Chapter Text
1.
Shane was drifting in and out of sleep in the coziest haze of his life. He was warm and safe and only a few minutes ago had been so thoroughly fucked by Rozanov he knew he was going to be sore during their game that night. He really needed to actually wake up and leave or he would be late to that game, but Rozanov was so warm and everything smelled like him. Shane was giving himself permission to doze for a little bit longer. They weren't going to be able to meet up after the game since they both had flights so early in the morning it might as well still be night time. So they had broken what Shane assumed was an unspoken rule and met up beforehand. But it was late in the season and both of them were feeling the stress of too many games and too many flights. Or too many nights outside their own beds, and not enough relief from the lonely nights.
Privately Shane sometimes wondered if the other players felt the same horrible over stretched feeling as the season wore on. Or if having a partner and family to come home to somehow was a balm to that exhaustion. He loved hockey with his whole being, but the schedule was brutal. So he was indulging himself in a rare nap, his rare moment of relaxation was definitely unrelated to the body next to him.
But Rozanov was shifting beside him slightly. For a second Shane thought he was attempting to begin things again, but when he rolled over he saw the other man was fast asleep. What should have been a relaxed expression was one of fear, and Rozanov’s eyes flickered fast behind his eyelids.
Shane’s brain woke up a little bit more, realizing Rozanov was having a nightmare. He was perhaps the worst person to deal with this sort of situation. It wasn’t as though they were friends, or anything more than a steady hook up to one another and Shane would be the first person to say he had no idea how to handle other people's big emotions. Frankly he couldn’t handle his own very well. He felt woefully unprepared for this situation, but at the same time it seemed heartless to leave someone trapped in a private hell of their own minds creation.
So Shane gently laid a hand on Rozanov’s face. The Russian man flinched at the contact and his eyes opened sharply. He blinked and clearly wasn’t fully awake or aware of what was happening. So Shane said the first thing that came to his mind, thinking back to his aquarium trip with Hayden a few weeks ago.
“Did you know a horseshoe crab has saved your life?” Shane asked.
Rozanov blinked, looking even more confused, but some of the tension drained from his face as he squinted at Shane, “What is horse shoe crab?”
“Well,” Shane said, reaching for his phone to google the creature, “it's not a crab, and it's not shaped like a horseshoe.”
"Then that is bad name for it." Rozanov looked at the first picture Shane could find and grimaced, “looks like a horrible water spider.”
Shane laughed, "That's actually technically not too far off.”
Rozanov snuggled closer, resting his head on Shane’s shoulder, which sent a flutter like a stampede of bunnies in Shane's chest. Blue eyes stared with alarming intensity at his phone as Rozanov traced the outline of one of the horseshoe crab photos, “So why do I owe life to this water spider nightmare?”
Shane grinned, whatever the nightmare had been about it had clearly faded from Rozanov’s mind entirely. And someone was for once entirely willing to listen to Shane’s weird science facts. “So their blood, it's blue right?”
“Blue?! How does blue blood save my life?”
Shane wondered if there was a joke to be made there, given their hockey status as practical royalty, but he ignored it and pressed forward. “We use it to test medicine and vaccines. Before we realized we could use their blood we would test it on rabbits and they would die a lot.”
Rozanov looked up at him in mock horror, though after three years of hooking up, Shane knew he actually had a deeply rooted respect for all things cute and fluffy. But he would never admit it, Rozanov needed to maintain the air of being aloof and uncaring. But Shane had seen the video of his ‘hockey player playing with puppies while answering questions video’ (he’d only watched it a few times….. Before he had saved it to his phone so he could watch it all the time.) So he knew Rozanov was secretly glad to know that less rabbits were being experimented on.
“Now we can see if the blood coagulates or not and know if the medicine has been made correctly and is safe for humans.”
“But what about the spider nightmares? Do they survive?” The look Rozanov gave him, and the question, reminded him so much of Hayden’s daughter's distress at learning that humans ‘stole’ blood from horseshoe crabs. Shane couldn’t resist pressing a kiss to Rozanov's forehead, once again not sure why he wanted to comfort the other man, but knowing that seeing him in distress was a magnification of Shane’s own distress.
“Yes. Mostly. They are so valuable that the people who extract the blood try to keep them alive as much as possible. We really need these guys. There has been a lot of progress towards making a synthetic version but it's not perfect yet.”
Rozanov’s expression turned vulpine, and Shane braced himself for the teasing, “so smart, Mr. Hollander, do you use these facts in your speeches before the game? No wonder your team always is so confused by hockey game, they are thinking about nightmare creature in ocean.” But he leaned up and kissed Shane deeply after he said this, cutting off Shane's response that no, he gave great speeches, speeches that he agonized over writing for days. But his argument was immediately shut down by Rozanov's kisses sinking lower and lower down his chest.
After, once again blissfully floating out of his body, Shane asked, “are you ok? It seemed like you were having a bad dream earlier.”
Rozanov blanched and pinched his nose quickly, “am fine. Dreaming about destroying you on the ice.”
But Shane knew he was lying. So he quietly let himself out, it was time to go anyway. Better to let Rozanov mope over whatever it was that was worrying him in solitude.
What Shane would never know though, was that later on, when Ilya mentioned in passing to Marlow that his cocktail looked like horseshoe crab blood, the other man spit out his drink and stared at his captain like he had two heads.
“Are you fucking a scientists now?” Marlow had asked, still sputtering. The rest of the team near them tuned into the conversation, all looking extremely curious.
Ilya grinned back, “is nice to have intelligent pillow talk, you never know what you learn.
“Is it Jane?” Connors asked, boldly. "Rozy's beloved 'plain' Montreal Jane?"
Now it was Ilya’s time to splutter, “what? No. Who is Jane. Never met a Jane. Who are you to make fun of name? Your parents name you Connor Connors. You never say Jane again, yes?"
“Geez Rozy,” Marlow said, “back off. He was just teasing you, not making fun of her.”
“Yeah man, no disrespect. We just have seen her name on your phone. I was just teasing.”
Ilya glared at him, but he softened slightly, “yes Jane taught me about horrible monster spiders saving all human life.”
Connor and Marlow had high fived at this, “I told you!”
Ilya was back to being suspicious, “told him what.”
“That this Jane girl must be more important than the rest of them. You remembered something she told you!”
“Hey!” Ilya barked, “I listen and remember all things partners say. And what did I just say about not not talking about Jane.”
“Sorry captain.” they had both said sheepishly.
“You run extra 5k tomorrow at practice. Maybe more blood will got to brain then. Maybe turn blue and be useful for once.”
They had both groaned and cajoled Ilya for the rest of the night, but he was not budging. That would show them, they should be feeling blessed to know something so interesting that Hollander had bothered to share. Ilya cradled the fact in his brain like a precious treasure. He was never going to be able to explain his fondness for those spider crabs to anyone ever, but that was ok.