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"Need some help there?"
Roxas pauses, arm in mid-rotation swing. It really is uncanny how exactly he looks like Ven; all that gives him away is his reaction to Terra. There isn't the bright and easy smile he's used to seeing in this face. As one might expect from acquaintance to acquaintance, it's a more reserved expression. It still gives him this small drop in his innards. Ven looking at him like that would be a sign of something to worry about.
"Just kinda stiff. It's weird. Maybe it's this body, but I still feel like I've been napping for ages."
"If it would be alright with you," as the words leave his mouth, he is already painfully aware of what he's going to offer and why, "I could help you work the knots out. I did it for Ven all the time when he was just starting training."
If Roxas suspects anything---he gives him a look like the idea at least crosses his mind---it could only be that of surface attachment: you like me because I look like someone you already like. But they're all supposed to be friends now, and get along. In the end, he completes the swing a few more times, then nods. "I guess it couldn't hurt."
Terra doesn't take it personal. It's not wrong, anyway. His first thoughts fly through (my room? is it suitable right now? should I go gussy it up first?) before stopping hard at the reality that he's not going to get a young man he just met this year to lie down on his bed, in any potential state of undress. It's for the better, he tells himself. There's no place he's bothered to make his own yet away from home, and Roxas doesn't have the emotional attachment to his room at the Land of Departure to be charmed by it. And as far as this is supposed to be, it's just a work-out massage. No reason to go dragging him anywhere for mood lighting.
So it is they end up in a corner of the adjoining room to the training area, surrounded by equipment and the baked-in odor of exertion and glimmering steel, old leather, under a veneer of chemical cleaner that hangs around like a haze of fake lemon. It is in this less than ideal circumstance that Roxas sits for him, taking off his top layers with complete unselfconsciousness. Lean boy form, even after all the fighting he must have done by now. Terra sits behind him on the bench. Even here he looks just like Ven. He can feel ages of body memory in his hands just looking at it. The sleepy warmth of his skin even when he's wide awake, smooth as butter, like the supple muscle running beside his spine.
"Has anyone ever done this for you before?" Terra asks, putting in his first tentative contact on Roxas's shoulders. His hands are so large by comparison they swallow him up easily.
"Uh, no." He laughs a little, his body jostling back. "Who would I even ask?"
"Lea---"
"Pfft," is his reply to that. Not without some fondness.
His hands span his back, practically grasping it, as they glide up and down its whole length. Yes, it feels just as he remembered. And from here he knows the pressure Ven likes... is it different for Roxas? He doesn't feel exactly shy as he starts---the territory is too familiar---but he is aware at the same time that part of him wants this to be Ven, that it is not. He puts his knuckles in, carefully, dragging along the skin and feeling his way around the shoulder blades. Feels tense, under that unique soft skin boy feel. He can feel the drag from his calluses. "How's this?"
"A little harder..."
Roxas's breath hitches slightly when he presses his thumbs into the sides of his nape, circling, circling, below his hairline and with the soft baby hairs. The first shock of resistance fills it with more tension before it bleeds out. The tops of his shoulders also stiffen at first. It's like squeezing dough, getting them to relax. He can smell him a little. Just like Ven's sweat. Dewy and light. But he washes his hair with something else. A floral he either doesn't know, or is just some generic mixed scent.
Going just a little lower, into the meat of his upper back, the really sweet spot right above his shoulder blades. Ven loved this spot. So he'd press it until he could feel him almost shivering, making these low little noises of pleasure that went beyond just relief. There's a responsive fleshiness to it right here too, and he hears the small mhm he gets for it. He lingers on it as long as he can without being too obvious, before moving to the shoulder blades themselves, extending and lifting by putting his weight into his palms.
Terra almost doesn't hear it. The throat-stifled sounds he's making. Maybe this is the place he really likes. Or it's around what had been bothering him earlier, so it's like scratching an itch. His thumbs work over into the deltoids, working into the connective muscle. "Good?"
The back of Roxas's head moves as he nods. Then he manages a soft 'yeah'. His back seems to press back into his hands. Terra obliges with a harder pressure for a few moments, until he sees goosebumps creeping up along his skin, then makes the travel down the sides of his spine. Right in the middle passing over the rib cage, he sees then feels the flex of Roxas's back, arching into his touch like a satisfied cat. The reaction makes his heart thud in his head. He can't do it, there's no way it'd be okay, but he wants to reach around and feel up his front to his heart's content. He'd never touched Ven's nipples, never twiddled them between his fingers, but with Roxas he'd know.
He keeps on downwards instead until the band of Roxas's pants are in the way. Then back up, kneading his sides, leaving his skin faintly pink. It's almost like grabbing his waist. If he let his hands be still for a few seconds, he would be.
"Terra..." It's soft, breathy, for a moment like someone else entirely. "I'm fine now. You can stop."
"O-oh. Do you feel better?"
"Way better." His voice is back to what has been normal in the time Terra has known him, Ven's voice but not quite his tone. But the quick way he glances at him over his shoulder is familiar. Cheeks showing as flushed for an instant. "That helped a lot. Thanks."
"You're welcome..."
Roxas stays turned away as he redresses himself. Is his back buzzing, the way Terra's hands are? His shoulder blades stand out so delicately. Once he's decent again he throws back one last look with a nod, and quickly makes his exit.
Terra waits for a while before doing the same, replaying while they're still fresh every aspect of the experience, jotting them down in his memory. Much of it overlaps with Ven, but there were differences, too. That's interesting. If he can do it again, maybe he'll find more. And in the replay, he wonders if the way Roxas left wasn't a little stiff-legged.