#trinnie suggested this was all from one day

[gershwinn]

colesprouse: Volcano view @haciendadesanantonio 

colesprouse: Some mercurial pool

colesprouse:

[eeveevie]

truth or dare

All Rosie wants to do is work on her journals. All Butch wants to do is play Truth or Dare. The truth? Rosie’s never been kissed. Do either dare to make the first move? 

Unprompted, but I needed some self-indulgence in these uncertain times. Also, Rosie needed a smooch. Stealth edit: this is my lucky #99 story on Ao3 !!!

Butch DeLoria x Rosie Sheridan (Lone Wanderer)

 2885 words | [read on Ao3]

Finding a quiet place to hideaway in Rivet City was one of the most difficult tasks Rosie faced every time she visited the repurposed warship—even in the privacy of her rented room, she was distracted by the constant creaking of metal and the echoing footsteps of the guard patrol. By comparison, it made her long to be under the rusted rooftop in Megaton, the closest thing she had to call home nowadays. But beggars and wanderers couldn’t be choosers, even if all she wanted to do that evening was concentrate on her journal and travel notes.

Rosie tried to focus on the stack of reports she had received from Scribe Rothchild, wanting to better understand the different vaults in the area but all she could hear was the repetitive sounds of somebody pacing outside her door. It didn’t match the usual rotation of the Rivet City guards and she had only one guess as to who it could be. Just as she thought to move and secure the lock on the bulkhead it creaked open to reveal her traveling companion—Butch—just as she thought.

He was in a chipper mood, holding a half-empty Nuka-Cola bottle, though his swagger told her that he had been partaking in a different kind of beverage. Rosie frowned, hiding her disappointment in her palm as she diverted her gaze back to her work. She had better things to do than babysit or worry about his drinking habits.

“Whatcha doing?” he asked, leaning over her shoulder to peer at her journal. Butch rested one hand on the desk, effectively boxing her in as he bent at the waist for a closer look. Beneath his usual musk of cologne and hair product, she could smell the booze and cigarette ash. She clenched her jaw, more annoyed with him than usual.  

Even though the two had taken remarkable strides in creating a friendship from the ground up, Rosie was still in turmoil over the feelings she had for him. No matter what she did to convince herself otherwise, or how much time she believed would need to pass, the stupid little crush had developed into something much stronger. Matters were only made worse when Butch would do something uncharacteristically kind, fueling the flame in her heart. Stranger still, she found herself equally attracted to his tantrums—the little bouts of pouting that resulted from their petty arguments.

Worst of all, she became jealous of any attention he gave to other girls and envious of how easy it was for others to chat him up. Rosie knew she wasn’t the most charismatic person, but now that she was saddled with the weight of those emotions, her insecurities had skyrocketed. It all circled back to her frustration with Butch and how he seemed so carefree and unaware of how his presence affected her.  She wondered if his actioned were done intentionally to frustrate her. He wasn’t her childhood bully anymore—this was a completely new form of torture.

“Don’t you have anywhere else to be?” she deflected, avoiding his stare as he looked at her profile. She hadn’t meant to sound so rude but hoped her tone would send him back on his way. Instead, Butch took it as an invitation to linger, testing her patience. Why couldn’t he have slipped back into his old, stubborn ways and taken offense? Had he grown too soft in traveling with her?  

“Marketplace is closed,” he explained, straightening. He took a long sip of his soda. “What’s wrong with hangin’ with my best gal?”

Rosie shifted in her seat, the term of endearment had lost its touch lately, even with the affectionate gestures. She would’ve preferred any other nickname if he was going to be sarcastic with her. Rothchild’s notes became a scrambled blur as she crafted a good enough response, one that was sure to dismiss him.

“Wouldn’t you rather be at the Muddy Rudder, getting drunk with Trinnie?” she asked, this time tilting her chin up to steal a quick glance. “Or have you exhausted that option?”

Trinnie reminded Rosie a lot of Susie Mack in the way the girl hung off his every word and became excited when she saw him visiting the city. Rosie rolled her eyes at the irony of it all, that she had ended up in a similar position. At least she was better at hiding how she felt—she hoped.

Butch’s brows furrowed in frustration as he scowled. “I don’t—” he stomped away but didn’t leave the room. “I didn’t.”

Rosie turned in her chair to watch as he deposited himself right on the edge of her bed, leaning back on one elbow. The pose was too suggestive for her and she shot her eyes to the ceiling, pressing her lips into a flat line. “Oh?”

“What’s gotten into you lately?” he questioned in stark tone reminiscent of their earlier traveling days. “You’re pickin’ fights and pouting all the time at me like I did something wrong.”

He looked at her, steely blue eyes trained on her as he emptied the last drops of cola from the bottle, tapping his fingers absentmindedly against the glass. “What’d I do this time? I didn’t get wasted like that one time, ya see?” He waved his free hand over his body, but she wasn’t going to look at his appearance and how he was practically draped across her bed. “Or ya’ still finding ways to be mad about all the teasing and bullying?”

