Archive of Our Own

Brother.

He didn’t have a word for it back then, so he’d called him “brother”. That feeling in his chest when he looked at Chan. He’d been lonely his whole life, abandoned for a weakness he couldn’t control, and he’d grown used to being on his own. He wasn’t sure he remembered how to love, at first. It was just a small thing, a flicker of something when he saw his face, but it only grew after he fixed his leg - a dull ache that began to overtake his entire being, like pain but deeper, lower, like a thrumming underneath his ribs.

Khatha knew it was love, but he didn’t have the right words back then, and maybe things would have gone differently if he did. Instead, he labelled the man his brother and linked arms with him, intending to keep him close for the rest of his life. His aversion to Chan’s attempts to save the villagers from the plague was sensible - what if they ousted him? But a tiny part of him couldn’t help but feel jealous. He wasn’t special. Chan would save anybody, which was one of the reasons he’d fall in love with him, but it also meant that maybe Chan didn’t feel the same way about him as he did. Maybe they weren’t brothers to him. Maybe he was just one in a long line of victims and patients to save. Maybe the pain he carried in his chest was his and his alone.

He tried not to think about it.

Tried to remember that they were brothers because Chan had agreed. He wasn’t alone. He was overreacting.

Wasn’t he?

But then Boon took over from him like it was nothing, standing at Chan’s side like a protective dog and barking at Khatha whenever he got close. And Chan did nothing to stop it. Khatha started to feel like all those insecurities he’d been pushing down had been right all along. So he lashed out.

Freak.

And that made everything worse. Chan turned and walked away from him, and then he really became nothing. He was nobody’s brother, nobody’s friend, nobody’s anything. He was back to being alone and he’d done it to himself. Chan didn’t want him anymore. And even knowing that, Khatha still wanted to be by his side, to protect him, to stay together. Even if all he was to Chan was another patient, Chan was his brother. His friend. His… something. He was something.

So Khatha did something stupid.

He should have known it was a lie, but he felt so rejected by Chan and so worried for his safety that when that ridiculous, frustrating, moustachioed man told him Chan would be spared, he couldn’t help but believe him. The soldiers would try to kill him regardless because of how humiliated the man had been, and Khatha truly believed that his deal would save his brother.

His…

Instead, he had to watch as the man he loved so dearly was burned at the stake, knowing it was all his fault. He had to watch as Chan watched him back, saw right through him and cursed him in his dying breath to live with the pain of his actions for eternity, and he knew that it was only what he deserved.

The curse Chan cast wrapped itself around that ache under his ribs and took up residence there.

And he walked the Earth alone again, like he always had, but with a new weight between his shoulders and guilt and love and remorse in his chest constantly clawing to get out.

It took a few more decades for the right words to reach his ears.

Adoration.

Infatuation.

Partner.

Soulmate.

Love.

He always known, really. But now he had the right words. Not familial, but romantic. Not brothers but… something. Maybe if he’d used them back then, things wouldn’t have ended up the way they did. If he’d been braver, admitted that he didn’t think of Chan as his brother but as something different, something more- instead, he carried it with him, letting that ache overtake him until it was all he became. He loved Chan. He loved and he loved and he loved. The kind of love you’d die for. But he wasn’t allowed to die. Chan had seen to that. It didn’t matter how many times he’d tried - and oh, how he’d tried - he could never reach the other side. He could never see the love of his life again.

Decades passed.

Then a century.

Then another.

He grew colder as the years dragged on. That ache in his chest had festered into something bitter and broken. Eternal loneliness was a cancer and it was eating from the inside.

And then-

“Chan?” He couldn’t believe his eyes. He must have been dreaming. He’d dreamed Chan’s face hundreds, thousands of times since that day, usually with that expression he’d worn as he cursed him, the disgust and rejection and hurt, but this was different. This man walked right past him like he didn’t know he existed, which the Chans of his imagination had never done. They always had to remind him of his sins before they blinked out of existence. So he turned and followed the path the man had taken, still not quite convinced he was real.

When he saw him step out of the shop with that bouquet of flowers, looking just like he had the last time he’d seen him but with no flicker of recognition on his face, he knew this wasn’t Chan.

But it was suspicious.

Nothing magical was ever a coincidence, and there was a power radiating out of Dome that he’d rarely felt before. In fact, everything around Dome was suspicious. His friends, his home, his memories, or lack thereof. Khatha followed him until that wasn’t enough and then he started visiting the coffee shop where he worked until that ache in his chest overwhelmed him and he offered him a job.

Immediately, it felt like a mistake.

He didn’t know how to treat him, because Dome wasn’t Chan, but he had his face and his power and he was kind and selfless and endearing in all the worst ways, and that old ache started to wake up, to shake off the shackles of resentment and bitterness and start humming beneath his ribs again. He lashed out at Dome after the museum was robbed, because he couldn’t help it, because he couldn’t let those feelings return. But it was too late. He rescued him, died for him, woke up, and knew that whatever this was he was trapped in it. Whether it was a trap or a cruel twist of fate or something else entirely, he didn’t care. Dome had the face of the love of his life and he would spend the rest of his life trying to make sure he was safe, to atone for the past. Dome had to live, because Chan hadn’t. Because all of this was Khatha’s fault.

And of course, Dome kept throwing himself into danger. Trying to save people, touching cursed artefacts, putting himself between Khatha and murderers. He had so much power beneath the surface, but aside from that magic he was weak and vulnerable and in need of protecting, like Khatha had been all those years ago. And through it all he was unfalteringly, devastatingly kind. He looked up at Khatha like a kid looking for approval sometimes, and other times with something like fear, and even affection. Chan had been stingy with his emotions but Dome wore them all on his face and in his hands that reached for Khatha’s arms and in the steadiness of resolve when he was putting himself in front of Khatha to take the brunt of the danger.

