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The first time Hardy holds his hand, Carl’s fucking suprised, to put it mildly. It's only for a few seconds, but it's long enough. They’re at Carl’s flat, sitting on his sofa and winding each other up about something stupid, when a message flashes up on Carl's phone and he stops talking right in the middle of some referee's name.
‘What’s the matter with you now?’ Hardy says, but when Carl doesn’t answer he looks at him properly, sees him frowning at the screen. Concern creeps into his voice, ‘What is it?’. And then, ‘Are you alright?’
Carl wordlessly shows the screen to Hardy.
‘Fuck, mate.’ He takes the phone out of Carl’s hand, meeting no resistance, and puts it down on the coffee table. Carl shuts his eyes for a second, but they shoot open when he feels James’ hand in his. ‘I’m sorry, pal,’.
Hardy looks at the message again.
'Unknown Number: Carl, this is Lisa Morck. Your father passed away yesterday. I don't think your presence at the funeral would make the day any easier for anyone else.’
He’s not sure if this is a misstep, but it doesn't feel right to let that pass without comment, and he never really worries about what he says to Carl. ‘Maybe not entirely sorry, judging by that message?’
‘Yeah, there’s not a lot to be sorry for, he was a dick.’
‘That text though, fuck,’
‘Well, it's a dick's move but I don't exactly want to speak to her, so’
‘She your Dad's partner?’
‘No, my aunt.’
James squeezes his hand once more before letting go, and while Carl is desperate to ask him what the fuck he was doing, he thinks that could be a sure fire way of ensuring that James never does it again. It'd felt strange when he'd felt Hardy's hand in his, but he felt stranger now with its absence.
‘Well, it sounds like there’s other stuff to be sorry for, then.’ He frowns a bit, ‘Your childhood, for instance.’ It’s not like Hardy hadn't assumed something like this, what with Carl’s occasional references to his ‘not-so-great-childhood’, but all the same - that text painted a pretty fucking bleak picture. He thinks about asking Carl if he wants to talk about it, but he can see the exhaustion in his eyes.
‘Do you want another beer?’ he asks instead, getting up and heading through to Carl's fridge.
Carl nods, still thinking, before realising that Hardy can't see him. ‘Yeah, cheers’.
That had been the first time, but it had happened a few times since. Moving from something that might happen around the life marking moments such as ‘your Dad is dead’ through to the concerning, ‘your son’s school has called to say he needs to go to hospital’ to one night where Carl is complaining about Moira on the way home from the pub, and Hardy slips his hand into his. It's for seemingly no reason, but Carl still isn’t about to pull him up on it. He expects Hardy to squeeze his hand for a few seconds and then let go, like he usually does (though how they’ve got to the point where there is a usual, Carl still doesn’t know), but he doesn’t. He keeps a hold, and looks up at Carl, eyes uncertain. ‘This alright?’
‘Yes,’
‘You’re not going to crack me in the jaw?’ Hardy tries for a joking tone. He knows that that wouldn't happen, but there's an underlying worry clear in his voice - that he's fucking something up.
‘Fuck off, not for this. Maybe for that last opinion on tonight's game'. They're silent for a moment, before Carl says, ‘Why do you want to?’
Hardy squints at him, ‘Because I like touching you'. He’s generally open in a way that people don’t expect a man like Hardy to be. Now that he's established that Carl's alright with something that looks like it's passed being brushed off as a mate comforting another, he feels he can talk about it.
It strikes Carl as a surprising thing to say, but he must do, Carl realises, when he thinks about it properly. Hardy's often putting a hand on his shoulder, or his arm, and Carl likes it so he's never really considered whether or not he's like that with everyone.
‘I -’ God, this sounds stupid, he thinks. Hardy's better at earnest displays of his feelings. But God forbid he doesn't know that the feeling is shared. ‘I like touching you too.’
Hardy laughs when that comes out of Carl's mouth, a cheeky ‘Aw, thanks pal,’ following.
‘Alright, alright, fuck off.’ Carl says, but he makes no move to drop Hardy's hand.
Hardy squints up at him, then to Carl's flat as they near it, a contemplative look on his face. ‘Do you want to touch me some more?’
There's no room for misunderstanding what that look means, and Carl immediately knows the answer. ‘God, yes.’