A/N : Enjoy!
Disclaimer - I don't own Skins...
The next three weeks of Wedding Season are filled with women, drinking, partying, lying, and more women. Sometimes there were so many, they'd lost count. Love' em and Leave' em, the rule that Naomi and Cook lived by since the beginning. They tell the women what they wanna hear, lie through their teeth if they must, make them believe that it's more than what it is, and once they get what they want, they're gone without a second thought.
That was until the last night of Wedding Season when something click in Naomi, that she herself wasn't expecting. She's lying in bed next to her latest pickup, Sophia , having just rolled off her, after given her a earthshattering oragasm if the screams coming from her was anything to goes by. When Sophia went to cuddle up to her, Naomi decide to break the silence. She pulled away a little.
" Hold on, sorry. " She whispered, moving a little bit away from the girl. " Vivian, I feel like I don't even know you." She said, softly, breathing heavily. Hoping the brunette will get the hint.
The girl looks up to the ceiling with glossy eyes.
" It's Sophia." She corrects, biting her top lip in order to stop the tears brimming her eyes. Naomi turns to look at her feeling bad for messing up the girls name but doesn't say anything, looking up at the ceiling. " Would you say you're completely full of shit, or just 50 percent?" Sophia asks, upset.
" I hope just 50, but who knows." Naomi sighs, thinking she's probably the full 100.
Sophia nods, still not looking over to Naomi. She gets up as the tears start leaking out of her eyes, walking to the bathroom to freshen up and get dress, Naomi assumes. Naomi watches her go, feeling bad for the first time in a long time. She doesn't want to admit it but that question, which was meant to be sarcastic, hit a nerve in the blonde.
Early in the morning as the suns coming up the next day, Naomi and Cook are sat on a hill, looking over Bristol sharing a bottle of champagne. They always come there at the end of every Wedding Season, enjoying the scenery, and sometimes bragging about their shags. Though this time feels different, to Naomi at least.
Cook passes the bottle over to Naomi, while breaking the silence that descended over them.
" Bet that brunette was a real shot of life." He says, wiggling his eyebrows and then winking at her.
" Yeah, real shot." Naomi nods, weakly, looking out into the distance thinking. " Do you ever think that we shouldn't be doing this anymore, like we're being little irresponsible or something?" She turns to look at Cook to catch his reaction.
" Nah, man." He shakes head, than smiles. " One day we'll look back at all this and laugh...Say we were young and stupid." He nudged her leg a little.
She takes a sip of the bottle, chuckling along with Cook as he continues.
" Couple of young kids running around.." he says, playfully. Naomi smile falls a little.
" We're not that young." She says, both Cook and her losing there smile all together, while looking straight out into the distance, lose in their own thoughts.
Cook grabs the bottle from Naomi, who hands it over absent mindedly. Cook stares at her for a moment, while her eyes are still glued to the distance. He sits up a little, raises the bottle in the air.
" Hell of a season, mate." Taking a big swing.
" Hell of season." Naomi repeats in response, not really meaning her own words.
A knock on her office door pulls Naomi eyes away from the file she's been working on. She looks up to see Cook standing there holding a newspaper.
" Oi, wanker." She greets, playfully, finishing her last thought on her paper, while Cook enters. Cook throws the newspaper on her desk. peaking Naomi's curiously.
" What do we have here?" Naomi asks, picking up the paper. Cook sits across from her, smile mischievously.
" Christmas come early. " He winks, as Naomi's reads the headline.
" Secretary Fitch?" She asks as she reads something about a wedding for a very close family friend of the Fitches, or more so of Rob Fitch himself.
" The Secretary of the Treasury." He informs, excitedly. Naomi eyes scanning the paper. " The guy ya luved since business school." He says, and it's true Naomi looked up to the man, always wanted to meet him. " Don't thank me." He smiles, which means he wants her to thank him.
" I don't know." She bites her lip, unsure. " I mean, I thought the season was over, I was looking forward to taking a break for a little bit." She explains, calmly.
" Nai, what are you talking about?" He looks at her in disbelief. " This is the Wedding of all Wedding's. It's the Fitches, their a british institution!" He informs, shaking his head. " Mate, there are going to be over 200 single women at this wedding!" he points to the paper, seeing Naomi thinking about it." Not to mention they have three live bands, they got osters, snacks, ace finger foods." He pushes.
" I'm tired, okay? " She looks down. " My feet hurt, my voice is hoarse." She explain, grasping at straws.
" Oh please don't take a turn to negative town." He say, softly.
