Title: Flour Power
Genre: Romance/Humor A/N: This is an extremely lighthearted, silly piece that I'm fond of, please read and review!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, this is only for fun. No money is being made, and the BBC/Kudos/Dave Wolstencroft own Ruth and Harry and the world of MI-5.
"Damn..." Was the first thing he heard when he walked into the kitchen. She was baking cookies.
"Oh no." He muttered quietly to himself as he watched her clean up some of the dough she spilled on the countertop surface. There was something in the oven, the aroma wafted past him in thick waves. He sniffed once and realized that whatever was in there was probably burning.
"I heard that!" She snapped irritably as she brushed past him to get the first batch of cookies out of the oven.
A cloud of smoke escaped the oven and rushed right into her face. She coughed and turned away. After the smoke passed, she went back to get the pathetic, blackened cookies from the oven. With a frustrated sigh, she dumped them onto a baking sheet and set it none too gently on the table to cool off.
"I don't know why I bother sometimes." She sat down across from him, and even though it was only ten in the morning, she already looked exhausted. "I could use a hand cleaning up, if you don't have anything to do." Harry smiled at her and nodded, agreeing to assist her in tidying the kitchen.
They were almost done cleaning up. He was washing the remaining dishes while she cleared the table. He deeply cherished moments like these with Ruth, it gave him a pleasant feeling of domestic bliss in an almost euphoric way. The sun was shining through the blinds and gave the room a cheerful, radiant glow.
Ruth had finished putting everything away, and he was on his last dish. Harry figured she'd recovered from her bad mood. Cooking was definitely not one of her strengths and while they both knew it, Ruth seemed to have managed to convince herself that she needed to master some form of culinary art to make him happy.
His train of thought was interrupted when hefelt a pair of soft, familiar lips trailing their way down his neck. "You don't have anything planned for the rest of today do you?"
"I brought somecase reports home, but they can certainly wait," He shut the water off and turned to face her. "What did you have in mind?" He drew it out, enjoying the increasing need to get closer to her, and the sparkle in her eyes.
"I was thinking we could..."
Harry placed his hands on her waist and she leaned in. He waited with something close to anticipation for her to kiss him. But Ruth only smiled sweetly-- a little too sweetly, but he didn't catch it and it was too late.
She raised her hand and hit his neck, not hard but the impact had its desired effect. He coughed as a cloud of cold flour covered his face.
"Ruth!"
"I've had enough of your insults about my cooking!" She said, her eyes danced delightedly, daring him to pursue some offensive action. Ruth had saved some of the flour from earlier and had put it into a bowl that she now clutched against her waist in a victorious pose.He grimaced, attempting to quickly smother his growing desire for her and to prepare himself for a full blown kitchen fight.
"I'm sorry Ruth."
"I think we both know that you're not." She countered, stifling the growing urge to laugh.
"Oh yes I am. I'm sorry. Sorry that everything that you cook tastes like-"
Harry didn't finish because Ruth had hit him square on the chest with flour, making a five fingered floury mess.
She wrestled free of his grip and ran to the other end of the counter, giggling at his flabbergasted expression. By the time she turned around, Harry was already right behind her with a slightly arrogant smirk playing on his lips.
His hands came up and in a flash he had poured a handful of flour down the back of her shirt. She gasped then shrieked, "How dare you!"
"How dare I? I'll show you how I dare-" He had brought with him a bag of flour, how he got it so quickly she didn't know, but she had to face the facts. He had ammunition and she didn't, she was obviously at a great disadvantage. Ruth pushed past him and ran to grab her bowl of flour from the counter. He had thrown another handful at her as she ran. The flour covered her entire back and some of it got into her hair. She pivoted and chucked some flour at him before running off through the hallway and into the parlor.
"That's it woman, you asked for it!"
Harry raced after her, his own laughter joining hers, bouncing off the walls and creating a happy harmony all throughout the house.
This was going to be fun.
"Hmmmm...Now where could Ruth have gone?" He glanced around the sitting room, whilst going into master-spy mode and spotted an almost invisible trail of flour trailing behind the couch. "Now, where could my wife be? God knows she's better at hiding than she is at cooking..." He heard a suppressed sound of annoyance from behind the couch. Ruth stood, throwing him a fistful of flour. In a puff, she was gone, her footsteps and hysterical laughter echoing in his ears. He followed her, catching her then losing her, until he grabbed the back of her blouse and pulled her into his arms.
The excitement of the chase had simmered as a new but familiarexcitement began to take its place.Their flour fight had led them from the kitchen to the parlor, through the hallway, up the stairs, briefly into the spare bedroom and then back down the stairs and finally into the kitchen where they had started. Everytime Harry thought he had her cornered, she found some method of escape, whether it was simply pushing him out of the way or hitting him with flour. But not now. Now he had her and she wasn't going anywhere.
"I've got you." He stated, his eyes fixated on her white, flour covered lips. Ruth giggled softly for what seemed like the thousandth time in the past hour. He was almost entirely bathed in flour, and he looked adorable if not silly.
"Yes, you've got me." Her voice quivered, as she knew it would, and before she could say anymore, he leaned in to kiss her. His powdery lips covered hers, and his hand came up to caress her cheek, leaving a spot of flour on her face.
"We've made quite a mess." She whispered when they broke apart. Harry smiled and nodded. "I say we clean up upstairs, and then I'll cook us dinner."
-fin-
a/n: R&R!