(Backdated to August 9th) Kyle, Sharon: Accommodations

[xp_catseye]

Kyle's attempts to do his job are mildly thwarted by an excited Sharon encountering her first feral mutant.
 
This place had many windows, and at any given moment light was coming through at least one of them. Sharon had found a particularly choice location with an especially well-appointed window seat on which to bask. And it was quiet. The people here were interesting, but part of the appeal was being able to approach them on her own terms. She had never lived with more than one other person, and lately even less than that. It was good to have a hiding place.

Now, warm and alone, Sharon shut her eyes and dozed.

Someday Kyle was going to track down whoever kept putting -his- email back on the maintenance requests, and toss them into a dumpster, or the lake, or the quarry. He'd found a new resident notice, and while it wasn't supposed to be his job, and he could probably avoid it, in this case - he really was, he thought, the best choice.

He was still going to go find out who kept making this a Kyle Gibney problem though.

A very brief trip down to medical got him a scent, still with the lingering chemical undertones of flea dip and liver-flavored anti-parasite pills and a touch of the familiar, so he tracked that back up the elevator, through the kitchen, up through the hallways, down past the classroom-slash-offices, and then into one of the lounge rooms. He really should have guessed, it had the good windows, and he knew - he should have known - this Sharon Smith, all Sharon Smiths - loved a sunbeam because she was a cat.

In this case, an extra-large purple cat curled up on the window seat, tail curled around her body and front paws under her head. He'd interrupted naptime - and knocked on the open doorway.  "Sharon, right? Sorry to interrupt the nap, I wanted to check in."

Sharon, her doze interrupted the moment she heard approaching footsteps, flicked an ear in acknowledgement. She opened a slitted eye to regard the newcomer. "I shall allow it," she said, and yawned.

"Kinda wonder what would happen if you didn't, but..."  Kyle said, with a laugh.  'But I bet the answer is, you'd go back to sleep and ignore me."  He pulled his phone out of his pocket, and came over to the window seat, snagging and dragging an armchair towards it as he got close.  "Because my cat, this is Shamu..."  He showed a picture of an older looking black and white cat curled up in a suitcase, atop jeans and t-shirts.  "Same thing. If he doesn't want attention, he'll nap. I'm Kyle, I got a notice you were moving into the mansion and wanted to see if you needed anything, you know, unique for the mutation."

At this he pulled up the leg of his jeans, and showed off feet with clawed toes, recently trimmed back so the ends only slightly curled over the last joint of the toe.  "You know, like rugs, or doorknobs."

Kyle suddenly had her full attention. Moving with artificial nonchalance, Sharon pulled her upper body over the side of the window seat so her legs and tail could stretch to their full length before stepping off and padding over to Kyle. Her eyes were fixed on his claws.

"Your weight is on the balls of your feet," she observed, bending close to get a better look. "You stand plantigrade, but digitigrade just as comfortable, maybe." She brought her face so close that her whiskers nearly scraped his feet. "I see. Not nails. Grow from phalanges, like real claws. Retractable?"

Complete sentences and personal pronouns were not what Kyle had expected.   "Uh."  he said, and then sat down into the armchair heavily. Better to sit than to end up off balance - whiskers on his feet tickled.  "Not the foot ones, but these are."  He put the phone back in his pocket, and displayed the claws at the ends of his fingers, amber shifting to tan at the nailbeds, and retreated and released them a few times.  "I have to lock my fingers up to keep them in though, so if they're in I have a hard time bending, which is a real pain for the thumb."

Sharon held up a hand -- and it was a hand, furred as it was. Each finger was tipped with a claw of its own. The keratin was milky white with the pink shadow of a quick just barely visible.

"Mine are naturally retracted. Must engage deep digital flexor muscle to protract." She stretched her fingers to demonstrate. "Not as obstructive, maybe, but they catch if I don't take care." The cat turned her attention to Kyle's face. "I want to see your teeth, please," she said in the same tone a teacher might use to ask a student to complete a math problem on the whiteboard in front of the class.

"This is really not how I saw this conversation going."  Kyle said, and yet - dutifully opened his mouth, and then pulled his upper lip back to show the double set of canine teeth at the top.  "Altho."  He grunted, and then let the upper lip go.  "Also mine naturally want to be out too, and shoes are a pain."  He watched Sharon watching his teeth.  "Bottom teeth are the same, and I've got the resulting overbite so I don't catch them together." He opened his mouth again, and tilted his head down and his tongue up.  "I was gonna ask if you wanted the clawproof rugs in your room."

