Fatal Attractions [Charles Xavier | Book One]

Chapter 4: The Courtyard

        "So Charles is your brother," Kat began conversation with Raven the following morning while she went through her clothes for something Kat could wear. "You know him best. Has he always been so. . . stern?"

        "He's just overly protective," Raven answered with a coy smile, but Kat could feel a sadness from her. She shook her head, her blond curls falling back over her shoulders. "He's never as harsh as he was last night, but then again, I don't think I've done anything as crazy as what we pulled off last night since. . ." Raven paused, thinking back. "Since before Charles took me in.

        Kat nodded, understanding. "I know what you mean. Hell, Charles found me working as a— " Her sentence died abruptly in her throat, unable to say it to Raven, her first real friend since arriving.

        Raven turned her head to lock eyes with her. "Working as a what, Kat?"

        Inevitably, the words found their way past her lips. "A . . . prostitute," she confessed in almost a whisper.

        Yet to her surprise Raven didn't even flinch. Kat sensed no judgment. Instead her eyes seemed to glance up above Kat, and she knew what she was looking at. Her cat ears lowered against her hair in an attempt to hide against her head.

        Then Raven asked in a rather gentle voice, "You did what you had to, didn't you?" Something changed in her brown eyes, another flash of yellow. "It's not fair."

        She understood then, the way Raven looked at her. She was ashamed of her true form—the very form Kat had taken without realizing the night before. Raven only chose to stay in her own version of a human form.

        "You know that firsthand, don't you?"

        Raven nodded. "And that's just it; that's what makes them different from us. Charles is always the first to support mutations but he still doesn't get it because he doesn't have to hide. The best he'd have me do is 'blend in.'" She paused, and then added sadly, "Charles and Erik; they don't have to hide the same way we do."

        Kat tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, suddenly more aware of her cat ears atop her head and tail openly out behind her back. She had walked to Raven's room just earlier with them out like she didn't care if anyone saw. And for a moment there, she really didn't. "Like you said, we do what we have to do. It's just that some of us have it easier than others, right?"

        "Yeah. Right."

        The room went silent, its white walls seeming to close around them as Kat shifted her stance uncomfortably with nothing left to say. Instead, she opted for a different idea. "Why don't we go outside?" She suggested, offering Raven a hesitant smile. "Come on. I'll just get dressed and then we can go for a walk. Visit the courtyard or something."

        At that, Raven smiled and Kat could feel the very change in her mood. "Alright. I'll go buy us some drinks while you get changed. Then we can go." And with a nod from Kat, she stood from the bed and opened the metal door, closing it behind her as she turned down the corridor. 

        Kat got dressed before the mirror, subconsciously looking at her cat ears and tail while she dressed. She knew Raven was ashamed of her natural form, and admittedly she knew that feeling all too well. So instead of fixing her hair as she usually did and hiding her tail, Kat chose to leave her cat ears out while her tail swayed freely behind her. 

        Satisfied with how she looked, Kat turned and went to the door. As she opened it, she found Raven standing there waiting with a Coca-Cola in each hand. She looked at Kat and smiled. "So I have an idea," she said once she handed one to Kat.