Day Two – Morning
It was a quiet time of morning in Vault 101; a time of a late twilight when half of the working residents were getting up to start their day while the other half were retiring from their graveyard shifts to return home. Winona sat in a diner booth furthest back in the cafeteria from the door, watching the very few night job residents that occupied the diner for their breakfast before going to bed, and was uncomfortable by the few who chewed on their hot cakes and occasionally glanced in her direction—they had looks in their eyes like they wanted to sit with her and either probe her with questions about her marriage to Butch DeLoria, or to offer their condolences as if it were a funeral and not a wedding ceremony that had taken place only two days ago.
She pretended not to notice the nature of these stares, preferring to think that they were looking at her for the usual reasons (loud noises in the night of her inventions going haywire, wondering what she was doing on the main floor instead of down in the tombs of maintenance 'where she belonged', why she was sitting in a back diner booth all suspicious-like and doing nothing). A half drunk bottle of Nuka-Cola rotated between her palms, sliding across the table from one end to the other as she stared straight ahead at the empty cafeteria bar and looked back at no one.
The closest residents to her, Emile from the incinerator parlor and Antonio who worked funeral ceremonies, were whispering to each other and wondering if Butch was coming to meet her for breakfast... or if she, perhaps, was stood up by her new 'husband'.
Husband.
It was still such a weird thought to wrap her mind around as she looked down to the gold band on the ring finger of her left hand. The two agreed that in public they would have to wear the rings, even if they weren't seen together, in case the Overseer was watching... and he undoubtedly was. Perhaps watching them more than he was the other 'couples'. Winona constantly wondered if the Overseer matched them together just to spite them for all the trouble they caused, individually and together, over the years, thinking that they would probably torture each other enough that they wouldn't have time for much trouble making elsewhere. However, while the Overseer was a petty and controlling man that she despised, she had to admit that he wasn't an idiot. He wouldn't want to agree on a match that wouldn't have the potential of birthing the next generation, as it would be a waste and Alphonse Almodovar wasn't wasteful.
Perhaps he thought Winona was dutiful enough to whip Butch into shape if only to appease the vault, to be praised for trying to contribute to the normalcy of their society, so she (and maybe even he) could finally be accepted by the masses? Or maybe with their unusually high score, he wanted to see how things would play out?
Or he doesn't see any harm in letting the computer throw us together because he doesn't see the truth, she pondered while taking another sip of her now flat soda. That Butch and I can be more dangerous together. We were 91-percent compatible... wonder how all the other couples scored. Why didn't that raise a red flag for him, given the history between Butch and I? Butch was right, our metaphorical kids would be evil geniuses and I can't imagine the Overseer wanting that. We're both too smart for our own goods.
Here she was thinking of chess pieces in a game that probably wasn't even in play. She waved the unfounded worries away and looked up to the pinned breakfast menu because she surely had to eat something today, and if Amata saw that her best friend's breakfast was nothing but a soda she'd flip her lid.
Winona looked to the time on her Pip-Boy. Amata would be there any moment now, to meet up before going to work in the supervisory wing, and Winona knew exactly how the hang out would take place; she'd be drilled with questions about the marriage ceremony, about Butch staying in her apartment for the next week, if he was behaving himself, if she was sure she couldn't get some kind of divorce or annulment; anything at all having to do with the Tunnel Snake and the current union and how to break it like a toothpick, really.
She wanted nothing more than to go home and lock the door than face Amata and her questions. It was a weird fear for her to have—feeling like she couldn't talk to her best friend about this—but if Winona ran away then Amata would surely know something was wrong and would come looking for her.
Taking the last sip of her soda, she sat with the empty bottle in her possession and decided that she feared this conversation, mainly, because of what had transpired between her and Butch just the afternoon before. A truth was coming to fruition that she couldn't ignore.
"You can call me Butch-man, baby."
Or maybe she didn't want to ignore it.
She thought about it all day after he left her apartment to go hang out with Paul. She thought about it even after he returned (with dinner, no less, which she found to be uncharacteristically thoughtful of him even if he didn't think anything of bringing her food), she thought about it in bed until she finally fell asleep and thought about it even more as she got ready for breakfast with Amata. Winona stopped beside the couch where Butch lay sleeping—unsure if she was only watching him or trying to decide upon his sleeping face whether or not to tell Amata the truth of their relationship—and then went on her way to the cafeteria. All that kept running through her head, chased by the howling triad of wolves that were her worries, her anxiety, and her fear, were the memories of that moment with Butch; trapped between his knees as he pulled her in close enough to smell his cologne, her lips phantoming over his with a teasing smile before withdrawing with the hope that he'd pull her into the kiss she playfully denied him, his hands on the curves of her body with the possessive caressing of a lover while calling her baby.
