A/N: As I'll say whenever it fits: thank you too all readers/reviewers/faithful subscribers!

Chapter title is from, quite obviously, 'Paint It, Black' by the Rolling Stones. Vince would be proud.

THREE

I Want It Painted Black

Two hours. Two hours Howard had been sitting there at that desk, barely illuminated by a tiny, heavily-shaded lamp, trying to get the artistic magic flowing. And what did he come up with in his 120 minutes of striving? A few poorly drawn sketches of a man with instruments for limbs. Slamming his head down in his arms on the surface of the desk, he knew why he was having such trouble. Even when Vince wasn't around, he was thoroughly distracting.

He wished he could be like Francisco Goya. Now there was a painter who knew how to turn misery into art. His macabre imagery is piercing and beautiful, displaying the potential evil and darkness that awaits in all of human nature. The horror of his paintings is canceled out by the splendor and mastery with which they were brought to life, and they serve to be more than simply snuff pieces meant to terrify; they symbolize the sinister side that stays dormant until awoken in all of humanity.

All of humanity but Vince, corrected Howard. Vince could never be evil. Hopelessly selfish? Well, that was another story. But that didn't make him a bad person. Even with what Howard saw as his corruption taking its toll, Vince wasn't a bad guy by any means. Just a little more air-headed than most.

Howard glanced over above his bed, to his portrait. If only he could create something like that! But at this moment, he didn't consider talent to be the factor between his abilities and Vince's; it was all down to happiness and comfort. Howard never really had either of those. He briefly wondered if Naboo would notice if he took a few hits from his dear hookah…

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me!" Howard cried as the meager light from the lamp suddenly died out. Couldn't anything go his way? Ever? He sat himself up, resisted the urge to twist the skin on his right arm, and leaned over to remove the dead bulb from the socket. But as soon as his hand was upon the curved glass, it flicked back to life, effectively burning him with surprising ferocity. He immediately withdrew, and slouched back down. This was a stupid idea.

A few moments of silence passed before a pronounced Italian accent sounded from behind him. "Howard Moon?"

The man in question bolted upright and, too afraid to turn around, asked waveringly, "Who's there?"

"You can look at me, Howard. I'm not going to hurt you. In fact, I abhor violence." The voice said this in a way that made it seem as if it expected some kind of reward for being a pacifist.

Howard tentatively turned to face where the voice had come from, and gasped in sheer surprise at what awaited him. The voice belonged to what seemed to be a man- although that could be up for debate- who didn't look nearly as Italian as he sounded. His lithe, slim form was dressed in a flowing, pale blue smock and navy skinny jeans, with black Doc Martens working to contradict his otherwise feminine appearance. His face had a shape similar to Vince's: pointy and angular. Thick, long, black hair with several bright blue streaks framed his features, as thick Buddy Holly-style glasses did to his nearly invisible dark eyes. On top of his seemingly intentionally disheveled hair was a maroon beret, successfully pulling together every single stereotype of a hipster-artist in one ostensibly condescending package. As if to confirm this belief, his crooked smile and arched eyebrow glanced at the frustrated man in front of him almost mockingly. "Who… who are you?" Howard asked, his voice breaking. Oh, come on. I can't really be intimidated by this guy. ...Right?

"Who am I? I," the figure began, with a smooth, outward gesture of his arm, "am the Soul of Art." His tone was proud. Smug. Sort of like an effeminate Dixon Bainbridge.

"Oh, no," Howard protested, taking comfort in realizing why he was so intimidated. "I don't need to get myself mixed up in any more spirits of things, so if you could kindly let me be, I w-"

"Spirit?" asked the figure, looking genuinely offended. "Did you not hear me? I am the Soul of Art."

"There's a difference, is there?" Howard asked in sarcastic disbelief.

The Soul of Art rolled his eyes and sighed in obvious annoyance. "Of course there is. The spirits are much too mainstream. The souls, on the other hand… we're what lives inside the substance."

"No, no, no!" Howard continued to protest, with barely contained gesticulations. "I've spent a good portion of my life trying to rid myself of one of you lot, and I don't need to be thrown back into it all, so I bid you good night, sir."

The figure only arched his eyebrow further upward, amused. "Oh, Howard. The Spirit of Jazz, right?"

"How… how did you know that?"

"Souls and spirits talk. But you have to understand the main difference between the two. Spirits embody the feel of a work, the general aura of their subject. Souls are what truly make up the subject; we are the subject. We don't pit humans up against the subject of their desire like the spirits do. We help them find the link between their souls and ours." He concluded this little speech with a gentle smile. Smug. Yes; very, very smug.

