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Lance Crown wasn’t a bad cook, far from it actually, but Anna deserves only the best and he wouldn’t dare give her anything less.
Standing in the culinary room , he stares at the third batch of cookies he’s baked that evening.
Not good enough.
The gingerbread man with a crooked neck stares back at him with its melting beady eyes as he nibbles on its amputated arm.
There’s something off about it…
The icing was a bit too runny, that he can see.
But so far he’s eaten too many cookies for his tongue to pinpoint what’s wrong with them
The fact that he’s not used to eating so many sweets doesn’t exactly help him in this situation
His taste buds already felt numb to the taste of the sad looking treats he’s made.
Christmas is slowly creeping around the corner and he can’t even get fucking decorated biscuits right.
And it’s not like he hasn’t asked for help either,
He consulted Mash in the art of baking, in which the mushroom head dragged out a huge bag of flour from under his bed, much to Finn’s dismay (“why would you have a bag of flour under your bed?? And why is it beaten up???”)
When Mash tried to demonstrate how to make the cookies, they just end up turning into the delightfully delicious pastries that he loves.
It took a few failed attempts from both parties, before Mash had decided he wanted to share his fruitful basket of cream puffs with the others.
(“This cream puff looks like Finn.” Mash said,pointing at a banana filled puff with a cracked side, to which Lance doesn’t exactly see the resemblance,”Finn’s studying very hard right now, do you think he’d want it?”
Mash seemed to be immediately energised when Lance told him that Finn would probably appreciate it.
He placed the Finn resembling treat onto his head before grabbing the basket and heading out, waving a goodbye to Lance before he left
“Let’s go Finn-puff, we need to find Finn!”)
So that’s how Lance finds himself contemplating life in the school’s culinary room, should he just give up and give Anna some store bought cookies instead? That’d hardly be a good enough surprise, but maybe if he threw himself out a window-
Just then the door rudely opened, interrupting his thought process, causing Lance to look up from the sad tray.
“Who’s there? Ah…it’s just you.”
In walked the brash red boy with spiky hair and even spikier teeth, Dot Barrett.
To which Lance swiftly ignored, going back to prepare the necessary ingredients for a fourth batch. They say fourth time’s the charm…right?
As Lance set a carton of freshly opened eggs on the table, he turned around to be greeted by Dot standing opposite to him, inspecting the traces of flour on the counter.
“What do you want.” Lance deadpanned, he didn’t have any energy left to deal with this shit today.
“Well, I was going to grab some tea for Finn and Lemon… But now I want to know what you’re cooking!! Cocaine??” Dot said as he licked the tip of his finger, thinly coated with a white powder that is not cocaine.
What a fucking idiot, the double liner thought, watching Dot spit out the flour that he carelessly put in his mouth. (“Cocaine tastes weird, why would anyone want to *bleh* do drugs?” )
“Ill tell you if it’d make you shut up,” Dot shut up immediately upon Lance’s statement, looking up at the blue boy from his drug PSA tangent with a dumb little expression on his face, perhaps a poor attempt at puppy eyes
“Was just trying to bake cookies,” Lance upheld a gingerbread man, a peace offering to seal the deal as he tried to evade the other boy’s gaze” Want one?”
Without a beat, the other boy chomped down on the poor cookie still in between his fingers, leaving no time for the double liner to react. Dot’s fangs grazed his index, leaving a bite mark and trail of saliva on his fingers.
Disgusting, and also ouch
The red hair munches on his cookie, cheeks puffed up and
Not that Lance would ever admit this, but he looked like a chipmunk
Sort of… cute
In a strange Dot-exclusive sense
Even when he grabbed more than 3 cookies from the other batches to stuff into his face at once
Lance almost wanted to pinch his cookie stuffed cheeks
But then Dot decided to open his mouth and talk, intercepting and ultimately halting any adoring urges Lance had with .
“Hmm, sugar overshadows everything else so maybe you should go easy on the sugar and add a smidge of salt to really bring out the taste? I think you should more butter too. And the texture…”
Listening to Dot’s critique, maybe Lance was more intrigued than anything.
“I’m going to bake a new batch, wanna help?”
__
“No you got to sift the flour like this to make the texture smooth, gimme that!”
Dot snatched the sift from a more than annoyed Lance, getting flour all over the place
It was a disaster really, every pleasant interaction with Dot some how ends in a fight or quarrel, most likely due to their clashing personalities.
The eggs residing in the bowl are far from perfect, itty bitty bits of shells have fallen in, popped yolks spilling their insides as they fight.
Well, they call it a fight, but they both know it doesn’t stem from hatred exclusively.
“Fine, I hold the flour while you sift it, ok?”
