Day One – Morning

Winona tossed and turned in bed, shutting her eyes and opening them, curling up on her side before flipping onto her stomach with her face buried against her pillows. She contemplated just suffocating herself into sleep more than once for the last two hours if it was going to continue being so difficult.

The inventor couldn't get out of her head the fact that Butch DeLoria was just in the next room—in her living room, lounging on her couch—and would remain there for 7 days. She wondered what they would even do over the next week until the 'Honeymoon' was over; when they wouldn't be hounded by some investigator for the Overseer to ensure that they spent time together. Winona figured that if the F.A.M.I.L.Y. Initiative was this heavy-handed with the paperwork, the mock wedding ceremonies, the booklets with suggestions for optimal sex positions for baby making, than they'd be outright asked if they engaged in intercourse—and probably with very little tact, that being said.

She didn't look forward to the end of the week now that she thought about what it'd entail... with that it mind, it made this week off from her enforced community service, with no expectations made of her other than to stay at home with Butch, made her feel better about the here and now.

Winona still couldn't sleep, however, despite her frayed nerves reweaving themselves, and so snapped up in bed with her fingers ruffling through her thick curls. She looked to the open doorway of her bedroom that connected to her living room with a thought of climbing out of bed to see if Butch was still awake. Instead she turned onto an elbow, leaning toward her nightstand, and turned on her Pip-Boy—which she had retired for the night—but only to check the time and was momentarily blinded by the bright green light before she could readjust her vision through squinting.

02:33 AM.

Her Pip-Boy was dropped back onto it's stand to recharge and she pulled herself up toward the headboard of her bed so she could sit more upright. Her eyes flittered towards the open doorway to the living room once more and she bit her bottom lip in thought.

The bedroom door had been left open for Butch's benefit; she told him if he needed anything like extra pillows or blankets, towels for the communal bathroom, even a midnight snack he could come and wake her up.

She probably would've been awake, anyway, trying to quietly tinker on something as not to disturb him.

But she didn't hear any noise coming from the opposite room; not a snore or the drowsy sounds of dreamland. He was either a silent sleeper or he was lying awake on her couch, unable to sleep, too.

Winona threw the thin bed sheet off of her bare legs (her apartment was set so far back in the living quarter's that the vault's temperature control took a while to get cool air to her) and swung her legs out of bed to patter silently across the warm floor toward the living room. Upon passing through the doorway, she meekly peeked toward her couch to see Butch strung out on the length of it on his back.

Indeed, he was a silent sleeper.

She could make out the shape of his slumbering face with the light that peeked through the slats of her blinds in the front window. Clean lines of fluorescent white came across his forehead at his thick eyebrows, the bridge of his sloping nose, and framed his mouth. His upper lip always had a distinctive shape to it like the starting of a cupid's bow, ending in a gentle curve to each side, and at this time the cusp of his mouth was parted with the emission of quiet noises in his slumber. His head lolled to one side where he was now facing her and the channel of light that was across his nose was now slanted sideways over his closed eyes; the Tunnel Snake was too deep in sleep to be roused by the disturbance and she continued to study him without restraint, without alarm.

A jet black curl of his hair fell loosely into his face, looking shiny and damp and without it's usual holding pomade, so he must have showered shortly after she retired to bed. Her eyes followed the angle of his strong jaw—it was a man's jaw, and she cracked only to herself that he made it that way with how often he liked hearing himself talk—to where it sloped down his neck, the hilt of his collarbones, and down to his chest, which was free of his jumpsuit or even a vault issued undershirt. The latter was discarded on the floor, seeming sweat stained from the heat of her apartment, besides his haphazardly kicked off boots and the draping arm of his leather jacket, which was laid over an end table at the head of the couch arm. His jumpsuit was reclined down to his broad hips along with the zipper and the arms tangled around his torso or legs as they saw fit. A toned arm was tucked under his head while the other draped lazily over his bare stomach, interrupting a trail of sparse chest hair down his stomach where it continued on somewhere unforeseen.