What the fuck am I doing? She asked herself heatedly with fingers pressed into her tired eyes.
"Winona!"
The inventor jumped at the sudden call of her name, snapped her head up, and was shocked to find Freddie Gomez advancing her table, not Amata, from the front cafeteria door. Emile and Antonio watched with wide eyes and continued to quietly spoon their oatmeal, watching with anticipation of what was to happen next like it was a televised soap opera for their morning enjoyment.
But Winona was too busy to notice their amusement, as she slid out of her booth as quickly as Freddie could cross the diner to her. She wasn't going to be cornered by him and forced to listen to another slew of his apologies, and she had even less patience for it now with everything else going on in her life.
This was something that she couldn't make any clearer to him—not wanting to get back together, no longer loving him, for him to stay away from her—and yet he kept crawling back and trying to corner her at work, her apartment, anywhere he could get her alone.
The only thing she hadn't tried yet was being outright callous but she was slowly wanting to change that.
"Leave me alone," She warned when he was close enough. "Freddie, please, I am begging you, I don't want to have this conversation today."
"You won't want to have it ever!" He exclaimed with frustration. "Winnie, c'mon, just hear me out—I mean really hear me out—"
"There's nothing you can tell me that I haven't heard before."
"I told you it was an accident! What happened between Susie and I was an accident, I didn't mean for it to happen!"
"Oh, yeah, I'm sure it was an accident alright. Tripped into her when you both had your pants around your ankles, did you? And right when I was starting to think it was a general zipper problem for you. But I guess that was only around me."
Freddie didn't look like he could get any paler, or blush any redder, in that moment. Emile at the table behind him hacked as he swallowed a bite of his breakfast wrong upon Winona's dryly acidic insult.
"Geeze, Winnie..." He muttered, absolutely shocked and absolutely hurt.
"Don't look at me like that, Freddie Gomez, like you're a puppy I kicked. God, this is so damn unfair!" She started getting angry, which was something that was increasingly easy to do around him now, and she hated it. She hated that she didn't care about him anymore but he still somehow got under her skin. "You cornering me in public because you think I won't make a scene, or that I'll be nicer because there's people watching! I don't have to be nice to you. Not after what you did. I don't owe you a damn thing!"
"I just want to talk!" Freddie cried, advancing on her to grab her hands in each of his desperately and he immediately calmed down. "I just want to talk. Winnie I messed up bad, I messed up real bad, and all I want—all I've thought about since that day was trying to get you to forgive me. All I want is for us to be something good again. I didn't appreciate you while we were together, and God, I am so sorry for it, you deserve better."
Winona pulled her hands away and put them into her jumpsuit pockets so he wouldn't grab them again. "Would you stop already?"
"Why do you always make everything so complicated!" He cried. "Why can't you even bother to humor me and hear what I have to say?"
"Freddie why are you even bothering? Seriously, why? I told you I don't love you anymore." Winona asked in a defeated voice and her eyes finally met his for the first time since he entered the cafeteria. "What are you hoping to come from this? We obviously weren't happy together. You're free to be with Susie now—hell—you could be anyone you want for all I damn well care—because you can't have me anymore and I'm married. You know I'm married, everyone knows, that Butch and I are together on the Initiative."
"It's not like you two are actually together, and even if you were, that creep wouldn't deserve someone as great as you." Freddie replied with a decent amount of ferocity that made her balk in shock.
Freddie was always gentle, taciturn, and civil; he kept his bad feelings to the privacy of his bedroom where even Winona could barely look in, where he hoped to sleep his problems away, or would pick fights with her to vent the anger he didn't know how to positively cope with. He'd steer clear of Butch DeLoria in the halls and would even speak of him with a hushed voice and frightened eyes, as if the mentioned Tunnel Snake could be conjured to them just by the mention of his name. Freddie was never this brazen or outwardly emotional.
...He's jealous, she realized, stunned. He wasn't ever the jealous one, that was always me.
"In the end I wasn't the most swell guy around, but I always treated you good, didn't I? Didn't I? Could DeLoria say the same? He's a—he's a bully, and gets a good chuckle out of hurting people. He's not a good person!"
