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You hear the phone ring and then the voicemail kick in; you don’t need to pull it out to know who’s calling you. The only real doubt that could arise is which of the two of them has actually worried enough to call you. Well, maybe you know that answer too. You finish the cigarette and stub it out on the cement beneath you; as you do, your fingertip barely scrapes against the cement and that faint pain numbs you completely, along with the cold air and the sound of the traffic below. You glare with resentment at the empty pack of cigarettes in your pocket and a small huff leaves your lips. You settle yourself more comfortably on the ledge, not paying much attention — as if you weren’t literally one step away from death.

A small, melancholic smile curls your lips and a jolt of pain strikes your right cheek; by now a bruise has surely formed, no doubt about it. You don’t need to have studied medicine for ten years to figure that out, and you don’t need a mirror either. You feel it in every facial movement you make; every single crease of the skin reminds you coldly of what happened today and the reason you find yourself on this rooftop.

It’s not the first time a patient has thrown a punch at you, but it is the first time that the father of a child — John, six years old, with a cardiac malformation for which you could do nothing except fifteen desperate minutes of cardiac massage on your part — screams at you that it’s your fault his child is dead, punches you in the face, and then, according to the evening news, throws himself off the nearest bridge to the hospital. Dead on impact. Only Dana had recognized the man on the news, and her gaze had settled on you with a sweetness and a concern that only that woman was capable of. But, as was your habit, you had downplayed it and reassured her and, above all, you had begged her not to tell anyone.

Not that anyone knew about your relationship. A relationship involving three people is never an easy confession, and in a workplace? A nightmare.

Everyone in the ER knew about THEIR relationship, but you stayed in the shadows, with fleeting quickies, stolen kisses, and a shared apartment twelve minutes by car from your workplace.

You had started working at the Pitt alongside Trinity, and gradually she had grown close to a certain surgeon, and then, well, the duo had become a trio. With Yolanda’s hands roaming over your body while your mouth found warm shelter between Trinity’s legs. Before long, your casual relationship had grown more serious until you decided to move in together, and you fit together so well that it seemed a shame not to have met them sooner; a sacrilege, almost. Trinity had opened up about her scars, you about the depression that had consumed you for most of your life, and Yolanda about her battle with — and eventual victory over — the obsessive-compulsive disorder that, over the years, had transformed into the control she so often displayed in the operating room. You were imperfect, but you loved and accepted one another completely in a way you had only ever dreamed of.

You slide your fingertip over the wheel that strikes the lighter’s flame; it takes three tries for the fire to rise and for the empty cigarette box, resting on the cement of the ledge, to catch fire.

You’ve been up here for hours by now; you don’t know what you want to do, you don’t know if you want to take a step forward and end all of this forever or take a step back and return to the arms of your partners, at home. John isn’t the first child you’ve lost, but you had grown attached to him like you never had to anyone else. In one month, you had seen that little human being more than most of your own family; he had made you laugh, cry, have fun; he had drawn you a beautiful picture: three figures holding hands in front of a building with an asterisk drawn on top, at the center of which was a serpent coiled around a staff. One night, while you were checking his vitals, you had told the little one that you loved two people and not just one, like other people. You had told him that everyone says you can only love one person at a time, and that they said it because they had never met two extraordinary people at the same time.

The next day, when you had entered his room for the routine checkup, you had found him sitting on the bed — surrounded by machines that a child shouldn’t even have to see, at his age — clutching triumphantly, in his tiny little hands, that piece of paper. He had handed it to you with the biggest smile you had ever seen him make, and in a proud voice he had said that he too loved many people: his father, his cousin, his teacher… and he understood what it meant to love more than one person. You had cried that day, because a child had explained and understood what many people couldn’t even conceive of.

The world had lost a beautiful person today.

It wasn’t your fault, you know that; rationally, you know that you did — that all of you did — everything you were capable of doing. But grief… grief is never rational.

What remains of the pack is a little pile of ash; you brush it away with the back of your hand, letting the wind carry it off with a gust. The way you too would like to fly away, without the weight of everything you feel on your shoulders right now.

“To jump or not to jump, that is what I wonder”… you chuckle bitterly at the thought; after all, the great Shakespeare would not be very pleased with this butchered quotation.

The phone rings again, three, four, five times. And then, the rooftop door opens with a creak.

You don’t even turn around, you don’t feel the need and even less the desire. Whether it’s one of your colleagues or one of your partners doesn’t matter; you don’t owe explanations to anyone, everyone comes up here, whether for the view or for other reprehensible reasons is beside the point.

“Hey kiddo, I haven’t seen you come down in a while. The night shift has arrived and Lena too, finally. I can’t wait to get home to my boys. Maybe it’s time for you to do the same.”

The unmistakable voice of the head nurse rings through the noisy silence of the roof, drowning out the hum of car horns dozens of meters below. You hear the click of a lighter, and without turning around, you understand she has just lit a cigarette.

You don’t answer. You don’t turn. The sound of her steps approaches slowly, unhurriedly, as if she had all the time in the world — and perhaps, in a way, she does. Dana isn’t the type of person who rushes you; she’s the type of person who sits down next to you, on the cold cement, a meter from the edge, and smokes in silence as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“I lied for you today, you know? Santos called me, about an hour ago,” she says, after a long drag. Her voice is flat, free of judgment. “I told her you were still at the hospital, that you were finishing some charts. She pretended to believe me.”

Your stomach drops. Not because of the lie itself, but because Dana had had to construct it, think it through, make it believable. For you. Because you hadn’t had the courage to answer the phone.

“You didn’t have to,” you murmur.

“I didn’t have to, but the alternative was telling her the truth, and I don’t know if I was ready for that conversation.”

You don’t ask what the truth is according to Dana. You don’t need to. You saw her watching you walk out of the family room with the bruise already forming on your cheek and your eyes hollow.

“I’m not going to jump, Dana,” you sigh, but not even you believe your own words because, as a matter of fact, a very large part of you would just like to have the guts to take that last step.

“I didn’t suggest that, kid, but I’m definitely not going down from this roof without seeing you get off that ledge first. You’ve been up here for hours and I doubt it’s just to admire the view.”

You hear a long breath and then a little cloud of smoke rises to your right. The woman has probably moved closer, without you noticing.

You swallow. The metallic taste of smoke scratches your throat and the inhaler in your pocket weighs like an accusation.

“It was a bad day, Dana. Nothing more.”

“A bad day…” Dana chuckles bitterly, weighing every single word and shaking her head a couple of times before tossing the cigarette on the ground and crushing it with the toe of her shoe.

For a few seconds, the only sound surrounding you is your breathing, the wheeze in your bronchi that you are trying with all your might to silence. Your abs ache from how hard you’re straining not to cough, but from the gaze you feel burning against your back, you understand it’s futile.

“How much,” she says. A single word, dry as a slap.

“Dana—”

“How much did you smoke, y/n.”

“A pack.”

Dana drags a hand over her face. From bottom to top, slowly, pressing her fingers against her closed eyes as if she were trying to erase something from her own sight. You’ve seen her make that gesture only after the worst shifts — the ones after which you find yourself in the parking lot staring at the steering wheel for twenty minutes before you can turn the key.

“A whole pack,” she repeats, and her voice trembles now. Not with anger. With something deeper, rawer. “You’re asthmatic. You’re asthmatic, for fuck’s sake, y/n, and you’re a doctor, you know what it does to your lungs, and the wheeze I can hear in your breathing is proof of it. Where’s your inhaler? Christ…”

Out of the corner of your eye, you see her turn toward the city for a second, toward the lights flickering on one after another in the growing darkness. You see her hesitate, open her mouth and then close it again as if she were afraid of what she’s about to say might cause. You’ve never seen her doubt anything.

“Santos and Garcia won’t be happy about this, you know that, right?”

An icy chill runs down your spine, and it’s not from the cold.

“W-what?”

“I’ve worked in the ER for twenty years and I notice everything that happens inside it. You’re the only person Santos doesn’t vent to during a shitty shift, and the other day I saw Garcia adjusting the stethoscope around your neck with a smile I’d only ever seen her direct at Santos. It didn’t take me long to figure it out… and it’s fine, I’m not judging you, kid. I’m not judging any of you three, and actually, I’m glad you’ve found someone to talk to. You don’t need a medical degree to see that you love each other.”

Dana smiles and, slowly, takes a step toward you, and only when she’s sure you won’t make any sudden moves does she rest her hand on your arm.

You can’t speak. Your throat has closed and it’s not the asthma, this time. You had guarded that secret so jealously that now, hearing someone else say it out loud is like being stabbed right in the chest. You had been so careful; you had told everyone that you and Trinity had moved in together — for financial convenience, obviously — and the relationship between her and Yolanda was common knowledge by now. You never would have thought that your glances would give you away.

“I don’t care, Y/n. I’ve never cared. Who you love, how many people you love, how you love them… that’s your business. What I care about is that two people who love you are a few minutes’ drive from here and they’ve been looking for you for hours. They’re looking for you and you’re up here, alone, in the cold, with a pack of cigarettes in your veins and a bruise on your face and a deafening wheeze in your lungs. Punishing yourself.” Her voice cracks, barely, on the last word. “Punishing yourself for something that isn’t your fault.”

“I know you know it but knowing it and believing it are two different things, kid,” the knot in your throat tightens, “and until you believe it, you can’t be up here alone. I don’t trust your choices right now.”

“Well… I don’t trust myself right now either.”

Dana squeezes your arm as another coughing fit strikes you.

“That child was special,” she says, and her voice has changed again, lower, softer. “Every time I walked past his room and saw you in there telling him things, making him laugh, checking the machines pretending everything was normal… every time I thought that boy was incredibly lucky to have you as his doctor.” Pause. “And today the world lost something irreplaceable. But not because of you, Y/n. Not because of you.”

You don’t answer. You can’t. Your eyes burn and your throat is a tight knot and if you open your mouth now you know what will come out is a strangled sound, a cry of pain that you don’t want Dana to hear — not here, not now.

“It’s time to get off that ledge, y/n. Go home to your girls.”

A long silence settles between you. The traffic below continues as always — indifferent, constant, stupidly normal — and the sky has gone completely black now, without that orange strip on the horizon left to hide behind. Dana is standing, less than two meters from you. She hasn’t moved closer but she hasn’t moved away either. She guards that space the way one guards a border.

“You know what he told me, once?” you say, and you don’t know why you’re saying it, you don’t know where it comes from, but the words come out before you can stop them. “John. One evening, while I was checking his vitals and he couldn’t sleep, he asked me why I became a doctor.”

Dana doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. She listens.

“I told him I became a doctor because I wanted to help people and make them feel better. And he looked at me with those big eyes that were impossible to say no to, Dana, and he said: ‘But then why do you cry when you leave my room?’” Your voice breaks, you can’t help it, as the memory of that sweet child invades your mind with force.

You bite your lower lip so hard you taste blood.

“A six-year-old child… and he noticed I was crying. He noticed that every time I left his room I leaned against the corridor wall and cried because I knew — I knew, Dana, from the very first day — that he wasn’t going to make it. That every probability I had studied in my medical textbooks testified to how his story would end. And he knew I was crying and he never said anything until that evening when he asked me and I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know how to explain to a child that I was crying because—”

You stop. The sob takes your throat like a hand and squeezes. You lean forward, your hands on the cold cement, and for one horrible second the world tilts — the edge is right there, less than a few centimeters away, and your body weighs too much and the void pulls —

Dana’s hand grabs your arm with force. So hard that you feel every single finger through the fabric of your jacket. She pulls you back and for a moment you find yourself with your back against her chest, her arm around your shoulders and her heart pounding against your back.

Not the calm heartbeat of a woman who has everything under control, but the terrified heartbeat of someone who has just seen what could have happened.

“Don’t move,” she says, and her voice is unrecognizable. Hoarse, broken, stripped of all professionalism, of all distance, of every role. “Don’t move, y/n. Stay here, stay still.”

Her arms tremble around you.

Yours tremble against her body.

And you stay like that for a time you can’t measure — seconds, maybe, or minutes, or hours compressed into a heartbeat — until Dana drags you off the ledge, setting you with your back against the cement you were sitting on just moments ago.

“He answered me himself, you know,” you whisper, and your voice is a whisper, the thinnest thread barely audible, the ghost of a sound. “I apologized for not knowing how to answer him and he said: ‘Maybe you cry because you care about me. My dad cries too and I know he loves me.’”

Dana doesn’t answer, but her arm tightens around you and her breathing becomes irregular, short, broken — like the breathing of someone fighting not to cry and succeeding by the thinnest margin.

“And he was right,” you say. “I was crying because I cared about him. And now I’m crying because he’s gone and his father is gone and I’m on this fucking roof wondering if—”

“Enough.”

Dana lets you go. She shifts, moves in front of you; kneeling on the cement, her hands on your shoulders, her face thirty centimeters from yours, and in her eyes you see something you’ve never seen in twenty years of emergency room condensed in that woman: fear. Pure, naked, total fear.

“Enough,” she repeats, and her voice trembles but holds. “Listen to me. That child loved you. His father was destroyed by grief and did the things that grief makes people do. And you’re here, alive, with a bruise and a heart that hurts too much, but you’re here. You’re here, Y/n. And I need you to stay here.”

She takes your face in her hands. Her fingers are cold and rough against your skin.

“I need you to use that inhaler. I need you to get up from this cement and come down from this roof and let me drive you home and let those two women hold you tight tonight. I need these things, Y/n. I need them. Can you do them for me, if you can’t do them for yourself?”

You don’t answer. Not with words. But your fingers find the jacket pocket — the one without the phone — and pull out the inhaler. The metal is ice-cold. You bring it to your mouth. Press. Inhale. Hold for a few seconds.

The bronchi open. Air flows in and the wheeze, finally, fades.

Dana nods. She releases your face. She sits next to you, shoulder to shoulder, and for a full minute you stay in silence, seated on the cement with your backs against the ledge you were sitting on just moments ago.

“That child is the reason you get up from this roof,” Dana says. “Not for me. Not for your job. Because that child — you are not allowed, y/n, do you hear me? — you are not allowed to turn that child into a memory of something that was lost.”

You stand up.

Your legs tremble, your knees protest, and for a second the world spins, darkness closing in at the edges of your vision, but Dana quickly grabs you by the elbow to keep you from falling.

“Easy, kid,” she says. “Easy.”

She holds your elbow a few seconds longer than necessary, until she’s sure your legs can hold on their own, and then lets go — but doesn’t move away. She walks at your side toward the roof door, half a step behind, close enough to catch you if you fall and far enough not to make you feel like an invalid.

“My keys are in the locker,” you say, your voice hoarse. “I need to—”

“Oh, you don’t actually think I’m going to let you drive, do you?” She turns to you as if you had just told her you’d removed a lung from a healthy patient, arching her right eyebrow.

“Dana—”

“I’m driving you home. End of discussion. Your car will get some rest.”

You don’t have the strength to argue. You don’t have the strength to do anything, really. The adrenaline left a long time ago and what remains is an exhaustion so total that it feels like you’re moving underwater. You follow Dana through the ER — emptied out at this hour, thanks to some divine miracle — until you reach outside, the parking lot, where the cold night air makes you shiver.

The drive home is blurred, the warmth of the car lulls you and the devastating emotions of the day drain you so much that you think you closed your eyes at some point. You don’t even remember telling Dana where you live, actually; and yet, when you open your eyes you recognize the façade of your apartment building.

You turn toward her. In the darkness of the car, her face is lit in flashes by the orange streetlight and her dark circles seem deeper, her gaze more tired. She spent her evening on a roof, in the cold, for you. She should be home with her boys by now, and instead she’s here.

“Dana.”

“Tell me.”

“Why did you come up?”

She looks at you for a few seconds and then, with a tired smile, answers, “Because I don’t only have two children to look after, but also many other doctors just like you, kid — Santos and Mohan and Javadi and Whitaker. You’re all my godchildren, and I have to make sure my godchildren are safe.”

“Thank you,” you say, and the word is so inadequate, so small compared to what it contains, that you’re almost ashamed to say it.

Dana huffs a half-laugh — dry, tired, real — and then hugs you.

“This pain will pass, y/n, but until then, turn to the people who love you.”

She gives you one last squeeze and then gets out of the car to open your door for you, walks you to the entrance and waits patiently while you find the keys inside your jacket. The head nurse waits until you’re inside the building and then, with one final nod, walks away.

“I expect not to see you at work tomorrow, and when you come back, we’ll have a talk about what happened tonight. It’s not optional.”

Dana closes the front door, with you inside, and heads toward the car. You hear her start the engine only after you step into the elevator and the doors close behind you.

You arrive in front of your door without realizing it; you slip your hand into your jacket pocket to pull out the keys again and open the door.

The smell hits you first. Lavender — Trinity’s detergent. Coffee — Yolanda. Something burnt — the toaster, probably, forgotten somewhere in the chaos of the day by Trinity; Yolanda keeps everything under control, after all. Home. The sound of that word in your head hurts in a way you didn’t expect.

“Finally.”

Yolanda’s voice comes from the living room. The tone is the exasperated one she uses when you come home late; irritated, a bit annoyed, but fundamentally calm. The tone of someone who thinks they already know what happened: long shift, charts, the usual delay. You hear the sound of the couch deforming under the weight of someone getting up and then her footsteps — barefoot, quick — in the hallway.

Yolanda appears from the doorframe; she’s wearing your gray sweatshirt, sweatpants, and her hair is tied up. She’s gripping the phone in her hand and slipping it into her pocket with the automatic gesture of someone who has just stopped checking the screen.

“I know you were finishing charts, but you could have at least—”

She stops.

The words die in her mouth. You see it happen in real time: the sentence fading, the lips remaining half-open, the eyes moving from your eyes to your right cheek. And staying there, pinned.

Her face changes and the irritation vanishes, the relief vanishes. What remains is something bare, sharp, surgical.

“Y/n.”

Your name sounds different from how you’ve heard her say it a thousand times. It sounds like an alarm sounds.

“What the hell happened.”

It’s not a question. You know her well enough to know that when Yolanda phrases things like that — flat, dry, without a question mark — she’s not asking. She’s demanding an answer.

“Trinity.”

She says it without turning around, without taking her eyes off yours, raising her voice just enough for it to reach the living room. Trinity’s name spoken in that sharp, urgent, clinical tone is the same one she uses in the operating room when something goes wrong and she needs another pair of hands.

You hear Trinity get up from the couch, her hurried steps in the hallway, and then you see her appear behind Yolanda, with the blanket still clutched in one hand and the expression of someone expecting a complaint about the lateness who finds something else entirely.

She looks at you, her gaze quickly finds the bruise on your face and stops there. The hand gripping the blanket opens and the fabric falls to the floor without a sound.

“Who,” she says. A single syllable. Low, hoarse, charged.

“Can we sit down? I’ll explain everything, but—”

“Who the fuck did that to your face, y/n.” Trinity has taken a step forward. She’s in the hallway now, less than a meter from you, and her eyes haven’t left the bruise for a single second. Her hand rises toward your cheek — slow, controlled, with the gentleness of someone handling something broken — and her fingers stop a centimeter from the skin. She doesn’t touch. She feels the heat of the inflammation through the air.

“Close the door,” says Yolanda, behind you. You hadn’t realized it, but the front door is still open, flung wide onto the landing. You push it. It closes. The sound of the lock clicking shut is final. For one single instant you had the temptation to run away, but it wouldn’t solve anything now. If anything, it would only make things worse.

Trinity takes your chin between her fingers and turns your face toward the hallway light. Her lips tighten. You see her clench her jaw once, twice; a gesture she makes when examining victims of violence.

“It’s not a fall,” she says. “It’s not a locker. It’s not a cabinet door. It’s a punch, y/n. Someone punched you.”

Silence. That she was good, you already knew, but this…

“Why didn’t you answer the phone?” Yolanda speaks. She has come closer now, and you feel her to your left. Her tone is low, careful, controlled with a visible effort, like someone walking on a glass floor. “We called. Messages. Dana said charts. But you weren’t answering. Why?”

“Because I couldn’t.”

“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”

The difference, right now, seems irrelevant to you.

Trinity releases your chin. She takes your hand — the right one, the one with the fingertip scraped by the cement, which fortunately she doesn’t notice — and guides you to the living room. She sits you on the couch and then sits beside you, so close that her thigh touches yours, and she doesn’t let go of your hand. Her fingers are warm. Yours, on the contrary, are ice-cold.

Yolanda stays standing. Arms crossed, leaning against the TV cabinet, facing you. The news is still on — the volume low, images scrolling across the screen — and for a second your eyes fall there, on the screen, and you pray they’re not replaying the bridge story because if they see it now, before you—

“Turn that thing off,” Trinity says to Yolanda, and from the tone you can tell it’s not because of the noise. She noticed your gaze. She saw where you were looking. She doesn’t know why yet, but she saw it.

