Sam limps in the door, hurling his bag at the couch and collapsing next to it. He wrenches off his tennis shoes, wincing and swearing as the movement jars his ankle. He cannot wait to ice and elevate it. He bandages it with practiced ease, staggers to the freezer and grabs an ice pack. Finally, when his ankle is propped on several cushions and covered in frozen gel, he can relax. He pops some Nurofen and slumps back on the couch. Hopefully, if he listens to his "Relax" playlist for long enough, he can forget about Becky Rosen and her obnoxious squealing. Every damn time she jumped, she squealed. Every time the landing went a little bit wrong she shrieked. God forbid Sam's hold on her so much as wobble as he caught her. She would have screamed the place down. He almost missed Ruby's incessant tall jokes. Almost.

Remember Sam. You love dancing. You chose this.

He sighed, letting the adrenaline and fatigue fade from his system. He needed to treasure these moments of quiet. Soon his brother will be home from football and his dad will be calling from the base. Dean will want to take a look at his ankle (even though there is nothing he can do for it that Sam hasn't already done) and Dad will want to know all about the "soccer" accident that caused this injury. It'll be a whole thing that Sam is frankly not in the mood for right now. It's bad enough to have to lie to his family about his favourite thing. It's a whole different thing to make up lies for a sport he knows nothing about and really doesn't care for. The good thing is at least Dad and Dean don't know or care that much about soccer either so they believe him.

Take me to church starts to ring in his ears and he smiles. The memory of the video plays in his mind Sergei Polunin, rebelling against gravity, against his aching joints, the beat of the song. Against everything but his own heartbeat. He knew, Sam could tell. He knew what if felt like to fly, to defy the world and leave it all behind. Others achieved it through imagination, fantasy, escape. Sam could do it literally. That's why he danced. That's why he endured black toenails and aching feet, stupid dance partners and unrelenting teachers. That's why he went to ballet, learnt belly dancing for a year, slipped in to jazz classes and watched hours of hip hop online until he taught himself the moves. Because in the moment when the music held him up, the steps all went right and his body moved just the way it should… he was limitless. A miracle. More than Sammy the little brother, the nerd, the son who wasn't manly enough, the shy one, the drifter, the motherless. He was light and grace, geometry and movement. Incarnate kinetic potential.

The creak of the opening door has him thumbing away his playlist and sitting up. The pain in his foot flares and he grits his teeth.

"Sammy!" Dean bursts through the door, reeking of sweat and dirt. "How was practice?"

"Fan-fucking-tastic" Sam replies with clenched jaw.

"Jeez! How did you do that?" Dean rushed to his side, peering over his foot like Sam knew he would. To be fair, it did look pretty beat up.

"Hold on, Dad's calling, I'll tell you both the story as the same time" Sam clicked onto the skype icon on his laptop and answered the call. "Hi Dad"

"Sam's telling us how he hurt his ankle" Dean called, leaning over the sofa to get his father's attention

"Botched a slide tackle trying to keep Simon from scoring" Sam told the screen.

"Did it work?" his father asks mildly, his son's injury only minorly interesting.

Sam smiled and nodded. While if he was going to pretend to play soccer he may as well pretend to be good at it.

"Well that's something" John smiled briefly before looking to Dean. "How was football?"

"So good! My tackles are so much better since we ran those drills Dad" Dean whapped his brother on the arm, ignoring the glare he got in return. "This old geezer really knows a thing or two"

"If you want any more help you'll quit it with the old geezer shit" John said gruffly but Dean kept on grinning.

Sam sighed minutely, pulling his leg of the cushion, gathering up his things and hobbling away to his room. Dad and Dean, who are going through his practice drills play by play, don't even see him leave.

He flops down onto his bed but doesn't bother re-icing his ankle. It just needs rest and is already less painful than it was originally. He got his dance gear out of his bag and put it with the rest of things to cart to the laundromat tomorrow. He spends the rest of the afternoon working on homework until the food Dad ordered for dinner arrives. As he expected, no one asks him anything more about "soccer practice".