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gillianw's review
4.0
I'm not sure that I can put into words how this last instalment made me feel. How can I accurately describe how full my heart feels after being swept along on this brutally beautiful journey with two Mercs who met and fell in love under the ugliest circumstances? How can I explain how a little part of me feels like I've let go of two dear friends after reading the last words of the last chapter of the last book? I'm not sure that I can without seeming like a complete loon for being so completely and utterly affected by a fictional story about fictional characters. But maybe that's just the magic of great storytelling. It draws you in and makes the characters your best friends or your worst enemies. It can make you worry, weep and laugh in the space of a few sentences, sometimes even in the same sentence. But most of all, while you're in the thrall of the magic, it makes you feel. And this book, this series, had ALL the feels. 4 stars
layla87's review
3.0
I skimmed.
I read spoilers because I couldn't read anymore.
I still hate Dan, even more right now.
Jean can burn in hell.
Vadim deserves better.
I'm just bummed with how their relationship turned out to be.
I read spoilers because I couldn't read anymore.
I still hate Dan, even more right now.
Jean can burn in hell.
Vadim deserves better.
I'm just bummed with how their relationship turned out to be.
hegm13's review
5.0
*Pretty much full of spoilers, and not much of a review. I just need to vent after the emotionally taxing experience that was "Special Forces"
Ugh I was literally (not an exaggeration) bawling my eyes out through the first few chapters where they drifted apart in angry and depressed silence. This estrangement was even more soul wrenching than the few times they really hardcore fought (i.e. after Vadim got out of jail and took off then came back or when Vadim found out Dan had sex with his wife). The sudden downward spiral of their relatoinship just had such a sense of helplessness to it and a resignation to be disconnected and miserable without even trying to figure things out. But after Vadim took Dan on their little spontanteous mountain retreat and they started to work through their issues (life-altering fisting part II) it worked up to a pleasant ending that I am happy to have reached after 2 straight weeks of binge reading the Special Forces series. I can't say I would put my heart through the trauma of re-reading this series tho. It had some really rough times that took an emotional toll, but the culminations of the whole story was well worth the heartache. I may re-read Soldiers in the future and just imagine that at the end Vadim and Dan made it out okay and lived happy ever in the Scottish countryside instead of putting myself through the bullshit and angst of Mercenaries and some of Veterans again. That being said, I would still ABSOLUTELY 100% recommend this series with out a doubt
Ugh I was literally (not an exaggeration) bawling my eyes out through the first few chapters where they drifted apart in angry and depressed silence. This estrangement was even more soul wrenching than the few times they really hardcore fought (i.e. after Vadim got out of jail and took off then came back or when Vadim found out Dan had sex with his wife). The sudden downward spiral of their relatoinship just had such a sense of helplessness to it and a resignation to be disconnected and miserable without even trying to figure things out. But after Vadim took Dan on their little spontanteous mountain retreat and they started to work through their issues (life-altering fisting part II) it worked up to a pleasant ending that I am happy to have reached after 2 straight weeks of binge reading the Special Forces series. I can't say I would put my heart through the trauma of re-reading this series tho. It had some really rough times that took an emotional toll, but the culminations of the whole story was well worth the heartache. I may re-read Soldiers in the future and just imagine that at the end Vadim and Dan made it out okay and lived happy ever in the Scottish countryside instead of putting myself through the bullshit and angst of Mercenaries and some of Veterans again. That being said, I would still ABSOLUTELY 100% recommend this series with out a doubt
marlobo's review
3.0
3.5 stars.
I love Hooch.
I despise Jean.
I didn't enjoy that sexual relationships between Vadim & Hooch and between Dan & Jean persist in this cycle at all
I love Hooch.
I despise Jean.
I didn't enjoy that sexual relationships between Vadim & Hooch and between Dan & Jean persist in this cycle at all
fishyla's review
5.0
I have no words. Seriously.
It was beyond awesome and I was torn between sighing in relief that it finally ended and rereading it over and over again since I knew I would miss Dan and Vadin both. And Hooch and Matt.
I read the first installment a few months ago and I felt like I've been caught up with the series for months.
Dan and Vadim's relationship's nothing short of beautiful. They had come a very long way from the two soldiers they had been when they first met. They were both so fucked up in their own way and how they cope and help each other with it in the end was so heartwarming, especially since I clearly remember how they interact in the past.
I can safely say that Special Forces had changed a lot of how I see things now. It's not everyday that I'm able to find books with such big impact and it makes this book even more precious.
I'm definitely buying them all :D
It was beyond awesome and I was torn between sighing in relief that it finally ended and rereading it over and over again since I knew I would miss Dan and Vadin both. And Hooch and Matt.
I read the first installment a few months ago and I felt like I've been caught up with the series for months.
Dan and Vadim's relationship's nothing short of beautiful. They had come a very long way from the two soldiers they had been when they first met. They were both so fucked up in their own way and how they cope and help each other with it in the end was so heartwarming, especially since I clearly remember how they interact in the past.
