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The Bell Centre was loud in a way that felt almost physical, like a living thing pressing in on all sides—sound layered upon sound until it became a force of its own, vibrating up through the ice and into bone. It wasn’t just cheering. It was hostility, anticipation, history. Montreal versus Boston. The Metros versus the Raiders. A rivalry that had calcified over years of close games, brutal hits, playoff eliminations, and too many headlines to count.
Shane Hollander stood at center ice during warmups, rolling his shoulders beneath the weight of his captain’s C, trying to settle the restless energy that had been crawling under his skin since he’d woken up that morning. The arena lights gleamed off the fresh sheet of ice, bright and merciless. His breath came steady behind the cage of his helmet, but his pulse was faster than it should’ve been for a game he had played a dozen times before.
Across the red line, Ilya Rozanov skated with the Boston Raiders, blonde hair damp at the temples, movements sharp and controlled as always.
Except—no.
Not always.
There was something different.
Shane knew the way Ilya moved the way other people knew the cadence of a favorite song. He knew the long, powerful glide that ate up ice effortlessly. The coiled aggression in his shoulders. The predatory awareness in the tilt of his head when he searched for openings.
Tonight, the glide was shorter. The edges not quite as clean. There was a faint stiffness in the line of his back, a hesitation that didn’t belong there.
And he didn’t look at Shane.
He always looked.
Not long enough for cameras to catch. Not in a way anyone else would understand. But there was always a flicker—an acknowledgment beneath the rivalry, beneath the performance. A private thread strung tight between them.
Tonight, nothing.
The anthems ended in a swell of voices and applause, and when the puck dropped, the game exploded into motion.
From the first shift, Shane found himself tracking Ilya more than the play. It was instinctive and impossible to stop. Ilya missed a pass in the neutral zone—a simple feed he would normally collect without thinking. The puck slid past his stick and into the corner, and for a fraction of a second, confusion flashed across his face before he chased after it.
Shane hit him along the boards harder than he meant to.
Their bodies collided with a crack that reverberated through the glass. Ilya’s shoulder slammed back; his breath left him in a sharp grunt.
Shane leaned in automatically, the motion disguised as intimidation. “You okay?”
Ilya’s eyes cut to his.
They were too bright. Too glassy.
“Worry about yourself, Hollander,” he muttered, and the words were sharp—but the edges felt dulled somehow, like a blade that had been used too long without sharpening.
Shane caught the heat of his breath even through layers of gear.
Too warm.
Ilya shoved off and skated away before Shane could say anything else, leaving behind the faintest ripple of unease that refused to settle.
On the bench, the noise pressed in harder. Coaches barked adjustments. Teammates leaned forward, elbows on knees, watching line changes. The crowd roared with every near miss.
“He looks off,” one of the defensemen muttered beside Shane, nodding toward the Boston bench.
Shane’s head snapped up too quickly. “Who?”
“Rozanov. Something’s weird.”
Shane forced a shrug that felt brittle. “Maybe he’s tired.”
But he knew better.
By the second period, the feeling had deepened into something heavier—something that sat in his chest like a stone. The game was tight, aggressive, the kind of matchup that left bruises blooming by morning. Ilya was still dangerous, still fast in bursts, but the bursts were shorter. Between them, there were gaps. His recovery lagged. He stayed out a few seconds too long on one shift, ignoring his coach’s furious gestures for a change.
They collided again near center ice, sticks tangling.
Up close, the difference was undeniable.
A flush burned high on Ilya’s cheekbones, too vivid beneath the arena lights. Sweat dripped down his temples in thick rivulets that had nothing to do with exertion alone. His pupils were blown wide, his focus fractionally delayed.
“You’re burning up,” Shane hissed under his breath.
Ilya’s mouth curved in something that resembled a smirk, but it lacked its usual precision. “You like that.”
The words slurred faintly at the edges.
Cold slid through Shane’s veins.
“Did you take something?”
“Tylenol,” Ilya snapped, irritation flaring—but even that seemed to cost him more than it should.
Then he pushed away, chasing the puck as if stubbornness alone could compensate for what his body was failing to do.
Tylenol.
Shane wanted to shake him.
By the third period, the tension in Shane’s chest had become unbearable, a taut wire pulled too tight. Every shift felt like waiting for something he didn’t want to name. The arena noise blurred at the edges, the bright lights harsh and unforgiving.
The puck came loose in the neutral zone. Ilya reached it first.
He accelerated.
For a heartbeat, he looked like himself again—powerful, unstoppable.
And then—
It was subtle at first. A hitch in his stride. A falter so small most people wouldn’t notice.
Shane noticed.
Ilya’s shoulders dipped forward unnaturally. His stick slipped from his grip. His knees buckled as if the strength had simply drained out of him.
“Ilya!” The name tore out of Shane’s throat before he could stop it.
Rozanov hit the ice hard.
Not a stumble. Not a dramatic spill from contact.