The cat seemed not to be paying attention to his earnest efforts towards her comfort. She rose on her hindlegs to get a better look at his mouth, tail moving to provide balance.

"Thought so. Oversized canines. You lisp if you do not enunciate, also like me. Jaw muscles unusually prominent. Neck and shoulder muscles also. Bite must be significantly stronger than human's. I see third horizontal crus distorting ear shape . . . Stahl's ears?  What other adaptations?" The tip of her tail was now twitching in excitement.

It took a moment, and openly mouthing the words "Stahl's ears" to remember a long-ago chart that Moira - the first Moira, not the one he'd barely spoken to over video chat at Muir Island for Kyle to recall the initial assessment of his mutation.  "I heal, uh, fast, and can regrow a few things. Fingers, toes, teeth mostly."  Mostly was a word doing a lot of work, he was not going to elaborate on the other things he had grown back, like skin and internal organs.  "Enhanced senses, and yeah, I can bite through, well, I have to remember chicken bones aren't actually good for me to try to digest."  

"You can regrow whole digits? Like axolotl? Must be able to generate blastema. Only mammals with this ability are in the Cervidae family, but antler structures are not so complex." Whatever decorum Sharon might have been trying to main appeared to have totally deserted her, because now she was back on all fours and gently patting at his clawed toes with one hand. She seemed fascinated. "Can you change shape also, or is only atavistic properties?" she asked.

"Nope, stuck in this one."  Most of the time, he noted. Magical shapeshifting that one time didn't count.  Plus, Kyle thought, he'd probably end up being questioned about that too, and he already had two words to look up later - blastema and Cervidae - he'd guessed the meaning of both, but googling words was how you got a master's degree in education. "My mutation's complicated but basically, well like you're definitely into the feline ..."  he counted on his fingers, muttering 'phylum class, order..." ,  "genus, I'm somewhere in the Vulpes one. But not totally, in the same way that there aren't a lot of purple cats running around."

"Vulpes! I see now. Retractable claws not standard for Canidae family, but fox have some exceptions. Very interesting." Sharon's physical inspection finally appeared to be complete. The cat flopped down on the carpet and stretched out in a lounge, her tail twitching. "Pleased to meet another heteromorphic mutant. Allegedly met one or two online, but always difficult to be sure. Devastated when I discovered 'furries' were only enthusiasts."

Kyle laughed, and shook his head, very obviously aware of what furries were, and amused. "If you met one that's part squirrel, she's legit. At least if she's doing a master's in creative writing or technical writing over in Los Angeles. Not the furry part, the heteromorphic. We're - I mean we're not a majority still, but there's a couple of folks here with atavistic traits. It's why I was looking for you, I wanted to see what you might need for your room."  He wiggled his toes again, with a knowing look on his face - he had a cat, wiggling toes were an invitation.  "I'm guessing doorknobs aren't a problem, since you have thumbs right now?"

"They are very useful. I can manage most things." Sharon eyed the wiggling with rapt attention. The tempo of her tail flicks began to increase, then stopped abruptly as she seemed to remember something.

"I would like a device," she said. "iPad or laptop, please. Have some accounts I need to get to. Some people to assure I am alive. Leaving was unplanned."

"Good news."  Kyle tapped out a few texts on his phone.  "You get a phone in a rugged case and a decent computer with a good tablet screen. I now owe the tech folks, uh.'  he waited, and his phone buzzed with a returned text that he glanced at.  "Two beers, an apple crumble muffin and sushi, you'll have one before lunchtime tomorrow, with all the security measures in place. Phone'll have an emergency GPS if shit ever gets weird or you get in trouble, computer is about as unhackable as one can get unless you do something really stupid."  He set the phone down on his lap.  "Just, uh, fyi, we're.  not a super secret, but.."  He pinched the bridge of his nose.  "You're online, right? Follow mutant news?"

Sharon was now eyeing his phone with interest. It was a larger model. She was especially intrigued in the claw marks that scouring the case. "To an extent. Not lately."

"Hi, I'm Kyle, I'm a mutant vigilante."  He didn't know a better way to say it, and the X-Men's faces were largely obscured thanks to whatever technology nonsense was built into their comms and uniforms, but the cat - and Kyle was painfully aware of the pointed nature of that metaphor right at this very moment - had to come out of the bag.  "We are a mutant safe house, and we really do house the Xavier's Institute for whatever I honestly do not remember the name, it's on my business cards, but uh. we also are the HQ for the X-Men."

