The music played, resounding through the stadium. Castiel Novak's heart hammered in his ears, pounded against his throat, beat in his chest, and struck against his ribs. It was a continuous cycle of drumming heartbeats thrashing his anxious body senseless.
"Thirty seconds!"
The athlete wiped his hands on the jacket portion of his uniform and gulped. With each second that ticked away and spiraled into oblivion, the closer the grand entrance crept.
"Hey."
Castiel turned, glancing down at his partner who was smirking up at him. Meg Masters slipped her hand into Castiel's, weaving her fingers in his so their hands were locked together in an equally clammy, intertwined embrace.
"We're gonna be fine, Clarence."
"Twenty seconds!"
Castiel tried to be assured by the playful bounce in her tone, but most of her usual and easy cockiness had been drained from his best friend.
The male was frightened he would do something wrong. He was absolutely terrified that he would walk the wrong way or trip and fall and disgrace the Russian name. After the whole grand opening fiasco where the final snowflake didn't open into the last Olympic ring (and to make it even worse, Greece's rainbow clad fingers and Germany's vivid attire only added to the apparent uproar in their President's box because the heaven forbid other teams were wearing multi-colored uniforms to portray their gay pride), Castiel was afraid that he would only make it worse.
Everyone on his team had believed that if anyone would have made such a statement, it would have been the Americans what with their openly homo actors and even gayer TV shows. The whole predicament made Castiel very uncomfortable. Not because he was against gay rights, no, he was far from that end of the spectrum. He despised the smothering oppression that his President was putting upon the people for liking someone of the same gender.
But Castiel didn't have time to think about that. He couldn't think about anything while he was being haunted by his frantically racing heart, the thrum of music resounding through the narrow hall, and the thought of him tripping and falling flat on his face like the Austrian and bringing dishonor upon his team.
"Eight seconds!"
His confident teammates animated conversation died down with excited whispers.
"Seven!"
His team was counting along. His friend Balthazar, who had been chatting with their other teammate Michael, stepped forward and grinned at Castiel.
"Six!"
Castiel smoothed down the front of his jacket.
"Five!"
The Russian gulped and closed his eyes as tight as he could. The pressure in his head was building up and up and up...
"Four!"
Gabriel was in the crowd with Anna. They would be cheering the loudest.
"Three!"
Meg squeezed his hand. Castiel took a deep breath.
"Two!"
'Don't fall, don't trip, please don't trip...'
"One!"
Castiel's eyes flew open as light gushed into the hall and his team surged forward as one. Meg wrenched his hand tight and tugged him forward.
"Russia!" the prerecorded voice crowed.
The stadium pulsated with life as the music raced through him, sinking deep into his skin until his bones rattled in one swoop. The crowd was a living beast; it quivered with exhilaration and breathed cheered roars. Its skin consisted of hundreds of waving, multicolored flags and while its thousands of flashing eyes winked, its many ears tuned in as the Russian's stepped out and walked down the designated path. Their escort, dressed in what looked to be intricate glass, held their tag out proudly and smiled brighter than the shimmering eyes.
Adrenaline cascaded into his veins as Meg gave a whoop, waving to the screaming crowd as her lips curled up in her famous smirk. Castiel's gaze wandered over the audience as he took everything in. When he spotted a flag bearing his county's colors, his chest swelled with pride and all at once, his pale face flushed with color.
"See, this isn't so bad!" Meg shouted over the bellows. "We're gonna be famous, Clarence, I can feel it!"
It seemed so long ago at that point in time, but years ago Castiel's mother had once taken him to skate when he was three and as soon as his skates had touched the ice, Castiel had fallen head over heels for the sport. Through constant begging and pleading, his mother had finally let him take a class. It was his fifth birthday present. That was where Castiel and Meg had met. Meg had accidentally collided into the male and the dark haired children had been friends ever since. When there was a chance to skate and eventually compete as a duo, they had both jumped at the chance. Eighteen years later, they made it into the Sochi Olympics for ice dancing. It was their first ever games and Castiel owed it all to his mother and the audacious brunette beside him.
