Touch
A Word: I don't know. The gloves are just such an obvious thing that my mind went two ways with them. Either Joseph was a secret midnight assassin, or he was a touch psychic. Just decided to play around with one of those ideas. Also, I think it may turn into a headcanon for me that this is true. Working on another fic that touches on this fact and had to write this out to elaborate my thoughts on it.
.
.
The gloves are as natural to him as his own skin. A life time spent wearing the barriers has ensured that, and Joseph barely notices them. Barely even has to think about the excuses he gives when asked about them, or the jokes he shrugs off when someone brings them up. He doesn't think about it at all except for the times when he has to, inevitably, take them off.
The taps on his bathroom sink are old. Carefully selected by his grandmother before she died and sent to his mother for him. He takes them with him when he moves. Spending a day carefully working on the bathroom of whatever apartment he's leasing. Taking out the old handles and replacing them with his. He'll spend even more time replacing them when he leaves but the effort is worth the trouble it saves him in the long run.
He sets his gloves aside, carefully out of the splash range, and turns the handles on to get warm water going. He feels his grandmother and mother's warmth and love when he touches the metal. Their warm regard and care infused into the metal from them handling it for months before giving it to him when he moved out of his parent's and away from mother's specially made door knobs and appliance handles.
There's an undercurrent of an alien touch under the familiar presence of family, but it's mellow and doesn't overpower them. There is no shock when he touches the taps with his bare hands, no shock on the door knobs he replaced, or anything in the kitchen he brought in himself. The apartment provided appliances waiting in a storage unit for when he moves out. Nothing to see when he touches them because he's spent a lot of time making sure they're safe for him.
His family calls it a gift. The ability to touch things and see, to feel, things that no other human being does or should. A gift passed down more often than not thought the family.
A gift.
Joseph wets his face before reaching for his shaving cream. The bristly stubble of the scruff he's grown over the last three days of bed rest is annoying enough to overcome the cold feel of the machine that filled the can and the boredom of the woman who boxed it. He gets nothing from the foam itself and that's a relief. The razor is old and inherited. The scratch of it passing over his skin is soothing in a way that has little to do with the intent pressed into it.
His mind still screams and flinches when he thinks about going back into work today. He's used up the maximum number of days he could manage to recover from the careless mistake that had allowed him to touch a shard of glass at a murder scene with his bare hand.
Gift.
Joseph's never seen it as a gift. Not when his ability seems to work strongest on the most horrifying and negative emotions. Not when a careless touch had put him right into the shoes of a woman being butchered by her drunk husband. Not when it's her terror and fear that have kept him flat on his back while Sebastian worked hard at getting the charges to stick to the bastard. Not questioning once how or why Joseph was so sure it was him, just giving him a little teasing over his 'conveniently' timed case of the flu.
He carefully works the sharp blade over his skin and imagines the blade takes off more than just the foam and stubble. Imagines it taking off the remnants of the woman that have clung stubbornly to him. It soothes the last of his jitters and, while it won't do much for the nightmares, it makes it easier for Joseph to reach for his new pair of leather gloves -specially ordered and made with no chance of tearing at all anytime soon- and finish getting ready to go back to work.
To go back to a job where his gift can do so very much good, but only at the cost of Joseph's own sanity.
.
.