Disclaimer: I don't own X. CLAMP does. Sorry, no spiffy little remark this time.

Author's Notes: Fourth fic. Serious piece. FYI, I don't remember if Seishirou's body was mangled or something after Rainbow Bridge, and this was written at one in the morning by a very, very tired little fangirl. But let's just pretend that his body was left A-OK, minus the fact his heart was torn out.

By the way, the epilogue is an upside-down mirror of the prologue. X_x; That was tough to write.

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Temperature

Written by wiredGIRL, July 13, 2003

Prologue

The smirk had left his face.

There was nothing anymore, no emotion. Not even the faintest glimmer.

He's not dead.

But he was. The trembling eye of the killer did not catch even the slightest movement. The body was too still. Too pale. Too cold…

The word ricocheted off the walls of his mind. Cold. Yes, he had always been cold…

He's not dead…

Once he longed to feel the warmth of love. That was all he wanted from the other. But he only felt the chill of being mocked and betrayed.

Years later, he convinced himself he didn't care about the warmth of love—anything would have done. He would have settled for body heat. Even if it was in the midst of being killed. It would have been wonderful; it would not have been cold.

But now, it was freezing. There would never be anything to melt the feeling away again.

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It certainly didn't help that it was a cold night. The wind snarled and tore at whatever stood in its path. A familiar landmark stood—if you can call such a thing 'standing'—weakly, broken. Even in more than a physical sense; the air around the bridge reeked of pain and sorrow. The sight of the water made the stomachs of those who witnessed previous events churn.

Subaru, however, did not listen to the wind, or take the air into his lungs, or watch the water with his one working eye.

He had wandered back to the bridge, in hopes of… oh, he didn't know what he hoped for. His walk was stiff and slightly staggered, meandering, but not—as if he didn't want anyone to know where he planned on going. He didn't want to admit it himself. He kept on without thinking.

Eventually, he dropped to his knees in a pile of rubble. He found what he had been looking for.

The body of Subaru's most loved and most hated person lay still. The onmyouji could not take his eyes off it. It was perfect, lying there. So utterly perfect, all in black. The hole where the heart had been torn out added to its beauty—dried blood crusted everywhere, and a little more wet inside the hole.

The man clasped his hands to his ears, trying to shoo out the thought. It terrified him, to think of a corpse in such a way. He didn't want to turn into the body lying before him.

He lingered on that last idea, and imagined himself lying there instead of Seishirou. For a moment, he wondered if someone would be kneeling in front of him like he was doing now, but the thoughts passed.

The sight of the body was just too much. Subaru fell over on his side and stared through the eye that was beginning to blur at the corpse.

As he lay there, he didn't know what to think. Should he wait for Seishirou to move? It didn't seem like a foolish idea anymore, now that he was gone and the young man knew what it felt like to lose someone. It was okay to wish for something like that, wasn't it? Or should he touch his face, in hopes that he would wake up?

The Seal went with the latter, and reached a shaking hand to the Angel's face. He regretted putting his hand forward immediately. Although his fingers only barely brushed the other's cheek, he could tell that he was cold, like ice. It confirmed his fears that he had already known to be true.

Seishirou was dead.

Subaru's arm had been suspended in midair as he realized it, and it grew tired quickly. Without thinking, he dropped it, and his hand fell to the dead man's face. It was cold, but he couldn't pull his hand away. Maybe if he warmed up his face, the rest of his body would warm and he would wake up.

He stared, not knowing what to do, at the limp arm next to the body. The Dragon of Heaven half-expected it to rise up, wrap itself around his waist, and pull him close, but as he waited and watched, nothing happened. Of course he couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. Perhaps the arm could read Subaru's mind, and decided to taunt him further by not embracing him on purpose.

Feeling even worse, he turned his eye away from that evil, dead arm to the face. He moved his hand a little, hoping to feel heat come back into the pale skin, but as he took his hand away, whatever heat left over from Subaru's hand disappeared.

Oh, how he hated the cold. Any rise in temperature would have been welcomed.

Over and over in Subaru's mind turned the idea of what the other's love would have felt like. The only word he could think of was 'warm.' What a sensation it would have been. Like the feeling one gets when he swallows a mouthful of hot coffee and the warmness spreads throughout his body in an instant.

He pushed slightly at the dead man's face, trying to tell it to warm up. There was, of course, no response.

Subaru felt desperate, helpless panic well up inside him. He wanted to be loved. Needed to be loved. His entire body and heart and mind and soul ached for the feeling. The sorrowful rage building up inside him grew continuously worse, and he felt himself get a little dizzy. The want was too powerful.

He wrapped an arm over the shoulder of the dead assassin and drew him close, trying to shake off the feeling and maybe even satisfy it a little.

Nine years of the emptiness inside him was too much to take. Seishirou had continued stealing what wasn't even there anymore. It hurt so terribly.

Subaru shed one or two or maybe twenty tears. He still cradled the corpse close to him.

"Don't go…" he whimpered, not even realizing that he was no longer thinking to himself.

Why had he come back here? It was only hours since his last visit to this place; that time he found himself on one side of his antagonist and his hand on the other, with his arm in the middle. What a terrifying sensation it was.

Suddenly Subaru felt compelled to push away the body. He lay there by himself, curled up uncomfortably among the broken pieces of the bridge.

Clumsy crunching over the rubble could be heard in the distance.

Subaru didn't notice it. All he could see was the face of the corpse next to him.

The crunching grew louder in reality. Something stumbled.

Subaru didn't pay attention. All he knew existed was Seishirou in front of him. And he was dead.

Someone behind the young man knelt down hastily.

Subaru didn't care. Seishirou's cold, dead body was there, and that was it. It was still so icy.

Something warm came from behind the Seal. It was body heat—the someone carefully embraced Subaru from behind.

The wind died down.

It was still cold.

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Epilogue

But now, it was warmer. The feeling thawed slightly.

Now, there was more than just body heat. It was love. Unconditional and honest. There might have been more than the warmth of love; care existed, among other feelings... and in the future, more could have appeared. It would not have been cold.

Such a thing as 'body heat' would never have done. But this person wasn't the same…

He's here…

His mind was empty now.

Nothing moved. He stayed still. He didn't feel the warmth trying to invite him into embrace.

He's here.

There was no reaction, though. The person couldn't do anything, as much as he tried.

Everything had left his heart.