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

“If I touched you, that’d be it.” Dan shook his head, “Damn, how the fuck am I going to make you understand?” Pleading, almost. “You are everything, don’t you get it? You are the Afghan mountains, the damned red dust, the endless sky. You were my home, and more often than not, also my reason. You are unlike all the others, unlike anyone I shag, because when I touch you, it’s not just a touch, it’s eleven years of heaven and hell.”

“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.”

“Tiger and mountain lion. Fuck you. Fuck you for getting me out. You should have shot me. But you didn't have the guts to do it. Too weak. You just didn't care enough. You waited two years, and then you fucking stopped caring and tore out my fucking heart. Come on. Promises, Dan. Keep them. Cut it out. If you're a man.”

“… I agree with two things: the steppe is wide—even though I’ve never been there, and the mountains, fuck, yes, the mountains are a thing for themselves. They eat you up, swallow you whole, digest and churn around until their loneliness spits you back out again and you think that nothing else matters. Just them, and that tiny handful of life that’s your own. Fucking insignificant. Nothing, no one, barely remembered, except perhaps for a moment of recognition in a goddamned teahouse.” He shut up, suddenly, had said too much. Vadim flashed a smile. “You’re my favourite enemy, too. Fucking messy Brit.”

“You're my home. I will find you.”

“Hey, comrade,” Dima said, tone, choice of words, everything exactly as it would have been in the eighties, in that forsaken country.Vadim peered at him in the mirror. “Yes?”“Are you guys in trouble?” Dima moved closer, stood within touching distance. “I don’t mean your little crusade a while back. I mean the rest.”Vadim inhaled and lowered his gaze for a few moments. “Life isn’t easy, Dima. That’s our set of rules.”“You know you can change them. If he’s fucking around….”“So am I.”“But you’re not happy with it?”“It’s just sex, Dima.”Dima looked at him for a long time. “It’s never just sex for you, though. Am I wrong?”“No. You’re right.” Vadim shook his head. “Rules, Dima. We’re a different case.”Dima reached out and took him by the shoulders, pulling him up and back against him, which made Vadim look at himself in the mirror.“It’s not easy. I wish it was.”