"...everything."

While updating Sketch Artist, I was listening to a Sonic Youth album, and the lyric above, in Cool Thing, drove this image into my head with a great big hammer and red-hot nails. For some reason, the words reminded me of the scene where Callo asks Hardin what Sydney intends to do with the Gran Grimoire, and even his subconscious has nothing to say on the matter - rather obviously because he has no idea. Hardin just trusts that Sydney will do the right thing, even though he doesn't understand.
From what we know of his past, Hardin's a man who's been pushed to the edge... The world screwed him over pretty nicely. And so Hardin kneels to swear fealty to Müllenkamp out of desperation; if anyone can "fix everything" that's wrong with the world, it's Sydney, with all his power.
At any rate... I think I like this. The sketchiness fits with the mood fairly well, and I found a nice combo of colors and filters in Photoshop to make it kind of look like old weathered paper... and a few other subtle details turned out to my satisfaction too. Sydney looks kind of small, but I've always gotten the impression John's a lot taller than him anyway. =) Oh yeah, and John's pose is swiped from one episode of my lovely new Rose of Versailles fansubs. :D
...And the fact that this picture looks somewhat suggestive was just a (happy?) accident. With the fic I'm writing, I won't object to that, and with Sydney's pants... uh, it's hard to draw any picture involving him that doesn't look suggestive. ;)
...And then just after I posted this, I decided I wanted to use it as my desktop, so here's an 800x600 version. Heh.