RedheartxDoctorAnonCase1

>”Woah, woah, some kids gets sick and suddenly it’s my fault?”
“No, some kid shows early signs of rabies after getting bitten by your horse and suddenly it is your fault.”
>”You’ve got no proof it’s rabies.”
“You have no proof the horse is vaccinated.”
>”Look, I bought him last week, he used to be a racehorse, of course he’s vaccinated.”
>You cover your face with your hands.
>The barn was rancid smelling, and the soup-like humidity of the afternoon wasn’t helping. In the distance, thunder warned you that rain was about to turn the ground into a river.
“We’re talking about rabies here. I can’t take your word, second hand from some random horse-salesman, that this horse is vaccinated.”
>”I don’t give a shit. You’re not killing a couple thousand dollars worth of my breeding stock.”
>Rain was beginning to fall.
>And this was pointless.
>You turn around and start walking back to your car.
>You’d have to come back with Animal Control, probably a sheriff.
>The beginnings of rain dampen your shoulders and hair. You half-run to your car and jump in.
>Before driving off, you sit there, listening to the rain.
>You shouldn’t be waiting.
>At the hospital...
>You drive off.
>Not back to the hospital, but towards Animal Control.
>Actually-
>You start dialing.
>”Marion County Animal Control, Cindy speaking.”
“Hi Cindy, I need a horse seized.”
>It was quickly turning into a thunderstorm. But it was Florida, so that meant maybe two hours of rain at most.
>”Can you give me the address?”
>Before you can start, you spot a large mound on the side of the road, near a different exit from the ranch.
“Hold on, let me call back.”
>This was probably going to be the least pleasant thing you did all day.
>Or... all week even.
>And it might be for nothing.
>You pull your car over and roll down the window.
>Yup. Dead horse.
>You get out and run around to your trunk.
>What was the point, you were going to get soaked.
>You dig into your pockets and throw your cellphone, wallet, and pager into the trunk of your car and pull out the five gallon tupperware container and hacksaw.
>Become a doctor, they said.
>You look for traffic, then dart across the road. A horse corpse was sitting out near a trash pick-up.
>That meant unexpected death.
>If the horse was old, it would have been sold off for dog food.
>You open the tupperware and pull out gloves, scrubs, and a full face veil.
“I uh... I really am sorry about this.”
>You lean down, hoping to see foam around the mouth but...
“Fucking rain.”
>The horse looked terrible... but it was dead. So, of course it did.
>And given the state of the stables, it could have suffered from any number of diseases and rabies.
>You grip the hacksaw.
>You cut people open with some frequency but...
>Well, live people usually, at least since medical school.
“Okay, so, I looked at some pictures on my phone earlier.”
>Why not talk to the horse? It was an unusual day.
“And between about here and here... should be a gap in vertebrae. I really... I don’t want to cut through a lot of bone so...”
>So might as well start.
>You push down and pull, cutting into the horse’s flesh.
>With a spurt, the corpse shot blood out.
>That hot, Florida sun.
>You kneel there, still for a moment, your veil covered in a line of blood.
“This is why we scrub up, right?”
>The rain was slowly working at clearing your vision, so you just start sawing.
>You had become spoiled by the fancy power-tool you typically opened ribcages with.
“A more... Civil War approach to surgery.”
>Probably a good thing it was raining.
>No rain, and it would be flies.
>You stop and stretch your hand open and closed, then return to sawing.
>A car passes by, slows, but doesn’t stop.
“Just cutting up horses, you know.”
>Horses had so much more neck than people.
>And so much nerve tissue. Like the toughest steak gristle.
>Your shoulder was burning a little by the time you got through the spine and back into the neck muscle on the other side.
>A car passes by a honks.
>Whatever that meant.
>Finally!
“HA! Never... never thought I’d be happy to get done decapitating something but...”
>Enough of that. You pick the head up and throw it into the now empty tupperware and seal it shut.
>You could barely see anything, thanks to the humidity, your veil was covered in fog.
>Just needed to get this horse head into your trunk, and you-
>And you didn’t check to see if anything was coming.
>You didn’t feel the car hit you, but you did feel the sudden weightlessness as you flew out of the road. Then, began to fall.
>And fall.
>And fall.
>Until with a jerk, you landed on your bed.
>Instinctually, you sit up.
