Work Text:
🍰
DAY ONE
“Alright, Harry,” the production assistant - Katie, he thinks her name is - says, guiding him to a chair and gesturing for him to sit down. The chair’s set up with a shelf full of containers of colored candy melts in the background, arranged in rainbow order, and it makes him smile.
“As I hope they explained to you earlier,” Katie says, “we’ve got to shoot all of your intro interviews today, before we do the actual baking shoot tomorrow. So we’ll start off with a basic introduction, okay? Just look right at the camera, tell us your name and we’re you're from.”
“Hi,” Harry says, grinning into the camera and trying not to look as nervous as he feels. “My name is Harry Styles, and I live in Los Angeles, California.”
“That’s great, Harry, now I’m just going to ask you a couple of questions, okay? Make sure you always put the question in the answer.”
Harry nods obediently, looking over Katie’s shoulder where he can see the assistant director, Louis, giving instructions to another crew member. Like the rest of the crew, he’s dressed in all black, wires and battery packs and other official looking stuff all attached to the loops of his ridiculously tight black skinny jeans. He’s got the hems of his jeans rolled up so they’re displaying his ankles, and if Harry squints, he thinks he can even see a -
“So, tell me about your baking experience,” Katie says, effectively interrupting his train of thought. Right. Harry has a job to do. He’s here to focus, and to win ten thousand dollars, not to drool over a guy. Even an exceptionally cute one.
“I love to bake,” Harry says. His face lights up. “Actually, I used to be a baker, once.”
“Oh?” Katie asks, flipping quickly through the pages on her clipboard.
“Well,” Harry amends, grinning sheepishly at the camera. “I used to work at a bakery, when I was a teenager. I ran the till and put loaves of bread into paper bags and swept the floor.”
Katie puts her clipboard back down.
“But!” Harry says, “I’m sure I learned a lot just from being in that environment, you know. It’s pastry osmosis, or something.”
Katie prompts Harry to talk about what he likes to bake at home - “Brownies, definitely. Oh, and my seaweed shortbread, which is my specialty, but nobody ever wants to eat any, which is a bit of a disappointment,” - and what he does for a living - “I shoot babies. Professionally, I mean! Oh, wait that sounds worse. I’m a photographer that specialises in newborn photography,” - and after he’s told the camera about each of his three cats - “Well, there’s Trixie, and her sister Samantha, and then there’s Cleo, who’s an old lady now, and lives a life of luxury kitty retirement,” - Katie calls for hair and makeup to come over and give Harry a touch up.
The young girl that comes over has pink hair, and a belt full of makeup brushes tied around her waist.
“I’m Lottie,” she says, already patting Harry’s nose with a brush.
“Harry,” he says. “It’s nice to meet you.”
He relaxes while Lottie carefully arranges his curls, spraying them with another layer of hairspray, and subtly turns his attention back to Louis, who is watching something on a monitor.
He’s obviously not being as subtle as he thinks, because Lottie laughs. “See something you like?” she says, gesturing in Louis’ direction with a smirk.
For once, Harry’s glad he’s got a heavy layer of foundation on, because it might hide the telltale blush that he can feel rising to his cheeks.
“Oh,” he says, “I was just um, daydreaming. I wasn’t looking at anything in particular.”
“Whatever you say.” Lottie grins, and pats him gently on the shoulder. “You’re all done.”
While he waits for someone to come over and tell him what to do, Harry lets his eyes wander around the set once more. He’s determined not to get caught staring at Louis again, so he focuses on the other end of the set, where the other two contestants are. They’d been kept apart until they’d all arrived on set, and Harry still hasn't been introduced properly to either of them, but he’d seen them filming bits of their introductions.
There’s Niall, from Orlando, Florida, who seems to be about Harry’s age. He’d said that he liked to cook, but that his boyfriend had recently banned him from the kitchen after he forgot to put seasoning on the chicken one too many times. He seems friendly, and had waved at Harry very enthusiastically.
The other contestant, Zayn, is a bit of a mystery, but Harry’s been watching him sneakily fill his pockets with jelly beans from the big glass jar on set for the last hour - but only the green ones - which is strangely endearing, and makes Harry think that he must be a good egg, too.
He hasn’t seen any of the judges yet, but he supposes that they probably don't need them today, and that he’ll get to meet everyone tomorrow, when they have their full day of shooting.
