Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist belongs solely to the genius who created it, not me.
Author's note: Apparently rolling meatballs for six hours is very conducive to the conception of new fic ideas…
Roy remembers cooking.
It had all started when he was just a child, when his memories were laced with air that told of cookies browning gently in the oven or of beef lending its succulence to borscht, greeting him when he returned home from school.
He remembers his mother, her slender form bent over some new confection, her hands molding dough with firmness and vigor, even after the mysterious influenza had left her pale and weakened, the curve of her red hair painting invisible designs on her white cheek as he observed her in profile. His thoughts of her are ever wreathed in the scents of freshly-baked foccacia bread and oregano leaves, punctuated by the gentle scrape of a wooden spoon against the bottom of a pot.
These were usually the familiarities that embraced him as he entered the simple suburban house that he had known as home for the first fifteen years of his life, and it was them who bred in him comfort, initially, then interest, and eventually, passion.
The boundaries between his voyeurism and his actual participation are blurred; he cannot recall when he first began lending a hand, when he first tried folding egg whites into cake batter, when he first tried frying mushrooms in butter sauce; or the last time that he ever passively watched mother's hands falter in beating eggs. Perhaps it was after the influenza had struck, when his mother found that her strength had ailed, and could not work for too long a time alone, that he had first offered his assistance.
What he recalls when he reaches back into the furthest memories of his culinary experiences, is sitting on the extra-high kitchen stool, a teaspoon of minced meat dropped, cool and wet, into his right palm, where it lay as he repeatedly cupped and flattened out his hand, shaping the meat into a careful sphere, and rolling it over the tips of his small, elegantly tapered fingers to perfect the shape. He found such wondrous satisfaction in consolidating the components of a recipe, pulling them together to turn out a finished product, and delighting in the small victories that experimentation yielded.
It could be said that cooking was what landed him in the military, and therefore alchemy.
Roy's father did not share in his joy in cooking, instead being in contempt of his second son who took pleasure in doing 'women's work', rather than rugby and various other activities of the 'masculine' order. Keith, the elder, had been wholly and unselfconsciously of the latter category, and it was confounding that one of the same flesh and blood could emerge as being a total antonym to his predecessor. Whilst other boys were roughing it up in the school fields, Roy was wearing an apron and playing at being a cook! In order to salvage the situation, his father packed Roy off to the military at the tender age of fifteen, to follow in the path of the older son.
He excelled there, ironically, as his brother did not. It was even more ironic, that it was his stronger, more athletic brother who succumbed to the raging epidemic that resurfaced after its period of dormancy, sweeping through the country with malicious speed and determination. Roy, however, fought it off, successfully, and flourished as part of a combat unit. His father finally accepted that he was a man, through and through, and one tougher than anyone had ever given him credit for.
And even then, he still cooked.
And it was in the military that he discovered the power and beauty of alchemy.
Understanding the components, consolidating them, and pulling them together. The similarities at once established his familiarity with alchemy, and his facility with cooking meant that he already had the basic understanding of parts of the process of alchemy.
He understood a material's components as a recipe, varied their proportions as he did the ingredients of minestrone, and laid out his alchemical creations like fresh cookies.
Alchemical texts were his new cookbooks, carbon and nitrogen replacing onions and potatoes, the gleaming, perfect circles of pots and pans giving way to the neat concentric rings of ornate transmutation arrays. However, he worked at it with the same purpose. To consolidate and create. Other than philosophy, fire was the other true constant that bridged the two.
Fire was the element of power and purification, and a symbol that he personally associated with cooking, the perfect weapon for him to use. Atmospheric manipulation, to his mind, was very akin to the culinary arts. You could vary the ingredients all you wished, yet all effort would yield no true results, unless fire was added. It is for this that he is named, therefore, since attaining the much-desired rank of State Alchemist: the Flame Alchemist. Thus, he was sworn into the sacred Brotherhood.
And then there was the Ishbal War, where Roy discovered that the god he is sworn to, his country, Amestris, is nothing more than a smooth white mask over the faceless deity better known as Death.
Roy does not cook any more.
The first time he tried to after the war, he could only sit and watch in horrified fascination as the beef upon the spit slowly browned, then charred to black, and finally kicked up in a brilliant flash of flames. Burned flesh, whether of man or cow, both the same, whether the idea of it, or the smell. The fired stones of Ishbal had the aroma of baking bread; gunpowder was baking soda turned deadly. Even bullets, armed with velocity, charred the edges of the wounds they made, punching through flesh with sufficient force to emanate a similar fragrance and leaving holes hot with blood and hate.
