Work Text:
The canvas is properly wrapped in the morning newspaper, it is to be discarded as soon as possible after the collateral accident the cat had caused. He couldn't bear to see it again, yet the student couldn't blame the animal for knocking the yellow paint over the portrait's eyes. If this is the way the cat uses to communicate to him then so be it.The feline creature had made his small studio her home, even making her own nest beside the cupboards, she has the same authority as the student.
The studio is on the last floor of the five storey building where the young student lives and spends most of his time in, when not attending classes in the nearby university. Half of the room is dedicated to his hobby alone, painting images and portraits of various subjects. The other half was his kitchen, bathroom, and mattress for sleeping. The table and chair for eating had been sacrificed for the desired space for his art long ago. Holmes could be always seen sitting in front of a canvas, painting only one subject ever since he had moved here, he doesn't sell any of his works, and from what the other tenants of the building claim, the student does not have a model.
Before the canvas was thrown away as the day's trash, the student picks up the cat, whose fur still has the leftover paint. She is a poor creature with only a few patches of white fur on her bony body, she has an azure garter around her neck indicating she once had an owner. The student knows the name of the owner, even the university they had taught in, these two things kept him as the caretaker of the nameless cat.
"I suppose you are here again for your afternoon tea." The cat responds to that by licking what remained of her fur. Holmes carefully places her this time beside the cupboard, while searching scraps for his visitor.
"You have successfully had my full attention" He cranes his neck to the newspaper-wrapped canvas. "- after today's episode"
The creature devours her share of food before licking the rest of the milk in the plate. She slowly raises her head to the direction of the student and then the ruined canvas.
"Is it about James again? Your owner?"
Nod. The human's lips form a sad smile.
"James, the name written on your garter, along with the university he had taught in under his name. James Moriarty is from the same university I spent my last years in as a student. He has hair as white as snow, those perpetual sad eyes...ah yes I cannot forget the eyes. They never kept still, I noticed that everytime I talked to the professor. I cannot recall why they were always sad. He has a turbulent career ahead of him; writing two treatises and having a place among the most respected professors in the university. Still, as I hold his hand, they reflect only sorrow. He is the most beautiful man I ever met, cat, but those eyes always ruin his aged face. James may be past his prime, yet he has all the charm of a younger man. Teaching has aged him fast."
"I can paint only him as my subject. The thought of changing my model or even considering scenery never entered my mind. I cannot ask for a better model; James is simply the only man my brush can paint. I see you are looking at last month's portrait? He is more cheerful, you say, cat? That is the only flaw I could not possibly change in every painting. It always shatters my heart to give him those perpetual sad eyes. No one has seen James with ecstatic eyes, conceivably there is nothing in his life but sadness, so in my paintings I want him to be happy. Raising his companion cat over his head (Yes that is you with your master, the painting just below the window), visiting the university gardens with his beloved butterflies, all of those memories where he should be happy, captured on the canvases. No, do not give me that look, he always smiles at any given time, but they are empty ones. They say that the eyes are the lamps of the body."
The feline creature stretches its body and wanders once again to the ruined painting with splattered paint on its eyes. She rests on top of the canvas before tilting her head to the direction of the Street, with a look of uneasiness. The student notices this strange behavior for the first time.
"Time to go home back to your master? After using my studio as your nest for months, you have decided to go home? Certainly if the lady prefers. Would you like to stay for your last dinner? You only mewed twice when you decline, then it's a no."
The student has put on his coat and hat, while the creature decides to get off the table with the ruined painting on top. On the lips of the student, there is a perpetual sad smile that perfectly matches those eyes of the professor's. The painting of the same subject over and over again has influenced him greatly.
But before that, the cat has finished her toilet in the corner, looking skeptically towards the numerous paintings the student has made.
Going down the five flights of stairs, he has met every tenant of the house and spoken to about the owner of the cat.
"Professor Moriarty, the owner of that poor kitty. Youngest teacher in such a university if you ask me." The bookshop owner with hair covering her other eye said as he passed the fourth flight of stairs, "he is searching for you, Mr. Holmes."
The student didn't reply.
"I always see you hanging around with the old lecturer's cat." An ex-colonel whose face is covered with scars greeted him with a raised hat at the third flight of stairs. "Poor creature, probably seen better days with the raven haired teacher."
The student didn't reply.
"I passed Mr. Moriarty just earlier, the cat's master you know." A fellow painter in the second floor smiled. "He's very old for a detective but there he goes bagging every criminal in season. I never saw a happier man who lives in Four Winds save for him. I'll tell the detective that you returned his cat."
The student didn't reply.
"Going back to that accursed place, Mr. Holmes? I rather not." The final resident of the building: an old retired bookkeeper. "That is no place for a young painter such as you, especially where the old professor lives, I saw him earlier with that creature in the market. He is the same aged professor who I met for the first time when he moved in the neighborhood. He smiles but his eyes tell a different tale, a very painful story. Are you still painting the same man? What do you mean you always paint Moriarty? Do not lie in front of your elders! Those two are very different! You are blind if you tell them they are the same people! Why I-"
But the student didn't reply anymore, he passed the chattering bookkeeper and into the right wing of the building, in the quiet street of the Four Winds. Long since has faded the voices of the tenants and silence is greeting the student with a cold embrace. Past the stairs, into the ancient door which was already unlocked, from there the cat jumped from his arms and quickly turned her attention to the figure lying prone on a crumbling mattress brought inside the room a long time ago. There is nothing more to reveal but said object in the leftmost corner, even the windows are barricaded from outside. The rest of the room only has dust and decay; memories and guilt.
For the student and the cat: This is not a habitable room for anyone who is alive.
Slowly, the student approaches the mattress, the cat sitting beside it. He carefully kneels before planting his lips on the individual's damp forehead. Those perpetual sad eyes gloom at this gesture but his body remains cold. The student props him with care on his lap before kissing him once again but this time on the lips. The cat purrs and stretches itself. He is very beautiful, the same man he met in university. The same man in his countless paintings, now rotting in his studio, never to be shown except to himself and the cat. He is as pale as when he saw him glancing at the pristine waters of Reichenbach falls long ago on a May afternoon. He still retains his teaching robes on that same day, much to the student's delight.
Yet a torn mourning veil covers those eyes but translucent enough to beheld them.
"James Moriarty, I have came back for you..."
The other man didn't reply.
Feeling ecstatic, the student partially positions him in front of himself so the other man is embracing him. He closes his eyes as he rests his head on his shoulder, humming a familiar tone he taught him back in the university. The cat yawns as the clouds in the street of the Four Winds clears and reveals the looming yellow moon.