I can safely say that Special Forces had changed a lot of how I see things now. It's not everyday that I'm able to find books with such big impact and it makes this book even more precious.
I'm definitely buying them all :D
nicola949's review
5.0
This is a fabulous conclusion to the story of Dan and Vadim, full of amazing highs and heart-breaking lows. Big on the emotional pull, the characters were once again complex and compelling. Finishing this book, the last volume in the series, was bittersweet - while I eagerly wanted to see how the authors ended the story, after such an epic reading journey, I actually felt sadness to reach the end and know the journey was over!
munderoon's review
4.0
"It'll remain our secret, then. Our very own story." He smiled and leaned in for a gentle kiss, and whispered, "for no one to tell."
Thank you for sharing your story with us.
I'm gonna close my eyes from time to time, thinking of you both, Dan and Vadim, living and loving somewhere out there. I'm gonna miss you, but you'll never be forgotten.
Goodbye, soldiers.
Thank you for sharing your story with us.
I'm gonna close my eyes from time to time, thinking of you both, Dan and Vadim, living and loving somewhere out there. I'm gonna miss you, but you'll never be forgotten.
Goodbye, soldiers.
loulou87's review
3.0
I skimmed.
I read spoilers because I couldn't read anymore.
I still hate Dan, even more right now.
Jean can burn in hell.
Vadim deserves better.
I'm just bummed with how their relationship turned out to be.
I read spoilers because I couldn't read anymore.
I still hate Dan, even more right now.
Jean can burn in hell.
Vadim deserves better.
I'm just bummed with how their relationship turned out to be.
leahkarge's review
5.0
Review for Special Forces as a whole can be found here.
Favorite Quotes:
He placed his palm against the thick door and let his forehead follow. Leaning against it, he couldn’t hear a sound from the room and didn’t expect it either. And he suddenly knew. Amongst the numbness and the emptiness, through the pain of over a year, and after having become strangers that could hardly look at each other, he suddenly knew the one single, unshakable truth, and it was the first thing he’d felt for a long time.
“I love you.”
(39, Dan)
Home. Strange concept. He’d lost his home long ago, since he’d arrived, even though it had been sitting right beside him.
(47, Dan)
They’d grown apart, separated not by war - but by peace, and yet some things he remembered. Always would. Mine. Yours. Scars and caresses.
(71, Dan)
Vadim nodded, then slowly came closer again to touch Dan’s forehead with his, closed his eyes, as if to draw strength, when indeed all he could feel was Dan’s presence, Dan with him, not somewhere else, doing whatever. The world had become smaller and that was reassuring.
(71, Vadim)
Fucking scars. Fucking memories, each and every of them connected to Vadim. “I can read you ... on my body.” Forced out between locked teeth.
(74, Dan)
The tough bit was the row of knuckles, and that could take forever. A forever that no one would take for anyone who meant anything less than everything.
(77, Dan)
"There is something...something that makes every person what they are. The core. I’m still, somewhere, the guy you met in that awful place. The man who has committed all those crimes. But I’m different. So are you. But the core...that’s the same, and once you get to know that core, changes don’t screw up the love. You could have turned out a farmer like Duncan. I’d have still fallen for you."
“You’re not taking the piss, are you?” Dan smiled, a measure of confidence creeping back into his low voice. “If I had been a farmer I wouldn’t have matched you, wouldn’t have been equal. You sure you would have fallen in love with me?”
“It might have gone differently,” Vadim murmured. “Meeting would have been difficult, for once. But your strength is...not just the strength to beat the shit out of a man and to truss him up like a turkey or to put a gun into a guy’s mouth...you do match me. You have so much guts, Dan. You’d have shown me my limits, in any fashion, in any possible way. I might have been older, calmer, but I could have fallen for a man who’s not a soldier. Easily. I fell for a masseur when I was young. Soldiers were just...the easiest, because they were there. Even Szandor. He was a fencer. Camp. Aristocratic. I could have fallen for him easily.”
(98-9, Vadim & Dan)
"I never realised how...” pausing, gathering his thoughts while his hand continued to stroke and touch, in the most tender way. “Never realised how much you might have been hurt, or worried, ... you know. Others. Until I found out how fucking painful it is to fear losing you."
(99-100, Dan)
“I am still as fucked up, broken and scarred as you are. Just differently.”
“You think together we make something like a whole?” Dan splayed his fingers on Vadim’s chest, holding him close, body pressed against body, and it felt so damn good. “Don’t care how stupid it sounds, but with both of us fucked up, you think we are complementary?”
(100, Vadim & Dan)
He was woken by the smell of a freshly brewed coffee and the first thing he saw was Vadim’s face as he held the mug out to him. He couldn't remember when he had last grinned that widely that it threatened to split his face, and if he had ever seen anything so fucking wonderful, as Vadim’s face, Vadim’s body, Vadim’s presence and...Vadim. It felt as if he had started to live again.
(103, Dan)
Vadim’s hands moved over Dan’s chest, the expensive cloth whispering, and his eyes were closed, shutting out everything and everybody but Dan. Dan, always Dan, who was there, who was everywhere around him, life, soul, essence.