Without his permission, his eyes drift back to Louis, who has his head thrown back as he laughs at something. I want to be the one who makes him laugh like that, Harry thinks, and then he frowns, because that was cheesy, even for him.
He can’t help it, though. He’d been entranced by Louis from the first second he saw him. Louis had walked onto set, carrying some sort of unidentifiable equipment, and Harry had watched him work, bathed in light from all the spotlights that surrounded him. When they’d eventually been introduced, Louis had shaken Harry’s hand, told him that he liked his shirt, winked at him, like, actually winked, and then left. Harry’s in love.
*
So far, being on a reality television baking competition involves a lot of waiting around, and very little actual baking.
They’ve been here on set for hours now, filming all the introductions, and Harry’s starting to look forward to what he hopes is a very comfortable bed in the hotel room that the producers have booked for him. Niall is actually asleep on a sofa in the corner. It’s probably due to jet lag, Harry thinks, seeing as Niall had flown in to LA that morning from the east coast - or he assumes that it’s due to the time difference, anyway, he was never very good at working those out.
Finally, Katie comes over and tells him that they’re done filming for the day, and they’ve got a car to take all of the contestants to their hotel. He gathers up his bag quickly, already daydreaming about what he’s going to order from room service, when a hand squeezes his elbow.
“See you tomorrow, Harry,” Louis says, and then he’s gone before Harry can get his brain to unfreeze enough to reply. “Bye,” he says to the air, instead, standing there like an idiot until Katie comes over and leads him to the car.
🍰
DAY TWO
“You’ve got an admirer,” Lottie announces, wrapping her arm around Louis’ shoulders and batting her false eyelashes at him ridiculously.
“What on earth are you talking about?” Louis laughs, tucking his arm around Lottie’s waist automatically.
“A certain curly-haired, green-eyed charmer of a contestant couldn’t stop staring at you yesterday,” she says, a perfect picture of faux-innocence.
“Who, Harry?” Louis asks. “I don’t think so.”
“Ah, so you admit it,” Lottie says.
“What?” Louis splutters. “No, I - ”
“Though so,” she says, looking pleased. “Oh, look, there he is now.”
Louis looks up to see Harry frowning at him from across set. He flushes beautifully when he notices Louis looking, and waves. Louis waves back, dislodging himself from Lottie in the process.
“I’d better go start on hair and makeup,” Lottie says. “Be nice.” She leans over to give him a kiss on the cheek, which Louis returns.
When he looks back up, Harry is frowning again. Louis ignores the urge to go and kiss his cheek too - because, no, he’s a contestant, don't be ridiculous - and heads off to go and check that everything’s been set up properly.
*
“Hell-oooo!” Nicole sings. “Welcome to Nailed It! The show where we get home bakers and ask them to replicate some delicious treats for their chance to win ten thousand dollars! Let’s meet our bakers!”
“Cut!” the director yells, and production assistants rush on set, arranging things for the next shot. The three contestants are lined up in front of the judges, wearing clean, white aprons and looking eager.
“This is where we’ll insert all of your intro shots from yesterday,” Louis explains.
“Introducing the judges in three, two - ”
“My name is Nicole,” Nicole says, looking down the barrel of the camera, “and I’m your host in this epic culinary adventure. On my right is our head judge, the very giggly, very French - Mr Jacques Torres!”
The contestants all clap politely.
“Thank you,” says Jacques.
“And to my left, we have our very special guest judge for this episode. He’s our favourite pop star who’s come to melt your hearts - it’s Liam Payne!”
“Hi!” says Liam, bowing adorably. “I’m can’t wait to eat some delicious cake!”
“I wouldn’t go that far, Liam,” Nicole says drily, making Jacques giggle on her other side. “Let’s just try for edible, shall we, bakers?”
They call cut again, and get ready to set up for the reveal of the first challenge.
Louis is ostensibly supervising, but really he’s checking out each of the contestants. He’d met each of them quickly yesterday, and he’d seen the rough edits of their interviews. He likes to play a little game with himself each episode that they film, and try and predict the winners. He’s four from four this season so far, and he wants to keep his winning streak going.
