Dictum - A statement given some weight or consideration due to the respect given the person making it.
Pickman Gallery was just as Althea remembered - although, maybe the smell had gotten worse. The heatwave that the Commonwealth had experienced lately did not help the longevity of the "exhibits" and walking into that smell was like a full force slap to the face. Even Dogmeat seemed loathe to want to enter.
Hancock swore and used a sleeve to cover what was left of his nose, Nick by comparison was much more composed as he said 'It smells awful in here.'
'You think?!' Hancock retorted. 'This is what that asshole was doing in here? I thought you were joking when you described it!' His eyes surveyed the wreckage of the room and fell on the installation piece where they narrowed. 'The fuck is that?!'
Thea turned and stared at the raider, impaled on the spikes. 'His last artwork, I think.' She was studying the area around her critically. It looked like the paintings had been stripped. On one half of the room, the bloody homages to sadism had been stacked neatly against the wall - on the other, they'd been thrown everywhere.
Danse and Strong had been here - she was sure of it, knowing the Paladin's obsessive qualities and Strong's complete lack of reverence for anything old world - but getting Dogmeat to sniff out anything in this place would be too much to ask. The dog wouldn't be able to smell a thing through all the rotting bodies and gore.
'Inspirational,' Nick replied dryly. 'Is that where the smell is coming from?' He wondered as he jerked a thumb at the raider rotting in the view of a window.
'Probably.' Thea agreed.
'What kind of asswipe does this sort of shit?!' Hancock demanded, still with one faded and torn sleeve pressed to his face.
Thea, despite wandering the room for clues on Preston, Danse and Strong's visit here of all places paused to consider that. 'A psychopath.'
Hancock snorted. 'I buy that.'
'I always wondered what the difference was between a psychopath and a sociopath,' Nick mused. 'What makes a person one but not the other?'
It was patently clear that Preston, Danse and Strong had moved on, but they would search the building none-the-less. Thea dug deep and turned her mind back a long way to her classes at Cali U - Concord Campus. It seemed a lifetime ago now that she'd taken that stupid class to improve her academic grade.
'A sociopath tends to be nervous and anxious - they commit crimes sloppily and theirs tend to be more crimes of passion or spontaneity. They rarely form meaningful relationships with other people - Psychopaths tend to plan out their crimes meticulously and absolutely cannot form social relationships at all. They don't feel remorse for what they've done and they can be quite manipulative and charming - despite their lack of emotion.' She summarised. 'When I met Pickman, he struck me more as a psychopath than a sociopath.'
'Ahhh. I see.' Nick noted.
'Really?' Hancock enquired. 'Because all I got out of that was that he's a nutjob which, lets be honest here, I could tell from his decoration.'
Thea had to agree with Hancock on that one - you can quibble over terminology or mental health diagnoses until the end of time but crazy was crazy. The three, followed hesitantly by Dogmeat, began to fan out and search for further clues that Preston, Danse and Strong had been here. Hancock had volunteered to search the upstairs, Nick had taken the ground floor and Thea cautiously made her way down the basement stairs, Firecracker in hand and Dogmeat at her side.
It smelled different down here, somehow. There was the smell of stagnant water and rust, of dirt and coarse wet sand, of mildew and old rooms like upstairs - but there was something else down here that didn't fit right. She could smell burning paint fumes and barbecue.
Dogmeat seemed to like it here, compared to upstairs. All those conflicting smells must've put him on edge. He seemed happy enough to trot at his mistress' side again. Along the winding corridors of damp, forgotten brick and out into the open space of what Pickman had boasted to be his "workshop", Thea could see that someone - most likely the trio they were looking for - had set up a kind of roasting pit with a carved stag mounted on it.
She approached and noticed that the embers in the bottom of the old wire drum were still slightly warm but mostly ash. It had been an age since she had ever been camping - and she would never claim to be an expert - but she'd hazard a guess that they were at the very least a few hours old.
They were still behind them, but not by much.
Dogmeat whined somewhere nearby and her head snapped up. He seemed to be pawing relentlessly at the ground - at something glinting in the darkness. She closed in and squatted next to him as he alerted on some torn fragments lying on the dirt.
It was gold thread and some darker fibres mixed in like some kind of pattern. She recognised them - they were the same kind of thread that Preston's old, well loved waistcoat had.
She wouldn't claim to be a detective - the detective was currently upstairs, sorting through the gallery - but she noticed with some relief that the fibres did not seem to contain a speck of blood.
She stood up, twisting them between her fingers in thought. Something had obviously happened to Preston for his waistcoat to have ended up damaged, but there wasn't signs of blood on the fibers, or any signs of urgency in this small camp that had been set up - no open first aid kits lying on the floor, no bloody bandages or signs that anyone had been hurt - yet.