(191, Vadim)
They stayed on the farm for the Christmas holidays, and Dan joked more than once what a suburban couple they had become – if only they’d lived in suburbia. Yet secretly, despite his mocking of the peace and calm, he relished the simplicity of it all. Sitting on the patio after a good work-out, in sight of the old apple trees and with the view over the hills, watching Vadim when he came back from a run, and – more often than not – ravishing him on the spot.
(236-7, Dan)
Vadim stepped closer and opened his arms, then embraced Dan, who kept standing still and unmoving for another moment, before he gave into the urge and wrapped his arms around Vadim. Inhaling the scent deeply, of body heat and Vadim’s favourite shower gel, his after shave and simply the essence of him, the combination of all the familiar smells. Holding onto him tightly, for a long time.
(310, Dan)
Home...Vadim had always been his home, since that goddamned fateful day in the bloody mountains.
(312, Dan)
He refused to be one of the corpses that were shuffled towards the front every morning. Those who had died in the night and whose bodies were handed from one to another, to be thrown outside. Somewhere. Anywhere, didn't matter, just corpses.
He mattered, though. Mattered to the memories of a young man who laughed and joked, who shared his bed and his thoughts, who touched him and kissed him, who sometimes fucked him but always offered his body. That perfect, sculpted, smooth body without a single scar. That man who'd told him he'd always be there, always be ready, always be waiting and would always want him. The man to whose image Hooch clung, every time he blackened out from the pain, pissed and shat into his torn uniform, and threw up from the stench and the little he managed to get into his stomach.
(328, Hooch)
Matt’s trembling hand raised to his face, his head dropped, elbows on his thighs, and he covered his face with his hand when he couldn’t stop the silent sobs that were heaving his chest and shaking his shoulders. He made no sound, except for one strangled choke. He couldn't stop, though. Couldn’t get his goddamned act together again, despite being all too aware of having nothing but a thin cloth partition between Hooch’s bed and the next. In a ward full of nurses, soldiers, and their visitors.
(342, Matt)
Not just a buddy, not even a fuck-buddy. But the man he loved. He couldn’t deal with the lie any more, but he was tied to its confines.
(324, Matt)
“When it got really bad, when nothing else got me through, I was thinking of you. How you tilt your head when you laugh; the way you eat your cereal really fast so that it doesn’t go soggy; how you squint your eyes and scrunch up your face into a grimace, every time anyone mentions eggs.” Hooch dropped his voice even more, until Matt had to lean closer to hear the whisper. “Your shit-eating grin when you wave your ass into my face, telling me to fuck you. The sound you make when you cum, going straight to my cock and blowing my mind. The smell of your sweat right after sex..." Hooch paused, pulling in a breath. "And when I wasn't sure if I could make it through another hour, then I thought of your face that looks so damned young when you're asleep, and I remembered how you sometimes say my name, and how the sound of your voice makes me ache inside.”
Hooch fell silent and Matt stared at him. Wide-eyed, frozen in shock. Insides churning, a pain he hadn't known before, travelling from his heart throughout his body, and it felt so fucking good. Understanding with every fibre of his being what Hooch had said in too many words. More than he’d ever used before, and without those three simple ones that would have sufficed. Matt felt his eyes sting again but a smile grew on his face. Too much, again, but of an entirely different kind. "I don’t..." his voice trembled, “scrunch up my face.” Couldn’t trust his voice, as shaky as his hands.
(342-3, Hooch & Matt)
Matt shook his head, looked down at the Bud in his hand, then suddenly raised his head in anger. Aggression born out of frustration, but damn, Hooch had changed the rules of this game entirely. "Fucking yes! It has to do with you. Not knowing, not being able to ask, just lies. Lies and more lies. No grieving allowed, not a fucking thing. Couldn't contact your family, haven't got a fucking clue where they are, and the south is damned big. Couldn't even pretend I was your buddy, in case anyone wondered why the fuck a Marine was buddies with a Delta. No messages, not a fucking thing and I was going insane!" Matt was getting more agitated, and stood up. "The only fucking way to find out anything at all, like, if you were even alive, was to phone Dan, hoping with his Spa he might have contacts. I was so fucking desperate, I would have tried anything. If he hadn’t known a Red Cross bigwig who fed him some information, how the fuck would I have ever found out anything? And even when Dan told me you got a visit from the Red Cross, you couldn't fucking write to me, could you? Fucking hell, no! Only family, and who the fuck was I? Just some stupid fucking Marine who was going off the edge, not knowing if he's lost the fucking man he fucking loves or not!"
(349, Matt)
Getting back into the living room, he watched Matt from the hallway. He could see his profile, the chiselled face, and that perfect body, right now more or less hidden beneath t-shirt and shorts. Young, unspoiled, and if he could help it, Matt would remain like that. Watching him for a while, undisturbed, until Matt lifted his head, cottoned on that he was being watched, and cast a smile at Hooch. Another of those motherfucking dazzling smiles. The sort that made Hooch's knees go weak and his mind step onto a merry-go-round that didn't quite understand why this particular man, this ‘kid’ had managed to crawl beneath his skin and settle down inside his heart. Matt was really quite something.
