8 and jarrich, please, if that's something you'd like to write :)
#8, massages! Again, sorry I didn’t make this sexy. Maybe next time!
“Just so you know. I don’t give good massages,” Richard had said. A preemptive apology - or at least an excuse for one - as he knelt above Jared on the mattress, leaning over his exposed back. “My hands are too bony. And it’s not like writing fucking code 24/7 has helped me build up muscle mass. Heh.”
“Darling,” Jared sighed into the pillowcase. “I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”
It meant so much - more than he could express - that Richard cared enough to try for him; that Richard desired, at all, to attempt this; that he’d noticed the way Jared held himself lately, both tense and wilted, as if his posture, too, was something of a preemptive apology.
Richard pressed down, hard, on the knot in his shoulder, and a shock of pain ran through him - hot, searing, tearing - and the sound Jared made was somewhere between a hiss and a gasp.
“Is that?” Richard paused. “Sorry. It sounded like I hurt you.”
He set back to his task, digging in with bony fingers, pulling - painfully - at Jared’s pale skin.
“Darling,” Jared said, when he caught his breath to speak, as diplomatically as possible. “How would you feel about a couples massage?”