BTW, S.N.A.G. means sensitive new age guy.
Roll 'em :)
"I don't want to do this" he said as his hair blew in the breeze while she drove them there. He could think of literally one hundred women he would rather marry, at least they liked him and didn't seem almost indifferent to him as she had always been since joining the TURKS. Mind you, respect for her sister's memory had kept him from flirting with her as he normally did the new girls.
"You think this is my idea of a dream come true? We're just going on a mission like we have many times before. So let's just get this over with and do our jobs. It's just another mission" she insisted but blushing at the idea of what they were doing.
"Let's just get this over with" he agreed going into building and both froze that the set design looked like an actual wedding.
"You must be from the TURKS. I'm Daniel; I'm an image consultant and playwright with a degree in physiology who will be helping you with your wardrobe and personas. You, you have wholesome girl next door and future soccer mom written all over you. I can work with that and you look like a...thug" he said turning to look at Reno.
Reno was insulted by this; he was wearing his uniform as ever. What else did the man want? His uniform was clean and had no visible stains on his clothes, "pardon me? He said a dangerous sounding voice.
"You look like a very mismatched couple; there isn't a hair out of place on her and you look like you just fell out of bed. If I were to write characters for her and yourself; she would be the innocent young daughter of a Baronet and you the blackguard who seduces her" he explained.
"Opposites do attract you know, yo" Reno snapped at him.
"Let's get you into wardrobe, we have makeup artists on hand and hairstylists" he said frowning at Reno's spiky mop of red. "And jewelers of course" he added.
"What are the jewelers here for?" Reno said all but screeching to a halt.
"For wedding jewelry of course. She'll need an engagement ring and you'll both need wedding bands" Daniel explained.
"I'm not wearing one. I'll cut off the hand of anyone who tries to force one on me" he insisted burnishing his Electro-Mag Rod in a threatening way.
Elena gave him a look of disapproval with her hands on her hips "I'm sorry, are you actually threatening civilians and embarrassing the TURKS as their second in command?" she asked him in an icy tone of voice that would have made even the unflappable Tseng shiver.
He sighed impatiently as he sat before the jeweler while Elena tried different bands on his ring finger. "Would you just pick something already?" he groused.
"Now dearest, if we're going to wear these the rest of our lives, we can afford to be picky" she teased him.
"Choose whatever you want but no diamonds or any stones of any description on mine. Think plain" he insisted.
"Is this plain enough darling?" she said slipping a plain platinum band on him that fit him perfectly.
"That looks so weird" he complained.
"You'll get used to it" she said choosing a matching one for herself and then chose a nice sized diamond ring, then studied him again and chose a more modest one. If she didn't know Reno's actual profession, she would have guessed he did some kind of general labour type job. The jeweler wrote down the codes to be billed back to Rufus and left them. They looked at each other and then looked awkwardly away and both were almost relieved when they were bustled into wardrobe to be fitted for their wedding clothes.
"This one will do" Reno said, studying himself in a black double breasted tux with a gray tie.
"We have plenty of them for you to try on" Daniel said to him.
"I don't care for formal wear and don't wish to spend hours trying more tuxedos on. I've tried on three and that's more enough for me. Where's my bride?" he facetiously asked.
"Oh Elena, that's the one. You look so beautiful" Daniel's assistant, Alexia insisted. Elena looked at herself, she was wearing an ivory wedding dress that was strapless but had a sheer sleeveless lace overlay on the bodice, with a lace skirt with a sweep train. She also had on a matching fingertip lace mantilla veil. Her short hair had been swept back and she had minimal makeup on that was artistically applied. She wasn't normally vain but she thought she looked beautiful and blinked tears away that it wasn't a real wedding where she would marry Tseng, instead she would be marrying...
Reno halted in his tracks to see Elena wearing an actual wedding dress, part of him could admire her on an aesthetic level. He'd never seen her dressed up and had always considered her a little plain but she looked anything but plain in her wedding dress. However the dress itself was enough to strike terror into his heart, that she would wear it to marry him in, that by the end of the day he would be someone's husband. No matter how brief a time it would be, he would have a wife! She turned to look at him and the full effect made him want to run, instead he said "well don't you clean up well?" and tried to give her a charming smile. She herself was shocked that he actually looked good in his tux.