"Smile!" Balthazar suddenly squeezed between the pair and threw his phone out to take a picture. Castiel grinned as Balthazar declared it was going on Instagram. Meg was right. It wasn't so bad. All the hard work had paid off.
"That was amazing!"
Dean Winchester broke into a face splitting beam as Jo Harvelle, Jo Harvelle the tom boy and the girl who would knock your teeth out if you called figure skating easy and girly, actually squealed. It certainly wasn't something the American would have had ever expected to ever hear in the next few millenniums.
Jo caught his stupid smile and teasingly glared. "Oh shut up. Vancouver might have been a blast, but this is Russia! We're in Russia, Dean!"
Dean rolled his eyes but grinned nonetheless. "What did ya think, Sammy? Wasn't that amazing?"
Dean's younger brother was still gazing around, utterly awestruck as if he was a blind man seeing the world for the first time. Slowly, he came back down to Earth and nodded.
"That...was awesome," the toboggan rider said after a long moment.
"You would think you would be more like Sam with this being your first games and all," Jo commented.
"I am excited, I'm just spreading it out because we've still got the whole games to go," Dean remarked, taking off his hat and twirling it through the air by the tassels. He smirked, winking at a gaggle of girls dressed in Polish and Czech colors who were passing. They waved and winked in return. Dean sighed and continued on with, "Foreign girls, Scandinavian skiers, European speed skaters, Asian beauties...man I can taste the gold!"
"I feel you on that one," a new voice commented as a redheaded girl bounded into the conversation. "Especially on those Scandinavian skiers."
"Think you're going to get lucky with that Norwegian girl that does alpine, Charlie?" Jo asked, throwing an arm around her teammate.
"A girl can dream," Charlie replied, placing a hand over her heart for affect.
"Spread the love in front of the cameras," Sam suggested. "Maybe the bigoted Russian President will see. Dean was just telling me–"
Sam stopped in mid sentence as his attention fell on the one of the many large screens that was broadcasting the approach of the Russian team. The camera was focused in one of the lead speed skaters of the Russian team, some Russian by the name of Michael Dementyev.
"He is the guy to beat," one of the English commentators from NBC was saying. "He has held the gold for the past eight years now along with his brother Nick, who is more well known for his nickname 'Lucifer' on the slopes. Nick is actually competing for Norway, where his mother is from."
"Any other Russian hopefuls?" another commentator asked.
"Russia has a tough team this year. They are going to be hard to beat. They have a few newcomers, a new pair of ice dancers who will be competing in figure skating pairs."
The camera suddenly switched to a cheeky looking man with a stock of ash brown hair and a week's worth of stubble.
"And there's Balthazar Klimtsov, taking a selfie to document his third Olympic games." The commentators laughed. "Balthazar started in 2002 and as taken gold in the half pipe every year since then. Will this be his forth gold, or will hand off the torch to another?"
Dean's smiling face popped up on the screen among with the faces of three others, one from Japan, Switzerland, and Germany. Jo and Charlie shot the eldest Winchester a grin and Sam clapped his brother on the back.
"If anyone does have a chance of knocking Balthazar off the top spot, it's American Dean Winchester. We've heard all good things about Winchester and about his brother Samuel who's going to be competing in skeleton. Dean will be competing in slopestyle and the half pipe. Winchester is very talented in both, but I believe there will be better things for him in the half pipe. That is his principal area of expertise and he was at the top for American qualifications. If anyone can steal the gold, it's going to be him. Another person who has a chance is Matthäus Schoepke who–"
"Like I said," Dean said with a smile. "This is gonna be a good year."
This is mostly just me trying to set up the story, so this first chapter is, in a way, kind of the prologue.
I'm not sure if this qualifies for a "common" AU, but due to sudden inspiration to write, everything that is happening in Russia, and the Sochi Olympic games, this happened.
The story will include some events from the real Olympics but most of it will be made up as the fic goes on.
A HUGE thanks to my precious Sarah (ILove2Write13) for looking this over and inspiring me to be the best writer I could be. My life would be pretty much meaningless without you :) You should check out her stuff because her writing is amazing.
Until next time,
–Sav