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The first time Shane Hollander saw Ilya Rozanov bleed, it was from a split lip.
They were nineteen, feral, furious, locked in the kind of rivalry that fed newspapers and locker room speeches. Shane had high-sticked him in the corner and Ilya had smiled through the blood, red bright against his teeth, and whispered something in Russian that Shane didn’t understand but felt in his bones.
That had been easy.
Blood from a mouth. A bruise blooming under a cheekbone. A broken nose reset between periods. Hockey blood was manageable. It came with rules.
This was not that.
The Bell Centre in Montreal roared like it always did when the Montreal Metros faced the Boston Raiders. It was December, the air inside electric and dry, the rivalry old and vicious and fed by headlines. Heated.
Shane adjusted the tape on his stick and didn’t look at Ilya during warmups.
He never did.
They had perfected the art of not looking.
Across the red line, Ilya skated lazy circles, all coiled grace and long lines, his blonde hair curling damp at his temples under the helmet. He shot one wide on purpose during drills, earning a chirp from a Montreal defenseman. He grinned like he loved it.
Shane felt it in his chest anyway. That familiar tug. The gravitational pull.
Eight years of this. Of secret hotel rooms and careful exits. Of never sitting too close on All-Star weekend. Of pretending the tension in interviews was hatred instead of hunger.
“Don’t do anything stupid tonight,” Hayden said beside him, bumping Shane’s shoulder. Hayden Pike — best friend, alternate captain, the only one who knew. “Drapeau’s been itching for a fight all week.”
Shane snorted. “I don’t do stupid.”
Hayden raised an eyebrow in a way that said you absolutely do.
The puck dropped to a storm of sound.
The first period was clean but brutal. The Raiders’ forecheck suffocated; the Metros answered with speed. Shane scored late in the first off a rebound and didn’t celebrate much beyond a sharp fist pump. He didn’t look toward the Raiders’ bench.
He could feel Ilya looking at him, though. He always could.
Midway through the second, the temperature rose. Drapeau boarded one of Boston’s rookies hard enough that gloves dropped. Ilya was on the ice immediately, shoving Drapeau off the kid. Drapeau shoved back.
Shane skated in because of course he did.
“Get out of it,” he snapped at Drapeau, grabbing a fistful of his jersey.
“I’m handling it,” Drapeau shot back, jaw tight.
Across from him, Ilya’s eyes burned through his visor.
This was normal. This was choreography. Shoving and snarling and referees wedged between chests.
Shane leaned closer, voice pitched low enough that only Ilya would hear. “Stop.”
Ilya’s mouth twitched. “Make me.”
The linesmen separated them. The game resumed.
Shane told himself the unease in his stomach was just adrenaline.
It happened fast.
Too fast for sense.
Late second period. Tie game. A dump-in behind Montreal’s net. Ilya chased it down at full speed, Drapeau hot on his heels. They’d raced each other a hundred times before. It was nothing.
Shane was cutting across the slot when he heard the impact — the hollow thud of body against boards — and turned.
Drapeau finished his check. Clean enough at first glance. Shoulder to shoulder. But Ilya’s edge caught as he went down.
There was a strange, awful hitch in the movement. A split second where Ilya’s skate kicked up awkwardly, blade flashing silver under arena lights.
Then he hit the ice.
And didn’t get up.
For a heartbeat, no one reacted.
Then there was red.
Not the bright smear of a nosebleed.
A dark, blooming spill at Ilya’s throat.
Shane’s brain refused to process it. It looked fake. Too much, too fast. A trick of the lights.
Ilya’s glove flew to his neck. When he pulled it away it came back soaked.
The scream tore out of Shane before he knew it was his.
Everything shattered.
He was moving before the whistle finished shrieking.
He shoved past a Raider, past a Metro, skidding on his knees the last few feet. “Ilya!”
Ilya’s eyes were wide. Shocky. His mouth opened and closed, and more blood poured between his fingers.
Shane pressed his own gloves down over Ilya’s hands, over the wound, not thinking about the blade that must have done it. “Pressure,” he choked. “Press, press—”
“Shane—” Hayden’s voice somewhere behind him.
“Call them! Get the—” Shane didn’t even know who he was yelling at. The trainers were already sprinting from both benches. The crowd had gone from roaring to a sickening, rising wail.
Ilya’s gaze found his.
It was that that undid him.
Not the blood. Not the ice slick and red under them.
It was the fear.
Ilya Rozanov — untouchable, arrogant, infuriating — looked afraid.
