but not to repent

A tankard slid into Kormac's line of sight, interrupting his staring competition with the inn's scarred and pitted table. The more he'd glared down at it the more it had begun to look like whip-scars on an initiate's back, so while he didn't welcome the distraction, he wouldn't complain about it either. Foam and dark ale slopped over the side of the mug and sluggishly filled the runnels in the table. That didn't remind Kormac of anything in particular as long as he didn't think about it too hard.

"Alcohol is poison to the mind," he found himself saying. The words tripped off his tongue in dry rote, more sound than meaning. "It clouds the senses and weakens one's resistance to temptation."

"I'd say that's rather the point." Lyndon took a seat next to him. He smelled as though he'd already imbibed half a brewery. "You know what else it does? Soothes inner turmoil. At least, until it makes some of its own."

With that, he clapped Kormac on the back, and, because he was an irrepressible lout, belched loudly.

"You are an irrepressible lout," Kormac told him.

"That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me." Lyndon flung an arm around Kormac's shoulder. Kormac shrugged, both to loosen Lyndon's grip and because it was probably true. He felt a pang at that. Despite his unfortunate personality, Lyndon had proved to be a steadfast companion to the Nephalem, and lately he had sought out Kormac's company in particular. It wasn't always to hone his sharp tongue upon him, either, and to Kormac's disgruntlement, he'd found that Lyndon was almost likeable when he wasn't being a cad.

He glanced at the Crusader where he sat in conversation with Eirena. Even here, Kormac could sense the glory in him—a presence that seemed to imbue the Slaughtered Calf with warmth beyond its meagre aspect—but it was Eirena whose eye he caught. She gave him a little wave. Sister, he thought, and despaired at his bitterness.

"Are you going to drink that?" Lyndon asked in a loud whisper.

"Yes," Kormac decided, because what was sin without a doctrine to censure it? "But first I could do with some air. It smells like a charnel house in here."

"Outside smells even more like a charnel house," Lyndon said in disbelief. "Well, okay—but take that with you. No use letting a good drink go to waste." He caught up the tankard and thrust it at Kormac, who clutched it in both hands lest Lyndon spill it over him in his drunken enthusiasm.

They sheltered from the reeking wind in the lee of the inn, and four more drinks and an indeterminate amount of time later, Lyndon seemed distinctly less inebriated and Kormac substantially more so. He understood he would regret every minute of this come morning, and he wondered if it would feel as much like penance as Lyndon's bottomless well of lecherous anecdotes did.

"And then she said to me, 'That's all very well and good'," Lyndon said, throwing his arms theatrically wide, " 'but why are you wearing my best silks?' " He paused expectantly, then sighed. "Kormac, are you even listening?"

"Much to my regret," Kormac said, draining the last of his ale. His face was going numb, but that was a common occurrence after enough time in Lyndon's company.

"Good. I can't very well distract you from your existential melancholy if you aren't paying attention, now, can I? Anyway, then she took a big handful of her silks and not a small handful of my—"

"I thought you said she was a goat herder's daughter. I don't believe she'd own enough silks to have best ones."

"Really? That's the part of the story that bothers you?"

Lyndon's face pinched in a frown, and he smoothed down his moustache with finger and thumb. He seemed taken by a sudden sobriety of mood, and Kormac didn't like the look of it at all. The evening took on a precarious tilt as he found himself wishing for the man's rakish grin instead. With the thought came the echo of a desire that had long been flayed from him, and then guilt like a whipcrack. He thought about getting to his knees, and then thought about doing so but not to repent, and flinched.

Lyndon narrowed his eyes. "That Order of yours really did a number on you, didn't it," he said.

Kormac opened his mouth to protest, only where once there was the comfort of righteousness, he found only despair. "I am adrift," he admitted, possibly against his better judgement. "The Nephalem is a beacon and I see a path at his side, but still my thoughts are bedlam. Forsaking the Order—it was unthinkable."

"Because they never let you think it." Lyndon tapped Kormac's forehead with a finger, and enunciating carefully, said, "Dogma is the antithesis of choice. I read that in a book once."

"You? Read a book?" Kormac scoffed. "Did it have pictures?"

Lyndon roared a laugh at that, his head thrown back and his profile lit by the soft glow from the inn's window. "You know, I like you a great deal more without that stick up your backside."

"The pleasure of relief from pain does free one temporarily from the desire to suffer."

