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The cold inside the Bell Centre never felt like ordinary cold. It seeped into the boards and gathered along the undersides of the seats, curling upward in thin currents that slipped beneath the players’ padding and settled in the hollows of their chests. The rink lights glowed with a sharp, unforgiving brightness that made the ice look harder than usual, almost glasslike.
The sound of the crowd pressed against the arena like an immense tidal force waiting for the moment when someone would spill blood to satisfy it.
Montreal versus Boston always carried that kind of charge—every shift felt like skating through a minefield of grudges, each one buried beneath years of bad hits, cheap shots, public comments, and old humiliation. The coaches liked to speak about discipline and strategy, but games like these had a way of cutting through all the professional gloss and exposing something far more wild beneath.
Shane felt it before the puck even dropped.
Something prickled along the line where his neck guard ended, his instincts trying to warn him about danger he couldn't yet see. Every sound around him took on a sharper edge, especially the jeers from the Boston fans who had traveled north and clumped together in their jerseys, yelling insults whenever Montreal players took too long to line up on the ice.
He tried to shake the feeling off, tried to focus on the familiar gliding rhythm of warmup, the sound of blades scraping over ice in smooth arcs. When he pushed off the blue line and carved a tight turn toward center, the air rushed in through the vents of his helmet, cold and clean and almost calming.
During the first period, Boston had already made their intentions clear. They threw their bodies at him whenever he touched the puck, and even when he failed to touch it, they clipped his hip or brushed his ribs or jabbed the curve of his lower back with a stick, the kind of contact that hid neatly behind the referees’ blind spots. He could feel each collision in the crease of his spine and the taut muscles along his ribs, each impact stacking into the next until irritation lodged in his throat like a splinter he couldn't cough out.
Every so often, he caught sight of Rozanov on the opposite line shift. The defenseman cut through the ice like a blade pulled from the forge too early, dangerous and hot beneath the surface. His expression stayed impassive behind the cage, but his eyes kept drifting toward Shane, that stupid, ever-present smirk on his face.
What an asshole.
Shane waited for the next period to settle into some kind of rhythm, but the second the puck dropped again, Boston’s aggression only sharpened. Every rush up the boards felt shadowed by a presence at his back. A few times, he felt a stick catch the curve of his elbow or slide beneath his arm, a fleeting contact that forced him to jerk his shoulder upward to avoid losing control of the puck.
The rink felt thinner around him. The crowd’s roar rose with every play, filling the air with a pressure like waves breaking against a cliff. Somewhere in the noise he heard chanting, the kind that promised violence rather than celebration.
Midway through the shift, he cut across the blue line, chasing a loose puck that had ricocheted off a Boston stick. The Bear’s player followed so close that Shane could sense the heat of the other man’s breath through the plastic of his helmet. They both lunged for the puck in the same instant, and Shane’s stick caught the player’s skate blade by complete accident, the lightest hook. It was the kind of mistake that usually ended with two raised palms and a quick apology.
Sorry, man. My bad.
Shane barely had time to lift his hands.
The player turned with a suddenness that startled him. Rage had already transformed the man’s face into something raw and wounded, something that had very little to do with hockey and everything to do with an old resentment held like a blade against the ribs.
The whistle blew as the Bears player barreled toward him. Shane tried to step backward, but the ice slipped beneath him at the wrong angle. His balance wavered. His breath caught.
He saw the fist coming a fraction of a second before impact.
The punch landed on his cheekbone with a force that sent a bright flash through his vision. Pain burst outward from the point of contact and spread along his jaw until it drowned out every other sensation. The player grabbed the neckline of Shane’s jersey and yanked so hard that the buckles beneath his chin snapped loose. Shane’s helmet flew off and skidded across the ice before he could gasp.
He rocketed off balance.
The world tilted violently. The cold surface rushed toward him. The back of his skull struck the ice with a crack that reverberated through the rink, a sharp sound that cut through the roar of the crowd and replaced it with a thin ringing inside his head. His vision splintered. The lights above him fractured into too many pieces, each one too bright to look at.
His breath stuttered in his chest. His hands curled instinctively toward his head, fingers digging into his hair as nausea rolled through him in a sickening wave. The voices around him sounded as if they came from the bottom of a deep pool, muffled and distorted.
Somewhere above him, the fight exploded.
