Yes, that settles it, she's getting a Pokemon water bottle.

"It deposited the two of us in a cave, once," he recalls, thinking back on the pitch darkness and the sole company of Envy of all people. He's only just starting to get used to the idea of being in the other homunculus' immediate proximity. Even now, he isn't sure how to behave when the both of them are in the room at the same time.

She makes a comment about not going out with her brother so much, and he weighs his options for a moment before asking, quietly,

"How come?"

His eyes turn to the top of her head, and he slips a hand out from beneath the covers to cup the back of her neck. It's... strange. He won't say as much. He doesn't need to reinforce what she already knows, but the chill is unsettling. It brings with it the urge to stay here, to curl closer until all the warmth in him is also hers. Until he could pretend she isn't held in indefinite stasis by the same wretched power that had made and unmade them both over and over.

He's a hypocrite. He knows that he is, for condemning the only force that keeps her alive. Some contradictions don't have a pretty little reconciliation. Some wrongs will always hurt.

His fingers tighten on the back of her neck.

"It's good that you have each other."

Even if he can tell it's more complicated than that. That there is without question some sort of rift in how they feel about what they are and what they aren't. Even acknowledging that Envy might be a positive thing in her life at all is quite a step, but it's one that he can finally take.

The many intersecting, sensitive tangents that come to mind with such an innocuous, obvious statement play across Scar's face. He knows she can feel the strings tug, too. The ways they are alone together.

He's silent for a while. The thumb that's been stroking her neck along her hairline stills.

"I don't want to bury it."

He's scared. He's scared that she would rather leave Ishbal behind with the rest of the world that had stripped it from her. He's scared she won't meet him here, that she doesn't want the things she's forgotten. He's scared because everything pertaining to their old world has always blown up in their faces. He's scared because Rick and Leo think he's a traitor, and his Master thinks he's a failure.

What would they say, seeing him now?

"I won't speak on it again, if you wish me not to, but I want to share Ishbal with you, in... the ways that we still can."

Even if he isn't sure either of them would have a place there. Alone or together.

"I know it isn't..."

He trails off, because he really doesn't know where he's going. This door is unbearably heavy to open and impossible to close.

"I don't know what I would say, if I saw them now. If they would even have us..."

Hi, Master, I'm not sorry for melting several thousand people, also I'm sleeping with the pile of entrails that was once going to be my sister in law, also I miss you so much it's eating me from the inside out every waking moment.

"But I can tell you everything I know."

"I do..."

There's a small curl of hurt, there. Maybe he's telling on himself, a little. Maybe he's played it out in his head, how he would explain her to the people that matter. To the people who would recognize her.

The sin has always been his brother's, not hers. So maybe...

It's a great deal harder for him than it's ever been for her to accept that this is the only place they will ever be, again. He'd had his own people back for such a fleeting moment. Even if he would never even theoretically belong there again, he can't not think about it.

Johto is always going to be lonely, in that way.

He holds onto her a little tighter, presses his face against the top of her head. They never stood a chance with the cards they had been dealt, but the unfairness, the injustice, still chips away at him nonetheless.

"It's still ours."

"It can only mean what we make it mean."

And that's another driving force of his fear-- That writing down the scattered pieces of language he remembers from class and tracking down the herbs to cook the way he remembers might feel more like a memorial than a torch to carry. That it will sting just as much as it soothes, much like his own name does.

He feels small. Helpless. Barely conscious of it, he tugs the covers closer, over her shoulders. He's curled as tightly against her as is reasonably possible, hands finding more cold than warm every time he shifts.

"I love you."

The words stumble out, murmured into her hair with a will of their own. That's what it means, really. That's what all of this means.

"That doesn't bar me from telling you so," he volleys back, gentle but stern. The predictable familiarity of her response is enough to snap him from the momentary funk.

He only nods at her implicit request for a heated blanket. His fingers smooth over the small muscles of her neck, a reflex from when she can actually feel stiffness there.

Warm affection unfurls in his chest, trickles up his throat.

"Your imperious, aloof facade is safe in my hands," he ribs back, completely deadpan.

She seems a bit brighter than she was when he awoke. Good. His fingertips gently push her bangs off her face.