Over and over.
With every glimpse of his skin, Darling smelled the blood, the shit, and the urine. The vomit. Every vicious thing they’d said to him while they’d carved him up—the laughter and joy they’d taken in their cruelty rang in his ears until he was deaf from it.
Nothing could silence it.
Nothing.
And above it all, was the sound of Zarya on the other side of the door, going about her daily routine while they viciously brutalized him, day after day, month after month.
Even then, he’d prayed that she, the woman who’d sworn she would never betray or hurt him, would just open the door and help him.
Instead, when she’d finally come inside, she’d slapped and cursed him like all the others.
That was what he couldn’t face.
And now Maris dared to bring the bitch back into his life…
Maris was lucky he hadn’t punched him.
Sick to his stomach and battered to the core of his soul, Darling fished through the mess he’d made in his office and pulled his bottle of Tondarion whisky up from the floor where it’d rolled after he’d overturned his desk.
This had been the only comfort he’d had since they’d rescued him. Nothing else eased the bitterness in his dead heart. While the whisky didn’t get rid of the voices entirely, it at least dulled them enough that he could function around the memories.
He took a deep swig straight from the bottle and let the liquor burn down his damaged throat. The one thing he’d learned in his useless life was how to find pleasure in pain. It was all the gods had left him with. “You’ll have to excuse me if I’m not feeling up to a shower or shave right now.”
Maris closed the distance between them. He set the mask down on the shelves to Darling’s left, then pulled the bottle out of Darling’s hand and placed it beside the mask. “I don’t care what you look like, Darling. I never have. It’s your heart that’s beautiful.”
Darling cursed him for a liar as he reached for the bottle again.
Maris caught his hand to keep him from touching it. “You don’t need that.”
Yes, he did. He had nothing else in his life. “There’s no beauty left in me, Mari. People are nothing but rabid animals who attack friend and foe for no reason whatsoever. They don’t care. They don’t feel. All they want to do is crush others and make them bleed as if that will somehow miraculously aleviate their putrid misery. There’s nothing left but hatred, contempt, and disgust in my heart. I finally understand what drove Arturo and why I was attacked.”
Wanting only to comfort him, Maris wrapped his arms around Darling’s waist and held him close.
To his surprise, Darling actually leaned back against his chest and closed his eyes. Then, he reached up to curl his arm around Maris’s neck. Darling hadn’t allowed him to hold him like this since before his first rape. If nothing else, that told him just how much pain Darling was in.
“How flagged are you, Darling?”
“Very.” His breathing ragged, he swallowed hard as he surrendered his weight to Maris. “I’m so fucked up, Mari,” he whispered. “All I feel now is unending pain and utter misery. I just want to sleep and I can’t even do that. I’m so tired of it all…”
Maris tightened his arms around him, wishing there was something, anything, he could do to make it better. He held Darling tight as a thousand regrets ripped him apart. “I know, sweetie. I’ve got you. I won’t let you fall, I promise.”
Swaying with Darling in his arms, Maris brushed the hair back from Darling’s scarred face and kissed his bearded cheek before he spoke the words that broke his heart into pieces. “But we both know that I’m not what you need or want. No matter how much I love you, I can’t heal you.”
Tears swam in Darling’s eyes, but not a single one fell. Darling’s strength had always amazed him. No matter the firestorm, he’d always stood so proud and defiant in the midst of it.
Leaning his head back onto Maris’s shoulder, Darling cupped his cheek in his gloved hand. “Why couldn’t I be gay? It would be so easy to love you if I were. You’ve always been here for me, Mari. You’ve never hurt me. Not once.”
The truth stung him as Maris thought back to all the times Darling had been ostracized, in need of a friend, and he’d been too afraid to publicly acknowledge him. But Darling never seemed to remember that part of their friendship. It didn’t tear him apart the way it did Maris.
“You know that’s not true, Dar. I got your ass kicked the first day we met.”
Darling let out an unexpected tiny laugh at the memory. “But I won the fight.”