Blood Brothers
Fullmetal Alchemist fanfiction
by The Cinderninja

The room was dark. Two boys were beside each other, on their hands and knees. Palms to the wood floor.

"Alright... this is it, Al."

They exchanged one last grin. Ed, looking confident. Trying to reassure his younger brother. Al, looking anything but, but refusing to let his older brother down. They'd gotten this far. They were ready. He believed in Ed.

Everything started going wrong from the moment they activated the array. Al knew first. As soon as he felt the energy turn sour, he knew. It felt awful. They'd gotten something wrong. But Ed was still grinning that manic grin. He still thought it could work. Al knew better.

Ed's grin faltered when he finally realized. When he heard Al scream and turned and saw his little brother's body begin to unravel. His arm and leg being torn apart. He was vaguely aware of the same thing happening to himself. He could feel his leg being torn away from him. But he didn't care about that. Not now.

"Al... AL!" He reached out his hand. He had to – had to... "It can't be... a rebound? No!" He felt Al's fingers dissolving even as he clung to them. "This can't... this shouldn't be happening!"

When Ed next opened his eyes everything was white and he was somewhere else entirely.

Ed sat up gasping for breath, in a pool of his own blood. It took him a moment to realize where he was. He spun around to find Al, but fell on his side. He couldn't move that fast with one leg. One leg. His leg was gone.

Al was gone.

"No... no, dammit. This wasn't supposed to happen!"

What did I do wrong? How...?

He groped around blindly. He could fix this. He could... he could do something. After all that he'd seen in the Gate. There had to be something he could do. All the knowledge in the world was useless if he couldn't use it to bring his brother back.

Damn it, damn it.

His hands found something sharp – it felt like a piece of broken glass. The force of the rebound must have knocked a lantern over. It would do the trick. He pulled his shirt over his head with weak, trembling hands. His skin was pale. There was just so much blood...

He brought the shard to his chest and let it hover there for a second, nervously, before bringing it down. He was losing too much blood. He had to do this quickly.

"Give him back... he's my brother!" A circle was forming, and the cuts were oozing even more blood down his chest. "Take my leg, take my arm. Take my heart!" Lines were being drawn. He wouldn't let the blood distract him. He couldn't let the blood distract him. Even though it was everywhere. It would be perfect. It would be perfect. "Anything, you can have it! Just give him back! He's my little brother, he's all I have left!"

Two tiny, trembling hands were brought together. They were pressed weakly against the small boy's bloodied chest. The faint light of a second transmutation could just barely be seen from the darkened windows of the study, had there been anyone outside to look.

A very small Winry woke in a cold sweat that night. She was frightened, and she wasn't sure why. "G-Granny!" She cried, climbing out of bed and running down the hall. She brought a fist to her cheek, and found tears. Why was she crying?

"Winry...? What's wrong?"

Granny hadn't even gone to bed yet. She was at the table in the workshop downstairs, looking over the measurements for Davies' new automail. He was a man who lived a little ways down the road, and had lost the bottom half of his arm in an accident with some of the machinery on his farm. Winry knew all this because she was going to be an automail engineer as well one day. She was already big enough to help Granny with some of her surgeries now, regardless of what everyone said. She even had some automail designs of her own tucked away in a notebook under her bed. None of that mattered to Winry right now.

"Granny, something terrible has happened." Winry was still crying. Normally, the tears would dry up when she woke from a nightmare. But they just kept coming stronger.

"What are you talking about? What's the matter?" Granny was out of her chair now with one hand on Winry's shoulder. They were just about eye level. Winry could barely see her through the frantic tears.

"Something awful! I- I don't know..." Winry trembled as she wrapped her arms around herself.

"It was just a nightmare. You can stay down here and watch me work if you don't want to go back to bed just ye-"

"No. Not a nightmare. It's..." Winry's eyes widened as she realized just what was bothering her. "Ed. And Alphonse. Something awful has happened to them."

One gray eyebrow was slowly raised, but Winry's word was never questioned.

"Please Granny, please. Can we just go check?"

"That's a long walk..."

"Please!"

"Well, hurry up. Grab your coat. It's cold out at night this time of year."

Whatever Pinako had been expecting when she walked Winry all the way out to the Elric's house that night certainly wasn't what they found. It was just what Winry had said. Something awful. There was a transmutation circle on the floor and the room was in disarray.

Papers strewn across the floor. Books looking as if they'd been whipped off the walls by strong winds. Broken glass littered the floor. A lantern had been knocked over and two windows were broken.

But the worst of it was curled tightly in on itself and leaning against the far wall, unmoving. As drenched in blood as the rest of the room was. The smell would likely never wash out completely. Pinako walked over and picked the small boy up, despite him being nearly as big as she was. She was still strong for her age. And perhaps he was even lighter then usual, considering-

"His leg.." Winry whispered, watching her Granny. "His leg, Granny. It's gone. And his arm. What... what happened?"

"Well? What are you standing around gaping for? You've seen missing limbs before, it's nothing new to you."

"B-but. It's Ed."

"All the more reason to keep your head. He needs us now, Winry. We can find out what happened here later." She didn't say that she already had a very, very strong inkling of exactly what had transpired there that night.

