Chapter Text
Halfway through their shift, Dana pulls Emma into the break room and shoots her the sternest look of her life. “You gonna tell me who’s been hurting you?”
“I- I don’t…” Emma attempts to protest, utterly confused, but Dana doesn’t break.
She sets her jaw tightly, eyebrows raised and unimpressed, and takes one of Emma’s wrists gently between her hands. “What’s this, then, dear?”
“Oh.” Emma’s face flushes with sudden understanding. She tries to tug her sleeve back over the purple imprints on her forearm, but Dana holds her wrist steady. “Sorry, um, it was a little bit hot today, y’know with the AC that keeps breaking and all, and I’m sorry you had to see—”
“Emma,” Dana interrupts. “Emma. I don’t give two shits that I’m seeing your bruises. I want to know why you have them.”
After a moment of silence, she surges on. “Was it another patient? I know it’s a bitch and a half to report assaults, but you shouldn’t be keeping quiet.”
Emma shakes her head quietly, eyes trained toward the floor.
“A boyfriend? Someone you’ve been dating? Kid, if someone’s been abusing you—”
“It’s nothing like that!” Emma bursts out. “I swear. No one’s hurting me.”
Dana cocks her head and lets out a slight breath, reaching out to cup Emma’s jaw. Her fingers slide between the edge of Emma’s baby blue turtleneck under her scrubs and her neck, pulling at the cloth to reveal more red and purple marks lacing her skin. Despite herself, Emma shivers at the touch, eyes still pulled toward the ground as she shrinks in on herself.
“I fucking knew it,” Dana mutters under her breath. “I swear I’ve been seeing these every time your clothes shift around for the past few weeks. Kid, these kind of bruises don’t happen by accident. Now, can you tell me what’s been happening to you?”
She swallows hard, trying to find the words. “It’s… weird. You wouldn’t get it.”
A slight, familiar smile. Dana shoots her a knowing gaze. “Try me. I’ve been around the block, you know.”
Emma takes a deep breath and wills the creeping flush against her entire face to calm the fuck down. She still can’t quite manage to meet Dana’s piercing blue gaze. Dana hasn’t quite managed to let go of her neck, either.
“No one’s hurting me… without me asking them to,” Emma mumbles. “You know, sexually,” she adds, just in case her charge nurse is as dumb as a pile of bricks and didn’t manage to catch her drift.
“Oh.” Dana lets out a relieved laugh. And then, rather inappropriately, she finds herself asking, “So is this kind of kink something you’ve always been into?”
Rather inappropriately, Emma finds herself answering. “No. I mean I’ve always liked it a little… rougher in bed,” she cringes at her own oversharing, but Dana stares at her patiently, gesturing for her to continue, “but, um, a few months ago when that drunk golfer Mr. Larson—”
“Oh, sweetheart.”
“Yeah.” Emma shakes her head, gaze finding the floor again. The crack in Dana’s voice sounds like something breaking, and she can’t bear to witness her sympathy. “I just… I don’t know. I swear it’s not all some sick ‘I got choked so now I’m trying to recreate my trauma and get off on it’ kind of thing.”
“I wouldn’t judge you if it was.”
“I know! But it’s different, I swear. It makes me feel…” Emma finally manages to find Dana’s gaze and her voice drops into a low whisper, like something too shameful to admit to her superior. “Powerful. Like I’m reclaiming something, like that pain is mine. And it feels really fucking good, too.”
The corner of Dana’s lips crack into a small smile. “I’m happy for you, kid.” The tips of her fingers lightly trace the outline of the indigo splotch across Emma’s jugular, and she swears her charge nurse pushes in the slightest bit. She bites back a groan. Having to admit she likes getting choked in bed to her hot older boss is embarrassing enough. Emma’s not gonna caught moaning in the middle of this incredibly unprofessional mess, too. “But whoever you’re playing with is hurting you, you hear me? No one should be leaving bruises like these on your neck. Sexual strangulation is risky business, and if you’re gonna mess around with it, you should be doing it a little safer. You ever try a blood choke, kid?”
The heat returns to Emma’s cheeks in a sudden rush. “So you know—”
And then the door swings open and Emma’s rushing to take a step back from Dana’s hold and Perlah’s already raising her eyebrows like she’s caught them in the middle of fucking.
“Um, Emma, there’s a patient in 13, that teen with the head trauma? And he’s been asking for—”
“On it!” Emma squeaks out, already scrambling for the exit. And like her life can’t get any worse, she shoots a quick look back at Dana and somehow the words, “Thanks for the chat, mom,” manage to leave her mouth.
—
Gossip spreads like wildfire in the PTMC, or maybe Emma just has particularly awful luck. The next day, she makes it barely 15 minutes into her shift before Joy greets her with a “Morning, Baby Jane.”
Emma looks over her shoulder, finds absolutely no one, then back at Joy. “Um, morning? My name is Emma?”
The med student snorts. “Duh, I know that. Haven’t you heard Santos call you that to literally everyone in the building?”
She shoots a look at Santos in the corner, who suddenly seems very invested in her charting.
Joy’s voice drops into a gleeful whisper. “I heard you called Nurse Evans Mommy yesterday.”
Emma chokes on a sip of her iced matcha. “I did not!” she yelps. “I did not say ‘Mommy’!”
“Hey man, I get it,” Santos snorts, without even looking up from her computer. “Don’t tell her I said this, but talk about a MILF.”
“Seconded,” Joy adds.
“But don’t think for a second anyone’s gonna let you forget that major Freudian slip.” Santos grins to herself. “Emphasis on Freudian, Baby Jane Doe.”
Emma’s whole face lights on fire. “Excuse me,” she manages and flees from the front desk to the sound of the Pitt’s two meanest lesbians starting to break out into fits of laughter.
When she finally finds Dana, the apologies can’t come out of her mouth fast enough. “I’m sorry, that was totally inappropriate of me, I shouldn’t have called you… that, I—”
“Whoa, whoa, kid slow down.” Dana grips the side of her shoulder like she’s calming down a horse, an amused smile starting to flicker across her lips. “Is this about you calling me mom? No problem, kid, really, I’m very flattered. It’s not like it’s the first time.”
“Oh.” Emma sucks in a relieved breath. “You mean, like, other staff?”
“No.” The grin on Dana’s face is suddenly devilish, and she’s reminded about the older woman’s surprising level of knowledge on choking.
Emma doesn’t know where she finds the confidence, but she does. “You mentioned blood chokes earlier, but I don’t know much about them,” she mumbles out, gaze flickering between Dana’s face and the floor. “Can you teach me more?”
When she finally finds Dana’s eyes, her gaze is absolutely ravenous.
The older woman shoots a look around the ED—surprisingly empty at this time of the morning, but still with too many nearby prying eyes for them to have a full-blown conversation about choking. If the word about Emma’s Freudian nightmare mommy kink has already reached every soul in the Pitt, she doesn’t want whatever this is to break containment, too.
“Meet me in the single stall bathroom in 5,” Dana whispers under her breath. “And I’ll give you a demonstration.”
Then she’s gone, and Emma doesn’t think she’s ever been wetter in her life.