>”Hey, falling dream?”
>You look over.
>Redheart was half awake, raised up on one leg.
“Yeah, falling dream, I’m fine.”
>She pulls you back down.
>”Okay, well, try to get back to sleep.”
“What time is it?”
>”It’s before our alarm, come on.”
>You shuffle backwards and lift your head up, letting her slide a leg under your neck until she’s wrapped all around you.
>To her, it was just a falling dream you regularly had.
>But it was all you remembered from the place before.
>It’s how you knew there had been a place before.
>Because you hadn’t always been here.
>In Equestria.
>The only human in Equestria.
*	*	*

>The phone was ringing, which meant they had already paged you.
>Well, could be a call not from the hospital.
>It was never not the hospital.
>Redheart isn’t even trying to answer it so...
>You pull yourself out of her grasp and flail an arm towards the nightstand.
“Ymmh?”
>”Anon, sorry, I know it’s early.”
“Rhazes? It’s so early.”
>”And I know that, but, you’re going to want to come in.”
>You look up at the ceiling.
“Ah... no, no I don’t want to come in. Do you mean need to?”
>”Well, both. Pegasus stallion came into the ER three hours ago, complaining of fatigue.”
“Rhazes, you are failing to convince me-”
>”He’s now in the ICU, and necrotizing quickly across his abdomen.”
>What?
“What?”
>”Like I said, you’re going to want to come down here.”
“Alright, just... okay, yeah. Give me a bit.”
>You hang up the phone and rub at your eyes.
>It was... just barely light outside.
>You were supposed to have the morning off.
“Hey, Red, hey.”
>You gently shake her, but she just turns over.
>Probably less than fifteen hours of sleep between you in the last two days.
>You get out of bed and dress in the dark.
>Hopefully they were new clothes but... maybe they weren’t.
>You leave the bedroom and go into the livingroom.
>You find some junk mail, a pen from your pocket, and write Redheart a note.
>Hey Red- Crisis in ICU, cya when you come in. Love, Anon
>You drop the note on the table and walk out of the house.
>Celestia still had the sun below the horizon.
>It was still a little chilly, but, that wouldn’t matter once you got to the hospital.

>You enter through the ER, because you were too lazy and sleepy to go around to the front.
>Doctor Still Water and Nurse Coldheart were dealing with an eye wound and...
“Why’s he here?”
>Coldheart turns and looks at you, then over to the Earth pony stallion who was sleeping a few beds over.
>”Honestly? Not sure yet. He’s fine... well, cold, but nothing major.”
>The pegasus necrotizing upstairs was major.
“Does Rhazes have everything from the pegasus who came in earlier?”
>”We sent everything upstairs with him.”
“Thanks.”
>You head through the ER to the stairs, your ICU was on the third floor.
>You hadn’t even made it past the second when Triplicate, a unicorn from admin, found you.
>”Anon, listen-”
>Time for the liability talk.
>Because, honestly, there was a short list of causes for skin necrosis. High up on that list was a staph infection.
>Which meant he got it here.
“I trust you and Rhazes, I do, I’m sure all the necessary precautions were taken.”
>You wished he’d get to the point.
>Or maybe not, you were still climbing, and Triplicate wouldn’t show his face in front of a potentially litigious patient.
“Trip, he was in the ER for a lot longer than ICU.”
>”That’s doesn’t help me much.”
“Look, I’m trying to help him, right? Skin falling off? We don’t know it’s staph so-”
>You give him a stern ‘leave me alone so I can doctor’-look, and push through the doors of the ICU.
>Such a useful look.
>Your ICU ward was a modest affair, but, everything at the Ponyville Hospital was modest.
>Eight beds that, during crowded periods, often had non-ICU patients in them. A little office in the back where you and Rhazes had desks, a small station for whatever nurse was assigned to oversee the ward (Redheart as often as the two of you could manage without appearing untoward) and a panic room. Not a standard one, but a sort of mini-pharmacy and equipment room for sudden, dire needs that often cropped up in the ICU when a pony was rapidly dying.
>Rhazes was standing next to a bed in the middle of the ward. He was a gold coated and blue haired Saddle Arabian, and easily the second tallest person in the hospital, next to you. Which made him useful on a crude, utilitarian level, as he was very good and picking up unconscious ponies, holding down distraught ponies, and reaching things very far away. He was also useful because he had the memory of a elephant.
