A/N: I tried to learn some muscles for this chapter. My knowledge comes straight from Google, so I apologise for any inaccuracies.

Whis sat in his chair, absorbed in a book. Beerus was lying on the sofa, book in hand, but not absorbing a single word. Still, he turned a page occasionally to keep up the illusion he was reading. Instead his mind wandered as he planned how he was going to offer Whis a massage. Any minute now he hoped. First he had to pick the perfect order of words and rehearse it ten times in his head.

Should he come right out with it? Keep it casual? Or maybe walk over and make it a wordless offer? What if he was absolutely rubbish at it? What if Whis hated it? He liked to think he knew how to massage someone, having received many over the centuries, but what if theory wasn't enough?

Should he go and practice on someone else first? Go to planet Sarkay, pay for someone to spend time with him, get them to teach him. That was the only way he'd manage to do this behind Whis's back.

Or ask Whis. He almost scoffed aloud at his own thought. Ridiculous! And yet… It made sense to ask the one who was clearly the best. Oh my god. No, it was a perfect idea. He asks Whis to teach him – not even mentioning why. And then he gives Whis a massage to 'make sure he's doing it right.' Then it looks like that wasn't his intention all along.

But I want Whis to know I want to do this for him? And yet he didn't. Not right now. Maybe it could be a big reveal? No, no, that's too much. But he would tell him the truth eventually. When he was ready.

"My lord?"

Beerus whispered a profanity as he realised he'd lowered the book to cover his face while he got lost in his thoughts. "Yes?"

"Would you prefer to get into bed?"

"No. I…" He sat up and stretched. "Was wondering if you'd teach me how to give a massage."

"Oh? Of course."

It was just that easy. And mostly according to plan. Everything was a bit more clinical than Beerus had anticipated; Whis took the job of educating very seriously. He would point out places on Beerus's body, giving the anatomical name, pressing down to demonstrate what should be felt – and what shouldn't be! – and then, to make sure Beerus knew, he would make the destroyer locate the same place on Whis's body.

It was a lot of information to take in, but he was glad that Whis was thorough. "What's your favourite place to be massaged?" Beerus asked as they neared the end; Whis was testing him now.

"The trapezius."

Beerus ran his hand down the back of Whis's neck, out to his shoulders, and then back down between his shoulder blades.

"Well done, my lord. Perfectly located."

"I feel like that would be most people's answer. There's a lot of it."

"Well, to be specific, the base of the trapezius, right between my shoulder blades, is my favourite area. Did you want to share the proper name for your favourite place?"

He couldn't lie, because Whis knew exactly where that was. "Lat…" Why did it have to be the most difficult one? "Latimus dorsi?"

Whis smiled. "Latissimus dorsi, yes. I'll test you again to make sure you remember."

"Thanks, Whis. I appreciate it."

"Is there a reason you wanted to learn?" Whis asked. "Perhaps for someone?"

Beerus felt his face heat up as Whis gave him a sly smile. "N-no! Maybe! It's none of your business." Except it was entirely Whis's business. He'd panicked at the opportunity to tell the truth.

"My, my. You know, I thought you'd wanted to learn so you could teach those masseurs on planet Suna how to do it properly, but clearly not."

Beerus wanted to die. If only he'd played it cool… "You'll find out eventually, so just don't worry about it."

Whis laughed behind his hand. "But if I'll find out anyway, you may as well just tell me now!"

"Nope!" Beerus was already scrambling for the door, deciding to go and hide elsewhere in his castle.

Ooo

Although he had envisaged himself straddling Whis's hips when he delivered the massage, he couldn't quite find the courage to ask to do so when it came to it. Whis had prepared an actual massage table, just like the ones they'd visited in the parlour.

"Well, show me what you've learnt," Whis said once he'd removed his robe and got comfortable.

Beerus delicately traced the skin, starting at the neck. "The trapezius – your favourite part." His hands moved outwards to his shoulders. "The deltoids. Then the infraspinatus, and teres minor and major." He'd practiced saying these aloud so he wouldn't mess it up, knowing Whis would be impressed if he could pronounce them all correctly. His hands spread wide, caressing the back of his ribs. "The latissimus dorsi." That one he'd paid special attention to. Now he took hold of his sides, just above the hips. "The obliques. And finally…" He draw shapes around the muscles at the top of Whis's buttcocks. "The gluteus medius, minimus, and…" He couldn't help but caress Whis through the fabric of his trousers. "The gluteus maximus."

"Oh? You did some extra reading?"

"I wanted to impress."

"Well I am. I didn't expect you to remember half the muscle names, let alone throw in a few extra."

"Do you really have so little faith in me?" Beerus asked, only slightly offended.

"No, but I didn't expect you to have paid attention to the names in the first place. I thought your interest was purely in how to tend to the muscles rather than what they're called."

