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It had taken Lionel well over a year to finally pin down the feeling that had been slowly creeping up on him, and now that he had, he didn’t like what it said about him or the company he kept.
Because the only human touch he’d gotten in the past three years—not counting his son, and God was he grateful for those unassuming hugs, the chance to ruffle his hair or wipe a little ketchup off his cheek—the only adult human touch, ever since Maureen left him, was… HR.
People he’d once called friends, and yet by now he knew them as the kind of scum of the earth where a passing grip on the shoulder left a residue behind like an errant slug.
But now there was the man in the suit, whose casual threats and occasional assaults jarred with a surprising tolerance for Lionel—for the lost soul who’d been tasked with murdering the guy the first day they met. And his touches burned. Maybe it was the awareness that the guy had been pushed even deeper into the muck than Lionel had been.
Or the stinking suspicion that they’d both started with the same naive idealism, the same desire to do the right thing, but that destroying the guy’s idealism had taken a trip through the seventh circle of Hell.
For Lionel, it had taken merely a stack of money and a little pat to his pocket, and just enough mixed feelings to let him ignore his conscience, learn to play dumb and play along. And now he was in the muck up to his neck and he couldn’t see ever getting free of the swamp, let alone being able to finally wash off the grime and the stink.
But every pat to the cheek, every time Mr. Lethal Smirk slammed him up against a chain-link fence to remind him of his place in the world, Lionel felt like at least one guy in the world knew exactly what he was—and had gone through it, and worse, and come out the other side. No longer the boy scout he used to be, sure, and maybe not entirely out of the swamp, but walking on solid ground. Using his skills not to harm the innocent, but to defend them from the sort of vipers that Lionel’s been allied with for far too long.
And that thought made him want, desperately, to clutch at the guy’s coattails and follow along through the swamp until he felt that solid ground.
Not like there were many other options for him, not any more.
And then there was… Carter. And Fusco tried not to show it, but he hated being touched by her. Hated the casual way she squeezed an arm, or pressed a coffee cup into his hand, or even just shared a knowing glance. Those, it felt a lot less like he was being burned and more like… like he was somehow hurting her. Leaving that same residue behind. Contaminating her, and she didn’t even realize, and Lionel… well, he was too much of a coward to actually tell her, not now, and yet… surely that was a moral failing, not letting Carter know the kind of things she was tarring herself with, purely by association, even just a link or two removed.
It could all get back to her, probably would someday, and maybe it was far too late for Lionel but it wasn’t too late for Carter… if only she knew.
If only he weren’t too cowardly to tell her.