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Dismas never figured he'd make it long enough to find redemption proper. It's just not the way he's built. He's meant for dirty tavern alleys and bloodsoaked carriages and, occasionally, blink-and-you'll-miss-it bursts of glory that last as long as the flash of a flintlock's muzzle. The dungeon is only a lesson in futility for him; procrastination that he dressed up in heroics. Pointless dithering until he finally kicks it like he was supposed to years ago. A slow suicide that he can point to and say is indicitive of change.
He'd snapped something along those lines at Reynauld on the old road (with most of the self-flagellation amended into snarky faux-confidence and, by his recollection, at least crude comment on the shine of his armor; he didn't want to make himself seem like a potential charity case). Dismas had only known the crusader for a few hours and he already couldn't stand the holier than thou preaching. Reynauld had quieted, mulled that new context over with a tilt of his stupid metal head, and then conceded that there is nobility in the attempt.
Dismas had laughed. It had sounded so unexpectedly sincere in a place like that, said by none other than a crusader. Reynauld didn't even seem particularly offended, which Dismas would wager was because his preaching had incited worse than a little laughter in the past.
It was stupid and trite, but, ridiculously, it made him feel a little less guilty. He even believed it was true, from time to time.
This, though: gloves soaked through and tacky, blood on his tongue and choking his lungs, matting his hair into the flayed parts of his skull—it's a bit closer to what he'd been expecting. Flashy with gore but ultimately meaningless. Maybe even forgettable, if you give it enough time.
Reynauld's breaths are quick and shallow as he eases Dismas back against the ruins of a desecrated confessional. His vision is tinted red, and his blood has streaked down Reynauld's once shining pauldrons. Reynauld kneels between Dismas's knees and gasps in a lungful of air like a man drowned. His fingers scramble for purchase in the grooves of the stone floor—upon finding nothing, they curl into a fist. Dismas can't help but find it to be a useless gesture.
He tilts his head back and feels his blood change course to slide warm and wet down the nape of his neck. It tickles. He huffs out a stuttered breath that might be a laugh. In the end, he didn't die for some grand heroic goal. He didn't even save anyone on his way out, either. (Except maybe Reynauld, but he doubts Reynauld would accept that as a consolation prize. Best to leave it unsaid.) Reynauld doesn't even need Dismas to make it out of the ruins. From here, it's all just backtracking. It's as clean of a cut as you could ask for.
There's a clinking sound as Reynauld makes for one of the many little satchels attached to his belt, his fingers clumsily fighting against a clasp. Focusing on the movement has Dismas's vision swimming, so he closes his eyes and tries to disassociate from the pain. Reynauld tends to defer to Junia in these situations, but, well—when she's absent, he's the first to begin the laying on of hands, uncorking a bottle of holy water. He'll even unwind a roll of bandages where it's needed, despite his lack of actual non-divine medical skill. But most of their supplies were left scattered on the star-stained campgrounds they ran from. It's just the two of them, and what little trifles they kept in their pockets.
Something—a fragment of his broken ribs, or a tentacled claw displaced in the soft tissue of his stomach—shifts in the fraying ribbons he still thinks to call organs, sending a sharp pang up his spine. The pain curls at the base of his throbbing skull, and he squeezes his eyes shut tighter. Stars dance in the dark, behind his eyelids. White turns pink turns red turns purple. He sees a maw circling in the hopeless black of a dead firepit, and he realizes, not for the first time, that they're all going to die down here. There's the consequence of all his dawdling, his lesson in futility laid bare; he should've just put that bullet in his skull years ago. It would've saved him on all the aching now.
"Dismas," Reynauld says. His voice is wet and ragged. Maybe it's a cruel thought, but the realization that there's someone right here in front of him, distraught at the thought of him dying, is a morbid sort of comforting. Or maybe the thing Reynauld's choked up over is the corpses just a few rooms over. Or the glimpses of the red altar they saw through the gloaming murk of their snuffed torch. It's hard to tell. He feels a little delirious. "Open thine eyes. Do not fall asleep."
"My insides are on my outsides," he bites out. "I'll do what I want."
Damp gloved hands cup his cheeks, slipping beneath his kerchief. Dismas's eyes snap open, and he sees his breaths dusting Reynauld's helm. He thinks he even sees the blood splattered on his visor ripple. Dark spots dance on his vision.
"Fuck," Dismas gasps. He doesn't have the strength to shove Reynauld off. Or any real desire to. "What d'ya think you're doin'?"
Reynauld doesn't respond. His breath rattles through his armor, hoarse, as he takes his hands back and starts tugging at the straps on his gauntlets. Metal hits stone with an unpleasantly loud clatter, and his bloodsoaked gloves clumsily follow. His bare hands are surprisingly unstained; they're pale and calloused, and Dismas realizes he can't recall ever seeing them before. Reynauld uses them now to thumb through the pages of his scripture. They're tinged pink.
