Summary:

“Ilya,” Shane says, the words stumbling out of him like a person limping toward the light, “I’m afraid that I’m in love with you.” Ilya feels a foreign cold wash over him, more frigid than anything he has experienced in his home country, shuttering around his heart, which wobbles on a fragmented tempo. “No,” he says, shaking his head, even though he wants to believe it. “No, you aren’t. You can’t be.” “I’m sorry,” says Shane, and it makes Ilya wish that he were dead. “Please say anything but that,” Ilya says thickly. Shane drunkenly confesses to Ilya. It's only on the second time around that he's able to accept it.