𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩

𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘬 𝘣𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘱𝘦𝘭 • 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘢𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 • 𝘥𝘭 • 𝘯𝘴𝘧𝘸 • 𝘦𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘱𝘦𝘭

[𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩 @SuturedSecrets]

||“𝘈 𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘱𝘰𝘰𝘳 𝘴𝘶𝘣𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘵𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳."||

[𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩 @SuturedSecrets]

a moment to compose the... proper sequence of events before I let them in."

[𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩 @SuturedSecrets]

Washington, the square across from the White House was two different places: a manicured public garden by day, and a treacherous, shadowed labyrinth by night where men of a certain discreet persuasion risked everything for a brief encounter in the dark. Thomas also knew that -

[𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩 @SuturedSecrets]

gone wrong after a late dinner at the Cosmos Club.

"The police are quite eager to take your statement," Thomas added, his voice dropping into a low, confidential register as his hands moved from Fuller's face down to the hem of his trousers. "But I imagine we ought to give you -

[𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩 @SuturedSecrets]

"How long has the pain in your leg been flaring up, Mr. Fuller? Because that isn't from a tumble in the grass."

As he spoke, he glanced at Fuller's left hand— no ring. A bachelor.

Thomas knew all about Lafayette Park. In a city like -

[𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩 @SuturedSecrets]

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘾𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙃𝙤𝙪𝙧 @_CrossYurHeart

The emergency room at Johns Hopkins was always a study in containment, a place where the chaotic spills of the District were meant to be neatly cataloged and scrubbed away before the morning shift arrived. To Thomas Elliot, the -

[𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩 @SuturedSecrets]

tremor that had nothing to do with the scrapes on his face.

"The head will bruise beautifully, but it isn't what's causing this tachycardia," Thomas murmured, his thumb resting lightly against the pulse in Fuller's neck. He looked down at the rigid posture of the lower limb. -

[𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩 @SuturedSecrets]

the temple where the pavement or a fist had made contact. But as he checked the pupillary response, Thomas’s clinical eye drifted downward. Fuller’s right leg was drawn up at an unnatural angle, the muscles in his jaw locked in a rigid, white-knuckled effort to suppress a -

[𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩 @SuturedSecrets]

measuring the risks of every room he entered.

Thomas stepped closer, his hands remarkably cool and steady as he began his examination at the head. He gently tilted Fuller's chin to the light, his fingers tracing the blunt trauma along the cheekbone and the slight swelling near -

[𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩 @SuturedSecrets]

medical authority.

Fuller didn’t answer immediately. His dark eyes shifted toward the curtain, calculating the distance between his bed and the law, before settling on Elliot. There was a guarded, sharp intelligence in that look—the expression of a man who spent his life -

[𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩 @SuturedSecrets]

shoulder, dark with the damp soil of the park, and his face was pale, a thin bead of sweat catching the light at his temple

Thomas hung the chart on the foot of the bed. "I’m Dr. Elliot," he said, his tone striking that perfect, neutral balance of upper-class manners and -

[𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩 @SuturedSecrets]

of the examination table, his long frame looking awkwardly constrained by the narrow mattress. Even under the dim, flickering fluorescence of the treatment bay, the man’s natural elegance was unmistakable, though it was currently fracturing. His overcoat was torn at the -

[𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩 @SuturedSecrets]

pulling it shut behind him with a sharp, metallic ring of the rings against the overhead rod. The sound was a deliberate barrier, a clean snap that locked out the low murmur of the police officers and the sterile glare of the hallway.

Hawkins Fuller lay against the stark white-.

[𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩 @SuturedSecrets]

aristocratic cadence that usually made public servants reconsider their tone. He closed the folder against his chest. "Let me see to my patient first, and I’ll make sure you get your chance with Mr. Fuller."

Thomas opened the door and moved past the heavy canvas curtain, -

[𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩 @SuturedSecrets]

instruments, forever breaking things that required a finer touch to mend.

He flipped open the chart, his gaze dropping to the name typed neatly at the top of the sheet.

"The law will have to wait its turn, Officer," Thomas said, his voice dropping into that smooth, -

[𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩 @SuturedSecrets]

men."

The doctor paused, looking down at the officer’s hand where it rested near the heavy leather holster. A small, cold smirk touched the corner of his mouth, entirely hidden by the professional gravity of his expression. He did not care for the police; they were clumsy -

[𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩 @SuturedSecrets]

one said, stepping into Thomas’s path with the casual authority of the law. "We need a word with the vagrant before you drug him up. The captain wants a report on what he was doing out past the gates. Lafayette Park after midnight isn't exactly a tourist spot for respectable -

[𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩 @SuturedSecrets]

whatever hit him."

Thomas opened the chart, his eyes skimming the initial scribbles of the intake. As he walked toward the treatment bay, two officers in heavy wool tunics intercepted him, their breath smelling of stale tobacco and station-house coffee.

"Doctor," the larger -

[𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩 @SuturedSecrets]

officers say," Gable replied, finally handing the intake clipboard to him. "But the fellow isn't talking. Looks like he took a bad turn in the bushes near the Decatur House. The cops think he was targeted, but frankly, Doctor, he looks more like he’s fighting his own body than -

[𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩 @SuturedSecrets]

twenty years on the night shift. "Ambulance brought one in from Lafayette Park. The Metropolitan police were right on their heels, making a nuisance of themselves in the vestibule."

Thomas capped his pen with a single, deliberate click. "An altercation?"

"An assault, so the -

[𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩 @SuturedSecrets]

linoleum floor, a radiator clanked with a wet, rhythmic wheeze, a low accompaniment to the distant, high-pitched weeping of a woman in cubicle three.

"Dr. Elliot?"

Nurse Gable didn’t look up from her clipboard as she spoke, her voice carrying the flat, gravelly exhaustion of -

[𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩-𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘩 @SuturedSecrets]

strokes of a man who believed the world could be perfected if one simply applied enough discipline to the paperwork.

It was nearly one in the morning, that specific, dead hour when the city’s political machinery fell asleep and left only its casualties behind. Across the -