shameless unlikeable-character apologist.

So Ilya, at this point, is pretty confident in the fact that he enjoys whatever they have with Shane a lot, and even if he doesn’t want to acknowledge that he likes him and mentally is at the stage of “I need to end this” (in which they both are), he cares and he’s willing to show that he cares. Even before the tuna meltdown™️ we kinda see it (and more importantly Shane sees it) with the way Ilya looks at him and acts. Yes, I’m talking about the prologue. That’s literally the first look we readers get at how they are together behind closed doors and they are NOT having a casual hookup without any emotions, no matter how much they try to keep telling themselves that.

The prologue is happening in Montreal three weeks prior to the Boston tuna meltdown and Ilya is sappy, caring, tender. Shane cannot look him in the eye after his loss. He's feeling too vulnerable and exposed, so they don’t have sex face to face, but from behind (more on that later). After, Ilya is gentle with him and different and this scares Shane. He calls Shane beautiful and Shane has to deflect with the "hottest man in the NHL according to Cosmopolitan" line.

Then comes the tuna meltdown. Ilya is hyping himself up to ask Shane to stay. And Ilya is aware that that is different, that they don’t do that normally, so he masks it by saying he’s not done with Shane. But Ilya is actively trying to change their arrangement, trying to, let’s say, push it up-to-date to where they are now, after the years. Sort of trying to get emotionally to where they are physically. And all this while he's not acknowledging his feelings. So there is this duality within him, with the other side being him preparing their food, trying to accommodate Shane and actively looking out for him. He even calls him "sweetheart" for the first time, which, in the grand scheme of things, is overshadowed by calling him "Shane". Ilya did not need to see Shane leave and get a girl, he *was* there already, trying for something more while actively denying it in his mind.

Shane on the other hand? Not so much. Shane is still thinking “hey, I just need to find the right girl, haven’t met her yet but she’s bound to be somewhere, right”. He’s not only closeted from the world, he doesn’t acknowledge himself that he might be gay. He’s looking at Ilya, the polar opposite of him in that he's aware of and comfortable in his sexuality from the get-go (although he’s not sharing it publicly), talking about sleeping with girls and thinking “I might be able to do that with some girl, too”. Hoping that he’ll find a girl that makes him feel, well... (that train of thoughts ends with him realizing that no one makes him feel the way Ilya does).

And that thought scares him so much. Shane is scared. Even in the prologue where Shane notices the changes in how Ilya is looking at him, how he's tender, he’s scared and doesn't allow himself to think about what those feelings could mean. Shane is pretending (or pretending he is pretending) that Ilya is someone else when they have sex from behind. That's why him riding Ilya for the first time in Boston makes him wary of everything. He was wary before, back in Montreal three weeks ago, and he's wary again now, when he stabilizes himself on Ilya's chest, and Ilya puts his hand over Shane's, holding him, caring for him. Another little, but actually monumental, proof of adoration. Something is changing and Shane doesn’t know what that means for this arrangement between them.

To conclude, I do acknowledge that the Rose arc was not important just for Shane's character development. Obviously. I’m not a moron. Ilya had thought the thing with Rose would pass waaay quicker than it did and it did make him scared that their situationship was over for good. His reaction to the arc is important and he was definitely shaped by it, but I don’t think that the arc serves the purpose to show Ilya “that he took Shane for granted”. Both of them had thought “this has to end” before AND AFTER the tuna meltdown. Well, Shane did think that, but he also thought a lot about what it would be like if it did not have to end. After All Stars 2017 and Russia and the concussion, he thought it *would* end, that walking away was the only safe option, but desperately wanted it to not actually end. Y’know, messaging Ilya while recovering from the concussion at his parents’ place and wanting him to be his boyfriend, while acknowledging that that is never going to happen and that Ilya is actually putting some distance between them... Like, the fic where Scott Hunter doesn't exist and Ilya never goes to the cottage? Hated the premise and how much it actually pulled from canon and Shane's and Ilya's trains of thoughts before the Skip kiss. Because that fic was correct and it hurt me so much to even imagine that universe. But that's an analysis for another time...