He weighs up the options. Niall and Harry had both seemed very confident in their interviews yesterday. Louis knows from experience that confidence can either suggest that a contestant actually has some basic skills that will come in handy, or alternatively it means they’ll get cocky and completely crash and burn, so it really, could go either way. He’d seen Niall spontaneously burst out into a Bruce Springsteen song yesterday, getting the whole crew singing along with him, and he wonders if maybe Niall will be a laid back contestant, too busy having fun to take the whole thing seriously. Zayn, on the other hand, Louis is interested to see how he handles the fact that the whole point of the show is to make a giant fool of yourself on television. And then there’s Harry. Harry, with the shiny curls, and the polite manners, and the giant hands. Louis isn’t sure how well he’ll go at moulding delicate details with modelling chocolate, but there’s a certain sparkle in his eye that makes Louis guess that Harry will be the one to beat here today.
“Alright, everybody,” he says, addressing the contestants. “We’ll be starting the first challenge in just a few minutes. Nicole will give you your instructions.” Niall and Zayn nod in acknowledgement, and Harry beams at him. “Good luck,” he says, catching Harry’s eye for just a second before he disappears behind the cameras to watch from a distance.
“There is a special prize for the winner of the first round, which we call Baker’s Choice!” Nicole announces, waving her arms around. “Behind door number one, we have…”
They all spin to watch door number one pop open, revealing three cookies, each decorated to look like one of the judges.
“Yes! It’s judge cookies!” Nicole shouts. “Each one of you will need to recreate one of these cookies, featuring your favourite television baking competition judges! There’s a cookie Jacques, which is french vanilla flavour, a cookie Liam, featuring edible gold leaf on his royal icing “Payne Chain”, and of course, a cookie Nicole, featuring specially piped icing hair!”
Niall is already biting his nails, Harry is cooing over the cookies, and Zayn’s face is unreadable.
“Alright, bakers,” Nicole says, “Go! Choose your cookie!”
There’s a moment when the three contestants all stay standing, staring at Nicole, and then they all rush at once, trying to get the cookie they want from the display.
Once they’ve each got a cookie in their hands, the contestants are all lined up back in front of the judges again.
“Okay,” Nicole says. “Let’s see which delicious treat each of our bakers will be replicating today. Niall, you’ll be replicating the Jacques cookie. What made you select that cookie, over other, perhaps, more beautiful cookies?” She gestures towards herself, with a look of faux-offense.
Niall laughs nervously. “Well, this one seemed like the most simple design,” he says.
Jacques giggles, grinning fondly at Nicole as she raises one eyebrow.
“Zayn, you’ll be replicating the Liam cookie.”
“Yep,” Zayn says, cradling Liam’s edible face in his hands carefully.
“And Harry,” Nicole says, steeling her hands together. “Sweet, sweet, Harry. You will be replicating my own beautiful face on a cookie. Are you feeling any pressure?”
“Um,” says Harry. “I’m sure it’s going to be wonderful.”
“Mmhmm,” Nicole says, looking past him to stare right into the camera.
“Bakers, you’ve chosen your cookies to replicate, and now it’s time for our round one challenge! You have the recipe and all the ingredients you will need at your station. You will have forty five minutes to bake and decorate your cookies. Your time starts now! Go! Go! Start baking! What are you waiting for!”
Louis watches as the three boys all rush over to their assigned stations. Each of them seems to be adopting a different strategy. Niall’s already pulling ingredients and pans off the shelves, Harry is scrolling through the recipe on the ipad, bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger, and Zayn is just staring at the pre-made Liam cookie on his bench top.
Seeing Harry reading the recipe so carefully is making Louis feel even more confident in his prediction that Harry will be the winner. So many of the mistakes that happen in the show come from contestants not reading the recipe properly, and messing up their base before they even get to the decorating stage. If Harry’s paying attention, surely he’ll at least get the cookie recipe baked correctly.
*
Louis can’t believe what he’s watching.
The big red clock on the wall is counting down steadily. Ten minutes have passed already, and Harry must have made at least that many mistakes already. Despite an initial display of promise when he spent the first two minutes carefully reading the recipe on his iPad, Harry’s baking skills have promptly gone downhill.
First, Harry had forgotten to put the flour in his cookie batter, instead mixing together the sugar, eggs, and butter and expressing his confusion about why the mix was so runny. He had eventually noticed the container of flour, and had mixed it in, making Louis breathe out a sigh of relief.