" What you talking about? Who's getting negative?" Naomi says, offended.
" At the Johnson's reception, you were sitting in the corner sulking." he accuses, matter a factly. She looks taken aback.
" I wasn't sulking, I twisted my ankle!" She defends, Cook shakes his head.
" Rule number 6; Don't sit in the corner to sulk." He recites, out of the many rules created by crashers before them, she sighs. " It draws attention to you in a negative way. Draw attention to yourself but on your own terms." He says, non helpfully.
" Please don't quote the rules at me, I know them." She says, unamused.
" When Uncle Keith passed the sacred rules of Wedding crashing down to us 10 years ago, he gave us a legacy." He says, strongly, moving up in his chair toward her.
" You make it sound like a cult, okay?" Naomi says, annoyed." And from everything you told me about Uncle Keith, he sounds like a looney." She says, seriously, offending Cook affectedly.
" You take that back!" He exclaims, defending his role model." Uncle Keith ain't no looney!"
" He lived with his mother until he was 40, she tried to poison his oatmeal." she scoffs, at how ridiculous it was for Cook to look up to such a man.
" Bullshit, bull fucking shit Noams! " Cook shouts, getting worked up.
" Oh Lord, here we go again." Naomi says, sitting back in her chair, waiting for Cook to finish.
" What you should be worried about, is not Uncle Keith, who's in the hall of fame." He couldn't help himself to defend him one last time. " What you should be worried about, is you're getting sloppy." he states, Naomi rolls her eyes and sigh." Now if you sit there and except me to go out on a limb, and try to pull off the greatest crasher of all time, I gotta know that your heads right." He looks at her, as she smiles and shakes her head about how dramatic Cook is being. She looks back at the paper thinking, Cook sees this as a good sign and continues. " There is no room for error. They'll be Secret services, and consequences." He lists.
" I love your enthusiasm." She says, gently, smiling fondly at him. Than getting down to business, pointing at the paper. " If I do this, I don't want to half arse it. I want it well planned." She looks up at Cook.
"She's back! " He slams his hand on the desk, happily. Naomi giggling at his excitement.
He stands up shaking her hand.
" Alright partner, we'll start skimming tonight, okay?" He says, on his way out.
" Sounds good, mate!" Naomi says, cheerfully.
" If you need me I'm on line 6." He points to her phone, leaving the office.
"Okay." Naomi shouts.
Naomi stares at the photo of Rob Fitch in the newspaper thinking and then shrugs.
" It could be fun." She says to herself into the empty room, getting back to work.
The day of the Wedding has arrived, Naomi and Cook standing outside looking up at the beautiful church. They stand there in awe at the huge crowd of people standing outside. Cook is dress in a very expensive looking tuxedo, while Naomi is wearing a very eloquent black dress, that's lose around the legs, but snug on the chest and hips. She's looking beautiful, and dressed perfectly to fit in with such a posh crowd.
Apparently this whole Wedding was paid by the one and only Secretary Rob Fitch as a gift to family friend, Pandora Moon. According to the newspaper article, Pandora is practically family to the Fitches, due to the unfortunate death of her mother at such a young age, Panda grew up with the Fitches, so when it was time for her to wed, Secretary Fitch was more than happy to support the wedding as he wanted it to be everything she ever dreamed of.
Naomi watched as the guest one by one shook Secretary Fitches hand, congratulating him and his wife Jenna as if it was there child. Cook pulled her out of her stare as he handed her a file.
" Okay, let's do our pre-game." he says, looking at the guest in front of him.
" What do you got?" Naomi asks, flipping through the file carefully, see a picture of Rob in Times magazine.
" A few articles of Secretary Fitches economic policy." He informs, continuing as Naomi flips through the pages. " There's also a list of key family members." Naomi look through it very impressed at Cook's investigating skills. " And a glossary of sailing terms." He finishes, leaving Naomi confused.
" Sailing?" She ask, looking up at Cook.
" Sailing is like sex to these people, babes, they love it." He winks, She shrugs looking back down at the file.
" Harvard, Kennedy school of government, Mum's big with charity." She reads off the list." Blah Blah Blah, Twin daughters, one son.. I get it, good work." She nods, handing the file back to Cook.
" Good." He says, just a Naomi looks up at the Secretary again, but this time seeing someone else with them. Her breath hitched, her heart skipped a beat, and she felt a bit dizzy as she takes in the beauty before her.
