#tance

Tance

Flat color comm for CanisElastis

The Brotherhood house had never felt so empty.

Todd sat in the kitchen, hunched over the counter like a man widowed. The overhead light flickered once—just enough to feel symbolic—and the smell of overbaked sugar clung to the air like defeat.

Two days.

Two full, Lance-less days.

Todd had tried to hold out. Really, he had. Distracted himself with cartoons, stole everyone’s socks again, even rearranged Lance’s pillow so it smelled more like him. (He didn’t sniff it. Shut up.) But by hour thirty-two, he was flopped on the kitchen floor with a mixing bowl in his lap, trying not to cry into the dough.

Somewhere between “missing him like a kicked puppy” and “deep psychological decline,” he decided to make a cookie. Of Lance. For comfort.

It started off normal enough—gingerbread base, sort of shaped like a guy. But the more Todd stared at the blank cookie face, the more existential it got.

By the time it came out of the oven, it looked... haunted. Like someone who’d seen war.

The icing didn’t help. The chocolate curls for hair went slightly lopsided. The eyes? Vacant. Like staring into the abyss.

Todd stared back. “That’s you,” he whispered solemnly. “That’s what you look like when you leave me.”

Incoming FaceTime: Lance

Todd yelped and nearly dropped both the cookie and the piping bag. He scrambled to answer it.

“HEYYYYY—!”

Lance’s face popped up on the screen, clearly in a car somewhere, “...What the hell is that?”

Todd blinked. Then slowly brought the cookie into frame like he was unveiling a masterpiece.

“I made you,” he said dramatically. “You left me, so I made you again. From flour and pain.”

There was a beat of silence.

Then Lance wheezed as he tilted back in his seat and slapped the dashboard. “Oh my—Todd! That’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen! What is wrong with its eyes?!”

Todd looked scandalized. “Don’t you dare insult Cookie Lance,” he said, clinging to the crumbly abomination.

“He’s got your haunted stare. The emptiness. The loneliness.” He sniffed. “He knows what it’s like to be abandoned.”

“Two days,” Lance said, still giggling. “I’ve been gone two days.”

“That’s thirty-four hours too long, bro! I’m emotionally withering out here!” Todd took a dramatic bite out of the cookie’s head—crumbs smeared across his cheek, brown icing now clinging to his lip. “Look what the absence of a Latina does to a man!”

Lance was losing it again, “Oh my god, Todd, you have frosting on your face—”

Todd didn’t even blink. He held the headless cookie up to the camera, lower lip trembling, eyes glassy and enormous.

“You think this is funny, Lance? I’m grieving. You left me alone in this cursed house. With Pietro.”

Lance wiped tears from his eyes, still chuckling but softer now. “You are such a dramatic little freak.”

“You dated this dramatic little freak,” Todd said, pouting harder. “You chose me. Now reap the consequences.”

Lance leaned his head back against the seat, still grinning, but his voice dipped into something fond. “Alright, alright. I get it. You miss me.”

Todd nodded solemnly, a smudge of icing clinging to the corner of his mouth like war paint. “It’s a tragedy here without you,” he declared, holding the decapitated cookie closer like it could shield him from the cruel world. “This house is a goddamn mausoleum. Pietro’s been humming for three hours straight, Tabby put chili in the coffee pot again, and Blob’s using your room like it’s a public rec center. I’m not safe, Lance.”

Lance snorted. “You’re bein’ so dramatic right now.”

“It’s not drama,” Todd said, wide-eyed. “It’s grief. I’ve been wandering these halls like a widow in a haunted mansion. Your ghost lingers in the laundry pile. Every creak sounds like your boots. I keep baking things that look like you and—” he cut off, frowning at the cookie. “—well, okay, that one didn’t turn out, but the intention was romantic.”

Lance tried to hold it in. Really. But a wheeze cracked through as he slapped the steering wheel, chest shaking with laughter.

Todd just pouted harder, lower lip wobbling like he was preparing to cry actual tears.

That did it.

“Fine,” Lance said, breathless. “Fine. I’ll come home soon.”

Todd’s ears perked up immediately. “Soon like... tonight soon?”

Lance rubbed the back of his neck, still smiling but gentler now. “Yeah. Yeah, alright. I’ll wrap this up and head back tonight. You win, clingy.”

Todd sniffed, wiping his sleeve across his cheek even though there weren’t any tears—yet. “You say ‘clingy’ like I didn’t just eat your gingerbread head in protest of your absence.”

Lance blinked. Then grinned again, sharp and crooked. “Honestly? I’m kinda honored.”

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:3c I had this terrible idea when i saw the "baking my long distance bf as a cookie" tiktok so obviously i keyboard spammed a story and then commissioned this masterpiece from @arcaneviolence

✨ tance✨