"Do we really need to try this?" Asked Nurse Redheart to her colleague Nurse Coldheart, while she walked down the simple and clean hospital's right wing hallway, towards the personnel's bathroom.
Nurse Coldheart had a brown package, with the words "From Your Favourite Nurse's Stock," written in bold red characters on the top of it, tied, along with a rolled-up green towel, with a rubber band to her flank. Coldheart looked back at Redheart with a look that expressed indifference for the listener's concern.
"Not really," she deadpanned "but, since you have been complaining about the lack of bathroom breaks, and since I don't think that the IVS and the consequent damage is something you desire, I thought that make you try this solution was a favour I did to you."
Redheart kept walking, her head lowered, past the technical rooms and some patient's rooms that were as empty as the hallways the two nurses were walking down.
"I understand where are you coming from," said Redheart, as she turned towards the left, into the dead end aisle that contained the personnel's bathroom "but I find the solution proposed by Ombroso and Nursey Rhymes awkward at best, and unhygienic and roster disbarring at worst." Redheart said with her voice expressing annoyed doubt.
"Doing this would be worthy of a disbar? While it is unorthodox and not explicitly allowed, I don't how this can be worthy of disbarring, considered that many doctors and nurses do this in other hospitals." Coldheart said, still with a deadpan voice.
"If you say so," Redheart said, as she walked in the personnel's bathroom "I will try."
The bathroom was pretty simple in its design, since it consisted of a metal sink, four squat toilets separated by six brown plastic screens, an air-powered hoof dryer, and a disinfectant soap dispenser hanging on the wall with a steel ring.
Without saying a word, Coldheart took the towel in her mouth, unrolling it in the process, and then laid it out on the pristine white floor. Done that, Nurse Cold heart untied the pack, letting it hit the ground with a thumping sound, and then opening it with a small punch. Then, once she divided the two halves of the box, she grabbed with her mouth another light blue pack contained in the box.
Said package was labeled as "Adult Diapers."
Then Coldheart put the pack of diapers on the floor, opened it with a strong pull towards her on the top of the diaper pack, and then took one with her mouth.
Redheart, realizing what she had to do, raised her rump a bit, and let the fellow nurse slide the absorbent garment. Coldheart then helped Redheart to place her tail into the hole of the diaper, and, after that, she taped the diaper to Redheart's waist, before helping her to get back on four hooves.
When Nurse Redheart tried to move around a bit, she felt strange. The waddling of her legs made her feel a bit clumsy, but in a good way, and the soft crinkling sound made by the diaper while walking had... something hypnotic to it. And yet she felt that all of that was wrong on many levels.
But Redheart could not stop into feeling the new sensation, nor into question it: she had work to do.
Coldheart put her back on the towel, and, while extending her left hoof towards her fellow nurse, she said.
"Your turn, Redheart."
Unsurely, Redheart repeated the same procedure Coldheart did before on her. As she slid the diaper under Coldheart's rump and made the tail pass through the hole, Redheart frowned slightly and her eyes showed insecurity, insecurity that was not lost on Coldheart, who said "Is something the matter?"
Redheart, realizing what she was going, shook her head, and, while she closed the diaper on the flank of her colleague, she answered "Nothing, nothing. Just trying to... get comfortable, to the idea."
As she said that, Redheart reached out her hoof. Coldheart grabbed it, went back on her hooves, and said.
"Still thinking about the idea of you and me wearing diapers during night shifts?" The yellow nurse sniffed haughtly "Come on, it is not that bad. And, after all, why you should be unsettled by the idea? We deal with this kind of thing every day, why this would be different?"
Redheart lowered her ears and head.
"I know. But it's... it's just that the idea of me, still in the peak of health, wearing adult diapers like a very old pony, or like a very ill one, doesn't seem entirely right to me."
Coldheart shrugged. "Okay. But I'd suggest you to try at least tonight. Next time you have a night shift, you are free to not wear them."
Redheart raised her head again, sighed, and said "You are right. So be it."
Coldheart proceeded to roll up the green towel, put the diaper box back in the package, and brought them to the nearby storage closet. Done that, Coldheart opened the bathroom's door and exited, followed by Redheart.
The two diapered nurses walked in deserted aisles of the hospital. In the dim light, it was possible to see the shapes of the various potted plants and some pictures of landscapes hanging on the white walls. However, even if Redheart tried to look at the pictures or in front of her, her thoughts went back to the sound her and her colleague's diaper was making, how soft it felt on her backside, and how strange it felt in psychological terms.
Then the two nurses reached an intersection between the corridor that brought from the entrance to the northern part of the hospital and another hallway that brought on the right towards Oncology and Radiology, while on the left it brought to General Medicine and Pouliatrics.
Nurse Coldheart and Nurse Redheart stopped in the middle of said intersection.
Coldheart, after looking at both left and right, said.
"Should I go check Oncology and Radiology first, or do you go there first?"
Redheart did not waste time in thinking her answer because she wanted to do her usual route for the shift.
"I shall take General Medicine and Pouliatrics, thank you very much."
Coldheart nodded, and, while walking away with soft crinkling sound, she said.
"See you later on"
"See you," Answered back Nurse Redheart, who immediately started to walk into the hallway that brought to the aforementioned wards.
Left alone with her thoughts and the darkness, Redheart walked down the empty hallway with her head pointing at the floor
"Let's start my job, and forget about the diaper," Redheart looked at her padded rump "at least, try to do so."
Redheart finally reached the Room 1 of General Medicine, opened the big green door with a piece of paper glued to the door as label, and entered in the room, where three patients were sleeping.