Yolanda picks up the remote and turns it off. Silence. Only the refrigerator humming, the bathroom faucet dripping, your breathing.

“Talk,” says Yolanda.

You look at them. Both of them. Trinity is at your side, with your hand in hers and her eyes fixed on you — those eyes you’ve learned to read like an open book and that are now full of something that oscillates between fear, fury, and anguish. Yolanda stands before you, arms crossed, with the expression of someone performing an emotional triage.

“John died this morning.”

A shadow passes over Trinity’s face. She knew — they both probably knew, departments talk — but hearing it from your mouth, in your broken voice, is different. Her hand squeezes yours.

“Cardiac malformation. Fifteen minutes of cpr. He didn’t make it.” The clinical chart tone; the wall every doctor hides behind, with great effort and very often without great results. “His father was in the family room. I went to notify him of the death. He… let’s say he didn’t take it well.”

“The bruise,” says Yolanda. Hers is not a question.

“He screamed at me that it was my fault, that I had killed his son, and then he punched me.” You gesture toward your cheek with a nod. “Outside the room. No one was around.”

Trinity’s hand contracts in yours. A reflex, a jolt; the body reacting before the mind. Her breathing has changed — it’s shorter, quicker, her chest rising and falling in jerks.

“And you didn’t tell us,” says Trinity.

“That’s not all.”

Yolanda pushes off the cabinet, takes a step toward you. Her arms have uncrossed and her hands are at her sides, open, and there’s something in her posture that reminds you of the way she approaches the operating table when she already knows the surgery is going to be long and complicated and isn’t going to go the way it should.

“He… left the hospital after hitting me. He jumped from the bridge on Eighth. Died on impact.” You swallow. “They reported it on the evening news, in the afternoon. Dana recognized him… she’s the one who brought me home.”

The silence that follows is not silence. It’s the sound of two people processing information too large, too heavy, too full of implications to be absorbed in a single breath. Yolanda has stopped moving; she stands in the middle of the living room, two steps from the couch, with an expression you’ve seen only once — in the operating room, when she lost a patient on the table and took off her gloves and set them in the bin with a calm that had frightened everyone. Trinity, beside you, has closed her eyes.

“The charts,” says Yolanda. And the word falls into the living room like something heavy, something dirty. “Dana told us you were finishing charts.”

“Dana lied for me. I had asked her not to say anything.”

“And where were you.” Yolanda whispers, her gaze concealing the need for a denial that, however, doesn’t come.

“On the roof.”

One second.

“On the roof,” Trinity repeats, and opens her eyes. “For how long.”

“Since four. Maybe earlier. I don’t know.”

“Four hours,” says Yolanda, and her voice trembles. “Four hours on the hospital roof without answering the phone, after a man punched you in the face and jumped off a bridge.” She inhales. “Were you on the ledge?”

You don’t answer. But the way you avoid her gaze is answer enough.

“God.” The word leaves her like an exhalation. She brings her hands to her face, presses them against her eyes, drags them down slowly, and when her eyes reappear they’re glistening. Glistening in a way you’ve never seen. Glistening in a way that frightens you more than anything that has happened today, because Yolanda doesn’t cry — she never cries. “Y/n… You were on the ledge.”

“I wasn’t going to—”

“You weren’t going to?” Trinity stands up, and her voice rises with her. “You don’t know if you were going to or not. You don’t sit on a ledge for four hours when you know what you want to do, y/n!”

She’s right. She’s right and you know it and she knows it and the silence that follows is the proof.

“The charts,” says Trinity, and her voice has changed. It’s fragile, wounded. She takes her hands from her face and her eyes are red and wet and full of a desperation that devastates you. “We believed it. I believed it, Y/n. Dana said you were finishing charts and I said ‘ok, she’s doing charts’ and I stopped calling because I thought you were working and you were on the ledge. For half an hour longer I didn’t look for you because someone told me a lie and I believed it and you were—”

Her voice breaks. She turns her back on you and takes three steps toward the kitchen before stopping with her hands pressed on the tabletop, arms straight, head bowed. Her breathing is loud, ragged — the breathing of someone trying to hold the pieces together by sheer force of will. It’s the breathing you’ve heard her do many times before… just before a panic attack.

“Trinity, sweetheart—” you stand up.

“Sit down.” Yolanda. She isn’t looking at you. She’s looking at Trinity and then, with three quick steps, reaches her. She places a hand on her sternum and presses gently, to make her feel her presence. She presses softly, with an open palm, a gesture that both of you use to help your girlfriend — to give her something physical to focus on when her breath escapes her.

Trinity inhales, once, twice. Slowly, fighting against the panic rising in her chest. Her hands are still on the table, knuckles white with the effort and arms trembling under the weight of a body that wants to give in.

You stay on the couch, motionless, while guilt devours you. Not only for everything that happened today but also for this. For the fact that Trinity, one of the two women you love with all your heart, is having a panic attack in your living room, and the cause is you.

“Breathe, love,” Yolanda murmurs; her voice is calm, low, steady… completely different from the one she just used with you. It’s the voice she reserves for Trinity in the worst moments. “Look at me. Breathe in with me. That’s it. Good.”

Trinity raises her head. Her eyes find Yolanda’s and cling there, like an anchor. She inhales when Yolanda inhales. She exhales when Yolanda exhales. They do it three times, four, five, until the rhythm stabilizes and Trinity’s hands on the table finally stop trembling.

“I’m sorry.”

You say it from the couch, with your hands on your knees and your voice trembling like a child’s. You say it looking at them and the inadequacy of those two words crushes you.

Trinity pulls away from the table. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, with a rough, almost angry gesture, as if the tears were a personal offense. She inhales once, deeply, and then crosses the living room and comes back to you.

She kneels on the floor in front of the couch, and her hands take your knees. She looks up at you from below and her face is devastated and furious and full of love, and all these things together shouldn’t be able to coexist on the same face, yet on Trinity’s they do — they always have.

“I’m not done,” she says. Her voice is still hoarse, still unsteady. “I’m not done being angry with you. I’m not done being afraid. I’m not done—” She stops. Swallows. “But first I need to know one thing. And I need you to tell me the truth, love — not the version you think is less painful. The truth.”

You nod.

“On the ledge. For four hours.” Her fingers tighten on your knees. “At any point during those four hours, did you think about jumping? I’m asking you if the thought crossed your mind, even for one second.”

The living room is so silent you can hear your own heartbeat in your ears. Yolanda stands at the kitchen entrance, motionless, arms at her sides and eyes fixed on you. She waits. They both wait.

And you could lie, you could say “no, never” with the same ease you said “I’m fine” to Dana this morning. You could protect — again, still, always — and add another layer of lies between yourself and the people you love.

But you stopped lying tonight. You’re tired, and you can’t do it with their eyes on you.

“Yes.”

A single syllable, so brief and yet the heaviest you have ever spoken.

Trinity closes her eyes. She doesn’t move, doesn’t pull away, doesn’t remove her hands from your knees, but her face does something that destroys you: it contracts, for a second, as if she had received a physical blow — a real, bodily pain — and then recomposes itself. When she opens her eyes there are tears, but beneath the tears there is something else — something hard, determined, unshakable.

“Ok,” she says. “Ok.” She’s shaken, visibly shaken, but she’s trying to process somehow the bomb you’ve just dropped.

Yolanda has moved. You didn’t hear her, but now she’s behind you, on the couch, and her hands are on your shoulders. The weight of her hands on your tense muscles is warm and steady and says: I’m here, I’m not going anywhere.

“And Dana?” asks Yolanda, from behind you. Her voice is controlled, but her fingers on your shoulders tremble, just barely, betraying everything else. “Dana knew? That you were on the ledge?”

“She came up. She found me there and — she pulled me down.”

A sound escapes Yolanda’s throat. It’s not a word; it’s a strangled sob. Her fingers tighten on your shoulders, once, hard, and then relax. She leans down, leaves a kiss in your hair, and you feel her hands stiffen slightly.

“You smoked.”

“I—”

“Goddammit, y/n,” Yolanda whispers, her voice still trembling, but with anger now.

Trinity doesn’t react — not immediately, at least. Her face stays motionless, perfectly still, for three whole seconds, and then something breaks. You see her rise from her knees, sit next to you on the couch, and rest her head against the backrest, eyes on the ceiling. She inhales. Exhales. Inhales again.

“You’re asthmatic,” she says, to the ceiling. As if she were telling the universe and not you.

“I know.”

“You know.” A pause. “You know, and you smoked.”

There’s no anger in her voice. There’s something worse: there’s weariness. The exhaustion of someone who spent hours fighting against imaginary scenarios and now discovers that reality was worse than all of them.

Yolanda has moved. She’s no longer behind you; she’s gone to the bathroom to get something. When she returns, she has the stethoscope gripped in her hands, along with your backup inhaler — the emergency one, with the corticosteroid and not just the bronchodilator.

“Yolo—” you sigh.

“Don’t piss me off more than I already am right now, please.”

She sits to your right and makes you turn toward her; she slides the bell first across your chest and then your back, ordering you to breathe in and out when she tells you to.

“I can still hear the wheeze. Take a puff.”

You grab the inhaler; her look brooks no argument, and you’re not sure how much further you can push the rope before it snaps, so you follow her orders to perfection, and when, a few minutes later, she checks again, she’s satisfied enough to put the stethoscope away.

She lets herself fall onto the couch, at your side, and her arms wrap around you, together with Trinity’s; the surgeon rests her forehead against your shoulder, and her body trembles. You feel something warm and wet soaking through the fabric of your shirt where her cheek is pressed, and you realize she’s crying. Yolanda is crying. In silence, without a sound, with tears falling without permission, and you’ve never seen her cry in your life, and the fact that she’s doing it now, here, against your shoulder, tells you everything there is to know about what you’ve done to her tonight.

You stay like that.

You don’t know for how long. Time stopped mattering the moment you stopped lying, and now all that exists is this: three bodies on a couch, three broken breaths trying to find each other again, the living room that smells of lavender and cold coffee, and the world outside the window going on without you.

It’s Trinity who moves first.

She stands — eyes swollen, red, but her gaze steady, present — and removes your jacket. She does it slowly, sliding it off your arms one side at a time, and the smell of stale smoke rises from the fabric like an animal waking up. She folds it with care — too much care for a jacket that should just be tossed in the corner — and takes it to the hallway. When she comes back, her hands return quickly to you, to your face; she touches you as if that could anchor you, in her mind.

Trinity sits next to you again. She takes your chin between her fingers and turns your face toward the lamp. She examines the bruise, with light, professional fingers — the touch of a doctor assessing a trauma. As if she weren’t assessing the battered face of the woman she loves.

“Ice won’t do much good at this point,” she says, softly. “Tomorrow it’ll be worse. But nothing’s broken.”

“I know.”

“I know you know.” A shadow of something crosses her lips. “But you don’t get to decide, today.”

Yolanda’s eyes are still glistening but she’s no longer crying; her breathing has stabilized — not as controlled as usual, but certainly better than before.

“Tomorrow we talk,” she says. “About everything. The cigarettes. The asthma. Dana. The roof. The ledge. The phone. About how we make sure this never happens again.” Pause. “I can’t go through another evening like this, y/n. I can’t do it. Not a second time.”

“Neither can I,” says Trinity, from the other side, quietly.

“Tomorrow,” you say. It’s all you have. Your voice emptied out, your body exhausted, and their bodies at your sides, and the blanket — picked up from the floor by one of them, at some moment you didn’t register — around your shoulders.

You don’t promise anything. You don’t say “it won’t happen again” because you don’t know if that’s true and you’ve stopped lying tonight. You rest your head against the backrest, close your eyes, and let the weight of your body give in toward them. Toward Trinity, on your left, who takes your hand under the blanket and laces her fingers with yours. Toward Yolanda, on your right, who squeezes your arm and presses her cheek against your bicep.

You surrender. To them. To this. To the fact that you are alive and you are here and it hurts and tomorrow it will hurt again, but at least you won’t be alone.

Three figures holding hands.

All three of them standing.

Just like in John’s drawing.

Heyy, sooo… It’s been a while uh? At least, I was really inspired for this one. I hope u liked it and yes, I fell in love with Santos and Garcia (what I have to say, toxic yuri is my kryptonite). Anyway, requests are open (as always) and have a great day!

Everything shifted one Fall night. Trinity was supposed to be out on a date, so you and Dennis desperately retreated to his bedroom. You were careless not to acknowledge that the door didn’t fully shut. Dennis had teased and edged you for an hour on the couch alone; if Trinity knew, she would’ve murdered you both and forced you to get a new couch. Now, you’re naked, sitting fully on Dennis's lap with his cock deliciously nestled inside of you. You grind your hips, loving how your clit rubs on the blonde patch of hair on his pelvis. Dennis lets you use him to your pleasure as he sucks bruises on your chest and plucks your nipples into his mouth.

Grabbing onto his shoulders, you begin riding him properly, moaning at the sensation of his cock nearly sliding out of you completely before he fills you back up. “I love your cock, Dennis, love how it’s all mine,” you pant into his ear. You lean your head back in pleasure when he bucks up to meet your pace, but as you open your eyes, you notice the door slightly open and green eyes peering in from the shadows.

“God, Baby,” Dennis moans when you unconsciously clench around him, grinding in his lap. It shouldn’t turn you on to have your friend watching like a peeping tom, but in your lust-filled haze, it thrilled you. Like a peacock you spread your feathers, you arched your back just a bit more, undulated your hips seductively, and made sure she heard about how good Dennis was pleasing you.

Trinity is frozen by the sight. It’s so fucking wrong, but she can’t tear her eyes away from the scene in front of her. Her date stood her up, so she stopped at the convenience store to get snacks and food to share with you and Dennis when she inevitably hijacked the TV to play Love is Blind.

She mainly looks at you, enjoying yourself in the throes of pleasure. For the first time, she also sees Whitaker in a different light. There’s curiosity bubbling up along with guilt. She’s not upset she got stood up. The sick part of her is happy about it because she got to see that spectacle. The logical part is begging her to stop and look away, it's wrong in so many levels. She eventually listens, tearing her eyes away, leaving the apartment again with a soft click of the door like she never came back early.            

You debate on not telling Dennis, what good will it do? You promised him full honesty, though, and this should be a warning to be more careful. “Hey, Den,” you softly speak. You’re still naked in his bed, head resting on his chest as you trace patterns on his pale skin. The door has been closed for a while now.

He’s drowsy, but still he hums in acknowledgement, brushing your arm with his hand in a soothing manner.

“Trinity might’ve caught us red-handed,” you blurt out, picking yourself up with a hand to his chest.

“Don’t worry, I replaced the sour patch kids.” Dennis misunderstands your worry, thinking back on the other day when you ate the sour candy. Trinity is very serious about her Sour Patch Kids, often arguing with Whitaker when he dips into her stash.  

“No, Den, earlier when I was…riding you,” he blushes with a smile, remembering, “Yeah?”

“Focus,” you huff, slapping his chest, “We accidentally left the door ajar, and I caught her looking at us mid-action.”

Dennis' smile falls, sitting up. Cortisol levels rise, and his heart races with worry and embarrassment, “Why didn’t you say something?”

“One, my judgment was clouded because you were hitting the spot, and two, I thought she would leave, but she just stared. She was probably in shock seeing his sweet country boy acting all innocent,” you try to come up with an excuse.

“You were the one riding my cock!” Dennis shoots back.

“Yes, but you were the one to tease me for over an hour!” You point at him with a pout.

Dennis sighs and grabs your pointed hand to kiss your finger. He thinks about it as logically possible, “It was probably an accident, and she definitely left cause she hasn’t made a single sound all this time. Do you want me to talk to her?”

Trinity always has something playing in the background. Music, reality TV, old reruns. The woman can't stand the silence in her apartment. She would never admit that having Whitaker live was a way to help with the stillness in her apartment.

You shake your head, declining his offer. “I think it’s best if we just forget about it. If she brings it up and curses us out, then we own it. Let’s not make it a big deal; we’re all adults. I’m embarrassed, and she probably is too.”

“You’re right. You’re always right,” he grabs your wrist, pulling you to him and kissing your swollen lips. You moan into the kiss, giggling when he places his hand back on his half-erect dick. He’s still a man on his day off with his very naked, hot girlfriend next to him.

“If only they knew you’re really trouble, Dennis Whitaker,” you click your tongue, chastising him. Your grip on him unrelenting.

“They wouldn’t believe you,” he moans, tilting his head back and giving you the perfect opportunity to leave a pretty mark on his neck and ruin his reputation just a bit.

Dennis is a man of science, so it’s logical that he would conduct an experiment. Something didn’t settle right with him when you told him Trinity stared. Not that she just caught you, but she stopped and stared. She’s one of the sharpest in the ED, always jumping on surgical opportunities and incoming traumas. Diagnosis and management spilling from her lips in seconds. It seems strange she would be in that type of shock by a simple act of lust between him and his girlfriend. Hell, she’s the one always starting raunchy conversations to make him blush.

Weeks later, Trinity hadn’t made one joke about the situation. No snarky remark. No humiliating comment. It was not addressed once and that was strange. So Dennis left the door cracked open to see if it would happen again. Trinity casually mentioned she had a headache and retreated to her room. He knew she would come out to look for some ibuprofen any time now. Not telling you about his plan, he swoops you over to his bedroom, seducing you and promising he’d be quiet.

He wanted to be proved wrong. It was all an accident, and Trinity decided that she wasn’t going to humiliate him for once. He had been mortified about Trinity catching him in the act, but the longer he thought about it, the more his perspective changed. He didn’t know what it was, but the prospect of being watched excited him as well.

It started organically, making out, tongues sliding as hands explored bodies they’ve memorized. In a few moments, your panties were off, and Dennis was two fingers deep in you, talking you through it. “You hear how wet you are, baby?” His voice was quiet, raspy, his tongue licking his lips, wishing they were on you instead. Sinful squelching filled the room; it would make a pornstar blush.

“Dennis,” you gasp, trying to hold his wrist, get him to ease up before the knot in your stomach dissolves.  

“No, baby, come on, you can give me one like this,” he says, mouth pressed to your cheek as your hair clung to your sweaty skin.

“I want your cock,” you moan, you wanted to cum with him inside you, filling you up. His fingers were great, but you were craving so much more. You needed his weight on you, your legs wrapped around his hips and his cock spreading you open till there wasn't any more space.

“You’ll get it after you cum on my fingers. I promise.” Dennis kisses your jaw.

He had forgotten about his experiment until he noticed a slight change in the shadows. It was momentary but enough to catch his attention. Discreetly, he looks over, and there she is again, Trinity. He gives her a chance. Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty. She doesn’t flinch. Dennis catches his lips on yours, kissing your cheek till his lips are on your ear, “You’re going to show her how good I can make you cum?”

“Denny!” You cry out, but it’s enough to have you spasming. His fingers are abusing your sweet spot repeatedly. The sound of his hand slapping your skin is getting louder. Dennis makes a show of taking his fingers out and bringing them up to the light, where she can also see, pretending to observe your arousal before he brings them up to your lips, where you greedily suck them clean.

He doesn’t exactly know why he does it. It’s like he has something to prove after years of insecurity. After years of being seen as less than by many people. Dennis wanted to be seen as capable in all aspects, including pleasing his girlfriend.

Trinity is gone moments later.

On a casual coffee date, you bring up the idea to Dennis. If she’s so captivated by you guys having sex, why not have her join once? She’s probably lonely. Yolanda really did a number on her. She needs the confidence to go back out there, and perhaps you and Dennis can give it back to her by making her feel wanted and sexy and like being too much isn't actually too much.

“I don’t know,” Dennis grimaces, playing with his half-empty coffee cup. “Trinity doesn’t seem like the type to be in that scenario, especially with me in the mix.”

“All that Peeping Tom energy has me thinking the opposite,” you say thoughtfully, then you reach for his hand. “Also, maybe she teases you so much because it’s a habit. From what I know, you’re not the same person she first met three years ago."

“Would you really be open to a threesome with Trinity?”

“It wouldn’t be my first time with a girl, and it’s Trinity. It’s no secret she’s hot,” you shrug, drinking your matcha that admittedly tastes like grass, “I don’t know. That time she caught us, both times, it…turned me on.” You admit the last part as your ears and face warm up. You’ve always been open with Dennis, and there’s no one else for you but him, but it would be fun to have an adventure like a threesome.

“I felt like I had something to prove, and it made me feel good,” Dennis admitted as well, playing with the lid of his coffee cup.

“Have you ever felt any attraction for Trinity?”

“First time I met her I thought she was attractive—and mean—but finding out she liked girls I just locked it up and never thought about it again…until now.”

“So should I ask?” You ask, not wanting to cross any boundaries without Dennis consent. This is his roommate and coworker. If you don’t approach it carefully, you could fuck everything up.

Dennis was too curious now. The idea is eating at his brain; it’s no good that you appear to be so into it as well. “Subtly, ease her into it in case it’s all a big misunderstanding.”

