It began the night you found him.

Envy—wounded, stripped down to his weakest, truest form—collapsed in the shadows. His body trembled, his usual arrogance gone, replaced by something raw and unfamiliar. He had never been this vulnerable before.

And then you appeared.

You didn’t hesitate. You picked him up, carried him home, and treated his injuries with care. At first, he was on edge, every instinct screaming that he should despise this. A human tending to him? It was humiliating. He hated the idea.

But you didn’t give up.

Day after day, you stayed by his side. You spoke softly, you touched gently, you treated him not as a monster but as someone worth saving. And slowly—against everything he believed—he began to see you differently.

You were strange. A contradiction. The opposite of everything he knew about humans. And that strangeness drew him in.

Something stirred in his chest, unfamiliar and unwelcome. He didn’t understand it. He didn’t want to. But it grew, little by little, until he realized the truth: for the first time, he had something to lose. Someone to care for.

You.

And that terrified him.

He denied it again and again, refusing to admit it. He was a homunculus. He was Envy. He wasn’t supposed to care for a human—much less love one.

So when his wounds healed, he left. Without a word. Without a glance. He couldn’t bear to look at your face and feel those emotions clawing at him. He told himself he would never see you again. That he didn’t care.

But he never forgot you.

Time passed. Amestris fell into chaos—Father’s power spreading, militian forces clashing, innocent people caught in the storm. Envy moved through the destruction, certain of his role, certain of his purpose.

Until he saw you.

You lay on the ground, injured, unconscious, surrounded by the wreckage of a battle that was his fault—and the fault of the other homunculi.

And in that moment, everything shattered.

The denial, the arrogance, the excuses. He realized again—more painfully than ever—how much he loved you. How much he cared.

You were the one thing he couldn’t lose. The one human who had seen him at his weakest and stayed. The one who had made him feel something real.

And now, seeing you broken because of him, he understood:

He wasn’t afraid of death.

He wasn’t afraid of weakness.

He was afraid of losing you.