(364, Hooch)
"Girls are pretty, I'm a man. I'm not pretty."
"What would you rather be?. Handsome? Adorable? Perfect? Stunning? Gorgeous? Breathtaking? Beautiful?"
"Am I?"
"All of it and more."
(366, Matt & Hooch)
Hooch said nothing, just looked at Matt, fingers twisting into the fabric of his tshirt. Looking at him for a long time, before he pulled him across and close. "If I told you that I wanted to spend my days and nights with you, live with you, as my partner, because out there, in Hell, I realised that you mean the world to me? That you are my sanity, my laughter, my lust, my love, my comfort, my day and my night, my heat and cold and everything? If I told you that, would you think that translates to 'convenient'?"
Matt swallowed, staring at Hooch wide-eyed. "N...no."
"Damn right. Now shut up, Donahue, and tell me that you’ll spend the rest of your life with me.”
Matt pronounced his next words very carefully:
“I do.”
(367, Hooch & Matt)
“Dan! I didn’t know you were here!”
He grinned like a fool, when his daughter flung herself into his arms, nearly toppling him over.
(424, Kisa & Dan)
Dan glanced to the side, located Vadim's hand and took it. Holding it lightly in his own while fishing for his pack of fags with the other. At least he could still smoke outside. Vadim lightly closed his hand around Dan’s, and Nikolai didn’t seem to think it important, or ignored it, or just took it in stride.
(430, Dan)
"Tell me, Nikolai, do you have a favourite country or place?"
“I like sunny places, whatever part of the earth where it’s summer. Like now. Was getting cold in Europe, so I came over for scuba diving, snorkling and opal digging in the Outback. And you?”
"Afghanistan." The word came out without a moment's hesitation, while his hand gripped Vadim's tighter, and Vadim’s hand tensed, as did his jaw muscles. Things came back to Dan, no doubt, just at the mentioning of the word. "No competition, it will always be the Afghan mountains. Nothing is as majestic." And nothing else had swallowed him whole, changed his life, taken him in and settled in his mind, like that land of sky, mountains and dust.
(431, Dan & Nikolai)
Sitting back, Dan looked up and at Vadim. Taking a long time to just look. The short blond hair, the face he knew so well, and how it had changed over the years. Lined, some wrinkles, slightly more tanned than it used to, age seemed to be doing that to a person, and thus the pale eyes looked even more stunning. Stunning, yes, that was the word, the face had never lost its impact and the body had never diminished its allure. The years had been kind. Vadim still was the man he'd always wanted. Everyone else, no matter who and where and what, paled in comparison to Vadim. His Russkie. His cunt. Dan smiled at last.
(443-4, Dan)
"So, do you want to marry me for convenience or for my outstanding beauty, charm and loveliness?" The toothy grin nearly split Dan’s face.
"I thought you'd swallow the hook easier if I told you it's just for the legal side of things." Vadim reached over and took Dan's hand. "While, in truth, I want to see you in that kilt again."
“You’re so predictable, Russkie!” Dan laughed, “and you didn’t even take proper advantage the last time I wore one.”
(444, Dan & Vadim)
Vadim reached out with his other hand and held Dan’s in both of his. "You made me human. I stand by that. You made me into somebody I would have wanted to become, if I'd ever thought about what I wanted to be that wasn't about a record or power or a rank or some...delusion I was chasing. If all that was gone and stripped away, the man I am, I am because of what you did, what you made me feel all those years. Damn right you're going to marry me."
Dan swallowed, stared at Vadim and swallowed again. Fuck, that had hit him, fair and square, and all he could do was batter the sudden flood of emotions down with a jackhammer. "I...wouldn't be me without you. Wouldn't even exist anymore." He tilted his head, wild grey hair, mixed with dark, falling into his face.
(462, Vadim & Dan)
Taking a sip, Hooch savoured the taste for a long moment, with half-closed eyes. Never closing them fully, not unless he was with those he trusted, and that was exactly two men, and no more.
(503, Hooch)
“You know,” Dan mused on the way to the elevator, “If anyone had told me at thirty, that I’d walk along in public, holding hands with a man, I would have punched them. If they had told me I’d actually marry a man, I would have punched myself.” He chuckled.
“Yes. And I swore never to marry again." Vadim let Dan step into the elevator first, then followed. "But, come to think of it, we're not doing too badly as ageing middleclass faggots, are we?"
Dan laughed out loud as the doors of the elevator closed behind them. "You can call me a faggot any time, but middleclass? That’s an insult."
(548-9, Dan & Vadim)
There was cheer and clapping, and some of the regular hotel guests who didn’t belong to the wedding party, turned their heads at the two splendidly dressed men, who were walking hand in hand towards the crowd. The heads turned even more, when a gentleman in full US Army officer parade uniform stepped towards them, closely followed by another handsome man, blond, and elegantly dressed.