The hairdresser, Stephan and his assistant, Rachel both froze when they looked at Reno's hair. "I would say we should trim it short and get rid of that rattail" Stephan suggested, as he walked around him.
"Sorry you're not cutting anything off" Reno said with finality in his voice.
"Okay have a seat and we'll see what we can do" Stephan said and Reno did with the weariness of a cat and the hairdresser draped a cape around. Stephan made a significant nod towards his assistant. Rachel gently took a hold of his rattail and took out a pair of scissors. Elena leaned forward in anticipation of the thing being removed for once and for all, she had dreamed of such an event and then sighed and realized she couldn't allow it and strode forward and halted the other woman's hand before she could make the fatal snip.
Elena wasn't a hairdresser but had a good eye for such things and had taken care of her father's and sister's hair when growing up. Without thinking, she undid his hair tie until the long strands tumbled free, almost reaching the level of his hips.
"What are you doing?" He asked her, finding it odd for her to touch him in any way intimate even if it was just his hair. Did she expect a wedding night from him? He supposed he could if she insisted….
She focused on the hairdressers themselves, "everyone has their quirks, especially men when it comes to affectations: like how they wear their hair or have facial hair and that become a visible part of their personality. Although I will agree that Reno's hair style is stupid but it's his right to look that way. If I was his actual fiancee, I would have been used to it by now and wouldn't try to change it. On a person's wedding day, they strive to look their best and he would be no different" she explained to them and took up a comb and gently combed his spikes flat, starting at his temples while he watched her dubiously in the mirror.
"Again, what do you think you're doing?" He demanded as he watched her efforts.
"Nothing's being cut off, we're just making you look decent for once" she said and all of them paused when his hair lay flat and straight in various lengths. Without his messy spikes, his appearance was...a lot less goofy.
"I look like an idiot" he complained. What he was seeing on looking in the mirror was himself as a young, long haired, gangling teenager when his mother used to slick him up to take him to church.
"Mousse" Elena said and slicked it back and attached whatever she could of the uneven strands into his ponytail and then added some hairspray. "Now you look ready" she said to the nervous looking man.
Elena beamed at the actors in the audience as she sedately walked down the aisle behind her "bridesmaids" in their matching burnt orange dresses and had her hand put into Reno's by her supposed father. He tried to beam back but just looked sickly, but that was understandable, it was a staged wedding after all where their officiate was real. Elena didn't like what was happening but was better at following order then the more rebellious Reno, Tseng had given her an order and she would follow it out her devotion and respect of him. Even if it meant marrying a human scarecrow no matter how temporarily. So she was trying to help the highly nervous Reno.
"Just repeat after the officiate and you'll be fine. Take a deep breath and relax" she whispered to him and he did.
It came time to say the vows and Reno said "I..." And then completely blanked on his own name even if the officiate had just said it, all he could do was stare blankly back at Elena who mouthed it to him.
"Cut! Reno, how can you have screwed this up five times in a row? It's the simplest ceremony we could find, lasts less than five minutes and then we take some fake wedding pictures and engagement photos for your dummy wedding website and then we can all go home. I fucking hate working with amateurs" the director raged, causing Reno to turn so red his facial tattoos were barely visible.
"I'm sorry I'm just nervous" he stammered.
"Yet you probably throw yourself into battle without a thought?" Which was true. "The TURKS wedding take five" the director called.
Somehow they managed to get through it, Reno neither hyperventilated, dropped the ring or said his lines at the wrong time or forgot his own name. The marriage certificate was signed by his badly trembling hands but it was still legally recognizable as his signature.
Finally it was announced for him to kiss his bride. Elena caught his face in her hands and got up on tiptoe and kissed him before he could bungle anything else up, she had intended for it to be brief but hadn't counted on how good a kisser the surprisingly talented Reno was and when she came back to herself, she was French kissing him. "Cut" he director for the fourth time trying to get the newly married couple's attention and both startled apart. "If you two want to have a wedding night, I don't have a problem with that, but not here, Now can we get these photos taken?" He asked them as they breathed heavily and blushed.
The wedding pictures went much quicker as they posed in a nearby garden, did some fake reception pictures and then got into simpler attire for supposed engagement photos and then they got dressed in their uniforms and left. He looked the same as before and had managed to spike his hair back to normal. "So now what?" He asked.
