Work Text:
“So what brings you here today?”
Childe takes a moment to respond. His hair sways when he tilts his head back, the golden red strands catching the light streaming through the windows.
“My shoulders are sore,” he starts with a light voice, “and my back hurts when I try to lift heavy weights. It’s like I have this constant pressure and it radiates down into my lower back.”
You nod affirmatively and rake your eyes over his slim yet taut shoulders. “Okay. Anything else?”
He thinks for a moment, purses his lips and then adds. “My neck.”
“What about it?” You ask when he doesn’t elaborate on it.
“It… hurts.”
You don’t linger on his reluctance to share this piece of information with you, only lift yourself from your chair and move towards him in two strides. You position yourself behind him and place a gentle hand over his shoulder.
“I’m gonna feel around for some knots, alright?”
After receiving a silent nod, you get right to work. The pads of your fingers dip into the folds of his white shirt and circle the expanse of terrain his back provides you with. He groans every now and then, tensing beneath you when you hit a ball of resistance and by the fifth time it happens, you stop and shake your head with a laugh.
“Your back is full of knots. How on earth are you working out? Do you move trucks with your bare hands?”
Underneath the painful throbbing your fingers leave behind, Childe smiles. “Somethin’ like that.”
It’s a vague answer, spoken with a tone of finality that leaves you swallowing the urge to prod further. It’s almost like a warning.
“Alright then.” You clap his shoulder once before leaving his side. “On your back please.”
Childe slips out of his shoes and makes himself comfortable on the massage bed. The paper crinkles underneath his body with each of his movements and after he’s done and ready, he flits his eyes up to you.
Oh. You hadn’t noticed how blue they are.
You clear your throat and remind yourself that he is your patient and crouch right behind his head so you’re on the same eye level. He doesn’t stop staring at you. There’s something cautious about his gaze, something hesitant as if he’s not quite sure he can look away.
You don’t need words to know that anxiety is rolling off of him in waves. You can see it in the subtle clench of his jaw and his fingers that hold onto the table a little too tight. He’s doing this for the first time.
You adjust your stance and move forward to grab his neck, but his hands shoot up in lightning speed and capture your wrists in a bruising grip. There’s apprehension in his expression and his voice is not as light as it was before when he asks, “What are you doing?”
The dull throb in your wrist is nothing compared to the desert in your throat when your eyes meet his. They’re like rogue waves, threatening to plow straight through you to drown in them. A bud of realization blossoms in the back of your head. So he’s that kind of patient.
“I am going to feel around your neck to check where I can adjust you.” You try to level your voice but fail miserably. His expression softens when he hears the fear in your words and his hands loosen so that only the tips of his fingers ghost over your wrist. “Is that okay with you?”
It takes him a moment to respond, but when he does, he does it surely. “Yeah. Go ahead.”
With his permission, you cradle the nape of his neck between your palms and lift his head slightly. Your fingers begin exploring what lies underneath his skin and with circular, deep motions you notice that just like his back, his neck is full of pent up tension.
You bite back a comment and move down to the base of his neck. His eyes still don’t leave you and with a weird feeling of being watched by a hawk, you begin the process of kneading out some of the knots to loosen his joints.
The soft tissue beneath his skin pushes back with resistance, but when you lift yourself off the ground and use the momentum to your advantage to add more of your body weight into it, you can finally feel your fingers sinking in. He clenches his eyes shut at the sudden pain, his lips pressing tightly against each other.
“Tell me if it gets too much.” You say as you slowly drag your fingers up his neck, being careful not to move too fast to overwhelm him.
Once you reach the nape of his neck again, you wiggle his head from side to side, waiting for the tightness on the tip of your fingers to dissolve and spread all over his skull. You repeat this several more times until he no longer scowls and there is nothing blocking your path anymore.
Childe is silent all throughout. If he’s in any pain (which you’re sure he is, if the tenseness between his brows is anything to go by), he doesn’t let you know.
“Okay, I’m going to adjust you now.” And with that you remove your hands from him to give him a second to breathe and back off a bit.
His eyes immediately fly open and settle on you again. He looks like he wants to say something, but doesn’t know how to. And you’ve done this millions of times and can tell what your patients think with one look at their face.
“All I’m going to do is set your atlas straight again. It’s a little off to the left right now.”
“My atlas?”
Your hands are on him once more, this time without warning and although he doesn’t stop you like he did before, his fingers twitch like he really wants to.
You push into the first bone that you can find right at the top of his neck and say, “This is your atlas. It connects your spine with your skull and is responsible for all of your head and neck movements. Go ahead and nod for me, please.” Childe does as asked and when he feels your finger shift underneath him, his eyes widen. “That was your atlas just now.”
“Holy shit.” He whispers. He’s never felt a bone in his neck like that before. It’s definitely a weird feeling - he doesn’t know whether he likes it or hates it.
“So I’m going to set it back straight, okay? It doesn’t hurt, it’s just going to be a bit loud since I’m doing it right beside your ear.” You lick your lips in preparation and ask for good measure, “Have you ever been adjusted before?”
This time, his answer comes faster. “No, my friend made me come.”
You have to try your best to not break out in a smile. He sounds so defiant when saying it, as if he’s a little child who got dragged in by his mother. The pout tugging on his lips almost makes you think of him as adorable.
There’s a strange flutter in your stomach when he looks at you like that, but you’re quick to lock whatever is moving within you away.
Concealing your face with a veil of professionalism, you focus back on the task and move to a light squat. With his neck now securely in your hands, you tilt his head back so his sight is now on your chest. Your cleavage conveniently gives him a first class seat.
What a nice view, he wants to say, his charm begging to be let out, but then he remembers you literally have his neck in your hands and he’s not sure if he wants to die like this.
