i‘m the one that you love & the one who loves you

So that's the tragedy of Ilya Rozanov. The tragedy of Shane Hollander is that he will give completely up and then just keep going. Failure is not an option and he needs to keep performing at the highest level possible for as long as possible but everything else will be gone. Any sort of light or warmth extinguished. Deprivation will become its own reward. He will become so scared of his own wants that he starts actively avoiding things that bring him even some modicum of pleasure--and yes, this would be self harm. He starts to associate the pain of longing with success. Family is his only reprieve, and even then he rations it out. He holds all of his ache and his longing and his need in a fist in his chest and sometimes when his mom hugs him too tight or his dad rubs his shoulders it starts to dislodge and that's dangerous. He can't let himself have that.

Shane's "not here" in the showers, and "not with Scott Hunter next door" in the hotel room, and "with who 😠" in Vegas before they go out on stage — he's afraid of hooking up & being found out, and he's afraid of never getting to hook up again. He's afraid of what Ilya can give him and what he can take away from him. He's scared because he's worked hard and has so much to lose.

And Ilya sees his fear and Allows it. Encourages Shane to feel it, endure it, while Ilya adds to it, and praises Shane for getting through it. Shane's fear is proof that he's vulnerable and real and every time he shows that part of himself to Ilya he's Allowing Ilya to do whatever he wants with it. Ilya hears Shane's "with who 😠" and 15 minutes later follows him into the bathroom, shrugs off ghosting him for six months, and responds to Shane's "what the fuck do you actually want from me" with a smug "I want you to suck my dick".

And what is Shane supposed to do? He's angry, he's upset, he's lonely and horny and sad. And he's scared that Ilya doesn't care about him anymore. And he yells back, "You suck MY dick" and he can't help it, there's a quiver in his voice, and he's showing Ilya his fear, his insecurity, his little skip of a heartbeat. It's a gift, really. A form of courage. And it fills Ilya with a kind of puffed up pride for Shane, his Shane, his brave boy. "Maybe ask nicely," Ilya tells him, and encourages him to give into his fear. And he does, Shane asks so nicely, with the sweetest double please.

like the way he asked "what is nur-ate-iv?" makes me think man TRULY was not catching all of the words getting tossed at him so fast the second his eyes were even a LITTLE open. like he wasn't asking "what story did you come up with?" he's asking "what word are you even saying to me right now?" man got like 0.2 seconds to be like "oh i'm awake now?" before he was getting PELTED with english because shane had a forty step plan that couldn't wait like. three more hours.

in my heart, shane sleeps like a ROCK and is also non-functional if his sleep schedule is disrupted