"I'll drive you back the office and pick you up in the limo tomorrow morning" she said.
"So nothing has to change?" He asked her.
"Only your answer to your marital status on legal forms, but that's going back to normal soon" she said feeling awkward, especially after their kiss. Elena wasn't a virgin, she had had three boyfriends in her life but hadn't slept with anyone for two years because her heart was set on Tseng. She hadn't even kissed anyone in that time...until now and she was a healthy young woman with normal sexual needs that had been denied. Yet she was married to a man she didn't want that way. The situation was too bizarre for words.
She noticed that Reno still wore his wedding ring. "Your wedding ring, do you intend to wear it?"
"I didn't know what to do with it. Am I supposed to keep it on?" He asked her, feeling foolish and unsure how he was supposed to act towards her now that she was his...He felt like he had stumbled into an alternate universe. He and Elena? Everyone knew she carried the torch for Tseng; kind of how Rude did Tifa, Elena didn't seem to find him attractive in the least. Of course Reno knew he wasn't a classic pretty boy like some of his acquaintances, but he held a certain appeal when it came to women. Yes he liked to flirt and attempt to pick up women, but was it really so wrong to want the touch of a woman, someone to couple with? Elena was a bit of a mystery to him, she never joined them on Friday nights if they went for a drink to unwind after work, unless Tseng came along. She would talk only with Tseng and would ignore Reno and look at him like he was asking her to remove her top in public if he did something as innocent as ask her to dance.
"I'm keeping mine on so I don't forget it tomorrow. You can take yours off until we get there" she said feeling just as awkward. He plucked it from his finger and put it in his pocket.
They got a text and both checked their PHS, it was from Tseng telling them to take the rest of the day off in view of their nuptials and that Elena's new passport would be given to her in the morning. Elena wasn't sure if he was joking or not. Did Tseng expect her to take Reno to bed just because they were married? He was the one who ordered them to.
"I guess I'll go home" she said.
"I guess I'll go for a drink" Reno said feeling a little relieved. He hadn't known what to with her. Was he supposed to invite her out to dinner or something? Certainly they had only a professional relationship. In fact, he had no idea what she did outside of work. Did she have any hobbies? He'd known her sister, Emma and had respected her, even had had a bit of a fling with her once during a mission. After a particularly brutal day, they had used either other to blow off some steam but nothing had ever come of it. Now she would have technically have been his sister-in-law. Having had enough of those thought, he got into his car and went home only to park it and change. The dive bar he preferred to drink at when his mind was unsettled had a particularly raunchy odour to it that seemed to never want to come out of clothing. He called it the odour of desperation. He went there because the cheap beer attracted girls from the local modeling agency so they could drown their dreams of being the next supermodel and their inhibitions slipped away and their skirts got lighter with each drink he bought them.
Elena looked at her new passport and reminded herself that she would change it back once her marriage as dissolved. Rather then it reading Elena Marshall as it had her entire life, it read Sinclair. "Mrs. Elena Sinclair" she said out loud. It sounded so wrong! She had wanted to change the surname on her passport, but it was the wrong one!
She picked up her tablet and made herself go to their so-called wedding website and a lump rose in her throat at the surprisingly good pictures of them, Reno looked handsome despite his tattoos and everything. The website was a swirly mess of poetry and silly images of them but in the end, it would be a marriage that never existed soon. She had to remember that when they went on their honeymoon...mission she corrected herself. Oh well, some day perhaps she and Reno might go for a drink and laugh about this weird time in their lives she decided as the limo pulled into Reno's driveway. Oddly enough, Reno's bachelor pad was a rather nice sized bungalow in a residential neighbourhood with a pool, she could only wonder what his salary was when she was renting a one bedroom apartment. She went up to his door to knock to make sure he had everything in order. He was a horrible procrastinator about everything.
She knocked on the door but he didn't come to answer no matter how persistently she knocked, so she resorted to using the key she had to his place; they all had keys to each other's places in case of emergency. She pushed open the door to his house and got out her gun and did a sweep of the place just in case and then froze in shock to find him fast asleep in bed with not one, but two women with the sheets tangled around them.