When Harry had rolled out his dough, he’d been smart enough to cut out the shape for the face before baking, but then he’d put it onto a baking sheet without putting a piece of baking paper on first, meaning that the cookie was definitely going to get stuck on the baking sheet when he pulled it out of the oven. Speaking of the oven, Harry had also neglected to preheat the oven at all, so it was still cold when he put his cookie in to bake, meaning his cookie was going to take way longer to bake than it should have.
This was going to make great television, for sure, but it was a disaster for Harry - and for Louis’ winning streak.
🍰
Harry hummed as he pulled out ingredients to make his royal icing.
He was having a great time, so far. Sure, there had been a minor incident when he had forgotten the flour in his cookie dough, but he’d caught that before it was too late, and now that the cookie was in the oven, all that was left was the decorating. Harry hasn’t ever made royal icing before, or decorated a cookie, for that matter, but surely it couldn't be too hard?
The judges are all watching Niall mix something in a bowl, joint looks of horror on all of their faces, and so Harry takes the opportunity to sneak a peak at Louis.
No. He looks back at the icing recipe in front of him. Harry’s got to focus. He can’t afford any distractions at this point, not if he’s going to have any chance to winning the ten grand. No, no distractions, especially not gorgeous, lovely boys who definitely have girlfriends anyway.
“Powdered sugar,” he reads aloud from the recipe, and turns around to try and find that on the shelf.
Doing so brings Louis into his eye line. He’s watching Harry, and gives him a covert thumbs up from behind the cameras. It makes Harry grin, or at least it does until Lottie walks over to stand next to Louis. The sight of the two of them together makes a fresh wave of embarrassment rush through Harry. He can’t believe he was caught ogling Louis yesterday by Louis’ own girlfriend. He really hopes that Lottie hasn’t said anything about it to Louis.
He dumps what he supposes is a correct amount of powdered sugar into a mixing bowl, and reaches for the on switch on the mixer.
*
By the time Harry’s cleaned up all the powdered sugar that had been sent flying all over his bench, and has re-made his icing mixture, he thinks it must be time to take his cookie out of the oven. He looks over and notices that both Niall and Zayn already have their cookies out and cooling on their benches, and so he hurries over, pulling on a glove so that he can pull the tray out of the oven.
Except, when he gets the tray out, his cookie still looks pretty raw, and definitely not ‘firm to the touch’ like the recipe describes. All Harry gets when he tries to touch his cookie is a burnt finger, and a hole in the middle of where cookie Nicole’s face is supposed to be.
He looks over to the clock, and sees that he only has fifteen minutes left. Harry is self-aware enough to know that fifteen minutes is not a lot of time to decorate a cookie with someone’s face, and so now he has a tough decision. Either he puts the cookie back in the oven to bake for a bot longer, reducing the risk of giving the judges an underbaked cookie, but giving him barely any time to decorate, or he just goes with what he’s got.
He glances to his right, and sees Niall already putting icing on his cookie, and Harry decides to just go with what he’s got. He’s way behind the others already.
🍰
Louis watches Harry start to pour icing onto his half-raw, still hot cookie, and tries to hold in his groan. He isn't sure if they’ve ever had a contestant on the show who tried so hard…and yet completely failed at every single step.
You can’t rig the show to help a contestant, he tells himself. Even if they’re adorable.
There’s a jab in his side, and he looks over to see Lottie smirking at him. “Your boy’s not doing so well, huh?” she says.
“Shut up,” Louis says. “And he’s not my boy.”
He turns his attention back to the contestants, just in time to see Zayn pull out six different paintbrushes. Harry, meanwhile, is applying the icing to his cookie using his fingers. The colors are all mixing together, and the effect is…
“Oh, no,” Lottie says, covering her mouth with her hand.
“It’s unique,” Louis says, perhaps a little defensively.
Lottie claps him on the shoulder. “You’ve got it bad, big bro.”
*
The judging is usually one of Louis’ favorite parts of the show. The comparisons between the original and the replicated baked goods are always hilarious, and even the most competitive contestants tend to see the funny side of the whole thing, and take the judges’ mean comments in stride.
He’s not sure he’s got the heart to watch Harry’s cookie get absolutely ridiculed - and it will, that much is certain. Harry’s cookie is a disaster.