“Thinking about it is turning me on,” you confess with a shuddering breath, looking out the big display window.

Your boyfriend is silent for a split second before he bursts out. “Want to go to your apartment?” He was also feeling a certain tightness in his jeans.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” you mumble, picking up your purse and throwing away the matcha cup.

One night Dennis has a shift in the ED, you knock on Trinity’s door, bags of food in your hand. The door opens not a minute later, and you lift the bags with a smile, “I got Thai.”

“Since when do you knock? I thought Huckleberry gave you a key?” She says curiously, but is grateful at the sight of food. She was just contemplating what to eat, menus scattered on the coffee table.

“It’s common courtesy, Trin,” you chime, taking out the containers as she looks for plates and utensils.

Comfortably, both of you settle on the worn couch that has seen too much and put on a movie. Challengers plays in the background, the scene where Zendaya kisses both boys playing.

“They are so out of her league,” Trinity comments, washing down the food with a Coke Zero.

“It’s somewhat realistic. If all three were hot, it would be a different kind of movie,” you muse, eyebrows wiggling.

“Have you ever had a threesome?” You ask, staring only at the screen. It’s not odd for you to talk about sex; it’s a normal conversation between two friends of the same sex. Especially when Trinity used to be very vocal about her sex life.

“In Uni,” Trinity grins, remembering those nights of wild parties and lots of alcohol. She admits she got out of control for a while there.

“Was it like strictly women, or did you dabble with guys?”

“I knew who I was by the time I got to college, still, a guy would slip in there now and then,” Trinity blushes with a cheeky smile as she takes another bite of the food, remembering those days.

“Trinity! You naughty girl,” you exclaim, pushing her shoulder.

“Dennis and I were thinking about it…” You say it shyly to gauge her reaction.

“Having a threesome? You and Huckleberry? Now, that’s shocking.” Trinity snorts as the movie plays. A moment passes before she says, “Who would you even ask? Oh my god, are you making a Tinder profile to look for a third? Can I see?”

“Ew, a stranger? No thanks,” you grimace before your eyes flick to her and then back to your food, “Actually, I was thinking about you.”

Trinity chokes on a piece of chicken. You run over to her, slapping her back and handing her the can of Coke Zero. Trinity goes absolutely red in the face, both from choking and your offer. “What the fuck? Are you trying to kill me?” She wheezes, holding her chest, her eyes are wide as she stares at you, bewildered.

You offer her an innocent smile, tucking your hair behind your ear, “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were mid bite.”

“Joke's not funny,” Trinity whines, leaning back on the couch to calm her heart. She doesn’t think much of the question or why you’re asking her specifically.

Your quiet voice makes her snap at you, “I wasn’t joking. It’s an honest question, Trinity.”

Trinity's mouth opens and closes, not knowing what to say. From you, she can understand the question, but does Huckleberry know?

“You can say no. It won’t change anything between us. I won’t be offended. It’s totally low stakes,” you offer her a way out, nervously fiddling with your rings.

“Why me?” Trinity asks, mind still reeling at the bomb you dropped, not knowing she would be in deep shit with the next thing you say.

“Well, Dennis and I noticed how recently you’ve been watching us in some quite intimate moments,” you blush, looking at her through your lashes, avoiding direct eye contact.

Trinity nearly turns green, nausea forming in the pit of her stomach, “W-What are you talking about?” The tone of her sentence is higher than usual.

“Hey, it’s okay! We were careless and left the door open; if anything, it’s our fault. Still, we couldn’t help but notice that you were…enjoying the show so to speak,” you purse your lips to hide the nervous smile threatening to break out.

“I-I don’t, no, I didn’t mean to,” Trinity stutters, hiding her face in her hands, refusing to look at you. "I swear it's not what you think. I'm not some sort of pervert." Except, she kinda is.

“Trinity, look at me,” you urge her, grabbing her hand to pry it off her face. She barely meets your eyes, “We’re ready to forget about it if you are. We just thought you might like to have some fun. You’ve been struggling since she-who-must-not be-named hurt you, but if it doesn’t sound like fun, then it’s not, and we move on, and we never talk about it again. You’re a really good friend, and I don’t want that to change.”

“I have to think about it. Let’s just finish the movie,” Trinity clears her throat, piping up ten seconds later, “Wait, the movie choice was a device to bring up a threesome?”  

“It worked, didn’t it?” You say sheepishly.

“You’re sneaky and terrifying,” Trinity mumbles.

The rest of the movie plays quietly with no more chatter to drone out the noise, and the food is left untouched. When the credits roll, you decide to go home to give Trinity the space to process and think of a decision. It’s only fair, you bid farewell with another reassurance and apology, squeezing Trinity’s hand goodbye. You take it as a good sign that she didn’t kick you out instantly.

Trinity just about has a panic attack when you leave. She leans against the door and curses herself out. She’s so fucking stupid. Why would she think you and Huckleberry wouldn’t notice? She really didn’t mean to be a creep, but something about the two of you just caught her attention. It turned her on in a way she hasn’t felt in a long time. Fuck. FUCK. How dare you just suggest a threesome? With Huckleberry? Dennis Whitaker? Can his catholic guilt even handle that? Is it all a plan to turn her straight?

Trinity thinks he must have had a traumatic brain injury because finding you hot is normal; she’s always voiced how attractive you are, but to find her roommate attractive as well is a new low for her. She didn’t even realize she felt that way until she found Huckleberry sucking on your tits. He was different around you, more confident, and confidence has always been something that she’s found attractive.

She can’t go through with this. She won’t, it’s totally insane. Also, since when does Whitaker want to fuck her? A girl does a nice thing, and there’s a man wanting to fuck them. Except, it’s Whitaker, and he’s not that type of person. Trinity tosses and turns most of the night, barely sleeping a wink. Her alarm is futile in waking her up because she’s already awake when it starts vibrating and ringing.

Her morning routine is automatic. Get dressed, make coffee, pack the backpack, and slip on shoes. A dance she does every morning. Walking into the Pitt and seeing all of the occupied seats brings her peace. She can do this; this is her job, and she’s damn good at it.

Leaving her stuff on her locker and changing into the mandated scrubs, she joins the rest at handout. Whitaker gives her a tired smile, acting as if his girlfriend didn’t just do one of the most fucking brave things in the world. She ignores him for the rest of the handout, and he approaches her after with a tired look, “Careful with the kid in 8, he’s a screamer,” he tells her, expecting a laugh at his expense. When she doesn’t respond and scans her badge to enter the system, he frowns.

“What’s up with you?” He frowns, poking her shoulder, knowing well he shouldn’t annoy her too much before she explodes. Trinity whips to glare at him, “What’s up with me? What’s up with me? Last night your girlfriend dropped a fucking bomb on me,” she whispers as she looks around to make sure no one’s listening in.

“What?” His face twists in confusion. “You found out she doesn’t like Love is Blind?”

“She what?” Trinity gasps again, “You’re both trying to kill me.”

“Trinity, I just worked a 14-hour shift. Just tell me.” He wonders what has Trinity in such a state. His girlfriend and her get along like two peas in a pod.

Trinity surveys the room again before she pulls him to whisper in his ear, “The fucking threesome.”

Dennis pales, “Oh, that.” He’s doomed. Yup, he’s moving in with you by the end of the week.

“Yes, that,” Trinity hisses, sitting straight when Robby appears.

“Whitaker, go home and sleep. Santos, trauma incoming, you’re with me,” he states, expecting Trinity to be right behind him when the door slides open with a gurney and a blood-soaked patient.

“So, is that a no?” He scrunches his face in confusion.

“It’s an ‘I’m thinking about it still’ because what the fuck?” She whispers-shouts at him, avoiding a man in a wheelchair and finding a pair of gloves on the wall.

Dennis is too tired to stay hung up on the fact that you chose last night to tell her and didn’t prepare him, knowing he would be going home to Trinity. He changes and picks up his bag before heading home and crashing. He’ll worry in the afternoon when he wakes up.

Trinity puts her head down and tries not to think of your proposition. She works all day, focusing on her patients and the traumas that come in through the sliding doors. Her focus is shifted when she sees Yolanda Garcia flirting with one of the new nurses; something twists in her stomach. Hurt. That woman has ruined Trinity. She took something that Trinity had cherished for so long. Turning in the opposite direction, she continues working, the awareness that she's changed has her considering your offer, for real.

Her charts are done when the handout comes back around. Whitaker walks in much more refreshed, his eye bags not as severe as this morning. There’s a coffee cup in his hand that she’s confident he must have gotten with you before his shift. He stands nervously next to her during the shift change, shifting his weight and twiddling with the badge.

“Relax, Whitaker, I don’t bite,” she tells him with a smirk, “Or, I guess you’ll find out soon enough.”

Whitaker looks horrified, not expecting that answer, but then he clears his throat and nods. “I’ll take that as a yes.” He shoves the thought of Trinity biting him deep down. The ED is not the time or place. Perhaps, later during his shower.

From an outside perspective, Trinity looks cool, calm, and collected, but inside she’s shitting herself. She can’t believe she said yes to a threesome with you and Whitaker. What has the world fucking come to? She lowkey expects to see pigs flying when she walks out to the dimming sun. Fishing her phone from her pocket, she texts you a simple:

TrinTrin

Alright, let’s do this. You only live once 8:05 pm

You take charge of planning everything. It doesn’t happen instantly; rather, it takes three weeks for your schedules to align. You pick a bar to meet up in, and from there, all three of you will head to Trinity's and Whitaker’s apartment. You figured she’d be more comfortable there than in your place.

You set down the drinks on the table: a vodka cranberry for Trinity, a beer for Dennis, and a gin and tonic for you. You all three stare at each other with nerves that have been festering for weeks. Excitement is mixed in with the shaky hands and fleeting glances. You’ve been fantasizing about this for weeks, Dennis, a testament to that.

“Just to check in,” you begin asking both roommates, “You’re cool with his right?”

“I never thought I'd be in this position, but yes,” Trinity says, tipping back her cup, “Huckleberry?”

“What she said,” he says, his throat dry from nerves. It’s not like he’s been intimate with many women, and bringing another person to your bed is daunting, even if he’s been looking forward to it.

“Breaking the ice here,” you speak, looking at Trinity, “Why were you watching us have sex?”

Trinity chokes on her drink and glares at her as Dennis pats her in the back, “You really have to stop with the questions when there’s food or liquid around.”

You roll your eyes, “Answer the question, Trinity, and don’t say because the door was open.”

Trinity scoffs when her snarky response is shut down, “Why should I?”

“Considering we’re going to have sex after this, it would be nice to know what about us caught your attention,” Dennis replied instead of you.

Trinity looks down at the table and shrugs, “Listen, I really don’t know. The first time, I had just gotten home after being stood up and heard a noise, so I went to investigate to make sure Huckleberry here wasn’t dying and then—.”

“Then what?” He prompts, urging her to keep talking.

Trinity glares at him, poking her tongue in her cheek in annoyance, “I saw you with him, and I thought you looked beautiful, and I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away. I enjoyed seeing you both together, it’s a different side of the two of you, and I was attracted to it.”

“I liked that you were watching.” You add, offering an olive branch. She doesn’t have to be ashamed of it. “Not that I’m telling you to keep sneaking on us.”

“Aye aye, captain,” Trinity says, offering you a tight-lipped smile. “Whitaker?”

He’s gotten more comfortable with expressing his deep, dark desires thanks to you, but it’s odd to include someone else. Fair is fair. Everyone is opening up. “I kept the door open on purpose. I knew you’d come around, and I wanted to prove it was not an accident.”

“Shit, never could’ve imagined,” Trinity blows out her cheeks with an exhale, “We’re all a little fucked aren’t we?”

“It’s why we’re friends,” you beam, putting your arms over their shoulders to bring them together in a hug.

Your confessions did break the ice. After a second drink, you walk over to the apartment. That’s when Trinity’s hands start to shake; she feels like the odd one out, and it made her nervous. Trinity stands by Whitaker’s door, unsure of her next move. She’s a step closer to the past, both physically and literally. You and Dennis share an intimate kiss, your hands splayed on his shoulders, reaching to tug on the hair in the back of his neck. He’s been letting it grow out into this faux mullet, and you love it for that exact purpose. Dennis presses one hand flat on your back while the other palms your ass.

There’s a soft moan on the back of your throat that has Trinity taking another step forward. Yearning, wanting that closeness. Breaking from the kiss, you smile at her and beckon her over with a tilt of your head. Another step forward, and yet she’s still holding back. You untangle yourself from Dennis, approaching her and cradling her cheek with your hand. “This okay, Trinity?”

Trinity nods, “Yeah,” pressing her forehead against yours, noses brush, and suddenly you’re kissing her. Her hands plant themselves on your hips, squeezing. A testament that this is real. She’s not dreaming anymore. Dennis comes up behind you, kissing your shoulder, observing how his roommate kisses his girlfriend. His lips trail up your neck, feeling your pulse thrum with excitement.

“Is she as good as she boasts?” Dennis has listened to Trinity boast about how good a kisser she is for years. She’s constantly tying a cherry stem into knots to prove a point. Today, he’ll learn if it’s true.

The kiss breaks with a string of saliva between you, and you nod, staring into Trinity’s eyes, pupils blown out, green eyes nearly black. You brush your thumb over her plump lower lip. “She has the right to brag.”

“Didn’t realize all my boasting made you curious,” Trinity says, her eyes briefly flicking over to Dennis. There’s something there she’s reluctant to explore.

You laugh and kiss her again. It’s sloppy and messy, her tongue gaining the confidence to explore your mouth. Dennis's hand explores your skin, undoing the zipper of your dress, allowing it to fall to the floor. His hands stumble with Trinity’s, and it’s like a shock to his nervous system.

He cups your bra-covered breast as his palms glide down your stomach. Fingertips lightly dip into the waistband of your panties, teasing, creating anticipation. Soon, his fingers search for the proof of your arousal, and he quickly finds it. It's warm and sticky, clinging to your skin and the fabric of your underwear.  “She’s so wet,” he tells Trinity, who breaks the kiss to find his hands already touching you. You moan against her lips when his fingers trace over your clit.

He takes his fingers out, glistening, and brings them to his lips. He sucks on them, looking straight at her. “You should’ve offered to our guest first," you scold him.

“She’ll have the chance,” Dennis says, and Trinity can’t help but notice how it’s going raspier, lower.

“Are you okay with that, Trinity?” You ask to include her as she simply stares, overwhelmed by the situation. You’re clearly testing the waters, giving her a chance to back up again.

“Yeah, yes,” she breathes, with a soft nod of her head. Lust is quickly invading every cell in her body; it clouds her judgment, making her impulsive.

“Let’s get you out of these clothes,” you suggest with a hum. Dennis takes a step back as you tug on her shirt, prompting her to raise her arms. You trace the outline of her breast and smile.

Next, the chunky belt she wears with those tight jeans. You caught Dennis checking out her ass earlier today at the bar. Trinity laughs, almost embarrassed at how she has to really shimmy out of them, but you enjoy it. It’s real.

Dennis sits back on the bed, leaning on his hands as he watches. Trinity's gaze flickers to Whitaker. She’ll be damned, she never expected to be doing this. Somehow, the table has flipped, and it’s him and his girlfriend corrupting her.

“You’re so pretty, Trin,” you gasp, kissing her lips briefly, then her cheek, down the slope of her neck, to her shoulder, where you teasingly push her bra strap. “Let’s get this off.”

You cup her breast with your hands, feeling their weight and how her nipples harden with your touch. Your fingers roll her nipple, and Trinity moans. “They’re sensitive,” she tells you. This situation has turned her lower abdomen into a molten pit. She’s now shaking both from nerves and arousal.

You touch her thighs and ass, admiring how firm they are. Years of hard work in gymnastics are paying off. You wonder how flexible she still is. When you brush the pale scars on her thighs, she tenses. “It’s okay, I got you. Nothing to worry about,” you reassure her, kissing her cheek. It serves to steady her as she reaches to touch your skin.

Lastly, you hook your fingers on the skimpy panties she decided to wear, snapping them back against her skin. The purple lace contrasts with her fair skin. “These are cute.”

“You can borrow them if you want,” she raises an eyebrow, trying to come back onto her sarcastic confidence.  

“Hear that, Denny?” Looking back at your boyfriend, he’s discarded his shirt, and his hand is visibly pressing on his cock, “Think they would look good on me?”

“I’m more of a visual learner,” he responds, eyes taking in a nearly naked Trinity Santos. His pupils dilate at the vision of his girlfriend and roommate touching each other. His cock throbs almost painfully in his pants. The air in the room is suffocating him in a good way, pushing pheromones into his lungs.

You push the flimsy garment down her legs, and she lets them fall, pushing them away with her foot. You kiss her again, and slowly she begins to relax. You grab her by the waist so she’s flush against you. The skin on skin has her tingling all over; she swears she feels her arousal on her thighs now.

“Let’s get on the bed, yeah?” You grab her hand, leading her to the bed. As she kneels on it, you return to Dennis, kissing him. Trinity can’t help but notice how firm his grip on your body is, without an ounce of uncertainty. She can understand why you’re so hung up on him. Being touched like that is addictive.

Whitaker swiftly unclips your bra, a sign he’s done it hundreds of times, and pulls off your panties. It’s calculated, measured. He doesn’t just pull them down; he pulls you to him with them, dragging them on your skin. His kisses down your chest, catching a nipple in his mouth. You moan and catch her staring. “He’s really good at that.”

Trinity has to touch herself, or she will combust into flames. Her fingers tentatively slide down her stomach and between her legs, just a touch. You watch her with a wicked smile, undoing Whitaker’s jeans and taking out his cock. Trinity gasps as she shamelessly looks down to look properly for the first time. The first time he’d been balls deep in you.  

She can’t say she’s ever thought about Dennis Whitaker’s penis, but it surpasses her expectations. He’s blessed to have a good-looking one. Good length, maybe an inch above average, perfect girth to have her squeezing her thighs. A bead of precum forming on the tip.

You grab his hair and pull him away from your chest to join Trinity on the bed. Dennis watches you go with one last squeeze to your ass. He’s still trying to find his place in this threesome. Playfully, you push your friend down, and she laughs, getting into it. You lean down to kiss Trinity, your thigh between her legs, your breast pressed against hers as your hand caresses her warm body. She moans when her clit drags against your skin. “I like hearing you moan. I want more,” you whisper, kissing down her body. Trinity's body is a mix of soft and firm, and you’re enjoying learning that fact as you kiss her soft stomach.

“No,” Trinity shivers, her hand running through your scalp.

“No?” You tilt your head, stopping your descent, lips pressed on her lower abdomen where a healthy layer of chub has accumulated.

“I believe I was promised a taste first.” Her eyes pierce into yours, and she smirks at your surprise.

Your cheeks heat and nod, kissing her stomach one more time before sneaking a glance at Dennis. He’s watching the interaction fully concentrated, his skin turning pink. Your mouth has already been watering at the prospect of eating her out. You would have your chance, you’d make sure of it, but who are you to deny Trinity? It's all about her getting her confidence back, right? Getting on your back, Trinity kisses your neck, softly sucking on the shell of your ear as she looks over to Whitaker, who has a hand around himself. His strokes are sporadic, unrushed.

Trinity’s fingertips draw a straight line from your sternum to your mound, lightly tracing. Still, looking at Whitaker, she spreads your legs and his eyes instantly flick down to your slick center. Trinity huffs, amused as she settles between your legs, bending at the waist to get a taste.

Whitaker chokes a moan at the crude pose in front of him. His wide eyes are trained on his roommate's pussy as it spreads for him. The sight is compelling, he stands next to you guys on the bed, hand reaching to dance on the skin of her back. They go up the back of her neck, down the curve of her back, until he grabs a hold of her ass.

Trinity shivers at his touch, her skin on fire. You run your fingers through her hair, encouraging her to keep going. You were all about touching her first, and she declined. Now, she’s distracted by your boyfriend, but surely not so much as to forget how to please a woman.

She sticks out her tongue and licks a fat stripe up your slit, taking a raw taste of your essence. Trinity quickly goes for seconds and thirds, zoning in on the sensitive nub atop. “Ah, Trin,” you gasp, back arching, but Trinity has a good hold of your thighs. She continues her torturous ministrations until she finally starts sucking your clit, smooth tongue caressing the underside. “Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck,” you chant, closing your eyes tight.

“Trinity, making you feel good, baby?” Dennis appears at your side, cupping your cheek as you nod, “So good.”

“She likes it when you use your tongue to tease her entrance,” Dennis tells Trinity, who, for once, is quick to listen. Her mouth was sticky with saliva and your juices.

“Oh,” your eyes roll, reaching for Dennis, urging him down to kiss you, swallowing every moan and plea that threatens to fall from your lips. You always did have an oral fixation.

