Exactly 800 words! So, 8 drabbles. I didn't want to do the typical fluffy kind of thing for this prompt, so then I had this idea. I've been wanting to do more with Dante for a while, and I realized just how many 'birthdays' Envy would have...2003 canon, doy.

More angst/dark. Because it's fun :3 Also, look up the symptoms for mercury poisoning.

81. Birthday

He was so small, but his teeth were sharp and it hurt when he clasped upon her swollen breast. For a moment, Dante began to panic - she'd been told the instincts of motherhood would rush upon her, but there was nothing. She ached from the birth, and the midwife's voice was grating and unpleasant. But then Hohenheim bent over both of them, touched William's nose with his finger, and said in an awed, loving voice, "Happy birthday, son." He looked so beautiful at that moment, glowing with pride, and she decided that maybe, she could pretend (just for a while).

It was his thirteenth birthday. For thirteen years she had shared her husband with the intruder (that shared their blood too). Today was not just the birth of her son, but of her envy, cold and cruel - and it was the day she began to seed his food with poison, all the while asking Hohenheim in a fluttering voice if he shouldn't be more careful with his ingredients. So when Will began to complain of pins and needles, or cry uncontrollably at the smallest things, Hohenheim began to worry...and Dante smiled and tipped more quicksilver into her son's drink.

It was his eighteenth birthday and William Elric was dead. Three days later, he screamed as he was reborn in a catastrophe of blood.

"Hohenheim!" She rushed down the stairs, only to have him shoulder past her, emptying his stomach on the step she'd just vacated.

"Hohenheim, what's the matter?"

"I...what...what have I done?" he whispered in horror, before letting out a pained cry. She reached for him, and then stopped, eyes growing wide when she saw the blood streaming from his side.

"Don't touch me!" he cried out before fleeing.

Dante turned around.

"M-Ma...Ma...ma?"

She knelt at the edge of the circle, watching the creature with morbid fascination. It didn't even have a proper, human shape - there she could see a curl of intestines, there a heart, pulsating and pushing spurts of blood into the air. Nothing was connected, but...

Even as the human in her sickened and recoiled, the alchemist wondered what had gone wrong. Glancing over her shoulder, she searched for them - and, eventually, found them.

The creature's distended tongue lapped the stones up readily, and as she watched, red and white sparks began to knit together the distended shape.

"Happy birthday."

A year passed before she could accept that he wasn't coming back. And her creation stood in front of her, wringing his hands in a hopeless manner and asking if she thought Daddy might be on his way, because it had been three days since his birthday and she said he'd been home -

"Oh, shut up," she snapped. "He's not coming back."

"But -"

"And he's not your 'daddy' either." She felt her lips twist as she looked at the mockery of her son - so similar, yet so wrong. "What the hell do you think you are? He doesn't want you."

A new form, a new face, new eyes, new everything. He was completely unrecognizable this time - almost a century after he'd been given the red stones, he'd finally found the true extent of his new gifts -

He didn't have to look like him anymore.

He bared a set sharp teeth too big for his mouth. He would be the envy of everybody, and even Mother Dear couldn't take this away from him.

"Happy birthday to me," he crooned, then with a sudden convulsion, he drove his fist into the mirror. Then, he walked away like nothing had happened at all.

"Damn you, damn you -"

Just a stupid, squalling baby - just a little, pink, fleshy bundle that nevertheless tied Hohenheim down more securely than an anchor and chain.

"You were supposed to come home," he whispered, the words distorting around his shark's-teeth. "You were supposed to come home...you...you weren't supposed to replace me..."

But that wasn't true, either. He was a replacement. His memories were patchy at best.

No wonder Hohenheim wanted a real son.

Suddenly, Envy grinned, laughing through tears. I'll chase you away, so he won't have you either. I can do it.

Just watch me.

They were silent, watching each other from across a room so big and small at the same time, when Envy suddenly remembered what day it was and felt sick. He'd lost track of time. He didn't know exactly how many years it had been, but Ed was sixteen now -

He glanced away, suddenly feeling every inch the second-best. Then, he walked slowly towards Edward, around him in ever-shrinking circles. He raked his nails across his skin, trying to make him flinch (so steadfast, so stoic).

He'd ruin this perfect child. He'd forget about every day he'd been reborn.