Pup

You first met Vincent when you were children. Your family had been close to the Sinclair family for a long time, even assisting them with their museum on occasion. Over the years, you had grown close to all the Sinclair brothers, but Vincent had become your closest friend.

It had always shocked Vincent’s family, especially Bo. Vincent was the shyest person he knew. But anytime you’d come around it was impossible not to notice how Vincent seemed to soften in your presence. He was still shy as ever but the more you showed up the more his invisible walls came crumbling down for you and only you.

When the parents of the Sinclair brothers passed away you became even closer to Vincent. They all shut the world out of their lives but you were the exception. The years passed, the town became deserted, but you stayed. Even when your own family moved away you stayed behind, not wanting to leave the brothers alone in an abandoned town.

No one liked having you around more than Vincent. He was never bothered by your presence. He felt comfortable with you, safe even. You made him feel things that he had never felt before and it left him confused. He was fond of you, he knew that much, but there was a deeper longing that he didn’t quite understand. Vincent had never been good at communication. He was often silent and even when he desired to say something the words just wouldn’t come out. Art was his language. All of his emotions came out through his hands. As he sculpted and shaped the waxy surface of his preferred medium, he found himself thinking of you.

It went on like that for years. He would spend most days with you. If you weren’t lounging with him at his house he was following you around, listening to you speak and watching you as you worked as if you were the finest piece of art in a museum. He would study you when you weren’t watching, taking in all the little details about you he couldn’t help but notice. And when you would turn your attention to him and look at him he could feel something flutter inside him that he hadn’t felt before. You would make him feel something he couldn’t describe and at the end of the day he would turn to sculpting to express those emotions.

Before he knew it he was absentmindedly sculpting you from memory. During the stillness of the night, while his brothers slept upstairs and you were cozied up in your own bed in the house next door, he molded the beeswax into the shape of you. He tried to include as many details as he could. He worked slowly and carefully, treating the sculpture with care as he carved the very essence of you.

He was already finished before it truly hit him. As Vincent stared down at the bust of your face he realized that he was longing for you. It felt strange. He saw you every day so surely this longing was misplaced. What could he possibly long for if you were already in his life? And then he realized that it was more than a longing, it was love.

When you arrived at the Sinclairs’ house the next morning you were surprised to see Vincent waiting outside for you. He held something behind his back as he nervously looked down at his feet.

“What do you have there, Vincent?” you questioned as you approached him.

He hesitated before slowly pulling a sculpture from behind him. He outstretched his arm, holding out the bust towards you. As you took it into your hands you realized you were staring at a miniature bust of yourself.

“Oh, wow. Vincent, this is amazing!” you said as you held up the bust. You turned it in your hands, examining it. There were so many small details. It amazed you that he even noticed such little things about you enough to include them in the sculpture. It was so beautiful and made you feel seen.

“Did you do this for me?” you asked.

Vincent nodded. You swore you could see the tiniest crinkle of skin around his eye through his mask, as if he was smiling underneath it. You looked down at the sculpture once more, truly taking it in before looking back at him.

“Thank you so much. This is amazing,” you said. You moved closer, pulling him into a short hug which he reciprocated.

“I’m going to put this on my mantle. I don’t want the wax to melt out here in this heat. Wanna walk with me?” you asked. Vincent nodded his head once again and followed you as you led the way to your own home.

The next morning, just like every morning, you headed to check on the Sinclair brothers once you finished breakfast. You made your way outside and walked the short path to their house. When you knocked on the door, you could hear Bo call out from inside telling you to come in.

“Good morning,” you greeted.

“Morning,” Bo said. He sat at the dining room table, drinking a cup of coffee as he read the newspaper.

“Whose car did you nab that from?” you asked, knowing that your hometown didn’t have a running newspaper office anymore. You also knew that the brothers had grown rather protective of the town and would run off strangers.

“Mind your business,” Bo said. He reached in front of him and lifted a short stack of papers in the air, waving them a bit to get your attention.

“These are for you,” he said.

You made your way to the dining room and took the papers from his hand, sitting down across from him to examine them.

The papers in question were drawings. Three separate sketches of your face at different angles and lighting. You slowly flipped through them, staring down at the artwork in front of you.

“Wow,” you mumbled quietly.

“Vinny did those last night. And this morning. He didn’t sleep,” Bo said.

“Really? He stayed up drawing me?” you asked.

“Mmhmm,” Bo hummed as he flipped another page of his newspaper.

“Why would he do that?” you asked, setting the art down in front of you.

“He likes you,” Bo shrugged.

“Well, yeah. Of course, he does. We’re friends, after all. But I don’t see why he’d stay up all night over me.”

“No, not like that,” he huffed, “You can’t tell that you got him lovesick? I’ve never seen him so in love before…or at all.”

