Chapter Text
"Why the bloody hell are you here without talking to me?!" Alec shouted and threw his hands in the air. It drew everybody's attention, especially, when they'd just seen him all happy and kind.
"What do mean, sir? But you've just-" She looked around to find... well, her boss.
"I what?! I've just left the station and they told me that you'd already left WITH ME." Hardy looked at her with anger and waited for a proper answer.
"I- I'm sorry, sir, but-"
"A'right, I'm done with it. I need somebody to tell me what's going on here." The detective walked away and started taunting the people who didn't answer his questions immediately.
Both of them spend there about thirty minutes, until Hardy decided to go at the station and talk about the suspects. There was an irritating silence between them. Well, irritating for Ellie because Hardy was completely fine with it. He was still angry with her for disobeying him and not informing him about her activity. They got in a car and Alec slammed the door so hard that the DS checked if the wing mirrors hadn't fallen off.
"We will have to contact the doctor who takes care of Judy," Ellie spoke.
"Who's Judy?"
"Our victim, sir."
Hardy only groaned and looked through the window. Ellie still couldn't get what had happened during the last couple of hours but didn't want to dig deeper. Not now at least. Instead, she had to think about how to calm Alec. Then he rembered about an invitation that she got from Brian.
"Brian invited me and a few of other officers to a pub tonight." No reply. "I thought that it would be nice if you came too."
"I don't go to pubs, Miller," he groaned.
"Oh, come on, Hardy. It would be nice. I won't force you to be there all night but only spent there some quality time." She gave him a quick smile since she still had to watch the road. "You don't have any plans for tonight, do you?” Before he could reply, she added. “I know it’s Wednesday, but we are going to be there for a couple of hours and it won’t affect our work tomorrow.”
Hardy thought for a while and admitted that Miller was right. He thought about spending the evening as usual, paperwork and maybe go to sleep afterwards. That didn't sound very tempting and, in fact, since some time he had wanted to go out but didn't really have with who. He wasn’t a big fan of clubbing but recently Daisy had told him to enjoy his life a little more. At first he ignored her of course, but now it seemed more appealing.
“Fine,” he said with a forced kindness. “But I’m not taking you drunk to home.”
Ellie of course ignored his words and focused on the fact that she had finally encouraged him to go out. Her goal was also to make the relationship between him and his colleagues better. It was sometimes sad to hear so mean things about Alec coming from other people at the station.
“I’ll send you the name of the club. We should meet before the entrance,” Miller said.
“Aye.”
After another four hours spent interrogating, Alec was ready to say that he was too tired to go out. Unfortunately, Ellie was too excited for that to let him back off. So they met around 8 pm before a well-known club in Broadchurch. Even though, it was a small town, that club was relatively famous. People from bigger cities came there to have fun.
“Did you even change your clothes?” Ellie asked when he say the man standing in his casual suit and loose tie. She started to miss the clean shaved Alec with his brownish suit and coat. He looked more like a decent human being.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Oh, God. Come here,” she said and took off his tie and jacket.
“Oi!” he shouted and tried to push her away.
“Stay still, knob.” Ellie unbuttoned two buttons of his shirt and tried to fix his hair which was messed so much that every strand was turned differently.
“And now, don’t you look better?” she said, standing before him with a proud smile.
Soon she dragged him inside, giving his tie and coat to a cloakroom. Immediately, Alec’s ears were attacked with loud music and he had to squint because of the amount of lights. Ellie quickly found their friends sitting in one of the osier. She waved at them and took Hardy to them.
“Hey, guys! Sorry, we’re late, but I had to fix that wanker a little,” she said it so that Alec didn’t hear the last part of the sentence.
All of them sat together and start a casual chat. At first they were a bit awkward having their boss with them but after the first round of alcohol they relaxed. Of course, Alec didn’t drink.
“I think it’s time to dance!” One of the officers announced and push through the rest of them and grabbed Ellie with him. They were followed by everybody except Hardy who didn’t feel like dancing. Instead, he went to the bar and sat on the stool.
He had that weird feeling that somebody had been watching him since he had gone here. Although, he didn’t want to focus on that today, his detective instincts didn’t let him do it. There was a moment when Alec wanted to actually join his colleagues on the dance floor but then somebody patted him on his shoulder.
“Hey,” said the stranger. He was around Alec’s age and looked at him with his blueish eyes. He had grayish hair that curled a little. “Aren’t you the man who bumped into me in the forest?” he asked but he didn’t mean to be mad or anything. More like interested.
“Nah.”
“Okay, you’re not the talking type, I get it. So, do you enjoy going there?” the man was desperately trying to keep the conversation with Alec.
“I know bettah places to spend time in.”
“So maybe if I buy you a drink, you’ll like it better? Whiskey I assume.”
“Assume on what?” Alec asked surprised.
“You’re a Scot so I thought that this is what you drink,” the stranger said with an innocent voice.
“How do ya know?”
“‘Bettah places’, ‘how do ya now’. It’s quite obvious,” he chuckled but seeing Alec’s worried look he stopped.
“It’s really that obvious?” he asked seriously.
“Well, it is but hey, it’s nice. In fact, I’ve never met a Scot before,” the man said soothingly. “So what’s with that drink?” Alec nodded in approval and soon they were served with two glasses of whiskey. After just one sip, Hardy could feel that he won’t keep on drinking for so long. He wasn’t much of a heavy drinker.