His hand finds yours, and he pushes it down to his pelvis, where you grab his cock. You’re torn between the two of them, flushed face looking down at Trinity, who is focused on your pleasure, ass up in the air, and hand on Dennis’ length, which you pump as he moans, forehead knocking against yours, and hips tittering against you.

Dennis has one hand on your tit, squeezing, and Trinity on the other. You catch her gaze as she gives you a wink. With a wicked smile, she parts your slit with her fingers. You feel the pressure of her fingers threatening to slide in; you’re needy, nodding for her to go ahead. Dennis watches attentively.  

It slides right in wet and warm. A second one quickly follows, “I never thought I’d be knuckle deep in your girlfriend, Huckleberry,” Trinity boasts, watching how you’re taking her fingers so well. You’re good at keeping your legs spread for all to watch.

“Don’t get used to it,” Dennis quips, rubbing a hand on your abdomen comfortingly.

You’re too busy chasing that pleasurable sensation to intervene, undulating your hips on her fingers. “I can tell why you like her so much. Doesn’t she sound so pretty?” Trinity says when you moan her name.

It makes something tick in Dennis, but he has no time to explore it. “Shit, babe,” Dennis hisses when you squeeze a little too hard on his cock. It only makes him harder.

Trinity is slow at first, feeling, analyzing until she curves her fingers to find that spot and offer real pleasure, “Right there,” you suck in a whine, hips bucking.

“Right there, baby? Like this?” Trinity talks you through, curving her fingers over and over. Beckoning your orgasm closer and closer.

“Just like that? Don’t stop.” Your hand reaches for Dennis. You needed something to ground you, to stabilize you. Dennis leans next to you, both arms resting on the bed. He tilts his head, watching you bite your lips, eyebrows furrowed. “You’re going to cum over Trin's hand?”

“Yes, please,” your head turns to look at him, pleading as if he has a say. He could have a say, but he lets Trinity have her fun. Some lines haven’t been crossed yet.

“So polite,” Trinity is smug as she speaks, her confidence trickling in little by little. There’s a stubborn short strand of hair covering her eyes. Whitaker reaches out without thinking, tucking it behind her ear. “Go on,” he rasps.

Trinity bites back a comment about him acting bossy and ducks down again to suck on your clit. She doesn’t quite understand how Dennis bagged such a woman like you. You can’t stay still as you reach for that precious orgasm Trinity is promising. Dennis helps you, pressing a big hand on your abdomen while the other holds your thigh, giving it a squeeze. He has a first row seat to Trinity’s work. Dennis doesn’t mind the lack of attention; just watching his girlfriend and roommate has him leaking.

You give a silent scream, tensing, your legs shaking, before you relax back on the pillows, panting, a smile breaking out as you look between the two of them. Dennis lies next to you, kissing you with Trinity joining your other side, grabbing your chin so you kiss her instead. Dennis kisses down your neck, sucking on your perked up nipple. His hand dips between your legs, exploring. Your hips jerk lightly when his finger tips brush your sensitive clit, then he traces over your messy hole, wet and clenching, and slides two fingers in. Promptly retreating and smearing it on your chest as he rolls your nipple between his fingers.

Trinity keeps noticing how possessive he seems to be of you, even though he agreed to share the bed. It's carefully measured, the good kind.

There’s a pause. A moment of reprieve as you gather yourself. Dennis and Trinity lock eyes before looking away, still too reluctant and shy despite being at their most vulnerable. “Having fun there?” Trinity says lightheartedly, finger dipping lightly on your belly button, which makes you tense and breathlessly laugh.

“Just a little,” you muse, sitting up in bed as you throw her a look over your shoulder, “But now I’m eager to reciprocate, and you can’t stop me.”

“Sure, you don’t need a minute,” Trinity bluffs, knowing she just rocked your world.

“I can multitask,” you chastise her. You’re slotted between her legs, kissing her pouty lips. Your eyes lock, and she gives you an easy smile. You’re glad she eased into it fairly quickly.

You go slow, taking more time than Trinity thought you would. You make a deal of kissing her sweaty skin, memorizing every centimeter of it. Your lips suck on the spot on the swell of her left breast, a light red mark blooming that will purple by the end of the night.

Your fingers touch her scars, and instead of feeling embarrassed, she simply watches you admire them and kiss them. Then, the inside of her thighs, going as far down as her knee, all while Dennis pets your back, the arch of your lower spine, he grabs your hair away from your face when you kiss her pubic mound, admiring the landing strip she shamefully did for you, both of you. She panicked a couple of days ago. Typically, she doesn’t care; a trim is more than enough, but then she started doubting herself, which, no pun intended, landed her on a landing strip.

“Be patient with me, it’s been a while,” you mumble shyly, kissing the crook of her thigh, lightly licking at the spot.

“You’re, um, you’re doing great so far,” Trinity reassures you, the anticipation making her antsy.

She should’ve known you were trouble. Your lips kissed all around her thighs, mound, pussy lips, except where she needed you most. Your sneaky self was teasing her. You topped it off with a small kiss to her clit, which did nothing but have her voice a small complaint in the form of a whine.  

Finally, you start tasting her, all while looking up at her with eyes full of mischief. “Ah, baby, what?” Trinity keens, fisting the dark blue sheets on Whitaker’s bed. You sucked and licked till she dripped on your bed, and only then did you really stimulate her clit, pushing back on the hood, “Holy sh-“

A big, strong hand came to her knee when she tried to close them around your head. She looked indignantly at Huckleberry, her eyes tracing up a strong, veiny hand to bulging biceps, and her pussy clenched. You stifled a laugh, knowing exactly the effect he was having on her. The fact that Trinity shared a fair amount of nights with men, but she strictly preferred women, still didn’t mean she was fully immune to their charm.

You insert two fingers into her warm pussy, and an embarrassing moan spills from her lips, completely whiny and pathetic. She covered her mouth, but the hand on her knee moved to her wrist. Dennis shook his head, lightly chastising her.

“I don’t believe it’s been that long for you.” Trinity is baffled by your oral skills. For someone who mentioned not having done this for years and not regularly either, you’re quite talented.

“What can I say, it’s like riding a bike,” you smile, biting your lip.

You take your time with her, memorizing in equal measure what has her pressing against you and jerking away from stimulation. You bring her to the edge only to bring her back down by kissing her thighs. You’re enjoying the experience of edging Trinity. Of having her beg for you to make her cum and then have her whine out your name when you decide not to. You liked being in control of someone like Trinity.

Trinity’s voice nearly goes raw. “Whitaker, do something about your girlfriend before she kills me,” she tells your boyfriend, a truthful plea as you edge her one more time. Her legs are shaking.

You roll your eyes at her but continue. Dennis, who had been sitting back, admiring how you please his roommate, stands to come behind you. Seeing Trinity like this has him aching for some pleasure of his own. His hands grip your hips as he lines his cock against your pussy. You gasp as he pushes in inch after inch. You’re so wet from eating Trinity out, you need no preparation to receive his length. “There we go, baby,” Dennis grunts.

You moan his name against Trinity’s pussy, which makes her gasp and inch slightly closer to you. She wonders how Whitaker fucking you will get her to cum, yet she’d be a hypocrite if she didn’t admit it was doing something for her. Huckleberry isn’t built with tons of heavy muscle, but he keeps in shape, strong arms and shoulders, pecs lightly defined with a lean abdomen, and the fucking cock that hangs from him. No wonder you go dumb when he starts giving you deep thrusts. “Come on, baby, make Trinity cum.”

“Not yet,” you whine, sloppily making out with her cunt. You enjoyed having the girl who loves control under your hand.

“You want to cum you have to make her cum first,” Dennis promises, slapping your ass to prompt you. Trinity is surprisingly honored that he’s defending her in a way.

You don’t respond, getting a better hold of her thighs as your lips wrap around her puffy clit. Your fingers promptly return, trying to keep the same pace Dennis has you on. The sound of skin slapping, along with the squelching of her pussy is erotic. Trinity leans fully back, teasing her nipples and squeezing her breasts. Your moans send ripples through her.

Suddenly, Dennis stops. He leans over you to whisper in your ear, “Go on, baby, make Trin cum all over your fingers. Make her feel good, just like she did to you. I promise you’ll get to cum on my cock after.” Had Trinity not been so pent up, she would’ve gasped.

You’re selfish in the sense that you’re needy and would do anything for an orgasm. With the opportunity for one seconds away, you nod with glassy eyes. Dennis keeps slow, shallow thrusts as you pick up pace and relocate her sweet spot to bring her over the edge quickly.

“I’m so close,” Trinity nearly sobs. Every push and pull had Trinity sucking your fingers in. Dennis pets your hair as you do, supervising that you do as told. Finally, you add more pressure and Trinity titters over the edge, tensing up and nearly screaming out from the pent-up pleasure. You slow your fingers, carrying her through, soft kisses over her pulsing clit. “Oh my god,” she gasps, fisting the bed sheets.

“Just me,” you hum, with one last kiss to her thigh. “Are you okay?”  

“I think so?” She hasn’t orgasmed like that in what seems like forever. Her toes and fingers are tingling for some reason. Propping herself up on her elbow, she catches how you straighten up, wet fingers sliding out of her, and Whitaker takes your hand, pulling it up to his mouth so he can clean them off and taste Trinity for the first time. He maintains eye contact through it all. He’s come so far from the homeless med student he used to be.

Trinity’s head is in a daze as she watches him suddenly start fucking you properly, deep and fast. Your eyes close with pleasure. He holds you upright, hand coming to your clit to run over it with tight circles that have you gasping. She’s transfixed with the way your tits bounce with each thrust and the way you moan and smile into it, enjoying the controlled attention to your body. Finally, she hears Whittaker’s grunts and gasps as he fucks you, clearly enjoying it. It’s not what she expected, but it’s pleasant. Her pussy, still twitching with the aftermath of an orgasm, drips at the sight.

“I’m gonna cum, Denny,” you gasp, turning your head to catch his lips in a kiss, his tongue slipping past your lips.

Four deep thrusts and pressure on your clit have you gasping. You bend forward, and Dennis carefully places you down right where he picked you up, between Trinity's legs. Your chest heaves with heavy breaths falling from your lips, but still you smile at her.

Dennis is too concentrated on not cumming, but thoroughly enjoying how your pussy molds against him. There’s a ring right at his base from your arousal. Carefully, he pulls out, and you whine at the sensation. He lovingly thumbs your clit, admiring how your hips jerk from overstimulation.  

You climb over Trinity to rest atop of her, her chest rising and falling against yours, and kiss her pouty lips. “Did I do okay?”

Trinity raises an eyebrow, “I don’t think you need me answering that.” Her hands naturally come up to rest on your back, thumb swapping back and forth. “I gotta thank Huckleberry over here, or you would still be torturing me.”

“But it’s fun,” you sing, playing with her hair, brushing the ends of it on her collarbone.

“Your definition of fun is different from everybody else’s,” Dennis says, playfully spanking your ass.  

“Hey!” You exclaim, swatting his hand away. “You haven’t complained.” Dennis chuckles and shrugs, pressing a kiss to your cheek.

“You know Trinity,” you say in a tone that means trouble. Trinity hums, cupping your cheek. She wants to kiss you again. “We haven’t made Dennis cum yet.”

It’s an offer you’re making. There’s an unspoken tension in the room. Dennis and Trinity have barely interacted. When you first thought of a threesome, you believed all three would have equal participation and interaction. Dennis is not going to push for it—despite wanting it— but you will for him. “Do you want to give it a try?” Dennis shuffles next to you, a brief movement that reveals his shyness.

Trinity’s eyes widen as she takes in your words. Her breath was stolen away. “We can end here, no pressure. I’ve had fun, and I want you guys to be comfortable. I just thought I’d throw it out there, but if you think it’ll strain your relationship, we should stop here.” You make it clear that Dennis and Trinity are in control, too. You might’ve taken the reins at first, but you won’t be the instigator who will force something unwanted.

Trinity angles her head to look at Whitaker, and maybe it’s the dim lighting or the nudity, but in that instance, he’s not the same person. She wants Whitaker to have sex with her. She’s curious about how it will feel and whether it’s as good as you make it seem. More importantly, she knows he won’t hold it against her or make it weird afterwards. He’s one of the people she trusts most in this world.

“I want to try,” Trinity says, and Whitaker’s eyes widen. He didn’t expect that, sure, she joined them in bed, but he thought she’d be put off by the idea of a man fucking her.

You beam at her answer, “Yes? You want him to fuck you as good as he does me?”

Trinity nods more confidently this time, sitting up along with you. You turn to your boyfriend, who has been silent his whole time, “What about you, Denny? Don’t you want to fuck Trinity?” You know the answer, you knew it since he decided to make his experiment before he had admitted it to himself. Men are easy to read.

“Come on, Dennis. You have to admit how pretty our Trin is,” you purr, kneeling between the two of them in the bed. You touch her breasts, rolling her nipples between your fingers till they are erect. You continue down to her pussy, “She’s still so wet, and her cunt is so warm, I know you’d like it.”

Trinity moans when your fingers dip to swipe over her clit. She decides to look at Huckleberry then, his chest heaving as he watches. His eyes have darkened, and he has a bruising hold on your thigh. She lands on his cock and moans at the simple thought of having him inside.  

You redirect your attention to poor Trinity, who has been painfully teased tonight, “Right, Trinity? You’ve seen how good he fucks me; he’s really talented, and it’s shaped so perfectly. Look, it’s the perfect length and heavy, don’t you want to be fucked by something other than silicone? Where you don’t have to do all of the work?”

The tension is too high, breaking suddenly with Dennis and Trinity smashing their lips in a rushed kiss. It takes a moment to be processed, but within seconds, Dennis melts into the kiss, slowing it significantly. You push on their backs so their fronts are pressed flush. Trinity feels his cock pressing on her lower abdomen, warm, heavy, and throbbing. You take her hand on his shoulder and guide it down, encouraging her to touch him.

Dennis is going to hell. This is a different level of sin and impiety. He’s been consumed by lust, and he refuses to go back. Dennis's hands feel big against her skin as he presses them on her back. She’s surprised when he licks at the seam of her lips and opens her mouth. Soon, she remembers who she is, licking the roof of his mouth instead. Her nipples are pressing on his front, and he gathers the courage to palm one of her breasts, squeezing and testing.

He breaks the kiss with hooded eyes and rediscovered drive, kissing down her cheek to her neck. Just as his mouth finds her nipple, his fingers explore her cunt. Trinity hates that you were right; he was good at it. He sucks at her breasts, teeth grazing, squeezing, teasing, but never biting. His tongue soothes over her nipple right as it begins to be overwhelming. It has her reaching a hand to the back of his head to pull him closer.

Dennis grabs the hand wrapped around him and pushes it back; he doesn’t need it. He’s far too focused on Trinity and what he can do for her. He gives a throaty moan at the patch of hair atop her cunt and the smooth slickness of her clit. You lean your head on her shoulder, saying dirty things that she hadn’t even thought of. It has her bucking her hips on Whitaker's hand.

Dennis took advantage of the product, his fingers curious as they poked and prodded. Index and middle finger parting her lips, rubbing the sides of her clit, and lightly dipping into her hole that weeps for him. Dennis straightens up after leaving a light marked on her right breast, opposite to yours. He looks at you for confirmation. Confirmation that you’re okay with his doing this. You smile, silly, it was your idea, or you wouldn’t have brought it up.

Dennis cups Trinity’s face, giving her one short kiss and then another, before he pushes her back to lie on the bed. He’s having trouble recognizing this is the same Trinity that works with him in the ER. Hair loose, skin exposed, skin blushing.

You give her a kiss of your own, spreading her legs to present her to Dennis, you have her bend her legs, folding them upwards, so she’s completely exposed to him. Still flexible. Dennis kneels right between them, touching her legs, giving them a reassuring squeeze. For a moment, he hesitates, aware of the line he’s crossing.

Trinity observes and notices how his cock is leaking for her. Glad she’s not the only pathetic one in this situation. You’re the only one holding on to your dignity. “Go on, Denny, don’t get shy now,” you lightly quip. You were excited to witness your boyfriend fuck his roommate.

The hesitation dissolves into nothingness because right in front of him is a gorgeous woman, wet and spread for him. Dennis splays a hand on her tummy, touching her, warming her up, and Trinity’s hand comes up to clutch his. “Start slow.” She’s nervous; it’s been a long time since she’s been with a man, and quite honestly, she’s forgotten how different or similar it might feel. Not to mention Huckleberry is surprisingly well-endowed.

Dennis nods, but before he slides his cock inside, he leans down to kiss her. Sweet Huckleberry, the sensitive boy, Trinity thinks not wanting to admit to herself that it helps her relax, too. She jumps when he rubs his cock through her folds, making it slick as he notches his cock on her entrance. You watch entranced by it all; you were a filthy liar if this wasn’t turning you on immensely. You wish you had your dildo to fuck yourself while you watched your boyfriend fuck another girl. Trinity Santos at that.

Slowly, he inches in until he’s buried to the hilt. Trinity hisses and gasps. “Okay?” Dennis asks Trinity through gritted teeth. “How does it feel, Trin?” You follow up, caressing her cheek.

“Fucking full—fuck.” There is an ache deep in her, besides the stretch of his cock on her gummy walls, and Whitaker is going to take care of it.

“It’s okay, he’ll take it slow, right, baby?”

“Yea-,” he curses when Trinity purposefully clenches around him. She’s so fucking warm and snug around him. He’s been pent up too long. He needs to control himself. The last thing he needs is to cum before he makes her cum, and you know that.

Santos would never let him live it down.

You reach to the tight circles on her clit, telling Dennis to start fucking her. He starts off slow, gauging her reactions. “Don’t worry, Huckleberry, I won’t break,” she moans, getting cocky.

Dennis has heard her moans before tonight coming through the walls, but hearing her moan his name live and clear did something to him. Made him feel in control, powerful, like he could do anything. His hands plant themselves on her soft curves, giving him the leverage to push deep.  

Trinity forgets about being shy as she moans at the sensation of his pelvis smacking against the most sensitive areas. The slickness between the adding another thick layer of stimulation.

You stop rubbing her clit to give her some reprieve. A moment to be purely in touch with Whitaker. Trinity couldn’t close her eyes for long; she had to pay attention to everything going on. She had to look at Whitaker as he took charge of her body.

“Tell him how good he’s making you feel.” You order Trinity, licking your fingertips and pulling gently at her nipples. Her body reacts to your touch by milking Dennis's cock.

“Making me feel good, Huckleberry,” Trinity mumbles, biting her lips when he gives a particularly hard thrust.

“Try again, Trinity, you can do better than that,” you lightly chide, holding your hand on her sternum. Gentle pressure that grounds her.

Trinity is overwhelmed, her eyes watering with each earth-shattering thrust, “I love the way your cock is fucking me, Huck-“

“No, Trinity, that’s not his name,” you say firmly, gripping her chin to look at you for just a moment, “Look at him and tell Dennis how good he’s fucking you,”

“You gotta be kidding me,” she puffs, face turning redder.

“If you don’t, I’ll tell him to stop,” you threaten, looking over at Dennis. You don’t think he’s quite involved in the conversation between you and Trinity. There’s a layer of sweat on him, making him look very handsome. “He’ll listen to me.”

You’re proven wrong when Dennis adjusts his hold, hiking Trinity’s hips higher. It’s a position you know well, and that will get Trinity to say his given name. “Ah,“ Trinity gasps when he adjusts her position, hitting that spot nearly perfectly. Her ass off the bed, atop of his thighs as he pushes right into her spongy spot. “D-Dennis!”

Dennis bites back a smug smirk, “Yeah, Trin?”

“You’re fucking me so good, fuck, please make me cum, Dennis,” Trinity begs, finding his hands and clutching onto them. She’ll have bruises tomorrow.

You lock eyes with Dennis and smile, nodding, you pick yourself up from Trinity’s side and kneel behind your boyfriend, wrapping your arms around his waist, encouraging him to make her cum. You throw in dirty comments while kissing his shoulder blades, your voice offering him a familiarity he’s so obsessed with.

Trinity is holding tightly onto his arms, begging and mumbling things you don’t quite understand. Dennis cock is messy with their arousal, Trinity’s clit swollen, ready for release. He feels when she’s close by how her thighs shake. Putting her out of her misery, he rubs her clit to make her cum around him.

“AH!” she screams, “Yes, yes, yes,”

Dennis grunts, ”Fuck, you’re choking my cock such a pretty, tight pussy,” Her walls clench and the small gush that flows around him has him ready to bust. With sheer will and a slight pull from you, he pulls out, and you pump his cock so he ejaculates over Trinity's stomach.

Dennis slowly relaxes, leaning back on his haunches and softly releasing Trinity from the tight hold he had on her hips.