"Oh, that is a grim outlook, my friend. Grim. I need another another drink to wash that down."

"Do you think that's wise?"

Lyndon tutted. "Showing your true colours now that it's your round?"

His integrity impugned, Kormac felt himself grow flustered until he caught the twinkle in Lyndon's eye, and saw about taking the jab in the spirit it was intended. "We're early on the road to Kingsport tomorrow," he said, and tentatively added, "but I'll gladly buy you another."

"Kingsport!" Lyndon said, as though its very name was nectar on his tongue. "Oh, you'll love it. First we'll spring my brother, and then to celebrate we'll initiate you into the ways of vice. Gambling, drinking, philandering, spending other people's money—I'm so excited, I hardly know where to start."

"Perhaps by getting a good night's sleep," Kormac suggested, instead of having to address the rest. He straightened himself up off the inn's wall, only to find that it had apparently been doing most of the work throughout the evening.

Lyndon caught him mid-stumble. "Steady on there, big guy," he said, but Kormac's feet would not obey him, and in a clumsy bid to right himself, he ended up with Lyndon pressed between him and the wall. "Gone to your head?"

"Sorry," Kormac said. Lyndon smelled like stale tobacco and ale-breath and his oiled leathers, and Kormac inhaled slow and deep. The expression on Lyndon's face was unlikely fondness, free of either guile or ridicule. When had he started looking at Kormac like that? When did he look at anyone like that?

Lyndon patted Kormac's cheek and cheerfully said, "Go on, then. Might be nice."

The invitation struck a bolt of shock down Kormac's spine such that he felt paralysed. The Order decreed this a sin, without ambiguity and most vehemently; this was something orders of magnitude more unforgivable than a bellyful of ale. Even after all he had endured, Kormac had not known his new resolve could be tested by only a handful of words.

But Lyndon was a thief, and thieves stole whatever they coveted without so much as a by-your-leave. He grinned at Kormac's wide-eyed indecision, caught his face in both hands and kissed him. His mouth was warm and bittered with hops, and softer than his words ever were. Kormac's heart pounded in his chest, but the ground did not crack open, and a hundred grasping hands did not pull him down into hell. His soul was not instantly expelled from his body and condemned to an eternity of suffering, and he wondered how much of his trembling faith had been terror all along.

It was as Lyndon had said it might be—nice. And then Lyndon parted his lips and made the smallest sound, surprise and approval and encouragement all together, and with a scrape of teeth and the press of his thigh between Kormac's, suddenly it was considerably more than nice.

"Well, then," Lyndon said, drawing back with a delighted laugh. "Here I was thinking you didn't like me at all. So. What now, my erstwhile Templar? Intent on your bed, or will you join me in another drink?"

The surrounding environs took a slow spin to the left. Kormac struggled to both keep himself upright and keep the grin on his face to reasonable proportions. "I think I've had enough. How about," he said, "how about we strike a deal."

"A deal?" Lyndon raised his eyebrows in obvious interest.

"I buy you one more drink," Kormac said, and then stopped to get his thoughts in order.

"Done." Lyndon wound an arm around Kormac's waist and attempted to haul him bodily back into the inn. "A pleasure doing business with you."

"Wait, wait," Kormac said, careening sideways. His shoulder clipped the doorframe. "Ow. First—you're to get me to bed. Then you get the—you get coin for the drink. That's the deal."

"To bed? You drive a hard bargain."

It didn't seem worth the effort to clarify; Lyndon knew fine well what Kormac meant, or what he thought he meant. In truth, his arch response lent him more confidence than earnestness would have. They stumbled into the inn and found the place thankfully empty, the rest of their party retired for the night. He even found his room first time without having to rattle anyone's doorhandles.

"There we—oops, there we go," Lyndon said, miraculously squeezing them both into the tiny quarters without knocking Kormac's armour and sword and shield to the floor. Kormac found himself heaved onto the narrow cot, where he kicked off his boots and, before he could second-guess himself or talk himself out of it or fall asleep, grabbed Lyndon's coat by the lapels, pulling him down with him.

"Oh, you tricked me!" Lyndon said with feigned shock, then followed that with a sigh of equally-feigned woe. "I'm not getting that drink, am I."

"Alcohol is poison to the mind," Kormac told him, though he found he couldn't keep his face as serious as he wanted. "It clouds the senses and weakens one's resistance to temptation."

"And thank all that is holy for that," Lyndon said, as Kormac kissed him like he'd never be sober again.