Or maybe, perhaps, the worst of it was what wasn't there at all.

"Granny... where's Al?"

Pinako had searched the house. She really had. But she only found exactly what she had expected to – nothing. No trace of the younger brother. She shook her head grimly and silently picked up Ed, and left the house.

"But, but what about Al? You didn't find him?"

"He's not here."

"What do you mean, 'he's not here?' He has to be here! You, you just didn't look hard enough!" Winry stomped her foot, furious that her Granny would leave the house without both boys. Would leave sweet little Al behind like that.

She shook her head. "Winry!" She reprimanded, perhaps a little more harshly then she needed. "We've already got one boy who needs our help. If we wait any longer, we might not even have that."

They walked the rest of the way home in silence.

Al woke up first. "Ed!"

He was confused. His brain was lagging. Trying to catch up with where he was. They'd been with Teacher. Then the train. Back in Resembool? The transmutation. Ed, bleeding. Everywhere. Himself... himself. What... what had happened to him?

He tried to open his eyes. It was harder then opening you eyes ever ought to be. He hurt all over, but it was a dull sort of pain. Like... you knew it was there, but it didn't really hurt. It just was. His brain felt sluggish too. Even after his eyes were open, everything was blurry. He wondered why everything inside his brain was so fuzzy.

A face materialized inches in front of his own as soon as his eyes focused, and he yelped. He tried to pull back, and the pain was very suddenly there, Instead of far off. "Winry...?"

"Ed!"

"Where is he?"

There was no reply for a long time. He thought maybe Winry had fallen asleep. Or maybe he had. "Oh, Ed..." It was quiet. He barely heard it.

"Y-yeah... where is he, Winry? Where's Ed?"

There was another long silence before he felt her small hand on his shoulder. "It... it's okay, Ed... you should... try to get more sleep. I'll still be here when you wake up."

"But... Ed..."

She put a finger to his lips and shushed him. "It's okay Ed... sleep now... you need it."

Al was confused. Something was... wrong. Wrong here. He couldn't figure out what though... He still didn't know if Ed was okay. Winry wouldn't tell him... but... he was so tired. He could ask about Ed again... later. When he woke up. For now... for now he, would sleep.

Ed woke up next.

"Winry?" He asked aloud, confused at seeing her sleeping in a chair, with her head on his bed. He realized he must be in her house. He didn't know why. And then suddenly, he did. His memories came far quicker then Al's had. He hadn't been dosed with painkillers as recently. So his thoughts were clearer. Unfortunately, so was the pain.

He pushed it to the back of his mind as best as he could. He was already forcing himself to sit up, ignoring the pain knifing up and down his nerves as he did so. He knew his leg was missing. He knew that. But to see that his arm was gone too surprised him.

It must be said that probably no one before or since has reacted with that much hope upon realizing their limb is missing.

"Then... that means... did it work? It... it must have. It had to."

He pulled his blankets off. Moving faster then he should have been. The edges of his vision started to turn black and he wavered dangerously. But then it passed. To his dismay, he found his chest wrapped in bandages. No problem. He started to tear at them, ripping them off.

A small hand suddenly grabbed his wrist. He froze. He looked up and wild, gold eyes met frightened blue ones.

"Ed... what are you doing?"

"I need to know-"

"Stop. You need those."

"I need to know if it worked."

"You need to heal."

He laughed. "Don't worry! It won't heal. I made sure. I made sure. I carved it deep. Real deep. It won't heal."

It only seemed to frighten her more. "Ed, you're delirious right now. From pain, and from the medicine. I've seen it before. You need to g-"

"No!" He stated loudly. Startling her. "I'm not! Stop it!" He pushed her hand away in frustration. Lying on the bed with half his limbs and filled with painkiller, it would have been easy to stop him. But some morbid curiosity kept Winry glued to the spot. Kept her from calling Granny in. She had only caught a brief glimpse of it after the blood was gone. Before Granny had wrapped him up nice and neat.

Ed finished unwrapping his bandages, and when they were gone, he smiled. There was a scar on his chest. A deep one. Winry knew he was right – it would never heal. He would have it forever. But he was smiling.

Fingers, still pale and not with nearly enough blood running through them, trailed along the edges of the circle, as if checking for any minor imperfections. He didn't seem to find any, because he laughed. "It's perfect. It's perfect."

Winry frowned. It was gross. But Ed did everything for a reason. Usually.

"That's... that's one of those alchemy things, isn't it?" She asked quietly.

Ed nodded, slowly lowering himself back into the bed. Winry helped. He looked so worn out... she really oughtn't have let him move around that much. And Granny would kill her when she saw his bandages were gone!

"Y-yeah... a transmutation circle. It's perfect...the best... I've ever drawn."

"What's it do?"

"It's a blood seal..." He passed out with a smile on his face.

Mossmask: This story is complete. It's a oneshot, and its done. Lots of people want me to continue it. The only problem is it'll basically follow the exact same story as the original show. The only thing that's really changed is the obvious but the main plot would remain unchanged. So to continue this fic would be pointless, you already know the story.

Tht said, I might write a normal FMA fanfic but set in this sort of AU universe. If I were to write a multichap fanfic set in the future but in this world I created, who would be interested in actually reading it?