Shane leaned down so close their helmets knocked. “You’re okay,” he said, voice breaking. “You’re okay, I’ve got you.”
He didn’t care that he was saying it in front of twenty thousand people.
He didn’t care that cameras were zooming in.
He didn’t care about anything except the hot slickness seeping between his fingers and the way Ilya’s breathing hitched wetly.
The medical staff reached them, hands firm and practiced. “Captain, we need space.”
“No.” Shane’s grip tightened instinctively.
“Shane.” Hayden this time, stronger, trying to pull him back.
“He’s bleeding, can’t you see—”
“Shane.” Hayden’s voice cracked. “They’ve got him.”
Shane looked down at his gloves. Red. So much red.
He staggered back only when the head trainer physically pried his hands away. They replaced them with gauze, with pressure, with swift, efficient movements.
Ilya’s eyes never left Shane’s.
They wheeled a stretcher out. Someone cut Ilya’s jersey open, exposing pale skin smeared crimson. The arena was silent except for the echo of skates and the frantic murmur of medics.
Shane followed as they lifted him.
A hand caught his arm. Drapeau. Face ashen. “Shane, I—”
Shane swung on him.
He didn’t remember deciding to throw the punch.
He only knew his fist connected with Drapeau’s visor and that someone tackled him before he could do it again.
“You did this!” Shane roared, struggling against Hayden’s grip. “You did this!”
“It was an accident!” Drapeau shouted back, horror in his eyes.
“Shut up!”
“Shane!” Hayden hauled him back bodily as the stretcher rolled past.
Ilya’s hand slipped weakly off the side.
Shane tore free and caught it.
For a second — one impossible second — their bare fingers tangled, blood sticky between them.
“Stay,” Ilya tried to say. It came out a gurgled rasp.
“I’m here,” Shane said fiercely. “I’m right here.”
And he walked with the stretcher all the way off the ice.
The game was suspended.
Shane didn’t remember getting to the locker room. He didn’t remember ripping off his helmet, his gloves, his jersey. He only remembered the red. Under his nails. In the creases of his palms.
Hayden stood in front of him, hands on his shoulders. “They’re taking him to the hospital. It looked worse than it is. Neck cuts bleed a lot.”
Shane laughed, a broken, hysterical sound. “You saw it.”
“Yeah.” Hayden swallowed. “I saw it.”
“I should’ve—” Shane’s breath hitched. “I should’ve been there. I should’ve stopped—”
“From what?” Hayden snapped suddenly. “From physics? From a skate blade? Shane, it was an accident.”
Shane shoved him away. “He could die.”
“They said he was conscious.”
“He could die,” Shane repeated, like saying it enough times would make it less true.
The room was full of teammates, of staff, of stunned silence. Drapeau sat on a bench, head in his hands.
Shane couldn’t look at him.
He grabbed his duffel.
“Where are you going?” someone asked.
“To the hospital,” Shane said.
“Media’s already outside,” the PR manager warned. “Shane, think—”
He didn’t.
He walked straight out the players’ entrance and into the freezing Montreal night, blood still dried on his hands.
The emergency room was chaos and fluorescent light.
Shane gave Ilya’s name at the desk with a voice that barely sounded like his own. “I’m—” He stopped.
What was he?
Rival captain. Enemy. Nothing.
He leaned in. “I’m family.”
It wasn’t true in the way the form meant.
It was true in every way that mattered.
They let him wait. Minutes that stretched like hours. Hayden arrived at some point, breathless, having dealt with media and coaches.
“Boston’s staff is here,” Hayden murmured. “They’re in surgery.”
Surgery.
The word hollowed him out.
Shane sat, elbows on knees, staring at the tiled floor. Every time he blinked he saw it again — the blade, the red.
He thought about the first time Ilya had said I love you. Quiet, into Shane’s neck in a warm bedroom in Ottawa. He thought about summer weeks in secret cottages. About whispered Russian endearments. About plans they never said out loud because the future felt too dangerous to name.
He had almost lost it.
Almost lost him.
The doors finally swung open.
A doctor in scrubs approached, mask hanging loose. “Are you here for Mr. Rozanov?”
Shane stood so fast his vision swam. “Yes.”
“The laceration was severe but missed the carotid artery by millimeters. He lost a significant amount of blood, but we were able to control the bleeding and repair the damage. He’s stable.”
Stable.
The word crashed through him.
“He’s intubated for now and will be monitored in ICU, but we expect a full recovery.”
Shane’s knees gave out.
Hayden caught him.
ICU was quiet. Machines hummed and beeped in steady rhythms.
