling himself a cab as he went and going straight to the police station. He paced around the waiting area, impatient to see the detective in charge of Cas's case.

'Dean Winchester?' the detective finally called, after forty-five minutes of waiting.

Dean nodded and approached her.

'You got something for me?' she asked, leading him to her desk.

Dean nodded and eagerly explained to her what the cheerleader had told him, and showed her the picture. 'Is this guy in any of the pictures you got from Alfie?'

The detective squinted at Dean's phone. 'Can I borrow this a minute?'

'Sure.' She took Dean's phone to another room and he waited with bated breath.

Half an hour passed, Dean's legs bouncing anxiously, before the detective returned with his phone.

'You know, I think we've got something here,' she smiled.

'Really?'

'I can't say for sure, but it's certainly a lead.'

'Awesome,' Dean grinned.

'Thank you for bringing this in,' she said. 'How's he doing?'

Dean's smile fell. 'Not good,' he told her, and she nodded sympathetically.

'Hopefully we can get this figured out soon so we can put his mind at ease.'

'Yeah, I hope so too,' Dean said with a small sigh. 'Well, I'd better go. Thanks for your time, detective.' Dean shook her hand and got himself a cab home. He'd spent so much time at the station, there was no point in going back to school.