“In love?”

You were dumbfounded. Somehow the thought of Vincent being in love with you never crossed your mind. But the more you sat and thought about it the more it made sense. You were even sitting in front of physical proof.

“You’re saying he’s been making art of me because he’s in love with me?” you asked.

“That’s my theory. Why don’t you go ask him yourself?” Bo said.

“What? No. I…I can’t do that,” you said.

“Suit yourself. But just know that I’m right.”

And Bo was right. You had no idea how you couldn’t see it before.

The wax sculptures, the drawings, the fact that he followed you around like a puppy. It was right in front of your face the entire time. Vincent was in love with you. Or at the very least he had a serious crush.

You stayed up all night, pondering on Bo’s words and all of the now very obvious loving gestures that Vincent had been making. You tossed and turned in bed before you gave up on trying to sleep altogether. Rest just wasn’t coming easily to you, especially when you had started to feel a strange sense of longing for Vincent.

You got up from bed and quickly got dressed, making your way out of the house once you were finished. It had cooled off outside significantly and there was a full moon shining above, illuminating your path to the Sinclair house. When you got to the top of the stairs at their front door you gently knocked. Standing there in silence, you waited until you heard a faint shuffle on the other side of the door. The chain lock on the door jingled around and the door opened slowly to reveal Lester, the youngest Sinclair brother, standing before you.

He yawned as he scratched at his scalp, looking you up and down as he did so.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” Lester asked.

“Is Vincent awake? I need to talk to him,” you questioned.

“Yeah, come in.” Lester moved to the side, ushering you in the door with his hand and closing it behind you.

“He’s down in the basement working on something. He hasn’t been sleeping at night lately. You can go on down. You know he won’t bite,” Lester said.

“Thank you, Les,” you said.

“No problem.” He sat back down on the couch and you slowly walked to the basement door, opening it and making your way down the stairs.

When you got to the bottom you saw Vincent at his work desk, scribbling on a piece of paper. His back was turned from you and he was hunched over the desk, lost in whatever he was working on.

You knocked on the wall, getting his attention. His posture straightened quickly in his seat as he turned in his chair to look at you.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

You could see Vincent huff slightly as if he was annoyed. He turned back to what he was doing as you walked into the room, admiring his unfinished work throughout the space. The entire basement smelled of beeswax and the various candles Vincent would burn throughout the day. A lot of his work station had a buildup of melted wax from him making sculptures for so many years.

“You sure do stay busy down here,” you mumbled, stopping at the edge of his desk where he sat. When you glanced down at what he was doing he quickly covered it with his hand, attempting to hide the paper from you.

“I’m not allowed to see?”

He shook his head and flipped the paper over quickly, keeping it concealed from you.

“I understand. I won't peek,” you said.

You took a look around once more before your eyes locked on Vincent again. He fiddled with a sculpting tool while you stood next to him. He seemed more nervous than usual. You had gotten good at reading his body language over the years and you could sense that he was a bit on edge. It seemed like he wanted to tell you something but you knew that was never his strong suit.

“Are you okay?” you asked.

He gave a quick nod but didn’t look up at you.

“I wanted to come thank you for those drawings. They were absolutely beautiful. And I wanted to ask you something kind of important,” you said.

That got his attention. Vincent looked up from his work desk, giving you his attention. He motioned with his hand for you to continue speaking before resting it on the edge of the desk.

“What’s with all of these little…tokens? Are you just using me as art practice or is there something else going on? I don’t mind being your muse but is there something you’re not telling me?” you asked.

Vincent was almost always silent but you could hear the faintest sigh as if his secret had finally been uncovered. He slowly turned, grabbed the paper he had hidden from you, and handed it over. You took it into your hand and looked it over.

It was another drawing of you. This time it was paired with a simple phrase at the bottom that made you pause. Written in Vincent’s handwriting were the words ‘my love’ under the sketch.

“Vincent…”

Your hands trembled slightly as you gripped the paper. Your eyes scanned over it again and again as you stood there, thinking back on all the years you’ve known the man sitting beside you. You could feel tears welling up in your eyes and you tried your best to blink them away before they streamed down your face.

Vincent turned his head away and his shoulders slumped almost as if he was embarrassed that you were seeing the artwork. You set the paper down and rested your hand on his shoulder.

You brought your other hand up to his mask, gently turning his head to look up at you from his position.

“There’s no need to be embarrassed about it,” you said, tilting his head up so he was looking at you, “I love you too. I only wish I had realized you felt that way sooner.”

Another sigh came from Vincent, this time sounding relieved. He hesitated before standing up and pulling you into a hug. He wrapped his arms around you and held you close. You swore you could feel him relax into you.

His secret was finally out in the open. He loved you. And you loved him back. He wanted nothing more than that.