Gloves hit the ice. Bodies collided. Shouts and curses merged into a single chaotic roar. Shane felt each crash of bodies through vibration rather than sound, as if the ice beneath him had turned into a drum.
He tried to blink through the haze, but the world kept slipping out of focus. He felt the cold seep through his jersey and settle against his spine. His heartbeat fluttered too high in his throat. He tasted something coppery behind his teeth.
Bright shapes moved above him. Shane watched them through hooded eyes, unable to identify who they belonged to.
Suddenly, the noise shifted.
A kind of tearing turbulence pushed through the chaos. A line of force, unmistakable even through the fog of pain, cut a path straight toward him. Skates carved furious lines in the ice. Someone shouted Ilya’s name, but the words barely registered.
Ilya reached him before the officials did.
He dropped his knees beside Shane, one glove sliding under Shane’s cheek with enough gentleness to feel almost unreal amid the violence erupting around them. His eyes held a mix of fury and fear that Shane had never seen directed at anything other than him, a fierce, singular focus that tightened something deep in Shane’s chest.
“Hollander. Look at me.”
The voice anchored him. Steady. Low. Rough with something that didn't resemble anger.
Shane tried to obey. The lights blurred. His eyes closed without permission.
“Open your eyes,” Ilya said again, and there was something strained in the way he said it, something that made Shane want to reach for him even though his arms felt numb. “Sleep would be bad, now.”
The rink around them erupted into deeper chaos, but Shane only heard that voice.
The cold pressed harder into his back. His vision kept trembling. He felt hands lifting him, sliding something beneath his body. He tried to turn toward the warmth near his cheek, but the world spun too quickly.
Ilya’s face hovered above him, sharp and frightened in the stark rink lights.
Shane whispered something, though he couldn't tell what it had been.
The darkness rushed in before he could try again.
—
Ilya had played in hostile arenas before, but something about the Bell Centre during a Boston–Montreal game always felt like standing inside the mouth of an animal starved. The lights hung over the ice with hungry brightness, and the crowd’s noise filled every corner of the rink until it was impossible to tell where the cheering ended and the hatred began.
Most players claimed they stopped hearing anything once the puck dropped, but Ilya never really believed them. Sound traveled differently during rivalry games. It settled on your shoulders and slid under your padding, reminding you that one mistake could shift an entire season.
He skated through his shift with the usual sharp focus, tracking plays before they fully formed, reading Boston’s movements with a practiced vigilance that kept him a step ahead of most forwards. Even so, he felt the tension crawling up his spine each time Montreal’s offense lost control of the puck.
His team kept targeting Hollander. Anyone watching closely could see it. Every time Shane touched the puck, a Boston player would appear at his shoulder, leaning in hard enough to make the impact felt through the ribs.
Ilya told himself not to watch him. He told himself he had no reason to care whether Hollander got clipped or shoved or flattened into the boards. They were rivals with a long list of cheap insults between them, not teammates, and certainly not anything else. Caring would be foolish. Caring would be dangerous. Caring would lose him the game.
But every time Hollander skated up the boards with too much space around him, Ilya’s gaze drifted.
He noticed the slight tension in Hollander’s jaw after a late hit that went uncalled. He noticed the way Hollander kept skating with that stubborn determination he always carried, the kind of determination that made Ilya want to drive him into the glass and kiss him through the cage in equal measure. He noticed how quickly Hollander stopped bouncing back tonight, and how that unsettled something he didn’t want to examine.
Midway through the second period, Ilya returned to the bench for a line change, his breath fogging through his mouthguard. The moment he sat down, he realized Hollander was on the ice again, racing toward a loose puck with a Boston skater closing in behind him. Ilya’s chest tightened slightly, though he kept his posture relaxed. He narrowed his eyes as the two players converged on the puck.
Hollander’s stick hooked the Boston player’s skate. A simple accident. A tiny miscalculation. Nothing serious.
Then the whistle blew.
Ilya’s teammate turned so fast that snow sprayed up around his skates. His face contorted with a kind of ugly fury that revealed exactly how long he had been waiting for a moment like this. Shane raised his hands in reflex, but Ilya already knew it wouldn’t be enough. He could see it in the way the Boston player shifted his weight, leaning in with the full intention of throwing a punch long before any official could intervene.
Ilya felt a sharp, icy calm slide through him.
