See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil

“Markus! You—… oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me, what sick joke has Scarlet sent me?” Jessica groans, shaking her head in disbelief.

Really, that’s how you choose to react to seeing your long-lost brother?

“Damn, Scarlet got me good, I almost bought it for a second. ‘Emergency secret client,’ I should have known what this would be,” Jessica mutters to herself, rolling her eyes. She reaches over for her phone and begins texting someone.

I look at her, pissed as shit, waiting for her to actually acknowledge me, until I realise that she genuinely believes that this is a joke.

“I am Markus,” I say, causing her to look up. “Your big brother? Remember me?”

“You can leave now, the point’s been made,” Jessica says. The nurses have dropped away to the side, struggling to keep the smiles off their faces. Apparently the boss doesn’t get shown up often.

“I’m serious, it’s me, I can prove it!”

Jessica sighs as I speak, tapping on her computer. The screen flickers to life; she’s going through her calendar.

“Um… remember when we were younger, like teenagers, that time you pushed me into the pool, and when I came out, you couldn’t stop staring…”

“Quiet,” Jessica suddenly hisses, as if almost on instinct. She narrows her eyes. They flick to the nurses at the sides. Then, her hands come up to cover her face. “Oh fuck, it’s really you, isn’t it.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying—”

“Okay. Okay. And you’re clearly hurt.” Jessica takes a second to breathe in, and then says: “I had always suspected there would come a day when I would regret having sworn that oath to ‘First do no harm.’ But I said those words, and so by God am I going to see this through. Against my intuition and every fibre of common sense currently screaming at me, I am going to help you.”

She gets out of her chair and pulls off her hair tie, letting her blonde hair come tumbling down. She turns to face the nurses.

“Has anyone started filling in patient bio?” she asks, and one of the nurses raises a hand, holding a tablet in her other. “You haven’t saved the record yet? There’s no trace? Good. Erase the name, birthdate, everything that could trace this back to Markus. After we’re done treating him, we’re going to let him walk out the door and treat this as a case that we fail to collect on. I want no records that will let anyone figure out that he was ever in here.”

She turns back to face me, snapping fully into doctor-mode. She looks me over. “You got in a fight and sustained injuries to your right arm and your face. Is that correct?” I nod. “I don’t like the way the bruising on your face looks, and I don’t like the way you’ve been wincing when you’ve tried to move your arm. Is there anything else you want me to pay attention to? Pains anywhere, spots that feel unusually sore, anything unusual?”

I take a second to gather my thoughts.

“He’s slow on the uptake, put down potential TBI,” Jessica says interrupting my thoughts, and a nurse hurriedly scribbles on the tablet she’s holding.

Shit. It’s that bad?

“Uh… my chest has been hurting a little, and… I vomited this morning? Think I kind of faded in and out, not super sure…” The events of this morning come back to me in small spurts, and I rack my brain, trying to think of anything else that might be a problem.

“Tell me a little more about the chest pains,” Jessica says, typing something on her keyboard. One of the nurses leaves the room a second later.

“It mostly just hurts if I strain myself,” I say, realising that I’m not being terribly descriptive. Jessica nods though, as if I’ve contributed something immensely meaningful, and she waves over a nurse, who quickly takes my temperature and blood pressure.

“You’ve got a low fever,” Jessica says. “Before I move on to x-ray, I’ve got just a few quick questions for you. Most of them are yes/no in nature, but feel free to elaborate as you see fit. Have you been on any medication recently?”

I shake my head.

“Any operations, surgery, medical events I should be aware of?” I shake my head, and then stop when my cheek flares in pain. I signal a thumbs down with my left hand instead. Jessica takes note of this.

“Use any **** within the last year?” Thumbs down. “Smoke?”

I hesitate for a second, and then answer: “Never consistently? Not in a few weeks.”

“****?”

“Too much,” I say, watching for her reaction, but her face is impassive.

“And how much is that?” she asks, as if asking for the weather.

“The last few days, at least a couple drinks worth a day. Less so, prior to this week.”

“I would ask for family and genetics, but I think we can skip that. Can you describe to me in more detail what precisely happened during this altercation of yours? I’d like to know when this occurred, and about anything that may have led to personal injury.”

I take another second to recall, and then start to ramble on about the events that occurred last night. I see Jessica’s face twitch once or twice during my narration, and I know those lovely eyes are judging me beneath the mask she puts up. As soon as I’m done speaking, she has more questions for me.

I answer them all, and then she gets up.

“We’re going to x-ray your face, chest, and right-arm, and I’ll likely have a diagnosis at that point,” she says, and then she guides me out of one glass-paned room and into another, this one containing a long, raised table-type surface with several austere white machines branching down from the ceiling. I recognise one as a x-ray machine, more from the labelling on it than anything else, while the purpose of the others eludes me.

The nurse that left the room earlier is here, working on a console to the side. She gets up when she sees me, and passes me a medical gown.

“You want me to… change into this here?”

“Is that an issue?” Jessica asks, looking me over.

It’s not. It’s really not. I unzip my jacket with my left hand, and pull it off. I’m usually confident in my body, and even hurt and bruised as I am, I figure it can’t look worse than the mess my face is in. It’s just that…

“I might need some help,” I admit, feeling a little embarrassed as I say it. “My right arm… isn’t exactly…” I glance down at my shirt, which needs to come off over the top.

“No worries,” Jessica says, and a nurse comes forward to assist me, but Jessica casually waves her aside, stepping closer to me. “I can help.”

I feel the cool touch of her skin as she gently brings my right arm up. I try not to react as pain flashes through it, but she seems to catch my reaction.

“Scissors?” she asks, and a nurse hands her a pair, seemingly conjuring it out of thin air. Some quick snips later—she’s trained as a surgeon, the cuts are precise—and she holds the remains of my shirt in her hand. There’s a second as her hand brushes against my chest, and I suddenly don’t feel pain there anymore, but a blush of warmth. Was it just my imagination, or did her fingers linger there?

She helps me with my pants next. I try not to react as she pulls them down, revealing my boxers, and I realise then that her face is awfully close to my cock. Admittedly, it’s soft, but I catch the quickest of glances that she casts at it, the tiniest gulping motion that her throat makes, and I know what’s running through her mind. It’s the same thing running through mine—that memory, by the pool…

Jessica helps me into the hospital gown. Her hands don’t tremble, but there’s a certain warmth in the way that she slips it over me, her hand resting on my back for reassurance, the little look of concern that she gives me when she’s done, and then she nods to herself.

“Let’s do this x-ray and find out what’s really going on,” she says.