First up, Niall reveals his cookie. “Nailed it!” he yells as he pulls off the cloche, presenting a square cookie that is covered in white royal icing. He’s attempted to draw Jacques’ face on the cookie - if you can call two dots for eyes and a smiley mouth an attempt.
“Well,” Nicole says, trying to hold in her laughter. “Okay, um.”
“The resemblance is uncanny,” Jacques says, holding the cookie up beside his own face.
The judges taste the cookie, looking surprised.
“That’s actually quite good, mate,” Liam says. “It’s obviously not the best looking cookie, but I can definitely taste the vanilla.”
“Yes,” Jacques chimes in. “The cookie is baked properly, well done. For the next challenge, you will need to improve your decorating skills, because they really let you down here.”
Next, the judges move to Zayn.
Zayn removes his cloche to reveal his cookie, and the judges gasp. “Wow,” Liam says. “I mean it doesn’t look anything like the original cookie, at all, but it looks really cool, mate.”
“Thanks,” Zayn says, looking down at the cookie. He’s drawn an anime-looking version of Liam on top of his cookie, topped off with the edible gold leaf detail.
“Let’s see how it tastes,” Jacques suggests. The judges each take a bite out of the cookie, and Nicole immediately spits hers back out.
“That’s cardboard!” she shouts. “Your cookie, Zayn, takes like cardboard, I’m so sorry, I can’t eat that.”
“I have to agree,” Jacques says, smiling at Zayn sadly. “Your cookie design was very good, but you have made some grave errors in the dough. This is not a good texture.”
“Okay,” Nicole says, “Last but not least, it’s Harry! Let’s see what you did!”
“Nailed it,” Harry says, pulling his cloche off proudly.
“Oh, boy,” Nicole says.
Louis grimaces. Harry’s cookie version of Nicole looks less like Nicole and more like a brown blob with a mountain of runny icing on top.
“Well,” says Liam, diplomatically. “It’s not exactly like the original, is it? But it might taste great.”
Jacques looks skeptical.
They each take a bite.
“Hmm,” Nicole says. “It doesn’t taste bad… but it doesn’t taste good, either.”
“Your cookie is a bit underbaked,” Jacques explains. “You should have pre-heated your oven at the beginning, so that it was at the right temperature when you placed the cookie inside.”
“Okay, thank you, bakers,” Nicole says. “It’s time for us to make our decision.”
🍰
Liam announces that Niall is the winner of the first round, and Louis goes on camera to present Niall with his prize - “it’s your very own brand new stand mixer!” Liam cheers.
All the contestants clap politely, and Niall looks thrilled, clad in his glittery golden chef’s hat.
“It’s time for Round Two - Nail It or Fail It!” Nicole announces. “Let’s go see what’s behind door number two, everybody!”
The door opens to reveal a giant pink princess castle, complete with rice cereal treat and fondant turrets, a modelling chocolate princess, and a buttercream moat.
“You will have two hours to replicate this cake,” Nicole explains. “Harry, you struggled in round one - but don’t worry! I have a special advantage for you to help you out in this challenge! Just hit your panic button at your station, and for three minutes, both of your competitors will have to stop what they are doing!”
Harry nods, grinning as Niall and Zayn both groan playfully.
“Okay, bakers, your time starts NOW!”
🍰
Louis’ not sure how much more of this he can watch. Harry had overfilled his cake pans, which meant that they had taken much longer to bake all the way through, and now he’s about to layer his cakes together without putting any sort of buttercream or jam or anything between the layers.
He manages to catch Harry’s eye, and he looks meaningfully at the container of buttercream sitting just to Harry’s left. Surely this isn’t helping a contestant. He’s just looking, after all.
It might not matter, anyway, because Harry looks pretty confused. He’s frowning down at the buttercream, and then looks back at Louis. Louis looks pointedly at the buttercream again, and then back at Harry’s cake.
He watches as Harry’s mouth forms an “o”, pink tinging his cheeks as he looks up at Louis sheepishly. He picks up a spatula and starts spreading a layer of buttercream between his two cakes, and Louis grins at him.
Once Harry’s got the cakes together, and has managed to ice the whole cake without a major incident, much to Louis’ surprise, it’s time to make the turrets for the castle. All Harry has to do is mould the rice cereal treats into shape, and then frost and cover them in fondant.
