#lecterphiled

She had approached him early in the evening with her watercolors and a blank canvas in hand and explained simply that dear sweet Kent wanted to have a commission of the Silver Shroud to hang up over his bed, and that she thought that it would be utterly exciting if the two of them worked on it together as a team. Her sketching out the basic outline, and the excitable Mayor giving the painting the colors that it needed to pop like a true old fashion comic book.

The team-up had started off well enough, Hancock admiring her careful sketching, and the way that she hummed while doing so, and him almost excited at the thought of placing the colors on the canvas. But the moment that he held the paintbrush in his hand, and the pallet in the other – every amount of thrill or joy that he had quickly turned into an endless amount of questions and nervousness.

And even for someone like Ponnie, who was often thought of having the patience of one of the old saints from long ago…she was frankly getting annoyed by her friend’s tense state. She truly didn’t think that it was such a matter to get so worked up on, and she thought that he was being far too dramatic over it.

After a moment of thought, she shuffled off of the couch and walked over to her friend’s side, touching his hand with her own and moving it towards the canvas with a slight – and rather forced – smile up at him.

“I told you before, Johnny,” She started to say, using a favorited nickname in the hopes that it would calm his nerves. “You’re meant to use simple brushstrokes to cover the entirety of the Shroud’s hat.”

She continued to hold onto his hand gently, and guided the brush over the sketch – ignoring the small groan that came forth from Hancock’s lips when he realized that his hand was shaking and the paint was beginning to drip down places where he didn’t want.

She was about to reassure him, to tell him that it was all right, and paint splatters happen, but he quickly broke the contact from her hands before she was able to. Placing both the pallet of watercolors and the brush on the table, Hancock reached for the makeshift washcloth that he used to wipe away the mistakes that he had made during the painting lesson – that being his own stash from his costume. “Aw, hell,” He muttered under his breath as he tried to wipe the blacks from the canvas; eventually he turned his head to face Ponnie. “I dunno why you wanted me to work on Kent’s drawing anyway…”

She smiled and walked over to help him, using her own ratty washcloth instead of certain parts of a certain historic outfit.

As they both continued to try to get a handle on the dripping paint, her more than him, as he was just, more or less, spreading it everywhere and caking his stash; Ponnie giggled softly.

“Because you told me that you wanted to spend some time with your favorite girl in the Commonwealth, remember?”

Hancock groaned audibly once again, more in regards to his – now pitch black stash – than her words, and reached a hand towards the shorter girl and placed it on the top of her head.

“Well, yeah,” He said simply, “But when I said that, I thought we would’ve ended up going to the Third Rail to listen to some good music or somethin’...not have you teach me to paint like a pro.”

Ponnie’s cheeks flushed faintly at his sudden compliment, and she couldn’t help but start to giggle again as she shrugged his hand off of her head, and reached out for the pallet to place it back into his grasp.

“Not that I don’t like Miss Magnolia’s tunes or anything,” She said with another characteristic bright grin. “But I thought that this would be far more relaxing than going down to the Rail for a night.”

Hancock picked up the brush again, and tried to place the dark colors of the Shroud’s costume as best that he was able, but unfortunately felt as though every stroke was another massive blunder …and in turn, taking every amount of willpower not to simply splash paint everywhere in sheer frustration.

Despite his conflicting feelings, he barked a laugh in response to her words.

“Relaxin’?!” He said in amused surprise as he brushed another stroke of paint over the jacket of the Silver Shroud. “You hit your damn head or something, Pon? ‘Cus if you think this is relaxing, I’d sure as hell hate to see what you think is stressful!”

Ponnie placed her hands on her hips and gave him a frown.

“The only reason you’re freaking out at all, is because you’re too afraid to do anything more than baby strokes.”

Hancock stopped what he was doing and turned to her; suddenly feeling insulted.

“Well, excuse me, sister, but not all of us can be paintin’ masters, ya know.”

She walked closer and raised a finger to poke him in the forehead; the air in the room turning thick with a conflict that seemed to happen far too often between them both.

“Well, if you would just listen to what I say, you wouldn’t be having so much trouble.”

Hancock narrowed his black eyes and shrugged her finger off his head.

“Don’t think I ain’t been trying!” He grumbled. “Not my fault that it don’t make any sense!”

She stood there staring at him in breathless annoyance.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” She started. “And just how the hell doesn’t it make any sense!”

“Because!” He shouted, finding himself getting just as bothered as she seemed to be. “You tell me that you want me to paint over the Shroud’s costume, but yeah, guess what? That ain’t gonna work, because it’d be painting over his eyes and everythin’ else! No way Kent’s gonna go for that!”

Ponnie placed a paint splattered hand to her head and took in a deep breath to try and stay calm. It was times like this that she wondered just why on earth they were friends to begin with.

“John, you’re supposed to paint around the eyes, and then add the rest of the colors later…”

“That’s just idiotic! Why go through all that trouble?”

