The bathroom scene still haunts me, because the conversation that was happening wasn’t the words being said. It was everything around the words being said.
‘I want you to suck my dick’ (I can see you’re in distress. I’m offering you a return to the normalcy we created together, sexual in tone and playful and ribbing, but it’s also a genuine request. please, please, please still want me.)
‘If you win MVP tonight, I will blow you, fuck you, whatever you want’ (I believe my only worth to you is sexual but I will serve you however you want me to)
And then, Ilya says nothing. Instead, he lunges forward and kisses Shane with months of pent up desperation, because that’s what he wants.
He just wants to kiss him, hold him, have him in any way he can- but he knows it’s too dangerous, and that’s why he can only allow himself the indulgence of one, singular, passionate kiss.