If there was anything she could say about Butch DeLoria, and most likely only in her most private of thoughts, it was that he was an undeniably handsome creature. She recognized a while ago that he was so easy on the eyes sometimes you couldn't help but just stare at him—there was something clean cut yet also ruggish about his features, and she appreciated how he took pride in his appearance and grooming. She found it to be enticing, and more than once when she was close enough to him where she could smell that pomade, or his aftershave, or his cologne, which was almost woodsy smelling and combined with the lasting scent of his leather jacket, did she find herself trapped in thoughts she shouldn't have been having about him.

Like being on her hands and knees under him with her head coaxed back by his fist balled in her hair. His cupid bow mouth and sharp teeth clamping onto the junction of where her shoulder met with her neck; and she'd eagerly drown herself in the intoxicating, masculine smells of those earthy tones and genuine leather coming off his tousled hair, and the beading sweet off his skin, his taut body against her back as his hips drove into her—

Winona shivered in the doorway of her bedroom, her hand clutching the jamb as she leaned against it for support and continued observing him while he was blissfully unaware. Her face was suddenly hot, feeling like it was beginning to heat her in the apex of her thighs and she shut them tightly—as if it'd will the potent sensation away.

It had been a long time since Winona Parker found herself physically attracted to anyone; and the shame that came with these desires being caused by him left an unforgiving welt inside her that she didn't know she craved—the desire of something that was taboo, that she would've been ridiculed for, even from her closest of loved ones. She missed feeling such a visceral physical attraction for someone—and it reached a height she hadn't even felt for the lean bodied Freddie, whom she, initially, thought had physically been more her type.

Tastes could change and as she took notice of weeks ago, Butch's strong and switchblade trick-calloused hands were much more suited for spanking than Freddie's had been. His toned physique was also much more to the liking of her wandering hands—which wouldn't have been able to keep themselves to one place if they had the chance to press against him.

It was like a dirty secret she would never share with anyone, and she'd never share it with anyone happily.

In the confines of her room, where she was alone with only her hands and the thoughts she had of Butch DeLoria in the night, Winona knew that allowing her imagination full creative control was dangerous; she knew that the moment her mind would conjure Butch's face into her fantasies, she'd be fucked... though that was probably the goal, in all honesty.

The inventor quickly retired back to her room. She placated herself for far too long by raking over every detail of Butch's partially naked body, leaving nearly very little to her aforementioned vivid imagination. She spent the remainder of the night trying to force herself into sleep and her hand from straying into the waistband of her pajama shorts.

However, that was a battle she almost gladly let herself lose more than once.

Day One – Afternoon

Butch thanked God that Winona wasn't a morning person, because damn neither was he—and any man who said they were wasn't a man to be trusted.

He sloughed himself to breakfast (lunch, actually) at around 12, grabbed some packaged crap at the cafeteria, and on his way out noticed Susie Mack with her cousin, Christine Kendall, in tow at the bar counter. As he dropped some credits at the register for his sugar-packed lunch, on the brink of his hearing, he heard the two quietly whispering Winona's name and pointing at him in a way that they probably thought was discreet before giggling to themselves. He regarded them with a sneer and waited for the perfect moment where Susie looked back at him—obviously assuming that he hadn't noticed them—and gave his most wrathful sneer. The typically bullheaded Susie buckled in surprise under the glare with a white face and immediately drew silent. Her eyes snapped back to her cousin to try and pretend she hadn't noticed it.

A momentary look of concern passed over her face just as her eyes ducked from his—like she was certain he knew about what happened between her and Freddie just from looking at her.

Butch fully expected her to call him out on his sneer because damn did he want to pick a fight with her. Cheating slut, he thought heatedly, as he snatched his packaged food off the counter and stalked to the door—having to go past the two girls on his way out.

They were eerily quiet all the way until he stepped foot out the cafeteria and the door rolled shut behind him.

He knew Winona didn't care about the cheating, and furthermore hadn't been wounded by it at all, but the gang leader was pissed off enough for the both of them so it probably balanced it out.

