“I sit, smoking, my head against the cool comfort of the fighter plane's wheel, its wing shielding but never embracing me. I'm a cold nestling tonight.”

“You’re with me,” Dan murmured against Vadim’s lips. “In my thoughts, my heart, my mind, no matter what I am doing. I goddamned need you, and I want you—always.”

“You broke me up there in the mountains. You cracked something in my head, I don’t know. I have never been obsessed with another person before or after. You just drilled your way in and since then, I’ve been yours. You got to a place that I didn’t know existed ... and all that has changed me, taken the stuff away I thought was true about me. In some weird, weird way, started something that turned me into more than a goodlooking bastard.”

“Me, i'm going to write ass-kicking trans* characters. I think I might end up writing not a single thing that is "pure" by some people's standards. Just because, and because I can.”

“You really do love him, don’t you?” she said quietly.Vadim blinked, then looked to the side, without seeing colours and patterns, but it helped him find words. Speaking about love without cliché, without borrowing somebody else’s well-worn words that were too comfortable. "Dan changed me in ways that stripped away the man I wanted to be, and the man I was made to be, and the man I was expected to be. He skinned me alive, and left only…..somebody who….” He breathed but barely. “…can live and die now, like a human being, not an automation, not somebody else’s creation. Dan took my fear of death. I can’t die now. I know I’m immortal.”“Immortal?” she said quietly, sitting still. “Your soul? Your being?”“I don’t believe there’s anything like a soul. But I believe most people are asleep. They aren’t even aware what they are, or that they are alive. And we are all scared to die, so when it happens we scream for our mothers and clutch our guts because we’re scared. I’m not. I’m not afraid of death. The only thing I’m afraid of is losing Dan.” But if that happens, he thought, Dan might just keep the promise and kill him on the way out.”

“I'm a... seven-figure base salary, two digit million bonus a year asset manager..." Ghislain smiled, tiredly. "And you call me a 'pet?'"Emil laughed softly and tucked a lock of hair behind Ghislain's ear, as if he would a child, or a pet. "My dear, I am a son of the Dalca family and I just beat you until you were red, then fucked you. Is there another term you prefer?”

“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.”