Louis gets called away to check on something on the other side of the set - if anyone has noticed that he’s been sticking to Harry’s side of the set then they haven’t said anything, at least - and when he comes back, he’s faced with the sight of four, bright pink, very phallic turrets sitting on top of Harry’s cake.
“Does anyone else see what I see?” he hears Nicole ask from behind him. “That’s a penis castle, right?”
Louis puts his hands over his face and tries very hard not to laugh.
Harry looks so happy as he’s placing his - absolutely terrifying looking - modelling chocolate “princess” figurine on top of the cake. She sinks to one side, until she’s leaning against one of the bright pink penis turrets.
There’s four minutes left on the clock, and all Harry has to do is ice the buttercream “moat” around his castle. He’s already got the buttercream made up, he just has to dye it blue and spread it onto the cake board.
Surely he can’t mess this part up, Louis thinks, because apparently he’s an eternal optimist who doesn’t learn from his mistakes. Harry reaches over and picks up the orange food colouring. Louis face palms. He watches as Harry unscrews the lid on the little bottle, and then Louis caves and lets out a loud - very fake - sneeze.
“Louis!” Nicole shouts. “Stop sneezing, we’re trying to make a very professional television program here!”
It startles Harry, but it works at least, making him realise that he’d somehow gotten the blue and the orange dye confused - and dear god, Louis must seriously be gone for him if he even finds that endearing and not alarming - and corrects his mistake with a furtive wink in Louis’ direction.
“Three, two, one, you’re done!” Nicole shouts, just as Harry sweeps on the last of his blue icing.
The contestants all embrace each other, and then the crew swoops in, re-setting everything for the grand reveals.
🍰
Harry’s got his hands clasped together in front of him. Both of his hands are dyed completely blue now, thanks to his enthusiastic use of the food coloring.
“Alright, Niall,” Nicole is saying, over to his right. “Let’s see what you did!”
Niall presses the button that lowers the screen in front of his cake. “Nailed it!”
He’s managed to get all of the elements of his cake in, but the four turrets are each leaning outwards, while - inexplicably - the actual cake itself seems to be leaning inwards.
“I can tell what it was supposed to be,” Liam says.
“Yes,” Nicole says. “Or, at least, I can if I turn my head to the side and squint my eyes a little bit.”
Niall cackles. “It’s abstract.”
“Thank you, Niall,” Nicole says, “let’s keep on moving to Zayn! Let’s see what you did!”
Zayn reveals his cake, and Harry’s jaw drops. Zayn has somehow created something even cooler than the original cake - his castle is purple, not pink, but the turrets are all standing, and straight, and they have little flags on them with a capital “Z”, and his moat even has little modelling chocolate dolphins in it.
“Zayn!” Nicole says. “This is so creative!”
“It’s awesome,” says Liam. “I like the way you brought your imagination to the cake.”
“You’ve managed to put in all the details,” says Jacques. “I hope it tastes just as good.”
“Okay, Harry, let’s see what you did!”
Harry takes a deep breath.
“Nailed it!”
He lowers his screen, and watches the judges’ faces for their reaction.
Liam’s eyebrows jump up, and Jacques purses his lips. Nicole breaks into full hysterical giggles.
Harry looks at his cake, and the corners of his mouth twitch.
“Harry,” Nicole starts, and then can’t continue because she’s laughing too hard.
“Your moat is very well done,” says Liam earnestly.
Harry’s princess slides right off the front of the cake, and falls face first into the moat.
“I have to address the turrets,” Jacques says. “They seem a little… R-rated for a children’s cake.”
“They’re dicks,” Nicole says. “You’ve put four dicks on top of that castle.”
Jacques loses it, and there’s a squawk from behind the camera, too. Harry looks over to see Louis grinning up at the ceiling, and that makes Harry grin too, pride unfurling slowly within his chest.
Once they’ve all calmed down, Nicole asks each of the contestants to cut “the best” piece of their cake to give to the judges for them to taste. Harry examines his cake carefully, then picks the piece that looks the most well-baked. He carefully places one of the turrets on top.
The judges try each of the cakes in turn. Niall’s is proclaimed as “very chocolate-y”, Zayn’s is “dry,” and Harry’s is “disconcertingly chewy.”
Harry has given up all hope of winning by this point, but he stands next to his cake earnestly anyway, as he waits for the winner to be announced.
