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A long night, a longer night shift. Ratchet sighs as she peels the latex gloves from her hands at five in the morning, an hour far too early to be cleaning up someone else’s bodily fluids. Still, only an hour or so before she hands over to morning staff. She throws the gloves into the hazardous waste bin, and waves an exhausted hand at the skeleton crew holding the fort overnight as she heads to the storage room for a new pair.
Inside the storage room is a familiar figure; Pharma, Ratchet’s favourite student nurse. As a clinical supervisor, she’s not supposed to have favourites, strictly speaking; but for Ratchet’s money, Pharma is everyone’s favourite, so incredibly competent that it’s hard to believe she’s not been in the job for years. Her paperwork is always early, always neat, and her drive and focus is second to none. When she graduates, Ratchet will gladly put in a good word for her to get a full time position on the ward.
She works entirely too hard for a trainee - Ratchet thought she’d gone home from shift at least half an hour ago. Ratchet clasps a friendly hand on her shoulder, and watches as Pharma visibly jumps at the touch. Pharma turns to face Ratchet, her face a shade of its usual bright self.
She's off-duty, long hair down past her shoulders instead of neatly tied back. Her eyes are wide, cheeks flushed with anticipation for something Ratchet doesn't intuit until she feels Pharma's hand on her arm, delicate, as if asking permission for something unnameable.
“You alright, kid?” Ratchet asks, clasps her hand on top of Pharma's, squeezing it in encouragement. “Rough shift?”
“Something like that,” Pharma says, with uncharacteristic shyness. She bites her lip, and Ratchet watches it flush with blooming pink. “I wanted to – I wanted to ask –”
Before Ratchet can think, Pharma’s face is against hers, placing a rough, unpracticed kiss against Ratchet's lips. Ratchet's caught so off-guard that she all but gasps into Pharma's mouth, feels Pharma whine softly against her lips as her tongue slides inelegantly into Ratchet's mouth, and she remembers, all too quickly, just where they are and who Pharma is –
Ratchet places firm hands on Pharma's shoulders, forcing their lips apart. Pharma all but hides in the shadow of her hair, eyes downcast, lips swollen.
“Kid, what is this?” Ratchet says, tries to keep her voice soft, reassuring; does not allow her voice to stutter with the arousal she feels pouring through her. “What’s brought this on?”
“I'm sorry,” Pharma whispers, barely audible even in the silence between them. “Ratchet, I'm so sorry.”
Ratchet feels her stomach churn with guilt. She’s not oblivious to what some consultants can be like to work under, especially as a young woman; if this is some sort of twisted expectation –
“Pharma,” Ratchet says, firmly. “You're a wonderful nurse. You shouldn't have to – you don't ever have to do this with a supervisor, Pharma. I don't know what kind of awful behaviour you've been subject to in your training, but this isn't normal.”
Pharma's eyes widen, and she smiles, bright as the sky after rain.
“You think –” she says, breathlessly. “You think I'm a wonderful nurse?”
“Of course I do,” Ratchet says, soothing, “but Pharma, that's not the important part I need you to –”
Pharma kisses her again, undeterred; drapes her arms around Ratchet's shoulders, holding her in place. She kisses almost violently, teeth clanking against Ratchet's indelicately, and Ratchet cannot help but feel a flicker of arousal at her desperation. She lets Pharma kiss her for longer than any professional body would ever allow, before pushing her away again, more sternly this time.
“Pharma!” Ratchet snaps, wiping her mouth. “Are you listening to me?”
“I'm listening!” Pharma says, voice insistent. “And I'm not doing this because I feel forced, or because I want a promotion, Ratchet! I just want you!”
Ratchet feels her face heat, stunned.
“You – what?”
“Is that so hard to understand?” Pharma asks, voice wavering. “Ever since I saw you, I wanted you. You're so talented, and experienced, and – your hands –”
“Kid,” Ratchet interjects, face warm with embarrassment. “You don't have to – to flatter me, like this. You must have girls your own age lining up, eh? You don't need someone old, like me.”
“Why would I want that?” Pharma says, voice still. “They’re not you.”
“Pharma,” Ratchet says, trying to grasp at a vestige of reason. “I'm flattered, truly. But you understand this is unprofessional, don't you? As your supervisor, I can't – I can't give you what you want.”
“You can,” Pharma says, voice pleading. “You can, you can, Ratchet. I can't stop thinking about you –”
“Stop it, Pharma –”
“I think about you all the time,” Pharma says, grasps Ratchet's hands in hers. “I think about you on the ward, I think about you at the bar, I think about you after work and when I go to bed –”
Ratchet swallows, weakly.