Ilya lay pale against white sheets, a thick bandage wrapped around his throat. Tubes and wires made him look smaller somehow. Fragile.
Shane approached like he was afraid the floor would give way.
He took Ilya’s hand carefully, mindful of IV lines.
“I’m here,” he whispered again.
Ilya didn’t respond. Sedated.
Shane sank into the chair beside the bed and stayed.
Hours blurred. At some point, Boston’s coach came in, stiff and wary, and did a double take at the sight of Montreal’s captain sitting there with red-rimmed eyes and bloodstained jeans.
No one asked him to leave.
Maybe they saw it in his face.
Maybe they understood.
When Ilya finally stirred, it was near dawn.
His lashes fluttered. His hand twitched weakly in Shane’s grip.
Shane leaned forward so fast his chair scraped. “Ilya?”
Green eyes blinked open. Confused at first. Then focused.
On him.
For a second, something like panic flickered — memory returning.
Shane squeezed his hand. “You’re okay. Surgery went well. You’re— you’re going to be fine.”
Ilya tried to speak. The tube stopped him.
His eyes filled with frustrated tears.
Shane pressed his forehead to the back of Ilya’s hand. “Don’t. Don’t try.”
He didn’t realize he was crying until a tear dropped onto Ilya’s knuckles.
Ilya squeezed his fingers.
It was weak.
It was everything.
The news cycle exploded.
Clips replayed endlessly: the collision, the flash of red, Shane on his knees. Analysts debated safety. Former players looked grim and shaken.
What they couldn’t stop replaying was the way Shane had held Ilya’s face in his hands. The way he’d followed the stretcher. The way he’d said I’m here with naked terror in his voice.
Speculation bloomed like wildfire.
Rivalry doesn’t look like that, commentators said.
Hatred doesn’t look like that.
Shane didn’t watch.
He didn’t leave the hospital except when forced. He slept in the chair. He ignored calls from management, from PR.
On the second day, Ilya was extubated.
His voice was wrecked. A shredded whisper.
“Hey,” he croaked when Shane leaned over him.
Shane let out a shaky laugh that broke halfway through. “Hey yourself.”
Ilya’s fingers traced weakly along Shane’s jaw. “You look terrible.”
“Yeah?” Shane swallowed. “You should see the other guy.”
A ghost of a smile.
Silence settled, thick with everything unsaid.
“You scared me,” Shane admitted finally, voice raw.
Ilya’s gaze softened. “Good.”
Shane huffed. “Idiot.”
“You love it.”
The words hung there.
They’d said them before. In private. In shadows.
Not here. Not with nurses walking past the open curtain. Not with the world outside buzzing.
Shane looked at the bandage around Ilya’s throat.
At the place a blade had come within millimeters of ending everything.
“I don’t care anymore,” he said quietly.
Ilya blinked. “Care about what?”
“Who knows.”
Understanding dawned slowly. “Shane—”
“I thought you were dying,” Shane said, the memory splintering his voice. “I thought I was going to watch you die and I couldn’t even—” He cut himself off, breath shaking. “I can’t do that. I can’t pretend you’re just some guy I hate.”
Ilya studied him for a long moment.
“You think I can?” he rasped.
Footsteps approached. A nurse smiled politely at Shane. “Visiting hours will end soon.”
Shane didn’t move his hand from Ilya’s.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
The statement broke the dam.
By evening, the story shifted from tragic injury to scandal.
Photos surfaced. Not from the hospital — staff had been discreet — but from the arena tunnel. Shane’s hand tangled in Ilya’s. His face crumpled with fear.
Old clips resurfaced. Lingering glances. Fights that looked more like foreplay in hindsight.
Reporters camped outside the hospital.
Montreal management called, voices tight with concern and calculation.
“You need to come back,” the GM urged. “At least address the team.”
“I’m staying,” Shane said.
“You understand what this looks like?”
“Yes.”
A beat of silence.
“And?”
Shane looked through the glass at Ilya sleeping.
“I don’t care.”
He hung up.
Hayden visited late that night.
He stood at the foot of the bed, taking in the quiet intimacy of the scene — Shane’s chair pulled impossibly close, their fingers laced.
“You’re blowing up the league,” Hayden said gently.
“Yeah.”
“Regret it?”
Shane didn’t hesitate. “No.”
Hayden nodded slowly. “Okay.”
That was it. No lecture. No I told you so.
Just okay.
Shane’s throat tightened. “I thought he was gone.”
“I know.”
“I couldn’t breathe.”