>”Morning, Anon. Sorry it’s early.”
“That’s okay, you can explain to Red why she’s waking up alone today.”
>”What?”
>You walk over to the pegasus. He’s conscious, but medicated. One of his legs is wrapped in gauze, but you can smell the necrosis anyway, even over the powerful sanitized hospital smell.
“Start backing him off the painkillers.”
>”Why?”
“So we can talk to him, and hopefully find out why he doesn’t have a staph infection.”
>”But... Anon.”
>You turn to Rhazes and motion him over to the office.
>Once inside, you close the door.
“Meanwhile, I know it’s probably a staph infection. Triplicate caught me in the stairwell.”
>Rhazes frowned.
>”I’ve not left the ward, partially for that reason.”
>You drop into the seat at your desk.
“While we’re backing him off the painkillers, let’s start him on dicloxacillin and find out how resistant this strain is, and how sued we’re gonna be. I’m gonna scrub up and take a look at his wounds, see if there’s anything atypical going on.”
>Rhazes nods.
*	*	*

>You step out of the scrub station to find Duplicate, from Admin, waiting for you.
>”Doctor Anonymous.”
>For some reason, Triplicate understood his place. Triplicate understood that he was not a doctor, he was a filing clerk.
>Duplicate had never gotten that concept.
>”Starting your examination?”
“No, just, shit all over myself. Figured I should wash up before breakfast.”
>”Rhazes told me it’s not common for staph infections to move this quickly.”
“Which means this could be an uncommon case.”
>”Unlikely-”
“Is he the only sick pony in this hospital?”
>”What? Of course not.”
“Funny, I assumed that if you AND your brother both came all the way up to the third floor, it’s because the rest of the hospital is empty.”
>”Anon, Triplicate is not my-”
>You stepped back into your ICU.
>Shocking, Duplicate and Triplicate weren’t related.
>Medical science hadn’t explained that yet.
>Rhazes was flipping through the pegasus’ file on the table next to the bed.
>You step over him.
“Alright, run me through the file.”
>”Patient is Dewdrop, twenty-nine years old, admitted to ER with moderate fatigue and... and Still Water wrote vertigo, crossed that off and wrote disorientation.”
“How helpful.”
>The pegasus was on his back. He had a patch of necrosis on his front right leg, maybe a square inch. On his abdomen, he had a large swath running across his ribs on his left side. You peel off the bandage slowly, the smell in the room intensifying.
>”He was given bed rest, and a banana bag.”
>His skin was open in slits running parallel to his ribs. It was still early, you weren’t seeing any bones yet, just subcutaneous fat and muscle.
>”After forty five minutes he was found to have an elevated temp, physical examination, prompted by complaints of ‘itching’, discovered the lesion, transferred to ICU to mitigate spread of potential infection.”
>Get him out of their hair.
“Okay, so... necrosis. Quick moving. We don’t have a lot of staph infections here, it’s a small volume hospital, and his exposure was a single IV for a banana bag.”
>”Steroids would explain the... abnormal speed.”
>You sigh. You really didn’t want to lead with steroids. While, true, pegasi were statistically more likely to use steroids, it just felt like a racial diagnosis.
“What about not staph? Other causes of necrosis. He’s not a cancer patient, so it’s not chemo suppressing his immune system. Do we have a file on him? Did they do a history in the ER?”
>Don’t know why you were asking.
>”They did not.”
“Vibrio?”
>”You think he’s been splashing in puddles? He’d still need to be immuno-compromised, he doesn’t have any open lesions on hooves or lower legs... other than the necrosis there, but that’s new.”
>Dewdrop started shifting. He was probably beginning to itch. He’d be awake soon.
>”Go ahead and... I guess call in Park Place, we’re going to need to debride him soon. Endeavor should be in the lab...”
>Dewdrop started shifting and opening his eyes.
>”Want me to stick around for the history?”
“No, go ahead and get on the phone. Park Place is going to drag her hooves getting here.”
>Rhazes headed to the office.
>You drag a stool over to the bed.
“Dewdrop?”
>”Huh?”
“Dewdrop, you’re at Ponyville Hospital. Do you remember when you got here?”
“This morning? Right?”
>Well, he was close.