(549, Vadim)
Just like their lives together: twenty-five years, a mixed bag of extremes. A past that had been overcome by the present, no more Soviet Union, no more ban on homosexuality in the British Forces, equal rights for same sex couples, and most importantly, no more wars for the two of them.
(552, Dan)
He was nervous. It wasn't that the other groom could run away, or that it was, after so many years, anything but a ceremony. But it was a very public statement of what they were, and a bold one at that, at least for their generation. After everything they'd seen and encountered, after the shame, the humiliation, and a prison term, after the secrecy and the excuses and lies. From the first meeting with the Baroness, where he'd told her he needed to find an enemy because he respected him, to acting as if they were just comrades when meeting Dan's family. All the lies had slowly melted away. These days, they on the outside what they truly were inside, deep down. No more need to hide or trick.
(552, Vadim)
Blade steel. Weapons had brought them together, it was only right that they kept them together.
(555, Vadim)
Dan looked down at his left hand, a ring there, for the first time in his life, and the swirls of steel echoed the irregular pattern of scars on his hand. Functional and fucked up, just like them, but when he lifted his head and smiled into pale blue eyes, he knew that they were everything but merely functional.
(555, Dan)
“Daniel Ewan McFadyen and Vadim Petrovich Krasnorada, you are now partners in law. Ladies and Gentlemen will you please congratulate Dan and Vadim as they celebrate their partnership.”
The applause and cheer drowned out even the piper and the drums, and came to a crescendo, when Vadim stepped a little closer, and, ringed hand against Dan’s face, kissed him – the other arm around Dan's shoulders. He'd wanted to do that all the time, the 'sealing' kiss, and then placed his forehead against Dan's. "I love you,” he murmured.
Dan smiled, felt the smile etch itself into his memory by the sheer magnitude of emotion. His voice was shaky and thus he whispered, in Russian, "I love you, my cunt."
(556-7, Registrar, Vadim & Dan)
“We have long ago welcomed you into our family.” Duncan said to Vadim, with his warm smile, arms open, “let us welcome you once more, brother in law.” Vadim embraced him with no second thought, just the word, “brother” held a strange magic for somebody who couldn't imagine how it could have been, growing up as a team, sharing blood like that. Brother and sister in law.
(557, Duncan & Vadim)
Dan managed to get through the last well-wishers, before walking over to her. He smiled at the Baroness. Tiny now, a little stooped and deceptively fragile, but the steel was still there, and the mind as sharp as a cut diamond. "There is something I've wanted to do for many years." He stuck the cane under his arm and bent down, wrapping his arms around her frame in a tight embrace. Holding her close, and after a split second, she embraced him back, with surprising strength.
Dan murmured into her ear, "I love you, Maggie."
After another squeeze, he straightened back up, grinning down at her. She reached out for him, and her eyes were dangerously bright, shimmering with an emotion so rarely expressed, as she patted his cheek.
"I know, Dan. I know." Her voice had a tremor in it. "Now off you go to your husband."
He chuckled, "I have to get used to that."
"You will." She smiled and shooed him off, but when he turned his head, he saw how she dabbed at her eyes with an emblazoned handkerchief.
(559-560, Dan & Maggie)
Quotes from Part 3 continued in comments. (Just too many good parts...)
Favorite Quotes:
He placed his palm against the thick door and let his forehead follow. Leaning against it, he couldn’t hear a sound from the room and didn’t expect it either. And he suddenly knew. Amongst the numbness and the emptiness, through the pain of over a year, and after having become strangers that could hardly look at each other, he suddenly knew the one single, unshakable truth, and it was the first thing he’d felt for a long time.
“I love you.”
(39, Dan)
Home. Strange concept. He’d lost his home long ago, since he’d arrived, even though it had been sitting right beside him.
(47, Dan)
They’d grown apart, separated not by war - but by peace, and yet some things he remembered. Always would. Mine. Yours. Scars and caresses.
(71, Dan)
Vadim nodded, then slowly came closer again to touch Dan’s forehead with his, closed his eyes, as if to draw strength, when indeed all he could feel was Dan’s presence, Dan with him, not somewhere else, doing whatever. The world had become smaller and that was reassuring.
(71, Vadim)
Fucking scars. Fucking memories, each and every of them connected to Vadim. “I can read you ... on my body.” Forced out between locked teeth.
(74, Dan)
The tough bit was the row of knuckles, and that could take forever. A forever that no one would take for anyone who meant anything less than everything.
(77, Dan)
"There is something...something that makes every person what they are. The core. I’m still, somewhere, the guy you met in that awful place. The man who has committed all those crimes. But I’m different. So are you. But the core...that’s the same, and once you get to know that core, changes don’t screw up the love. You could have turned out a farmer like Duncan. I’d have still fallen for you."
“You’re not taking the piss, are you?” Dan smiled, a measure of confidence creeping back into his low voice. “If I had been a farmer I wouldn’t have matched you, wouldn’t have been equal. You sure you would have fallen in love with me?”
