Thread by @_yukla

🦾👿#mdzs and fullmetal alchemist brotherhood fusion:

wei wuxian and jiang cheng try to bring their sister back via human transmutation, and suffer the consequences.

(tw: canon-typical blood and gore, slight mention of vomit)

by the time wei wuxian realizes that something has gone horribly wrong, they are well past the point of return.

the blinding white of the array’s glow fades away quickly, making way for the dark like the setting of the sun. wei wuxian stares into the sudden blackness, vision spotted with bursts of color; then, the pain hits him, and he doubles over onto the ground.

face pressed against the wooden floorboards of lotus pier, he stares at what’s left of his right arm.

his body shakes. the blood drips steadily.

it had hurt so much. his skin had been peeled back first, and then his muscle, and last, his bone; he’d never felt an agony like that before, deep and wrenching, the type that stole the breath from his lungs and seared through every jangling nerve of his body.

it had hurt more than when, as a child, he had stepped on a stray nail on the pier and it had gone straight through his foot, and shijie had to carry him on her back all the way home, scolding him gently as he held back tears.

it had hurt more than when, after her funeral, he had split open the skin on both sets of his knuckles, and she hadn’t been there to bandage him, to soothe and cover the exposed wound, to wipe dry his and jiang cheng’s faces.

oh. jiang cheng.

wei wuxian jerks his head up, unheeding of the pain that courses through his arm at the movement.

six feet away, crumpled on the ground—a mass of purple robes. piled on the ground like jiang cheng had just given into wei wuxian’s cheerful nagging, shed his clothes and joined his brother to play in one of yunmeng’s many lakes, cooling off from the summer heat.

wei wuxian drags himself over, oozing stump and all.

“jiang cheng, please,” he rasps, pawing through the cloth with his remaining hand, as though hoping he’ll find something left of his brother under all the folds and sashes. a hair, a nail. a bit of flesh, maybe.

“a-cheng, answer me!”

jiang cheng had peeled away in stages too. blood, and bone, and screaming; all swallowed up piece by piece into the sticky black void that had split through the array in a great sucking yawn.

there’s nothing of him here now, not even the faintest sign that wei wuxian’s brother had knelt next to him just minutes before, hope and fear mixing storm-cloud dark on his face.

and, as if in mockery—his robes are still warm.

“no. no!” wei wuxian falls forward, his ruined arm hitting the floor wound-first, and wails. writhes on the ground like an animal, like some helpless, arrow-stuck beast, waiting for a mercy that would not come.

the darkness presses in, unforgiving.

suddenly—the sound of something soft scraping against the wooden floor. wei wuxian’s mouth snaps shut and he cranes his neck forward, blinking through the thick tears that blur his vision.

there’s a movement in the center of the transmutation circle, a silhouette in the haze;

one long, shadowed limb rises up from the ground, slow and lazy. a gentle hand reaching out in comfort.

he feels his heart leap, despite himself.

we really did it, he thinks, eyes wide and straining to catch sight of her lovely face. shijie is here, we brought her back! shijie will make things alright!

then the smoke clears.

and wei wuxian sees what he’s really brought back—what wretched thing he’s dragged out from the soil of his beloved sister’s grave.

the blackened, gasping creature sprawled on the ground, the thing that they tore themselves to pieces for—it does not look like jiang yanli. it doesn’t even look human.

everything is in the wrong place. everything is at the wrong angle. thin skin strains grotesquely, pierced by jagged bones; something stretches and roils under its surface. exposed organs shine wetly in the open air.

as he watches, one last horrible breath rattles through its maybe-throat, and the entire thing...disassembles, as its limbs drop down and it goes silent.

of course, wei wuxian thinks past the awful buzz that fills his head. with a body like that? it wasn’t made to last.

then he turns away from the thing-that-is-not-shijie and its milky, upside-down gaze to throw up on the floor.

wei wuxian’s arm throbs and throbs. the purple of jiang cheng’s robes is bright in the gloom, vivid and accusing.

and the body in the array—no. he can’t look at it.

“what have i done,” he moans, fear souring his mouth. “what have i done? there’s nothing left! i have nothing left to trade! how do i bring them back, i want them back, my brother, my sister, my arm, my—“

he stops.

his left hand drops down to his belly.

he knows what he has to do.

on the floor; a new array, drawn by shaking fingers with the blood from wei wuxian’s oozing stump.

then, once again; the blinding white light.

~

wen qing wakes in the middle of the night to her brother’s gentle hand at her shoulder.

she squints, confused, and then hears it; a desperate banging on the door, cutting straight through the sounds of the torrential downpour.

“jiejie,” wen ning whispers, a bit unnecessarily. “there’s someone outside.”

wen qing creeps over to the door, sword gripped tightly in caution—but whoever’s she’s expecting at this hour, it isn’t jiang wanyin, face moon-pale under the wet strands of his hair.

wei wuxian is a small, still bundle in his arms, robes dark with rain. his head lolls, dangling loose.

“help him,” jiang wanyin begs brokenly. his legs tremble, newborn, like he’s only just learned to walk, and wen qing reaches out to him in alarm. “please, help him!”

with that, his knees give way. wen qing rushes forward to steady him, one hand gripping his forearm and the other reaching out to catch his falling brother, and drags them both inside.

with wei wuxian’s limp body settled on the bed, wen qing steps away to light a candle. under the warm wash of its flickering light, she sees that the darkness on wei wuxian’s clothes is not from rain—it shines a deep red.

“his hand,” whispers jiang wanyin. wen qing follows his gaze, sees how wei wuxian’s sleeve drops away at his right wrist. “it’s gone, i don’t know how much blood he lost, and it was all over his clothes...i didn’t know who else to go to. please.”

there’s a very good clinic near lotus pier. wen qing knows this. the fact that jiang wanyin is here and not there means that he’s hiding something, probably concerning how that limb was lost in the first place. something dangerous? maybe something illegal.

no matter. wen qing is a doctor, and she has a patient to tend to.

“i’ll have questions for you later,” she warns, and then turns to wen ning. “a-ning, go fetch my kit and a basin of boiled water. and lots of bandages. hurry!”

as soon as her brother has scampered out of the room, she turns to wei wuxian. his face is waxy, breath wheezing in his chest. the patch on his front is darkening quickly.

wen qing frowns, and reaches for the ties on the front of his robes.

“he’s injured here too,” she says over her shoulder as she pulls the liquid-heavy robes off of his chest. “there’s too much blood to be just from his hand; was he stabbed by someone? why didn’t you tell me earl—oh, heavens.”

behind her, jiang wanyin groans low in horror.

wei wuxian’s abdomen is smeared with red, contrasting against his pale skin.

and there, illuminated by the light—a dark hole in his belly, gaping wide and wet, torn edges of flesh fluttering around the place where his golden core used to be.

“oh,” says wen qing again into the silence.

“this is going to be a long night.”

hehe thank u for reading!! this is all i have for yall 😔 fmab remains the superior anime, have a great thursday everyone!!