"But you said –"

"That I would test you, yes. But this was before you revealed this was not to show the masseuse up. Although, now you do know the names, I think that will be good for when we discuss how you can improve your physique during training. Now, how about you show me what you've learned? I can see you have the theory, but how about the practice?"

Beerus began to caress the muscles as Whis had shown him, starting at the shoulders.

"Oh, and one more thing," Whis said. "Are you intending to massage my ass?"

"No. Unless you wanted me to?" It had taken enough courage to even touch Whis there as he'd named the muscles! How could he think he could do any more than that?

"No, no, I was just checking."

They lapsed into silence while Beerus concentrated on his ministrations and Whis started a list of things to critique about his technique.

"Are you nervous, my lord?"

Of course he was! He wanted to do his best to please Whis! "What gives it away?"

"The lack of confidence in your touch. Don't be afraid to push a little harder."

Beerus did as requested, trying not to let his mind wander as he did so. A few thoughts had passed through his mind in the past few minutes and he really needed to not focus on them at this moment. They would only distract him.

He saved the trapezius muscle until last, taking extra care with how he pressed his thumbs between the shoulder blades. For the first time since he started, there came a pleasured sigh from Whis. Beerus wanted to yell about this small success! He'd made Whis feel good! Nothing like the professionals, but this was his first try after all. If he could improve his technique, maybe he would be further rewarded.

"That's enough, my lord." Whis sat up and stretched, ready to deliver his list of improvements. It started out rather bad, but Whis said that his mid-massage tip had greatly improved the experience. "…And then at the end you seemed to go in a bit too hard."

Beerus looked embarrassed as he realised Whis had noticed his game. "Sorry."

"No, no, it's good in a way. It showed that you were growing in confidence. Really, I think that all you need is a bit more practice. I would advise that you find a few others to test it out on as we're not all shaped the same way, and certainly don't enjoy the same things. What is too light for me could be precisely right for someone else."

Again, here was an opportunity to just let it slip that he was trying to please Whis. He let it pass again. Certainly he would be taking the advice as he didn't want to have to build up to the perfect massage through hours of attempts on the person he wanted to please.

"Don't look so glum – you did well for a first attempt. Or perhaps you're waiting for me to offer to return the favour?"

"Yes, please," Beerus said uncharacteristically quietly. "You are the best, you know."

"I know. You've praised me with such high compliments more than once. I think it's simply that I'm more familiar with your body than others." Whis ran his fingers down the underside of Beerus's neck, the destroyer leaning into the touch. "And I'm not afraid to touch you in places others might not dare to."

Beerus took Whis's place on the table and requested a pillow. Resting his cheek against it, he finally let his thoughts run wild.

Okay, firstly why was it such a big deal to touch Whis's ass? He'd touched many asses in his life, and most of the time he hadn't thought twice about it. I mean, it's because it's Whis, right? Whis who probably wouldn't appreciate a touch like that. Right? He didn't know though – he'd never asked. Whis seemed just fine with physical contact. The angel had never once told him something was too much, right? He racked his brains for an instance, coming up with nothing. Even when he had touched his butt this evening there was no response. But it was clinical. When Whis had asked if Beerus was going to massage that area, was that a concerned question? Why would he ask if he wasn't against the idea?

This was getting ridiculous. He was finding more questions than he'd begun with. It was becoming overcomplicated. It was a big deal because it was Whis. End of story. Next.

Why was I so nervous? He couldn't pretend he wasn't because Whis had called him out for it. Well, he had an easy answer. Because I was eager to please. For some wild reason he'd truly believed he could produce the perfect massage first time. Foolish. But this led on to his next thought. Why am I so obsessed with making Whis moan like one of the whores? The answer he told himself was: because that is a sign I'm doing a good job. And yet he knew there was some other reason he desired it. A reason he certainly wasn't going to entertain while the angel had his hands all over his back - not that he wanted to entertain the reason at any other time.

"My lord, is something wrong?" Whis asked.

"No."

"Why is it taking me so long to un-tense your muscles then? And why is your tail tapping the table in a disgruntled manner?"

"I don't know," he lied. He'd have to put a stop to the tail-tapping immediately.

"I'm concerned. You didn't like the wonderful massage on planet Suna, and now you're not responding to my touch like you usually do. Are you sure there's nothing wrong?" Whis began to probe him in a different way. "You're eating as usual, training hasn't been particularly strenuous recently… Are you sleeping well? You did miss that nap the other day."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, alright. Stop fussing." He sat up, deciding he'd had enough.

"Is there another source of tension that needs addressing?"

"No."

Whis narrowed his eyes, fast running out of ideas as to what had been upsetting Beerus recently. Unless of course he was lying about one or more of the things already mentioned. "You can tell me what's wrong. It's my job to fix whatever it is after all."

If only he could even think the thoughts that would allow him to figure out what was wrong. Nothing is wrong. Whatever it was would surely pass in a few days or weeks, like everything else seemed to. "Goodnight, Whis."

Hearing the finality in Beerus's voice, Whis could only wish him a good sleep.