The punch connected with Shane’s face. Shane’s helmet snapped off and skittered across the ice. The second his head hit the ice with that sickening crack, Ilya’s body moved on instinct.
He pushed off the bench so violently that one of his teammates stumbled in his way and had to grab the boards to stay upright. Ilya barely registered the brawl erupting around him. Players collided in a mess of fists and shouts, but none of them mattered. All that mattered was the shape of Hollander’s body curled slightly inward on the ice, one hand pressed to his head, the other limp at his side.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Ilya shouted desperately as he weaved through the mass of fighting players.
Someone tried to grab Ilya’s arm to hold him back. He shoved the hand off with a force that sent his teammate sliding sideways. Another body cut across his path, trying to join the fight, but Ilya skirted around him with predatory efficacy. The linesman attempted to intercept him. Ilya lowered his shoulder, slipped past the referee’s outstretched arm, and dropped to his knees beside Hollander.
Cold air filled his lungs so quickly it stung. He slid a gloved hand beneath the other’s cheek, lifting his face just enough to keep him from sinking further into the ice. Hollander’s eyes fluttered weakly. His breath came in short, uneven bursts, each one thinner than the last.
“Hollander.” Ilya leaned close, lowering his voice. “Look at me.”
Hollander’s eyelashes twitched. His gaze drifted without focus. A faint noise escaped him, little more than breath passing over dry lips.
Ilya felt his throat go dry with anxiety; head injuries were serious business. The rink felt distant, the noise hollow and faintly distorted, as if the world had slipped underwater.
“Open your eyes,” he said. His tone stayed calm, but the fear pulsed through his fingertips as he held Shane’s face. “Sleep would be bad, now.” More silence. “Come on. Look at me.”
Shane managed to open his eyes halfway. The color in them looked dimmer than usual, washed out by pain and shock. When he recognized Ilya, his muscles relaxed slightly, enough to reveal the depth of what he was feeling.
That small drop in tension nearly fractured Ilya’s composure.
Trainers reached them and slid a stretcher across the ice. One of them told Ilya to give them space. Ilya didn’t move. Not until they needed to position the stretcher under Shane’s body. Even then, he stayed close enough that his shadow fell over Hollander's chest.
The man’s eyes slipped closed again. His head lolled to the side. The trainers spoke quickly about concussion protocols, but Ilya barely heard them over the steady thrum of anxiety beating behind his ribs.
As they lifted Hollander off the ice, Ilya walked beside the stretcher, ignoring every attempt to usher him toward the bench. He could feel the cameras on him, feel the stares of both teams, feel the tension climbing higher behind him. None of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was the pale, unfocused face on the stretcher and the faint tremor in Hollander’s hands.
They reached the tunnel. The brawl noise faded behind them. The rink lights receded until the hallway swallowed them in shadow.
Ilya kept walking.
He didn’t look back.
—
The hallway outside the rink felt strangely muted after the violent roar of the arena, a heavy quiet that pressed against the walls as if the building itself tried to hold its breath. The fluorescent lights stretched overhead in a long, pale corridor that made everything appear washed out, as though the world had been drained of color in the short distance between the boards and the exit. Rozanov followed the stretcher so closely that one of the trainers almost collided with him when the group turned toward the ambulance bay.
Cold night air poured into the hallway as the doors opened, biting across Rozanov’s damp skin. He hardly felt the temperature change. His attention never moved from the limp figure strapped to the stretcher, Hollander’s head secured between padded braces that framed his face in a way that made him look too fragile for the man Rozanov knew.
Hollander had barely opened his eyes since the hit. The few moments he surfaced seemed to unravel just as quickly, as if consciousness kept slipping through his fingers before he could hold onto it. The erratic rise and fall of his breathing struck Ilya harder than the punch had struck Hollander.
Something knotted inside him, a pressure that tightened with each uneven breath he heard.
The medics lifted the stretcher into the ambulance. One of them motioned for Ilya to stay behind. The gesture died in the air. Rozanov stepped into the vehicle without acknowledging the request, daring the medic to challenge him.
He sat on the narrow bench beside Hollander as the ambulance doors closed with a heavy thud that sealed them from the world outside. The sirens started a moment later, their rising cry vibrating through the metal walls. Hollander lay completely still except for a faint twitch in his fingers, his breaths shallow, each one sounding as if it arrived only by force of will.
