Feast
Gracia:
She can't do anything right today. The peel comes off clipped and short, dappled red on one side and ivory-green the other, like wood-shavings. Hughes used to be able to make that perfect peel; he would stretch it carefully on her clean kitchen table like a cat presenting a dead animal, then twirl the peeler end-over-end and stroke an imaginary moustache.
She puts down the apple and closes her eyes.
"Mama, what are you making?"
Gracia turns and smiles. Alicia is in a pair of faded yellow pyjamas, hair sticking up (like her father) and dragging a giantteddy bear by the leg.
"Mama don't cry," says Alicia earnestly, flopping over to fling her arms around Gracia's knees.
"I...I'm fine Alicia." She swallows, then tilts her head back and blinks hard. "Mama is making an apple pie for tonight's party, Alicia. Would you like to help Mama? Uncle Roy and all of Daddy's friends from the military are coming, so let's make them something good."
"Yes! Alicia will wash her hands now!" A small yellow blur zooms off, the teddy bouncing behind.
Gracia smiles to see her go, then gives herself a quick shake. She's a mother now, where she was once a wife. Across the gap Hughes has left, she can reach across and hold her daughter's hand. The gap will still be there, but there'll be her daughter too.
Armstrong:
He met Roy Mustang on the battlefield, smoke still trailing from his footsteps, walking away from a horizon lined with flames. Armstrong was concerned, as well befits a comrade in arms; he heard later, that Mustang had asked to resign his commission. But his superior had smiled kindly and said that the war was taxing to the uninitiated-- six months rest and recuperation and Mustang would be all afire to go again. Mustang twitched, did not argue and returned to his little officer's flat, but neither would he answer the door when Armstrong knocked the first time, or the second.
But one day Maes came down the corridor, swinging an empty basket and frowning to himself, saw him and said: "Mustang's too thin. Can I count on you to feed him?"
"Yes," said Armstrong and flexed his arms. "I shall make him fine foods in the artistic method handed down by the Armstrong family, and he shall eat!"
"No cows," said Hughes, and went off whistling, in the air of a man who knows a mission will be successfullycarried out.
----
Before Xerxes had been destroyed, a thriving trade had existed between Xing and Amestris. Traders brought spices and silk and coffee beans; they brought back steel and cotton and glass.
The coffee trade thrived despite the Ishvarians being the only ones to adopt it as a beverage. They drank it black and thick in tiny metal cups with a dollop of honey to sweeten it, and later they would add anise and cardamon, cloves and cinnamon. Amestris looked on with a sort of polite horror, until someone hit on the idea of straining the grounds and adding milk, and the rest of Amestris converted to coffee.
The first kaf went up in Eastern city, later to be renamed as cafe, drinking establishments serving fresh brewed coffee. Women divorced men if they couldn't give them a daily quota of coffee; a general tried to ban it and was executed by the then Fuhrer for corruption. Armstrongs, who had been artisans and soldiers before, became merchants and made their fortune off it.
Therefore, when Armstrong showed up Gracia's doorstep for the loan of her kitchen, he toted a sack of fresh coffee beans under one arm and what looked like half a pig under the other.
"Ah, good afternoon," said Gracia faintly and stepped back. "Good afternoon," Alicia piped up, clinging to her's mother hand and staring unabashedly at the dead pig.
"Good afternoon, Madam Maes," Armstrong rumbled. "Thank you for the loan of the kitchen. I would not have imposed on you, save that the dormitories have no common cooking facilities I might utilise."
"Not at all," said Gracia, smiling and stepping aside. "What will you be making for tonight's main course?"
"Using the Armstrong's artistic method of cooking that has been passed down through my family for generations, I will cook..."
Unfortunately, since his hands were full, he was unable to flex for emphasis, so he threw in extra sparkles.
"The Armstrong Family's Famous Death by Coffee."
Even Alicia cheered.
Havok, Breda, Farman and Fury:
"Red!"
"White, you obnoxious barbarian!"
"Red, pigheaded lout!"
"Why not take both?" suggested Fury, and received twin glares for his pains.
"Tea-drinker," said Havok in the tones one might use for "barbaric blood-drinking pagan."
"Farman?" said Breda, seeking allies.
"I do believe the white is a good choice. 1875 was an excellent year for whites, particularly those from the Riesling Vineyards as the soil is chalky, leading to a light and sm--"
"Thank you, Farman." said Havok. "We'll take a crate of white and a crate of red. And a bottle of that whiskey."
"And they called me a tea-drinker," muttered Fury, in the offended tones of a priest whose God has just been insulted.
"Tea was actually the drink of choice up until the first kaf, now known as caf--"
"Thank you Farman," said Fury hastily.
Alicia:
"Now, see, the butter has melted, so put in the crushed garlic, ah, thank you Alicia, and then the cinnamon, well done! Now, toast until fragrant..."