“You need to stop this,” she says. “Now.”
“Please,” Pharma whispers, plants a kiss against Ratchet's hands, imploring. “You don't know what you do to me, Ratchet. I need you.”
Pharma kisses Ratchet's hands, her forearms, dusts light, desperate kisses on her skin as if she were trying to mark every inch. Ratchet feels her body heat, her breath hitch, arousal and panic warring for superiority in her mind.
Pharma kisses her, and Ratchet’s first instinct is to think of her defence. What would she say to an ethics body, if they asked? What would her tribunal look like, if she was caught? She kissed me first. I was manipulated into it. I've worked here for thirty years, without so much of a whisper of impropriety.
Would you believe a student’s word over mine?
Ratchet kisses Pharma fully, and Pharma gasps with excitement into her mouth.
She's not proud of kissing Pharma. She’s not proud of it at all, but it's been a long time since Ratchet's been touched. Not since Jackie, probably, who married Ratchet despite the night shifts and birthday shifts and anniversary shifts until there were boxes by the door and divorce papers in her inbox. Ratchet's job has never lent itself to spontaneity, or romance. She's grown accustomed to a certain level of detachment, a certain life of being untouched.
She knows it makes her no better than the senior doctors she dismissed a mere moment ago, but Ratchet has never been wanted before, not like this; Pharma kisses her, and shivers at the slightest reciprocity. Ratchet's always been a safe pair of hands, never a prize. Pharma looks at her like a thief discovering the rarest of jewels.
Ratchet spends her whole life helping people in need. Would it be so wrong to chase this? To think of her own needs, just for a moment?
Pharma bites at Ratchet’s lower lip, desperate; Ratchet fists her hand in Pharma’s beautiful dark hair, and pulls. Pharma whimpers, fully whimpers against Ratchet’s lips, and Ratchet feels her ego expand in real time.
“Is that good?” Ratchet asks, placing a hand in the small of Pharma’s back. Pharma nods so vociferously that her body shakes in Ratchet’s hold, breath stuttering heat against Ratchet’s cheek.
“Yes, Ratchet,” whispers Pharma, her eyes fixated on Ratchet’s mouth. It’s sweet how transparent her wants are, how bad her game face is. If this was a game of poker, Ratchet could drain her dry. The rules here are largely the same. Ratchet teases at the hem of Pharma’s scrubs, lifts her top up to feel a slither of skin underneath. Pharma folds easily, sighing into Ratchet’s touch.
“You want to take this off for me?” Ratchet asks, and feels sleazy as she does it. There’s no way that fucking one of her junior nurses in the storage room can’t not be sleazy, so leaning into it seems the only real possibility aside from unlocking the door and handing in her retirement paperwork several years early. Pharma pulls off her scrubs lightning-fast, and Ratchet is pleased she held her nerve and kept the door locked. She is lovely, with small, perky tits that barely fill the lace of her bra. The lace of her incredibly delicate bra, likely itchy under her scrubs from a twelve-hour shift. Ratchet’s smile grows broader.
“You wear this every shift?” Ratchet asks, and strokes a finger, slowly, from Pharma’s lips down to the wired apex of her bra. Pharma exhales a sudden gasp of arousal.
“No,” Pharma admits, breathless. “Just this one.” And then, more shyly, “Just for you.”
Ratchet finds herself biting down hard on her own lip, at the idea of Pharma leaving for her morning shift with lace under her uniform; at the idea of making her coffee and packing her lunch and putting on her nicest underwear for her supervisor. For Ratchet. Ratchet considers herself to be unflappable, with a practiced stoicism that many younger nurses would kill for, but even she is not immune to this.
“Please,” Pharma whispers, eyes closed in desperation. “Ratchet, please – touch me –”
It would be cruel to deny her, asking so nicely. Ratchet places her hands against the lace of Pharma’s bra, teases her nipples through the thin fabric, and Pharma moans, loud enough for her to cover her own mouth in sudden fear of being discovered. Ratchet smiles, moves her hands to unclasp Pharma’s delicate bra, watches in amusement as Pharma all but shoves the straps down her shoulders to drop it to the floor in desperation. Pharma kisses her again, whining against Ratchet’s lips; Ratchet moves her large hands back to Pharma’s slight breasts, and fondles them until Pharma is biting at her neck with need.
“Careful, kid,” Ratchet murmurs, caressing Pharma’s nipples with her thumbs. “Wouldn’t want you to leave any marks, eh?”