“Shit, sorry. I didn’t introduce myself. Bill Masters,” he said, drawing out his hand.
“Alec Hardy,” he replied and shook Bill’s hand.
And when the detective wanted to add to call him Hardy, the other man said.
“Alec, that’s a pretty name.” His name in Bill’s mouth sounded so nice that Hardy didn’t want to correct him.
They started talking about their lives. Well, at first it was mostly Bill who talked because Alec was still too sober to say anything about himself. But after a couple drinks more he had a goofy smile plastered to his face. He propped his elbow on the table and stared at Bill. The man occasionally asked Alec about something, but the Scot was more interested in just listening to Masters.
“Are you here alone?” he asked suddenly and momentarily Hardy straighten and looked towards the dance floor where he could see Ellie’s curls.
“Nah, not really.” He looked at the table and tried to avoid Bill’s confused glance.
“Then why are you not with them?”
Alec gave Masters a sad look and turned on his stool to face the bar.
“I don’t think they actually wanted me here.”
“Ow, that’s terrible. Why would they say such a thing?” Bill leaned towards Alec and patted him lightly on his back. Hardy’s view was a little fuzzy because of the alcohol so he leaned into the touch and surprisingly didn’t push the man away.
“I think I’m too complicated and messed up.”
Bill came closer to the detective and whispered in a low voice.
“You know, I don’t really like straight men.”
Alec blushed at his words and tried to hide his face in the collar of his shirt. His attempts were stopped because of the hand that gently grabbed his chin and moved it to the right. Hardy was facing Bill and couldn’t help looking into his eyes.
“Don’t hide from me, Alec, please.”
Both men were getting closer to each other. The music buzzed in their heads and suddenly Alec could even smell Bill's cologne. They were getting closer and suddenly Alec took a look at Masters' lips and jerked away. Suddenly, Hardy's common sense came back and he turned away from him. Bill looked sad but Alec didn't want to give him a disappointment. There was a silence between them and it was getting awkward. Hardy was ready to leave the place when he heard a familiar voice behind him.
"Hardy, I'm coming home, you are going with me?" asked Ellie who took a curious look at her boss' companion.
"Yeah, sure. But you're not staying with the rest?"
"What rest?" she laughed. "We are the last to come back. It's been three hours since we got there." Indeed, apart from Miller, Alec couldn't see anybody from the station nearby. He had spent three hours talking to some stranger. It was quite unbelievable for him.
"Well, then-" Bill gave him an innocent smile and shrugged his shoulders. "I guess, I'll be going too."
"Alright, I'm going to the loo before we go."
And she left them. They were alone again. Just now Alec noticed that there were just a few people in the pub. Most of them were about twenty years and probably didn't have to go to work the next day. Hardy pretended that the surrounding situation was so interesting that he didn't have time to look at Bill. He grew a little impatient and ask.
"I'll be going too, but could I borrow your phone for a while? I really need to call somebody and my battery has died." Alec took his phone from his pocket, unlocked it and gave it to Bill without paying much attention. The man disappeared with his possession and at that moment Hardy realized what he had done.
"Did I just gave my phone to a complete stranger?" he asked the barman who nodded boringly. Alec rubbed his face to sober up quicker and be able to chase the man. But before he could do it, Bill was already next to him, thanking him for lending the phone.
"Thanks, Alec. It was really nice meeting you," Masters said with a broad smile. Hardy only responded with a quiet mutter. After a while he was left by the man and had to wait for Ellie.
When she came back she asked about Bill but Alec refused to say anything. Instead, he jumped off the barstool and almost collapsed on the floor. Too much of sitting made his legs woobly. What's more, he had been still drunk. The DS giggled at that sight and offered to pick him up. The man didn't have really a chance to turn the offer down because before next thing he knew was sitting in Miller's car who still looked at him from time to time. Fortunately for them, she hasn't been drinking so much and could drive safely. For Alec his current state didn't make much difference because he still couldn't drive a car.
Ellie parked her vehicle in a car park and decided to escort Alec to his house. Leaving him alone near the water wasn't a good idea. In front of the door, Alec had problems with finding his keys, so again Ellie had to help him and after a short struggle they'd made it inside. Hardy was in such a miserable state that he didn't care about his collegue standing in his leaving room and started taking of his shirt and pants. Fortunately, Miller stopped him soon enough.
"I hope you will manage on your own from now on," she said and giggled when Alec's head was stuck in his shirt.
"Yeah, yeah, Miller. I'm totally fine!"
The woman left his house and took a look through the window and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that Hardy dealt with the stubborn piece of clothing. She drove away with a smile on her face.
Alec on the other hand gave up the idea of showering and stripped to his boxers and went to bed. He had never felt so exhausted. The amount of alcohol and emotions were too much. Sometimes he just wished to have an ability to sober up immediately.
His inner voice told him to stay up even more and work on the case. But when he touched a pillow with his head, he wasn’t able to force his body to get up. Instead, he thought about Bill Masters. In fact, it has been his first encounter with a stranger since his unsuccessful date. It’s was nice to meet somebody new and Bill seemed like a nice guy. However, Alec want really ready to get involved in new relationships. Frankly, it was quiet extra ordinary that he thought about a relationship while thinking about newly met person. That was not Alec-like.