Waking up beside you.
He didn't come home last night.
It is best left to the imagination how he spent the majority of the night: what or whom his quarry was, how many he killed, how long it took them to die.
Annoyance had led him to walk away as it's done so many times before. He remained unharried as always. And in the midst of venting his frustrations in manners best not discussed Oriseus forgot himself and the promise his paladin made.
The sun was near to rising when he realised he'd stood Khaavren up - but he didn't return home even then. No, after having missed something of the nature Khaavren had planned, simply going back and crawling into bed in silence would. Not. Do.
So he went a-gathering instead.
Fortunate, he mused, that this happened in spring. Via hearthstone and portals, relying on mental maps, he traveled Azeroth in the span of a few hours: through the highlands of Arathi and the Hinterlands, from the lush darkness of Stranglethorn Vale to the frigid Borean Tundra to the ruined gardens of Quel'thalas. He gathered words, took clippings of declaration, and brought these home.
The sweet scents of the feast his Khaavren had laid out in anticipation of Ori and Kae's arrival still permeated the air. The warlock's reaction to seeing it still spread across the grand table, one great work of edible art, is no more a matter for discussion than what he'd been doing while his paladin lover was arranging it. After a time he made his way up to the master suite where Khaavren lay alone, nestled into his customary place: on the right, where he faces inward with strong arms outstretched to loop around both smaller men.
He set to work.
Who cares how long it took to complete? Oriseus worked until he was done, until he'd tweaked and changed and fussed enough to call it finished - until it was good enough for Khaavren to awaken to.
The arrangement covered most of the bed. Flowers wreathed the paladin's sleeping form like an aura of fragrance and colour, curled through the auburn cascade of his hair, rested feather-light against his skin.
A violet-blue halo of dreamfoil and heliotrope framed his head and shoulders, shot through with peach blossoms, glory-flowers, and mallow on a bed of de-thorned gorse and cedar leaves. There was bloodspore, kingsblood, fennel, bulrushes, almond-leaf, deep red gilliflowers; phlox and juniper, dahlias and Talandra's rose, milk-vetch, forget-me-not. There were sweetroot blossoms, smouldering firebloom and delicate songflowers, long strands of ivy binding them all.
Finally, he laid three roses - the most delicate blooms of the most delicate breed, his rare and precious white roses so pure they glowed golden - bound with flowering raspberry and white julienne on his paladin's chest, just over his heart.
Oriseus stood back a moment to take in the sight of his lover amid this bed of flowers, and smiled. Someday, he mused, he would do this again: under happier circumstances, and it would be linden sprigs and red campion laid across that broad chest.
Someday.
For now, there was yet more apologising to do for leaving Khaavren to wait, for letting him down.
The warlock knelt at the edge of the bed, and kissed his lover awake.
(( Further reading: [Khaav] • [Kae] ))