The walk back to her apartment was a quiet one and he was happy that he didn't encounter any other residents now that he was in a shitty mood. He couldn't tell why it bothered him so much that she wasn't upset by how Freddie went under Susie. If Butch ever saw the Candypants, he'd give the bastard the beating of his life that'd make Allen Mack look like a playful kitten with his wife in comparison. If he and Winona weren't friends, he might've been impressed that Freddie got two chicks and was sneaky enough to get away with it... but the fact of the matter was that he was friends with Winona—great friends, even—and he couldn't understand how Freddie cheated on someone as kickass as she was.

If Butch had a girl like Winona on his arm, he'd makesure that everyone knew how fucking awesome she was. He'd make sure the whole damn vault knew that she was his girl and anyone who thought about looking at her would eat his fist. She could share his liquor, touch his hair, and wear his Tunnel Snakes jacket whenever she wanted, which was a big deal for him because even Dolly—his on-and-off girlfriend of so many years—never got to wear his jacket, and she'd constantly ask for him to drape it around her shoulders.

...The fuck am I even thinkin', about Parker? An estranged voice questioned in his head upon realizing that he was thinking about her tousling his hair with gently stroking fingers; snatching his beer from him with a wicked grin and a curled finger challenging him to come and get it back; curling herself under his arm with his jacket on, looking like she was born to wear it for him. He thought about her sometimes, sure, but not like this—not in some serious, intimate manner since he had a crush on her when they were teenagers. Something about the tangle of discombobulated emotions was so stifling, like it was wringing his lungs and turning his stomach inside out, with flutterings he wanted to crush under pounding fists because he knew it'd be too much trouble to keep them.

Coupled with his still pissy mood with Susie, he was already having a shitty enough morning.

He was finally at Winona's door, however, and allowed himself inside. She gave him clearance the day before their wedding so he had freedom to go in and out with her permission. The thought of yesterday's ceremony drew his eyes down to his ring finger on his left hand, which was free of a silver wedding band. Straight after the ceremony they both took the rings off and he left his to be forgotten in his sock drawer when he packed an overnight bag for their Honeymoon Week.

"That you, Snake King?" Winona called from the bedroom just as he dropped 'breakfast' on the dining table.

"No, it's the Overseer." He quipped sarcastically.

"Oh, good! For a second I was worried you were Butch DeLoria!"

Butch snorted loudly in an under breath laugh as he stalked toward her room to linger in her doorway. Winona sat at her workbench just across from him, hunched over a snarl of wiring coiling all across the table to different pieces of a partially constructed invention—wielding a soldering iron in steady hands as she meticulously worked. Her long, fraying braid trailed freely down the middle of her exposed back from under an emerald green bandana, printed with gold and white designs. Butch had little time to admire the view (especially since she was still in the same halter last night, and the bottom half of a jumpsuit that hugged her hips as if devoted to her shape) when she looked up from her task to regard him with a small but kind smile that accentuated only her right dimple, as it was uneven and favored that side.

It immediately melted the burning ire he had for Susie Mack to a simmering pile of ashes right then and there... and Butch's earlier vision of the inventor, looking downright cocky in his leather jacket, became so much easier to visualize. Winona smiled at him before, but it wasn't a smile like told him she was genuinely happy to see him.

He knew he was screwed right then and there.

"You sleep okay?"

"Your apartment's fuckin' hot," He grumbled indignantly.

"Poor baby. Want me to follow you around with a hand fan?"

"Don't offer if 'ya won't deliver," The smile on her face deepened despite the little roll of her eyes. "I know when you're talkin' crap 'bout me in your head, girlie."

"You act like I was trying to hide it." Winona replied back with false innocence as he waltzed over and stood just beside her to gaze over—... whatever it was that she was working on.

"The hell's this?"

"Something that needs a bit of tweaking but it's not cooperating," She sighed as she set the soldering iron in a stand up holder so it wouldn't be left unsupervised on her workbench. "It's a device meant to stun radroaches."

"...That's cool," The fear he had of radroaches sent a sliver of anxiety right through his heart. "How's it do that?"