They are both breathless, muscles going slack as endorphins and oxytocin flood their bodies. Dennis slowly lies back in bed, exhausted but pleased. You step back between Trinity's legs, leaning down to lick at Dennis spent on her skin. You lick all of it, swallowing most but leaving some in your mouth as you search for Trinity's mouth, where you pinch her cheeks for her mouth to open, as you let some of it drip down to her mouth before you kiss her and force her to swallow.

“Fuck me, you'll be the death of me,” Dennis groans, watching.

There’s a lull where you all pick yourselves back up. The post nut clarity of everything you did settling in. You giggle, and both look at you weirdly, “That was so much, much. I gotta go pee though,” you chirp, standing and leaving the room.

Trinity and Dennis are left alone in the bedroom. The realization of what they did settled in the silence.

“We’re good, right?” Dennis questions.

“Yep, Yup, this changes nothing, Huckleberry, don’t worry,” Trinity blurts instantly, going back to the nickname he’s had from the first day they met.

“Did you enjoy yourself?” He timidly asks, reverting to the person she's always known. Sweet, caring, and slightly insecure Dennis.

Trinity laughs, not out of mockery but disbelief, “You don’t get to ask me that after you fucked my brains out.”

Dennis' eyes went wide, but a small, pleased smile broke out on his face. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“I really didn’t expect you to be so…” She tries to express what she’s trying to with her hands, but comes up short.

“So what?” He questions, raising an eyebrow, already waiting for a backhanded compliment.

“Dominant, I guess,” Trinity presses her lips together, further adding, “That sounds bad, I just mean that you’re firm and easily take control. In a good way!”

“You thought I’d be pushed around all aspects of my life,” the accusation is there, yet he says it so casually.

“Well, no, I guess not.” It’s not confident by any means. “You stopped being like that after intern year.”

You come back into the room, a large t-shirt covering your frame. “You guys debriefed? All good?”

“Yeah, we did. Did you have to put on clothes, though? We’re still vulnerable here,” Trinity waves over her and Whitaker, who are still very naked. She should’ve known you left to give them the space to talk. You’re hyper-aware like that. It’s something she likes about you, you know when to pull and push.

“Take it off and come join us, we’re not ready to get up yet,” Dennis calls out with a flick of his head.

“You guys just want to look at my tits,” you mumble, but comply and get back on the bed.

Dennis is right in between the two of you. Flinching when you decide to poke his side, prompting Trinity to do the same. He halfheartedly scolds you both, flinching when you try to tickle him again. A soft conversation arising as you and Dennis reassure Trinity that she's hot and smart and capable and everything someone with good taste could wish for.

When morning comes, everything falls back into place. Trinity retreats to her room to complete her rehearsed routine before work, and you take off for the gym with a kiss on his lips.

Everything settled comfortably. No awkwardness. You, Dennis, and Trinity fell into the good old routine. You even went with them to the bar a couple nights later to find Trinity a date, which went very successfully. The way Trinity carried herself was different, relaxed and confident. No more thinking about Garcia or the hateful words she spewed.

Their erotic night is only brought up once, months later. “I never properly thanked you for that night. It really helped.”

Dennis is deep in charting when Trinity brings it up. It takes him a moment to register what she means. “Oh, no problem." His face heats up, vividly remembering that night.

Trinity can’t handle the serious atmosphere, so she does what she does best. “You’re lucky you got to her first, Huckleberry.”

“Or what you would’ve dated her?” Dennis scoffs, leaning back on the chair.

“Hell yeah,” Trinity exclaims, “A girl that hot and talented,” she whispers, ducking down to make sure no one hears.

“I don’t think so,” Dennis shakes his head with a grimace.

“I wouldn’t be so confident she was dripping for me,” Trinity purses her lips, typing in an order for a patient.  

“I’m confident in my abilities to please her.” His voice is steady and confident, and he looks away from Trinity to continue his charting.

Trinity flicks her hair over her shoulder, waving him off, “Okay, I wouldn’t get too cocky.”

Dennis takes a beat, deciding if he wants to respond to that. “No? I kinda remember someone going ‘Oh Dennis, fuck yeah, make me cum, yes yes yes.’”

Trinity thanks whatever god exists that the ED is loud and everyone is busy. “HUCKLEBERRY!” She exclaims, raising a hand to slap whatever part of him she can reach first, but he’s already running, grabbing a tablet from a nurse.  “I’ve created a monster.”

enjoyed the fic? leave a comment or a reblog, id love to read what you thought even if its just a key board smash, if not...a heart is good too

part 2 !!

If one were to ask at the PTMC's emergency department, at least 90% of the people there (counting only the recurring patients, and the doctors) would be able to say they knew who Dr. Trinity Santos was. Should the following inquiry be then about her personality, the consequent answers and the faces accompanying them would be less than promising. She was a damn good doctor with a difficult personality, and she did not try to hide it. Let the people think what they want, she would say to her fairly recent best friend. What do I care how I look doing my job?

Perhaps for this reason, when you arrived at the ER, all smiles and a sparkle in your eyes that would surely disappear after your first week, everyone thought the same: Trinity Santos would hate your guts. As if trying to put this theory to practice, both Dana and Robby had decided to put the two of you in as many cases together, as if they were teachers choosing an entertaining sitting plan.

You had been more than happy at the prospect, always eager to make friends wherever you went. Work should be a place where you actually want to go, if not for the job itself, at least for the people there, was your motto. Blissful ignorance kept you from seeing or noticing the silent bets passed around by basically everyone in the ED.

Working with Santos proved to be way less eventful than everyone thought it would be. The two of you somehow complemented each other pretty well, not too many words necessary between you to be understood. In fact, sometimes it seemed as if Trinity had no interest whatsoever in talking with you more than the usual pleasantries you gave to an acquaintance or colleague you saw every day.

Which is why it surprised both Dennis and Victoria when Trinity approached you out of her own volition 12 hours in of a grueling shift that surely you would feel on your feet for the next twelve. The central hub was calm, relative as everything was in an ER. Everyone was either doing their charting or taking a rest while the night shift arrived so handoffs could be done, and you were no exception, munching on a protein bar while talking animatedly about a particular case to your coworkers.

"Hey, Bubbles," a voice rang behind you and you turned around, throwing a smile at Trinity. That was a new nickname.

"I gather you're Buttercup then?" You said with a soft smile, missing by a hair both Dennis's and Victoria's wide open mouths.

"Duh." Trinity swayed on the balls of her feet, hands in her pocket. A smirk crossed her face. "Huckleberry can be our Mojo Jojo."

"Hey–" Dennis's complaint was swiftly cut by Victoria jabbing her elbow on his side. Trinity just rolled her eyes.

"There's no way you know what The Powerpuff Girls are."

"I'm not that much of an idiot!" Dennis's complaint was once again punctuated by an elbow on his side. He was going to get a bruise at this point.

"So your parents let you watch a show with a drag queen crab demon and not one with a sponge cooking?" Trinity rolled her eyes. "Don't answer that. I don't care." She turned back to you. "Anyways, can I talk to you for a moment?"

Your eyes widened and you found yourself nodding before you were aware of it at all. "Uh, yeah sure. Right now?"

"Sure. I'm all up to date with my charting." She frowned and pointed at the amused gazes of her two friends. "I am." Her eyes looked down at you. "So?"

"Yeah, of course! Let me grab my things." Your bag was ready to go by your side and you swung the strap over your head and rested it on your shoulder.

The ambulance bay would have to do, Trinity thought. It was getting too warm for her liking in the ER. All courtesy of your presence, of course.

Finding a nook where a somewhat private conversation could be held, Trinity found herself leaning on the wall, the solidness of it helping to ground her body and mind, which felt like they were going to float away like the smoke of a cigarette (not that she smoked).

"You alright?" Her thoughts found an anchor in your voice and she lowered her eyes to find your concerned face. She felt a strange mix of relief at that expression being directed at her, and guilt for the exact same reason.

"Yeah," she choked out. "Yeah, I'm fine."

The unimpressed glance you sent in her direction was so endearing that Trinity felt as if her heart was going to explode. She wondered what that would look like. Biting her lip, she shook her head and looked down to her sneakers.

"Actually no, I lied." She swallowed thickly. "I'm ass at this feelings stuff. Ask Fuckleberry, he'll tell you. He's been on my ass all this time about how I should just suck it up and talk to you, but then I look at you and you're so pretty that I immediately get cold feet."

"Pause," you raised your hand and she looked up in panic. "You think I'm pretty?"

She snorted. "Bordering on adorable, to be honest."

After her confession that left a lot to desire, any reaction would have been fair game in Trinity's perspective. Anything except for the bright smile that filled your face with that same light she always found herself attracted to like a moth to a flame.

"Really?" Your tone was one of awe. How could you not see what she saw?

Trinity nodded, not trusting her voice. She hoped you would understand. And you did, if you walking the few steps that separated you was any sign of it. Your hands found hers and she found out she didn't want to part with that feeling ever again.

"Can I kiss you?" She blurted out and immediately blushed.

"Of course."

The kiss would go into Trinity's metaphorical vault of most cherished stuff in her mind. It was not groundbreaking and she had definitely had had more heated ones in the past. However, it had your signature softness, and that made it more important than anything else. Unhurried, matching her pace so that she wouldn't be left behind. She could cry, actually.

When you pulled away, a soft flush covered her cheeks, which made her all the more endearing. "Wow," was the only thing she could squeak out.

"Good?" You looked earnest.

"Fuck yeah," she laughed. Before you could completely pull away, she gathered her newfound courage.

"Do you want to grab dinner?" She had been about to invite you over to her flat but she felt that was going too fast when you had just had your first kiss.

"Sure! You got any ideas?"

As the two of you walked over to your car, you didn't notice Dennis and Victoria observing the whole scene from behind an ambulance. The younger girl was almost buzzing, most likely in anticipation of all the money she was going to get come next shift.

The bar, where she finally let go and danced with you beneath blue and white lights. Then your place, after, where she peppered you with lazy kisses and fell asleep with her nose squished into your cheek.

Trinity usually trusts the voice. The dubious cynic who's built a settlement at the back of her brain, the one who reduces people to their simplest parts, because that's when they're at their easiest to read.

A patient lying about the amount of supplements they've been taking. A child who insists her father doesn't touch her in ways he shouldn't.

A senior resident helping himself to his patients' benzos.

As Trinity's fingers curl around the wooden picture frame, her heart suspended in abject terror, that voice finds its way home.

Most of the time, it's herself speaking. But every so often, in those moments of intense, crippling self-doubt, it's the very same raw, humiliating intonation as the man in the photo.

Stupid or arrogant, you need to realize that you are a beginner, which means that your job is to shut up, listen, and learn, because so far today? The only thing you have been successful at is proving repeatedly that you know nothing.

You know nothing.

Instinct screams at Trinity to hurl the frame across your apartment, the walls of which seem to be inching closer together with each passing second.

"Trin?"

Your clear tone yanks Trinity back to reality. She blinks once, twice, then looks to you.

"Your brother is Frank Langdon," she phrases it as a statement, but not one she's particularly pleased about.

Your eyes, slowly blinking in confusion, flick to the photograph, then back up to Trinity.

"You do know him," you conclude, plucking the frame from her hands and setting it on the table behind you.

Her nose twitches almost imperceptibly. You're not sure at all what to think of this newly unlocked version of the girl who slept beside you the night prior. Glitching out like a video game.

The silence is actually quite deafening, so you try cracking it from a different angle.

"Was he a dick to you?" You guess in that tutting, excusing way that sisters do. "He's just got a sensitive ego, that's all. Don't take it personally."

Trinity's jaw locks, her cheeks tightening with something you can only read as disdain.

Beneath her ribs, her heart tolls in slow, dizzying reverberations.

Fuck.

Trinity closes her eyes, disappearing without really leaving. Her throat bobs in a forced swallow, schooling her features into something she prays resembles neutrality.

"He was there on my first day," she says, fluttering her gaze open into yours. "The day of PittFest. I haven't worked with him since."

"Oh, my god, you were in the ER during PittFest?" You fiddle with the bottom hem of your t-shirt, dragging it between your thumb and forefinger. "That was your first day?"

She nods.

Your lips twist adorably in the side of your mouth.

It's a whack in the sternum when Trinity realizes she's seen your brother make the same exact expression.

"So, okay, what's your beef with him, then?" You ask after a beat, reaching for her hand.

She jerks back before you can touch her.

You pause, then take a step back to give her space. "Trin?"

Her seagreen eyes flick up to the ceiling, hands bracing the back of her neck.

"I have to get to work," she announces when she finally deigns to meet your gaze.

You frown. Confusion swirls around your head, trying like a failed private investigator to put the pieces together, but you come up short. You ultimately decide not to push it. Not right now.

She grabs her clothes from the night before off the counter behind her, then jerks her chin to the bathroom.

"You can wear those out," you nod warily to the sweatpants and hoodie Trinity borrowed to sleep in. They hang off her frame, probably one size too big, endearingly loose nevertheless.

A quiet reminder of how warm she'd been this morning.

Trinity's eyes meet yours blankly, as though she's struggling to compute the kindness you're trying so desperately to bestow.

As if you didn't buy her a drink last night.

As if you didn't give her your jacket.

As if you didn't ask her to stay, circling the pads of your fingers over her hipbone until she fell asleep.

"It's cold outside," you say by way of insistence, quieter now. Hurt, but unsure exactly why.

Trinity's lips purse and she gives a reluctant nod.

An impenetrable rampart has materialized between her and you. She can't bust it down to trace her fingers along your hairline or cradle your neck as she kisses you goodbye. She can't bring herself to promise that she'll call.

"Okay, thanks," is all she can say, clutching her folded clothes to her chest.

Her free hand reaches out, poised to touch you, then veers back at an awkward angle and into the pocket of her hoodie.

Your hoodie, that smells like vanilla and jasmine and clean linen sheets.

Last night had been nothing more than soft kisses and shared warmth, yet it might have been the most intimate interaction she's ever known.

But she can't hold that feeling and this new, unnerving one, at the same time.

When she disappears into the hall, you blink at the closed door with stinging sinuses.

Trinity schlepps into her apartment, and she can’t shake the lingering guilt that gnaws a hole through her stomach.

She hates leaving you like that.

With that abandoned puppy look on your face. The softly stricken downward tug of your lips, your eyes searching hers for answers she can't give.

Fuck. The realization hits her once again. Langdon.

Fuck Langdon.

His name itself is a trip wire, sending Trinity down crashing uncontrollably into self-doubt.

Fuck. Everything about last night was so warm and exhilarating and cozy and perfect. She could actually see this going somewhere.

She actually felt… wanted, instead of a way to pass the time.

In the course of twelve hours, you managed to worm your way into the dusty, forgotten basement of her heart.

You even started to clear some of the cobwebs.

Trinity finds Whitaker propped up against the kitchen sink when she locks the door behind her. One palm supports his weight while the other scrolls through his phone.

When he tears his gaze away from the screen, his eyes fix on the folded clothes in the crook of her arm.

"And just where were you last night, young lady?" He shoves his phone in his pocket, suddenly more interested in Trinity's debaucherous exploits than anything on the screen.

"Does this look like the face of someone who wants to talk about it," she says flatly.

"Hasn't stopped me from asking before," Whitaker shrugs. Only took two months of living together to learn how to bob and weave against her bad moods.

It's fucking irritating, being known like that.

She hangs her keys on the door.

"Whose clothes are those?" Whitaker's eyes follow her as she drags her feet into the kitchen against their will.

"No one's," her voice is edged with warning. She rummages through the open box of K-Cups on the counter, then jabs at the power button on the Keurig.

"Well, they're not Garcia's, because you didn't stay there last night."

She props herself up by her palms against the counter, then angles her head to the side. "How do you know—"

"You think I don't check your location when you don't come home at night?" Whitaker crosses his arms over his chest.

The concrete wall around Trinity's heart cracks the tiniest bit.

"You check my location?" she asks, her lips jutting out a little.

"Well, yeah," he shrugs, like caring for her is the easiest thing in the world.

They're locked in a staring contest for a few moments, Dennis arching a brow as he waits expectantly for her to open up.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to tell someone.

The Keurig sputters alive, so Trinity slams the K-Cup into its slot. If she's going spill her heart out all over the linoleum, she needs coffee first.

In the next ten minutes, Trinity relays the whole story to him. She ends up with her back against the arm of the couch, legs extended across the cushions and coffee in hand.

"Holy shit," is Huckleberry's intital reaction once Trinity finishes. He sits on the opposite side of the sofa in a mirrored position, his legs slotted between hers and the back cushion.

"That about sums it up," Trinity agrees, using her free hand to flip the hood of your sweatshirt up over her head. Your lingering scent envelops her in a warm embrace she knows she doesn't deserve.

"What did you say?" He asks. "That must have been…"

"Horrifying? Yeah, it was."

"I was gonna say 'difficult', but, sure."

She sips at her coffee, peering at Whitaker over the rim of the cup. He's so patient, giving her the space to process her emotions in real time. It's unnerving, especially with the knowledge that he doesn't have some kind of hidden agenda.

Trinity isn't used to that.

"I kinda…" she sighs, leaning in to the embarrassment. Might as well, right? "I kinda freaked out. Clammed up. Told her I had to get to work."

"But we're off today," says Huckleberry in the most Huckleberry way possible.

"That is correct."

"What are you gonna do?"

"Not a fucking clue."

"Shit," Dennis taps his fingers on the back of the couch, his expression twisting pensively. "Is it really that big of a deal? I mean, Langdon's not even been at work since PittFest."

Her jaw tenses. "What happens when she finds out I was the one who…" Trinity waves her free hand fruitlessly.

She doesn't regret telling Robby about the librium, or the lorazepam. Langdon could have, and might have already, hurt somebody. Even himself. But the people who've caught on have avoided her like she's radioactive for the past two months.

She's been busting her ass to prove herself to everyone, even without Langdon around to belittle her every decision.

"Do you think she'll even care?" Dennis asks.

"He's her brother. She has pictures of him in her apartment."

"And?"

"And?" Trinity repeats impatiently. "It's too messy! I don't have room in my life for messy!"

Huckleberry purses his lips.

"What?" she asks, already knowing she's not going to like the answer.

He gestures to her. "You're still wearing her clothes."

"Yeah, so what?"

Dennis shrugs, then swings his legs off the couch. He squeezes Trinity's sock-covered toes as he stands up, comfort-in-passing. "Seems like you already made room."

"What the fuck does that mean?" She scoffs, rolling her eyes at his simplistic, platitude-adjacent bullshit. "You've been watching too many Oprah reruns."

"I think you're scared, Santos," he shoots back. Brusque isn't exactly Huckleberry's forte. Trinity could laugh out of discomfort.

"What the hell do I have to be scared of?" She retorts. "I don't need her, especially not when she'll be a constant reminder of… of…"

"Someone you reported for committing a crime?" Dennis presses his lips into a flat line. "You didn't do anything wrong!"

"I know that!" Trinity exclaims, setting her coffee down on the side table. She crosses her arms over her chest indignantly. "But what happens when she realizes it was me, and she hates me for it?"

"Why do you assume she's going to hate you for it?" Dennis's palms open up. "You're not even giving her the chance to react, you're just deciding that she'll hate you."

Because people always hate me when they get too close, Trinity thinks.

"Fuck off, Huckleberry," she says halfheartedly, her jaw tightening. "I can deal with it myself, actually. Anyway, don't you have a widow to comfort?"

The humorless laugh that ekes out of her roommate is the kind where someone acts exactly the way you expect them to. He nods, then disappears into his room. 

Trinity drags her hand over her face. "Shit," she mutters, bringing her knees up to her chest.

She was right. She didn't like his answer.

Later, when she's climbing into bed at nearly eleven p.m, her phone vibrates. After spending the entire day grinding her teeth and wandering aimlessly around the empty apartment (because Huckleberry did, in fact, bumble off to his widow), the tug back into reality isn't particularly welcome.

She frowns when she sees the notification from you.

Trin, I spent my entire shift thinking about you. I know that's earnest and people don't really do that anymore, so I hope that isn't weird for you to read.

Trinity's heart buckles, and she tugs the hoodie string a little tighter, shielding her face.

A second text buzzes under the first.

But I also hope I hear from you soon. Sweet dreams.

The words ripple down Trinity's spine, and she stares at them for a while. Reads them, then rereads them.

She types up a reply, then immediately erases it.

I had a great time last night, but I don't think this will work out.

Gnawing on her lip, she tries again.

I'm the one who got your brother—

She abandons that one immediately.

You might be the freshest breath of air I've ever inhaled, but I'm terrified my lungs will collapse.

That gets deleted, too.

By midnight, Trinity slams her phone face-down on her nightstand, elicits a string of curse words, then forces herself to try and fall asleep.

Two days pass, and Trinity still hasn't responded.

She’s been crabby at work. More than normal, which has even Javadi concerned.

“Are you alright?” Victoria asks around two p.m, during a rare lull at the Central nurses’ station.

Their shift’s more than halfway over, but Trinity’s been lugging her feet behind her the entire day.

