Page 7 of Untouchable

Just deal with it,Harp thinks, clenching his jaw and trying to remember the advice of "just keep breathing." He's going to need it.

Parker’s elbow finds the knot and applies a slow, steady pressure, using his body weight to push through the knot.

The sensation is a wall that Harp hits going a hundred miles an hour. He's not hurt.

He's obliterated.

The pain is so complete and abrupt and consuming that Harp can't breathe. He can't fill his lungs. He sucks in an audible breath and Parker must mistake it for something affirmative because the pressure changes but it doesn't let off.

“Great job,” Parker says as the muscle tenses, then releases suddenly. “You’re almost through, okay? Just keep breathing.”

Parker eases off and the sick bear-trap snap of pain is gone, leaving a vacuum in its wake that Harp struggles to fill up with oxygen.

He can't do that again.

Before Parker can touch him, Harp moves without thinking, sitting up abruptly on the table and shying away as if Parker had been rearing back to deck him, not moving to massage a knot.

"Don't," he says, curling his body awkwardly around his hip. When he reaches for the tender spot, he realizes his hands are shaking and he's seized with horror.

* * *

It takesParker a second for his brain to catch up—one moment he was in the middle of a treatment, and the next his client has leapt away from him, practically cowering. Parker is aghast.

The worst part is, Parker thought he’d been gentle. He was using only a fraction of the force he can apply when he’s really digging into a muscle, but apparently he’d seriously misread his client’s body language.

“I?—I’m sorry—“ he sputters. “Are you—are you okay?”

* * *

Harp hates himself for this,for how much it hurts, for the fact that he couldn't even make it through the first session, for the clumsy way he's holding his body, just trying to breathe.

He hates Parker, too, for reasons he knows probably make no sense.

Harp hates him for being in the house, for showing up when he wasn't expected, for his sterile politeness, for the way that he is everything Harp isn't: neat, put together, inoffensive, professional, not shaking on the edge of some table and losing his cool.

Anxiety squeezes around Harp's heart, his lungs. He needs this stranger out of his house. This was a mistake.

* * *

Harp says nothing,and Parker’s panic, which has been simmering just under the surface, starts to grow.

“What ha—did you—I’m sorry—I’m so sorry if I—”

He wants to know what’s going on in the client’s mind, in his body—because clearly it’s nothing good—but only feeble apologies come out.

Parker feels a wash of shame, too, hot and sticky against the cold prickle of panic. This is his job. This is supposed to be the one thing he’s actually good at. And it’s become very, very clear that Parker has just done a lot of damage—though whether it’s physical or psychological, Parker still can’t tell.

You’re an idiot. You’re a fuck up. You can’t do anything right,chants the old refrain in the back of his mind.

* * *

“I—Ican adjust your treatment if—I mean, like, it’s my job to—” he stammers.

"Then you, like, failed your fucking job," Harp says, his voice half-growl as he struggles to catch his breath, to calm his heartbeat.

“I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean—I—”

"This isn't going to work," Harp says. He stands from the table, steadying himself with one shaking hand and wrapping the sheet around his waist awkwardly with the other. After he’s steady, he moves to retrieve his clothes from the bed.

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