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The Khatha he had imagined for himself was different. He smiled more. He smiled at Dome. He sat by his side, looking at him with affection, talking to him in a gentle tone. Not like the real man at all.
Dome found himself wishing—no, it was a pointless thing to wish for. He looked into the future and found himself hoping—but it was a futile hope. He could see only death and destruction in the future.
He looked at the imaginary Khatha and thought of touching him, of placing his fingertips on his cheek, gently so as not to scare him, and he imagined Khatha would look at him with wonder in those big eyes, wonder and hope and lo—he shook his head. This wasn’t real. This was nothing but his own imagination playing tricks on him.
And he knew that the real man, the real Khatha, would never look at him like that. Would never welcome his touch like that. Because the real Khatha was grieving for a different person, someone who shared Dome’s face but nothing more, someone who was long gone.
Dome had seen everything, The One had made sure of that. Dome had seen exactly what it was that he could never have, exactly what Khatha looked like when he loved someone with all his heart, had seen what he had done in the name of that love, how he had betrayed his own integrity, his own values, his own feelings, in the vain hope of being closer to Chan once again.
Dome looked at the imaginary Khatha, that soft expression on his face, and bit his lip and averted his eyes and knew for a fact that this would never be real. Not for him. He wore the same face as Chan, but Khatha would still never look at him like he had looked at Chan, 200 years ago: with longing. With devotion. With love.
Dome lay down to watch the stars, and the figment of his imagination joined him, making a joke about the view, and Dome stared up into the universe and thought about kissing the specter next to him, because that would be the closest he would ever come to kissing the real Khatha. But no. No, that would be pathetic. And it would only make him crave the touch of the real man instead of the imaginary one, make his heart beat so impossibly fast with longing it would be like torture, kissing an empty image would never be enough, no matter how close it came to the real thing.
But it wouldn’t even be close to the real thing. This Khatha would be gentle and kind and loving with him, would smile at him and whisper confessions of love in his ear, but the real Khatha would never do such things. He would never love Dome in that manner, would never look at him with wonder and awe, would never speak of his true feelings, would never see Dome for who he was, would always just look at his face and see his long-lost love there, the only one he had ever loved in all his many years on Earth, and Dome couldn’t stand the thought of being a replacement for something Khatha had lost. He would rather never find out what it was like to touch Khatha, to kiss him, to love him. He would rather not know at all, he would rather never find out what his skin tasted like, what his hair smelled like, what his pleasure sounded like…
The fake Khatha of his imagination nudged him with his elbow and smiled at him.
"Beautiful, isn’t it?"
His face was so open, so free of the inner torment that had plagued the real man ever since he had been cursed. Dome’s heart hurt at the thought, like a cold vice was pressing down on it. He took at deep breath and made himself lie still, made himself not give into temptation.
"Yes," he agreed, looking at the image of Khatha’s face his mind had conjured up and not finding a single flaw with it, "yes, it is."