She drags her hands over her face, then forces a stretched, saccharine smile.

“I’m perfect,” she buckles, as always, under the weight of someone showing even a modicum of concern for her. “Don’t I look perfect, Crash?”

Javadi rolls her eyes at the nickname. “Not really,” she points out, her perceptive brown eyes flicking over Trinity’s figure. “You’ve been kind of sluggish, like, all day.”

“Who’s been sluggish?” Mateo sidles up beside Victoria, presenting a tablet to her. “Weird puncture wound in Triage," he explains. "McKay told me to pull you in on it.”

Javadi, to her credit, doesn’t immediately burst into a fit of girlish giggles like she has been each time Mateo so much as looks at her.

It's a unique kind of torture, watching two people blink at each other with swirling, cartoon hearts in their eyes. She nearly gags.

But with the spotlight now shifted off of Trinity, she takes the opportunity to flee the conversation.

Almost as soon as she pivots, a finger points at her from across the hub.

“Santos!” Robby beckons from the opposite end of the counter. “Incoming rig. You’re with me.”

“You got it, boss,” she adjusts her stethoscope, grateful for the distraction.

She bounds around the countertops.

Maybe it’ll be something gruesome, like a struck pedestrian or a GSW, Trinity thinks as she flanks Robby. That guy who got trapped under the refrigerator last week? Man, that was a great save.

She's surprised to find it's pouring down rain when they emerge out into the ambulance bay. It falls in sheets, slapping against the concrete and rattling the top of the rig as it comes to a halt beneath the canopy.

"What do we got?" Robby grunts as he hauls open the back.

“Twenty-five-year-old female, took a fall off an eight-foot ladder," the paramedic explains as Robby and Trinity help lower the gurney. "Struck her head on the edge of a picnic table. Laceration to the right temple, appears superficial. Brief LOC per bystanders. Complaining of dizziness and nausea en route.”

Trinity falters when she realizes it's you.

Propped awkwardly on the gurney, pressing bloody gauze to your head and completely soaked from the rain.

You squint, then blink hard.

"Trinity?" Even the aching in your head and black spots peppering your vision can't keep you from recognizing her.

"You know our Dr. Santos?" an imposingly tall, bearded doctor asks as he takes over the gurney from the paramedic. Something like amusement tugs at his voice.

He and Trinity roll you inside, the fluorescents bleaching your face in an instant. You groan, breathing heavily.

"Can you tell me your name, hon?" A nurse appears in front of you, trailing along the gurney as it rolls towards an empty space.

You rattle it off in a wobbly rasp.

A look passes between the staff at your last name, quick but not subtle. They wheel you behind a curtain, help you into a bed. Someone pricks your arm with a needle to start an IV.

"You're Langdon's little sister!" The nurse trills in affectionate recognition.

Through the haze, you can see the questions practically dancing on the tip of her tongue, but she doesn't ask.

You can't much bring yourself to care, too concerned with your heart pounding in your ears.

 “Frank’s your brother?” the older, male doctor clears his throat, glancing toward Trinity.

“Mmhm, yeah," you slur as the room around you tilts.

The nurse guides your hand to lower the gauze. The metallic smell of blood hits all at once.

Your stomach roils. You gag. “I’m gonna—”

Trinity anticipates it, quick to snap a plastic basin under your chin before you retch.

“Four of Zofran,” she instructs before inching closer to inspect the cut.

Suddenly all her training seeps through every pore, her mind racing at the sight of the laceration on your head. At the sight of you, here, a reminder that you weren't just a dream.

She blinks, forcing herself to focus on the things she knows to be true. A coping mechanism from her therapist.

"Santos," Robby's grunt from behind her presses her to vocalize her assessment.

"Um, no active bleeding, approximately three inches in length," she begins, her fingers brushing back your wet hair gently, and at the same time, the vomiting subsides.

The latex of her glove catches on the dried blood.

"Pupils?" the male doctor asks.

She produces a penlight at that, shining it in your eyes without warning. You flinch.

"Reactive," she swallows the stone in her throat.

"Can you tell us what happened?" Robby says your name from where he stands behind Santos, stance wide and arms crossed over his chest.

"I was cleaning the fairy lights at work," an uncomfortable frown stretches taut over your lips. "The rain came out of nowhere, and I slipped. Hit my head on…" you trail off, then close your eyes tightly as you strain to remember. "One of the picnic tables, I think."

The older doctor, presumably Trinity's boss, sneaks around her to examine the cut himself. He nods in agreement. "It doesn't look too bad," is Robby's conclusion, flicking his gaze from your injury to Trinity once again. "Dermabond for the wound, then get her in line for CT."

"I need a CT scan?" Your voice teeters then, abandoning your pride and your pain to seek comfort in Trinity's eyes.

Her gloved hand shoots to your forearm in an instant, squeezing.

"Just to make sure you don't have a concussion," She says gently. Her touch launches rockets through your veins, but somehow calms your nerves all the same.

How is it possible to feel so many conflicting things around one person?

The bearded doctor slides back around Trinity, then offers you a reassuring smile from the foot of your bed. "You're gonna be just fine, okay? Is Dr. Santos here a friend of yours?"

You smile weakly, unable to be impolite even in your current state. Whatever drug was injected to your IV starts to quell the nausea.

"Something like that," you murmur.

The doctor's eyes crinkle, catching Trinity's in a way you can't quite grasp. Fondness for her, definitely, but a glint of something more tense underneath. The kind of shared look passed between two people who share something they've agreed not to discuss.

"You're in good hands," he hums, then raps his knucles on the end of your bed before disappearing.

Trinity suddenly feels exposed to the elements, in North 5 of all places.

She realizes she's still holding your arm, so she releases it.

"A-are you in any pain?" She swallows once Robby's gone, her heart barraging against her ribs.

"Just a headache," you say softly, looking away. You think of the blank space below your texts and feel your bottom lip flip out on instinct.

"I'll get the Dermabond," the nurse on your other side announces, the curtain sliding behind her.

Trinity rolls a stool up beside your bed, then lowers herself onto it.

"No more nausea?" She asks. You shake your head, still wearing the expression of a disappointed toddler.

Trinity's voice lends itself to an apprehensive cheekiness. "Are you gonna look at me?"

It's dawning on you in this moment, now that the panic has subsided, that this is where your brother works. His hospital.

Or, at least, it was.

The details of his dismissal never really come to light during the family therapy you tag along to weekly, with Abby and the kids. Just that he did something worthy of a dismissal.

You drag your eyes to Trinity's. She inches closer, wheels of the stool squeaking against the linoleum floor.

"You never texted me back," you murmur as she tears open an alcohol pad with her fingers.

"Can I touch you?" she asks. Your breath catches.

You release it when you realize she means your head.

You nod, then she starts to swipe the alcohol pad along your forehead.

She never asks permission to touch patients in situations like this, especially not ones with head trauma. Usually, circumstance negates any pleasantries, but guilt gnaws at her to take the extra step with you.

"You'll tell me if any of this feels painful?" she asks. You sniff in confirmation.

The nurse, a kind-faced woman in a hijab, pokes her head in with a sterile tray of supplies before ducking out once again. Leaving you with Trinity. Alone.

"Gonna flush the area with saline, okay? You'll feel cold down your face and neck," she says quietly, then squeezes the bottle over your wound. The saline drips down the side of your head. She curves her hand around the shell of your ear, protecting it from errant drops.

Even through the latex, warmth radiates from her touch.

Your chest aches, reminded of how softly she brushed your hair behind your ear just two nights prior. So many questions swirl around your head, but the blockade between your brain and your mouth prevents you from asking.

“You passed out?” Trinity asks, to which you hum in confirmation.

The din and fray of the ever-busy ER on the other side of the curtain buzzes into your ears.

“Do you know what day it is?”

You rattle off the answer.

You want so badly to do one of two things: make direct, forthright eye contract with her, or look away from her altogether. Neither would be conducive to cleaning your cut, so you pick a spot on the curtain straight ahead.

“Okay,” Trinity’s hands are suddenly a phantom touch when she pulls away. She reaches for the tube of Dermabond.

“It might feel a little tender when I apply the glue,” she explains, dabbing some on a cotton swab. “But I’ll be really gentle. If it hurts too much, just let me know.”

Your fingers curl around the sheets at your side, but not because of the glue.

“That’s ironic,” you murmur.

Trinity freezes, the cotton swab hovering just an inch above your cut. Her jaw tightens, and she sucks her tongue down her front teeth.

“Hold still,” she grounds out, the first real reaction you've gotten out of her since you arrived, then applies the glue.

It doesn’t take her long. The cool breeze from her lips that follows sends a chill down your spine.

Gloves are disposed into the bin by the wall, then she —finally— meets your eye.

That acidic, dreadful feeling boils in your chest again. This time, apparently, the feeling overflows, like a pot left too long on the burner.

"We're really not gonna talk about it, then?" You find yourself asking.

Trinity’s either stunned by your tone, or something in her finally cracks. Her gaze snaps to you, blank at first, until her jaw tightens.

You’ve dragged something into this place, her place, that doesn’t belong here.

This hospital is where everything makes sense to her. Where she knows the rules.

You're going off-script, dragging in the exact mess she was trying to avoid behind you.

"What is there to talk about, exactly?" Trinity mutters, not convincing anyone. Least of all herself.

You let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Seriously?”

The pounding in your head pulses, but you push through it. “We spend this really great night together," you recap, more convinced now that you still wouldn't have heard from Trinity if you'd not been brought to her place of work by an ambulance. "Then you find out who my brother is, freak out, and then ghost me?" 

She opens her mouth to protest.

“No,” you cut in, your voice climbing. “Don’t. What is your problem with Frank? Or is this not even about him?”

Her expression tightens. 

“Was I just a convenience?” you press. “Did you just not feel like getting an Uber that late?”

That is the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back. 

“Would you shut up for five fucking seconds?” she snaps, color rising in her cheeks. “I’m trying to dress your goddamn wound, in case you forgot that you're literally bleeding from the head.”

You go quiet.

Trinity takes the opening, pressing the dressing into place, firmer than necessary. You flinch but don’t make a sound.

She steps back immediately, like the contact burned. “I can’t do this here,” she admits, hands coming up placatingly. “You need a CT to rule out a concussion. Do you have someone who can pick you up in a couple hours?”

Her eyes flick up to yours, almost pleading.

You swallow, shoulders sagging. “Yeah," you concede, sniffing. "I’ll call somebody.”

“It won’t take long,” she adds quickly. “We’re not slammed. I’ll check your results when you’re back, and I’ll…” She falters, hand dragging over the back of her neck. “I’ll call you after my shift. Okay?”

A beat passes.

“Fine.”

The flatness of your voice punches Trinity in the gut harder than she anticipated.

You know when you're not wanted, and Trinity does not want you here. 

You're there another two hours, which is apparently VIP treatment around here. 

Someone brings you a gown while your clothes dry. A nurse checks your bandage, says there’s no more bleeding. Then you’re wheeled to CT, staring up at fluorescent panels as the hospital hums around you. Everyone moves with purpose, like they were born knowing what to do.

This is where your brother spent the bulk of his time. Before. 

This is where he saved lives. This is where his own life fell apart. 

By the time they roll you back, the adrenaline’s worn off, leaving you wrung out and heavy. 

You sit there for a while, twiddling your thumbs and avoiding your phone because the nurse said a screen might worsen the pounding in your head. Your eyes eventually grow heavier, and sleep starts to lull you in closer… 

…and then the curtain snaps open.

“You don’t have a concussion,” Trinity declares, already halfway inside. Flat and efficient. Almost disinterested, even. “We’ll get you discharged.”

She doesn’t really look at you. Just at the tablet in her hands. 

She wants this over. She wants you out of here. Why would she want you to stay? 

"I'm clear to sleep, then?" You ask, rubbing your arm to ground yourself. "I've heard sleeping with a head injury can make it worse."

"I just said you don't have a concussion," she snaps. 

The words shrink you. You sink back into the mattress, feeling quiet and small.

Trinity takes in the bandage tugging at your temple, gown slipping off your shoulder. Pathetic, pouting puppy. Just like when she'd left the other morning.

She presses her lips together, forcing the memory from her mind. “Is someone coming to get you?” she asks. “I can’t let you leave alone.”

Had this exchange happened two nights prior, you probably would've rattled off something smooth about how if she'd leave with you, you wouldn't be alone. 

But you just blink back at her, perhaps a little too guiltily.

  "What?" she demands.

  "I forgot to call somebody," you groan, reaching up to pinch the space between your brows. 

A humorless laugh escapes Trinity's lips. "Fucking figures," she mutters. 

It's your turn for your resolve to crack. "Excuse me?" 

"I said it fucking figures," she slows her words, making sure you hear every syllable. "Just doing whatever the fuck you want, without regard for consequence. Must be a family thing." 

You push yourself up in the bed. 

"Okay," you scoff, accompanied by a thin, incredulous laugh. Your eyes narrow at her. "I'm gonna give you a second to take that back." 

She just stares at you, shifting her weight to one hip and arching an immaculate brow. Cool and unperturbed. Your theory that she'd be a cat in another life only garners more evidence.

"What is your fucking problem with my brother?" You ask finally. 

"Exactly the same problem I have with you," she fires back. "You both take up too much space."

The words suspend between you, sharp and ugly.

You swallow, your throat tight. “That’s not fair.”

Trinity exhales through her nose, already shaking her head in dismissal. “I’m not doing this.”

“No!" You exclaim, heat flaring again despite the exhaustion dragging at your limbs. "You don’t get to say something like that, then just… walk away! You don't get to push me away when I still don't understand what the fuck happened. You don’t get to act like I’m the problem when you’re the one who disappeared without an explanation.”

“I didn’t disappear,” she shoots back. “I made a decision.”

“Yeah?” Your head tilts to the side. “And what's that?”

"That this was a mistake," her words bullet into you. "That it's too messy, and I'm not interested in it anymore."

"Why is it messy that you know my brother?" You snap, the simplicity of it grating into you. 

"Because!" Trinity groans, tightening her fist at her side. "I was the one who—" 

She cuts herself off, but the angry redness heating her entire face tells you all you need to know. 

"You…" you blink, then shake your head. 

She blows a breath out, as though she's both unburdened and horrified with herself at the same time.

"You're the one who reported him," it comes out as a statement. You blink, slow and heavy. 

The information tangles like a cord in your throat and your chest. You're not sure how you feel, exactly. You're so exhausted, but you don't think you're angry about this new tidbit of information. Just… surprised. 

"Why didn't you tell me?" You ask, quieter now. "Why'd you get all…" you trail off, trying very diplomatically to come up with another term for emotionally constipated.

"…all mean when I tried to ask you about it?" 

"Because this is what I do," Trinity throws her hand up, and when gravity brings it slapping dramatically into her thigh, you frown. "I push people away before they get too close. Once you do, you leave. You all do. And me being the reason your brother was dismissed from his job?" 

She shakes her head, averting her gaze from yours. "You have more reason to hate me than most people do." 

"I don't hate you," your voice softens. You're suddenly very aware that the walls around your bed is actually only a curtain. The patients on either side of you are surely very entertained by the soap opera occurring in this ER. "You didn't even give me a chance to react, you just assumed I'd react poorly." 

"Because everybody does!" Trinity's voice raises once more, before she seems to think better of herself. "Everybody does," she repeats, softer now. "You're no different. How could you be?" 

You think of the night you shared. How you danced with her under shimmering blue lights at the bar. How you kissed her more slowly and deliberately on the couch in your apartment. How you curled up next to her, in your bed, like a dog. 

Suddenly, all of it is more embarrassing than it is magical. 

Tears prick at your eyes, but Trinity doesn't seem to notice. Or if she does, she doesn't care. "I'll get your aftercare paperwork together," her shoulders heave, reverting to the script she knows so well. She reaches blindly for the curtain behind her. "Come back if it gets any worse." 

Isn't that the understatement of the fucking year.

Trinity isn't proud of the half-crouch she falls into when she sees you emerging from behind the curtain of North 5 twenty minutes later.

She isn't proud of it, but it is necessary. Her skin crawls with the words she said, the admission of guilt, the look on your face. 

You said the same thing Huckleberry did. That she didn't give you the chance to react, that she assumed you'd hate her for it. 

So Trinity ensured that you'd hate her, if not for that, then… 

I'm such an idiot, she thinks, sighing and rubbing her hand tiredly over her face. 

It occurs to her that she never made sure someone was actually coming to pick you up. She can't, in good conscience, let you leave alone. Not with a bandage over your head. Not with an aching fondness for you still haunting the chambers of her heart. 

She waits for you to step out through the waiting room before she follows, breaking into a purposeful, brisk walk. 

You politely shoulder through the crowd, making sure to say 'excuse me' or 'sorry' to each person in your way.

Trinity does not make the same efforts, barely looking anyone in the eye. 

The rain has faded into a diluted trickle as opposed to the toerrential downpour earlier. The sky looms overcast, but the sun remains behind the grey clouds. Looming. Waiting for her cue to come onstage. 

Trinity watches you scan the bustling street just outside the hospital, clutching the paper with your aftercare instructions to your chest. You step towards the curb just as a minivan rolls up, hazards flashing.

A woman in her mid-thirties leans across the console, propping the passenger's side door for you. The backseat windows are rolled down to reveal two kids in carseats, a boy and a girl, both waving at you excitedly. Trinity even spies the boy shouting 'Auntie!'. 

Jesus, she thinks, cursing the endeared uptick of her lips. Don't make me humanize Langdon. 

You clamor into the passenger's seat, yanking the door shut behind you. As you're buckling your seatbelt, you shoot a glance back to the hospital. 

On instinct, Trinity flattens herself against the nearest wall. To no avail, because your eyes lock directly on hers. 

As the woman signals and merges back into traffic, Trinity spies you cradling your head in your hands. 

"Besides, we're just casual, right, Santos?" Garcia says on the other end of the line, her nonchalance stabbing into Trinity's already-punctured stomach. 

"Totally," Trinity bites down on her tongue, the physical pain embracing her like an old friend. She rattles off a half-assed goodbye, then slams her phone down onto the oak picnic table. 

The patio of Shirley's Temple Bar & Grill is cast in a warm, twinkly glow from the jar lights dangling from the pergola. The transition from summer to autumn comes later and later every year, so rather than ending up too warm in a pumpkin-spiced-sweater, Trinity's arms are exposed by her red, flowy halter top. 

She scoffs to herself, sucking in a sharp breath. She'd picked this top because she thought Yolanda —Garcia— might like it. Thought it might garner a lingering look or even the illusive compliment from her… 

Nothing. Garcia isn't anything to Trinity, as she's made abundantly clear. She didn't even apologize for flaking out. 

Trinity slides her hands down the ruched fabric of her pants, giving herself no quarter for being such a fucking idiot. 

"Excuse me?" 

Trinity's eyes snap up to the waitress, who hovers over the edge of the table, carrying an offended expression and a gin and tonic. 

"What?" Trinity asks, furrowing her brows. 

You set her drink on the table, then cross your arms over your chest. "Did you just call me a fucking idiot?" 

The color drains from your customer's face. "Oh, my god, no, I'm so sorry," she waves her hands up effusively. "I was calling myself one, I-I didn't realize I said that out loud." 

Now it's your turn to feel bad. "I know," you whisper, eyes shifting conspiratorially as you lean down, just an inch closer. "I was just fucking with you." 

The silence between the two of you is deafening, you hunched over her table, her face looking up at you, void of all expression. Two animatronics, broken down mid-scene. 

In a desperate attempt to reboot the conversation, you force out a laugh. It's something caught between a self-deprecating chortle and a maniacal cackle reserved only for world domination. "That's what I get for pulling pranks on my first day, huh?" 

An unsettled titter stumbles out of the girl's throat. She's about your age. Uniquely pretty, with inky black hair and glassy, cream-colored skin. Tattoos scattered about her arms, and a short, gold chain dangles around her neck. 

She seems stuck in place, too stunned by the blip in the matrix that was this entire interaction. 

You pop your lips together, then gesture fruitlessly to the drink at the edge of the table. "I'll, uh, leave you to your drink. Let me know if you need anything else." 

You shift your weight to turn back inside, with every intention of begging your trainer to switch tables with you. Before you can make a not-so-graceful exit, the woman blurts out, "I was just ditched for the night." 

Halting mid-pivot, you flick your gaze to her phone, still face-down on the table. "I, uh, heard, actually. Your side of the conversation, at least." 

The color returns to her cheeks in a subtly pink flush. 

"So I'll probably just take the check and get out of your hair," her glossy lips flatten into two straight lines. "I'll leave a good tip, I promise. You don't even have to flash me." 

The crack of her smile sends you reeling, teeth baring in a kindred grin.

"Aha!" You point at her in the embodiment of a 'gotcha!' moment. "I knew there was some fire under that pout! Let me guess… an Aries?" 

She shakes her head.

"Scorpio," she admits, pulling the drink towards her. 