"Through a frequency roaches can hear that remains undetected and unnoticed by us... renders them unable to move, which's all well and good but not the desired effect. I'm trynna fix it so it'll kill them instead—"

As she began to explain her invention, Butch came around behind her hunched posture to lean over her. His hands snaked around each of her sides to brace his weight with the heels of his palms on the workbench table edge—and her commentary immediately halted as she took notice of their suddenly extremely close proximity to each other. She could feel his front grazing her back and the white-haired girl turned her chin up to look to him at her shoulder.

"Pretend like I ain't here," He smirked in that charmingly cheeky way of his and she couldn't break herself away even if she wanted to. It was in the way that he smiled that grated her with his arrogance, while also simultaneously stoking at a lewd appetite she wanted to placate. His stare was heavy lidded with a satisfied glint as if he had her right where he wanted her to be... but that only drove a challenging fire in her to keep him from winning.

Good thing that was a talent of hers.

"You make that hard to do," Winona responded before adding cheeky bastard in a weak mental voice, only to herself.

"So you want me around, Parker?" Butch hummed with that damn smirking mouth of his poised strategically close to her ear. When she shivered in response, he noticed, and went on with a low rumble to his voice, as if that was all he needed to push her over the edge. "All you gotta do is say the word."

"That right?" She responded quietly, thinking. Butch didn't like when she used that tone of voice because it implied she had a trick, or invention, or something else that she was patiently waiting to utilize that would keep the cards from cashing out in his favor.

A sharp peak of thrill ran coarse ringlets down his spine, and now Winona knew she had him right where she wanted him.

"That's right, girl." His reply was tentative and just the right crack she needed to sneak herself through.

"That's not how this would work... not at all." Winona clucked her tongue as if she were scolding him and placed a hand against his chest to ease him off while rising from her stool.

Soon, Butch was the one sitting down and he didn't know how the shift had suddenly taken place—mentally kicking himself for not seeing how she managed to wrangle the exchange in her favor, and Winona was just surprised at the surge of confidence she held herself with. It was more than she thought she'd ever have when a time like this came, as if it were one of those unrealistic scenarios playing through her head come to life. Her hands were on his shoulders now, slowly smoothing down his biceps over the leather of his jacket arms and she tried not to shake; from nerves, from excitement, from the rapidly growing want.

"If you want it, you say the word—I think it'll beee... mercy." The last word was accentuated by a dusky murmur and though Butch tried to keep the arrogant smirk on his face, they both knew that he was crumbling apart right under her provocative touch.

A short, startled inhale of a gasp escaped her when his hands latched onto her hips, pulling her in against him in a jarring and sudden motion with the intention of catching her off guard, and she had no choice but to hold steady on his shoulders so she wouldn't lose her footing. With her body weight leaning into him, leaving neither of them without full contact with the other person's body, Butch's arms encircled her small waist with one pressing along up, up, up, her spine. Winona stood between his thighs, where his booted feet were tucked onto a foot rung around the base of her stool, her chest crushed against his, and she allowed him to hold her as he was—as if she belonged to him.

Butch had that fucking arrogant smirk on his face again.

She'd fix him in due time.

He'd invite her to if she dared.

"If 'ya think I'll come crawlin' on my damn hands and knees—" He began in a stubborn voice but she swiftly cut him off with her trademark sarcasm.

"You can slither if you want," She nearly jumped when his hand on the curve of her back dipped and shamelessly grabbed a handful of her rear in a tight grip. Her knees nearly buckled out from under her, betraying her to her desires that left her wanting to be mindless—to let go and let whatever could happen between them just happen. It'd been so long since someone last touched her that she felt intimately bankrupt and that one grope alone almost sent her careening into a tailspin with her eyes set on the teasing curl of his mouth, wanting to steal a kiss from it.

"Butch DeLoria doesn't beg."

"When I tell him to, he does."

"Don't give up easy, do 'ya, Parker?" Butch was grinning from ear to ear, allowing more latitude for the flushing red that was tinging his cheeks from the heat between them. She was feeling it too, feeling the warmth in her face, as it bypassed the rest of her body straight down to her core. She shifted her body against his wantonly at the feeling of his chest under her splayed hands.