“It might have gone differently,” Vadim murmured. “Meeting would have been difficult, for once. But your strength is...not just the strength to beat the shit out of a man and to truss him up like a turkey or to put a gun into a guy’s mouth...you do match me. You have so much guts, Dan. You’d have shown me my limits, in any fashion, in any possible way. I might have been older, calmer, but I could have fallen for a man who’s not a soldier. Easily. I fell for a masseur when I was young. Soldiers were just...the easiest, because they were there. Even Szandor. He was a fencer. Camp. Aristocratic. I could have fallen for him easily.”
(98-9, Vadim & Dan)
"I never realised how...” pausing, gathering his thoughts while his hand continued to stroke and touch, in the most tender way. “Never realised how much you might have been hurt, or worried, ... you know. Others. Until I found out how fucking painful it is to fear losing you."
(99-100, Dan)
“I am still as fucked up, broken and scarred as you are. Just differently.”
“You think together we make something like a whole?” Dan splayed his fingers on Vadim’s chest, holding him close, body pressed against body, and it felt so damn good. “Don’t care how stupid it sounds, but with both of us fucked up, you think we are complementary?”
(100, Vadim & Dan)
He was woken by the smell of a freshly brewed coffee and the first thing he saw was Vadim’s face as he held the mug out to him. He couldn't remember when he had last grinned that widely that it threatened to split his face, and if he had ever seen anything so fucking wonderful, as Vadim’s face, Vadim’s body, Vadim’s presence and...Vadim. It felt as if he had started to live again.
(103, Dan)
Vadim’s hands moved over Dan’s chest, the expensive cloth whispering, and his eyes were closed, shutting out everything and everybody but Dan. Dan, always Dan, who was there, who was everywhere around him, life, soul, essence.
(191, Vadim)
They stayed on the farm for the Christmas holidays, and Dan joked more than once what a suburban couple they had become – if only they’d lived in suburbia. Yet secretly, despite his mocking of the peace and calm, he relished the simplicity of it all. Sitting on the patio after a good work-out, in sight of the old apple trees and with the view over the hills, watching Vadim when he came back from a run, and – more often than not – ravishing him on the spot.
(236-7, Dan)
Vadim stepped closer and opened his arms, then embraced Dan, who kept standing still and unmoving for another moment, before he gave into the urge and wrapped his arms around Vadim. Inhaling the scent deeply, of body heat and Vadim’s favourite shower gel, his after shave and simply the essence of him, the combination of all the familiar smells. Holding onto him tightly, for a long time.
(310, Dan)
Home...Vadim had always been his home, since that goddamned fateful day in the bloody mountains.
(312, Dan)
He refused to be one of the corpses that were shuffled towards the front every morning. Those who had died in the night and whose bodies were handed from one to another, to be thrown outside. Somewhere. Anywhere, didn't matter, just corpses.
He mattered, though. Mattered to the memories of a young man who laughed and joked, who shared his bed and his thoughts, who touched him and kissed him, who sometimes fucked him but always offered his body. That perfect, sculpted, smooth body without a single scar. That man who'd told him he'd always be there, always be ready, always be waiting and would always want him. The man to whose image Hooch clung, every time he blackened out from the pain, pissed and shat into his torn uniform, and threw up from the stench and the little he managed to get into his stomach.
(328, Hooch)
Matt’s trembling hand raised to his face, his head dropped, elbows on his thighs, and he covered his face with his hand when he couldn’t stop the silent sobs that were heaving his chest and shaking his shoulders. He made no sound, except for one strangled choke. He couldn't stop, though. Couldn’t get his goddamned act together again, despite being all too aware of having nothing but a thin cloth partition between Hooch’s bed and the next. In a ward full of nurses, soldiers, and their visitors.
(342, Matt)
Not just a buddy, not even a fuck-buddy. But the man he loved. He couldn’t deal with the lie any more, but he was tied to its confines.
(324, Matt)
“When it got really bad, when nothing else got me through, I was thinking of you. How you tilt your head when you laugh; the way you eat your cereal really fast so that it doesn’t go soggy; how you squint your eyes and scrunch up your face into a grimace, every time anyone mentions eggs.” Hooch dropped his voice even more, until Matt had to lean closer to hear the whisper. “Your shit-eating grin when you wave your ass into my face, telling me to fuck you. The sound you make when you cum, going straight to my cock and blowing my mind. The smell of your sweat right after sex..." Hooch paused, pulling in a breath. "And when I wasn't sure if I could make it through another hour, then I thought of your face that looks so damned young when you're asleep, and I remembered how you sometimes say my name, and how the sound of your voice makes me ache inside.”
Hooch fell silent and Matt stared at him. Wide-eyed, frozen in shock. Insides churning, a pain he hadn't known before, travelling from his heart throughout his body, and it felt so fucking good. Understanding with every fibre of his being what Hooch had said in too many words. More than he’d ever used before, and without those three simple ones that would have sufficed. Matt felt his eyes sting again but a smile grew on his face. Too much, again, but of an entirely different kind. "I don’t..." his voice trembled, “scrunch up my face.” Couldn’t trust his voice, as shaky as his hands.