Rozanov leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, trying to steady his own breathing. The ambulance swayed around a turn, and a harsh antiseptic smell filled the cramped space. The lights overhead flickered in a way that made Hollander’s face look even paler.
A small sound escaped Hollander’s throat. Rozanov’s head snapped up.
“Hollander.”
The name came out sharper than Rozanov intended. Hollander’s eyelids fluttered, exposing pupils that struggled to focus. His gaze drifted across the ceiling before inching toward Rozanov. Recognition softened the tension in his brow. A doctor was fluttering around him, asking questions, but Shane paid them no mind.
Rozanov felt something in his chest loosen and tighten at the same time.
“Stay awake,” he said.
Hollander blinked sluggishly. His lips parted as if he meant to speak, but the effort stalled. His next breath hitched, then thinned into something faint.
The medic leaned forward to check his vitals. Ilya watched every movement of the medic’s hands, his jaw hardening when Hollander winced beneath the touch. He wanted to bat the hands away, to shield Hollander from even that much pressure, yet he held himself still by force.
The ambulance lurched while taking a fast corner. Hollander’s fingers curled weakly against the sheet. His eyelids squeezed shut. When he didn’t open them again, Rozanov moved closer.
“Hollander.”
This time the voice carried something rawer beneath the calm. Hollander’s eyelids twitched, responding faintly to the sound.
The medic adjusted the equipment near Hollander’s head. Rozanov stared at the machine’s blinking lights as though willing them to give him answers no one else could. The siren’s cry softened as they reached the hospital entrance, then rose again as the doors swung open to reveal the receiving bay.
Cold air burst into the ambulance. Hollander flinched at the temperature change. Ilya forced his pulse to settle as the medics lifted the stretcher down the ramp and they hurried toward the double doors leading into the ER. Rozanov walked beside the stretcher, ignoring the staff who gestured for him to step aside.
The doors opened automatically, washing them in a wave of warm, sterile air.
Rozanov kept walking.
—
The emergency department was as sharp and hollow as Ilya felt.
Nurses moved quickly between bays, pushing carts of equipment or calling out instructions that blurred together into a constant hum of urgency. The walls looked too clean, too carefully maintained, as if the entire building expected disaster with every passing minute.
Hollander’s stretcher rolled through the main corridor with a soft clatter of wheels. The medics guided him into a curtained exam bay where a team of doctors waited with prepared equipment. Monitors blinked steadily near the bed, their rhythmic beeping cutting through the space with surgical precision.
Rozanov stood against the wall, arms crossed tightly enough that the muscles in his forearms tensed beneath the fabric of his sleeves. His eyes remained fixed on Hollander, tracking every movement around him with the sharp attention of a predator caught between instinct and restraint.
A nurse loosened the straps that held Hollander’s head still, only to reposition them more carefully. Another adjusted the monitoring leads along his collarbone. A doctor pressed lightly along Hollander’s temples. Hollander flinched at the contact, his breath thinning into a shallow line.
Rozanov’s pulse climbed again. His jaw tightened enough to ache.
A doctor finally addressed him. “Sir, you can wait outside. We’ll update you after the scans.”
Rozanov didn’t respond. He didn’t shift. He didn’t acknowledge the instruction. Silence answered for him. After a moment of hesitation, the doctor returned to the exam.
Hollander tried to turn his head. A nurse stopped the movement gently. His eyelids fluttered in a way that suggested he hovered somewhere between consciousness and the edge of it. His breathing still hadn’t stabilized. Each inhale came with a faint tremor.
Rozanov took half a step forward before forcing himself still again.
“Hollander.” The name left him in a low voice, almost too quiet for anyone else to hear. Hollander stirred faintly, eyes moving beneath their lids.
A nurse placed a hand on Rozanov’s forearm in a cautious attempt to guide him back. He stared at the hand until the nurse withdrew it immediately.
The scan equipment arrived. Wires tangled briefly around Hollander’s shoulder before the technician sorted them out. Under the harsh ceiling lights, Hollander looked unnervingly pale, his usually neutral expression washed out by pain and disorientation. A faint, darkening bruise marked the place where the punch had struck him.
Something dark twisted in Rozanov at the sight. His own teammate had done this.
The doctors worked in a focused rhythm while Hollander drifted in and out, waking only long enough to shiver or tense at the pressure of a hand. His pupils dilated unevenly. His fingertips curled in reflex whenever anyone adjusted his position.