"Reno's what's going on?" She demanded. It's not like the scene made her jealous though it did slightly hurt her on a fundamental level. It did shock her however, it's not every day you find your own husband in bed with two women!
"What?" Reno said and then clutched his aching head. "Elena what are you doing here?" He asked her, his brain still not functioning.
"Who are you?" The young blonde on his right demanded at being so rudely awaken.
"I'm here to pick you up so we can go on our honeymoon" she reminded him.
"You didn't tell us you were married" the girl cried, slapping him across the face, causing him to wince and clutch his cheek and waking what appeared to by her identical twin sister on his other side.
"You're married?" She demanded of him as well while her sister swept from the bed and started getting her clothes on and tossing identical ones to the other woman.
"Only since yesterday. It's not what you think, I can explain" he lamely said to the two enraged women.
"Pig" the one closest to him said and slapped his other cheek. Finally dressed and finger combing their hair, they bowed to Elena who was watching the whole thing with sadistic glee. "I'm sorry ma'am, we didn't know. Neither of us would ever go home with a married man" the one said and Reno looked from one to the other enraged identical women, looked at Elena...and bolted for the can clutching his hand over his mouth
"It's okay, you didn't know" she answered and saw them out to the sound of Reno tossing his cookies, finding it odd that the twins drew the line at married men but threesoming with your own sister was perfectly accept. Reno had odd taste in women apparently.
Reno came out of the washroom looking more worse for wear than Elena had ever seen him. "Did you even pack?" She asked him, noting with amusement he wore only his boxer shorts and one sock.
"No, I barely remember my own name" he said staggering to his table and collapsing on the chair there and putting his head in his hands. Elena sighed and made him some coffee. "I'm sorry about what you saw" he said, feeling guilty for some reason.
"Don't worry about it" She assured him. His hair was a tousled mess, his eyes bloodshot and dark rimmed and he looked green around the gills.
Elena found herself studying him, the body his baggy clothes concealed was a lot more impressive then she had ever considered. She forced herself to look in his face only. "I don't own you, it's not like we were in a prior relationship. Let's this treat this as just another mission. Okay, a mission where we shall be required to act like newlyweds. Drink your coffee while I pack for you" she said, putting her hand briefly on his shoulder.
"I don't know how to act around you. I feel like I let you down somehow; like I let both of us down" Reno said in a soft voice. He had never married nor had his father stuck around to marry his mother. All he knew of marriage was what he had observed on the sidelines; that you were expected to give up all other women.
"I didn't have high expectations of you to begin with. You live your life as you see fit and I have no say in that. You like to drink and have casual sex. You're reacting to being married perhaps, but you're not really. You can't do that at the resort naturally, but afterwards we need only file for a dissolution of marriage and Rufus will take care of the paperwork, we'll just need to sign it. It's not like we have common property or children to worry about. So don't worry your hung over head about it. Take a shower and brush your teeth, you can rest on the plane. Rufus leant us his private jet to get us there" she assured him and he followed her and watched with surprise at how easily she located his suitcase and deftly packed his clothing, seeming to weed out the less ragged clothes he owned. But that is how Elena had always seemed to him: practical, clean and neat and reliable. The sort of woman you would find with a handful of coupons and a list of items at the grocery store. She was always organized, he would give her that. Yet there was a sense of loneliness about her, he could see her being the sort to make an elaborate dinner for herself and talk and toast an imaginary lover. Or scrub her bathroom tiles on a Saturday while he, himself was plastered at a bar with a woman on each knee.
"We don't need much, the lady from wardrobe shall be shipping us more clothes in a few days" Elena explained to him.
Elena located the case for his Electro-Mag Rod and she put it beside his suitcases and allowed him to wash and dress before collecting his toiletries. She knew he was in bad shape when he had only brushed his hair and allowed it to air dry. She was about to offer to fix it for him when she caught herself. On normal days she thought his hair looked like a rat's nest with an actual tail attached to it. So why encourage him? He suffered in silence until they got onto the plane.
"Come on" she said taking his hand and leading him to the seats. She found it weird touching him but knew she was going to have to get used to it.
"Where are we going?" He asked and watched in surprised when she maneuvered two seat backs together so they were adjoining and locked them together to form a bed of sorts. She picked up a pillow from a compartment.