(342-3, Hooch & Matt)
Matt shook his head, looked down at the Bud in his hand, then suddenly raised his head in anger. Aggression born out of frustration, but damn, Hooch had changed the rules of this game entirely. "Fucking yes! It has to do with you. Not knowing, not being able to ask, just lies. Lies and more lies. No grieving allowed, not a fucking thing. Couldn't contact your family, haven't got a fucking clue where they are, and the south is damned big. Couldn't even pretend I was your buddy, in case anyone wondered why the fuck a Marine was buddies with a Delta. No messages, not a fucking thing and I was going insane!" Matt was getting more agitated, and stood up. "The only fucking way to find out anything at all, like, if you were even alive, was to phone Dan, hoping with his Spa he might have contacts. I was so fucking desperate, I would have tried anything. If he hadn’t known a Red Cross bigwig who fed him some information, how the fuck would I have ever found out anything? And even when Dan told me you got a visit from the Red Cross, you couldn't fucking write to me, could you? Fucking hell, no! Only family, and who the fuck was I? Just some stupid fucking Marine who was going off the edge, not knowing if he's lost the fucking man he fucking loves or not!"
(349, Matt)
Getting back into the living room, he watched Matt from the hallway. He could see his profile, the chiselled face, and that perfect body, right now more or less hidden beneath t-shirt and shorts. Young, unspoiled, and if he could help it, Matt would remain like that. Watching him for a while, undisturbed, until Matt lifted his head, cottoned on that he was being watched, and cast a smile at Hooch. Another of those motherfucking dazzling smiles. The sort that made Hooch's knees go weak and his mind step onto a merry-go-round that didn't quite understand why this particular man, this ‘kid’ had managed to crawl beneath his skin and settle down inside his heart. Matt was really quite something.
(364, Hooch)
"Girls are pretty, I'm a man. I'm not pretty."
"What would you rather be?. Handsome? Adorable? Perfect? Stunning? Gorgeous? Breathtaking? Beautiful?"
"Am I?"
"All of it and more."
(366, Matt & Hooch)
Hooch said nothing, just looked at Matt, fingers twisting into the fabric of his tshirt. Looking at him for a long time, before he pulled him across and close. "If I told you that I wanted to spend my days and nights with you, live with you, as my partner, because out there, in Hell, I realised that you mean the world to me? That you are my sanity, my laughter, my lust, my love, my comfort, my day and my night, my heat and cold and everything? If I told you that, would you think that translates to 'convenient'?"
Matt swallowed, staring at Hooch wide-eyed. "N...no."
"Damn right. Now shut up, Donahue, and tell me that you’ll spend the rest of your life with me.”
Matt pronounced his next words very carefully:
“I do.”
(367, Hooch & Matt)
“Dan! I didn’t know you were here!”
He grinned like a fool, when his daughter flung herself into his arms, nearly toppling him over.
(424, Kisa & Dan)
Dan glanced to the side, located Vadim's hand and took it. Holding it lightly in his own while fishing for his pack of fags with the other. At least he could still smoke outside. Vadim lightly closed his hand around Dan’s, and Nikolai didn’t seem to think it important, or ignored it, or just took it in stride.
(430, Dan)
"Tell me, Nikolai, do you have a favourite country or place?"
“I like sunny places, whatever part of the earth where it’s summer. Like now. Was getting cold in Europe, so I came over for scuba diving, snorkling and opal digging in the Outback. And you?”
"Afghanistan." The word came out without a moment's hesitation, while his hand gripped Vadim's tighter, and Vadim’s hand tensed, as did his jaw muscles. Things came back to Dan, no doubt, just at the mentioning of the word. "No competition, it will always be the Afghan mountains. Nothing is as majestic." And nothing else had swallowed him whole, changed his life, taken him in and settled in his mind, like that land of sky, mountains and dust.
(431, Dan & Nikolai)
Sitting back, Dan looked up and at Vadim. Taking a long time to just look. The short blond hair, the face he knew so well, and how it had changed over the years. Lined, some wrinkles, slightly more tanned than it used to, age seemed to be doing that to a person, and thus the pale eyes looked even more stunning. Stunning, yes, that was the word, the face had never lost its impact and the body had never diminished its allure. The years had been kind. Vadim still was the man he'd always wanted. Everyone else, no matter who and where and what, paled in comparison to Vadim. His Russkie. His cunt. Dan smiled at last.
(443-4, Dan)
"So, do you want to marry me for convenience or for my outstanding beauty, charm and loveliness?" The toothy grin nearly split Dan’s face.
"I thought you'd swallow the hook easier if I told you it's just for the legal side of things." Vadim reached over and took Dan's hand. "While, in truth, I want to see you in that kilt again."
“You’re so predictable, Russkie!” Dan laughed, “and you didn’t even take proper advantage the last time I wore one.”