>You run through a number of questions.
“Occupation?”
>”Weather service.”
>Too general.
“Major hobbies?”
>”I uh...marathon...”
>Of course, which meant...
“I uh, I have to ask, have you been using steroids?”
>”What?”
“If you’ve been using steroids, the injections can cause this-”
>”I don’t use steroids.”
>You move on.
“Where have you been assigned recently?”
>Twenty minutes later, you arrive on the ground floor and turn left.
>Endeavor was already in the lab.
>”Anon... you’re... why are you here this early?”
“Zombie ponies.”
>”What?”
“Work, what else? Listen... got blood samples here... run for staph and steroids.”
>”Anything else? Tox-screen? Drugs?”
“Staph and steroids first, tox-screen afterwards. You know what? You run the staph test, I’ll test for steroids, he’ll be in surgery soon. Hopefully by the time he gets out, we’ll have a diagnosis. Then we can move on to skin grafts.”
*	*	*

>”Anon.”
>A hoof is shaking your shoulder.
“The dye done?”
>”What?”
>You lift your head.
>When did you fall asleep?
>Endeavor was standing really close to-
>Oh.
“Hey, Red... is your shift started?”
>Redheart was standing behind you with a frown.
>”Well, when I woke up and saw that you had left, I guess there wasn’t a whole lot of point staying home. So I’m here early.”
>You turn back to the table.
>No steroids.
“Well that’s annoying.”
>”What is?”
“I’ve got a pony up in ICU with necrosis-”
>”Staph?”
>You stand up, stretch, and walk over to where Endeavor had been sitting before you fell asleep. A print out was laying on the table with a negative result circled.
“Uh...no. It’s not staph, and it’s not steroids.”
>”Why were you testing for steroids?”
“He’s a pegasus-”
>”What?”
“Who marathons!”
>”So, just a little racist.”
“Just a little justified. Inter-arterial punctures from steroid injections causes necrosis all the time.”
>”So, when you asked him if he used steroids, and he said no, you decided to run the test anyway.”
“I did.”
>”And when he gets the bill for the steroids test-”
“Look, if he was doping, we wouldn’t be having this discussion, we’d be hoof-bumping my success.”
>”You slink out of bed like a one-night stand and expect me to show up with hoof-bumps?”
>You look at the clock.
>The surgery should be more than over... where was Rhazes?
“Weren’t we role-playing a one night stand? Wait, is this the part where the crazy girl has tracked the man down at work? I better run and get security.”
>”Anon-”
“Look, the sex was good, but you need to back off.”
>”Anon!”
>You’re smiling as you dart out of the lab and into the hallway.
>You needed to find Rhazes, your patient, figure out why his flesh was falling off...
>”Anon.”
>Not Redheart...
“Ah, Triplicate. It’s not staph. Call off the lawyers.”
>”Oh, well, that’s good but, we’ve got something of a situation in ER...”
“Sorry, gotta run, patient coming out of surgery!”
>”Anon-”
>You rush off before he can continue. You really didn’t need to be fixing cuts in ER while your patient was dying of a now very mysterious flesh eating condition.
*	*	*

“So, Dewdrop.”
>You had just entered the ICU with a bag of blood.
>“You do not have staph.”
>”Staph? Like... strep throat?”
“Sort of, but the flesh eating kind.”
>”The kind I... I don’t have?”
“Yes.”
>You hang the bag of blood on the hanger and uncap the needle.
“Two questions: needle shy? And you like the taste of B-?”
>”No, needles are fine, and I’m all about that B- Rh-D negative.”
>You lift his chin with your hand and find a soft spot of neck to slip the IV into his jugular.
>You step back and walk over to the foot of his bed.
“So we’re in an awkward situation. Are you a meat eater?”
>A look of confusion appeared first on his face, followed by revulsion.
>”A carnivore? Are you sick?”
“Vibrio fits all of your symptoms, but to get it without being immuno-compromised, you would have to have recently eaten certain kinds of seafood, oysters, for instance...”
>”I don’t eat meat, I would never eat-”
“Okay, moving along. You don’t dope for competitions?”
>”This is ridiculous, I told you, I don’t use steroids! If I were a unicorn, you wouldn’t even be asking-”
“Well, I’d be asking about opium...”
>”I don’t use steroids. I like my junk intact.”