In the quiet, she reluctantly flicked her eyes to find him looking like a neglected and kicked puppy. Worse than when she forgot to give Dogmeat a bath after a bout with raiders (usually the dog was happy to be covered in blood and guts). Butch sat there, picking at the Nuka-Cola label with a pout, bottom lip sticking out.

“I said I was sorry,” he mumbled, sounding more dejected than ever.  

Rosie chewed on her bottom lip—she hated that the appearance of him crestfallen and perched on her bedsheets was very alluring, especially when he glanced up at her from under his lashes—no way he hadn’t done that on purpose. She sighed, knowing it was wrong of her to lash out when everything that was wrong had to do with her. He didn’t deserve that, especially when yes—they had made their amends and started fresh when first joining up. She was just a young, foolish teenager with emotions she wasn’t ready to face.

“I uh—” she twisted her hands in her lap, darting her eyes from the books spread across the desk and back towards the ceiling. She wanted to have a valid, believable excuse for her outlandish behavior so that maybe he would forgive her. “I’ve been distracted.”

“Yeah,” Butch softly chuckled. “I can tell.”

He titled his head back and forth in thought, pointing the bottle to her. “Take a break, Stitches. You could use a little fun.”

She crossed her arms tightly across her chest, irritated by the suggestion—it wasn’t the first time he had pointed out her boring disposition, but she couldn’t help her inner nature. Rosie was quiet, reserved and her idea of a good time was reading medical textbooks and solving math problems. Butch’s idea of entertainment usually involved some kind of risk that bordered on illegal, scheming up ways to break his boredom. He was stubborn, steadfast in his ways to get her to take life a little less seriously, to smile and laugh more if only so he could see it.

“You’re cute when you smile, Stitches.”

He had told her one evening, a little too tipsy on beer at Moriarty’s, a statement that had her red in the face for hours. Reminiscing on it had her blushing then and there too, something that Butch noticed quickly. He snickered, stretching a little further across her bed—it was certainly large enough for the two of them, but she had refused to share the space, resigning him to the common rooms.

“Rosie, your face is rosy,” he teased, barely able to get the words out as he continued to laugh. He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. “What kind of fun are you thinkin’ about?”

She scoffed, clutching the back of the chair to ground herself. “Unlike you, my thoughts aren’t permanently in the gutter.”

Butch shrugged, clearly not believing her—she wouldn’t either, with the way her face was burning. He placed the empty Nuka-Cola bottle on the bedsheets beside him and spun the glass, though the fabric prevented it from moving effectively. “Spin the bottle?”

Rosie glanced to see the open end was facing her and sharply turned her head away, focusing on a dark, rusted spot in the corner. She didn’t even want to think about how playing the game would work with just two people. “No!”

“Aw, you’re no fun,” he whined. She heard him shift abruptly. “Hey, wait—you never played, have you?”

Those types of games in the vault were usually reserved for the parties she wasn’t invited to—the same kind of parties in which Amata was dared to spend seven minutes in heaven in the utility closet with Freddie Gomez. Rosie had a wealth of information, but lacked firsthand experience leaving her woefully embarrassed. What she wouldn’t have given to have a normal teenaged life growing up in Vault 101.

“Think back to those circles you sat in, Butch,” she replied, not meaning to sound so despondent. “Ever remember seeing Nosebleed as the bottle spun around?”

Her frown increased as a fleeting thought crossed her mind that he must have kissed every girl in the vault—the rumors certainly had painted him as a player, as a Casanova—yet there she was, still unable to get over how she felt.

“Fine then,” he finally replied. “Truth or dare?”

Rosie whipped her head at him, wide eyed. “I am not playing that game with you either.”

“Why’s that?” he asked, resting his head in his palm. “’Fraid you might reveal something to the Butch-man?”

Her patience was wearing thin, but she knew there would be no getting rid of him unless she humored him. Baring the risk of him escalating the games or wagers, she relented with a sigh, shaking her head. “Do not dare me to do anything gross or illegal.”

“You’re no fun,” he muttered, but regarded her with a low smile. “Okay. Truth or dare.”

She was reluctant to go first but still answered. “Truth.”

Butch’s grin increased and her stomach tightened—somehow, she had chosen something worse than dare. His question was very direct. “Have you ever been kissed?”

Rosie stiffened, and blinked at him silently. Her mind had gone blank at the sheer horror of what was happening—Butch DeLoria was confirming that she was the hopeless nerd he always thought she was. She scrambled to think of a passable lie, of a close call she could claim was really her first kiss but all she could think about were all the times they had managed to get close without anything occurring. Too much time passed without her answering, and his eyebrow quirked up as he let out a breathless laugh.

“Oh, I knew it,” he pushed himself, so he was sitting up on the edge of the bed. “Explains everything!”