Logic trumped the sudden hysteria at seeing the frayed threads. They weren't in trouble - not yet anyway. They would be when Thea finally caught up - and she was getting closer.
'Good boy,' She murmured and reached out to give Dogmeat his well-deserved ruffle for finding another trace of Preston. He barked happily and slobbered on her fingers.
Nothing else was here. She whistled for Dogmeat to follow and began the winding route back up to the ground floor gallery.
Nick and Hancock were standing in front of the installation, seemingly comparing notes. The synth detective was the first one to see her and nodded. Hancock abruptly stopped talking and adopted what Thea was sure he called his most charming smirk. 'Find anything good? A Minuteman that needs throttling, maybe?'
'Part of one.' She agreed and held up the fibers for the other two to inspect.
Nick studied the clutched threads and Thea's recount of finding them for some time before he formed his opinion. 'Seems conclusive they moved the party to the basement, then.' He mused. 'Too much dry wood up here to run the risk of having a bonfire and burning the place to the ground.'
'It needs it.' Hancock retorted darkly as he glanced around. 'Even raiders don't deserve this shit.'
'I'm with you.' Nick agreed. 'From what I could tell and what Hancock told me, they looted the gallery and the floor above for wood to burn downstairs. They also broke into a safe hidden behind a portrait.'
He gestured to the open wall safe and the portrait laid carefully below it. Thea shivered, seeing all those black and red eyes. 'I need a drink.' She bemoaned. The way her companions froze up was a clear indication that she'd said something wrong. 'What?' She asked, sensing that something unsaid was straining to get out.
Nick conceded the floor to Hancock with a look. This, after all, was his area of expertise. Tactful as always, Hancock rubbed his scarred chin before he said 'Hey, I know I'm not one to judge on this - hell, I've been on more benders than you've had hot dinners -maybe - but... you think this whole suicidal plan to get you this Jangles that Garvey's got his knickers in a bunch over is to do with you drinking?'
'What.' Thea deadpanned, she could feel the embarrassment rising up from the pit of her stomach in a twisted, sickly way. She knew he was doing this for her - but the thought that he was doing it because she occasionally sometimes liked a drink - it was making her sick to her stomach in a way that had nothing to do with their current surroundings.
'What Hancock means is - we all know, Althea. All the companions know that you….have had a bit of a problem lately.' Nick murmured.
'With booze.' Hancock nodded.
She couldn't believe this - Preston, Danse and Strong were out there - doing god knows what, maybe already dead - and Nick and Hancock decided to stage some kind of intervention now?! She must have looked particularly incredulous because Hancock chipped back in.
'Look, we're not saying it's wrong - and I know that when you've got a ton of shit on your plate, a pick-me up or a good drinking session is all well and good but…' Hancock sighed. 'We're just worried this hellhole's getting to you, sister.'
'I don't have a problem.' She lied. She knew she was lying - she knew when she saw Jacob Orden pour that rot-gut and how badly she wanted to drink it - she had a problem.
'Thea, it's us you're talking to.' Nick murmured gently. 'We just think that the reason Preston convinced Danse and Strong to do this is because he's worried about your drinking and he wants to give you something that will remind you that you need to keep going. If you crumble - everything you've done for the Commonwealth does too.'
She opened her mouth to refute him - to deny it all - but the truth was….Nick and Hancock were right. She did have a problem. Ever since Kellogg had told her that she'd missed the first nine years and eleven months of her child's life - ever since she'd found out Shaun had grown up in this horrible world without her - without his mother, or father - she had a problem. Maybe she should have been grateful that he was alive at all, really. That he hadn't just been killed like so many people in random, violent acts of carnage that seemed fairly mundane in the Commonwealth.
She was depressed, she was smart enough to realize that - and smart enough to know that if anyone would have picked up on it then Preston would have - considering his own past - and he had chosen to go out on some foolhardy, dangerous quest to find something that even Thea wasn't sure even existed anymore - to try and help her pull herself out of it. Now, here was Nick and Hancock saying that everyone knew - or suspected. That they all just wanted to help her.
Shame burned for a minute, brighter than the embarrassment.
'You're right.' She whispered at last, the sound carried in the dead, dusty air. 'You're right, I have a problem. But right now, I just want to find Preston, Danse and Strong alive - after that…'
The other two nodded understandingly. After the current crisis was overwith, they would talk about her recent behaviour - maybe even rehab with Cait.
But first - they had three wayward companions to hunt down - and they were getting closer.
A/N: What is this sorcery? Two updates in a week? I don't know either but this forced it's way out through the course of about an hour. Did I mention that I love the dynamic between Hancock and Nick? Cause I do.