Refusing to be charmed or amused, Darling narrowed his gaze at him. “I’m still mad at you.”

As usual, Maris completely ignored his angry tone. “You’ll get over it. You always do.”

“Highly doubtful.”

Maris shrugged nonchalantly. “You’ve been wrong before. Many times, point of fact. I have most of them documented.”

Yeah, but this was different. He was different. The Resistance had turned on him and that wasn’t something he’d ever forget or forgive.

As for Zarya…

I’m losing faith in humanity one person at a time.

He glared at Maris. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Maris tsked at him. “It’s such a shame you have no recollection of last night.”

“Why?”

Wrinkling his nose in a playful gesture, Maris draped his arm around Darling’s shoulders and whispered in his ear. “You proposed to me, my precious. Told me that you loved me and had dreamed of me naked in your arms for years. You even begged me to ravish you right in your own bed.”

That actually amused the hell out of him. Ravish him… right. Darling smiled in spite of his agitation. “You’re such a liar.”

Maris blinked innocently. “How do you know?”

“You have absolutely no self-control, Mari. Had I begged you to ravish me, I’m positive you would have. And we were both fully clothed when I woke up this morning.”

“But you don’t know that for sure…” Maris’s gaze was bright with his teasing. He squeezed Darling, then moved ahead to reach the stairs first. He flounced around and raked a lustful gaze over Darling’s body. “I can see the doubt in your eyes. Admit it, Dar. You secretly want me. You dream about having me naked in your bed. You know you do.”

Darling laughed until he caught a glimpse of himself in the smoked mirror wall. His humor died instantly. There for a minute, he’d completely forgotten what had been done to him.

The horror that had become his existence.

Maris sobered. “It’s all right, sweetie.”

But it wasn’t. They both knew that. Darling wasn’t sure if it, or he, would ever be all right again. “Have you ever felt lost, Mari?”

He folded his hands in front of him in a somber pose that was out of character for him. “Yes, I have. And I know that place of crazy where you asphyxiate every time reality crashes down and you see the nightmare that has become your life. The darkness that swallows you whole until you fear you’ll never see light again.”

Darling paused by his side. “How did you find your way home?”

“I didn’t.” Maris reached out and brushed a strand of Darling’s hair back from his mask. “My best friend found me wandering in the darkness and carried me back to the light.”

Darling fell silent as he remembered finding Maris in a Ladorian whorehouse after his parents had thrown him out. He’d been too proud and ashamed to tell Darling what they’d done to him. Instead, Maris had lied and said that his parents had forgiven him and that Darling had nothing to worry about.