>Actually...
“Are you sexually active?”
>”Uh... well...”
>There was, really no easy way to go about this.
“Can you open your legs for me? I’d like to check for signs of STDs that... may have been ignored due to the necrotizing flesh.”
>”You think I caught something from...”
>Well, in truth, you were half hoping to find shrivelled testicles to justify calling your steroid test a false negative but, when did things ever your way?
>Reluctantly, the pegasus spread open his legs and you lifted the bedsheet off of him.
>What was hilarious, was that you wore pants every day. On the other hand, you spent all day seeing parts of horse genitals. But every time you had to inspect a horsecock, it was awkwardness all around.
>You double gloved up and-
>”Anon.”
>Rhazes had just entered. You glance over, then wave him towards the office. You knew he’d come over and try to help, which would just make the situation more awkward.
>So. Key points to STDs, discoloration?
>Nope, standard skin tone.
>Discharge?
“Does it hurt when you urinate?”
>”No. Are you done?”
>No lumps, no sores. Normal looking testicles.
“Alright, you can go ahead and close your legs.”
>You strip off your gloves and toss them in a trash can.
>”Left me early for this?”
>You turn. Red had found you.
>Well, you were in your office, of course she did.
“Ah, are you my attending nurse tonight?”
>”Sadly, yes. Although, I expect you to skip out early.”
>She was smiling, teasing. You shot her back a smile yourself, and her face turned.
>”Sir, can you look over here?”
>You turn, and Dewdrop does as well.
“What?”
>Redheart walks over and stares into his eyes, then gives him a smile and walks into your office. You follow.
>”He’s jaundicing,” she announces.
>Rhazes looks up.
>”He’s what?” Rhazes asks.
>”His eyes are going yellow.”
>You drop into your chair.
“So... necrosis that isn’t staph, doesn’t respond to dicloxacillin, isn’t steroids, isn’t vibrio, in an immune system that isn’t compromised from syphilis or gonorrhea. And now, jaundice.”
>”His kidneys shouldn’t be shutting down from a topical infection.”
“Toxic system shock?”
>”He just came back from surgery, he doesn’t have enough dead tissue on him,” Rhazes countered.
>”Chemo?” Redheart asks.
“No, he’s not a chemo patient.”
>”And we already covered he’s not a cannibal?” she asked.
“Well I asked, I suppose he could be lying.”
>”We checked his genitals, what has he to hide?” Rhazes asked.
>”The same things all patients lie about: diet, exercise, substance abuse, how long they’ve been waiting.”
“Well we asked him about shellfish, we know he’s a marathon racer, and he’s not doping. In fact, he ought to be perfectly healthy. But he isn’t.”
>”Well, what terrible things to athletes do?” Redheart asked.
“Oh, now we can diagnose from stereotype?”
>”We can brainstorm, and try to tease something out of him.” Redheart clarified.
>The three of you sit for a moment.
>”Athletes overtrain? Over work? End of marathon, you push, push too hard, would you not get muscle death? Exhaustion? Temporary suppression of immune system?”
“Maybe, it’s not... it’s not impossible. But he’s rested now...”
>”Timing. He goes on marathon, runs, pushes himself. His immune system breaks down and he gets vibrio from a puddle. We give him dicloxacillin, no improvement, give him rest, now, toxins from muscle death are built up in kidneys.”
>”So, unrelated jaundice and necrosis?”
“That seems like a stretch. And if we’re giving him the anti-biotics for vibrio, we can’t put him on dialysis. So if we’re wrong, his kidneys are ruined and he’ll still be losing skin.”
>Rhazes and Red look at you.
“Alright, best idea we’ve got then.”
*	*	*

>You pick up a fruit bowl and drop a plastic cup of yogurt on it.
>Cafeteria fancy.
>”Alright, I went by the nurses station-”
“And I talked to Rhazes.”
>The pair of you pull out pieces of paper to see when your next day off together is.
>”Uh... wait... no.”
“Here. In three weeks.”
Redheart sighs.
“Well that sucks.”
>”Why do we do this again?”
“Because I’m really good at it. And it’s your ass-given destiny.”
>Redheart leans her head against your arm.
>”My flank.”
“You know how many arguments I could win because you took advice from your own flank?”
>”Stop acting like you don’t know how it works.”