"Lie down" she ordered him.
"What are you doing? I'm really not in any shape for that" He said eyeing the bed. Surely she didn't expect them to...he thought the idea wasn't such a bad one. He would be forced to be celibate for a month, unless...
"I swear you have sex on the brain. You're hung over as anything and need to sleep it off" she explained to him, firmly derailing that train of thoughts.
"That's all?" He asked her.
"Just lie down Romeo" she said giving him an amused smile and he did, laying his long frame in the narrow but surprising comfortable space and she tucked him in. She handed him two pills and a water bottle.
"And are these?" He asked her.
"Gravel and melatonin to help you sleep" she said explained and he took them. She read a magazine and then noticed he was asleep. She got up and covered his bare arms with the blanket to make sure he remained warm. She reached up and brushed back the floppy bangs from his face and was surprised how soft the texture was of his hair. Without thinking she traced one the red crescent tattoos that topped his cheekbones and wondered why he chosen these particular facial tattoos. She had always wondered, by didn't feel comfortable asking him about them and he never volunteered that information. His skin was soft as well and then she realized what she was doing and took her hand away. What was wrong with her? She would never had so boldly touched Reno in the past unless she was assisting him while he was injured and now she was practically groping him in his sleep. It was so unlike her. She felt troubled as she sat in her own seat and upon occasion, would look at him and vowed she wasn't going to allow any professional lines to be crossed no matter what happened on their honeymoon/mission.
Flash Forward
Elena gripped the tree in front of her in her bent over position, her face flushed from fear of discovery as well as the stimuli. Her dress was rucked up and one of her breasts had been released to dangle unfettered when the spaghetti strap had slipped free during their bodily commotions.
Reno's one hand gripped her naked hip while his other pinched the free hanging nipple almost to the point of pain, spiking Elena's arousal.
He pounded himself inside her and she rocked greedily back on his length as his member kept on striking all the right spots in her. He panted into her ear, his cheek almost level her own as they fucked with abandonment, way past the point of all reason.
Reno's body was driven only by the need to hammer himself into the divine tightness of the small body before him, almost swooning at how tight she was while Elena eagerly took every inch of him. They both heaved together, there was no tenderness in their act as there had been before, Elena knew she was being fucked like a whore and reveled in it.
Their primitive rhythm struck something inside her over and over again and she arched her back while she shattered into a million pieces and it was only his arms coming around her that seemed to hold her together as his own heavy flow burst hotly inside her in response to her own orgasm as they came in perfect unison.
He buried his face into her neck while he recovered from his own orgasm and wondered why he felt the need to take this one woman over and over again when most women didn't hold his interest for longer than the span of a weekend. Yes they were breaking every fraternization rules that existed in TURKS but it was the same office that bound them in marital bondage as tightly as any rope or chain that existed and somehow it felt so right.
Elena's wide unfocused eyes stared straight ahead and wondered how they had come to this.
End Flash Forward
Elena knew their plane would be landing soon and would have to wake Sleeping Ugly to make him look presentable. Their roles as man and wife began the second they stepped into the hotel. She looked at him sleeping so peacefully and longed to shake him awake until his teeth rattled. Instead, she decided to be kind and placed a hand on his chest and lightly shook him.
"Come on Mom, just give me five more minutes" he said in a voice thick with sleep that caused her to laugh.
"Reno, you have to wake up" she said and he opened his eyes.
"Elena where are we?" He asked her, barely remembering about their earlier meeting.
"We're almost in Costa Del Sol, we need get you changed and do something with your hair" she said and he got up, he hadn't even bothered to put his hair tie in and between his baggy jeans and black t-shirt and various hair lengths, he looked much younger than his actual age of twenty six.
"You look like a teenager" she declared. "I don't want people thinking that I'm a cradle robber. Put on these and do your hair as normal" she said, handing him a bag of clothes pointing to the washroom.
"You expect me to wear khakis?" He said with disgust in his voice as he examined them.
"You're a honeymooning tourist, we have to blend in" she explained.