"Butch isn't like that," Winona frowned as her mouth moved and her tongue spoke against her better judgment. "I mean—he did do those things—he's made a lotta bad choices, sure, but he's not—... he's not actually a bad guy—"
"How can you say that? After how he treated you? Treated Amata? Treated me?" Freddie accused angrily.
"You're not exactly an angel yourself! At least I knew he was a jerk, at least he didn't try hiding it, at least he was honest about the crappy things he did!" She spat. "I trusted you for what I thought you were and look at what happened."
"I said I was sorry! I'm so God damned sorry, I can't think straight when I'm not with you! It's like my thoughts are all jumbled up, I—I can't think real good—all I know is that I want you to marry me, Winona Parker. I want you to leave him and take me back.I promise, really promise, that I'd treat you better this time around—treat you the way you deserve to be treated—I'm more than willing to make the commitment and spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you—I'd treat you better than he could." Freddie frankly asked her and the inventor could only go rigid on the spot, unsure of how else to react. Her thoughts were lost on everything he said after 'marry me'.
Sorting through her emotions in that moment was a torture she couldn't fully dedicate herself to; there was so much rage, and hurt, and shock, and worry, and frustration, and the desire of just wanting to smack those thoughts right out of him (because hell nothing else seemed to be getting through to him)... but something was wrong with Freddie. He wasn't himself, in the way he talked and the things he said, it was almost like he was destabilizing.
Destabilizing. He's destabilizing.
"Are you—... Are you off your meds?" Winona questioned without the tact she should've utilized and his eyes immediately grew frighteningly dark and his mouth became a pursed line. To respond to his vulnerable speech with something so insensitive about his condition was an awful thing to do, but she wasn't thinking.
"Freddie what are you doing here?" Amata demanded to know as she came speed walking into the diner, pushing the mentioned boy out of her way to come to Winona's side with a condemning glare. "I'm sure Winona's already told you to take a flying leap in the atrium—"
"She did. More or less." He responded with an emotionless kind of broken tone with his stare still on Winona's face. "...I'm gonna go. I'll see you around, Winnie. Think about it. I can't—... I can't bare to hear 'no' this time."
As he turned and walked away, Emile and Antonio watching with disbelieving expressions, jaws dropped into their bowls of oatmeal and eyebrows to their hairline, Winona finally released a breath she'd been holding in until it almost hurt. Her hands were clammy and shaking in her pockets and she couldn't get them to stop, as she wiped them on the outer thighs of her jumpsuit to dry them.
Why was she suddenly so—... scared?
"Winnie, are you okay?" Amata asked her worriedly as she rubbed Winona's back, her dark brows crinkled in concern. "You look awful. What'd he say to you? How long was he here for?"
"...I don't wanna talk about this." Winona replied woodenly with a spooked quietness in her voice.
"Winona, what did he say? You're scaring me, he didn't—did he threaten you?"
"I'm going home," She was already stumbling towards the door, feeling sick to her stomach, desperately wanting to find some larger room where she didn't feel so confined, where she felt like she could breathe.
"Winona, wait!" Her best friend grabbed her by her arm before she could get too far. "Let's all just calm down, take a deep breath, and sit for a bit, okay?"
"I know what you wanna talk about and I can't anymore, Amata." Winona replied brashly and gently pulled her arm away. "I wish I could tell you all about it and not have to admit that I'm tired and want to be left alone. I'm tired of being judged, and poked at, and stared at, and being told of what to do, and being told about how I still have time to fix this—of people only asking me if I'm okay just so they can ask questions about what I'm going through to satisfy their own curiosity—I don't feel like talking about anything anymore. I don't have anything left to say other then the fact that I'm staying with Butch. I've got nothing else, Amata... and it's not you. I'm not mad at you, I promise... it's just me..."
Amata regarded her with a forlorn look about her eyes. "...Okay. Okay. I get it, I'm not upset. We'll do this when you're ready... or—... or not at all, that's totally up to you." She shook her head and gestured back to the table. "If you're up for it, we can still sit and talk about other stuff—? We don't have to talk about that."
"...I just wanna go home." Winona responded in a weak mutter, her eyes unable to meet that of Amata's. She knew Amata would never judge her—at least consciously, she wouldn't—but even Winona as her best friend didn't know how she'd react to the inventor seriously considering having some kind of intimate relationship with the guy that bullied them both for years.
Amata had taken the childhood more to heart than Winona did, especially because of the things Wally said or did after prom. Winona forgave it and let go despite the tumultuous history between her and Butch, she made amends with Paul even before that, and knew Wally was a lost cause... but Amata still thought the whole of the Tunnel Snakes were nothing but venomous, lying, dumb-as-a-hammer freeloaders and bullies.
