five

                                    

                                          
When speaking to the goalie named Thomas Bergstrom, the one piece of advice that Louis Tomlinson has is to not fucking mention a shutout until he's achieved it. 
Granted, that's how it is for every goalie, but after Thomas had been scored on he was ranting about how Simon had wished him a shutout right before the first period and Thomas had gone in knowing he wasn't going to get one. 
Now the Capitals were down 2-1 and Thomas was pissed. 
Instead of crying he was now punching his hand repeatedly with a closed fist, his eyes dark and pointed at the ground. Louis was still nursing his split lip and everyone was a bit frustrated. They needed to go into the third with a hell of a good defense or else they were screwed. Louis stared at the logo on the floor and took a deep breath, Benjamin breathing with him. They gave each other a light fist bump before Ben got up to go help Max, who had been cleared to come back to the game, thank fuck.
Andrei was considerably braver in his stride, going around and checking on everyone to pass the time. Granted, it wasn't going too fast for anyone but it was the best they could do. The intermission had only just started, for goodness sake.
"Hey, could we get Tomlinson for an interview?" Louis didn't look up, but pushed himself out of his chair and started towards where he typically got interviewed.
So there he was, a towel around his neck and an attempt at a happy face as he walked to the camera.
"So, Louis, we've seen a very aggressive offense from you guys in the first and second periods, any way you can bring that momentum to the defense?"
Louis scratched his nose and shifted on his skates. "Well, the Penguins have a heavy lineup tonight and we're definitely going to make sure we bulk up our defensive plays so that we can get them out of our zone and away from the net."
The interviewer smiled. "Great. When it comes to your maneuvers and plays on the ice, are there players that contribute great amounts to each play?"
"Well, not going to just disclose secrets to everyone, but yeah, everyone contributes here and there," Louis grinned. 
"One final question before you go back to get ready for the third period. About that fight last period, Jacobson is now out of the game due to the injury sustained during. Do you have any comment on the buildup before? What did he do to get the fight going?"
Louis could basically feel Simon telling him to shut the fuck up. So he did. "He deliberately ran into my goalie. I don't take too kindly to that."
"Anything else?"
Louis grunted. "Words were exchanged, nothing super notable."
"Alright, I'll let you back to the dressing room, we can't wait to see the third period!"
Louis nodded, already beginning to walk away. "Thanks."
And Louis was able to drop back into his tight frown for the remainder of the intermission, only letting up when he leaped onto the ice with the horn blaring behind him. His hands were already sweaty despite only being out for maybe ten seconds. He watched as Thomas scraped up his crease and leaned against the goal, looking extremely nervous while he struck his stick on the ice. But, Louis couldn't pay attention to Thomas at this point. He had to make sure that Max was going to be okay.
He seemed alright. He seemed good, even, with his stick slipping in front of the Pens player and stealing the puck right under his nose. A breakaway, thank fuck. Max sped down the ice towards the goalie who steadied himself, but was checked at the last minute and lost his grip on the puck and his stick. Louis groaned along with the crowd as he fell to the ground and got up slowly.