“How long was he unconscious on the ice?” a doctor asked.
“Long enough,” Rozanov answered, the words clipped and far quieter than his expression suggested. At their expectant look, he spoke again. “Maybe three minutes.”
The doctor accepted the reply without further questioning.
When Hollander’s hand slipped off the side of the stretcher, dangling toward the floor, Rozanov reached for it before anyone else reacted. His grip closed around Hollander’s wrist, steadying it with a care that contrasted the tension in his shoulders. Hollander’s fingers twitched faintly.
A nurse approached to continue the exam. Rozanov released the wrist only once the nurse repositioned the hand securely.
As the initial assessment ended, the room quieted. A nurse dimmed the overhead lights. The monitors continued their steady rhythm, a soft, persistent reminder of how fragile everything currently was.
Rozanov stayed exactly where he stood until the doctors stepped out to prepare the scans. Only then did he pull a chair toward the bed. He sat stiffly, posture rigid, gaze turned toward the window yet fixed always in Hollander’s direction, as if watching from the corner of his eye mattered more than staring directly.
He told himself he remained only because it was practical, because someone needed to stay with Hollander until the doctors completed their evaluation.
The reasoning seemed weak, even to him.
Hollander’s shallow breaths marked each passing second in the dimmed light. Still, Rozanov didn’t move.
He wasn’t leaving him.
—
Shane floated up from the darkness the way a diver rises too quickly from deep water, with pressure building behind his eyes and a strange ringing in his ears that made it hard to tell where the room began and where his thoughts ended. He became aware of the faint hum of machinery before he managed to open his eyes, a mechanical rhythm that tapped softly at the edges of his hearing. The air felt warm and dry, carrying the sterile scent of hospital surfaces and something faintly metallic.
For several long seconds, he didn’t know where he was. The ceiling above him looked too smooth, too bright, and his mind struggled to anchor itself to anything familiar. When he turned his head even slightly, pain radiated from the back of his skull in a slow, deep pulse that sent nausea curling through his stomach.
He tried to steady his breathing. The room steadied with him.
A shape sat beside the bed, unmoving, framed by the dim light that filtered through the partially closed blinds. Shane blinked again, forcing his eyes to focus. The shape resolved into a man sitting with his elbows resting on the arms of the chair, his posture rigid, his gaze angled toward the window like he’d been watching nothing for a very long time.
Rozanov.
The realization settled slowly, a warm liquid pooling in his gut and finding its level in a cracked vessel. His eyes adjusted enough to make out the tightness around Rozanov’s jaw, the way his hands rested in a loose but guarded grip, the tension that radiated from him even in stillness.
Shane swallowed, the motion sending another sharp ache through his skull.
Rozanov turned immediately.
The shift was small, just the angle of his head as he faced the bed, but it carried so much coiled intensity that Shane felt it settle against his ribs. Rozanov’s eyes swept over his face in a quick, assessing motion that reminded Shane of the way trainers checked a player’s posture before a shift.
“You are awake,” Rozanov said, voice low from disuse.
Shane exhaled very slowly. “Feels like it.”
His voice came out rougher than he expected, scraped thin by pain and dryness. He tried to lift a hand to his forehead, but the motion made the room sway unpleasantly, and he let his arm fall back to the mattress.
Rozanov leaned forward slightly. “Do not push yourself.” The roundness of his accent softened the command. His tone sat somewhere between instruction and warning, as if Ilya wasn’t certain which one would keep Shane still.
Shane breathed through another wave of dizziness. His vision steadied again, enough to take in more of the room. The blinds cast long shadows across the floor. A monitor blinked near his shoulder. The IV line tugged faintly at the inside of his elbow each time he shifted.
He let his gaze return to Rozanov.
“You left the game?” Shane murmured.
Rozanov inhaled quietly, the breath barely audible. He managed a slight twitch of his lips. “We were already ahead. They did not need me.”
Shane nearly laughed, but the ache in his skull forced him to settle for a soft exhale. Even in this hazy, half-conscious state, he recognized the lie. Montreal needed Rozanov on the ice in every situation. The idea that Rozanov had abandoned a rivalry game because they had a comfortable lead felt almost surreal.
“You stayed,” Shane said.
Rozanov held his gaze for a long moment, a faint tightening visible near the corner of his eye. Something unspoken moved behind his expression, refusing to soften even when concern pressed through the cracks.
