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It was yet another quiet night in the flat Charles and Raven shared near Oxford. Charles sat at his desk, scribbling notes and annotations around the edges of his written thesis. It was due in a few days and, after that, he would officially earn his degree as a geneticist. He wanted that - to teach others about the wonders of development, inheritance, and mutations - more than anything else in the world. To help people understand their differences and, hopefully, bring acceptance to people like him and his sister, Raven.
“‘Mutant and proud,’” Raven mutters under her breath, so quiet that Charles can barely hear her from where she stands in front of the bathroom sink in her robe, vigorously brushing her teeth. It takes Charles a moment to realize that she is quoting the pretty blonde girl from the bar, the one that had heterochromatic eyes. Louder, Raven repeats incredulously, “‘Mutant and proud?’”
Charles sighs and glances up from his work only to catch Raven scowling at herself in the bathroom mirror. He knows that look, knows she’s critiquing her own appearance, comparing herself to that girl. He can’t bear to watch it so his attention returns to his paper. Charles hadn’t meant to upset Raven by flirting with a stranger. He’s only trying to normalize the topic of mutations. His ability to read minds via the X gene is just as much a mutation as having red hair or different colored eyes. It isn’t an abnormality, only evolution. Natural selection, maybe. There are endless possibilities for genetic mutations yet not a single explanation for why they’ve developed from a change in appearance to enhanced abilities like he and Raven have.
“Would you date me?” Raven’s voice breaks through his flurry of thoughts.
It is not a question she asks very frequently but one Charles has heard before. He answers it the same way he always does, not needing to look up from his work. “Of course I would. Any young man would be lucky to have you. You are stunning.”
“Looking like this?”
“Like what?” Charles looks up from his writing and is met with the sight of Raven taking on her true appearance. She had allowed her usual ivory skin, golden hair, and cool grey-eyed facade to fall away and reveal her natural copper-colored hair, intelligent golden eyes, and midnight blue skin donned with ridges and scales. There is nothing wrong with how she looks - of course there isn’t - but she doesn’t take this form very often, so it is a bit unnerving. Charles spends most of his personal time in public so Raven often has no choice but to take on a more “attractive” form so as not to frighten civilians.
“Blue?” Charles asks slowly only for Raven’s hopeful expression to morph into frustration. Quickly, he tries to amend his words, “You’re my oldest friend-”
“I’m your only friend,” she quips.
“Thank you for that.”
“Well?” Raven gives him an expectant look, awaiting his response to her first question.
Charles sighs quietly and begins to organize his papers into a folder. “I’m incapable of thinking of you that way. I feel responsible for you.” He stood from the desk and made his way over to sit on the leather couch in the center of the room. The excuse is feeble yet hangs heavy in the air between them. “Anything else would just feel wrong.”
“But what if you didn’t know me?” Raven insists.
“Unfortunately I do know you.” He meant to sound teasing but his joke didn’t wring a drop of laughter out of Raven, not even a hint of a smile. He grimaced slightly. “God, I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately. You’re awfully concerned with your looks.”
Raven relented and sat beside him on the couch, settled in with her head laid back against his shoulder, intercepting his attempt to open his folder. “I’m sleepy. Will you read to me?”
“I can’t,” he protests without much malice. He bit back a smile as Raven only made herself more comfortable under his arm. “I have my thesis coming up. I have to study.”
“Well, fine. Read that.” Raven’s eyes fall closed in his peripheral vision. “Your thesis always sends me right off.”
Charles takes a breath before starting, “‘To Homo neanderthalensis, his mutant cousin, Homo sapiens, was an aberration. Peaceful cohabitation, if it ever exists, was short-lived. Records show, without exception, that the arrival of the mutated human species in any region was followed by the immediate extinction of their less evolved kin…’”
He barely finishes reading the introduction paragraph of his essay before he hears Raven’s breathing slow beside him, her azure cheek mushed up against his shoulder. It brings Charles back to the time he spent with her when they were both children. When Raven, scrawny and frightened, broke into his childhood home just to scavenge for something to eat. Charles cannot remember how he managed to hide Raven away in his room for years without his parents taking notice. However, the house had been so ridiculously large that there hadn’t been much of a struggle. He recalls smuggling extra helpings of supper to his room under the guise of teenage hunger, large scoops of sweet peas and mashed potatoes and massive slabs of steak. Raven had been a growing girl, too, after all. Charles had even convinced the maid to bake extra batches of pastries to share with Raven.
His favorite memory, though - one that reigned over every smile, muffled laugh, and quiet understanding they shared growing up - was reading Raven to sleep, just as he was doing now. In their youth, Charles would read from a collection of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories, and found that his newfound sister always fancied his narration of The Raven. It was oddly fitting: a tale of a lonely man who is visited by a raven in his time of need. It had been quite a while, of course, since Charles had recited that story, but he could recount every line from memory.
As if Raven were the one who could read people’s thoughts, she stirs awake from her attempt at rest. She picked her head up off his shoulder, yellow eyes blinking sleepily as her scales shifted like lazy ocean waves lapping at the shore. Only Charles is able to notice the slight furrow between her faint eyebrows and the instinctive tense of her muscles as she begins to sit up. It’s the demeanour of a mutant who is well aware their mutation is outward, explicit, unhidden in comparison to Charles’ abilities that no one would know of at first glance. It’s the skittishness of a young woman who has done little more than run and hide for much of her life.
“It’s alright,” Charles murmurs and loops his arm around Raven’s shoulders, pulling her back to settle against his side once more. She relents with a small sigh, feigning irritation as if she isn’t barely able to keep her eyes open.
“‘Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,’” he began to quote Poe, his mouth remembering the shape of the words he had spoken nearly every night for years. Slowly slipping back to sleep, Raven’s head leans heavily against his shoulder, her body fitted against his side like a puzzle piece. Charles keeps his voice low and even as he continues his recitation to the point where Raven typically begins to snore, resting his cheek atop her head just to feel anchored. “‘For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door – bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, with such name as Nevermore.’”
He paused for a moment, listening closely, and there it was - the soft, snorting breath that signified Raven was well and truly asleep. Charles almost feels as if he is tricking her by quoting The Raven. He is not sure if it is his voice that lulls her to sleep like a siren song, or if his sister finds as much comfort in the tale as he does. Slowly, carefully, trying his best not to jostle Raven awake from her peaceful slumber, Charles grabs the blanket that is draped over the back of the couch and places it over her sleeping form. Not that it is particularly cold in their flat, but because it’s a small, nostalgic act to tuck her in as he did in their youth. And despite what Raven thinks of herself, no matter how many insecurities she attempts to hide by shapeshifting into a more desirable figure, Charles always believes she is most beautiful like this - resting beside him, allowing him to carry the weight of her worries for a while.
Charles turns his gaze back to where his essay lays in his lap, littered with words circled in red ink and notes in the margins of where he will edit his writing before the final draft is to be turned in. It’s stressful knowing his degree relies on this paper, that his future depends on how well he can articulate his passion for what most would consider anomalies or deformities. However, it will pay off in the long-run, especially knowing this will be one small step toward curating a better society, one where mutants – regardless of how visible or invisible their abilities may be – will thrive. A world where his sister can live free of judgement in her true form, not the one she manufactures. That alone would make every prior struggle worth it – for her.