Chapter Text
He hadn’t liked Cutter in the beginning, not really. Oh he did good work, and he was clever, but emotional and impulsive in a way that made Lesters Armani itch.
Somewhere along the way though the scruffy piece of work and his mismatched team of ragtag civilians had burrowed under his skin like lice. Chewing through his good Versace, into his skin and settling in his blood. Oh the man gave him hives on a bi-daily basis but somewhere along the way the misfits had become… important to him.
He’d never admit it but watching Connor step out of the burning wreckage of the A.R.C. with Cutters body in his arms had hurt in places Lester didn’t think he still had. Stupid, impulsive, emotional, idiot.
He’d sat in the car for nearly an hour staring at his flat. Somehow the simple realisation that a bitter, lonely, pencil pushing bureaucrat like him got to go home but men like Ryan, Stephen and Cutter – brave, loyal, clever, infuriating - never would, just didn’t seem fair. What right did he have to go home to his fancy flat, and his designer suits, and his silk pyjamas. It all seemed so… frivolous. So he sat in the car, and watched the rain dash off the windscreen until the sun started to rise, before turning the key and driving back to the ruins of the only life he’d come to know.