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Hudson Williams | Best Lead Performer in a Drama Series

In light of yesterday's game, I need someone (anyone) to dry Nino's tears after the medal ceremony, please 🥺

They want him to talk to the media, of course. It‘s the fact that this is his fifth time, probably. Or maybe the fact that it might have been his last chance, or one of his last ones, anyways. Either way, it‘s hard to speak through the lump in his throat. It feels like they shoved the damn silver medal straight down there, lodged it in sideways in a way that makes it impossible to swallow, to breathe freely.

When he makes it to the locker room, finally, most of the team seems to have already left for the conference room they‘re using as a makeshift basecamp.

Roman walks in right behind him, still fully suited up. Nino doesn‘t look at him, chooses to sit and unlace his skates instead. His eyes are itchy, hot, where he has them trained on the locker room floor and he has to clear his throat against the tightness in his chest.

Roman sighs, slides onto the bench beside him, even though it‘s not his stall.

„Please don‘t say it.“ It comes out quieter than he meant it to, but quick enough for Roman not to have started on the captain‘s speech just yet.

„Please don‘t say what, Nino?“ It‘s. Flat, is what it is. If not for the slight crack in his voice, it could have almost been mistaken for emotionless.

When Nino finally looks up, he sees a mirror image in Roman‘s face; everything he‘s feeling reflected brightly, almost too stark to face head-on. He swipes angrily at his own face, at the tears already springing free again, tries for a few more seconds to rein in the emotion.

„I just. I didn‘t think we‘d lose again.“ He has to force the words out. „I didn‘t think it would hurt like this.“

Roman winces, bites the corner of his bottom lip hard. „I know,“ he says, sounding just as raw as Nino. „I know.“ He reels him in by the shoulder, then, and Nino allows himself a few moments of feeble comfort - hides his face in Roman‘s padded shoulder and breathes in the familiar smell of hockey.

„I really wanted it, too,“ Roman mumbles into Nino‘s hair, hand fisted tightly into the back of his jersey and Nino aches with it, all of it, in its complicated human enormity.