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A beating heart is what warms us, what makes us feel. A living heart keeps us human.
When her universe collapsed, Miguel’s heart stopped beating and disappeared from his arms.
Warm hands pulled him to safety, but it didn’t matter anymore. His skin was cold, and his chest was empty. He’d lost his heart, and his warmth was fading with her.
Over time, the cold overtook him. Ice grew in the empty hole in his chest, hard as stone that radiated chill. The frost crawled up from his fingers and feet until it stiffened his joints and filled his head. His breath was visible in the air, the only proof he was still alive in this body freezing over. Icicles hung from his limbs, silent threats as sharp as his blades. His footsteps were silent, yet the cold marked his path.
Warm humans, the ones with beating hearts in their chests, dislike the cold. His bitter and frigid words froze them out. Cold pairs well with silence. The warmth comes from friendly light, so darkness was his only companion. He was cold, and cold he would stay.
She had been his warmth. When the frost had been tapping at his fingertips, she held them with a squeeze. When he tried to fade into the darkness, she had been his smiling light. When his chest felt empty, she had been his heartbeat.
But now she was gone, and so was his warming heart.
Miguel did his best work when cold. Alone, empty, unafraid of what jaws may wait in the darkness for him. He would need a heart to fear, or feel. Those impossible choices became so simple when held with an icy hand.
Lyla stayed with him, but the cold in him believed it was because she had to. She was the only familiar and safe point allowed past the ice. He recognized her, even if he no longer recognized himself.
Even frozen, he wanted to save others from this fate. The ones around him, in his building, his home, his universe, they weren’t like him. They felt that cold but found warmth anyway. In each other.
Miguel didn’t have anyone like that.
Miguel saw that cold forming in Miles. Each one of them had frost on their fingertips, but Miles had ice forming in his heart. Ice could not melt ice, but that was all Miguel had to offer, and ice is as sharp as his tongue, as his claws. He didn’t want to hurt him.
Cold and frost and ice. The pain of freezing faded long ago, a blissful numbness blanketing over the stiffness of cold. He was frozen to his consoles, to the machines. Forced to watch days of warmth through frozen eyes. He’d grown so sharp, layers of icicle daggers as clear as winter glass pressing into his skin and threatening outwards. The ice in his chest was heavy, so heavy, but wedged so thorough that pulling it out would be more painful than leaving it be. The discomfort had grown comfortable, and he couldn’t feel the cold.
Warm hands reach past the fearsome icicles. Warm red color stains them, the cold slicing effortlessly through living skin. Still, they reach further, until they touch him. His words are as sharp as the ice, his teeth bared as he ices them out. He doesn’t want them to freeze, too.
He’s colder than the warmth, and even still, it hurts. Light after dwelling in darkness, heat after winter, it hurts. A soft touch of affection brings pain. It had been so long since he felt anything but cold, and this burns.
The more he lashes out at this warmth, this pain, the softer the touch becomes, and the greater the pain of warmth grows. He knows he’s freezing them, he’s too cold to touch, yet they insist on breaking through his ice. Tears freeze in his eyes. His cold will freeze them all.
Soft and warm hands gently hold his cold and sharp face, kind words spoken and breaking his long-lasting silence. Hands hold his, warming them and melting the frost at their own cost. Around his waist, around his arms, his neck, warm arms hold him with soft words.
He doesn’t have his heart anymore. All he has is ice.
The frozen tears in his eyes melt slowly, dripping down his frosted face like the first drips of coming spring. The path they leave from unseeing eyes spreads a slow thaw, something that only the patience of warm hands coaxing the cold out of his skin can encourage.
Icicles drip, losing their menace and sharpness. Frost recedes glacially back from his skin, easing his joints from their cold stiffness. A slow and painful blink, and the open face of a worried friend falls into focus. The act of warming a freezing body after so long is agony for all involved, but as Miguel is held with all the warmth of love, it feels like standing in the sun.
Deep in his chest, in the cavity that used to house his heartbeat, the ice that replaced his heart began to crack.