It's on the tip of Josh's tongue to joke - because I wasn't there? - but he's silent in the face of Alecto's unexpected smile, the warm, inviting bloom of it, the tension that seemed to always live in the set of his jaw dissolved utterly away. He sits, obediently, and then seems to belatedly remember that he didn't even have his supplies with him, and pushes himself back onto his feet to fetch the expensive, top-of-the-line materials that Alecto kept stock of in the room back to the chair again.

He starts, today, with Alecto's mouth, with the fine-boned curve of his jaw and the shadows of his slender neck, picking out minute shifts in expression, the slightest twitch of a muscle, Alecto's lips parted around a deeper inhale than usual. He works lower - picking out the Adam's apple and the hollow of his throat, peeking out just above where Alecto's undone cravat was folded unevenly against pale skin, revealing just a hint of his collarbone. His fingers stop, suddenly, a sense of uncertainty stealing over him. He was certainly capable of drawing and painting clothing, had developed a good sense for drape and texture with his paints. But something in him balks at the exercise, and he stares down at the paper, his cheeks pinking with an odd realization.