The wanting.

It's always there and never quite enough. It haunts him and he hides from it, adding another mask to his collection. It's not even solid, stable, just a lingering ache that waxes and wanes, only fading when the blood level rises and the humanity ends. It's a stain, one that never quite goes away. And the worst part is, he doesn't even truly know what it is. He is lost in his yearning, yearning for something and nothing and everything all at once. He ignores what he thinks it might be. It can never be that. But the self that he hides behind and from is telling him that it is. He knows exactly what he wants but when he does, he doesn't want it. He doesn't want that feeling, but it's all that he aches for. And it's ripping him apart, slowly, tugging at the fraying seams of his sanity. And he wants to explode and make it all go away but he can't, and it won't. And he wants to want it, to feel like everyone else for once, to be the disease for once, and not the doctor. But he knows to accept it is to deny his own self. It's the one battle he can't fight, because there's nothing and everything at stake, no reason and every reason to fight for it. But he can see the truth, and he knows. He is not wanted; he is needed. And being needed is not what he needs. Sometimes he wants to blend in, not the way he usually does – invisible and alone – but to be one of them and not care so much. He feels raw with the wanting, raw and chafed. But it never fully recedes into the dark corners of his mind. He knows that it is wrong, the seed of the sin of the city on fire, yet it has him crippled by it. And he knows. The angel has fallen, yanked from the heavens by the one person who needed him.

He wants to want it because the wanting is not love; that would be the end of him.