“Get me a beer, Brett?” John murmured, showing that he was aware that Brett was there, even if it looked like he was nearly asleep. A beer. John drank so much, too much, and it wasn’t just bad habits that he had picked up in the army, either. It helped him relieve some of the pain, Brett had seen it in his face.
But that pain always came back.
“No,” Brett surprised himself by saying it. He had always respected John’s right to live his own life, to make his own decisions, and he did now, too. At the same time, something clearly needed to change, and while Brett wouldn’t actually force it on John, it was like something deep inside of him had changed.
A sort of knowledge had opened inside of him, a new eye, one that saw things that Brett had been denying for years. John was so strong because he’d had to be, not because he wanted to do it all alone. He just thought that he had to and that anything that was offered to him, any help, was nothing but charity.
So he stepped up. He let the passivity that had been his cloak and his comfort for years slip, just for a moment. He reached out to John, and not just figuratively, either. Instead, he moved behind the couch, and his hands slid down to rest on John’s broad, massive shoulders.
He squeezed, and it was like squeezing granite. The pain was even worse than he had ever known, at least from the tension which hummed in those muscles, the knots that he could feel, even with just that one, firm squeeze.
“Brett?” John asked, and it was just his name. No curse words, no angry comments, no snark or sarcasm. Just Brett’s name said in a tone more of confusion than of anger or dismay.
“Just let me help.” Brett was practically begging, and he had his own pride, but he couldn’t even stop the tone of his voice from being what it was. More than anything, he ached to help, to give John some release from his pain. His whole body seemed to yearn for it, and he kept his hands where they were, touching John, something that he had done so rarely in the life of their friendship
Funny how it felt good, it felt right. It should have been awkward, shouldn’t it?
“Look, man, I wouldn’t want to take advantage of you, I’m not here to get you to work for free.” John was hesitating, though, Brett could hear it in his voice. “It would be weird, anyway. We’re friends.”
Brett shook his head, didn’t draw his hands away, just standing behind his friend, who wouldn’t quite look at him.
“It wouldn’t mean anything. I’m a professional, it wouldn’t have to be weird,” Brett told him. He had given this thought, and a great deal of it, before he’d made the offer in the first place all of those months ago.
The truth was, he had been worried because he was aware of his own feelings for John. And he had never massaged a friend before, or even anyone outside of work. But when he had sorted it through in his own head, he had been sure that he could do it.
His desire was the same, to help. When someone came in and lay down on his table, when they extended that trust to him, all he wanted was to give them some release from their pain. And when he poked at his own motivations when it came to making the offer to John, it was the same thing. Yes, he loved John, but this wasn’t just an excuse to touch him. This was about helping someone that he cared about. Even if he hadn’t been in love with John, he would have wanted to do this.
So his voice was clear and firm, decisive, but he would still leave the decision up to John. The important thing was that John knew what the deal was.
“I want to do this,” Brett told him, and under his fingertips, which were relaxed, unflexed, on John’s shoulder, he was sure that he felt something change in the muscles. Already, he was positive, some of the tension was leaving them. “It’s up to you, and if you don’t like what I do, you can tell me to stop, but I want to.”
There. That was all he could do, without putting too much pressure on his best friend. So he waited, and he was sure, suddenly, that his offer was about to be rejected, probably brutally thrown in his face by an embarrassed John.
“Okay.” The word came out very, very slowly, after a silence so long that Brett was sure John just simply wouldn’t respond. “Okay. We can try it.”
