Special Forces: Soldiers Part I -Director's Cut

A masterpiece.

The best book ever.

A bible for all MM-genre fans.

A must-read before you die.

There are no words that can ever do justice to this book.

I wish I could describe it...

Dan and Vadim are always in my heart.

The best couple ever.

It was for sure not my last re-read.

A masterpiece.

The best book ever.

A bible for all MM-genre fans.

A must-read before you die.

There are no words that can ever do justice to this book.

I wish I could describe it...

Dan and Vadim are always in my heart.

The best couple ever.

It was for sure not my last re-read.

"There’s no glory in this whole shit. No war is ever glorious. Heroes are usually dead. Besides, they rarely turn into heroes because they are super-humans, but because of circumstances.
Heroes rarely think. Heroes just act. So, all this is, is a stage for glory, small, personal and up to each one of us."

My Dan...

My Vadim...



...the first year they met...

"He’d do anything, absolutely everything for this man, suck him, kill, kill himself, run away, be something else, anything else, everything just blurred, darkness, a place inside that only held him and Dan. Nobody else, nothing else, no time, no place, no affiliations, no past, no future."

"When you're like this, Vadim, I want to own you, and taste you, burrow all the way into your body until I feel so much it fucking hurts and your scent clings to every pore. I want to hurt you, tear you apart, fuck you until you plead and scream and bleed, and all that, because I can never get enough of you."

"If all they had was Afganistan, then he'd make it bloody worth it."

"I’d die for you, Dan. No questions asked."
"No, Vadim. No." Dan’s dark eyes were unforgivingly intense. "You must not die for me, not ever. You must live for me, you understand?"His fingertips rested on Vadim’s face. "Give me your word, you will live for me, whatever happens. Even if I never see you again. I need to believe that somewhere, out there, you are alive."

"Dan didn’t want to say anything, but the words were unstoppable. “I fucking love you. Don’t leave me. You’ve got to find me.” Again, fucking tears. Vadim shook his head, then pressed his face into the crook of Dan’s shoulder, hoped to hide his weakness and felt like a man condemned to die.
"I will... find you. If it’s the last thing I’ll do, I’ll come back. Nothing will stop me."

One rape. One torture. Accounts settled.

“Vadim.” Who are you—who am I? Alive, dead? Body moving towards the hand, seeking protection from the shadows. Nameless terror, but he’d be safe under the wings of the broad-shouldered demon. Remembered the hair. That name. Recognition of something deep, profound, reaching to a level where conscious thoughts didn’t matter. “Protect me.” Big words—small voice.

Vadim placed a kiss on that forehead, much like he would kiss Anoushka. “Yes.” How to explain what he’d done? Better not. “Needed to...ah.” No delicate way of putting it. “Uhm. Give you focus.” He winced. That sounded bad.

“If I’m unlucky, and if you find my body, will you bury it? Some rocks would do, I can’t stand the thought of being eaten by carrion. As if that mattered, eh? I’d be fucking dead.” Dan shrugged before tossing a grin towards Vadim, making light of a far-too-heavy situation.

“You’re as close to a fucking home as I get.”

“You could betray and kill me now and I wouldn’t give a shit as long as you stayed close until I died.”

Near the bottom, a substantial pack of Durex condoms, in a gaudy packet that flaunted a red sports car. Ironic, really, but he’d heard of ‘the curse of the perverts’ by now, tales of AIDS that decimated Western gays.

He’d never kissed a man; never in his whole life. Except...a kiss of death six years ago. Another first and last and always for--from Vadim. A rape—a kiss.

“Funny,” Dan murmured at long last, “it’s another first today.” He paused, “You seem to be the one for firsts,” his breath caught, “and lasts and always.”

“You...” just you, always you. My Russian cunt, my enemy, my comrade, my prisoner, my gaoler and my life. Words, unthinking. “Love...you.”

(By the way, the word 'cunt' appears 124 times on almost 700 pages. Dan, I just love you ;-)

Remembering those words. Love you. His lips moved into a smile, relieved, glad, no, worse than that. Better. I do, too. Shit, I do. Dan didn’t realise he was nodding off, despite the wetness. Wrapped around and inside Vadim, he fell asleep.


He took Dan’s hand, pulled the tasbih out and placed it on Dan’s palm. Prayer beads. He didn’t care much for the symbol, as he didn’t believe in God, and even less the more he fought them, the so-called soldiers of Allah, who knew what name they called him. But he did like the stone. Afghan lapis, dark blue, with specks of gold. “Found this at the market.” Sent one to Katya. Fuck. Katya and Dan. The two people that kept him sane.


“Your family.” Dan forced himself to look at it, didn’t want to see the face of the children, let alone the wife. This person who had some sort of rights over Vadim, who would know if he had died, while he was nothing, no one. An enemy without access to any information. Vadim turned the photo and pointed at the hand writing. His address in Moscow. “Just if anything happens."

Shut the fuck up, Russkie, pretend this world is not a shithole full of death and destruction, and come with me to stay and sleep in a real bed with starched linens and wake to sunshine in your face and the smell of a proper Scottish breakfast.

The smell and taste of his ‘enemy’s’ body, and the way Vadim kissed him and made him human. His home. Afghanistan was his home. You’re my home. I will find you.

“Ma’am, there is nowhere else for me to go.” Because I love a Russian, because I gave my word I’d be back. “ I’ve been in Afghanistan for seven years.” Because this is private, because it is none of your business.


“He spared my life. He did not kill me when he should have. I asked for mercy, and he gave me my life. My wife and children did not lose me on that day, because he did not pull trigger on me.”


He squeezed the hand again, turned, left, sat down on the bench, and cried, cried with the fear and the sadness and the pain, too tired to do anything but cry, didn’t even have the strength to tell the nurse to wake him up in an hour, couldn’t waste the time, needed to speak to Dan. Leaned against the wall and cried like a boy losing his family.

Dan didn’t want to say anything, but the words were unstoppable. “I fucking love you. Don’t leave me. You’ve got to find me.” Again, fucking tears. Vadim shook his head, then pressed his face into the crook of Dan’s shoulder, hoped to hide his weakness and felt like a man condemned to die. “I will...find you. If it’s the last thing I’ll do, I’ll come back. Nothing will stop me.”