At one time, that was true. About all of them. Now—... she knew that Butch and Paul, at least, were so much more than those things, to the point that she wouldn't have called them any of those things. Winona still couldn't blame her, though, which is what made her feel all the more guilty as Amata nodded in complete understanding of her wanting to go home.
"Okay. If you ever need me, I'm only one message away." She closed the distance between them to give Winona a meager hug. It was gentle, as if even a little pressure would crush her to pieces. "Feel better, Winnie."
"Thanks." She responded solemnly before detaching and continuing onward back to her apartment.
Winona started to cry the moment the cafeteria door shut behind her.
Butch was sat up on the couch, groggily pulling on his boots with a string of grumbling musings under his breath. It was still too damn early for him to be awake at 8 AM, and he cursed whoever the head architect was that built the vault, because it was fucking stupid to have communal bathrooms that they would have to go to whenever the need arose, instead of just putting individual bathrooms in the apartments for fucking convenience and basic privacy.
You ever step out of the shower to see Old Officer Taylor down in nothing but his socks because he thought he was the only one in the locker room?
You don't want to.
But still, Butch had to take a leak, and had damn good plans to flop back onto the couch and pass right out again when he returned. He wasn't hungry enough to bother with a food run, yet, and hoped that maybe Winona would bring him back something when she got back from—... wherever it was she ran off to. He was still half asleep, wavering between full unconsciousness and some vaguely aware and awake state, when she got ready and left. He didn't know how long she was gone for because he fell back asleep right after, and it felt like all of 20 minutes but in actuality it could've been two hours. He idly wondered where she might have gone, and maybe who with if she was gone for a long time, because she didn't say that she had plans outside of the apartment today.
Not that it was any of his business, though.
He thought back to a hazy moment where he briefly came out of sleep—he wasn't awake enough to be fully coherent but not exhausted enough to immediately plunge back into sleep—and he had the vague memory of Winona sitting at the dining table, zipping up her own boots to go out, and watching him sleep. Butch couldn't tell from his haziest of thoughts if it was a memory or a half-awake dream... and ignoring it wasn't doing any favors. The lazy fog of Winona sitting at the table, her chin in her upturned palm, watching him with a somber gaze as if she were thinking on something hard, concerned him.
There were so many sides of Winona Parker; the purely fire side that attracted the condemning wrath within him, the strictly logical side that impressed him, the sarcastic and raunchy side that had him laughing till his face hurt, the commanding and fully in control side that made him want to bury her in the pillows, the coolly contemplative side that had a penchant for causing him to self-reflect...
He disliked that last side the most out of the many that the white-haired inventor had. It usually meant that she was losing control and she didn't know how to proceed without stepping on a devastating landmine.
Sometimes it scared him, seeing her like that, because he knew she was just as scared as he was and he had to take the lead.
Dammit, she ain't even 'round and she's grindin' me under her boot like a roach, he grumbled tiredly to himself as he finally laced up his other boot and got to his feet with a tall stretch that cracked all his joints. As he pulled on his under shirt and began to tug the upper half of his jumpsuit on, the front door opened and he looked up to see Winona stride into the room. When they made immediate eye contact, she froze in the door and her face went still, as if it would will the tears away from her face.
Butch immediately grew angry, a wrathful angry, as his brain began drilling into his scenarios where he'd have to beat the shit out of whoever made her cry like that.
He hoped it was Wally. Or Freddie. Normally he didn't need a reason, since he was prone to doing whatever he damn well pleased, but the Goody-Goody brigade would get on his case if he didn't have one.
"What the fuck happened?" He spat as he strode toward Winona. "What happened t'ya? Who did this? Did Wally—"
She stepped into the apartment and hugged the Tunnel Snake tightly about his waist with her head rammed against his chest—latching herself onto him as if he were the only thing that could keep her head above water—like he was the only buoy within sight on a torrent of dark waves. It felt desperate, clinging, scared, and so unlike anything he was familiar with her being.
This was the side that wasn't losing control, but had already lost it completely. It was like that night in the salon parlor all those years ago all over again... minus him being the one to make her lose her mind and her throwing shit at him.
Butch didn't know how to respond, not even to hug her in return to comfort her. He was too stunned and too busy with thinking of all the ways he'd keep Wally or Freddie or whoever else made her cry on a permanent stay in the infirmary. The broken, scared look in her face as she cried was twisting at his heart as if it were something meant to be forcibly flayed open.
