I’ve said this before but: I think that for most of the situationship, shane thinks that ilya holds all the cards and calls all the shots. ilya cruised him, ilya put his number in shane’s phone and told him they were going to make a plan to hook up again, ilya flirts and pursues and makes the sex bets that give shane the cover he needs to keep giving it up to ilya. and later: ilya decides to ghost him, ilya tells him what to do in vegas, ilya resets the tone of their relationship in a way that implicitly tells shane this isn’t real and you shouldn’t get attached. ilya is the person with the power to decide what happens between them and what it means.
but what I love SO much about this pairing is that we the audience get a wider view, and so we get to see the situation quite differently. yes ilya is calling the shots. but ilya is also repeatedly and at times painfully disarmed by shane’s total lack of guile. he’s disarmed by shane’s sincerity, his openness, his inability to dissemble. he’s disarmed by shane’s inability to even understand that he should be dissembling—that the average person would be trying to conceal the intensity of their desire or hurt to avoid making themselves emotionally vulnerable. shane’s heart is in his eyes, to quote hudson. you can always tell what he’s feeling. and I think that gives shane an enormous amount of emotional power over ilya (guy who wears masks on top of masks on top of masks to conceal his own feelings and is used to being surrounded by people who do the same).
to me that whole ep2 sequence is SUCH a good example of this. ilya thinks he can call the shots—I’ll ghost you for six months to signal to you that I’m done with this, I’ve lost interest, we’re not going to do this anymore. and then shane walks off that stage in an obvious state of distress and ilya cannot help but pursue him (he BURSTS into that bathroom! mr paper towel dispenser lean is faking casual but he clearly booked it after shane to make sure shane was okay!). then ilya tries to recover by doing his cocky asshole and turning shane’s distress into a joke about wanting shane to suck his dick. he’s offering shane an off-ramp: we can forget you were upset, we can make this casual and jokey again, we can pretend you didn’t cry. I can reset the tone for both of us here. except shane doesn’t take the off-ramp. he just gets even more tearful, because ilya hurt him and shane cares and he’s not able to pretend like he doesn’t. and HOO boy!!!!!! the effect that has on ilya!!!!!!!! guy who clearly arrived in vegas thinking I’m not going to hook up with shane hollander again, or if I do I’m going to make it crystal clear that we’re not friends, we’re not two people who care about each other or think about each other when we’re not together. and then shane picks him up and throws him through the nearest wall emotionally not once but twice that night (ilya literally never recovered from ‘I need - you.’ game fucking over for that guy!!!).
idk I really loved that post I reblogged last night that was like, it’s fundamentally about trust for shane. it’s about giving himself and his desires over to ilya completely and trusting that ilya will know what to do with shane’s desire and longing and deep loneliness. ilya will tell him what to do. but I guess what I am trying to say is that the exchange of ‘power’ here (if you want to call it) goes both ways, and that to me is what makes this ship soooo emotionally rich. to trust someone is to give them power over you, up to and including the power to hurt you. but I think to be trusted in that way is like… it lays you bare, too. it makes you vulnerable right back. yes, it gives you a power you can wield, but wielding that power often changes you in ways that are outside of your conscious control. it certainly changes ilya in ways that are outside of his conscious control! he doesn’t want to chase shane into that bathroom. he doesn’t want to kiss shane and hold him close and reassure shane that he’s not alone in this. ilya wants distance! he wants control! but shane’s openness, shane’s inability to act like he doesn’t care when he does care, pulls something out of ilya that ilya is powerless to deny or hold back. it’s so instinctive, the way he moves to comfort shane.
and I think we see that again and again: that when shane ‘gives up control’, it pulls a better and more caring version of ilya out of the ilya who wants to deny, deflect, and downplay. it makes him literally close the distance between them by crossing the room to shane, first in the bathroom and later in the penthouse. shane perceives ilya as having all the power, but from ilya’s perspective—his experience is one of being utterly disarmed by shane’s trust and need. ilya might tell shane what to do, but he is just as deeply compelled by shane. and I think that’s just like… what intimacy is. it’s giving up the fantasy of power and control. the fantasy that you can be close to another person while still keeping your walls up, staying guarded, holding them at arm’s length. ilya’s emotional arc in this story is about slowly, painfully learning how to release his grip on the fantasy of safety in order to earn the reality of security. and shane does that to him. by showing him how. this is how you trust someone with yourself. this is how you open up even when it’s scary. this is how you let someone see you when you’re hurting, so that they can meet your hurt with compassion. so that they can close the distance between you and hold you in their arms.