“I know exactly how it works, it makes it easier to make fun of.”
>Wait.
>He knew exactly how it worked.
>You get up from the table.
“I gotta run.”
>You bolt out of the both you had been sharing with Red. At the door, Duplicate started to speak to you.
>”Nightshade is looking for-”
“Hold on, just, dying ponies, okay?”
>You don’t wait for an answer.
>You take the stairs two at a time and burst back into the ICU.
>Rhazes was hanging a bag on the rack.
“Take that down.”
>”What? Why?”
“It’s not vibrio.”
>”What?”
>You walk over to the bed next to Dewdrop and sit down.
“So, do you draw your own blood and re-use it? Or do you just get somepony else’s blood?”
>”Wait-”
“Earlier, I gave you a transfusion. Weirdly enough, you’re not a medical professional, and knowing your blood-type isn’t that weird, but knowing your Rhesus factor? Little odd. Being okay with needles? That’s fine, but-”
>You run a finger along his jugular vein.
“You’ve got a lot of hard spots here. Now, those would be common for an IV drug user, but cocaine addicts rarely run marathons. I guess, when I asked if you were doping, I should have added that I mean all kinds of doping, even blood doping.”
>Dewdrop looked away from you, and down at his abdomen, covered in bandages.
>”But, it’s my blood, why would it hurt me?”
>You get up from the bed.
“Too much of a good thing. Well, some really bad things. See, you don’t have staph, but you gave yourself an infection, a minor bacterial infection from your at-home needles. Probably re-used some? Anyway, your body would have been fine with that, run a fever, drink fluids, get over it. But, because you were dumping pints of blood into your veins, you messed up the whole mix. Billions of half-dead red blood cells suddenly needed to be cleaned out your blood, which meant your kidneys were stripping, well, everything out of your blood, taking out toxins, dead cells, and white blood cells, just when you needed them to fight off your little fever. Suddenly, you’re immuno-compromised. On top of that, you go do a marathon, that’s the final straw, your kidneys fail, your blood has bacteria with nothing to fight it, you start to necrotize, jaundice, everything.”
>”My kidneys failed?”
“Yes, and we’re going to put you on dialysis, give you the right anti-biotics, and hope that you have some kidney functionality left.”
*	*	*
>This had to be quick so... what did you have on hand?
>You didn’t have lube, you were at work.
>Why didn’t you have lube at work? Like, in your desk somewhere?
>You were inventive though. You were in a hospital.
>AH! Yes, you had lube. Medical grade lube for catheters.
>Sexiest lube.
“Okay, one sec.”
>Redheart was on her back on the end of a hospital bed in the ICU.
>The pair of you were two and half weeks into three weeks of essentially no time off together. Earlier today, she had come in to tell you that if you didn’t sleep with her in the next twenty-four hours, you two weren’t really married anymore, then she went back to her shift in the maternity ward, where she got to listen to foals cry, and then they pooped on themselves.
>You throw open the door of your panic room.
>Catheter lube.
>You needed to find it quickly, before the moment passed.
>You had paged Redheart, sent Rhazes away, and really, you had maybe ten minutes.
>You tear open the plastic packet of catheter lube, pull down your pants and start rubbing it on.
“Oh fuck! Oh fuck! Cold, so cold.”
>You rub quickly, trying to warm up the gel.
>You needed to bring your own lube.
>Back in the ICU, you throw off your coat and step back to the bed.
>The advantage to using a hospital bed, over a desk or cabinet, was height adjustability.
>You lean over her, dropping to your elbows and start at her soft underside, rubbing, nipping, scratching a little, till you reach her neck, then you just exhale, letting your breath run across the side of her neck. She shivers a little.
>”Mmm, lube me up.”
“I lubed me...”
>”You didn’t bring me some?”
>You look down.
>Your hand was still...lubey? You sure as hell weren’t going back to the panic room for more catheter lube. You rub your hand across her vagina, pushing your fingers in, hoping you were getting some of the lube onto her.
>Hoping for the best, you start to push into her.
>She hisses.
>Why didn’t you just bring the lube to her?
>You push deeper, trying to keep your mind on the sex, but she puts a hoof against your chest.
>”Slowly.”
>You just sort of rock back and forth and the outermost limits of her vagina.