"...Damn, someone messed 'ya up good, girl." He spoke instead and finally awkwardly placed a hand on her upper back and gave an unsure pat. He was shit at comforting people. "Can mess 'em up right back for 'ya, just say the word. Well—probably'd do it anyway, 'less you care t'stop me just to save the poor bastard's soul 'cause you gotta be a good person like that."
Winona continued to silently cry against his chest with a blank face and tears dampening the front of his undershirt. It was unnerving to see her eyes so emotional while her face remained impassive, like she wasn't even aware that she was crying, or was defeated enough to just let it happen.
"Sorry I ain't better at this nicey-nice thing." Butch spoke again, quieter this time as he finally wrapped an arm around her shoulder to keep her pulled in against his side and she made a small, teary noise that gripped his heart harder.
Gunna make the son of a bitch swallow his eyeballs so's he can see all the bones I'm gunna break from the inside.
"...Uh—...feel better? There, there? You want food or somethin'? I can get'cha food, no problem. Got my card deck 'round here somewhere, too, we can play a couple hands. Or whatever."
"...Cards?" She murmured with a small smile on her face despite the ongoing tears. She pulled back enough to wipe her eyes and looked up at him. "That the best you got, Tunnel Snake?"
"Well, why don'cha gimme a hint and tell me what'll get you to stop cryin'? I ain't good with crying broads! Would rather be trapped in a room with a giant ass roach nest with raw meat strapped to my handsome mug," He spat awkwardly.
She finally laughed at the embarrassed blush in his cheeks while shaking her head at the dark hilarity in it all. Finally detaching from him, she bonelessly deposited herself onto the sofa, where she slumped back into the cushions; her chin was dropped onto her chest and she stared blankly down at her knees, her legs draping across the rug. Butch came and plopped down beside her with his elbows on his knees, back hunched forward, as he looked to the few possessions he brought with him for the week; styling pomade, toothbrush, razor and cream, his Toothpick and the blade sharpener emblazoned on the handle with his moniker Serpent King.
"Wanna talk about it?" He ventured with his back to her.
"M'tired of talking. Everyone wants to talk about something. You ever just—... You ever just wanna enjoy the silence? The kind of silence where you don't feel like anything has to be said because it's quiet? Like you're trying to needlessly fill some void because you think it'd be more awkward if you didn't?"
"...You brainy types, I'll never get it." Butch snorted humorously with his opposite hand massaging into the apex of where his shoulder met his neck, and looked back at her.
The truth was, he knew what she meant to some degree; growing up, his mom was rowdy, silly, and messy, and the only times he felt like he wouldn't have to worry about her were the times when she'd fall asleep, and then the silence would come. The apartment would grow quiet, he'd make sure she was propped up on her side in case she threw up, and then he'd sit in the next room and enjoy what little peace he could have. As he got older those moments of silence became few and far between because Wally was always talking because he liked the sound of his own voice, or Paul always had a good story or something funny to say, or they were planning, or they were causing trouble, because the Tunnel Snakes were constantly going at an electrified pace of go, go, go!
He missed it when he took the time to think about it and make the realization... but the quiet was nice, too, though he never had someone to experience it with like Winona described. It was a pace of stop and enjoy, which he wasn't accustomed to in the slightest (because he was an impatient little bastard), but when Butch looked down into her face he didn't really mind that.
The ease of this silence passed between them effortlessly as they sat in each other's company—saying nothing despite the glances they'd throw at the other when they thought the other person wasn't looking. Winona shifted forward on the couch and slung her arm under his to hook it through her own, her cheek came to rest against his shoulder, and then the weight of her body leaned against his in an easy sort of manner, as if she were comfortable around him. The top of her head brushed his jaw and her hair messily spilled down his arm and her front, and he turned only his eyes to their corners to look at her without giving away that he was staring.
Soon his arm slipped from hers to hook around her shoulders so she fit more snugly against his side. They laid back on the cushions together, her front pressed into his side with her arm draped over her lap before her hand migrated to rest atop his chest, and his head lolled to the side to lay over hers.
They enjoyed the silence.
A/N: Send help I'm utter garbage for these two LOL I promise smut is coming! Just scene building and exploring feelsy stuff and some open-ended strings with Freddie... though he isn't the only one who's got a stake on our two lovebirds. Anyone gotta a guess on which person (maybe even people) I'm talking about that could be brought into future chapters? ;)
Happy reading, happy writing!
~Konfessionist signing out