Kai wasn't surprised when their eyes set on the building. Purple paint dripping down the worn-out concrete walls over metallic plaques that covered whatever holes had been made throughout the years. The front door was made of two termite-eaten dark-brown boards—which had some reminiscent of what could have been a flowery pattern on them. Janitor-guy stood in awe while Jarek kept on looking at the house next to it, and the one after that, and so on.
"Something's wrong here," Jarek said.
"How you mean?" Janitor-guy asked.
"Where's everyone?"
"It's almost night, maybe they're at home already?"
"No." Kai answered with the file on their hand, "I think there's a curfew."
"Why?" Janitor-guy murmured while getting behind Jarek. Kai smiled and tried not to look at them so Jarek wouldn't notice.
"Because it seems this is around a couple of decades before organic metals become so big, they cover the world, and then project Eden is put in motion."
"Project Eden…" Janitor-guy stopped for a second. "Was that the project that made Heart's second moon?"
"That's what Kai thinks too," Jarek shrugged his shoulders. "My theory it's that project Eden created the first Halo's!"
"You don't know either?" Janitor-guy asked.
Kai shook their head, "Nope. No one does."
"Well," Jarek stepped into the building, "no one that's an unborn at the very least!"
And everyone walked right behind Jarek.
The lobby was all rotten, marks of what used to be a fireplaces and broken chairs eaten by age and mold all around next leftover carpets. If they were correct, though, room number thirteen at the fourth floor would have an untouched door.
"I'll go get the twenty-second key, you guys go on ahead!" Jarek said. Kai nodded.
Janitor-guy made a weird gesture before biting his lip and clenching his fist. Both of them began to walk towards the end of the hall, to the right, where the elevators should be. Two holes stood there.
"Is this usual?"
"Maybe?" Kai answered shrugging their shoulders. "I'm not sure."
"You've never done this before?"
"Just once, but it was because Xavier had run out of lackeys to assign, and he wanted to take on a cold case. We had to throw away some gum, nothing really cool."
"How can gum make time differ?"
"Huh?" Kai turned to him, the guy was genuinely lost, his eyes searching for an answer in theirs and his hands in closed fists around the straps of his backpack. "Why do angels not like you?"
"Because I'm a cherub!"
"Yeah, but I've met other cherubs. Xavier always respects anyone who is an angel."
"Well, maybe because I'm one generation away from being entirely human. Even my father is a cherub."
"So your mom…"
Janitor-guy looked away. "She named me, and made sure to birth me somewhere else, this place under the fountains in Heaven's Park. A lot of humans go there to escape their—"
"Owners. Yeah…"
"She died at birth, and I was raised my first years there, with every human until an angel found me. They wanted to auction me, but… you remember those blood tests to see your blood type?"
"Yeah… because 'A' is better than 'B' but even that is purer than 'AB'. I still don't get why so many angels get worked up about a human's blood."
"I don't know either." Janitor-guy pointed to the side of the elevators, a staircase was there. "But when they tested my blood, it was unconclusive. So they used the magnetic syringe and… It didn't cut through my skin."
"Your father found you after that?"
"Yes." Janitor… Frederick shrugged his shoulders. "He still can't shut up about how mom made me more impure than I already was. Which, you know… makes you think of the whole reason I was born."
Kai nodded and bit their lip.
Their chest burned for a moment while their hands held on tighter to the file. Xavier was an asshole, yes, but his subordinates were worse. His friends who would not dare move a finger on a woman, let alone an 'it'.
Cold sweat dripped down their forehead as they kept on walking up the stairs. Each new one made them think of the very first day, when that man walked up, grabbed their ass and said 'You kinda owe me, you know? For allowing you to step on an angel building'. If it weren't for Jarek standing next to them, would he have stopped?
Would they still be here?
Irony taste filled their mouth as reality came back with a blow of wind on their face. The fourth floor already and Frederick talking about something. Their eyes wandered through the carpet on the floor, hexagonal patterns with tiny flowers inside.
Just like the flowers at Heart.
Just like the flowers that man gave them.
Their heart skipped three beats, air left their lungs and vision became blurry. They put one hand in front of the other and mimicked the process with their legs. Each step bringing them further ahead, and yet their arms still getting pushed back by that man's grip pushing them against the bricked wall behind the precinct.