He reached out with a calloused hand and grabbed Shane’s chin, tilting his face every so slightly to the side while he examined him. Shane let him, unresisting.
“You were unconscious,” Rozanov said, dropping his hand nervously. His voice didn’t rise, but the words landed with tangible weight. “It was not safe to leave you.”
Silence settled around them. He felt strangely light, like his thoughts were drifting just above his body instead of inside it. The concussion had softened every edge, but not enough to obscure the way Rozanov kept looking at him, checking for the smallest change in his expression, listening for irregularities in his breathing, waiting for any sign of distress.
“You look worried,” Shane said quietly.
Rozanov’s posture straightened with a subtle stiffness. “I look irritated. I do not worry.”
“That too,” Shane said, voice faint.
Rozanov didn’t answer immediately. He watched Shane as though weighing whether Shane was lucid enough to understand whatever he said next. The dim light reflected in his eyes, giving them an intensity that felt almost fevered.
Shane tilted his head a fraction, enough to meet Rozanov’s gaze directly. The motion sent another ripple of pain through him. Rozanov noticed. His hand moved before he seemed to realize it, reaching toward the bed as if prepared to steady him.
At the last moment, the hand hesitated.
Shane’s voice came out softer than he intended. “Ilya.”
Rozanov’s eyes narrowed at the name, but he didn’t correct him. He just exhaled once before rubbing at his nose bridge in stress.
“You got knocked out on ice,” Rozanov said. His tone felt controlled, but the effort behind it was visible. “You have scared everyone.”
Shane let the words sink in. They didn’t surprise him. His skull still throbbed in a way that reminded him of the exact moment everything went violently bright. He remembered the punch, the helmet skidding away, the snap of impact against the ice.
“What about you?” Shane asked.
Rozanov’s jaw tightened. “What about me.”
“You scared?” Shane asked, letting his eyes close halfway, half-teasing and half-not.
Rozanov didn’t answer.
When Shane opened his eyes again, Rozanov was still watching him, but his gaze had darkened.
Shane let out a slow breath, ignoring the heat pooling in his stomach. “You don’t have to stay now. I’m awake.”
Rozanov’s gaze didn’t shift. “I am not leaving.”
The certainty in the sentence reached him before the meaning did. It resonated somewhere deep in Shane’s chest, a quiet thrum of pleasure and relief.
He tried to smile, though it felt heavy. “That’s good.”
Rozanov’s eyes flicked to the bandage near Shane’s temple, and his expression clouded once more. It wasn’t anger at Shane. It was anger at the hit, at the player who threw it, at the ice that cracked under Shane’s skull, at the fact that Rozanov couldn’t prevent any of it.
Shane felt the shift and breathed in slowly, grounding himself against the sensation of Rozanov watching him with a kind of fierce, unguarded focus.
“Hurts like hell,” Shane murmured.
Rozanov’s voice dropped lower. “I know.”
Another quiet stretch filled the room. Neither of them looked away.
“You look like you haven’t moved in hours,” Shane said quietly.
“You were out for a long time.”
Shane’s thoughts drifted through the haze of his concussion, searching for memories that wouldn’t fully settle. He remembered the crack against the ice, the brief flash of pain, the cold spreading across his shoulders. He remembered confusion, then the sound of his name being said through clenched teeth. He remembered a hand against his cheek, steadying him, grounding him.
He remembered Rozanov.
“You were in the ambulance,” Shane murmured.
Rozanov’s expression didn’t change, although something—guilt?—flickered in his eyes. “You kept losing consciousness.”
Shane let the words sink in slowly. It felt strange to imagine Rozanov sitting in that cramped vehicle, watching him fall in and out of awareness, listening for every change in his breathing, refusing to be pushed aside. It felt strange knowing Rozanov cared about him at all.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Shane said.
Rozanov leaned back a fraction, but not enough to create distance. He waved a hand dismissively. “I was not leaving you with these useless people.”
Shane could have asked what that meant, but he knew Rozanov well enough to understand that the man did not trust easily. Trainers, medics, coaches, opponents, teammates, reporters, fans, cities, leagues. Rozanov treated all of them as if they were waiting for an opening. He had built himself out of suspicion and self-preservation.
Yet somehow, Shane’s unconscious body had become something he guarded.
The realization tightened something in Shane’s chest.
