She always looked so beautiful when she danced.
Of course, she looked beautiful anyway, always, his memory capturing her in a thousand tiny moments — the delicate movements of her long, elegant fingers as she rolled out the bandages; the soft lilt of her voice as she comforted a patient; the warm, gentle slide of her lips against his own in the privacy of their rooms. He almost always thought of her in moments, in pieces. She was impossible to hold in her entirety, ephemeral and gorgeous, a wisp of moonlight with endless, sea-green eyes that had chosen to spend her time with him, to share her love with him…
But never to keep. Never to contain. Never his alone.
He sipped his drink as he watched her dancing, laughing, her eyes bright with joy as they lit upon this partner or the next, spinning, whirling within the colony, a part of the colony in a way he could never be, as he sat here watching… apart.
And how could he ask her? How could he cage her? She was stardust, she was air, she was the flash of light upon the wings of his love, an intoxicant more potent than anything he could get in a glass, an addiction he would come to again and again, taking whatever she gave to him, only what she gave to him — watching her spin amongst the others, her eyes flashing fond amusement as she spun towards him, her voice ringing laughter as it spun her away. Sitting here with his drink and waiting for the moment when the dance failed to bring her back. When he would be able to leave, knowing fully that she would not be joining him tonight.
He took another heavy swig of his drink, welcoming the warm burn of the alcohol, wishing that he could drink enough of it to burn away the ache, to burn away the thing in him that wished to hold her down, to take her, to keep her safe within the confines of his arms and to never her let her go, but he knew there wasn’t enough of him to keep her. He could make a home for her within his chest, to welcome her in whenever she saw fit to visit there, but he could never be enough. His chitin was too thin to hold her, and the light showed through the cracks.
He drank until the room was spinning, until his love felt like it was leaking out from within him, until surely anyone could look at him and see the gaps in his defenses, to see the darkness that curled within his chest — hungry, possessive, reaching for his beautiful whirling love, surviving all of his attempts to drown it, a choking, gasping, spiteful thing. An aberration. Defective. She had never held it against him, same as he refused to hold her biology against her, pretending himself content to sit here, watching, wishing he could choke down mouthfuls of plaster, wishing he could weld himself shut, wishing he could fortify himself enough to capture her, to keep her, to make her truly his…!
Or maybe just to suffocate the thing within him that set him apart from the others. To allow it to drown.