Would it even have been possible for Khatha not to fall in love with him?

It felt worse than being in love with Chan somehow, because that love was still there, tied firmly to the curse he was laden with, but this new thrumming was amplifying all of it. Loving Dome felt like a betrayal and fate and something forbidden and unforgivable and inevitable all at once.

He tried so hard to ignore it, but he knew it must be increasingly obvious to everyone else. Everyone bar Triphob, apparently, who was almost comical in his obliviousness. Khatha had only explained as much as he felt was important, and he’d used the word “brother” because that was easier than “soulmate” or “the man I betrayed” or “somebody I loved so badly it destroyed everything”. Triphob took him at his word and kept reminding him that Dome was not his brother. As if Khatha didn’t already know that. Even his short, annoying police officer friend seemed to figure it out, if the way she snapped at him in the station was anything to go by.

Dome seemed to know something. Maybe not the full extent of Khatha’s feelings, but enough that he didn’t argue when Khatha fired him, enough that he called him just to tell him he was okay, enough that Khatha felt like he was beyond transparent, like he was being looked at through Chan’s eyes and understood and condemned all at once.

He thought he’d done the right thing by sending him away. Keeping him close had only put him in more danger, and constantly having to see him in pain or unconscious was becoming too much. So Khatha had done everything he could to protect him. He bought him a protective bracelet and sent him home to his normal life and he hoped that would be enough.

Of course he was wrong.

Khatha failed to protect the man he loved, again, and now he was in a coma and he had absolutely no idea how to bring him back, or even if he could.

At first all he did was sit in the library and pour over every single resource he had to see what might help. June and Triphob and even Triphob’s bothersome cop friend were doing something similar, but he could also hear them whispering about him when they thought he couldn’t hear. About how he wasn’t sleeping, he was trying too hard, he needed to take a break. But he couldn’t. Not while Dome was still in danger. In fact, the only way he managed to get any sleep at all was to drink himself into a stupor and stumble home, hoping he got to his bed fast enough to just pass out. Bam - he knew her name, he just liked teasing Triphob - had been surprisingly compassionate, picking him up and driving him home when his drunk and disorderly behaviour was called in. Every time she did it, she said it would be the last time, but she kept coming anyway. He knew it was pity, but he was too strung out to care.

When he stumbled through the wrong doors just to get away from the two of them having a silent conversation over his head, the last thing in the world he expected to see was Dome, peering in at one of the cursed objects with a faint smile.

Then he straightened, smile widening as he saw Khatha and set off running.

Khatha’s heart skipped a beat and he caught Dome because he couldn’t do anything else, wishing against all the parts of him that knew this was a lie. He wanted it to be real, to be true. But Dome had never leapt at him like that, Dome had never behaved this way, he’d never talked so glibly to him, or anyone for that matter. So he bit the bullet and confronted reality. The alcoholic haze over his vision cleared the moment The One revealed himself.

The One smiled with Dome’s lips and it was twisted and hateful and wrong, and nothing had felt so jarring to Khatha in all his years on Earth. Dome living with Chan’s face was one thing, but The One stealing Dome’s was just so revolting.

It only got worse from there.

His past was playing on a screen in front of them.

“Let’s play a game. Who killed the witch?”

I did.

I did.

I did.

Watching Chan burn again was like a thousand daggers to his heart. He thought he had it permanently ingrained in his memory, had spent decades of his life trying to escape it, but it must have softened over the years. This was visceral and the heat of the flames reached his face as Chan looked down at him and cursed him to drown in the sin of his own making.

“Chan knew why you did what you did. He just couldn’t forgive you. Don’t hope for something that will never come. Don’t betray what you already have. Because if you make the same mistake again, the deaths you saw today might actually come to pass.” The One said every cruel word with that faint, mean smile, and Khatha felt a creeping sense of foreboding that this was only the beginning of whatever he had planned.

“Where- Where is Dome right now?” He scrambled to his feet, dignity long since forgotten. Begging was all he could do now.

“Nowhere too far. But like I said… here, but not right here. He can’t be there too long. That place is way too close to death. But you have to be the one that gets him out,” The One pointed at him, as if there was ever any chance that Khatha would let somebody else do it. “You’re going to need one thing though… the key.”

“What key?” Khatha asked. “What key? Wh-”

Dome’s body crumpled to the ground, and it was Dome’s body now, he could tell. He crouched at his side, silently apologising for everything he’d ever done to bring them to this point. Behind him, the mannequin stepped off its podium to taunt him, promising him he would be playing a bigger role in his game.

Khatha didn’t care what his game was, all he cared about was getting Dome back.

He looked up at the others, who were staring back at him with some mix of apprehension and worry, and he knew that even if they didn’t trust him right now, they trusted that he wanted to get Dome back. They would help him because they cared about Dome too.

He picked up the unconscious body of the man he loved and he carried him back to his bed, laying Dome down in the bedroom he’d barely gotten to use before he’d kicked him out. Some good that had done.

Who killed the witch?

I did.

He wouldn’t let him die this time. He would do anything to prevent Dome from coming to any more harm. He would fix the mistakes he’d made that led them here and he would make sure Dome lived a long, happy life, even if that was far, far away from him.

He’d been cursed to a life of suffering by the man he loved and all it had done was make his love stronger. That ache in his chest had become a weapon, because as long as Dome was still breathing, Khatha had something to fight for.

This time, he had the right word for it.

Love.