Work Text:
"Hey, Melatonin," Trinity calls. She knows it's not her most creative nickname for Mel, but her brain is fried to shit and she can't think of anything better right now. "Got any rockin' plans for the fourth?"
Mel glares at her phone like it's personally wronged her before shoving it into her pocket. "No. Well. I was going to watch fireworks with Becca, but she— she has other plans now. So I don't actually have plans anymore." She tugs at the end of her braid, twisting the hair around her fingers.
Trinity keeps her voice light and not-at-all bitter as she says, "Wow, I also got stood up for watching fireworks tonight. Crazy coincidence, huh?"
"Crazy," Mel agrees, flatly.
"Hey, since we're both currently fireworks-partner-less, maybe we can watch 'em together. You know, nothing better to do." Nothing but going home to an empty, dark house full of ghosts. Nothing but fighting with the gravity of the scalpel in her pocket.
Mel blinks for a moment, like she's waiting for a punchline, but when none arrives, she nods. "Okay. Where?"
Well. Trinity had been planning to watch on the roof of Yolanda's apartment building, which obviously isn't going to work anymore, so she shrugs. "Wherever you and your sister were planning to go, I guess. I can drive if you navigate."
Trinity graciously lets Mel pick the music for the drive, and her music taste actually receives Trinity's stamp of approval. It's miles better than Huckleberry's, though the bar is pretty low for that one. Neither of them talk very much as they drive, park, and find a spot on the grass to collapse and watch the fireworks.
"What a day," Mel sighs, sinking to the ground beside Trinity.
She groans. "Fuckin' tell me about it."
"Well, there was the deposition, which was obviously really stressful," Mel says, and Trinity realizes she took the tell me about it as an invitation to actually tell her all about it. Not what she meant, but it really has been a nightmare of a day, so she'll let Mel keep on complaining. "And everyone tells me that I'll be fine and I shouldn't worry about it but I'm getting sued for malpractice and I felt like I was making everything worse every time I opened my mouth, how am I not supposed to worry about that? And then there was the cyberattack, and then Becca came in because she has a UTI because she's been having sex—"
"Get it, girl," Santos blurts, before she can think any better of it. In the dim light, she sees Mel scowl. "Um. Don't get it, girl?"
"She has a boyfriend named Adam and they're having sex and she didn't tell me. And our whole lives it's been— it's been me and Becca, the two of us King sisters against the world, and now she has a boyfriend and I'm getting left behind."
Yeah, everyone leaves, is her first instinct. But even Trinity, in her limited emotional intelligence, recognizes that might not be what Mel wants to hear right now. So she just says, "That sucks."
"It does suck," Mel mutters.
"Today wasn't all bad, though, right? I mean, there were some good things?"
Mel brightens, instantly. "Oh, well, Dr. Langdon's back! That's really nice."
Nice. Right. One could say it was nice. Super nice see the man who belittled her in front of the entire ED on her first day, who saw her as a threat and used his position to treat her like shit. Totally awesome to walk around all day, blood boiling with the injustice of how he stole drugs and endangered patients and got off so, so easy. Fuckin sweet to be haunted by the memory of another man who got off too easy for his crimes.
Trinity grits her teeth.
"It's… certainly something." Unbidden, her hand wanders to her pocket. She unsubtly moves the conversation away from Langdon before he can weigh on her any heavier, before the scalpel sounds any sweeter. "Hey, what about, um, the patient that was flirting with you?"
"Well, he was on the run from the cops, which wasn't great. But before that, I was telling him about boba, and the Renaissance Fair, and… it was nice."
Trinity rolls over to look at Mel, an eyebrow raised. "The Renaissance Fair?"
"I know it's dorky, but… I don't know. It's fun."
"Sure. Okay. Well, Melanite, you're a catch, and someday you'll find a boyfriend who isn't on the run from the cops. Or a girlfriend, if you swing that way."
Mel pauses for a moment. "I've only ever dated men, but theoretically I'd be open to dating someone of any gender."
Score one for Trinity's gaydar! Never fails.
"How about you?" Mel asks, a little while later.
"Oh, I'm a lesbian."
"No, I know. I meant— um— seems like you had a rough day too. If you wanted to. Tell me about it."
Trinity doesn't, particularly, want to tell her about it, but Mel looks so earnest. And it's only fair to offer something, if they're having this kind of heart-to-heart right now. Nothing too vulnerable, of course. She's definitely not getting into why the ITP case this morning was triggering, or whining about her situationship with Yolanda, or saying anything about Langdon.
Not that it wouldn't be fun to see Langdon fall from Mel's good graces. But Mel has been having a really shitty time of it already, and she'd probably look at Trinity like she killed her puppy if she broke the news that her work crush actually kind of sucks as a person.
"The new attending is really on my ass about charting," Trinity starts. Everyone complains about charting, right? Safe territory. "Like, she just met me and she's already threatening to make me repeat my R2 year, which is frankly insane behavior. And the cyberattack definitely didn't help the charting situation."
Mel winces. "Yeah, R2 is really rough. But you're a good doctor. You'll make it."
Trinity looks back up at the sky. Something about Mel's gaze is a bit too open. "Thanks, Mel." Quieter, she says, "Also Huckleberry might be moving out."
Technically, she already knows what she has to do to stop him from moving out. She just has to admit she cares about him. And then he'll stay. It's that easy.
Except it's not easy at all. Because she's lost one best friend and she can't do that again, she can't, so she simply can't let herself have a best friend. Huckleberry thinks he can get past her walls, but she'll build them twice as high. She can't admit that she cares about him, because caring leaves her vulnerable to pain, to grief.
She already cares.
She just can't tell him, because once she says it out loud, there's no going back. Once she says it out loud, she's entirely defenseless; her chest sliced open, her heart exposed.
"You like him," Mel says, as though it's dawning on her for the first time. "Even though you're mean to him all the time."
"He's really annoying. But he… he grows on you. Like a fungus. A gross, smelly fungus." Mortifyingly, her voice shakes the slightest bit.
"You like him."
"I like him," she whispers.
"Why don't you just tell him?"
Trinity shrugs. "Can't go giving him a big head."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"Well, I'm a woman of mystery." She looks over at Mel again and smiles. "Shh. Let's watch the fireworks."
Mel watches the fireworks, and Trinity watches Mel's face as the lights explode overhead. All things considered, it's a pretty not-terrible ending to the day.