That was about as much as she could take, and in an effort to talk some sense into Hancock, she reached for his jacket and violently yanked him close.

“Because that’s how painting works, ya dummy!”

Hancock, though surprised by her sudden display of strength, slowly lowered his head and rested his forehead against her own; tightening his grip on the brush that he still held.

“Well, you didn’t tell me that it gets damn near everywhere! Would’ve been nice to know…”

“How did you not know that?!” Ponnie squealed; letting him go and frantically throwing her hands up in the air. “Is there anything about painting that you do know?!”

“You wanna know what I know, sister?” Hancock coolly spoke, his voice dropping into a fresh tone that was thick with playfulness. “I think I finally figured out just what the hell I wanna do with all this paint you gave me.”

Although Hancock’s tone of voice was often regularly laced with playfulness, and a desire to mischievous; Ponnie knew better than most that whenever he addressed that voice towards her –trouble was certainly bubbling towards the surface and soon she was about to be caught directly in the middle of it.

Her eyes widened considerably, and she began to back away when she saw him dip the entire paintbrush into thick blue paint.

“John, don’t you even think about it!”

“Oh, I’m thinking it! Now get your little ass over here!”

Ponnie screamed out in mock terror, and began to run around the entirety of the main room of the Old State House, as Hancock began to throw paint in her direction and it began to spread over the floors, as well as the furniture.

“You asshole!” She yelled as she hid behind the secondary couch, and away from his line of fire. “I’m disowning you as my Best Ghoul Friend!”

“Oh, my poor heart’s breakin’ right in half, sweetheart,” Hancock said with a short laugh as he dabbed the brush in once more and flicked it over the top of couch; hoping to hit her. “But I think I’ll get over it eventually.”

“Once I get that paint, I’m going to kill you with it!”

He laughed once again, and moved closer to her hiding spot.

“Good luck with that, girly. The world’s been trying for ages, and it ain’t stuck yet!”

“Oh it’s on, now, John Hancock! It’s on!”

“Come and get me!”

 ---

Hours later, a rather meek, and yet terribly excited Kent Connolly walked slowly up the winding stairs of the Old State House and made his way to the highest floor. He played with his hands in nervousness, and simply couldn’t help but wonder to himself just what his new painting would look like, as well as how amazing it would be to have the Silver Shroud watching over him as he slept in his room in the Memory Den.

He reached for the, strangely closed for once, door of the top room and was shocked to see that most of it was covered with thick splatters of paints in various colors. He tilted his head in curiosity and carefully nudged the door open, and was quickly met with the rather unusual sight of both the Mayor of Goodnighbor and his young painter friend sprawled out together on the ground – in a manner much like the door: covered head to toe with a bright array of paints.

Kent took a small step forward, and craned his head to the side. He noticed that Ponnie lay on top of Hancock’s stomach, panting in tiredness from whatever it was that they could have been doing, and the Mayor himself kept slapping the top of her head with, of all things, a dry and utterly destroyed paintbrush, in what seemed to poor Kent, like a rather sad effort to try and put another splatter of paint into her tousled hair.

Kent backed away after studying them both at various angles, and simply stood in the doorway and stared them down with a confused look on his face. Perhaps this was a bad time to be here? Maybe they were in the middle of something important? Maybe something they didn’t want Kent to see?  …Maybe he should tell Nick about what he just witnessed here?

“…Uh,” He began after a long moment, his voice quiet and careful. “S-Should, I come back later…?”

Kent waited for another moment, hoping that he would get some answers as to what on earth he managed to walk into, but when those answers did not come, and all he had in response was both the painter and the mayor’s tired breathing, he was overwhelmed with awkwardness, and the feeling that – yes, he most certainly was indeed intruding on a rather uncomfortable and private moment -- he quickly muttered out a small apology, and turned on his heels and made his way out of the room; retreating back down from where he came up the stairs.

When he was gone, and there wasn’t uncomfortable eyes over the both of them any longer, Ponnie managed to find a sudden strength and raised her head to look at Hancock with a wide grin.

“You know that we probably just scarred him for life, right?”

Hancock smirked; his eyes closed and his hands at his side.

“Yeah, probably. Poor guy.”

“You think we should tell him?” She questioned softly; feeling a bit guilty.

“You kidding me?” He replied with the same amusement in his voice from earlier, as he cracked open one eye to look at her. “And miss the priceless rumors that are gonna fly for at least a week? No damn way.”

A relaxed pause took over the room as Hancock finished speaking, and for a moment he thought that she was about to get up from their spot on the ground. However, her voice reached his ears, and he could swear that she felt her smiling.

“Speaking of which…I won the battle, you know,” She said, giving his face a little pat. “You owe me a Nuka-Cola now.”

Hancock laughed, rolling his eyes and shaking his head, as she laid her head back down on his stomach and he wrapped his arms around her.