>You start to feel the change, the lack of friction. You begin pushing deeper with your strokes until your pelvis starts bumping against her flank.
>Redheart puts her legs up over her head, bracing herself against the rails of the bed so that she can push back against your thrusts.
>So good.
>Too good.
>Fuck, too good. Too soon.
>You close your eyes. If you look down, you’ll lose it.
>You stop thrusting.
>But you can’t fucking stand there.
>You lean down, kissing her.
>No, too late.
>You stand back up and start pounding, she speeds up, trying to match the pace.
>You come, and will your penis to hang in there. Sometimes, once in a blue moon, you’d remain hard long enough to-
>Nope.
>You stop thrusting as your penis is getting bent awkwardly.
>You drop down onto her, panting.
>She’s breathing heavily but...
>Do you ask her?
>She wraps her legs around your neck and you nuzzle your face into the soft fur of her stomach.
>If you have to ask...
>But you want to know.
>You know though.
“You came?”
>”Hm?”
“Right?”
>”Well, no, but it’s okay.”
>You sigh.
>”I’m not a stallion, I don’t have to come every time.”
“Yeah but... you should. I mean... I want you to.”
>”Don’t be upset, it’s fine.”
>Somehow, that just made you more upset.
>You pull out and grab sanitizer wipes from the nursing stand. You wipe yourself off, then come back and start wiping her up.
>”I’m just going to scrub, don’t worry about it.”
“Okay.”
>”See, you’re upset.”
>Redheart gets off the bed and brings your neck down with a hoof to kiss her.
>”Don’t be upset, please.”
>Redheart leaves. You tuck yourself back into your pants and then walk into your office and drop into a chair.
>Early on, there was nothing hotter than the work quickie.
>First time you had had sex, you were shadowing a doctor, proving that your medical knowledge from... back there, the before place, was relevant.
>Redheart was low nurse on the pecking order, just graduated. She was cleaning a room after a patient left, you went in to track down a missing file.
>Fucked each other half to death.
>”Anon, you here? Nightshade wants to...”
>Rhazes was back.
>”Really? Come on man, pick up your clothes.”
>Rhazes walks into the office.
>”I sometimes think, Anon, he does this to rub in that I am alone.”
“That is so far from the case.”
>”Well, put on your clothes, Nightshade has a body downstairs.”
>Nightshade was both the area coroner, and did all the autopsies for the hospital, ran the morgue.
“I assume she has a few bodies.”
>”Yes but, this one, he comes in, just tired, dies last night.”
“Why?”
>”Who knows? She’s trying to figure it out. She wanted your help.”
>Of all the ponies.
“Fine.”
>Shirt on, coat on.
>Scrub?
>Eh, you can scrub if you get into anything.
*	*	*

>The morgue, in the basement, was all institutional pale green tile. Floor to ceiling.
>It was familiar, from before.
>You push through two swinging doors.
>Nightshade had a half dozen papers floating in the air before her, and on a slab, a dead pony.
>Stallion, earth pony, middle aged.
“Afternoon, Nightshade.”
>”Anon. So good of you to come down.”
>Nightshade was aptly named, with a pale purple coat and golden hair.
>She took full advantage of the calm, deliberate pace of her work. While most of the ponies in the hospital were lucky to get by with a ponytail, maybe hairnets, or just barely any mane at all, Nightshade always looked like she had popped into the morgue on her way to a dinner date. Styled mane, full face of makeup, perfume.
>Not that that helped much.
>Still smelled like a morgue down here.
“So what killed him?”
>”Nopony knows. How about, you and I find out together?”
>Was she playing at something?
>You step over beside her, and she drops the papers into a neat stack and floats up a scalpel.
>”Hmm? You know what? You go scrub up first, I don’t want catheter lube showing up on the autopsy report.”
>You blush, but walk away to a corner scrub station.
>Why be ashamed?
>Because it’s Nightshade. She always got under your skin.
>”How’s Redheart?”
“She’s good.”
>”Well she must be, the day you two are having. Starting the primary incision.”
>You turn on the water.
>Before you even grab the soap, you hear piercing screams.
>You spin around.
>The dead stallion was flailing about, blood streaming out of the long cut down his sternum.
>Nightshade was just standing there, a shocked look on her face.
>”Why did you do that? You, ah! You cut me open, what are you doing?”