I really do believe that Ilya is hungry for Shane on a primal level, like he's the sweetest wildest woodland creature to ever blink its brown wet eyes at him. And Shane is so eager to be chased by Ilya, to be pinned down, to be made into a snack.
Like Shane's always been familiar with fight and flight and freeze and fawn, but with Ilya he also gets to be fucked with, and fucked, and there's still fear there but it's something new, it's more alive, more real and raw and intimate.
It's human to be an animal, both predator and prey, and Ilya and Shane are each such animals in how they hunt and are hunted by each other. Ilya's hunger is selfish and cruel, and Shane's fear is a weakness, a liability. And their humanness makes it easy to judge themselves, or for us to judge the parts of them we see in ourselves - our secret desires, wretched or pathetic.
But the beauty of their story is that Ilya falls in love with the fear in Shane's eyes and tells him, "yes it's scary, but you are brave". And Shane falls in love with the hunger in Ilya and tells him, "why was that so hot?" and when Ilya tries to distance himself from it, make it about Shane liking to be bad, Shane pushes back with so much care, "that's not what this is, not now and not for a long time."
To be seen for the worst of yourself and loved not despite it, but somehow, inexplicably because of it, that is what Ilya and Shane give to each other. And it's enormous, it's all consuming, a feast, a hunger, a hunt.
