Warnings: none

You had planned everything right down to the last detail.

You knew Aethelred didn't care very much for his birthday, but he did like to think of it as his special day, and he was happier than usual.

Because of that you had planned a surprise party in the evening, with the intention of pretending you didn't know it was his birthday until you went down to the pub around the corner and you surprised him with a party for him.

You felt entirely bad for making him believe you had forgotten about his birthday, but you had promised your friends to surprise him with the party, and you were going to keep that promise.

The morning of his birthday Aethelred was up before you, and once you got up and ready you greeted him in the kitchen, kissing the side of his face as you leaned down to hug him.

You greeted him with a 'good morning', which he returned and you gave him a proper kiss before moving to pour your coffee as well as you did every morning.

You could feel Aethelred watching you from where he sat at the kitchen table and it made a smile spread across your face.

"How did you sleep?", you asked him as you turned around, holding your coffee in one hand as you leaned against the kitchen counter.

You could see his smile falter slightly as he looked at you, disbelief slightly settling on his face before he returned to his natural caring expression.

"I slept well. What about you?", he asked and you continued your everyday small talk.

You could see that Aethelred was slightly affected by you seemingly not remembering that it was his birthday and you already cursed your friends that had talked you into the aspect of pretending not to know.

After breakfast the two of you went your seperate ways to work, after which the two of you met again at home in the evening.

You often came home earlier than him and you loved greeting him when he came back.

You had made sure that no one would spoil a thing, you had even threatened the friends that you thought were lovely but confused sometimes and you were texting about your friends' whereabouts when Aethelred came home.

You greeted him like usually, hugging and kissing him with your usual newlywed enthusiasm, which in this case led you straight to the bedroom.

After you were done you got dressed again, moving to the kitchen to make dinner together.

The two of you loved cooking together, though neither of you were good cooks you brought out the best in each other, making your cooking even taste quite well.

Apart from that you had fun in the kitchen together, telling each other what to do and working on making the food edible, and you loved teasing each other about it.

When you finished you ate together, talking about his and your job, your day and that his family had once again requested that you join them for a dinner.

After finishing dinner you turned to Aethelred, a teasing smile on your lips.

"We should go out tonight. We haven't been out in forever and I'd love to go drinking and dancing", you told him, and Aethelred frowned.

"I don't know, love, I'm not feeling so social today", he said as he moved towards you to kiss your forehead before grabbing your plate and moving to the dishwasher with it.

You watched him with sadness in your eyes, because you knew that this mood had been provoked by neither you nor any of his friends acknowledging his birthday.

You followed him into the kitchen, wrapping your arms around him from behind and setting your chin on his shoulder, chuckling.

"Are you sure you don't want to go, I really feel like dancing and you know what I'm in the mood for afterwards...", you teased him and he angled his face to look at you quizzically.

It brought a tired grin to his face before he nodded, pecking your lips quickly before entangling himself from you.

"Alright, I'll get ready", he answered and you smiled as he left for the bedroom to change his clothes.

You followed suit, changing into your favorite little black dress, putting your hair up into an artistic bun, and doing your makeup for a night out at the club.

When you were ready Aethelred and you went around the corner to the pub, his favorite pub, which he already found strange.

"I thought we were going to a club?", he asked you softly, but you shushed him, smiling widely.

Your smile grew when you opened the door and let Aethelred pass, only to be met by most of your conjoined friends.

You followed Aethelred, hugging his side as he stood in surprise, looking at all the people that had gathered, a huge grin on his face.

The first thing that Aethelred did was lean down to kiss you.

"Happy birthday, love", you said as you leaned back in to kiss him, under the applause of your friends and the bartender.

"I thought you forgot about it", he whispered, chuckling afterwards as he brushed a stray hair out of your face.

"I could never. But we wanted to surprise you", you told him and he smiled.

"You did, you certainly did", he answered before looking around the room.

"Thank you guys for being here tonight, it means a lot to me", he said as he looked at what seemed like every person in the room before turning to the bar.

"And now... let's celebrate!", he shouted, grinning at your friends as they cheered at that.

The evening was beautiful, you drank and danced and laughed until you could no more and found yourselves tucked away in bed.

You were laying in Aethelred's arms, talking about how the night had gone.

"Thank you for today, love", he whispered as he let his fingers lazily rake through your hair.

You smiled at both the words and gesture and returned it by letting your fingers caress his chest in circular motions.

"At first I seriously thought you'd forgotten", he chuckled and you laughed slightly, shaking your head as far as you could with your head laying on his chest.

"I could never", you told him softly.

"I love you too much for that", you added, and even though you couldn't see you were sure he was smiling too.

"I love you too", he said as you felt him kiss the top of your head before leaning back into the pillows.

"And I couldn't be happier".