Gift fic for IlloustriousTaco, who requested 'Bunny loves Jack, and paints him over and over, Jack figures it out when he sees the paintings, because the emotion and love Bunny feels has bled through...'

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.
- Henry Ward Beecher

Jack moves like poetry. He moves like poetry and smiles like a photograph and laughs like the sweetest of symphonies. There is art and beauty in every line of his thin frame; engraved into every gesture and painted onto the expanse of his soul.

At first, Aster only notices his eyes. They are very blue, ice blue, and shade he'd never seen before, and Aster knows colours. Aster sketches them once, just in curiosity, because he can. He has sketchbooks full of Tooth's pinions, and Sandy's dreamsand animals, and North's clever creations. He sketches like he breathes; a raw exhalation from his soul straight onto the page. He has always been an artist; it resounds in his blood and sings in his ears. Easter may be Aster's one true devotion, but art is his passion; his mistress whispering to him in the dark, coaxing him away from his duties to frolic in her playful arms for an afternoon.

The sketchbook fills. Aster had been disappointed with all his renditions of Jack's eyes. Oh, they are perfect on the page for detail, but empty compared to the real thing. There is no hand on earth that could capture the sparkle in them, the light of Jack's trademark joy shining out. Aster is sure that otherwise, he would have managed it by now. He's tried, again and again, and always failed.

Next, Aster is caught by Jack's hands. They are delicate and long-fingered, although Jack's nails are always chewed to stumps. His hands are graceful and blunt and calloused from hard work and elegant where they wrap around his staff, and Aster is fascinated. Two sketchbooks fill this time, as he tries to recapture their grace and dignity on paper, with mixed results, if you asked him.

Jack's smile and his feet go much the same way, and his ears and the mess of his hair, followed by the curve of his jaw and the wings of his shoulder blades. Aster draws and draws, piecemeal at first, but then the whole thing; pulling Jack together in scraps and doodles until the boy begins emerging whole on the page, but Aster is never satisfied. Jack is always too still, to lifeless when rendered in graphite on paper. Ink and charcoal and crayon have the same effect, and Aster despairs. The pile of sketchbooks grows, but Aster doesn't see it anymore, too consumed with his latest attempts, and his certain failure.

Aster paints next. Watercolours and acrylics and oils, on paper and canvas alike. He does small portraits, and large panoramic landscapes with Jack featured only in a corner, but still nothing can satisfy, not properly. Jack feels thin and distant and colder than he could ever be in real life. Aster's studio become and den of frustration, but he does not give up. The paintings are hung; those that are tolerable at least, the rest are left in storage beside the pile of abandoned sketchbook. Aster has not even noticed the shrine he'd building, blinded by yet another idea, another attempt, and the memory of Jack's brilliant smile.

They are friends now, Jack and Aster. The talk and laugh and spend time together as friends are wont to do, but sometimes, oh every time, Aster's heart beats a touch too fast, a little too loud in his ears. Aster wants things now, craves for things he has not wanted since the Pooka fell. Alone in the dark Aster had meant to live, but Jack walked in and lit up all his nooks and crannies again. Aster had discovered old corners of himself that he'd forgotten; made new again by Jack's compassion and affection. What would Aster do then, to reward such a favour? He didn't know, couldn't know without asking, and how would one ask another, anyways? So painting became sculpture, and Aster discovers he has no talent for ice carving, not even after Jack spends a whole afternoon working with him. The sprite has no knowledge of the true purpose of the requested the lesson, but it is painfully obvious that this is one medium Aster cannot work in. Clay and stone and wood give way easily beneath his hands though, so Aster sculpts. Small carvings, life size statues, Aster fills the room this way. The museum of Jack is full to the roof but Aster looks around him and does not see what he wishes too. His Jack; happy and hale and whole, loving him by his side. Aster does not lose hope, it is not in his nature, but he cannot deny the truth of his failures and longer. He retreats, with a heavy heart vowing to destroy everything come morning.

Only morning comes, and Jack is waiting in the room, staring a statue of himself in the face; twin reflections in white marble, only the colour of his eyes giving the original away. Aster is frozen, mute, horrified and humbled by the scrutiny. Jack walks the room, examines everything from the figures to the painting, to the sketchbooks. Aster watches silent the whole time, unspeaking. When Jack finishes, he nods once, and leaves shoulder brushing Aster's as he walks past. Aster makes no move to stop him, knowing that his secret is revealed; the truth of him laid bare, naked and hopeful beneath Jack's steady gaze and careful hands.

For three days, Aster frets, panics, paces. Waits and pines and hopes and struggles, knowing that Jack might come back different, or might never come back at all. But Aster need not have concerned himself, for while he was worrying over his Jack, Jack was busy falling also for him, guided by the light of Aster's soul, worked into every piece of art he'd made with Jack's smiling face on it.

Jack returns in three days with that same incredible smile, and asks to sing Aster a song. Their song, created just for him, by Jack. The winter spirit is shy as he offers, but sincere, and there is no hesitation in Aster's voice when he agrees.

A hundred and more years later, Jack's voice will be the background music to their lives, while Aster paints the shape of their souls; together, entwined, always.