Work Text:
To say that DI Alec Hardy was not feeling particularly enthusiastic about this day would be an understatement. After finding the fingerprints of Danny’s father at the murder scene and listening to Latimer’s ridiculous account of what he’d supposedly done the night his son was killed, surely this day would be full of nothing but sunshine and roses when it came to following up on these absolutely delightful pieces of evidence.
If there was one thing Hardy hated with a passion — and there were a lot of things he hated with a passion, like coffee and fish and electric razors — then it was fathers who hurt their children.
He had put on his clothes and was fishing for a tie when the smooth, gentle feeling of silk against his coarse hands gave him pause. He brushed his fingers over the surface of the tie, felt its softness and the way it yielded to his touch, not much, but just enough to remind him of the other times, far too long ago, that he’d also touched such elusive silky softness. He looked at the tie, and its midnight blue colour seemed to stare right into his soul. With grim determination he gripped it, wrapped it around his hand, much like his wife’s soft camisole had once been similarly wrapped around it, and thought of silk and loss and longing.
Then, slowly, still holding the tie in his left hand, he unfastened his trousers with the other.
Surely it wouldn’t make a single bit of difference if he left for work only in ten minutes’ time.