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One

Louis wanted to surprise his husband.

He wanted to see that beautiful smile of his as soon as he walked in through their front door, those lovely teeth that he insisted looked like baby feet even though Harry would pout whenever Louis said it out loud. He wanted to get home and fall into bed with his husband, a tin of cookies between them as they fought to fit under a single blanket while watching TV.

He never got tired of saying that. He had a husband. He'd had one for the last three months, but that was besides the point. The important thing was that he was on his way back from the airport and he couldn't wait to get there.

But first.

Flowers.

Louis didn't mind stopping by a grocery store to buy some flowers. No matter how tired he was after a flight--how jet lagged or sore--he always stopped to get Harry a bouquet of flowers. It was a different type of flower each time, he made sure of it. The thing was, though, that no matter how many times Louis did this, Harry would always be surprised when he saw the flowers in his hands. He would always look at him as if he was the most amazing person in the world and to be honest, nothing made Louis feel better than that look. It was the same look that Harry had given him when he'd proposed. Granted, he'd proposed with a bouquet of flowers, putting the ring in the middle of it all and then nearly bursting into tears when it fell down the middle and down to the rose stems.

Flowers were kind of their thing by now, he guessed.

This time, Louis got a bouquet of pink and white carnations, paying to whatever was out there to let the flowers bloom nice and big in the morning. Right now, they were shut, it being almost 10 p.m., so Louis didn't really have much to go on other than the size of the flowers and the reassurances of the nice person working in the flower section telling him that they would bloom even bigger than the flowers he'd gotten Harry last time he'd come home from a flight. They were now on a first name basis.

If Louis was a dog, he'd currently be a little puppy that couldn't contain his excitement, the force of the tail wagging behind him moving his entire backside because he was too excited to control himself at the moment.

He knew what Harry would be doing at the moment. He knew Harry would have a mess in the kitchen. He knew the cake beater would be out, the scale would be covered in flour dust, little salt particles would cover the sink because Harry just could never get the measurements right the first time, and so on.

He knew how Harry worked. It didn't matter if Harry had worked at a bakery before, he was still an extremely messy baker. It seemed as if his position as a cashier hadn't really taught him much about actual baking.

Harry knew Louis was coming home that day. He knew Louis would be home late at night as well, as he usually was. That was as far as he knew, however. This time, though, Louis was getting home a little earlier. The flight hadn't taken too long and the busses hadn't had much of a line, so Louis had gotten out of the airport pretty quickly and then been on his way even quicker when he'd realized that he could surprise Harry by getting home early.

At the moment, Louis was sitting in his car in the driveway, fixing his hair and clothes and maybe--just maybe--popping a mint into his mouth just in case. He let the mint dissolve for a couple minutes before getting out of his car with the bouquet of carnations in hands. He could see the lights on inside their house, a small silhouette of Harry's lean figure in the dining room, no doubt missing space in the kitchen to place the hot tray of freshly baked cookies or cupcakes or brownies or whatever else Harry had decided to bake this time.

They liked tradition. It was also their thing.

Louis had his flowers and Harry had his baking. They were happy together.

Louis didn't knock, thinking that it would only ruin the surprise. No, what he did, was unlock the door with his key and step inside quietly. The house smelled like chocolate, so it didn't give away too much of what Harry had baked, just that he had.

See, Louis was an idiot. They'd both seen that when his proposal had almost been ruined by a runaway ring. So it really shouldn't have surprised Harry when Louis walked into the kitchen where Harry now was, and just wrapped his arms around him from behind, flowers in hand and everything--only to end up burning his hand with the oven pan Harry had in his hands that he hadn't seen from the direction he'd come walking in. His cheer of 'Honey, I'm home!' had quickly turned into a string of curse words falling from his mouth as soon as he flinched back, the flowers dropping to the ground as he curled his hand into his chest in response to the sting.

Harry, on the other hand, had jumped so high, Louis would have laughed if his hand hadn't been stinging then. He'd let out a small yelp, probably a mixture of surprise, fear, and dread as he fought to keep all nine cookies on the pan.

"Louis!" Harry turned around then, causing Louis to jump back and almost fall to the ground when the hot pan of cookies almost hit him in the chest.

They were a mess. But they loved it.

"Fucking hell, Harry," he laughed, looking up at his favorite person in the world right next to his mother. "You're trying to kill me."

Harry quickly found a place to put the hot pan before turning back around and engulfing Louis in his arms, oven mitts and all. "You're home early," was all he said, the smile obvious in his voice. "Don't sneak up on me like that again when I have a cookie pan in my hands, you dolt."

"Well excuse me if I couldn't see said cookie pan from where I walked in. You really oughta move a little faster so I have a chance at surviving your little baking adventures."

"If I move faster, the cookies will shift around and I don't want them touching one another before they're ready. They'll lose their shape." Harry finally pulled away from the hug and went in for a kiss instead, that of which Louis did not object to whatsoever. "How was the shoot?"

"Tiresome," responded Louis, letting out a small sigh. "Took about eight hours this time and I was dead by the end of it."

Harry pouted and kissed Louis again. "Well, I'm glad you're home now, at least." He was about to step away to grab a cookie and try to split it between the two without burning his fingers, when his feet hit something. He turned to look at what it was, a shit-eating smile taking over his face as soon as he saw the flowers. "I'm guessing these are for me?" He took the over mitts off, holding them in his arms, before picking up the bouquet of flowers, turning back to a red-faced Louis.

"I-" he started, nodding. "Yeah. I dropped them when I burned myself with the pan," he had a sheepish smile on his face, a little embarrassed from the situation because of course he'd had to mess giving Harry the flowers up too.

"They're beautiful," he said, a small blush rising to his cheeks as he leaned in for a second kiss. "Thank you, Louis." Harry then turned back around to find a vase that he could put the flowers in just like every time Louis came home from a flight.

Louis just stayed there, the flush never leaving his cheeks as he messed with the lock resting just above his collarbones, something he always did whenever Harry made him feel butterflies in his stomach just as he'd done when they first started dating about seven years before.

"There," he chirped, once he'd placed the flowers in a pretty purple vase to match the pink and white flowers. "Wanna split a cookie?" he asked, turning back to Louis as he walked around him and headed towards the dining room to put the vase in the middle of the dining table so they'd look nice and pretty, like always. "Think these have cooled down enough."

Harry was talking about the pan that Louis had seen Harry place on the table through the window. There were two trays there, the one in the kitchen being the third. Louis just nodded, following Harry to the dining room and taking the half of the cookie that he was given, a small thank you leaving his lips. The cookie was still warm, he found, but not nearly as hot as the ones he'd attempted to eat fresh out of the oven sometimes when Harry baked just because. Those burned both his fingers and his mouth. This one, however, just melted as soon as it went into his mouth, something that he absolutely loved about eating freshly-baked cookies.

"Now to clean up the mess," chirped Harry, only for a groan to ring through the air in response.