“You—you asked that on purpose!” she yelped, turning away from him and hiding her face in her hands out of mortification. Knowing Butch, even with his somewhat changed ways, she’d never hear the end of his teasing over this learned information. “I don’t want to play anymore.”

“Come on now, Rosie,” he encouraged. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I just—”

Something in the tone of his voice had her alarmed. Apprehensively, she glanced back to find him anxiously rubbing the back of his neck, avoiding her stare. That, she didn’t expect. He seemed to be mulling over his next move, the next right thing to say to make the situation right. His eyes met hers and slowly, he smiled.

“Ya’ know, if you want, I could kiss you,” Butch said it like it made perfect sense in his mind. “Get that first kiss out of the way so you know what you’re doin’”

She stared at him, half in disbelief, half in a daze, but mostly in shock. Was he suggesting that…they kiss? Rosie considered that the person she was staring at wasn’t Butch DeLoria at all and the man Amata had released from the vault was some kind of replacement. No way would the bully she had grown up with for nineteen years switch from being repressed by her presence to suddenly wanting to lock lips. It didn’t matter that they were friends now, it still didn’t make any logical sense in her brain. Even if he sounded sincere, even if it was secretly what she wanted, Rosie couldn’t agree—not like this.

“I don’t want to kiss you under some ridiculous circumstances,” she shook her head, busying her hands in hair. “Not when we’ve been playing a stupid game, or—or when you’ve been drinking.”

“I’m not drunk,” he flatly reassured. “Maybe it’s you that needs the liquid courage.”

Rosie disagreed. “I don’t need alcohol to kiss you.”

“Oh yeah?” Butch smirked, mood perking up. “So, you’re saying you do want to kiss me?”

“Don’t—” she huffed, unhappy he was twisting her words. He was the one that brought up the subject in the first place. “You seem eager to do the same!”

He furrowed his brows, laugh a little forced. If anything, it looked like he was blushing. “I dare you to do it right now. Lay one on me, Stitches.”

“I didn’t pick dare. It isn’t my turn, it’s yours!” she argued, once again feeling red in the face. Butch nodded at her, egging her on. “Truth or dare?”

“Dare!”

She had never felt so emboldened. “Kiss me.”

It was Butch’s turn to look shell-shocked as he stared at her, wide blue eyes hazy as his thoughts caught up to the moment. A boy who usually had a snappy remark for everything and everybody was dead silent, unmoving before her. Unsurprisingly, she was disappointed, but hid her emotions well. Abruptly, she stood, determined to remove herself from the room and situation if nothing was going to happen. Rosie would need to be alone to decompress and deal with the ache in her chest. Behind her she heard his feet meet the ground as he scrambled to follow.

“Hey, wait—”

Despite her frustration, she turned half-way to meet him and was surprised when his hand pulled on her wrist, dragging her closer to him. His other hand quickly found her chin, angling her head up just in time for his lips to crash into hers. The first contact was rough—propelled forward by the movement of their bodies—but slowly, Rosie relaxed, daring to reach out and rest her hand against his chest. Reflexively, she clutched at his leather jacket, softly humming her approval. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, too focused on the way Butch’s lips molded around hers the longer they kissed.

When they did sperate, she felt her entire body radiating warmth, embarrassment for a completely different reason now. She had just been kissed—her first kiss—by Butch DeLoria. Instead of even trying to run away she stared up at him sheepishly, amazed to find a similar, dazed look in his eyes. His lips quirked up to the side in a smirk as he slid his hand to cup her cheek, tangling his fingers into her dark hair. The second time he kissed her was far more chaste, at least for the first few moments before he dared to run his tongue along the seam of her mouth, a little sound echoing from his throat when she gradually parted for him. He didn’t rush her, the kiss remaining slow yet far more fervent than the first—his other hand moving from her hand to her waist to slide her closer to his body.

Reluctantly, she pulled away, in need of air. Again, the two gazed at each other, this time far more fascinated by the situation as reality sunk in, but they didn’t separate. Rather, they stayed closely nestled together, mimicking each other’s goofy smiles.

“Your turn,” he breathed.

“Truth,” she answered, quietly. She almost forgot that they had been playing a silly game.

Butch combed his fingers through her hair, eyes darting down to her lips before locking with hers again. “Now that you’ve got some experience, whadd’ya you think about kissing?”

“More research will need to occur for me to make a determination,” she answered, knowing full well of how she sounded.

“God Rosie, you’re such a nerd,” he laughed against her mouth, moving away if only to flash a wink. “I’ll be your test subject.”

She giggled, feeling more alive and normal than she had in weeks. She didn’t realize it was possible to feel so energetic, the way her heart was racing. “Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” Butch smiled, already leaning closer.

Rosie met him halfway, unable to contain her excitement. She would never tire of asking him now that she could. “Kiss me again.”