I'm not really sure how to star this story. Castiel was my best friend, there was no doubt about that. From the first moment I met him, the very first day of high school, we were the best of friends and no one could deny it. Sure it was an odd friend ship, I could tell you that. I was tall, outgoing, always smiling and could talk a deaf mans ear off. And then you have Cas. He was shy, didn't talk to a single person until I asked to share his lunch table and he said sure. That was the first word that really anyone had heard him say to some one besides a teacher. After that kids that were picking on him, started leaving him alone, if it was because he had a friend now or because kids were scared of how tall I was. Neither of us questioned it.
One of the weirdest things about Cas was that he never really called people by their nicknames. Everyone, even my older brother calls me Sam, but he always stuck true to calling me Samuel. Time and time again I would ask him to call me Sam, but he never did. Can't really say that I really want anyone to ever call me Samuel again.
No one can say that I didn't try and help Cas and if anyone does, they don't just have to worry about me kicking their ass. I did everything I could, but he didn't want the help. People think that his mom was the one that found him in bed and that he made his way there alone. It's not true, though only a few people know that. An alley is so cliché, expecially in the middle of the night but I guess it becomes a cliché for a reason, doesn't it? He didn't even look like him anymore when I found him. Dusty, dull blue had replaced the vibrant blue that used to be his eyes. There wasn't barely any fat left on him at all. On his lips there were scars where the pipe rested damn near everyday and I started to become afraid to look at his finger tips, since I was sure that I would see bone poking out.
I supose that I should have started noticing when he stopped eating as much as he used to and then almost stopped at all. The best guess that I can give is that the drugs made him feel sick, though I don't really know. He stopped talking to me about things like that, stopped talking to me at all really near the end. For a while I still talked to his mother, noticing when she didn't wear her wedding rings anymore. When I asked her, she told me that she misplaced them and they would turn up. We both knew that wasn't the case, but neither of us could accept where they had really gone. Like when things started appearing in his room that he was 'holding for someone' yet they still had the tags on them and security devices. He was always smart about things and it wasn't really a surprise that he would be able to get around things like that.
Not smart was when I found out that he pulled a knife on someone. Some young bride, took all of her money and anything worth anything. I had a sick feeling in my stomach some days after that. I was the one that gave him the knife, it was a Christmas present. Always made the joke it was going to get rusty since he would never be able to pull it on someone. I wish I would have been right about that.
Cas was like a brother to me, I loved him and I miss him. The old him. What he became wasn't the Castiel I knew. He became a shell of the man he once was and that's what hurts. I thought I was a good friend to him, he didn't have that bad of a home life, sure there were people who were rude but he wasn't full out bullied. So we don't know why one day he picked up a pipe. Why everything became about the next hit. The next high. Though now we are never going to know.
Dean tells me that I couldn't have done more than I did, but there are times when I still feel like if I would have seen it sooner. Maybe I could have saved him.
I still go to his grave every once and a while, put flowers there on his birthday and the day he passed. His mom still invites me over sometimes when she comes and picks up Cas's little sister from school or when we run into each other at the store. Most of the time I accept, since I know how much she loved him and since me and him were so close, it helps. His older brother comes down from college durning breaks and hangs out with me sometimes. I first thought they were trying to help me since I lost someone so close too, but I think now it's they need to fill the void Cas left. Easier to pretend that he's just not home and somewhere rather than in a cemetary.
Can't really say I blame them. It took me years to let another friend close, since what happened cut so deep. Though no one will ever be able to fill Cas's place. He meant the world and a half to me.
It kinda hurts that I didn't mean the same to him.