Both of them are stubborn, they know this too. Maybe that’s why Dot was momentarily shocked when the other stubborn boy relented. Not that he’d let Lance know, not that Lance didn’t notice.
Brown sugar, molasses, spices like cinnamon and ginger dumped into a bowl, it’s a beautifully sweet amalgamation when they work together, no matter whether it’s fighting with or against each other.
The kitchen on a once lonely Winter night felt less cold now as a warm atmosphere filled the room. Either that or the Preheating oven, with the melting unsalted butter lay testament to either reason, though it didn’t matter as that too was thrown into the bowl.
Stand mixer and magic made quick work in forming the dough now rolled flat on the floured table surface, cookie cutter pressed down to make cookie cut out men, they were uniformly placed onto the baking tray as they waited patiently for their impending doom.
Though Lance is convinced that they could quicken up the cooking process through magic, the usually brash boy insisted on using the preheated oven instead, saying that they should stick to tradition if they wanted the best result.
(“I used magic in the last few batches and they worked.” Lance argued
“Well they didn’t turn out exactly good now, did they?” Dot retorted
At a huff, Lance stopped talking, which Dot took as a win)
Lance cleaned up the table in preparation for decorating whilst the red head kept a close eye on the oven, eyes basically plastered unto the cookies turning a golden brown, seemingly unbothered by the immense heat emitted.
The double liner then shortly joined Dot to bask in the warmth of the oven.
“See the cookie on the far top right?” The boy next to him pointed to a cookie in that respective position, clearly not cut using a cutter due to its exceptional shape , “Well, I made that in the shape of an owl.” Dot proclaimed proudly and loudly, before saying how Lance probably couldn’t have known if he hadn’t pointed it out since he’s the main character and all that.
He was only slightly annoyed at the other boy’s obnoxiousness, the rambling served more as white noise as he was more distracted at Dot in general to really say anything.
It made him feel…warm
Under the cold Winter, the heat from the oven was warm of course, but it was nothing compared to Dot’s radiance.The oven, now at 375 degrees Fahrenheit, is absolutely hot enough to cook through a whole batch of cookies; But when looking at joy in his face, the light reflected through those amber orbs and that soft fang-bearing smile, Lance’s heart melts like a snowman when the sun kisses it goodbye, but he can’t help but feel a tug on the corner of his lips.
His Saturn earring chimed against the oven as he cocked his head , at the sound, those mesmerising amber eyes now rest on him and Lance treasures this moment of peace between them.
Red and blue, if their fights say anything, it’s that the two don’t mix well. Explosive personality and sometimes annoying character was not something most would find appeal in, wild proclaims of how he’s the main character more often than not leave a bad impression on people. But beneath that is an endearing boy that cares deeply about others, willing to admit to his mistakes and deeply loyal to his friends.
“What are you looking at, pretty boy?” Orange eyes dig deeper into the opposing cyan ones.
Even now, Dot still starts fights because on how Lance is so much more good looking than him, to which he just smacks him on the head for being so blind. He just wants to kiss those thoughts away, shower the single liner with affection till he stops with the depreciating remarks.
But alas, Dot shows no interest in men, so Lance can do nothing more than pine for the love he can’t have.
Red is the colour of love and passion, the blue boy is jealous that they’ll never be for him.
He’d die for him, but he’d also rather die than let him know that.
Best he can do is try not to change whatever they have going on now, lest he wants to lose that too.
“You really think you can call that an owl?”
Lance gets flour thrown onto his face as a reply (He deserved it)
Their little banter went on until the cookies were done baking, Dot held the oven door open while Lance carefully removed the cookies from the heat
“You can clearly see the head and the wings… it’s obviously an owl.” A disgruntled Dot continued, facing the tray of freshly baked goods while secretly glaring Lance from behind, who didn’t seem to notice as he was busy getting something out of the fridge.
But all was forgiven when Lance presented Dot with the decorating ingredients. Chocolate chips, sprinkles, piping bag filled with icing, a little race to see who can apply the icing faster and everything was back to normal, maybe that’s the beauty in their friendship, maybe there was more.
“So that’s me, and that’s you.” Lance glanced over to see Dot pipe his zigzag mark onto his little cookie counterparts left(?) cheek in chocolate, which turned into a squiggle, earning a pout on Dot’s (the human one’s) face.
Next to cookie Dot was a cookie Lance, which he noticed only now as he was too busy perfecting the Anna-face cookie.
He peered over to observe his cookie self while Dot decorated the other ones to what he can only assume will be their other mutual friends.
It was impressive that he got all the details down, from the Saturn earring to his other most important possession, even down to the simplistic rendition of his resting bitch-face eyes.
Unlike his normal self however, the cookie had a smile on its face.
Unintentionally,he reflected a smile back, it was a brief exchange but it was also a nice one.