elirwen

Ilya? Not a fuckboy.

A fuckboy doesn’t care about treating you right or making you cum, or making it clear that it’s just a hookup, which is what Ilya does with the women he sleeps with. Neither him nor Shane treat their hookups with disrespect.

With Shane, his behaviour may be contradictory and confusing from Shane’s perspective, but it’s not coming from a place of disinterest or malice. We know that it’s coming from a place of fear- fear of discovery, fear of attachment, fear of love and what it would mean.

A romance novel rake is not a bad guy, he’s not a cad, he’s just a guy who loves fun and partying and FUCKING, and he’s very good at it. He takes pride in being good at sex, in pleasing his partners. Often in the beginning of the book he has many sexual partners and no interest in monogamy. And also often his love interest is a straitlaced virginal bluestocking (that’s Shane if you’re keeping track).

The rake will keep seeing his many partners and having (very good) sex with them until one day he finds, to his horror, that he doesn’t WANT to have sex with anybody else. He wants to change! He wants a committed relationship with one person! And when the rake falls in love (or admits to himself that he has fallen), he is ALL. FUCKING. IN. Maybe deep down he played this part because he thought some part of him was fundamentally unlovable, that nobody would want to commit to him anyway so he’ll just avoid that whole messy feelings bit but then BOOM here comes the doe-eyed sincerity of the ingenue with a steel chair!

Shane said “I don’t want to pretend I don’t like you anymore,” and suddenly Mr. Womanizer isn’t interested in sex with anybody else! Shane says “I am making a plan to keep you in my life,” and suddenly Mr. Cool and Composed is making teary eyed love confessions in TWO (2) languages!

Happy Birthday🫰🏻 | February 13, 2001

After a while of talking about how Anya acts the trainer says there’s nothing to worry about, Anya likes Shane just fine, it’s just that she sees him as the boss and is acting accordingly

And Ilya is like. But. I’m the one who adopted her? And raised her before Shane got here?? And the trainer is just like yeah well she sees you more like an equal. And Ilya is like WAIT she thinks Shane is in charge of both of us?? And the trainer is just like well do you interact in a way that would make her think that?

Ilya’s life flashes before his eyes as he thinks of all the times Shane has come over with a snack for Ilya and a treat for Anya, or all the times Shane has announced they’re all going for an after dinner walk, or pets Ilya’s hair and tells him he did a good job at practice, or the fact that he uses the same warning tone with Anya when she misbehaves as he does with Ilya when he’s causing problems on purpose

"chill out man i know you pollinate some lily"

he didn't play it as ilya deliberately not answering the question and instead just as ilya who was pleased by shane caring enough to ask it and thus pulling him into a cuddle without answering because his only thought was, "oh, he cares enough to ask about my family"

makes me laugh imagining it being an ongoing thing between them in the early days of shane asking a personal question in passing and ilya being so pleased by the curiosity that he doesn't always. actually remember. to answer.

which means shane has a google search history that sometimes looks like

russia asking about family rude

don't ask about family russia

rude to talk about family in russia

rules for conversation russia family personal

becAUSE ILYA DOESN'T SEEM MAD?? BUT ALSO HE JUST??? LEFT HIM ON READ?? BUT IN A REAL LIVE CONVERSATION??? WHAT THE FUCK???

finally shane settles into their relationship enough to be like *deep breath* "can we talk about something that i think might be hard?"

and ilya is just *internally sweating because oh god this sounds so fucking serious and-* "yes, of course"

"okay" *deep breath that just makes ilya even more tense in preparation for the worst case scenario of shane breaking this off or delivering other bad news* "why do you sometimes just not answer when i ask you questions?"

shane, whose question about what ilya's favorite childhood cookie was got him folded like a pretzel and fucked to within an inch of his life and then cuddled close like a giant teddy bear while ilya kisses his face like he's something precious-

but who didn't actually. get. the fucking answer.