"I… I don't know. I can't think about this right now," Howard faltered, drawn in by the irritatingly beguiling persona of the thing before him.

"Come on, Howard. I can make you one of the greats! You have a lot of inner torment in that bleak soul of yours, torment that's dying to come out. I could channel that for you. I could make you like Blake, like Van Gogh… like Goya. Come on, Howard. I won't make you do anything embarrassing; I swear it," his tone became much sweeter, but unnervingly so.

Howard bit his lip in the frustration of his indecision, and then glanced back to the portrait above his bed. Such personality, such feeling, such soul was ambient of every brush stroke. If he could paint something like that… "What does it entail?"

"What do you mean, 'what does it entail'?" the Soul asked, his voice abruptly harsher, the blue in his hair turning a fiery red, before regaining composition and altering back to the self-prided pacifist.

Howard wasn't disturbed by the jolt in mood. After all, artists were moody people. He understood that better than anyone. "I mean… what would you have to… would you… have to… you know…" he blushed before mustering up the confidence to say the dreaded phrase, "…get inside me?"

"Not in the way the spirits do, no," replied the Soul, with a smirk that made it seem as if there was much more he wasn't saying.

"So… you'd simply make me a better artist?" Howard asked, finally letting himself feel a little bit at ease with the situation.

"I'd simply link your soul with your artwork," he corrected.

"Meaning…?"

"Meaning that what you paint will be a direct reflection of your true inner being. Your emotions, your desires… they'll be spilled out in a beautifully masqueraded format. It could make you famous. You could have your own gallery. I can see it now… 'Howard Moon, Art's 21st Century Gem.' Is that what you want?" His voice had again become low and enticing.

"Yes," Howard blurted out before he could stop himself.

The Soul of Art smiled, as if he'd known he could get Howard to agree, and offered him that old familiar clipboard and pen. "Sign here," he directed.

Howard gripped the writing utensil, but hesitated. "Nothing embarrassing, right?"

"You have my word."

He considered this a few moments longer before determinedly jotting his name on the appropriate line. When the clipboard was returned to him, the Soul snapped his fingers and vanished from sight, causing the light to flicker before the air calmed.

Howard sighed deeply and cautiously placed an empty canvas onto the easel, and then picked up a freshly sharpened pencil. Hovering it over the material, he was pleasantly alarmed to find that he didn't feel any different. He placed the lead tip down onto the canvas and instinctively drew a curved line. No change. Very unlike the Spirit of Jazz. Howard closed his eyes, half-believing he'd merely hallucinated the preceding events. But when he opened them again, he was overcome with a rush of what could only be described as creative energy.

Swelling with new-found confidence, Howard moved his pencil-bearing hand wildly about the canvas, not once stopping to think or check his work. It was impulse, pure arbitrariness, which invigorated him. He smiled and laughed with unmitigated bliss and light-heartedness as his seemingly random pencil strokes began to form a picture.

"Yes!" he shouted, trading the utensil for a paint brush. He wasn't sure if this was how the best artists created their masterpieces, but he didn't care. This is what he felt like doing, and Goddammit, no one was going to stop him. For the first time in his life, he felt truly powerful. Wielding nothing but art supplies, Howard could invent worlds and characters and emotions on top of nothingness, and the sense of omnipotence this revelation brought him surged through him like a raging storm. He was glad he hadn't snuck a hit or two of Naboo's hookah; this was a potent high all its own.

After what could have been anything from fifteen minutes to three hours, Howard stepped back, panting, to admire what he'd done. It was beautiful. He smiled broadly and jocundly laughed to himself at the image, although there was nothing humorous about it at all. Satisfied, he retired to the kitchen, made a cup of tea, and found himself utterly exhausted. For the first time in all of Vince's nightlife history, Howard crashed down on the couch and fell into a peaceful, solid sleep.

It wasn't that Howard didn't care. It was that instead of insomnia being the vessel for his worries and jealousy, his painting had taken over.

What he had created was almost Biblical on the surface. It consisted of two figures. One looked impoverished. He was hunched on the ground, and although he was startlingly beautiful, it was clear that wasn't the purport of his appearance in the work. Dark brown hair hung over his face, and his clothing was raggedy and of the same color. His small, loving eyes gazed upward, admiring the other figure, who, on the other hand, was radiant. He hung suspended in the sky with rays of brilliant light emanating from him. His dark hair blew majestically in the breeze, his piercing blue eyes shone, and his entire countenance exuded stability, happiness and confidence. He was garbed in shimmering golden robes and elaborate jewels. His right arm was extended downward toward the hunched figure, his index finger pointing at him almost accusatorily.

And in his left hand, a human heart was clutched.