InsaneJournal

Fic -- Vagrant Story, Hardin/Callo
Title: and they are analagous to him
Author: Mithrigil
Fandom: Vagrant Story
Characters: Callo Merlose and John Hardin
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: caring for injuries -- the Dark makes heretics of us all
With Sheff's permission.

and they are analogous to him

How a creature of the cities, as herself, learned to suck the poison from his wounds, John shudders to think. From books, he is certain, knowledge in passing, some half-remembered component of whatever it is Inquisitors learn—to torture and survive it, perhaps. The urgency of her mouth on his skin, uncertain and forced and heavy, betrays that much.

To consider why chills him still deeper.

Fear of the city, he guesses—hostager or not, heretic or not (though the Dark makes heretics of us all), he is her sword here. His debility means her death. But he did not ask, did not so much as contrive her aid, unmagicked and without lore. The serpent struck—he assessed his wounds—she took his arm up, bared it, and this.

But by the press of her chin, the dark slivers of her eyes, she takes this for a kiss. Perhaps they are analogous to her. After all, it has been long since a kiss dealt unto John without venom, and they are analogous to him. Perhaps her thrill is as Sydney’s, that as this, John is in her power, that as this, it is her will if he should die. He does not put it past her.

But whatever the reason, she wants him alive, or at least she wants to suck the poison from his wounds. Fitting, that, Parliament’s Inquisitor, purging the vile blood of a cultist with her own oiled mouth. Saving his soul. Heedless of whether the poison could scathe her despite the iron cross of good will and science.

It is a kiss. To one of them, a kiss.

She heaves and turns aside, spits, grimaces. The boy is intent on this, fascinated, behind her. Her chin is pale through the grime of two night running, and his blood catches over it, beading. It ages her teeth. It is like the paint on the lips of whores. It suits her not at all.

“Save your magicks,” she breathes, her throat slick-sounding through the rasp of fatigue, and she does not smile.

There is a growl on John’s breath as he kneels to recover his sword. The same motion as he rises, he leaves her space. We move on, he does not say. We do not dwell on this. He watches for serpents even after they reenter the city proper.



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