She was smiling the most beautiful smile Naomi has ever seen, so wide she was scared the girls face would split. Her eyes were sparkling as she shook the hands of the men talking to the Secretary moments before, the women brought her hand up to brush her hair behind her ear, and that's when Naomi look up a little and notice the cherry red hair flowing stunningly down her shoulders, and she wondered for a moment how she missed it before, than realized that the woman's smile must have blinded her from everything else.
Without taking her eyes off the girl, Naomi reach her hand out to Cook.
" Let me see that again please." She asked, waiting for the file, watching as the redhead fixes the Secretary's tie while talking to the men kindly.
" Okay, what's our back story?" Cook asks, adjusting his collar. Naomi eyes are still on the girl while she speaks.
" We're siblings from London, we're venture capitalist." She states, eyes glued to the figure in front of her.
" I'm sick of that!" Cook exclaims, annoyingly. Naomi pulls her eyes away, scrunching them up, hates when Cook becomes difficult. " Let be from Derby, and lets have a emerging maple syrup conglomerate." Cook suggest, eyebrows raised. Naomi shakes her head.
" Okay, that stupid, we don't know anything about maple syrup." Naomi say, squinting her eyes at his idiotice. Cook look well offended.
" I happen to know everything there is to know about maple syrup, I love maple syrup." He defends, effectively annoying Naomi. " I love maple syrup on pancakes, I love it on pizza, I like to put a little maple syrup in my hair when I've had a rough week, what do you think holds it up, slick." He says, Naomi looking at him like he's the biggest knob head of all knob heads.
" Cook, it's the first court of the big game, and you wanna toss up a hail mary.." She explains, in the only way she thinks Cook will understand. " I'd like to be pimps from Oakland, or cowboys from Arizona, but it's not Halloween, grow up Peter pan." She sighs looking away not noticing Cook hurt expression. " Look, we've been to a million wedding's, and guess what? We've rocked them all." She winks.
In the Church Naomi and Cook find their seat. Cook nudges Naomi and nods to a women, while everyone is finding there sit before the ceremony starts.
" 5th row back with the fancy hat." he points out, she looks to see a women with gigantic hat, scoffs, other than that, she isn't Naomi's type. " I like that." Cook says, still looking. Naomi shake her head and leans in to him.
" Don't waste your time on girls with hats, they tend to be very proper." She informs, from her own experience. Naomi looks forward again as Cook continues to stare. The girl with the hat looks at him suggestively.
" Yeah, well the proper girl in the hat just eye fucked the shit out of me." He says, too loudly for a church, that becomes apparent when three people sitting in front of them turns around disgusted. Naomi quickly whispers her apologizes, then turns to Cook.
" Why don't you say it a little louder, I don't think the priest heard you." She whispered, flatly.
" Look Nai, I'm sorry I'm not sorry, Okay?" He whispers back." I'm not to apologize for being a Cocksman." he says, loud enough for the same people in front of them to hear, turning around again twice as disgusted. Naomi sighs, looking down and shaking her head.
" Turrets." Naomi whisper, quickly, to explain her friends behaviour. Someone takes a seat next to Naomi, and extends out their hand, Naomi shakes it.
" John Myers." He introduces.
" Naomi Ryan." She smiles, points over to Cook. " Say hello to my brother, James." Cook shakes his offered hand.
" Hi, how are ya?" he asks, kindly.
" So.. How do you know the groom?" John ask Naomi.
" We are Uncle Neds kids." She replies, remembering the file.
" Uncle Ned..." the man seems to be in thought." Is he a business partner?" He asks, confused. Dealing with this a million times before, Naomi is far from nervous.
" Uncle Ned, the brother of Aunt Liz." She informs, he seems to remember.
" How is everybody?" He asks, smiling. Naomi smirks.
" Well dad kinda butters around the house, Aunt Liz sends her best, she couldn't make it." She says, John stares at her strangely for a moment.
" Yeah, I know, she's dead. " He looks at her confused. Naomi freezes for a second, can't think of what to say.
" From the grave." Cook jumps in, saving the day. " She sends her best from the grave, we've become extremely spiritual ever since she passed." Cook explains, feigning sadness.
"Oh I see." The man smiles. Cook reaches out his hand to the man.
" Thank you so much for your kindness, mate." He reaches out again, this time to caress the mans face." Lord knows we need kindness more than ever." he stroke the mans face, mission accomplished when the man nods nervously and pulls away looking to the person next to him, taking the attention off them. Cook then turns to Naomi when the song starts to play to commence the start of the ceremony.
" Rule number 32, you don't commit to a relative unless you are certain they have a pulse." He whispers, harshly.