The smell… People shooting up in flames, heaps of boiling fat that fizzled and crackled on the hard-baked ground, fingers curling up in excruciating pain like the succulent edges of fried bacon, roast left on the grill for too long. Charred bones left, to be sucked dry by scavengers, as lamb ribs by the epicure at his delicate luncheon, while smoke rose like the top of a hot soufflé before curling away into eternity. Ishbal had become Hell's own kitchen, with the vultures and dark demons dining in daily on the flesh, and on the hearts and souls of the broken men crawling through the rubble. And he was one of the chefs.
He was one of the chefs.
He garnished his victims first with fear, and then despair, allowed them to simmer in their own desperation, then served them up drizzled in agony. All in the name of Good Service. The lion of Amestris turned and swallowed his offerings in silent approval, day after day. As one of the order, it was his duty to feed this Baal till it was satisfied
Everyday, robed in the dark blue habit of the military, he prepared the sacrifices on their bloodied altars, and performed the sacred rituals: separate the elements of the air, draw in oxygen from the surroundings, snap to create sparks, and ignite the piece de resistance in a marvelous display. And in that way, the daily feast was laid upon the table for all to partake of.
It made him sick.
"Holy crap! Did you see the way he fried that guy? Amazing!"
"Hey Mustang, any leftovers? I'll get it cleared up, for sure!"
Chatter over dinner, mindless and hollowly jovial, while the diners smacked their lips and licked away the detritus of the meal, the excitement of a banquet dulled by regularity.
Sensing boredom, the organizers whipped up a new confection for their underlings, to add an extra dimension to the evening's enjoyment. They arrived neatly packaged, an extra bit of spice to the mixture: ruby stones set in silver, filled with the promise of enhancing flavor, of adding impact. The newest and most effective of all implements, given to improve and to entice.
"Whoa! Feast your eyes on that! This thing is just sweet…"
The party was in full swing, and Roy was disgusted with the way it was proceeding. His senses were dulled indeterminately by the use of the stone, and all proper control flew out the window. Estimation and approximation were no longer valid, trial and error was impossible. In the game of real human lives, mistakes could not be made. But they were, too numerous for him to recall, too similar for him to differentiate and separate from each other like the components of the very air he manipulates. Yet the party carried on, his quiet prayer too insignificant to halt it.
Meat was no longer simply sautéed; the fire obliterated it, leaving only the stench that would hover about his head in the years to come, a macabre festoon for his table. Whatever remained, if any ever did, was black with carbon on the surface, and rare and bleeding in the center, the heat come and gone too fast for the effect to be even. It distorted his vision, twisted landscapes and faces before his eyes. Fighting alongside the Crimson Alchemist amidst a sand storm, Roy could have sworn that he was a ghoul teamed with the Devil himself.
Fleeing a party too early is social suicide, he soon learned, by way of the Crystal Alchemists' untimely departure. The offense given to the host is not easily dissipated, and only disgrace would have waited for him had he gone too soon.
The holy communion of blood and dust was the only path available there. In the short time that he had possession of the stone, the great beast had finally eaten its fill, and the covenant was fulfilled.
He was sent home with his fellow State Alchemists, back to the world that would never again be the same for them. It was all of three months before he could bring himself to eat meat. Another one month before he quit purging his stomach in the long, empty nights.
Roy cannot bring himself to cook anymore.
To consolidate and create, his faith in alchemy, had been rent asunder. He had witnessed, had acquainted himself with the sin of alchemy: to consolidate and create, only to use to destroy. Once sworn in, however, withdrawal is impossible. Cults murder members who attempt to bow out of the close, tight circle that they willingly enter, an insurance against the discovery of their black magic and dark rituals. He had already sold his soul to the military, and the silver watch was his wedding band, the chain an immutable and eternal shackle around his ankle.
There is no escape from what is etched into his memory already. It has sunk into his skin as readily as a tattoo, and just as permanently, and it feeds off him, a merciless, well-gorged leech.
He eats in restaurants when off duty now, and at the canteen when working. Even so, the scent of burning flesh haunts him, profaning his sweet memories of home and mocking what he does for duty. Now, as he slips meat between his lips, he imagines himself chewing the flesh of the dead on the battlefield, crusted with the parched sand of the desert, soaked in the dark blood of human sacrifice. He feeds off the guilt of his own actions, and rolls the dead flesh on his tongue.
Roy remembers cooking. He remembers the heat of the fire, and the lingering smell that follows, echoing back to the darkest depths of his memory. He remembers, and he can never forget.