I don't know. Soldier-centric with a little bit of food porn.
Each member of the team was always immensely grateful for the time away from the base that they were reluctantly granted by their employers; a man could only take so much accelerated regeneration of his body before he started to get antsy. For one week out of every six, they were turned loose, allowed to venture into the cities (often small, insignificant little things) and seek whatever means of pleasure they desired. For Scout, it was fast women; for Engineer, it was machinery; for Demoman, it was the bottle; for Soldier, it was cupcakes.
His love for the little treats would be called incongruous, surprising, maybe even a downright lie by his coworkers, but it was true. Soldier had loved them ever since he had been a boy, kicking his legs at the table as his mother gathered the ingredients, twirling her apron strings idly as he watched her mix them with ease, her hand on his shoulders keeping him from stepping too close to the oven while they baked and the scent of vanilla poured through the house, sinking into the fabric of their cheap couches and drifting out the windows. She had always let him help put on the frosting, hers in perfect swirls, his in globs that left smears on his face.
Of course, he hadn't had that for years; not since his father had broken her nose, and not since Soldier had broken his father's… Well.
They were comfort food, pure and simple. Soldier had grown a taste for the cheap, simple kind they sold in grocery stores and supermarkets across the nation, with their crumbling sides and fake, stiff frosting, pointing up in curls, peppered with colorful sprinkles that felt more like chalk than anything. It was these he sought out, a comically small handbasket on his arm and his well-worn leather wallet rubbing his leg the wrong way each time he took a step. If the search had taken very long, he would have adjusted it, but a few feet away from the entrance was a table covered in plastic boxes filled with them; it seemed every shop placed them like this, as though there were some unspoken rule about it.
Soldier scooped up one box of vanilla cupcakes with sprinkles, the plastic crinkling in his grip before he set it down in the basket. He scooped up another box, this one containing chocolate cupcakes, no sprinkles included. The milk was completely across the store, obviously contrived to make him want to buy other foods on impulse, but this was all he needed. He pushed aside the two boxes, their plastic crumpling again, and wedged a carton of two percent in next to them.
There was no line, just a smiling young woman with long, blonde hair and a mole on her neck. She pressed her lips together when she rang up his purchase, as though containing laughter, and he smiled back at her. Soldier could appreciate the oddness of it: He, a tall, beefy soldier, buying two boxes of cupcakes and a carton of milk with a fifty dollar bill that had been collecting dust in his wallet. Plus, it was never a good idea to scare off the locals—that enmity should be saved for his enemies, not sweet little girls making minimum wage in grocery stores.
As soon as he was out of the store, cupcakes and milk both stored neatly in a brown paper bag, he reached down and opened the box of vanillas. Even the lightest grip he could muster mashed the sides of the cupcake a bit as he lifted it up, resting the bag on his arm like a child so he could peel off the paper cup. His teeth sunk through the frosting, sprinkles tacking softly against them before falling victim to his molars, the strange flavor of pastel set against vanilla set against pure, overwhelming sugar, filling his mouth with the sort of grain and film that came with each of the mass produced treats.
The taste and feel of it brought him back to his teenage years, when he'd first set out on his own, no money to his name because he had no name, not after what he'd done to his father. It had been a smart little shop in Michigan, a defiant bastion of light and warmth as rain pelted the town, and he had been more than skeptical… but they had been free, and the store owner had been kind to him, and that had been that.
He swallowed, the frosting somehow wet and dry at the same time, crumbs caught in the backs of his cheeks and bits of sprinkle dug into his teeth, and sighed, pausing a moment to let the evening sun graze over his bare skin and to let himself savor the sensation. Cupcakes might be childish, and they might be feminine, but for Soldier, they were just… delicious.
Completely delicious.