(444, Dan & Vadim)
Vadim reached out with his other hand and held Dan’s in both of his. "You made me human. I stand by that. You made me into somebody I would have wanted to become, if I'd ever thought about what I wanted to be that wasn't about a record or power or a rank or some...delusion I was chasing. If all that was gone and stripped away, the man I am, I am because of what you did, what you made me feel all those years. Damn right you're going to marry me."
Dan swallowed, stared at Vadim and swallowed again. Fuck, that had hit him, fair and square, and all he could do was batter the sudden flood of emotions down with a jackhammer. "I...wouldn't be me without you. Wouldn't even exist anymore." He tilted his head, wild grey hair, mixed with dark, falling into his face.
(462, Vadim & Dan)
Taking a sip, Hooch savoured the taste for a long moment, with half-closed eyes. Never closing them fully, not unless he was with those he trusted, and that was exactly two men, and no more.
(503, Hooch)
“You know,” Dan mused on the way to the elevator, “If anyone had told me at thirty, that I’d walk along in public, holding hands with a man, I would have punched them. If they had told me I’d actually marry a man, I would have punched myself.” He chuckled.
“Yes. And I swore never to marry again." Vadim let Dan step into the elevator first, then followed. "But, come to think of it, we're not doing too badly as ageing middleclass faggots, are we?"
Dan laughed out loud as the doors of the elevator closed behind them. "You can call me a faggot any time, but middleclass? That’s an insult."
(548-9, Dan & Vadim)
There was cheer and clapping, and some of the regular hotel guests who didn’t belong to the wedding party, turned their heads at the two splendidly dressed men, who were walking hand in hand towards the crowd. The heads turned even more, when a gentleman in full US Army officer parade uniform stepped towards them, closely followed by another handsome man, blond, and elegantly dressed.
(549, Vadim)
Just like their lives together: twenty-five years, a mixed bag of extremes. A past that had been overcome by the present, no more Soviet Union, no more ban on homosexuality in the British Forces, equal rights for same sex couples, and most importantly, no more wars for the two of them.
(552, Dan)
He was nervous. It wasn't that the other groom could run away, or that it was, after so many years, anything but a ceremony. But it was a very public statement of what they were, and a bold one at that, at least for their generation. After everything they'd seen and encountered, after the shame, the humiliation, and a prison term, after the secrecy and the excuses and lies. From the first meeting with the Baroness, where he'd told her he needed to find an enemy because he respected him, to acting as if they were just comrades when meeting Dan's family. All the lies had slowly melted away. These days, they on the outside what they truly were inside, deep down. No more need to hide or trick.
(552, Vadim)
Blade steel. Weapons had brought them together, it was only right that they kept them together.
(555, Vadim)
Dan looked down at his left hand, a ring there, for the first time in his life, and the swirls of steel echoed the irregular pattern of scars on his hand. Functional and fucked up, just like them, but when he lifted his head and smiled into pale blue eyes, he knew that they were everything but merely functional.
(555, Dan)
“Daniel Ewan McFadyen and Vadim Petrovich Krasnorada, you are now partners in law. Ladies and Gentlemen will you please congratulate Dan and Vadim as they celebrate their partnership.”
The applause and cheer drowned out even the piper and the drums, and came to a crescendo, when Vadim stepped a little closer, and, ringed hand against Dan’s face, kissed him – the other arm around Dan's shoulders. He'd wanted to do that all the time, the 'sealing' kiss, and then placed his forehead against Dan's. "I love you,” he murmured.
Dan smiled, felt the smile etch itself into his memory by the sheer magnitude of emotion. His voice was shaky and thus he whispered, in Russian, "I love you, my cunt."
(556-7, Registrar, Vadim & Dan)
“We have long ago welcomed you into our family.” Duncan said to Vadim, with his warm smile, arms open, “let us welcome you once more, brother in law.” Vadim embraced him with no second thought, just the word, “brother” held a strange magic for somebody who couldn't imagine how it could have been, growing up as a team, sharing blood like that. Brother and sister in law.
(557, Duncan & Vadim)
Dan managed to get through the last well-wishers, before walking over to her. He smiled at the Baroness. Tiny now, a little stooped and deceptively fragile, but the steel was still there, and the mind as sharp as a cut diamond. "There is something I've wanted to do for many years." He stuck the cane under his arm and bent down, wrapping his arms around her frame in a tight embrace. Holding her close, and after a split second, she embraced him back, with surprising strength.
Dan murmured into her ear, "I love you, Maggie."
After another squeeze, he straightened back up, grinning down at her. She reached out for him, and her eyes were dangerously bright, shimmering with an emotion so rarely expressed, as she patted his cheek.
"I know, Dan. I know." Her voice had a tremor in it. "Now off you go to your husband."
He chuckled, "I have to get used to that."
"You will." She smiled and shooed him off, but when he turned his head, he saw how she dabbed at her eyes with an emblazoned handkerchief.
(559-560, Dan & Maggie)
Quotes from Part 3 continued in comments. (Just too many good parts...)