"I need you"

A storm hits Kansas a month after the angels fall.

Castiel sits outside the bunker and watches the clouds, dark and giant, overtake the entire sky and block out the Sun. Rain pours down and he doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch when the cold wetness hits him, quickly soaking up the shoulders of his T-shirt. Well, Dean’s T-shirt, but he won’t mind. He sits there cross-legged, looking up at the sky and blinking away the rain drops that fall into his eyes.

Everything goes dark. And then the lightning starts.

Long, jagged-edged streaks of light accompanied by thunder that sounds a lot like the Impala’s engine when it roars to life early in the mornings. He closes his eyes, facing the sky still, and smiles. When he relaxes and lets the weak wind take over and blow onto his soaked skin, the rain to pelt down on him, he remembers what it felt like to fly. To soar so fast that he almost caught fire, eyes closing against the cold air making them sting and prickling his skin. Somewhere between the rain and the wind, he fells warmth sliding down his cheeks.

He shivers, stands up, and walks a few feet away from the bunker’s metal doors. It takes a moment of hesitation before he starts to run. As fast as he can along the stranded street, closing his eyes and not knowing when or if he’ll ever stop. He doesn’t want to.

It feels so much like flying.

He turns around, runs back towards the bunker, and then turns again, runs further down the street, and back again until he’s breathing heavily, panting, shivering. Cold but too warm, tired but vigorous. He stops to just breathe. He can feel the scent of wet grass and the mixture of Sun-warm pavement and cold rain.

He sits down in front of the doors and closes his eyes again.

Dean finds him an hour later, shivering and coughing.

“Dean. Dean, I was flying!”, Castiel smiles, when they’ve went back inside and Dean’s given him a dry change of clothes. His head rests on Dean’s chest as they’re curled up on the couch, trying to bring his fever down.

Dean’s heart sinks, and he swallows the lump in his throat, manages a trembling smile.

“That’s great, Cas.”