“That sounds like concern,” Shane said, smiling despite himself.
Rozanov’s brow furrowed slightly. “Like I said, practicality.”
“Sure,” Shane said, giving him a tired smile. “You’re very practical.”
Shane shifted again, attempting to sit up a little more. The movement sent another slow wave of pain through him. The room tilted slightly. Again, Rozanov reacted instantly. His hand rose toward Shane’s shoulder before he seemed to catch himself once more. This time, the hesitation lasted only a moment before he let the hand settle gently on the blankets near Shane’s arm, close enough for the warmth to reach him.
“What dud I say? Do nit do that,” Rozanov said, voice quiet but firm. “You are still unstable.”
Shane let himself sink back into the pillow. “It feels like someone rearranged my brain with a sledgehammer.”
Rozanov’s jaw flexed. “Hollander.”
The way he said it reminded Shane of the tone Rozanov used on the ice when someone lined up a hit that crossed a line, the kind of tone that promised retaliation without ever raising its volume.
Shane let the quiet circle back around them. “You really were scared.”
Rozanov froze for the length of a single breath. Then he shook his head slightly, a movement so restrained it felt like a concession rather than denial.
“I don’t let people get hit like that,” Rozanov said.
Shane’s voice softened. “I wasn’t people. I’m me.” He was pushing Ilya, probably farther than he should, but he couldn’t help it. His self control had been abandoned somewhere on the ice with the rest of his sanity.
The sentence hung between them, simmering heatedly.
Rozanov’s gaze sharpened. He studied Shane’s face as if trying to decide whether he had actually meant to say that aloud. Shane met the stare without flinching. The room felt strangely hot now, warmed not by the heaters but by the pressure of Rozanov’s attention bearing down on him in slow, steady weight.
“You shouldn’t provoke people who outweigh you by thirty pounds,” Rozanov said. His voice carried a tightness that almost masked the concern under it. “You play like you’re made of steel. You are not. Your team does not need you so much that you must sacrifice yourself every play.”
Shane let out a soft breath that could almost be called a laugh. “How are you yelling at me quietly?”
“I’m telling you to stop being careless.”
“You’re yelling at me quietly,” Shane repeated, eyes half-lidded but amused.
Rozanov stared at him with a hardness that felt strangely protective. His hand remained planted near Shane’s arm, fingers curling slightly against the fabric of the blanket, fighting the impulse to reach closer.
Shane felt his own pulse climb. The air in the room had thickened with something unspoken, something that settled along the edges of his nerves.
“Rozanov,” Shane said, speaking the name slowly, letting the syllables linger in the space between them. “I’m alright.”
Rozanov didn’t seem convinced. The tension in his shoulders remained. The faint crease between his brows deepened.
“You’re not alright,” he said. “Your eyes didn’t focus for minutes. You came to three times in the ambulance, and you didn’t remember any of it the next time. You could barely stay conscious when we reached the ER.”
Shane swallowed. The raw honesty in the recounting struck him harder than he expected. “You really stayed with me through all that?”
Rozanov’s response came quietly. “I was not going to leave you alone. This happened because of my foolish teammate. My problem now.”
Shane’s breath caught for a moment.
He didn’t remember most of what Rozanov described, but the idea of Rozanov sitting beside him, refusing to leave, watching every flicker of consciousness, forced a warmth into his chest that contradicted the cold ache behind his forehead.
“Just admit you were worried about me, asshole.”
Rozanov’s eyes darkened. His voice dropped even lower. “I don’t want to watch your head hit the ice again. That’s all.”
Shane met his stare, and something shifted, subtle but unmistakable.
The logic didn’t hold anymore. The distance didn’t hold. Rozanov’s careful neutrality was crumbling with each admittance.
Shane felt his breath deepen.
“Come here,” he said softly.
Rozanov didn’t move at first, but a storm passed behind his expression, a flicker of indecision followed by something sharper. His hand flexed against the blanket. His jaw tightened. His gaze dropped briefly to Shane’s mouth before returning to his eyes with a look that felt like a decision being made in real time.
He leaned in.
Not all the way. Just enough to make the air between them thin.
Shane felt his pulse spike.
The room held its breath.
Rozanov held his.
Shane tried to fill the space with words but found none strong enough to name whatever had been simmering between them all season.
He didn’t need to.
Rozanov closed the last inch.