“No, Ratchet,” Pharma says, although the hitch of her breath suggests she nods out of deference instead of agreement. Ratchet does not allow herself to think about Pharma on the ward, hair tied back, bruises peeking out from underneath the collar of her scrubs. Ratchet does not allow herself to think about Pharma denying everything, with her usual steely professionalism; does not allow herself to think about being her supervisor in public and between her thighs in private.
Instead, she reaches for the waistband of Pharma’s trousers, lets her hands wander underneath until she can feel the fabric of Pharma’s underwear. Matching lace, soft against Ratchet’s hands.
“Primus, you’re spoiling me,” says Ratchet, and with Pharma’s assistance, pushes Pharma’s trousers down past her knees and onto the floor. “Wrapped up like a gift, just for me.”
“Yes,” says Pharma, moaning, “yes – yes please –”
Ratchet places her hand against Pharma’s underwear. Her fingers come away wet. Pharma squirms at Ratchet's touch, her face and chest blushing pink with embarrassment.
“Look at you,” Ratchet says, bringing her fingers wet with Pharma's slick up to Pharma's mouth. “You're soaking. Taste yourself.”
Pharma sobs around Ratchet's fingers in her mouth, and sucks them clean obediently. Her face is bright red against her dark hair, and Ratchet leans up to kiss her on her flushed cheek.
“Such a good girl,” Ratchet says, and peels Pharma's soaking underwear down her thighs, landing with a wet slap against laminate flooring. Pharma shivers, keeps her fingers in her mouth, biting down to suppress a whine as Ratchet finally, finally rubs a finger into her cunt, and she sobs.
Pharma's cunt is as lovely as her tits; bush nearly trimmed, but enough hair for Ratchet to get her face in there and feel it against her cheeks. With her underwear gone, Ratchet can see just what a mess the girl is – her cunt is wet with slick, and so are the tops of her thighs. How long has she been rubbing her legs together, cunt leaking with want, unable to relieve herself? Ratchet feels a wave of hunger wash over her, eager to put the poor girl out of her misery.
Ratchet puts her glasses away in her back pocket, and bends to her knees as fast as she dares, bracing Pharma against the bookshelf. Pharma shivers against Ratchet’s hands, her hands still clamped over her mouth in anticipation, and nods enthusiastically, as if spurring Ratchet on to move faster. Ratchet parts Pharma’s lips with both hands, tests the water by licking a deft stroke into Pharma’s cunt. She feels triumphant as she finds Pharma’s clit with her tongue, pulsing against her insatiably, and Ratchet curls her tongue into the hood of Pharma's clit. Despite Pharma's best effort to restrain her cries, Ratchet hears it. Ratchet hears Pharma whining against her hands, hears the muffled sob of Ratchet, please – and Ratchet smiles into her cunt, satisfied. Some skills never leave.
Pharma is wet enough for one of Ratchet's fingers to slide inside her with little resistance. Ratchet curls it inside her, alternates between stroking her clit with thumb and with tongue, slowly coaxing another finger into Pharma as she does so. Pharma opens up for her easily, so desperately wet, and Ratchet hums against Pharma’s clit with a self-satisfied grin. Pharma’s cunt drips down her chin, thighs quivering against Ratchet’s shoulders. Ratchet could drink from her for days; could stay here as time slows with Pharma’s cunt leaking down to her chin.
“Ratchet,” sobs Pharma, mouth uncovered, loud enough for Ratchet to rub a soothing hand against her thigh to quiet her. Ratchet can feel how close Pharma is against her tongue, clit throbbing desperately in Ratchet's mouth. Another push of Ratchet's tongue, and Pharma’s thighs tense around her head, holding Ratchet in place as Pharma’s cunt leaks against her face.
“Ratchet, I – I –” Pharma sobs, the crest of her orgasm audible in her voice. “I love you!”
The words are a glass of icy water, a full-body shock to the senses. Pharma comes against her face, crying in ecstasy, and Ratchet’s eyes widen in horror.
What the fuck have you done?
Pharma rides her orgasm against Ratchet’s lips, as the slick that tasted intoxicating mere moments ago turns to ashes in Ratchet’s mouth. Pharma pulls away, her nude body pink flushed pink with exertion, her face bearing a smile so relaxed it looks uncharacteristic on her features. Pharma is normally so driven, so intense; yet here, so undone. It does not suit her.
Ratchet feels her head ache, her knees ache, her back ache. She stands, and backs away from Pharma with stuttering legs.