"Mmmm," said Alicia. Wild horses could not have torn her away. She'd goggled as Armstrong had disassembled the dead pig into dead pig parts and now Armstrong had hauled out all the interesting jars and bottles mama usually kept in the cupboards out of her reach. Sugar. Cinnamon. Pepper. Coriander. Coffee. She'd tried Daddy's coffee once and found it horribly bitter, but she loved the smell. Daddy would drink a cup in the mornings he was home, and he'd let her sit on his lap and warm her fingers on the cup.
"Alicia?" Armstrong's voice is gentle. "Would you pass me the cup of coffee?"
"Uh-huh!" She holds the mug carefully by the handle, waiting as the major adds vinegar (the smell is sour and makes her nose wrinkle), coriander and coffee beans, and then hands the cup up to him, making sure he has the handle firm in his grip before letting go.
Well done, Alicia, daddy whispers.
"Well done, Alicia," Armstrong says. "Your daddy must have taught you well."
Alicia beams up at him. At the kitchen door, Gracia smiles through her tears.
Hawkeye, Mustang:
The division of labour went thusly: Hawkeye chopped and sliced, while Roy Mustang threw together a salad dressing. The final tossing together would be done at the dinner table to prevent the salad from getting soggy. Not even madalchemical skills could save a salad gone bad.
It had been a while since he'd had to attend any funeral potlucks-- much less his bringing anything non-alcoholic. Still, Maes would likely rise from the grave to kill him if he dare shirk his duty.
"You look troubled, sir."
He smiled ruefully. "I was thinking of how strange it felt to attend a funeral potluck where I actually missed the person."
There was no sound save for the rhythmic sound of Hawkeye's knife on the chopping board. It was a surprisingly lulling sound, and the silence was not awkard nor inviting, merely patient.
"There was that late General...I brought a bottle of wine, I remember, and we spent much of it drinking, eating peanuts and smoked salmon while his widow frowned at us all impartially. She thought all men below the age of forty vulgar in their habits."
"And now...I'm making a salad."
He looked down with bemusement at the crisp white and blue apron and his own rolled up sleeves.
"I think," said Hawkeye, "the custom was started to help take one's mind of painful things. Cooking together, eating together-- it's very much an act of affirming that one is still alive and not alone."
"Hm," said Roy. Thoughtfully, he picked up the lemon slice and glanced Hawkeye from the corner of his eye.
The knife went down again, this time with a very impressive 'thud'.
Roy put down the lemon slice and looked innocent.
Feast:
"Oh my," said Hawkeye, as she set the salad down. "What is that? It smells heavenly."
"Death by Coffee-- Pork ribs on a caffeine overdose." said Roy. "God, I remember. This was the first thing I ate after Gracia's apple pie--after the war. Hughes sicced Armstrong on me, that rat bastard."
He fell silent.
Mustang's new resolve hadbeen forged for all of ten minutes when the rap of the door came. It couldn't possibly be Hughes--unless he wanted the apple pie back...
"Sir," a vaguely familiar voice rumbled. "It would be my pleasure to invite you to join me for dinner. I will be cooking the Armstrong Signature Dish using the artistic method passed down by gener--"
"Armstrong?" said Mustang incredulously. He remembered now. 'There will be others you need to trust,' Hughes had said. 'I'll help you find them.'
"..What will you be making?"
The beam carried right through the door. "Death by Coffee, Sir."
"What-- never mind. I'll be over at seven. Thank you."
And at seven, he'd found himself at Armstrong's doorstep, drawn by curiousity stronger than apathy or despair. Whatever it was that Armstrong was cooking, the smell could probably revive a corpse on the sheer caffeine rush. If Hughes had been looking for something to pep him up, he'd found the right man, it seemed.
Fresh roasted coffee beans. Kahlua coffee liquer. And a huge pot of coffee warming on the stove. Malt whiskey-- not coffee, but he approved on general principles. Armstrong wearing a small, frilly white apron. Mustang had very nearly turned around and left right then.
"You need to eat, Sir." Armstrong had said. "You still live."
"Wine, Colonel?" said Havok easily, waving an empty glass under his nose.
"Or you could always have tea," said Breda, grinning as he came up. Fury was hovering over a giant flowered teapot as if he expected it to lay an egg any second; Farman was on hand for his perfect recall of tea-making instructions.
Roy smiled ruefully at them. "Wine it is."
As the highest ranking officer present, Roy made the toast.
"Friends and fellow officers, I thank you for coming here today. Tonight we hold vigil for a good man, Hughes Maes. Some knew him as friend. Some of us were proud to call him brother or comrade in arms." He looked around.
"Let us drink a toast to a good man," he said simply, and raised his glass.
OWARI