Wide eyes narrowed as he assessed the man standing before him. The attire was... strange. The face looked... John's brows furrowed ever so slightly as he struggled to find a word to describe that expression. Troubled, maybe. He wasn't sure.
He hadn't yet acquired a different uniform, so John Preston still looked the part of a Cleric. It was obvious (perhaps only obvious to the two of them, but then, there were only two of them standing here) that he could shift easily from standing around looking dumbfounded to trying to kill Errol again if he'd been so inclined, but he didn't want to start a scene here and endanger the life of what was potentially his only ally.
"Y- you're dead. I... I saw you burn." Preston, First Class Cleric, so sure of himself, so certain with every step and every movement and every squeeze of the trigger - confused and lost.
And guilty.
Was John Preston dead? Or was Errol Partridge alive? Did the finality of a bullet in the skull matter in a place like this? Or is John finally being made to atone for his sins?
"I'm sorry." He clenched his jaw after he'd said it (it didn't feel like he'd said it, but it was his voice, so it must have been him) and his gaze lowered briefly. The cage that was his chest seemed to tighten and the discomfort made every breath a labourious act. It had been difficult to say to Errol's corpse, but to see the man now and say it to his bewildered face cut John deep to the bone and made him feel the depths of some bottomless pit he'd never fallen into before.