“Chin back.” Your voice brings him back from his not so pure thoughts and he complies, feeling a tiny bubble of anticipation rise from the depth of his guts.
He doesn’t have any time to really dwell on it though, because in the next instant his ears pop. The sound reverberates inside his skull like a gunshot and for an instant, he thinks you snapped his neck. When there’s no pain following, just a sense of relief washing over him, he mutters without really being aware of it, “What the hell…”
This time you don’t suppress your smile as you tilt his head to the other side. Another series of loud cracks resounds and you make sure to keep his head gently in your hands, even after you’ve finished adjusting him.
A part of him is grateful for the added support, because he’s sure if your hand wasn’t there to catch him, he would’ve clonked right back onto the head of the table. Not that he would ever divulge any of this with you.
“Alright, all in alignment again. Shirt off and on your stomach, please.” You’re already with your back to Childe, busying yourself by placing some of your tools on the counter while he undresses his upper body.
The rustling of his shirt being discarded fills the silence and there’s another stupid comment on the tip of his tongue that he wants to release but doesn’t. It doesn’t stop him from waiting to lie down until you turn back and see him in his full glory though. And it sure as hell won’t keep him from smirking like the smug bastard he’s known to be when he sees your eyes trailing down his chest and then immediately searching for something interesting on the wall.
He takes his time settling on the table and after you finally accept that there’s no more holes to stare through, you look back at him. His mop of messy ginger hair is the first thing that greets you; his head is tucked inside the tiny hole at the head of the table. Smooth pale skin follows next, marred with faded scars and rippling with muscles that show that exercise is not just a pastime for him.
The sight of the abundance of indentations on his skin makes your heart ache. You want to ask what happened for him to look like this, but you have a feeling he’s not going to respond. It’s not your first time dealing with guys like him after all.
So you shove that nosy part of yourself to the farthest corner you can find and stop right in front of his head to crouch into a comfortable position your body is familiar with. The moment of bashful silence from before has vanished.
“I’m gonna work on unwinding your knots before adjusting your spine. This time, I’ll be working with more pressure, so you’re gonna have to show me your limits, okay? I’ll stop whenever you want me to, but if you won’t say anything, I’ll go all the way.”
“Don’t hold back on my account.” He drawls with a lazy smirk, “I can take it.”
He can’t take it.
All of his composure from before is cracked open when you press into his back with your elbow. He doesn’t know where you get your strength from, because you sure as hell don’t look like you could drive him to the ground. The tip of your elbow feels like a piercing blade and if his leg twitches once you reach his ribs, he can’t be blamed.
But still, he doesn’t tell you to stop. Not when his spine feels like it’s exploding into tiny splinters grazing against his skin, not when it feels like a wildfire breaks out inside of him, painting everything a vivid orange, not even when all he sees is blinding white from the immense pain coursing through his veins.
After all, he’s been through worse.
You pull back after a full minute which to him felt like an hour and shake your head disapprovingly.
“You’re not telling me something.”
He lifts his head and looks up with a confused expression. “Come again?”
“You’re not telling me something.” You repeat, nudging your chin in a motion towards his spine. “There’s no way you get sore like this just from working out a lot. What is it that you do for a living?”
Childe escapes your gaze and his voice is almost inaudible when he says, “Odd jobs. Whatever pays the bills.”
You huff and place your hands on your hips to give your disapproval some form. He’s still evading the topic, not allowing you a glimpse into the truth hiding between his weary bones.
“If you’re not giving me the full story, I can’t help you to the best of my abilities. I need to know what I’m working with here.”
You don’t break his intense stare, no matter how much you want to. He’s looking at you as if he’s assessing you, as if he’s trying to figure out how much he can let you in.
“My ribs were broken a while ago,” he says with a defeated exhale, an odd tinge hanging onto the tip of his voice, “and I never got it treated.”
It takes the collective effort of all the strings within your composure to not snap at him with disbelief. Every single part of your chiropractic self wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him back to sanity.
“You what?”
Feeling like a child getting scolded by his mother, he scowls and turns away, “I didn’t get it treated.”
“Well that explains a lot!” You gently push his head back inside the hole and run your hand over his back again, stopping right at the point where some of his skin bulges. “This entire area is swollen… I literally can’t get through the knots to work on your joints. What did you do? Wait for it to get better?”
He doesn’t appreciate the sarcasm dripping off of your tongue, but he’s also heard enough of this spiel from Scaramouche to really care about it anymore.
“Just slept a lot,” he starts, hissing when your finger intentionally digs right into the spot where it hurts most, “careful! I didn’t come here to get chastised, I came here so you could fix me!”
You sigh, but don’t press the topic any further. He’s not wrong. Your job isn’t to nose your way into his business - it’s to make sure he walks out feeling better than he did walking in.
However it appears that’s not so easy to achieve this time round. Thirty minutes pass, the feeling in your fingers disappear and a very sore ache spreads through your lower back but you still can’t get through the tightness that resides in Childe’s back.
You’ve never had someone like him in your clinic before.
“I need you to come back again.” You tell him when he gets dressed. “I got rid of most of your knots, but your back still needs some working on. I can’t adjust you like this.”
“God, I’m sore.” Childe frowns as he moves his shoulder. There’s no longer any radiating pain shooting into all directions, so he still counts it as a win and chooses not to complain more than he already has.
While he twists and turns and checks to see if his mobility has changed, you scribble down the next few appointments you want him to realize. When you give him the piece of paper, your fingers brush and his touch lingers a little longer than necessary.
Blue. His eyes are indescribably blue.
“I’ll see you next time then, miss neck cracker.”