Dismas tries to laugh. It's more of a cough. "Don't tell me you're about to pray. Really?"
The thought makes him a little sick. He's not a fool—there's blood in his lungs and he knows he's a lost cause—but the lack of any tangible attempt to save him does sting a bit. For all his moral grandstanding, Reynauld isn't usually the type to let someone go without a fight. He's even petitioned the Light to save Alhazred—but, then again, Alhazred wasn't nearly split in half, and Reynauld's not exactly a bleeding heart.
"When didst thee last attend church?"
Incredulity rears its head. "Are you joking? Maybe you should've—hh—dragged me inside the fuckin' confessional."
"Dismas," Reynauld tries. It's a near plea, and it's lost on him. "The Light hasn't yet abandoned thee. I'm trying to save thy soul—"
"If you're trying to, to—give me my last rites or somethin', you're better off just leaving me—you know I'm damned—"
"Dismas," Reynauld snaps. It's more of a command; the tone of a battle hardened general well acquainted with doling out discipline and unaccustomed to back talk. "Let me help."
"What fuckin' help? I'm—" a loud, hacking cough interrupts him. It tastes like copper and sin and it foams at his lip, stinging all the places he's had to bite to keep quiet. Reynauld grasps Dismas's shoulder and holds it firm enough that Dismas can feel each fingertip through the thick back of his coat. He wraps a hand around Reynauld's bare wrist and squeezes.
It helps. But only just.
"I'm trying to save thee. Let me." There's a pause, filled only by the echoing silence of the dungeon's dead. Dismas swallows down the raw feeling in his throat. Both of Reynauld's hands are at Dismas's shoulders now, clamped tight like he thinks that might be what clots the blood and binds Dismas's skin back together. He pulls Dismas closer, almost shaking him, and pleads, "Please."
If Dismas didn't know any better, he'd say Reynauld's desperate.
"What's wrong with you," Dismas wheezes, eyes stinging. He's choked up on something he isn't keen on analyzing, teetering on the verge of ill-timed laughter. It's only Reynauld's grip that keeps him from slumping to his side. "Tryin' to convert a man on his deathbed. Yer a real bastard."
"Salvation is not yet beyond thee," Reynauld says, voice straining to stay firm, "if only thee confess and repent."
Dismas can't even tell if he's offended or not. The thought of salvation puts a tight feeling like heartburn in his chest. Kneeling in front of an altar never much felt like redemption to him; he'd just dirty the rosary.
"Gettin' on my knees won't change what I've done. Who I've killed."
"No, but you can repent," Reynauld stresses. "Absolve thyself of sin. Be redeemed and baptized in the Light, before you—"
Dismas cracks a coppery laugh, throat burning. "There's no light down here. Just leave it, Rey."
Reynauld's hands go limp at Dismas's shoulders, then squeeze him again. He hesitates there, like he doesn't know what to do with himself, then lets his hands slip from Dismas's shoulders to knot themselves in the loose fabric of his shirt. It's just as bloody as the rest of Dismas, and Reynauld's pretty hands start to stain scarlet. His shoulders are slumped, head hanging low, and a shake audibly rattles through his body. Dismas squints at him through his blurred vision.
"Light, are you cryin'?"
"I—" Reynauld cuts himself off with a sniffle. In any other circumstances, Dismas might say he sounds like a petulant little kid. "Thou art... a good man. You... you don't..."
Dismas would laugh again if he didn't think his throat would give out on him entirely. Reynauld's younger than him, probably. But he's a soldier. He hangs the scripture on his belt next to a pair of misericorde daggers. He can polish his holy armor until it shines like the Light, but there's still blood caked into the joints. Grief's an old hat to someone like that, and Reynauld can cope with losing someone like Dismas. Most could.
"'M not confessing anythin'. Y'know it's all a bunch of bullshit." Dismas nudges Reynauld with the toe of his boot. He's not sure how comforting it is. "It's hell enough down here—I'll be fine. So stop worryin' and get outta here."
Something shifts, and Reynauld leans forward and hauls Dismas forward by the grip he has on his shirt. Dismas hears himself snarl, clawing at Reynauld's hands as a fresh dam of blood is wrung out of the hole in his stomach. Fabric strains and snaps, skin catches under his nails.
"Why—why can't thou ever accept what mercies I offer," Reynauld snaps, nearly snarling himself. Dismas recognizes the sorrow-tinged disgust in his voice by its familiarity, and suspects it's only the knowledge of what might come crawling out of the dark that keeps him from outright shouting. "I offer salvation—heaven—and thou hath given nothing but scorn in return! I—I have risked myself for thee, and you—!"
"And when the fuck did I ask for any of that?" Dismas asks, ripping Reynauld's hands from his shirt. His head is spinning properly now. They're running out of time. "I'm not yer fuckin' charity case. I'm my own goddamn person and I made my own damn decisions. I did what I did then, and... if I could go back I wouldn't do it again! But some fancy words aren't gonna change what happened. 'M not gonna just... change who I am for you. So just leave it."