"Thinking I'm easy is an insult you'll regret implying." Winona's head dropped to allow her lips a moment to linger near his as if inviting him to close the distance, just as he was lifting his chin to meet her, and feeling his nose brush hers, she grinned tormentingly and withdrew from his arms—escaping the trap that kept her between his knees. "You let me know when you want mercy."

"If you don't cry mercy first, Snowflake." The Tunnel Snake challenged as he pulled her back in before she could manage even a single step away, his hands laying greedy claim to her hips again.

"You think I would?" She laughed, dubious in the conviction behind his accusation.

"I bet you would."

The obvious truth of the matter was Butch hated crying Uncle and hated being told what to do even more; and Winona was patient and disciplined enough to ensure that she wouldn't be the one to crack first, as long as he didn't use any dirty tricks. The only advantage the gang leader had over her that he could lay claim to was his past experience; even though it only extended to Dolly, it was still a hell of a lot more impressive than her record with two years of 'no sex' torture that she endured with Freddie... and yet his confidence in such experience was now a little shaken as the course of their conversation took place. She may not have had physical experience, but she had an idea as to what'd get him purring, and she had a damn near dangerous imagination that could make up for it if she had the fearlessness to act on them.

And fearless, Winona Parker was.

Winona stood in front of him with a contemplative look in her eyes, and in her thoughts she was weighing the circumstances that they were under. She couldn't forget the civic duty that loomed over them and what this week represented—the expectation of bonding, fucking like rabbits, and then getting interrogated about whether or not they procreated at the end of the week—but she couldn't help having an ulterior motive, and she honestly liked Butch. There was an easy comfort that came from being around him, and the fact that their companionship was always meant to remain a secret carried a questionable thrill for her. She couldn't ignore how starved she was for the carnage of sex and if he was willing to be her supplier, than the Overseer didn't have to know, and they didn't have to treat it as anything other than using each other as more than just friends.

After all, they decided that the marriage wasn't going to change anything for them at all—there was only so much the Overseer and the F.A.M.I.L.Y. Initiative could make them do—if she was going to have sex with him it was because she wanted to and because it was her 100% choice.

Through just a connection of their eyes, it was as if a whole conversation had been relayed, but Winona was the first one to verbally speak up.

"You're so on, Snake King."

"You can call me Butch-man, baby." He remarked proudly. Calling her baby sent a white-hot coil through her and the hissing thought of fuck me, I'm a goner. "You wanna kiss on it t'seal the deal?"

"Nice try but you're gunna have to earn it!" Winona laughed in response as she pulled on his jacket lapel in a gesture for him to get off her stool. He did so without complaint. "Now get outta here, I have work to do!"

"Well don't miss my handsome mug too much while I'm gone—gonna go see if Paul's around. Leave you t'your nerdy little toys, twerp."

"...Call me twerp one more time, I dare you." She warned and it definitely sounded more threatening than playful.

"Twerp." He spat without any hesitance.

Winona responded in kind by immediately chasing him out of her apartment with a wrench, also without hesitance.

A/N: Heeey readers. So this fic is going to be changed up a bit... because I'm a sucker for punishment, apparently, and because I never wrote nor planned this ahead of time with an end goal in mind-just something fun for Valentine's Day that I had floating around my head-the more I wrote for this AU the more I wanted to explore it.

So for the time being, since I'm basically going to utilize Lovers Lament as smut practice (hehe) I decided that it's an open ended fic. It'll always be considered completed, always open ended with no 'final chapter' in mind since it's not really a plot driven story, and I'll add to it when I feel like it or leave it alone when I don't. There won't be a set schedule for chapters like there is for Inventor's Absolution so it'll be a really lax side project.

Hope y'all enjoy the ride regardless! The last thing I'll mention is that there is a timer shown in the chapters (like with the Day One - Afternoon) just to keep the story on a timeline so it never seems like an endless 'Honeymoon'.

Happy reading, happy writing!

~Konfessionist signing out