Sometimes, when he's sure no one is looking, he takes Kitty's phone. It's a fancy model, naturally, with a glossy cerise exterior and a camera as good as any he's ever owned. He shuts off his image inducer, pointedly avoids the mirror and takes photos of himself in black-and-white. Looking at the pictures, it's easy to imagine; it's a bit off, of course – pointed ears and too-hairy skin faithfully rendered in high resolution – but the screen is small and his imagination vivid. His mind colours in pinkish skin, lightly tanned from afternoons in the sun with Scott or Evan or Kitty, and soft sanguine lips. Hair in a healthy, normal shade of brown, the kind that gleams faintly golden when the light hits it just so, and eyebrows to match. His eyes, perhaps, would be an ironic but pleasant summer sky blue. He dreams additional fingers on the hand holding the phone, and feet you can fit into regular shoes. Smooth skin that can be touched and even, through a haze of hormones and laughter, kissed. He revels in it, this beautiful and terrible what if?; tries to comprehend how his fingers would feel when he took hold of things, the way he would move without a tail to help him keep his balance, the roundness of his ears if he reached up to touch them. The he sighs, whispers a prayer that might be a request and might be a display of gratitude, and deletes the photo before returning the phone to Kitty's bedside. Looking up as he leaves, he spots his reflection in the dark window and, illusion shattering painfully, walks smiling to join the others in the kitchen. Halfway through the conversation he cracks a joke about his mutation, and as his words are met with laughter he feels his heart break just a little bit more.