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He saw the puck coming: he was looking right at it as Geno took the shot, and then it deflected off Strait’s stick and the whole middle of his face exploded in pain. He heard Tanger call his name as he hit the ice.
After a stunned moment, the pain resolved into something more specific. It was his nose. Probably broken, then.
“Sid,” Geno said, and dropped to the ice beside him, which he wasn’t supposed to do—they were supposed to stay out of the way when guys got injured, so Stew could do his thing. “Sid—”
His voice sounded strange. Sid rested his aching face on the ice. A broken nose was no big deal. He might not even miss any games.
“Geno, you need to move,” he heard Stew say, followed by some shuffling and a few loud words from Geno in Russian, and then Stew was down on the ice with him and saying, “What hurts?”
He skated off without help as the Islanders fans cheered, thrilled to see him bleeding. His face throbbed. Blood trickled down over his mouth. He wiped it away with the towel Stew had brought him, and more immediately flooded out to take its place. He could feel it smeared all over his cheeks and chin, damp and faintly sticky. The coppery taste of it on his tongue.
Somehow, his nose wasn’t broken. “You got lucky,” Stew told him, after some careful probing, and he was back on the bench a few minutes later, still leaking blood from his nose. Stew had given him an ice pack wrapped in a towel to hold to his face between shifts. Actively oozing bodily fluids was part of the job description; Kuni slapped his shoulder and said, “Glad it’s not broken,” and then went back to watching the game.
Geno came off the ice then and walked all the way down to the other end of the bench, where Sid was sitting, and wedged himself between Sid and the wall. Sid scooted down a little, ignoring Kuni’s objections. Geno did whatever he wanted to and there was no point in ever questioning him or resisting.
“You hurt?” Geno said, turning to face Sid, his knee jamming uncomfortably into Sid’s thigh.
Sid shrugged. Obviously he was bleeding. “It’s not broken.”
“Good,” Geno said. He was staring at Sid’s face. His mouth looked odd. He sneered, kind of, lifting his upper lip, and then Sid could see that his fangs had dropped.
A cold thrill gripped the back of Sid’s neck like a frigid invisible hand. He had seen Geno react to blood on the ice before, a sharpening and tension, sitting upright on the bench and focused intently, like a dog catching a scent. But he’d never had Geno’s bloodthirst centered on him, eyes darker and also brighter than usual, trying to pull Sid in and push him under.
He forgot about it, most of the time. Sometimes Geno would disappear for twenty minutes at a bar and come back flushed and heavy-lidded, smirking while the guys razzed him for it. Otherwise he was just Geno, sly and loyal, sulking whenever he lost at two-touch and gloating when he won.
But underneath that familiar skin lay the ancient, predatory thing watching Sid now: Geno’s shape and size but quieter, more alert, and still staring at Sid’s face, at his nose, the dribble of blood over his upper lip.
“G,” he said, or tried to say. His voice wasn’t working right. More blood trickled from his nose.
Geno took off his gloves and dropped them carelessly at his feet. He reached for Sid, and Sid flinched back before he could stop himself. Geno wouldn’t ever hurt him, but he was scared anyway, a primal and unthinking fear. He wondered if Geno could smell it on him. He didn’t know if those stories were true.
Geno grabbed his chin. His nostrils were flaring. He could smell Sid’s blood for sure, even if he couldn’t smell Sid’s emotions.
Sid was dimly aware of Kuni on his other side, Bylsma yelling something at the guys in the ice, the crowd in the stands above them. He couldn’t look away from Geno, the strange light in his eyes, brighter than the stadium lights.
“Sid,” Geno murmured. He leaned in, holding Sid in place with the hand on his chin, and began licking the blood from Sid’s face.
Sid was too shocked to move. It was like a strange kiss, Geno’s tongue lapping at his upper lip and then moving to the corner of his mouth where there must have been a streak of blood he had missed.
“Dude, what the fuck,” he heard someone saying—it sounded like Borts—but Geno just kept going, licking at the fresh blood trickling down Sid’s face. The points of his fangs pushed against Sid’s face, and Sid had a brief hysterical vision of Geno drinking from him like that, somehow, like—where would Geno even bite him?
He finally snapped out of it and pushed Geno away. Geno’s mouth was wet with Sid’s blood, smeared all over. He had that overcome, satisfied look Sid recognized from so many nights out. He was panting fast and shallow, like he’d just come off a shift.
Sid tried to think of something to say. Geno’s mouth looked really—
He lifted the ice pack to his nose. “Geno, uh.”
Geno’s dazed expression turned sheepish. He was three hundred years old and they gave him a lot of leeway for age and eccentricity, but licking your bleeding teammate on the bench was still pretty weird. “Sorry,” he said. He licked his lips, where Sid’s blood lingered.
“It’s okay,” Sid said. Geno had missed a spot along the outside of his lower lip. Sid fought the urge to reach out and wipe it away.
Later, after the game, Duper sat down beside him in the change room and said, “Guess you’re Geno’s suck-buddy now. Eh? Get it?”
Sid laughed, because what else could he do? “Guess so.”
“Not even the weirdest thing he’s done,” Duper said, which was true. Geno did a lot of weird shit, and most of the time they weren’t sure if it was because he was a vampire or because he was Russian. Maybe he was just a weird guy.
Still, he couldn’t stop thinking about it: the way Geno’s eyelashes had fluttered, like Sid was the best thing he’d ever tasted.