He just… dropped.
The sound of the arena shifted from thunderous to hollow in an instant. A confused murmur rippled outward, swelling into something frightened.
For half a second, Shane couldn’t move.
Then he was there.
He didn’t remember crossing the ice. He only knew that he was on his knees beside Ilya, hands shaking as he rolled him carefully onto his back.
Ilya’s skin was pale beneath the flush, lips tinged faintly blue. His lashes lay dark and still against his cheeks.
“Ilya. Hey.” Shane’s voice cracked, splintered by something dangerously close to panic. He tore off one glove with his teeth and pressed his bare hand to Ilya’s cheek.
The heat that met his palm was shocking.
“Oh my God,” someone breathed nearby.
Trainers vaulted over the boards. The whistle shrieked again and again, sharp and useless.
“Move,” a medic ordered.
Shane didn’t.
“Captain, move.”
“No.” The word came out raw, stripped of polish or authority.
He cradled Ilya’s head against his thigh without thinking, fingers threading through damp hair. The world had narrowed to this one point of contact, to the terrifying stillness beneath his hands.
“Baby,” he whispered.
The word carried in the sudden, awful quiet.
Twenty thousand people watched the captain of the Montreal Metros bend over the Boston Raiders’ star player like his world was ending.
“Ilya, open your eyes,” Shane pleaded softly, brushing his thumb along his jaw. “Come on. You’re fine. You’re fine. Don’t do this.”
He didn’t care who heard. He didn’t care who understood.
Ilya’s lashes fluttered.
A faint, confused sound escaped him, and relief hit Shane so violently his vision blurred.
“I’m here,” Shane said immediately, leaning closer, his forehead nearly touching Ilya’s. “I’m here.”
Ilya’s gaze struggled to focus, then locked onto Shane’s face.
For one fleeting second, something like panic flickered there—not about the fall. Not about the ice.
About this.
About the way Shane was looking at him.
“Don’t,” Ilya rasped weakly.
“Shut up,” Shane whispered fiercely.
The stretcher arrived. Medics maneuvered around them with brisk efficiency. Hands reached in to assess, to lift.
When they tried to separate them, Shane’s fingers tightened instinctively around Ilya’s hand.
Gasps rippled through the lower bowl.
He didn’t let go.
Not until they physically pried his hand free to secure Ilya to the stretcher.
“I’m coming,” Shane said immediately, rising to his skates.
“You can’t,” his coach snapped, stunned. “You’re in the middle of a game!”
Shane looked toward the tunnel where they were wheeling Ilya away, his chest feeling hollowed out, scraped raw.
“I don’t care.”
The words echoed.
And he meant them.
He skated after the stretcher without another glance back, ignoring the roar swelling behind him—shock, outrage, speculation, something electric and irreversible.
The medical room smelled sterile and sharp, the air thick with urgency. Shane hovered too close, watching every movement as doctors worked, listening to fragments of explanation—high fever, dehydration, collapse from exertion.
Flu.
He’d played with the flu.
Of course he had.
Stubborn, relentless, incapable of admitting weakness.
When they finally transferred Ilya to a hospital room and the chaos ebbed into something quieter, Shane sat beside the bed and let the reality settle over him like a second skin.
He had left the game.
He had exposed them.
There would be headlines by now. Clips circulating. Analysts dissecting every touch, every look.
He should have felt fear.
Instead, he felt clarity.
Ilya shifted against the pillows, color slowly returning to his face as fluids dripped steadily into his vein.
“You left,” he murmured.
“Yes.”
“You said baby.”
Shane huffed a shaky breath. “You passed out.”
Ilya studied him through fever-dulled eyes. “They know.”
“Yeah.”
Silence stretched between them, heavy but not fragile.
“You regret?” Ilya asked quietly.
Shane thought about the moment on the ice—the way his heart had stopped, the way the world had collapsed to the shape of Ilya’s body lying motionless.
“No,” he said at last, voice steady. “I thought you were dying. I wasn’t going to pretend you were just another player.”
Something shifted in Ilya’s expression then—something softer, deeper than rivalry or pride.
“You are disaster,” he murmured.
“Yeah,” Shane said, leaning forward, brushing his knuckles along Ilya’s cheek with infinite care. “But you’re my disaster.”
The words felt terrifying and freeing all at once.
“I love you,” Shane said, because after tonight, there didn’t seem to be a point in holding anything back.
Ilya’s breath caught faintly.
“I love you too.”
This time, when Shane leaned down to kiss him, there were no locked doors, no dark hotel rooms, no carefully managed exits.
Just the quiet hum of hospital machinery, the steady warmth of Ilya’s skin beneath his hands, and the knowledge that whatever storm waited outside those walls—media frenzy, league scrutiny, public speculation—they would face it together.
The rivalry could wait.
The world could wait.
All that mattered was that Ilya’s chest rose and fell beneath his palm, warm and alive.