Nurse Redheart went near the first bed, checked the vital of the patient, the bags of waste liquids, and the IVs. Then she passed to the other two hospitalized ponies in the room.
Redheart repeated the procedure for all the other twenty-two rooms in the ward, and kept seeing no particular problems with the patients: none of them had died in their sleep or risked doing so (yet), only an handful of them had their pitali or waste fluids bags full, and no one had suffered of charismatic shock. In conclusion, it was a quiet night so far in the hospital, but that wasn't a very peaceful night for Redheart's mind, considered the fact that the padding on her rump and between her legs and the crinkling sometimes distracted her.
As she moved on to the next ward, Pouliatrics, Nurse Redheart tried to reason with her mind yet again about the diaper's presence.
"Come on Redheart, you are a 37 years old mare, not a 15-years old filly anymore, you can't get this worked up about this!" She scolded to herself. But she could not get any peace about that, she felt that she was ignoring an elephant in the room, by ignoring the sounds and the padding of the absorbent garment.
"But it feels nice... I think." She whispered to herself, as she kept walking and thus making crinkling noises.
When Redheart raised her head, her filed of vision was filled with walls that had a different shade of gray than the rest of the hospital, many pieces of paper besides the room's number sticked to the doors, and several shapes that were unlikely to be seen anywhere else in the building. Thanks to this signs, Nurse Redheart immediately realized that she had reach Pouliatrics.
Redheart shook her head to ward off the silly dilemma, as like a dog shaking itself for dry off from water, and she entered in the first room of the ward, where two colts were snoring lightly.
Redheart checked their status, and exited from the room, ready to pass to the next.
At least, she wanted to, because part of her mind forced her to look at the pages sticked to the door. Aside from the room's number, Redheart saw some drawings, made by some of the hospitalized foals, the details barely visible in the dim light, but with enough light to make possible understand what was supposedly begin represented. Usually Redheart gave them a quick glance from time to time, giving her a sense of heartwarming and a little boost of self-value, but nothing too transcendental or strange.
However, this time was different: Redheart was looking at said drawings and, as she did that, she felt a stronger sense of fuzziness then the usual, and something else... Nurse Redheart felt small, younger, simplier in her thoughts... her mind flashed with memoirs of when she was just "Redheart," and the job of a nurse was either just a game, or a duty assigned to adults that acted, in a way well beyond her puny (at the time) comprehension abilities.
Redheart could not connect the dots, and part of her really wanted to get out of that trance. But somehow, she could not bring herself to. It was only when Redheart paid attention to the presence of the diaper, that she understood exactly why she had stopped dead in her tracks for look at the drawings, and why she felt so strange.
"Oh... I understand... I think" said Redheart to herself "my mind stopped me in front of these drawings... because they reminded it of my foalhood... and that was just because I was wearing a diaper." Nurse Redhear mumbled for a bit while keeping a hoof under her chin.
"Boy, my mind sure is sometimes weird," said Redheart, as she went to the next patient's room "but this is a good kind of weird, so I guess I should not complain. But now let's get back to work."
And so she entered in the second room of the ward, checked the status the little patients hospitalized there, emptied the full pitali, and then passed ot the next room, and then to the next one, and then the next one...
After a while in doing that pretty repetitive work, Nurse Redheart finally reached the fourth-to-last door of the ward. She walked towards it, and was going to open it, when she felt pressure in her lower part of the body, meaning that she had to urinate.
Redheart did not pay attention to that, at least, at first. But, as she kept doing her job, the pressure grew stronger, and, when she was done with the patients in that room, the pressure started to get very distracting
Realizing that the game was not worth the candle, Redheart dashed off the room, and tried to follow the same path she had taken when coming in. But, halfway in her run, she stopped midway, because something in her mind told to take advantage of the diaper, and use it, instead of going to the bathroom and waste a lot of time going to and fro the bathroom.
Redheart facehoofed.
"Right, these ar..." Redheart stopped herself mid-sentence "no wait, what the hay I am thinking? Using a diaper? What..."
Nurse Redheart slapped herself, and shook her head violently.
"Be quick in your decision Redheart Celestia dammit!" Said the nurse to herself "You know what? Look where you are: if the bathroom is closer, you go there. Otherwise, you go back to work and piss yourself."
Redheart quickly looked at the nearest door, and saw the number "59" on it. Since it wasn't sufficient fro estimate her position, Redheart looked behind her, on the ceiling, and saw the billboard that was semi-engulfed in the darkness.
However, by squinting her eyes, Redheart could read "Pouliatrics," meaning that she was nearer to the last visited door than the bathroom.
Redheart, after giving herself an annoyed snort, ran back to the door in question for resume her job of checking on patients.
As she worked, the pressure on her bladder. Since she could not take it anymore, Redheart, after checking the last patient in the last room, decided to exit, stand in the middle of the hallway, and relieve herself.
Once she was out and in the hallway, Redheart concentrated herself, squinting her eyes and frowning, trying to empty her bladder, against other judgment.
Then, after around two minutes of concentration, the urine finally flowed out of the nurse's bladder and int the adsorbent
The stream of urine was absorbed by the padding of the diaper, causing it to swell and point towards the ground. Nurse Redheart, aside from the sense of relief it came by emptying her bladder after holding it in for a while, felt that other part of her mind coming back in the attempt of giving her another surge of warm and strange feelings revolving around one the diaper.
After those three minutes fo bliss, Redheart shook her head violently and walked away, towards Oncology and Radiology for the second row.
"Well, this wasn't horrible," said Redheart, as she walked "and I've discovered something new about myself. But now I should change myself and go back to work."
In the bathroom, Nurse Redheart did just that: she threw out the used diaper, put on a new one, and went back to work, all in a couple of minutes.