"Ah, thus the air of mystery," you waggle your fingers playfully. You extend your hand, and recite your first name. "Though, you could have probably guessed," you add, chin dipping towards your nametag.

It's pinned to your black, long-sleeved t-shirt, your name written in pink and yellow chalk pen. Swooping, girlish letters, which Trinity thinks is meant to match the rubber bands holding together your bubble braids. They curl out the back of your head like devilish horns, which makes a lot of sense. 

You're trouble. She can practically smell it on you. 

She shakes your hand, then follows suit. "Trinity."

"Well, Trinity," you keep your hand clasped to hers a few moments longer than necessary. Trinity notices the flicker in your eyes, finally recognizing it for what it is: flirtation. "I'll be back with your check." 

As you head inside, Trinity takes notice of all the details she missed before, when she was still buzzing on the possibility of Garcia sitting down across from her at any moment. 

You sport brightly colored Brooks, the same shoes she wears at the hospital, and a little black apron tied around your waist.

Your black jeans, seemingly the uniform, judging by the other servers, hug your hips snugly. They outline your frame in a way that makes Trinity purse her lips. 

They —your jeans, not her lips— are decorated with hand-sewn patches of fabric. She counts four, all varying in shapes and patterns, before you disappear behind the glass door. 

Trinity makes note to ask you about them when you return, which is about eight minutes, and half of a gin and tonic, later. 

A red, plastic basket of curly fries materializes onto the table, notably unaccompanied by a check. 

"Oh, I didn't order these," Trinity chirps, already feeling lighter by way of the gin. 

"I know," you mimic her perkier tone, propping a foot up on the end of the bench she's sitting on. "On the house. So's your drink." 

"Your first day and you're already stealing from the kitchen?" Trinity cocks her head to the side, placing a dramatic hand over her chest, clutching invisible pearls.

"I bought them for you," you admit without an ounce of bashfulness. That adorable red flush crawls across Trinity's cheeks.

Her button nose, akin to that of a cartoon woodland creature, twitches happily. "That was nice," she says dumbly. 

"You won't think so when I tell you why," you slide your fingers absentmindedly down one of your bubble braids. When her eyes cut to yours, you smile again. Warm and inviting, with just a hint of delicious mischief. "I'm kinda hoping I can hold you hostage until ten o'clock." 

"Why's that?" 

"Because that's when I get off," your heart flips acrobatically in your chest, but you school your expression into something cool and unaffected —two words you'd absolutely never use to describe yourself. "So if you're still here by then, it'll make it a lot easier for you to ask me out." 

Amusement softens the lines of Trinity's face. "Oh-ho-ho," she chuckles. "I'm gonna ask you out?" 

"It's the least you could do," you push your weight forward on your knee, still propped up on the bench beside her. "After all, I just bought you a drink and a snack. Broke my oath as a waitress to do so."

"An oath, huh?" Something about the word hits her in a way you can't quite translate, her seagreen eyes never leaving yours. 

God, if eye contact with her is this titillating…? 

You don't let yourself go there, instead shooting her a winsome wink before disappearing back inside for another forty minutes. 

After you've clocked out and hung up your apron, you trail back outside to find Trinity now perched against the locked gate separating the patio from the rest of the city. 

You've only shed your apron and replaced it with a denim jacket and a pink cross-body bag, but Trinity looks at you like a whole new person. 

There's something so familiar about you, she thinks maybe she's met you in another life. Warmth radiates off of you like a fireplace, drawing her in from the blizzard she so often locks herself out in.

She can't belive herself —having stayed past a restaurant's closing to wait on some woman she doesn't even know.

Then again, she argues with herself, this whole thing with Garcia is just casual. 

She straightens when you approach. You hold out two styrofoam cups.

"A little water for the road?" You offer, and Trinity accepts with a nod of thanks. 

She's less bubbly now that the alcohol's had a chance to course through her veins, leaving her feeling oddly wistful.

"I meant to ask you about your pants," she says, then gestures to the patchwork over your black jeans. 

You follow her extended finger to the small square of yellow and orange plaid over your left thigh. No busier a pattern than the ditzy blue flowers on your right, or the red stripes over your knee. All bordered in purposefully clunky, bright-colored stitches.

Suppressing the urge to tease her about her interest in your pants, you hum. 

"I like to sew," you say. "They told me black jeans were the uniform, so I thought I'd personalize 'em a little bit. Help me stand out." 

"So it really was your first night?" Trinity asks before taking a sip of her water. Under the streetlamps, now your only source of light since the patio's been closed down, you have the fleeting thought that she looks like a mermaid out of an old storybook. "You seemed so… comfortable there."

"It's not my first service job," you explain with a noncommittal shrug. "Plus, I've been coming here with my family since I was a kid. Shirley's was a Monday Night Football staple growing up." 

Trinity tugs on this new thread of information. "You're from Pittsburgh?" 

"Mmhm," you hum again. The sound buzzes through Trinity's arms, tingling all the way down to her fingertips. "I just moved back a couple weeks ago. From Boston." 

"What was in Boston?" 

Another shrug. "It wasn't Pittsburgh," you give a little laugh, then look around. "You wanna go to Midnight? It's a bar just down the street. Maybe two blocks. You can continue your interrogation there." 

Trinity laughs, then starts in that direction. 

"I'm not interrogating you," she explains as you fall into step together. The warm summer haze has tapered off since Trinity arrived at Shirley's Temple, now more of an autumn crisp. "I'm just trying to get to know you better." 

You notice her shiver when the breeze picks up, gooseflesh bumping along her bare arms. 

"Stop for a sec?" You murmur, and she does as she's told. You hand her your drink, then remove your cross-body and your jacket. 

With your bag secured back to your chest, you hold out your jacket. When Trinity just stares at you blankly, you take back your cup, and replace it immediately with the denim, Indiana-Jones-style

"God, you're really not used to people being nice to you, are you?" you ask, adjusting the long sleeves of your shirt. 

"I can't take your jacket," Trinity holds it out at you with what she assumes is the same expression as that of a dumbfounded basset hound. 

"You didn't answer my question," you challenge, propping your hip out and pursing your lips at her. Trinity wonders fleetingly what flavor lip gloss you're wearing.

A scoff rolls out of her, and she takes the bait, handing you her cup so she can slide your jacket on over her shoulders. It's one size too big, but its warmth immediately satiates her chill. The aroma of jasmine and vanilla isn't a terrible bonus, either. 

"People can be nice to me," she mutters stubbornly, untrapping her hair from the jacket's collar. It falls around her shoulders in quick but silky waves. 

"Yeah, but you're not used to it," you point out with a smirk. 

"Go easy on me, Dr. Phil," Trinity teases before stepping back out on the sidewalk. You follow her lead. A beat passes, then she asks, "So what brings you back to Pittsburgh?"

"Decided to be closer to family," you answer, then take a sip of your water. Over the top of your cup, your eyes meet Trinity's cloyingly. "Helps that the people are more interesting around here, too." 

"What, Steelers fans?" she jokes.

"Pretty girls," you parry, garnering yet another soft, pink blush from her. 

"Are you always such a shameless flirt?" She switches her cup to her other hand. 

"Only when the person I'm flirting with melts into a pretty, flustered mess," you quip, and at the same time, she scoops your hand into hers. 

Your knees wobble beneath you as you continue down the sidewalk, knocked into surprise by the forwardness of the gesture. 

Trinity shoots you a sideways smirk.

"Two can play," she tuts, the human embodiment of the cat that ate the canary. 

You have to look away, shoving down a girlish giggle while you tangle your fingers with hers. 

Midnight, as the name suggests, is a darker bar in terms of lighting. Cool-toned, blue stars project from can lights in the ceiling onto the floor, illuminating your path to the bar itself. 

Trinity reluctantly tears her hand from yours to buy you a drink. 

The clink from your overenthusiastic cheers sends both of you into a fit of laughter. 

Then the smooth, fruity taste of whatever the special of the night is —Berry Into You, an appropriate name, you decide— rolls down your throat. 

Trinity tells you about her roommate, some guy she works with that she took pity on when she found out he didn't have a place to live, and traces her fingers up under your sleeve, pressing soft, tingly touches along your forearm while you pretend to listen. 

"You wanna dance?" You ask once your glasses are both empty, nodding to the small crowd in the corner. Someone's hooked up a laptop to a speaker, a cheap spotlight ensconcing the area in a turquoise sun. 

There's probably ten or twelve other people on the dance floor, but you can't say you looked at any one of them once Trinity's hands found your hips. The songs alternate between soulful bedroom pop and more upbeat, mainstream numbers.

You don't think you could name any of the songs if you tried. 

Your stomach churns under your ribs. You rub your hands along Trinity's arms, which you can barely feel beneath the bulk of your jacket. 

She plays with you, spinning you around like a top until you're giggling, grabbing your hands and stretching them out with hers. The music lifts her spirits in a bubble, floating incandescently all the way up to the ceiling. 

It feels so freeing after all the goddamn mind games with Garcia, Trinity thinks. Looking at you and seeing her own want reflecting in your eyes equates to inhaling a breath of fresh, clean air. 

Time slows down for a while, your forearms eventually settling in the crooks on either side of her neck. Trinity teases the bottom hem of your shirt, just barely riding it up but oh-so-scintillatingly. 

Her silky hair tickles your cheek as she whispers in your ear, sweet, meaningless words that poke that kindling in the pit of your tummy, stoking the fire in a steady, thrumming heat. 

Trinity didn't think it was supposed to be this easy. Warmth from your jacket, from the cocktail, from the dance floor, from your smile. It seeps through her and unlocks all the chains she's had wrapped around herself, at least temporarily. 

When you invite her back to your place, her answer is an unequivocally eager yes. 

Your apartment is teeny-tiny, tucked in the corner of your floor. A sad excuse for a kitchen looms to the right of the door, then a bedroom and a bathroom to the other side. 

You've made strategic use of each inch of space, Trinity notes, from the floating shelves to the sliding totes under the loveseat in the corner. A few pictures and books are dotted around the space, but she doesn't pay too much attention to any of them. Surrounding details don't feel very important right now. 

"Can I get you anything?" You offer, hanging your bag on the hook on the back of the door, then latching the deadbolt. 

"I'm okay," Trinity hums, the energy between you buzzing but not quite as intense as it was back at Midnight. 

It feels like the moment right before you go down a waterslide, Trinity thinks. The anticipation, the rushing water, not knowing exactly the right moment to let go. 

You gnaw on your lip, approaching slowly to where she's perched against the wall. You're both glistening in a thin sheen of sweat from all the dancing, but somehow it makes her look even more beautiful. Stripped back and unfiltered. 

"You're so pretty, Trin," you murmur, sliding two sets of fingers down the lapel of your jean jacket loosely drooping over her shoulders. 

The gloss of your lips has since faded since leaving Shirley's, but Trinity's still curious. 

"Can I kiss you?" she asks in a whisper, fingers splaying over your hips.

She's not a doctor right now. Not needed in fifteen different places at once, not triggered constantly by reminders of her own hurt, not clamoring to prove her worth at the detriment of others. 

She's just Trinity. 

Trin, like you called her.

She hasn't been called that since she was a little girl.

"Please do," you nod, using your hold on the jacket to tug her ever closer. 

Trinity's hands slide around to the small of your back, her head angling to the side.

Your first kiss with Trinity is strawberry-vodka-flavored, slow and chirring. She snakes her hands around you, lips slotting over yours. 

Trinity's stomach flutters as she deepens the kiss, coaxing out of you the most tender little purr. Her tongue exploratorily requests access into your mouth. 

It's all softness and femininity until you pull away because —annoyingly— oxygen is imperative for survival. A string of spit bridges your lips to Trinity's, until she chases after your lips for one last, slow kiss. 

Helicopter blades chopper through your insides as you tug your denim jacket off of Trinity's shoulders. The shiny skin of her clavicle catches against the warm glow of the lamp in the corner, her hair spilling over it the same time the jacket hits the floor. 

You trace your two fingers under her angular jaw, tilting your head to the side to trail along with your lips. 

Trinity's back pancakes against the wall, tipping her own head to the opposite side to grant you better access. Sounds of your lips puckering over her skin fill the shoebox apartment, crowding the walls. 

"I didn't think this would…" Trinity speaks in exhales as you ministrate over the column of her throat. "I just thought you were being nice because I got stood up." 

You hum indignantly, peeling your lips away to run the tip of your nose under her ear. "I'm berry into you, Trinity," you joke, referencing the drink at the bar and earning a breathy laugh. 

"Mmkay, good," Trinity's hands cap your shoulders, squaring your face in front of hers. "Me too." 

She backs you into the loveseat propped up on the other wall, cramming her knees into the claustrophobic slots on either side of you once your ass hits the cushion. Straddling you, her hands skate under the fabric of your shirt and across your tummy. 

You exchange moans and saliva and these perfect, fleeting little smiles, like you're trying to soak up as much of her as you can before your carriage turns back into a pumpkin. 

"Fuck, Trin," you whisper, dazed from a lingering buzz that's only further agonized by her touch. 

Her dark hair falls over both of you in a short curtain, her back arched in a feline manner.

"I don't think we should…" she murmurs between kisses before finally withdrawing long enough to look you in the eye. Her thumbs swipe over the apples of her cheeks. "I don't think we should have sex tonight." 

The words deflate you, stilling your touch at her hips. Your bottom lip flips out. "You don't want to have sex with me?" 

Your disappointment shoots rockets through to Trinity's core. Fuck, your pouting is maybe even more arousing than your advances. "Shit," she whispers, shaking her head. "That's not what I meant. I mean, I don't think we should have sex tonight." 

The emphasized tonight tingles at the base of your spine. "I just mean, we've both had alcohol tonight," she explains, trailing her fingers down your bubble braids, pinching the ends affectionately. "And I was… well, you know. I was going to meet somebody else at Shirley's tonight." 

"Before they stood you up," you point out, and though it lacks any real bite, the reminder still smarts a little. 

"Before they stood me up," Trinity shifts up on her haunches, still effectively pinning you to the loveseat. But now her seafoam eyes are more parallel to yours. "I just… I want us both to be in our right heads," she explains. "I think it'll be really special with you, and I don't want something stupid like a hangover to ruin the memory of it." 

Her explanation untangles the tangled telephone cord wrapped around your heart. "Okay," you whisper, rubbing her hips in agreement. 

"Okay," Trinity, presses forward, and kisses you again. More tenderly this time, humming softly into your mouth. "Do you want me to go?" 

You shake your head. "You could sleep here tonight," you offer, breaking one hand from her hip to thumb along the front drape of her hair. "If you wanted to."

"Do you want me to?" she anchors her forehead against yours. Under the red halter she picked out for someone else, her heart is glowing. 

You close your eyes briefly. "Yes, I do." 

Trinity borrows a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie. She showers, quickly, unable to comprehend that you didn't even exist on her radar until four hours ago. She brushes her teeth with her finger. 

You shower after her, then settle into the bed beside her. 

It's all very new and exhilarating, but safe and soft and disarming all the same. 

You stay up another hour, nose-to-nose, just talking. She tells you about the music she grew up listening to. You rattle off cozy anecdotes about your niece and nephew. Her hand slides up and down your arm, while your thumb draws circle into her hipbone. 

It feels like kindergarten, holding out little pieces of yourself without fear that they might be rejected. 

When you drift off, tucked into her chest, with her chin in your hair, you don't think this apartment has ever felt so much like home. 

Morning ekes in slowly, accompanied with more adoring, swollen kisses, and discovering new, ticklish spots of each other. Then when Trinity finally peels away, you follow her out of the bedroom. 

"I'll call you, after work, okay?" She promises, cradling your jaw and kissing you again. She's still in the same bubble she was in last night, drifting alongside you.

It's then that you realize you've never exchanged numbers, so you swap phones to do so.

You tilt Trinity's phone back to her, the contacts app still open. 

"What'd you say you did for work?" You ask casually, stretching your arms over your head. A laugh flutters out of you. "Can't even remember if you told me or not." 

"I'm a doctor," Trinity explains. "At the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center." 

"No kidding!" You exclaim, the surprise in your voice setting off Trinity's spidey sense. "My older brother works there! Or, well, he's kind of… on leave, for now, I guess. What department are you in? Maybe you know him!" 

She glances down at her phone, spies your first name, then your last name. Her stomach drops hard and fast.

"Who's your brother," she asks flatly, watching with a festering nausea as you cross the crowded, suddenly too-small, airless room. 

You pluck a picture frame from one of the shelves, then present it to her.

Trinity's fingers curls around the picture frame. It's you, a little younger than you are now, locked in an embrace with an imposingly tall, brown-haired man with a friendship bracelet around his wrist and strikingly blue eyes.

"Dr. Frank Langdon," you chirp, tapping your brother's face over the glass of the frame. "Do you know him?" 

Just like that, the bubble pops.

You're too engrossed on the screen to notice Trinity coming to lean by one of the computers in the station, obsessing with charting ever since Doctor Al-Hashimi took over as an attending.

She looks at you amusedly when you don't seem to even notice her presence. Fishing the receipt of the breakfast she had earlier out of her pocket, she rolls it into a ball in her hand before throwing it directly at you.

You barely flinch when it hits you, too used to her antics by now and unbothered by them — if not a bit endeared.

"Hey, dork." Santos calls, grin full of teasing when you scowl at her.

"Doctor Santos." You acknowledge with fake professionalism, fingers pressing to your lips in attempt to hide your inevitable small smile.

"What are we up to?" She askes with what she tries to come off as boredom, but that you know is just an excuse to talk to you.

"I am working, dunno about you." You retort playfully, glancing up at her without moving your head. "Kid broke his arm a few weeks ago and i have to take the cast off."

"Cool." Trinity hums, though you're not sure she's even listening to you properly. It might have to do with the intentional use of one of her favourite shirts of yours under your scrubs.

"You?" You question.

"What?" She seems to snap of her daze, neck turning slightly red with being caught.

"What are you up to?" You indulge in her conversation, chin coming to rest on your palm.

"Actually," She comes lean on your table table, "Check this out, some idiot comes in with a bad looking neck strain because as it turns he was trying to look at someone's phone in the train"

"Really?" You chuckle with raised eyebrows.

"Yep. Way more interesting than yours, i win." Her foot kicks your chair slightly and you push her arm with just as much force.

"It's a competition?"

"Absolutely." Trinity says triumphally, chin jutting out just a bit in a way you find too adorable.

You sit in silence for a minute, surprised to notice your girlfriend lingering by your table. You notice the way she nervously plays with her hands, exactly like would when she has something to say. So you wait for her to muster the courage to say whatever she needs to.

"Hey so i was thinking..." She pulls your attention from your ipad back to her, giving her a curious but reassuring look. "Maybe you could like come over after our shift is over? You know, have dinner and watch a stupid movie or whatever."

Her words bring relief to you, heart warm with the knowledge that she was so nervous to simply ask you over.

"Of course." You answer warmly, fingers hitching to take hold of her anxious hands.

"Okay. Cool." The doctor nods, gulping to play it off as she stands straight again. "You can also sleepover. If you want." Her eyes don't meet yours as she adds.

"Sounds really good." Your fingers tap the table as you throw her a sweet smile. "But only if i get to make dinner. Your food is awful."

Santos scoffs, trapping her bottom lip between her teeth as she pretends to be offended. "Sure, chef."

You shoo her away with the receipt she threw at you a moment ago, watching as she finally decides to get up and catch up on her charting.

But she's only two steps away when her figure rushes to turn back to you, only glancing around for one second before grabbing your face with one hand and clumsily kissing your lips.

Your fingers come to grab at the front of her scrubs, thorn between pull away and preventing her from doing so. But before you make up your mind your girlfriend pulls away, walking towards her table like nothing happened.

"Are you crazy?!" You whisper-yell, hands left in the air with shock.

Trinity laughs, shrugging as her fingers start tapping away on the keyboard. She seems pleased with her work, lips a darker shade of pink from the hasty kiss.

"Hey kid, what the hell are you doing?" Dana interrupts the moment, eyeing the both of you but not acknowledging anything. "Got a patient waiting for you, don't ya?"

"On it, sorry." You raise your hands in surrender as you slide of your chair.

Santos looks like she's going to quip something as you're walking by her chair, but interrupts herself with a subtle wince. Worry insights itself immediately on your stomach, stopping on your tracks. "You okay?"

She clears her throat, "Yeah, period's just kicking my ass." Her voice comes out in a grumble, as if to hide the vulnerability she feels for opening up to you — even if for something so small.

You soften at her, resting a hand on the back of her chair. "I'll make you some tea when i'm done with this." And then you're off to your task.

Trinity can't help but appreciate your words, throwing you a thankful look. You don't fuss over it, don't make a big deal out of it. She couldn't feel more understood.

Suddenly she doesn't feel like she minds Whitaker telling her she looks at you like an idiot in love. Because it might just be the only thing she's sure of.