“That was amazing, Ratchet,” Pharma says, voice languorous. “Here, let me –”
Pharma leans in, as if to kiss Ratchet; instead, she licks a long stripe from Ratchet’s chin to Ratchet’s lips, licking her own slick from Ratchet’s face with an eager, submissive tongue. Ratchet stands, wordless, as Pharma wipes her clean. Ratchet imagines it would be sensual in another life, in a life where it did not feel so much like Pharma were disposing of evidence.
“Did you like how I taste?” Pharma whispers, and all of a sudden, reality descends upon Ratchet like an anvil. She pushes Pharma away from her, with furious hands; wipes the remainder of Pharma’s slick onto her sleeve with a furious wipe.
“Kid,” Ratchet says, quietly, hopes her face conveys the seriousness of the situation. “Pharma, that was –”
Pharma stares at her with heavy-lidded eyes, and Ratchet clears her throat firmly.
“What just happened, you – you can’t tell a soul about it,” Ratchet says, grasping fruitlessly for an authority that usually comes to her like breathing. “Understand? You could – I could get into serious trouble, and –”
“I would never!” Pharma says, with a face wounded. “Ratchet, I – I would never tell anyone. I want it to be a secret. Our secret.”
Ratchet tries not to let the churning unease growing in her stomach break the skin. She is accustomed to being the bearer of bad news, of maintaining composure as she divulges truths unimaginable.
This feels more demanding than anything she could ever imagine talking about on the ward.
“Well, that’s –” Ratchet says, clearing her throat uncomfortably. “That’s great, Pharma. Pleased to know we’re on the same page.”
“We are?” Pharma says, clutching her hands to her breast like a portrait of a lovesick maid. “Ratchet, I –”
Her eyes widen, lips trembling, and Ratchet feels her nausea only deepen.
“I’m so happy to hear you say that,” Pharma says, face beaming. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to tell you how I feel –”
Ratchet feels the floor crumble beneath her feet. She steadies her breathing, watches as Pharma laughs a delighted, relieved laugh; can scarcely hear, but merely watch as Pharma’s mouth forms the words I love you! in what feels like slow motion. If Ratchet dismisses Pharma now, there is absolutely nothing to stop Pharma from walking onto the ward, slick dripping from her thighs, and sobbing about how her clinical supervisor held her down and fucked her, even though she said no, stop, please –
Pharma’s a nice girl who would never even dream of being so malicious, Ratchet hopes; but hope is not a solid enough foundation to stake a thirty-year career upon. Ratchet’s hands ball into fists, and she feels her nails cut grooves into her palm. She uses it to centre herself, as she knows what she needs to say next.
“I, um –” Ratchet says, brusquely. “I love you too, kid. Will you get dressed for me?”
Pharma nods eagerly, reaches around for her underwear and scrubs with a smile on her face so irrepressible it makes Ratchet feel sick with guilt. Ratchet counts the seconds, the agonising minutes that it takes Pharma to put her scrubs back on, and stares at the door; the sole barrier keeping them sequestered from the rest of the hospital, sequestered from the blistering spotlight of the real world.
Would you believe a student’s word over mine?
It’s fine, Ratchet tells herself. She still holds all the cards.
“Good girl,” Ratchet says, and Pharma bites her lip, smiling. “We shouldn’t leave together. It’ll show up on the cameras.”
“You’re right,” Pharma says, as pliant as ever. “I’ll go first, and if anyone asks, I’ll say I had to go and help Lancet in obs for a moment. Nobody will notice.”
Ratchet nods, wordlessly; deceiving her would be so much easier if she were not sincerely so impressive. Pharma pulls on her coat and throws her backpack over her shoulders, conjuring the image of a normal day, a normal commute home.
As if the two of them will ever have a normal relationship again.
“See you tomorrow!” Pharma says, planting a chaste kiss on Ratchet’s cheek. “I can’t wait to see you.”
The door closes behind Pharma as she leaves, leaving Ratchet standing silent and alone in the storage room. She closes her eyes, and covers her mouth, as low-simmering panic boils over into the urge to scream. How could she have been so foolish, fucking a student nurse on her own ward – a student nurse clearly besotted with her?
In thirty years, she has never been so fucking stupid.
Moments pass as Ratchet composes herself, neatens her hair, tries to identify even the mildest smell of Pharma on her breath before she re-enters the ward. As the nausea begins to abate, Ratchet jumps as her phone buzzes in the pocket of her scrubs. She swipes her fingerprint for the message, and as it opens, her heart sinks.
Missing you already! it reads, sent from Pharma’s fucking work mobile.
Ratchet buries her head into her hands.
All my love, Pharma x
Perhaps it seriously is time for early retirement.