Castiel Novak- May 14, 1996-March 20, 2018

Dean sat in front of the headstone, a rose in hand. He requested that Castiel would be buried next to his mom, since he was as much of his family as she was.

It was April now and the roses in front of Castiel's house were starting to bloom. Dean knew he should carry on his tradition of stealing a rose every Saturday. Gabriel was usually already at work before he got there. The poor guy had been working himself to death since Castiel died.

Dean was sitting in front of Castiel's and Mary's headstone, a somber look cast across his face. His forehead was creased in frustration before he shot up, angry tears clouding his vision, and screamed to the sky, "Thanks a lot, God! No, real good job this time!" He lowered his arms, but still looked to the sky. "You took the love of my life! The only person I've ever found who makes me happy and you just take him away.

"Not only that, you force his brother to be on his own through all this. Michael is still off in Afghanistan and probably doesn't know about Cas! So you know what? FUCK YOU, GOD! FUCK! YOU!"

Dean collapsed back onto the ground, covering his head with his hands and sobbing. "Dammit." Dean wiped his eyes. "Why did this have to happen to you, Cas? You were the sweetest person I could ever even hope to love. You were supposed to have a happy ending, not this. Not this cancer shit."

The tears were falling slowly down his face now, the anger draining from his system. "I loved you, Cas. I've never cared about anyone else as much as I cared for you. I just-" He let out a sob. "I don't know how I'm gonna continue."

He sat back down on the grass, the dew seeping back into his jeans.

His phone started to ring a couple minutes later. It was Gabriel. Dean got excited since he hadn't heard from Gabriel in a while. "Gabe?" He asked. "How're you doing, man?"

"Can you come to the house quick?" Gabriel asked. "I found something that you might want to see."

"Will do." Dean hung up the phone and didn't hesitate before rushing to his car.

Gabriel was waiting outside on the porch with a laptop in his hands. Dean didn't quite know what to expect from this.

"What's that?" Dean asked after he parked the car.

"It was Cassie's old laptop from back in school." Gabriel smiled sadly. "Mom gave him this idea to make audio diaries whenever something cool happened. He was always consistent with it. Every time something even remotely interesting happened, he would talk to his computer. I thought it was cute."

"Do you want me to watch them with you?" Dean asked. "Is that why you called me over here?"

"Actually, I called you over because I had no idea that he still did them, even after mom died." Gabriel looked up at Dean. "I watched a majority of them already, but some are on his phone and I don't know the password."

"I do," Dean said. "It's a pattern, right?" Gabriel nodded. "Then it's in the shape of a 'G.'"

Gabriel quickly went back inside to grab Castiel's phone and unlocked it. Dean's heart ached when he saw the background. It was of him and Castiel on one of their dates. Castiel had his arm snaked around Dean's shoulders and Dean planted a kiss on his cheek. Castiel was wearing his dark green headscarf.

Gabriel went into the video app, which Dean was surprised to see so many videos, the names were the dates they were recorded.

Gabriel clicked on one titled 'April 15, 2017.'

Castiel sat down in a chair in front of the phone. "Hey, whoever might watch this. I'm still not quite so sure who I'm supposed to be talking to." He laughed quietly. "Anyway, as I'm pretty sure I've said before, there's this really hot guy who always comes by and picks the roses I grow every Saturday. Anyway, Gabriel convinced me to go talk to him today so I wouldn't spend another week pining over him.

"I went outside and confronted him and, thinking he was going on dates with some chick, I asked him who the girl was. I had no idea he was actually bringing the roses to his mom at the fucking cemetery. You have no idea how much I felt like an asshole.

"So we sat in front of Mary's headstone for a little while before going back home. To be honest, it kind of sucked to see him leave, but I sure loved the view watching him go." Castiel wiggled his eyebrows playfully.

The video ended.

Dean both laughed and cried through the short video. He loved seeing his fiance happy, even if it wasn't now.

"Guess when the last one was recorded," Gabriel said, looking at Dean expectantly.

"When?" Dean asked softly.

"March nineteenth," Gabriel said.

Dean's heart fluttered. "That was the night-"

"The night you proposed to him." Gabriel scrolled to the bottom of the videos and clicked on it.

Castiel propped up the camera, both his smile and eyes wide. "Okay, I just can't contain my excitement right now." Castiel's voice shook with happiness as he held his hand up to the camera. "Dean proposed to me!"

Castiel coughed a little and stepped off to the side to take a drink of water. When he turned back to the camera, tears were clouding his eyes. "To be honest, I didn't think I would live to see this day. I thought that when I was diagnosed with leukemia last year, I thought for sure that Dean wouldn't stick around, even if he did promise it that day. I thought he'd get sick of babysitting me." Castiel let out a loud, happy laugh. "Evidently not."

A joyful tear slid down Castiel's face and he made no move to wipe it away. "I can't wait. I can't wait to grow old with the man I love." He chuckled softly again. "I can't wait to see how amazing our life will turn out."

He coughed a little harder that time, covering his mouth with his hands. When he pulled his hands back, his eyes widened, but not in a good way. "Fuck," He mumbled. Blood trickled between his fingers and dripped onto the counter.

Castiel stood up off the chair and swayed a little bit. He clutched the side of the counter to steady himself. "Ugh, shit. My head." His hand shot up to his forehead and he clenched his eyes shut.

Castiel took a step forward, but fell backwards, knocking his glass of water to the floor and shattering it.

A couple seconds later, Dean and Gabriel run in-

Gabriel stopped the video. Dean clenched his eyes shut as the tears finally did fall. "Dammit," He mumbled. "Dammit, I miss him so fucking much, Gabe."

"I know, Dean-o." Gabriel gave him a side hug. "I miss him too." He paused. "Do you regret it?"

"Regret it?" Dean squinted in confusion. "Meeting Cas?" Gabriel nodded and Dean scoffed. "Fuck no. I may have only known him for a year, but he made a bigger impact on my life than you could imagine."

Gabriel smiled. "That's good to hear."

Dean laughed sadly. "And just think. Our entire meeting could have been easily avoided. You could've just not cared. I could've just gotten flowers from a regular store instead of his garden." He looked at the rose bush from the front porch and gave it a small smile.

"Here, let's watch another video," Gabriel said. He clicked on one titled April 16, 2015.

Dean loved Castiel, it didn't take a genius to figure that out. Dean hated that he was gone, but he was happy he wasn't in pain anymore. He watched the audio diary of Castiel telling the camera about the rose bushes he planted and grinned. Maybe everything would be okay. Maybe he wouldn't love anyone as much as he loved Castiel, but that's okay. He still had Gabriel who, granted, was like a brother to him, but he was Castiel's family. And that was the closest he was going to get to Castiel.

Dean grinned as he thought to himself, I still have his roses. I can visit him every day if I want to. I'm still able to talk to him. I'll bring both him and mom a rose each time I visit.

Roses. Both with Castiel when he was living and will be there for him when he's not.

Roses.

Aaaaaaaaaand that's the end! I hope no one stopped reading this because they were angry with it, but, if you did, I guess I'll never know.

Anyway, thank you for taking the time to read this story, even if it was heart-wrenching. I'm at least hoping I made someone cry.

If anyone's looking for a story to negate all this angst with fluff, you can read my story Thanks to the Little Ones which I'm now going to be working on a sequel to (which is why I was trying to hurry this up a little).

Again, thank you for reading! Please comment if I made you cry (trying to win a bet with a friend)