Hayden stepped forward and squeezed his shoulder. “He’s not.”
Shane looked at Ilya. At the steady rise and fall of his chest.
“I don’t think I’ll ever forget it,” he admitted. “The sound. The blood.”
“You probably won’t,” Hayden said honestly. “That’s… that’s not something you shake off.”
Shane nodded.
Trauma lodged itself quietly. In the way his hands trembled when he closed his eyes. In the way he jerked awake at the memory of red on ice.
But Ilya was here.
Alive.
Three days later, Ilya could sit up.
His voice was still fragile, words measured and careful.
They were alone when he said, “You punched your teammate.”
Shane winced. “Yeah.”
“Idiot.”
“He could’ve killed you.”
“He didn’t.”
“By luck.”
Ilya’s gaze turned thoughtful. “You really thought I would die?”
Shane laughed hollowly. “I saw your blood pooling on the ice.”
Ilya reached up, fingers brushing Shane’s wrist. “I am hard to kill.”
“Don’t joke.”
“I’m not.” A faint smile. “I had you there. You would not let me go.”
The memory hit like a wave — Shane pressing his hands over the wound, begging.
His chest constricted.
“I can’t go back to before,” Shane said suddenly. “To pretending.”
Ilya was quiet a long time.
“My team will probably not like it,” he said finally.
“Mine won’t either.”
“You are captain.”
“So are you.”
A beat.
“You are sure?” Ilya asked.
Shane thought about the ice. About almost losing him without ever getting to stand beside him in daylight.
“I’m sure.”
Ilya’s eyes softened into something unbearably tender. “Then we do it.”
The press conference was chaos.
Two captains. Two rivals. Standing side by side instead of across a podium.
Shane’s heart pounded harder than it ever had before a Game Seven.
Ilya’s bandage was visible above his collar. A stark reminder.
Cameras flashed.
Questions flew — about the injury, about safety, about recovery.
Shane answered steadily.
Then someone asked, “Can you explain your reaction on the ice?”
The room held its breath.
Shane looked at Ilya.
Ilya nodded once.
“He’s not just a rival,” Shane said.
The words felt like stepping off a cliff.
“He’s… the most important person in my life.”
A collective gasp.
Beside him, Ilya’s hand found his under the table, fingers threading together.
“We have been together for years,” Ilya added, voice rough but firm. “We kept it private. But when I thought I might die…” He glanced at Shane. “Secrecy seemed stupid.”
Silence.
Then an eruption.
Backlash came. Support came louder.
Teammates struggled, adjusted, some surprised, some not. Drapeau apologized in person, tears in his eyes. Shane accepted stiffly. It would take time.
The league issued statements of support. Sponsors wavered, then stayed.
Through it all, Shane stayed at Ilya’s side.
The first night Ilya was discharged, they returned to Shane’s apartment in Montreal. No hiding. No sneaking in separate doors.
The city felt different. Exposed. Bright.
Inside, though, it was quiet.
Ilya stood in the living room, looking around like he’d never seen it before.
“You kept the ugly couch,” he observed.
Shane let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “Nearly lost you and that’s what you say?”
“I have priorities.”
Shane crossed the room in three strides and pulled him in carefully, mindful of stitches.
For a second, Ilya stiffened — pain, maybe — then melted.
Shane buried his face against his hair.
“I can’t—” His voice broke. “I keep seeing it.”
Ilya held him tighter. “I know.”
“I thought I was going to watch you die.”
“But you did not.”
Shane’s grip tightened. “I can’t lose you.”
“You won’t,” Ilya murmured. “Not so easily.”
They stood like that a long time.
Later, when they lay in bed, Shane’s fingers hovered near the bandage at Ilya’s throat.
“Does it hurt?”
“Yes,” Ilya admitted. “But I am alive.”
Shane pressed a soft kiss just below the gauze.
Alive.
The word felt holy.
The first game back — weeks later — was brutal in a different way.
Ilya wasn’t cleared yet. He watched from the press box.
Shane stepped onto the ice and the memory hit like a punch. The corner. The boards. The flash of red.
His breath stuttered.
He forced himself to skate there during warmups. To stand in the exact spot.
You’re here, he told himself. It’s just ice.
He looked up.
Ilya stood at the glass above, one hand pressed against it.
Their eyes met.
I’m here, Ilya mouthed.
Shane exhaled.
The trauma didn’t vanish. It likely never would. But it loosened its grip.
Because Ilya was there. Watching. Alive.
Shane tapped his stick twice against the ice — a small, private signal.
For us.
Always.