Bread and Tea (A compilation of Crosshair x Reader drabbles)

Abundance

A preheating oven was exactly what the cottage needed.

The fireplace was your most reliable friend in the winter when the cottage got chilly, but the oven was still unmatched, as if it were your very own secret weapon. Whether you needed comfort, warmth, or a food craving needed to be satisfied, it never failed you. The smell of the recently made apple filling, a combination of cinnamon and butter and sugar and maple syrup—your secret ingredient—alongside those ripe, honey crisp apples, blended with the scent of the oak wood crackling in the chimney.

It was like a symphony to you. It was like home.

You turned the stovetop off and let the apple filling rest on its pot, hopefully allowing it to cool down enough while you worked on the crust. You'd be kneading and folding and spreading dough for a while, all in your carefully figured out system that came after years and years of baking. Apple pie was more of a tradition than a recipe now, so much that you didn't even need the cookbook handy anymore. You knew that recipe well-enough by heart now. So you let the filling rest and cool and you turned your back on it, now facing the kitchen island where your dough was sitting ready for you to work on it.

Dough work took up all of your concentration, or most of it at least. Usually, you still had some focus to spare on the rest of the world around you. You could hear the wind, the fireplace, you could even hear your man's steps coming and going from the kitchen.

He said nothing, as he usually would. The words that his oldest brother had used to describe him when he first introduced you to him came to mind—not much of a conversationalist. That definitely held up until that very moment when you rolled out the main disk that would go on your pie pan. He would walk into the kitchen, and then the pacing would stop. He would remain still for a moment, completely silent, most likely watching you at work. Then, he would make his way back into the living room to sit by the fireplace.

And then, he would repeat that.

Your mind began to wander. Whenever Crosshair was curious about something you were doing, he would stand still and observe you the whole time, never really bothering to comment anything, just watching. But it felt odd to you that this time he seemed to come and go. Perhaps, given the observative nature of a former sniper, he'd also gotten the recipe for an apple pie down to every last detail. You'd baked it so many times in that cottage that he must have known it by now.

Your train of thought was broken by the sound of his steps returning to the kitchen. When you felt him stopping, you stopped rolling out the dough and looked over your shoulder, and you caught him in the act. When he felt you looking, Crosshair's eyes landed on you, standing perfectly still, but it was already too late for him to retrieve his hand from the pot of apple pie filling, with a piece of spice and sugar coated apple clutched between his fingers.

"Gotcha," you teased.

Still staring straight into your eyes, Crosshair took the piece of apple to his mouth and ate it.

You gasped dramatically. "Have you no shame?"

"You should take this as a compliment," he said as he reached for another cube of apple. "It's pretty good."

"Don't try to mask your antics with flattery," you turned your body to fully face him "I have a pie to fill, and that's gonna be hard if you keep eating that."

Crosshair shot his signature smug grin at you, his eyes gleaming with the will to tease, as his hand slowly reached into the pie filling pot once more. His teeth bared slightly as he waited for your reaction.

Of course you were going to play along.

"Don't you dare," you raised a brow at him.

Crosshair inched his hand closer to the filling.