Later she finds a sealed cup on top of her paperwork, a tiny smiley face drawn on it. She feels like an absolute loser for the fact that it brings out a smile of her own.

The day goes by as fast as it can in the hospital, and you find that at the end of it you're more excited than tired. The realization that it's your first time sleeping over at Trinity's house makes you giddy as you're pulling your things from your locker.

She finds you waiting outside after she comes out a bit later than you, dark hair down and falling over her shoulders smoothly. Her bag slung over her shoulder, dark navy jacket that you insist makes her even more cuddly and face glowing under the streetlights.

You don't miss the way her expression lightens up when she spots you leaning against a wall with your eyes already on her, as if your own light is the source of hers.

The walk to the car is comfortably silent, slightly mandatory to decompress from the loud ER. As she drives, you make sure to pull her free hand to your lap, aware that she enjoys it even without the courage of initiating it.

When you arrive at her apartment, you make sure to send her off to a warm shower, insisting it's exactly where you want her and promising to have some pasta ready as soon as she's out of it. Trinity relents easily, eager to get out of her work clothes and take away the smell of hospital, cramps making her move slower.

She's back before you know it, large sweats thrown on her legs and a large t-shirt that's wet on the shoulders because of her freshly washed hair. After pouring two cups of wine, you both find yourselves eating your bowls of pasta in front of the tv —watching a sitcom that you insisted would make her mood better.

Which is exactly why you find yourself leaning against her couch cushions with a full stomach, half of Trinity's body thrown across your lap.

It's not necessarily unusual to receive this type of affection from her, at least not now. You'd never believe it months ago if someone told you there was this whole other side of her.

Now you relish in the comfort of it, fingers running through her hair that you brush and dried earlier and scratching her scalp with your nails softly.

"He absolutely cheated on her and she shouldn't get back to him." She grumbles from your lap, weirdly interested in the drama going on in the tv. "Besides, who the hell dates an idiot named Ross?"

"Sure, love." You agree with a chuckle, hand stopping its movement on her head to come and rest on the back of the couch.

She doesn't seem to mind it at first, lips pulled into a concentrated pout as she looks at the screen. But after a moment her head leans closer into your lap, hitting your stomach in request that you amusedly ignore.

"Baby." She calls for you without looking up, voice sweet dripping with honey.

You have no choice but to comply pulling your hand back onto her hair and twisting some strands with your thumb. As if not satisfied, Trinity grabs your other hand with hers. Guiding it to her stomach, you understand the assignment and gently massage it with pressure right above the waistline of her sweatpants.

Your girlfriend hums in appreciation, hand still atop of yours and tracing shapes with her fingers.

Without strength to hold back, you lean to press a peck on the corner of her lips. Her face turn as you do, capturing your lips in hers for a kiss that leaves you wanting more. And she knows it just with a look to your face.

She's sitting up in a flash, peering at you with need. "Can i?" And she's already leaning in, lips smashing into yours eagerly.

Her hands cup your face to pull it as close as possible, connected lips turning you into one only. You grab at both sides of her waist, fingers bunching the fabric of her shirt into your hand as you continue to relish in the taste of wine that lingers in her mouth.

Frustrated at not being as close she wants to, Trinity moves to your lap with you now trapped between her legs that press on the couch beside your hips. A noise leaves your throat, giving her the opportunity to deepen the kiss as one of her hands tangles on the hair at the back of your head and tilts it up.

Her body practically falls onto yours, tongue exploring your mouth like a thousand times before — every time more avid than the one before.

One of your hands slips inside her shirt where it rides up on her lower back, slowly tracing up her spine and exploring every inch of skin you can find as the other grips her waist to pull it flush to yours. You can't help but moan when she complies quickly with a grind of her hips.

"Fuck." You breath out, lips shiny with her as you move your ministrations to her jaw.

Your girlfriend is quick to tilt her head to give your access to her neck, your mouth pressing wet and messy kisses along her throat and all the way to the spot under her ear. You nip gently on the side of her neck, kissing the marks right after leaving them.

"God, i love you." The words leave her mouth before she's able to think them through, immediately freezing you on the spot.

Your mouth is slightly ajar as you lift it from her skin, eyes wide as you observe her every expression. "What?" It comes out quiet, your voice feeling rusty.

Her throat bobs as she swallows nothing, and you can already feel the wall she's about to build. But you fight it, steading her in your lap when she makes move to leave.

"Did you mean it?" You question with adoration, searching her eyes when she refuses to look at you. "Trin." The call is gentle enough for her to come back to you

"Course." She mumbles like it's obvious, which it is. But it's nice to know it anyway.

"I love you." You reciprocate feeling giddy.

"Yeah, don't let it get to your head." She rolls her eyes with a smirk, mouth close to yours as she speaks.

You're too emersed in your own bubble to notice the door opening and closing.

Dennis steps inside the apartment with soft steps, aware of how late it is and how he doesn't want to annoy his grumpy roommate by waking her up at this hour after a day of work.

What he doesn't expect is to walk in to the living room to the sight of her making out with you on their shared couch, sitting right on your lap and unaware of his presense.

"Oh my god!" He exclaims in panic, heat rushing up his body and turning his cheek into a deep shade of red.

You both scramble away from each other, startled by the sudden presence in the living room. Trinity throws him an annoyed look, as if having forgotten he also lives here.

"Are you just gonna stand there, dumbass?" She asks with a roll of her eyes.

"I- No! I'm so sorry." He scrambles to cover his eyes as if he's seen something obscene and rushes to his bedroom, awkwardly greeting you when you throw him a warm smile as if to tell him it's okay.

Santos groans in frustration once the door of his room is closed, "Stupid Fuckleberry." Her hands rub at her face.

"I think he's sweet." You reason, chuckling as you take in what just happened.

"Cockblocker is what he is." She retorts, slumping beside you on the couch.

You raise your eyebrows with a grin, "Poor baby."

"Shut up." She shuts down your teasing.

"You love me." You affirm with a softer tone than intended, pressing one last kiss to her cheek. And the worst part is she can't deny it now.

Later that night you fall asleep on her bed that is a bit too small for the both of you, mouth pressed to her shoulder and arm thrown across her stomach.

You try not to be bothered by it, try to focus on everyone else. But you can always feel her stare on the back of your head — a gaze so intense you’re shocked she hasn’t burned two holes through your skull yet.

And to make matters worse, she’s so eager. So eager to learn, to jump in, to get her hands bloody.

And you’re… not like that.

You’d rather observe first, wait for someone to tell you to go in. You never throw yourself at a procedure unless you’re one hundred percent sure you can do it right. You’re here to learn, sure — but Santos’ speed seems about a thousand times faster than yours.

Santos had made a big impression since day one, and not just on you. Garcia seemed to take a liking to her immediately, Santos’ prickly nature sliding right off the older surgeon like it was nothing.

It stung a little — you had to admit that. The way that even when you were in the room, Garcia would immediately call for Santos to jump in and help her. It was as if you were invisible, and you hated feeling like that.

The others tried to keep your morale high. At the end of your first shift you’d gotten good words from Robby, Samira, and Collins. It made your chest fill with pride, a soft smile tugging at your lips.

But all of it washed away the moment your eyes found the look on Santos’ face.

It wasn’t a scowl, exactly — but it definitely wasn’t a smile.

You thought maybe with time it would get better. You really tried to keep a positive outlook despite every bad interaction. But a week passed, and nothing changed in your dynamic. Santos still hated your guts. And you still had no clue why.

It was starting to take a toll on you. Keeping a positive attitude got harder and harder when nothing good seemed to come from it. It had gotten to the point where if you kept it in any longer, you were going to burst — so when Whitaker least expected it, you practically jumped at him.

His eyes widened as you grabbed his forearm, tugging him closer so you could speak softly.

“You’re close with Santos, right?”

“Uhhh… depends what you mean by close.”

You give him a look that pretty much broadcasts the impatience you’ve been feeling all week, and he swallows dryly before continuing.

“Yeah, I guess you could call us close.”

“Great. Do you know why she hates me?”

Whitaker looks genuinely confused.

“Hates you?” he repeats. “Santos doesn’t hate you.”

“Whitaker,” you say slowly, “she definitely hates me.”

“She— she really doesn’t,” he insists, raising his hands. “I promise.”

“Oh, right. Yeah. Totally,” you snap softly. “So she treats literally everyone else the same way she treats me?”

He opens his mouth, but you barrel right over him.

“Does she ignore everyone else when they talk? No? Just me? Great.”

You tick off a finger.

“Does she sigh — loudly, dramatically, like she’s auditioning for a telenovela — every time I’m assigned to the same patient as her? No? Just me? Weird.”

Another finger.

“Does she grab the chart out of your hands before you’ve even finished reading it?”

Finger three.

“Or roll her eyes when I walk in? Or tell me — tell me, Whitaker — ‘maybe next time’ when I ask to practice suturing?”

Whitaker winces. “Okay, that one sounds harsh but—”

“And!” You raise a fourth, triumphant finger. “She glared at me today because I — apparently — breathe too loud.”

Whitaker just stares at you, mouth opening and closing like he’s buffering. He looks like he’s about to say something when Robby’s voice cuts through the room, calling out for Whitaker’s help.

Whitaker jumps like he’s been rescued from a burning building.

“Oh thank God,” he mutters under his breath.

You narrow your eyes at him.

“This conversation is not over.”

He nods quickly, practically fleeing. “Yep! Cool! Totally! We’ll… circle back!”

You watched him go, a tired sigh leaving your lips as you try to get back to work. Of course, that peace lasts… oh, about three seconds.

Because the moment you turn around, you nearly collide with her.

Trinity Santos.

She stops short, eyes flicking up to meet yours — sharp, assessing, and way too intense for someone who supposedly doesn’t hate you. Her jaw ticks once, barely, like your existence has personally delayed her entire schedule.

“Move,” she says quietly, not rude exactly, but clipped enough to make your stomach twist.

You step aside immediately, pulse skittering in your throat.

“Sorry,” you mutter.

She doesn’t respond. She just brushes past you, gloves snapped on, expression unreadable — but not before you catch the way her gaze drags over you for half a second too long. Almost like she was… checking something.

“Right,” you mumble under your breath. “Totally normal. Totally fine. She absolutely doesn’t hate me. Sure.”

At some point McKay seemed to notice that you were overwhelmed. She didn’t even ask you about it—just came up beside you and said something like, “Hey, I could use some help in chairs if you’re up for it.” You’d just nodded, grateful for an excuse to be somewhere else. Somewhere you knew Santos wouldn’t go.

 Oh, no—not perfect Santos. She’d never be caught dead working in chairs.

You’re rushing around with McKay, moving in and out of the waiting room as you bring in the patients you can treat. Every time you step outside, someone complains about something, and you try your best to remain professional—explaining for the fiftieth time that yes, the doctors know the wait is long, yes, they are doing everything they can, yes, the triage system is real and actually isn’t a conspiracy designed to personally ruin this one guy’s afternoon.

And then this dude just loses it.

Raises his voice. Gets snappy. Makes some snide comment like,

“Well maybe if you were actually competent, I wouldn’t be sitting here for three hours.”

You swallow it. You try again, patient, professional.

 “Sir, I promise we’re—”

“No. Don’t ‘sir’ me. You people don’t care. I’ve seen cashiers put in more effort.”

And that’s the moment you feel it—that little crack right behind your ribcage, where the exhaustion meets the embarrassment meets the frustration you’ve been holding for days.

Your throat tightens. Heat prickles behind your eyes. McKay notices, stepping a little closer as if ready to intervene but someone else beats her to it.

A voice slices cleanly through the air, cold and razor-sharp:

“Hey.”

Your stomach drops.

You’d know that voice anywhere.

Santos.

She’s standing there in her black scrubs, gloves still half-crumpled in her hand, chest rising like she sprinted here. Her eyes are locked on the man—flat, hard, absolutely lethal.

“She is qualified,” Santos says, stepping forward with that quiet, controlled fury she usually reserves for assholes. “She’s more than qualified. And she’s been running herself ragged all day trying to keep things moving for everyone in this room.”

The man blinks, taken aback by the intensity aimed directly at him.

Santos doesn’t stop.

“So unless you’re actively dying—which you’re not—sit down, wait your damn turn, and stop taking out your impatience on the staff who are trying to help you.”

The room goes silent. Not frozen—stunned.

McKay’s eyebrows hit her hairline.  The man sputters something that vaguely resembles “sorry.”

But you— you just stand there. Because Santos defended you. 

You.

The person she supposedly can’t stand.

And even as you stand there, feet glued to the ground, Santos doesn’t look at you. She keeps her eyes locked on the guy, staring him down until he finally sinks back into his seat. Only then does she turn on her heel and head back into the ED like nothing happened.

Like none of it meant anything at all.

Before you can even fully process what you’re doing, you’re already moving—feet carrying you in purposeful, almost frantic strides as you follow after her. You catch up easily, even though she’s walking faster than she usually does, like she’s trying to outrun the moment.

She doesn’t look back. Just tosses a curt, “Leave it,” over her shoulder, like she can feel you behind her.

“No,” you say, breathless but determined. “No, I’m not leaving it.”

Santos keeps going, weaving through the hall like you’re nothing more than an annoying shadow. You dodge a nurse, a stretcher, a crash cart—all while glued to her heels.

“You don’t need to say thank you,” she snaps without slowing down.

You blink, incredulous. “Do you—what—do you think I’m trying to thank you?”

“Good,” she mutters. “Because I don’t want—”

“Oh my god,” you bite out, speeding up until you’re practically at her shoulder, “I’m not thanking you.”

“Great. Then drop it.”

“No!”

You two keep bickering like that—sharp whispers, clipped retorts—while threading through the ED. Every time she veers left, you’re right there. Every time she tries to outpace you, you match her step for step.

She turns down a quieter hall, clearly trying to shake you off, but you’re done being avoidable. You catch up fully, frustration boiling over.

“Jesus, Santos—will you stop for one second and just—just fucking look at me!”

She halts.

It’s abrupt, like her body short-circuited at the command. Slowly—carefully—she turns around. Her eyes are wide, defensive, like she’s bracing for impact.

You swallow hard, the words rushing out before you can soften them.

“I just… I need to know why you hate me.”

Her brows furrow. Actually, her whole face seems to tense up for a moment. And because you’re standing right in front of her—chest heaving, desperation bleeding through every shaky breath—you catch every micro-shift in her expression.

You watch her go from confused… to irritated… to annoyed… and finally to just—defeated.

She lets out a long, weary sigh, dragging a hand down her face while you continue staring her down. If anyone walked into the hall right now, it would look like the two of you were staging a standoff. Bodies coiled tight, eyes locked—two cowboys waiting to see who’d reach for their gun first.

“I don’t hate you.”

The words are low. Barely audible.

You blink. Once. Twice.

 Because that… that is not the answer you were prepared for.

“What?” you breathe.

Santos’ jaw flexes, like she already regrets saying anything at all. Her eyes flick away for half a second—anywhere but you—before snapping back like she can’t help herself.

“I said I don’t hate you,” she repeats, firmer this time. Still quiet. Still rough around the edges. “So stop asking.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” you fire back immediately, the words tumbling out before you can stop them. “Because you act like you can’t stand me! You ignore me, you glare at me, you practically sprint in the opposite direction every time I walk into a room—”

“That’s not—” she starts, but you cut her off.

“And you sigh at me! A lot! I didn’t even know someone could sigh that aggressively.”

Santos presses her lips together in a thin, miserable line. You swear you see the faintest hint of pink touch her ears.

You throw your hands up. “So if you don’t hate me, then what the hell is all of that?”

A beat. Two.

Her shoulders lift with a shaky inhale, like she’s bracing for impact.

And then—

“It’s because I like you.”

Your brain short-circuits so hard you actually forget how to breathe.

“…What?” you whisper.

This is the first time she’s ever looked truly flustered. Her eyes dart to the wall, to the floor, to anywhere except your face.

“I like you,” she mutters, words tumbling out sharp and fast, like she’s ripping off a bandage. “Okay? I’ve liked you since day one. And I don’t—” She cuts herself off, frustrated. “I don’t do… that. Feelings. So I don’t know how to be around you without sounding like an idiot.”

Your mouth opens. Nothing comes out.

“So yeah,” she finishes, tone flat, like she’s annoyed at herself. “That’s why.”

You just stare at her.

And Santos—Trinity Santos, who stares down furious patients and gory trauma without blinking—looks like she wants the floor to swallow her whole.

Your brain feels like someone just shook it in a snow globe. Thoughts float around in slow motion, glittery and unreal.

She likes you. She likes you. Santos. Trinity fucking Santos.

You briefly consider whether you’re having some sort of stress-induced hallucination. Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing you’ve experienced this week. Maybe you finally snapped. Maybe you fell asleep standing up and are currently living out the world’s wildest fever dream.

But then your gaze drifts back to her.

Santos is standing a couple feet away, shoulders tense, eyes flicking anywhere but yours, like she’s ready to bolt. Her posture is stiff, guarded, like she’s waiting for you to laugh at her, or yell at her, or both.

Your heart kicks hard against your ribs.

Something in you shifts.

You take one step toward her.

Her eyes snap to you immediately.

You take another.

She straightens, brows pinching together in that signature Santos way — part concern, part alarm, part why are you walking at me like that?

“Hey,” she starts, voice low, uncertain. “Look, you don’t—”

But she doesn’t get to finish.

Because you reach out, fingers brushing hers first before you grab her hand fully and tug her along. You pull open the nearest door — a supply closet, dim and tiny and absolutely perfect — and tug her inside with you. The door shuts behind you with a soft click.

Santos looks like she’s about to short-circuit. “What are you—”

You kiss her.

Not gently. Not softly. Not cautiously.

You kiss her like every bit of confusion, frustration, adrenaline, and want that’s been simmering in you finally snaps and pours out all at once.

Her breath catches against your mouth. For half a second she’s stiff, startled. And then she melts, hand flying up to your waist, the other curling into your hair as she kisses you back just as desperately, just as fiercely, like she’s been holding this in even longer than you have.

Because it turns out she has.

Her mouth is warm against yours, urgent in a way that sends sparks racing up your spine. You’re not sure who moves first, who deepens the kiss, who lets out that quiet, shaky sound — maybe it’s you, maybe it’s her — but suddenly you’re pressed together in the tiny supply closet like gravity dragged you into each other.

Her hand finds your jaw.  Yours fists in the fabric of her scrub top. It’s heat and relief and days of unresolved tension snapping all at once.

You don’t know how long you stay like that — seconds, minutes, something in between — but eventually you have to break for air, foreheads brushing as you both pull in quick, uneven breaths.

Santos opens her eyes first. She looks wrecked. And stunned. And stupidly, stupidly soft.

You meet her gaze and something in your chest goes liquid.

Neither of you speaks. You just… look at each other. Breathing the same air. Matching each other’s shaky smiles.

Then — because you’re still full of adrenaline and disbelief and the lingering urge to throttle her half the time — you lift a hand…and punch her in the arm. Not hard, but definitely not gentle.

“Ow— what the hell?” she hisses, jerking back a little, rubbing the spot with wide, betrayed eyes.

“That,” you say, breathless, still dizzy from kissing her, “is for being an asshole.”

You take in her shocked expression before leaning in to press another kiss to her lips. You feel her smile against your mouth, her nose bumping yours as she tries to deepen the kiss again.

But your hand slides up to her chest, pressing lightly as you pull back.

She gives you a questioning look, brows knitting.

“Was that too much? Did I—?”

“No,” you interrupt quickly. “No, nothing like that.”

You can’t help the smile that spreads across your face.

“We should just probably get back before someone notices we’re missing.”

Santos nods softly, her hand coming up to cradle your cheek. Her eyes roam your face like she can’t quite believe you’re real — that this is real. She bites her lip, voice soft and steady as she asks:

“One more for the road?”

And who are you to deny her?

You give her one more kiss — slower this time, lingering — before you both finally pull apart. You straighten yourselves out, smoothing scrubs, fixing hair, trying to erase the fact that you just made out in a supply closet.

Santos goes first, cracking the door open and poking her head out like she’s on some kind of stealth mission. When she sees no one in the hall, she glances back at you and gestures for you to follow.

You both head off in opposite directions, doing your absolute best to look normal. Casual. Professional. Totally-not-two-people-who-just-made-out-in-a-closet.

You think you’re nailing it.  

Santos seems to think she is, too. 

Right up until Whitaker drifts up beside her while she’s admiring you from afar. 

He doesn’t say anything at first — just watches with her, eyes tracking the way your face lights up when you glance her way. That soft smile that appears the second your eyes meet. The little wave you give her before heading off to your next patient.

Yeah. He sees all of it.

Santos doesn’t even get the chance to pretend before he lets out a low whistle.

“Finally told her, huh?”

She doesn’t look at him. Not even a flicker. She just turns on her heel, already walking away.

“Shut it, Huckleberry.”