Sharon stared at him. It was impossible to tell if it was in shock, suspicion, or disbelief. Finally, after just a few seconds too long, she gave her head a brief shake.

"Suppose everything must be based somewhere," she said. Suddenly she whipped into an S shape so she could lick at an upstanding patch of fur on her back, as if something had triggered a Hygiene Emergency. "Is vigilantism mandatory, or may I opt out?"

"Totally not mandatory. Most folks here don't do the vigilanting, but everyone's in on the secret."  Kyle ignored the contortions, it was only polite. People ignored him eating raw venison wrapped in microwaved tortillas most of the time..  "Big plane in the basement, if the alarms go off on the basketball court, you should not stay put, the floor'll open up to the plane, we just, you know, don't tell people "Hey the people I live with have codenames and a secret basement plane."

"Helpful information, yes." Sharon straightened, and when she spoke again it was in a measured tone that indicated the impromptu bath might actually have been a stalling tactic while she absorbed the new information. "Well. Shall add this to standard cybersecurity precautions. Do not share passwords, do not share location, do not send nude photos, and do not disclose location of paramilitary mutant group."

Kyle nodded, seemingly very sincerely unless you knew to look for the twitching cheek muscles that said he was having a hard time not laughing. "Exactly. Also don't use fingerprint or face or voice passwords, because no cop can make you give up a password, they can try to make you use your finger to unlock your phone."  This was said with a twist of bitterness that ruined the sincere agreement.  "I'd say don't sneak into the secret plane hanger and shed all over the seats but, uh. You're a cat."

"Yes." The steady yellow eyes were on him again. "And you have just disclosed there is a secret plane hanger."  

"Look, the guy who is teaching me how to fly the secret plane has a cat and keeps scheduling me for 4am flight practice. He deserves purple hair all over his plane."  Kyle liked Scott. Just not Scott's dedication to being a morning person.  "Hey, personal question, but I figure you asked me, what, seven? Are you always a cat?"  He couldn't not ask, he knew the previous Catseye could shapeshift.

Sharon stretched, kneading her hands against the carpet. "Was born a cat. Did not manifest. Gather this is unusual, as x-gene tends to activate during puberty. Never experienced menarche, however, so perhaps the two are connected."

Kyle blinked, and then cocked his head, exactly. like a slightly confused dog.  "Do you really think they're related, or are you messing with me because it's funny?"

Standing now, Sharon padded over to him and made a smug sound. "Why would it not be both?" she asked as she circled his legs. She didn't make contact, but she did brush his hand with the end of her tail in a way that felt distinctly teasing.

"Yep. cat."  Kyle said, with a laugh.  "Well just in case sometimes you're not a lion with thumbs, talk to any of the medical folks or science people, and they can get you some clothes that'll change shape with you if you want those. I taught a kid who turned into a wolf, she had shorts and a tank top that turned into like, a thing that looks like a service dog vest. Super handy."

Sharon yawned disinterestedly. "There is a reason the meme is 'how would a dog wear pants' and not cat. Clothing is an infringement upon my rights. Would be interested to meet this girl, though."

"Shoes are tools of the oppressors." Kyle agreed.  "I've got Rahne's email, I'll see if she wants to get in touch, she's a good kid..." he voice trailed off for a second as the handful of brain cells that did math kicked in.  "Pretty sure not a kid anymore I think she's like twenty, but anybody I taught remains a kid until they buy me a beer, which is a rule I just made up."

"I am also twenty, but could probably acquire alcohol. Who would stop me?"

"Well, unless you've been secretly one of my students under an alias, you're exempt anyway. I think I'd remember "hi I'm Sharon I'm a purple cat person' in one of the online classes."  Kyle said.  "Do you want a beer? I'm not contributing to illegal alcohol purchasing but like, I'm also not gonna narc."

"Not particularly. Taste is unpleasant. Just the devices, please." Sharon yawned again, and this time it was genuine. The new place and new people were wearing on her. She gave her whiskers a sleepy lick. "I will sleep now. However, your consideration is appreciated. I will remember your name."

"There's a mail area where people can get packages, I'll get the tech people to leave you a box of tablet and phone there."   Kyle offered, and maneuvered himself upright while avoiding the twitching tail and all five to six feet of purple fur.  "Have a good nap."

But Sharon had slipped back onto the window seat, her eyes already half-lidded against the sun.