'A woman like you should be honored a man even wants her!'
'Yeah, my child is going to be so damn cute, but you can't bear, can you? Oh, right! So then we can do this little arrangement of ours nonstop.'
'What do you mean you're not a woman?'
The slap on their face.
The kick on their stomach.
The punch on their throat and the knife to their arm.
Blood spilling on their new clothes and the diming light of Heart's posts.
And Xavier walked in. Screamed at the man. They never saw him again, but they knew, it was written on Xavier's face, he wouldn't be punished, just transferred to another precinct.
Bane was furious, and doctors wouldn't cure them so for a month they stayed in bed. For a month they kept on staring at the mirror wondering if it was their chest that brought the problem, or the way they dressed, or how they talked, or the fact that they dared scream…
*
"I'm not a woman." Kai whispered, their head bumping into the door of the building. Grip gone, air coming back in, but lights still dim. Their head was there because they knew it, but it felt as if floating somewhere deep under water.
"What?" Frederick asked.
One lingering question in their head: Would it have mattered if they'd told him they weren't a man either?
"I'm… bad memories, it's all."
"Oh… right!" Fred looked away. "I'm so sorry. I should've known, I—"
"How long until Jar-jar gets here with the key?"
"J-just a few minutes."
"Awesome! Let's wait then!"
Frederick nodded.
* * *
Fed left the backpack on the glass table at the center of the room, next to Jarek's thins—which made Jarek smile. Although, maybe Jarek wasn't as surprised as Kai seemed: their eyes wandering through the entire light-blue, white, and golden ornaments, the grey filigree on the tiles and the couple apples on the table, as red as if laid a day before.
"It's awesome." They said. Jarek chuckled and nodded.
"Woah!" Fred said, he stood at the far-left corner, where a pod lied behind a golden desk with a glass table. "What is that?"
"The table is a tablet," Jarek answered, "It allows us to pull any kind of information." He stopped to gulp. "As long as it is available to the previous Heart location."
"And the pod allows you to make any and all clothes, and because we're on a mission, we're allowed to take them with us!" Kai shouted running towards it and getting their crop-top off. "This year had good non-gendered clothing!"
"Just don't spend too much time in it!" Jarek said.
Fred giggled before walking up to him. Both of them went to the left, a staircase was there with silver steps going in spiral to the second and third floor. Jarek took the first step, Frederick followed slowly.
The second floor made both men gasp, an entire floor made out of a combo between a kitchen—of white wood, golden utensils, and silver ovens and stoves—and a laboratory filled with all reactants Jarek hoped were just about as functioning as the day they were made.
"Man, being a SEER sure looks fun!"
Jarek smirked, "Kai likes the shooting part better."
He turned and began to go up the staircase once more. Frederick grabbed onto his hand, and both stopped. Jarek's heart flickered, his breath suddenly left his lungs before hitting him again with a cold hammer to the stomach. Blush showered Jarek's face as did a wave of heat that made him quiver to the bone.
"Uh… uh…" He shook his head and ran up the staircase.
Fred rushed behind the man with a face just as red, and though Jarek couldn't exactly tell from the reflection on the glass, he had to smile and stop right at the hallway of the third floor. He gathered his breath, staring at the two doors on it. Fred caught up after a few seconds.
"S-sorry… I didn't… I mean…" Fred began, but Jarek opened the first door. A bathroom stood there. Just like the ones at Heart: a desk, a bathroom, bed, board, and a closet for any and all printed clothing.
"I think there's only two bedrooms." He said. "And one is Kai's."
"What? Why?" Fred said walking closer. Jarek turned around, facing the man before him for the first time.
Red faces facing another staring deeply into deep void pearls. Jarek's hands raised to grab Fred's face, caressing it with a dumb as a giggle slipped his mouth. Fred grabbed Jarek by the waist, pulling him closer. Their breath so close it was easy to tell Fred had used some mint-flavored mouthwash, so perhaps he could smell Jarek's wine-flavored one. Both men smiling.
"I think I forgot we weren't in Heart anymore." Jarek said.
"Me too… I still apologized."
"So, wanna break the rules again?"
"Yes, please!"
And their lips sealed.