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The idea of a massage makes Ghost’s fucking skin crawl. It's not complicated why.
But the idea ends up having nothing on you.
Garrick wouldn’t fucking shut up about you. Then Johnny and König wouldn’t. They even roped Price in. And then Ghost had a fucking shoulder injury that wouldn't heal right, and the fucking Physical Therapist had put in his official fucking recommendation.
You agreed to Ghost’s conditions over the phone – “Clothes on, door open, and I’ll have my head covered. Not negotiable.” – and you were used to working with military, so maybe that was something.
If it wasn't... he’s done hard things before. Gotten around rules and procedures plenty of times before, too.
But then the day came, he showed up, and you took one look at him and what you didn't do was try to tell him to get on your table. Or the shiatsu chair that would put you at his back all the same.
You had Ghost sit in a regular chair. Then you crouched down just off to his side and you got to work on his gloved hands. Gave some bullshit excuse for starting there when it was his shoulder that was messed up.
And you.... Fuck you.
You weren't scared of him.
It was like you met big fucks dressed as death with the light gone from their eyes every day. He could tell you weren’t afraid, even though you never looked up. You glanced at his forearm and thigh a few times, even his foot twice, and that was all you needed to know how to adjust.
Apparently, even when he was fucking covered head to toe in thick clothing, you found him easy to read. Like an open fucking book.
So yeah: Fuck. You.
You asked him about the pressure twice, but otherwise, you were silent as you worked up his arms and moved to stand at his side to start on his back. You never leaned over him, never tried to get behind him. Your eyes almost never left the area around your hands, but you could tell not just where he had knots, but what hurt, and what felt better than he'd ever admit.
You got him to lean forward so you could get below his shoulder blades and didn’t say anything about the fact that he was tight as a rappel line the whole time.
The third session he had with you, he ended up in the goddamned shiatsu chair. His eyes closed that hour, just for a second. Barely let himself blink after that.
The fourth time, he closed the door on his way in – always showed up right after you went in looking for him – and the sixth time… he layed down on the fucking table.
Somewhere that day, you find some knot, feel your way into some muscle, and he just… liquefies. He feels relaxed, didn’t know he could feel that way anymore.
Something starts moving through him, like an echo in reverse, crashing and screaming and scraping louder and louder the closer it gets, and when he realizes it, he couldn’t say how much later, he’s up and damn near bolting from the room without a word or a look back.
He shows up at the next appointment and hands you the completion form – despite the fact that his round of prescribed sessions isn’t done – and tells you to sign and post-date it.
All you do is look up from the paper to his covered face, your eyes moving back and forth between his, glance at his fucking tit like you can see through to his back injury, then sign off without a word. Little tension in your neck, but otherwise nothing. No pity, no annoyance, no judgement, no fear, not of him, or apparently any professional consequences.
Just as he’s passing through the door, you tell him that if he wants to come back, you’ll open up a spot for him. And you fuckin’ say it calm, like you know he’ll be back. See you on Tuesday, Ghost.
He looks into you after that. You’re a good person, as good as anyone comes. Don't even have any bloody parking tickets. You visit extended family in the north every year around the holidays, own an adopted dog, give to charity. You volunteer with vets, do the same thing you do at work for free. (When do your hands get a break?)
You become a sick sort of obsession. You crawl under his skin – that feeling of melting crawls under his skin – and his hate of you solidifies, turns into something slower and colder. He doesn’t care that it shouldn’t be isn’t right.
He’s back in your room two months later, and sees you at least once a month when he’s not deployed. Usually more.
You don’t say anything the days he leaves your room hard, either.
Ever the fucking professional.
And then… one of the lads has to go and make a fucking comment. Doesn’t matter that they’re all two months into a dark operation and completely isolated the whole time, doesn’t fucking matter. Because you’re as good as you are, because you read a body that isn’t isn’t even moving, without words, without breath, without a face to look at. Because you seem to know just what it needs, what it wants, what it’s feeling every second you're working it, like you’re inside it. Like you knew when Simon had finally come apart on your table. He’d been able to feel it in your hands.
“Yeah, but that's what I'm saying, innit? Just hypothetically, ok, imagine what else she’d be good at. Imagine her with your cock. Right? Hands, mouth. C—”
Stops fucking talking quick when Ghost’s size 14 boot hits the wall an inch from his face.
Because the problem is, Ghost already has been imagining it. He’s been imagining it since you sat him down and made yourself small in front of him and your eyes jumped up to his as you went, just a quick glance, steady and clinical. Perceptive. He’s thought about it obsessively. Has your eye color etched into his brain.
He also thinks about what you’d make of someone who could read you right back. How would you handle that? How much would it take before you went liquid, too?
Would you give in right away, or would you fight it, make him work taking you apart?
Would he want to do it again once he had, or would once be enough? Too much? Would he have you close the door to your room and fuck you against it slow, see how quiet you could be? How much control do you have over yourself? How much does it take to break it, and what do you look like when your seams are ripped open? When you can’t think?
He has the thoughts, pictures every detail of taking you apart and ruining you. Pulling you right up to the edge until you can see him at the bottom. Until you think you want to dive in. That’s when he snaps out of it and the thoughts make him sick. Most of what he wants to do to you makes him sick. But he keeps having them. Keeps deciding to stay away from you and your fucking hands and your fucking room and your fucking table, stays away for weeks or months. Keeps going back eventually.
Garrick starts tossing around the idea of asking you out. Getting you to ask him out, because you'll want it so much you'll find a way to reach over professional lines.
You won't, though. You're not the type. You rely on the lines. You understand them, and he wants to yank you across until you can’t put them back together or even find where they were supposed to go again. But is that because they keep something out, or keep something from getting out?
No, Garrick isn't what you need. Not even what you want.
Who could blame Ghost if he sighs, laying on the couch at his place one night, because he's gotten hard again? Or if… if just this once, he decides to touch his cock while thinking about you, just a little, just to test. Just through his trousers. If he ends up taking it out and lightly, carefully rubbing his thumb over its head, expecting this whole thing to crash down around him at any second….
If he thinks about having you under him, pinned by his weight, his hand fisted in your hair, keeping your head back so far your neck is bowed while you're fucking sobbing. Or one arm wrapped under your hips with you face down to keep you angled, to keep you from moving even a millimeter, other arm wrapped around your neck, fingers digging into your back while he slams his hips into you over and over and over and over….
…If, for the first time in a long, long time, Ghost manages to cum, and it's so fucking intense it makes his back arch off the couch….
……
…Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck.
He has to stop seeing you. Has to.
……
He knows goddamn well that he won't.
He sighs again, bookending the shitshow, one arm thrown over his eyes. Definitely not thinking about where else that arm just was in his mind, definitely not already starting to picture it again.
He scrubs a hand down his face, stopping when his fingers grip his jaw. He digs them in until it hurts, holds them there like that.
Ghost looks over at the back of the couch, now a mess of cum.
He lays there, no sound but the quiet fridge motor kicking on, his breathing already gone back to silent, knowing he needs to get up. Knowing he's got a fucking mess he needs to clean up now, and knowing... knowing it's not going to keep holding.