" Rule 16, give me a up to date family tree." She responds, just as harshly. " That was your mistake. You made me look like an idiot." She looks away, angrily.
" Rule number 76, no excuses play like a champion." Cook comes back with, Naomi just rolls her eyes, both turn to the back of the church as the music starts to play.
They see Jenna Fitch walking down the aisle, her arm looped through who they assume is her son, James Fitch. She's trying to fix his hair, the boy's embarrassed, pushing his mothers hand away. They continue down toward the altar. Behind them is a man and an old women.
The Bridesmaids start walking down the aisle, and that's when Cook spots her. A woman who was able to give off such a sluttly vide even though she was wearing the same outfit as all the other bridesmaids was wearing. The way she walks, Cook guessed. And if there was one thing Cook loved; it was a sluttly women. She turn to look at him and winked. That's when he decided than to claim her as his own.
" Dibs." He called to Naomi, who barely hears him, as her eyes was on someone else entirely.
" She all yours." She muttered, once again hypnotized by the beauty that was this girl with the cherry red hair, who's name she discovered to be Emily.
Naomi watched as the redhead walk down the aisle, holding a bouquet of white roses, smiling shyly at people as she went. She look stunning with her tight form fitting dark purple dress that hugged her in all the right places, hitting Naomi right in the core as she stared longingly at her.
" Ain't gonna fight ya." She added to herself more than Cook, smiling dreamily at the redhead.
Everyone stands as the Wedding song begins, and the Bride makes her way down to the alter. Rob is walking her down as she never met her father. They get to the altar and Rob hands Panda off to the groom, smiling and shaking the dark skinned man by the name of Thomas, hand, whose smile was the biggest.
Naomi leans in to Cook.
" I think we have a crier." She states.
" No way." Cook shakes his head.
" Tenner." Naomi bets, confidently.
" You're on " Cook deals, thinking he's got it in the bag.
They wait all of 10 seconds, when the bride breaks out into water works. Naomi smiles smugly, while Cook hits his leg in disappointment of getting it wrong.
" Oi, are you kidding me." He says, shaking his head.
"It's beautiful.." Naomi teases." It's moving, it's a wedding" She laughs lightly as Cook scoffs, reaching in his pocket.
"As you all know, Thomas and Pandora are quite the sailing enthusiast." The priest says. " In that light, they have chosen to exchange vows which they themselves have written." He finishes, looking between the couple.
Naomi notices the redhead who is also the maid of honor look over to her twin, smiling at each other as if in on an inside joke.
" I, Thomas, take you, Panda, to be my wife." The groom, begins. " My best friend and my first mate."
This creates a tiny giggle from Emily causing her whole body to shake. She straightens up a bit, trying to compose herself. Naomi smiles to herself as she watches.
" I promise to captain our ship of love and to stay with that ship no matter how rough the seas." Thomas continues,
The red head stifles another laugh this one noticeable to the bride, as she turns around to make a face as to say ' cut it out '. The redhead mouths a 'Sorry' and puts her head down to gather herself. All the while Naomi can't keep her eyes off her, in the 10 years of wedding crashing, she has never seen anyone in the bridal party laugh during the vows.
"You are the star I set my course to. You are my magnetic north. My sextant always point to you." Thomas says, and that's what tip the scale.
The redhead lets out a loud laugh, and tries to cover it with a cough. The bride and groom turn to face her.
" Sorry, just a little tickle." Emily coughs again to prove her point." Please continue." She smiles.
Naomi thinks she's never heard a sound more beautiful than the redheads voice.
" Well that's a first." Cook says to Naomi.
" She's amazing..." Naomi says, enamoured.
The bride places the ring on the grooms finger.
"I Panda take you, Thomas, to be my husband, my best friend, and my Captain." The bride says.
Emily is in pure agony right now as she pinches herself to keep from losing it.
"To be your anchor and your sail, your starboard and your port, your bow and your stern." The bride continues.
The redhead has to turn around, her shoulders are heaving.
"Your life, your love, your lady, and the sea." The bride keeps going.
Still turned around, The redhead snort-laughs.
"By the power vested in me the Roman Catholic Church and by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I now pronounce you Husband and Wife." The priest announces. "You may now... kiss your first mate." he finishes, a little reluctantly.
The redhead explodes in laughter which is drowned out by the guests' applause as the Bride and Groom walk down the aisle.
The groomsmen and bridesmaids file out after them. Naomi studies the redhead the whole way down the aisle. She's enthralled.