He came out wearing the light weight khaki pants, a light blue shirt and the sandals she had chosen for him. "I look ridiculous" he complained and didn't comment as she removed his goggles and replaced them with aviator sunglasses. She examined him, when dressed in the correctly sized clothes, he looked pretty good she realized. She did up the rest of him buttons to cover his chest and adjusted his collar. The earring and tattoos and eccentric hairstyle suggested he was once a goth or punk perhaps but it didn't detract from his good looks.
"Do I pass inspection?" He drily asked her.
"You look good but you need to put this on" she said holding out his ring for him.
"Time to put the wedding shackle on" he said and slid it onto his finger. He noticed that she had changed into a floral print sundress on a black background that did wonders for her figure. She had a nice one he realized, she also wore diamond stud earrings and a single string of pearls. Her dress showed a little cleavage but nothing too outrageous and her bare legs were long for her petite height. She wore no makeup and looked every inch a respectable young wife. She was attractive in an understated way and not his type at all. He loved his woman flashy with pouty lipsticked mouths and showy, bold clothing. That wasn't Elena at all. The few times they had run into each other outside of the office, he knew she preferred to wear skirts and her clothing tended to run to pastels...and apparently his tastes was similar to hers on this mission. He preferred dark clothes for the most part or bold colours. Light colours washed him out.
They landed and were driven to the hotel. "You ready?" Elena asked him.
"Ready as I'll ever be" he said as he got out of the limousine and held out his hand to help her out. She blushed when he put his arm around her and drew her to his side.
"What are you doing?" She hissed at him.
"We're supposed to be newlyweds" he explained pulling her easily forward with his own motion and she soon fell into step with him and he realized this was the most contact he'd had with her since their rather unsettling kiss. Where had she learned to kiss like that?
They smiled as they approached the desk.
"Hi we're..." Elena said.
"Mrs. And Mr. Sinclair" the girl whose name tag read, Nancy enthused.
"How did you know?" Reno asked her.
"I looked at your wedding website. I look at them all, weddings are so romantic" she sighed. "I loved your photos, you look so much in love in them."
"We're hopelessly devoted to each other. Right Hon? We've been like this since she jumped me one night at a local golf course that we'd snuck into after hours. She took off all of her clothes and stood naked before me in the moonlight. I got so excited that I dropped my skateboard. I was fourteen at the time, what a way to lose my virginity" Reno said in a sappy voice. Nancy looked dubious at this while Elena blushed a painful bright red colour. Seriously, that's the best he could come up with; that she was some kind of golf course fetish slut?
"Of course dear" Elena said in a tight voice.
Just then a swarm of beautiful women walked through the lobby and Reno's pretty girl radar snapped into action. "Who are those women?" He asked, practically drooling and a couple of them looked back at him with interest.
"Those are Miss Gaia contestants. To take the pressure off of them and to attract tourists, the resort hosts them right before the main judging contest so they can relax" Nancy explained. "Now you can do whatever you want, here's a list of services available to guests. Although the beach is topless, guests must cover up when they enter the hotel, that applies to both sexes" she said with a friendly smile and Elena heard Reno actually whimper at the idea of topless beauty contestants when he was to pretend to be faithful to a woman he wasn't having sex with.
"Are you okay sir?" Nancy asked him.
"My husband's a really sensitive man and is overwhelmed by the beauty of your place" she said placing a hand on his arm. "He practically cries at the sight of a rainbow."
"That's so beautiful a quality in a man" Nancy said with approval.
"Let's just get our keys" Reno said with a snarl in his voice. Had Elena seriously suggested to the young woman that he was a S.N.A.G.?
White, everything in their honeymoon suite was white: white furniture, white bedding, white marble floor tiles, white hot tub, everything! Except for the red rose petals sprinkled on the bed in a heart shaped pattern. "You can put me down" she hissed after their porter was gone. Most couples would have probably broken open the complimentary bottle of champagne and had some afternoon delight on the huge bed. However they just walked around examining the place and looked for weaknesses in security and ways to steal from their room with a professional eye, played rock, papers, scissors for the bed and Reno won, meaning Elena had to sleep on the couch.
Finally he brought of his laptop to see if he could hack into the hotel's mainframe to upload suspicious files and she got out her weapons and gave them a good cleaning and then examined his to make certain nothing went wrong with it during their trip since he was busy. It was such a romantic way to spend the first day of their honeymoon as newlyweds.