Hoenheim Elric has rarely touched his sons.

Not the first one, who grew up to inherit his mother's sly mind -- not the youngest, who looks like the only woman he's ever loved.

And not the middle one, bitter and angry and closest made in his own image. Ed spends his day working like a man possessed, hunched over notes and books, lost in his own world. It reminds Hoenheim of his own youth, when he was desperate to find meaning, to find an answer that would make his short lifespan worthwhile.

It cost him the love of one woman, and life with another. He's been ten kinds of fool, and his sins are visited upon his sons, for all he did his best to distance himself.

Now he watches Ed scribble furiously, ink stains on his fingers and cheeks, and wonders if there has ever been any more danger than this. Alphonse had Tri's round cheeks and smiling mouth, but Ed had her fine-boned beauty, in ways that were dangerous.

"Ed," he says finally, and his voice is loud. "You should go to bed."

"I'm busy," Ed says, without looking up. His candle is burning low; in a moment, it will snuff itself out. There are spots of ink in Ed's hair, and Hoenheim focuses on them, little dark blots against a sea of gold, like a reverse night sky.

"Icarus," he says, "your wax is melting."

It's not really a pet name, and it's not meant to be one. Ed's fingers tighten for a moment on his pen, and his lips press to a thin line. He doesn't look up, only hunches further over his notes. "I'm busy," he says. "I'll go to bed when I'm finished."

But he won't be finished, Hoenheim thinks, not for a long time -- maybe not ever. He ponders this stranger that is his son, with his own hair and eyes and echoes of poor lost Tri in the slant and set of his features. There's a puff and a soft hiss, and suddenly the room is dark; Ed's candle has gone out, and only the moonlight streams in.

"Icarus," he says again, because he can't help but associate that legend with Ed, whose already flown in the face of God more times than should be allowed. In the moonlight, Ed's hair shines gold and silver both, except where the ink has stained the strands. "You really are Icarus, aren't you, you --"

"Shut up." Ed stands in a sharp, jerky motion; the prosthetics pain him more than he will ever admit, especially to Hoenheim. "Shut up, asshole, just -- I'm going to bed. Shut up."

As Ed clumps past, his sleeve brushes against the bare skin of Hoenheim's arm, right under where the rot had been set. The smell of ink and old dusty papers followed him like a cloud. He closes his eyes: Dante smelled like that once, his beautiful sharp scholar-woman, who'd been everything he'd dreamed of and nothing he'd wanted.

He doesn't move until he hears Ed's bedroom door close. And then his breath comes out in a hiss, slow and pained. Tri would weep to see her son now, he thinks -- she would weep to see him hunched over his books like an old man, working his way steadily towards rock bottom.

"God help me," he says, though he is an alchemist, he is a scientist, he is a man of reason who has no place for God. There's only this dark room, and no one is listening -- and certainly not the boy who's already left him. "God help me, I can't save him any more."