Reynauld sucks in a shuddering, wet breath. His head snaps sharply to the side, away from Dismas. That does sting—just a little.
"Fine. Fine! Damn thyself, ingrate," he mutters bitterly. "I should never have offered myself to you."
"I never asked you to," Dismas repeats, sighing, and he wonders just how much of his exhaustion is because of the state of his body, and how much is just because of Reynauld. Prissy asshole that he is.
Reynauld buries his face in his hands, marring his helm with a constellation of red fingerprints. Silence passes, filled only with their ragged breathing, and Dismas finally relaxes enough to let himself lean back against the confessional. The tension running through his body sloughs off him like a second skin. He's hot, but his blood's gone cold, and the stars behind his eyes still haven't gone away.
An oblivion wrapped in them might not be all that bad.
"And yet, I..." Reynauld murmurs, his metallic voice muffled ever so slightly, "I believe I would do it again. Given the chance."
Dismas has to open his eyes to look at Reynauld. He's not sure when he closed them.
"Real hypocrite, you are."
"Quiet, you," Reynauld says with no real heat. His fingers part. Dismas has never properly seen Reynauld's face, and he especially can't see it when Reynauld's hiding it in his hands—but right now, despite the helmet, he can imagine making real eye contact with him for the first time. Dismas's seen little glimpses of his eyes beneath his visor in the past, when he's gotten closer than he really should. He knows they're blue; piercingly so. Keeping them hidden just makes them all the more striking, in Dismas's opinion.
All things considered, this isn't all that bad a way to die.
"This is what you want, then? To die here alone, a sinner?" Reynauld asks, picking up his scripture. He runs a tender hand over the soiled cover.
There's a million and a half ways Dismas could answer that question. He doesn't think he's ever really, truly wanted to die—at least not in a way that a well executed job, or a good time at the brothel couldn't fix. He also doesn't think he's ever not thought about dying. And he certainly can't say he never expected something like this.
But right now, in the moment, does he want Reynauld to leave him behind?
That has an easier answer.
"You really oughta get outta here," Dismas says, easy. It's all he can do to speak. "You'll miss the stagecoach back."
Reynauld spends a moment staring at the holy book in his hands without looking up, like it might spit out a more desireable solution to his problems if he waits long enough. But it doesn't, and he gives a somber incline of his head.
"Very well," he says solemnly, making to stand, "but we'll meet again." He speaks it with such sudden, surefire conviction that Dismas finds himself taken aback. The shine on his armor reflects at odd angles, in a red-blue kaleidoscope that burns the eyes. "Not here, but... somewhere else. A different time, perhaps. I swear to it."
Dismas frowns. It's getting harder to breathe, but— "They don't preach that in church."
"It isn't taught, to my knowledge. But in the stars—at the red altar—the Light blessed me with a vision."
Dismas considers that, feeling a slow sort of unease creep up his spine. "You've never had visions."
Reynauld's shoulders straighten in offence. "That hardly matters! Many saints are decreed as such when much older than I!"
"That's not what I'm sayin'," Dismas bites, forcing his tongue to churn the words out. He feels another coughing fit building in his throat, but he does his best to swallow it down. It's getting harder to see Reynauld in the gloam. "Rey, that wasn't—that altar wasn't to the Light. We both saw that thing. You know that was somethin' else."
"By the Light, Dismas, do not imply that creature to be a holy vessel. What does it matter where the vision took place?" Reynauld asks, seeming impossibly more offended. That tinge of desperation is starting to edge back into his voice. He might be trying to convince himself as much as he is Dismas. "Divine intervention oft occurs in moments of peril. What is important is that thy soul is not yet lost, even if only in another time! We are predestined to meet again, beyond the bounds of the dungeon."
Dismas's mouth twists. He thinks of the displaced stars behind his eyes and lies, "I can't believe that. Y'can't expect me to."
"I don't, Dismas," Reynauld says, mournful, like that's Dismas's personal failing. He sounds so distant. "But this is the path the Light has laid out for us. If thou cannot bring thyself to believe, at least allow thyself to take comfort in the thought of it. You will find your redemption yet."
This feels uncanny—like he's going over well trodden ground with this conversation, and entertaining it is letting in something he shouldn't. The specifics behind what defines something divine and something unholy have always been lost on him, as arbitrary as they are, but he finds it difficult to imagine anything truly holy taking place down here, where it's dark as pitch—where deaths are a dime a dozen, and he can almost recall the feeling of his head rolling off his shoulders.
"I'm not..." Dismas sighs. He closes his eyes. There's nothing to it now. "Alright. I'll... 'take comfort in it'. Just get out of here."
Reynauld's hands might ghost back over his cheeks again, but when Dismas goes to lean into the touch, he's met with open air. He might leave him with parting words; he might even shed a few more tears; it's all lost on him.
It's an odd, nagging thought: just how many times has he died down here?