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Sam’s hands shook a little as he handed his jacket to his brother. Dean smacked his shoulder. “Come on, you got this. Is it the quad? You’re landing it almost every time in practice, you’ll be fine here. I don’t care that you missed it in warmups.”
“It’s not the quad. I can land the quad. I can do all of this. It’s just what happens if I don’t.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “And what’s that? You have to work a little harder in the free skate and in Japan?”
“No, that’s not it, either. It’s…” Sam leaned against the wall, hands trapped behind his back so they wouldn’t muss his carefully-arranged hair. “It’s my first time in the Grand Prix, but more importantly, it’s my first time skating with Cas here to watch me. I’ve told you what’s been happening with the hockey team, haven’t I?”
When assignments came out and Sam realized he had two – he and Dean had only expected one – Sam had freaked out and booked the rink for as much early morning practice as he could afford. The rink was pretty good about letting him sneak in on mornings he hadn’t booked the rink, too, as long as no one else was using it.
One morning he’d come in fully expecting to be able to use the rink – he’d checked the day before when he left, and no one had booked it. He was halfway through his second runthrough of his free skate when he heard his music shut off and looked up. Standing by the side of the rink was the cutest boy he’d ever seen – but dressed in hockey gear, holding a stick, with about twenty other guys hanging around. The boy looked seriously annoyed. Sam skated for the side. “I checked yesterday and the rink wasn’t booked…”
“My team booked it yesterday afternoon. I’m sorry, we weren’t expecting anyone to be here, and I told my team to wait until you were done, but Yuriel got impatient. If you’d like to run your program again, I’ll do what I can to keep him in check.”
“No, give me a minute to cool down a little and ice is all yours. Ellen doesn’t mind me coming in – as long as no one else is supposed to have the ice. I don’t want to get on Ellen’s bad side.”
The guy huffed. “You’re right there. Thank you.”
Sam had quickly done a little more skating just to calm himself down from talking to the cutie. At least he didn’t seem too upset about the ice being torn up. As he was leaving, another hockey player caught Sam’s arm. “Sorry about this. Yuri should’ve listened to Cas, a lot of us were enjoying watching you. None of us as much as Cas, but then, he’s the one who’s got a huge crush on you.”
“Thanks. I’m glad you guys aren’t… wait, he’s the one who what?”
Mischief sparkled in the golden eyes. “You heard me. He’s a skating fan, and he’s been crushing on you since Nationals. I don’t think he realized you live in Detroit too!”
Since then, Sam had taken to coming in even earlier in the morning, so that he could get through before the hockey team started to arrive. Castiel, Gabriel, even the team captain Michael had gotten hold of Yuriel and his cronies and made them understand that Sam was willing to get off the ice as soon as he was asked, so they were not going to be interrupting him in the middle of practicing a routine. Any time they did, they’d be sitting out a period of the next game. It only took sitting out one game for them to realize that yes, Michael meant it, and yes, Coach Shurley was backing him up. He’d started sticking around to do some stretching and conditioning rinkside so he could watch the hockey practice, and Castiel had asked him to come to their games as his date. Sam then reciprocated by asking Castiel to come to Skate America as his date – the NHK might be trickier, as hockey season would have started, not to mention it was international, but Skate America should be doable.
That was backfiring right now. The competition itself – meh. Not much pressure. Sure, Sam would love to go to the Finals, but he didn’t think he was good enough. Not this year. Medaling would be nice, but there was enough competition that Sam was more focused on putting up the best score he could, hoping for a personal best. The thing was, with Castiel watching – would Cas understand that even if he scored dead last but put up a great score, he’d be happy? This was a terrible idea for a first date!
Dean swatted him with the jacket. “Cas has seen you skate plenty of times. Didn’t you tell me he comes to watch you practice even on mornings the hockey team isn’t there? He’s seen you fall on your ass, get tangled up in the giant moose limbs and bust. You’ll be fine. Now come on, you’re almost up.”
Sam took a drink of water and started walking to the ice. He heard the cheers for the skater before him and glanced at the scoreboard – a couple scores in the 80s, but nothing Sam didn’t think he could beat if he could land the quad salchow he was planning to attempt for the first time in competition. A loud whistle drew his attention, and he looked up. His jaw dropped when he realized what he was seeing. The entire squad of the Arch University Angels was there in uniform to support him, except for Castiel, who was dressed normally and holding a giant stuffed animal.
They’d planned the quad right for the beginning of the program. Music started, just a little bit of choreography to get Sam up to speed, and then he was jumping. It was not the greatest jump Sam had ever done, but it was clean, landed on one foot without touching down. He tried not to let the relief show as he moved on to the next element, a triple Lutz-triple toe loop combo, which was also clean. His spins were smooth and his step sequence flowed well. He tripped up a little on his triple axel, touching down with one hand, but at least it wasn’t a fall, and then it was just a flying camel spin to close out the program. He’d done it, he’d done it mostly clean, and he had not made a total idiot of himself in front of Castiel.
The moose that pelted the ice made sense. A rival had hung the nickname on him – sure, he was unusually tall for a skater, but moose? Really? And then the fans latched on and most of what he got was moose. A few dogs… the stuffed eagle caught his eye and he went and took it from one of the sweepers.
His score was nearly ninety, and Sam couldn’t keep the shock off his face when he saw it. That might well be good enough for first place after the day! Dean was exuberant, pounding Sam’s back and congratulating him on being awesome. Sam couldn’t quite believe it, but when the last skater finished – he was in second, by less than a point.
Castiel met him as soon as he could, with a big hug. “Should I have brought a moose? I didn’t know what to bring, so I brought an eagle because watching you skate makes me imagine wings.”
“The eagle’s great. It’s perfect. Thank you. How’d you get everyone else to come?”
Castiel rolled his eyes. “I tried to tell them not to, that this was supposed to be you and me on a date, but Michael and Coach Shurley insisted on coming to support our unofficial mascot."
"What?"
"Well, our team is the angels, and you're my angel... so you're our unofficial mascot." Sam groaned and wrapped his arms around Castiel to hide his smile. "They’ll leave us alone to enjoy some date time, Michael and Gabriel both promised.”
“Mmm. Well, as long as they do that, then I’m glad they’re here.” Sam wrapped his arms around Castiel. “What did you think?”
“I thought you were amazing. You should’ve heard Balt when Chris’s score was higher than yours – he was quite inventive about using the hockey language.”
Sam laughed. “Tell Balt that Chris is a favorite to medal at the Finals, while I’m not even expected to make it. I’m not even mentioned as a longshot or a dark horse. The fact that I’m so close to Chris? It would be like the Angels taking on the Red Wings and losing on a shootout tiebreaker.”