“The winner will receive ten thousand dollars cash,” Nicole announces, “as well as the soon to be highly valuable on eBay Nailed It! trophy!” She looks around her and rolls her eyes.
“Louis!” she shouts. “Louis! Where is the trophy? You - oh, there he is.” Louis appears from the left side of the set, handing the misshapen trophy to Nicole with a bow. “Thank you, Louis, you can go back to your cave now.”
Louis winks at Harry as he walks off set, hidden from the cameras.
“It’s time to announce the winner,” Nicole says, trying to build the dramatic tension. Liam’s got the paper money shooter in his hands, ready and waiting.
“The winner is… Zayn!”
Zayn is probably the only person in the room who seems surprised by this announcement. Liam starts hurtling paper dollar bills at Zayn, and everyone cheers and comes over to congratulate him.
“See you next time on Nailed It!” Nicole shouts at the camera, dancing underneath the shower of fake money.
“Cut!” the director yells, and there’s barely any time to celebrate before an intern is already on the set with a broom, sweeping up all of the bills and confetti on the ground.
The contestants are all taken to one side to film exit interviews, take promo photos, and sign more paperwork, and Harry loses sight of Louis in all the chaos.
Lottie comes over to powder Harry’s face before he does his final interviews. “You should ask Lou out,” she says when she snaps her powder compact shut.
“What?” Harry says, completely bewildered. “Why would I - why would you? He’s your boyfriend!”
Lottie is speechless for a second, and then she bends over, she’s laughing so hard. “Oh my god, Harry, no,” she says, in between giggles. “Louis is my brother, ew.”
“Oh,” Harry says. “Oh!”
“You should ask him,” Lottie says, hand on Harry’s shoulder. “I can tell you like him, and I’m pretty sure the feeling is mutual. Lou’s just to chicken to ask you out, since you’re a contestant and he thinks it’ll be unfair on you, or something.”
“But the show’s over,” Harry says.
“Yep.”
“Oh my god,” Harry says. He feels like he has whiplash. “I need to finish my interviews, and then I guess I’ll try and find him.”
“He always sticks around late when we’re filming,” Lottie says. “You should be able to catch him before you go home.”
🍰
Louis’ rearranging baking trays in the store room when he feels a hand on his shoulder. He jumps about three feet in the air, bumping into the shelves, and a shower of baking trays rain down on him, making an absolute racket.
He turns around to see Harry standing right there, completely frozen, sheepish grin on his face. Louis can see a small smudge of blue buttercream on his cheek. Either Lottie had missed that, or Harry had gone back after filming had ended to taste test his own cake.
“Oops,” Harry says, staring right into Louis’ eyes, and Louis leans over and kisses him. Just presses his mouth against Harry’s, like he’s been wanting to all day. Harry doesn’t kiss back at first, and Louis starts to pull away, but Harry reaches out and grabs his t-shirt, puling him back in.
“Please,” Harry says, and then they’re kissing, properly this time. Louis can taste the sugar on Harry’s lips, the hint of vanilla.
Another baking tray crashes to the ground, startling them apart. Louis looks at Harry, trying to catch his breath, and then they both burst out into giggles.
“I’m sorry for just attacking you like that,” Louis says, “I don’t know what came over me.”
“No,” Harry says. “Do not apologise, honestly, that was - Anyway, I’m the one who snuck up on you and made you knock over all those trays, I should be the one who was apologising.”
“It was inappropriate, though,” Louis says, “I shouldn’t have just - ”
“I came looking for you so I could ask you out,” Harry says, all in a rush. “Like, on a date.”
“Oh,” Louis says, watching as Harry’s cheeks go pink again under his gaze.
“Yeah,” Harry says. “I, um. I talked to your sister and she explained some things - that’s not important, now,” Harry says, as Louis opens his mouth to protest.
“So what do you say?” Harry asks, looking shy all of a sudden. “Do you want to go on a date some time?”
“Yes,” Louis says. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
“Cool,” Harry says.
“What about right now?” Louis suggests.
“Now?”
“Yeah.” Louis leans over and presses another kiss to Harry’s mouth. “I want to take you out for some real, no-turrets-involved cake. How about that?”
Harry bites his lip, and Louis wonders if he’s trying really hard not to make a penis joke.
“Sure,” he says, simply. “That sounds wonderful.”