Chapter Text
"Wait you have a brother?” McKay asks.
Trinity shrugs, lifting two fingers. “Two actually.”
Mel smiles. It feels… good to already know this. To know more, because Trinity doesn’t add anything, continuing to chart.
That whole moment felt good. Important.
Though in the beginning she wasn’t really in it, still thinking about Becca. Trinity let that fly for about five minutes.
“Okay!” She spoke firmly over the fireworks. “We have about twenty minutes left so, c’mon. Lay it on me.” She said, pointing at herself in a vast gesture.
Mel looked at her for a few seconds. Trinity Santos didn’t do things gently. Trinity Santos didn’t say things gently. Unless it was with kids. But Mel was coming to understand that it didn’t entail her not meaning them to be gentle.
She picked at the skin of her forearm, thinking how she really wanted to enjoy the fireworks. “She didn’t tell me she had a boyfriend! She didn’t tell me was having sex! She didn’t tell me she didn’t want to watch the fireworks with me! And she’s my twin! And she- she is gonna… leave.”
She did say something similar to Dana a few hours ago. Yet the same feelings seem to have bottled up all over again, stumbling out now, leaving her a little breathless.
Trinity nodded. Fidgeted a little. She did that a lot. “Okay, look, you didn’t know that but I have two younger brothers and they are twins.”
“Yeah? What are their names?”
Trinity had to brace herself against the wave of endearment she felt over the fact that Mel was full on freaking out but still asked.
“Javi and Leo. But that’s– What I’m trying to say is, that… bond or whatever is real, take it from an outsider. Even they are doing their own thing. Even when they fight. I don’t know if they ever doubt it the way you are right now but it doesn’t disappear. So maybe just try meeting Becca in the middle. You are… you are quite good at… that.” Trinity clears her throat. “It’s gonna be okay.”
“I… thank you, Trinity.”
“Yeah. And you know you can get yourself a– what’s the guy name, again?”
“Adam.”
“You can find yourself an Adam too. Or an Eve.” She was going to hell for how much she enjoyed the immaculate infection anyway so she figured why waste an opportunity like that. “Or whoever, really. Just… maybe don’t do it at work.” Trinity purses her lips, licking off something bitter. The silence stretches and she feels her palms start sweating. Fuck. “Oh, you know, maybe do it at work, work is great!” She blurts out.
“No… I. I don’t think I want that… anywhere with anyone.” Mel fixed her glasses needlessly, voice dipping towards the end.
“Oh. That’s okay. You don’t have to.”
Mel just hummed in acknowledgment, matching Trinity’s shrug, posture relaxing a little. It felt good to say out loud, to find out if it felt true voiced, because now she could actually put it aside too for a bit. She did truly enjoy what was left of the fireworks. And Becca wasn’t here. So… was it her own thing in a sense?
"Thank you for invating me,” she said when the last of the colourful flashes had dissipated in the darkness of the sky.
“Actually… we can call it a night but… do you want to go somewhere else?” Trinity looked at her, the corner of her mouth lifting a bit after a second of doubt.
Mel’s smile in reply was a little more confident.
***
It was okay. Mel tried meeting Becca in the middle, which also meant meeting Adam. He was fine. She could even say she liked him. Still, she did feel out of place, especially when he would kiss Becca’s cheek or hold her hand.
The three of them didn’t spend a lot of time together and that hurt initially. But Mel reminded herself of Trinity’s words about the bond. They were even fresher in her memory because Trinity kind of repeated them during one of their hangouts, planned spontaneously after Becca decided to spend the night with Adam.
“Yeah, you know, when the youngest of my elder brothes got married and moved out it felt weird too, even though I wanted him to,” Whitaker added.
“But you had cows, thank god.”
Trinity had a lot of cow jokes. Like a lot, among other farm-related ones.
Though in the beginning they would make her and Mel stare at each other awkwardly more often than not, Whitaker scrambling to fill the silence.
Then one day Trinity just started explaining the ones that didn’t land. Mel would laugh. Or she wouldn’t. But the change made everything better. She started getting a much better hang of Trinity’s humor.
They didn’t spend all the evenings when Becca was away together. Sometimes Mel was alone. Her first instinct was to do something about the house, be useful. Then Trinity found out how many times she had seen “Elf” and “set her on a cinephile journey.”
Mel would hit pause and write her thoughts in the notes app, “Sentimental Value” prompting the longest, yet most haphazard review to date. Trinity hadn’t seen some of the movies either, being, per her own admission, a reality TV connoisseur, possessing as many references of various TV moments as farm jokes.
Admittedly the begining of flu season brought a significant amount of “there are people that are dying” patients . Mostly men. Tale as old as time.
But there are other cases too.
Mel remembers one especially vividly. A loss earlier this month. A twelve year old boy. Mel feels like it has hit Trinity the hardest yet she shows it the least, jumping on another case almost immediately. She does sneak off to the ambulance bay later though.
The steam of her breathing is mixed with the smoke of her vape in advance. She pockets it though because Mel once mentioned not being a fan of the smoke.
“Do you want to look at a lava lamp?” Mel suggests, obligation at the very bottom of the list of reasons.
The frown on Trinity’s face smooths out a bit as she turns. “I think we should go back inside. Charts are calling!”
It doesn’t feel like a dismissal entirely but doesn’t feel like the whole truth either.
The second case is a win. Such a big one that it makes Mel jump victoriously, throwing her hand up for a high five that Trinity returns in seconds.
Something shifts suddenly. It’s different from that first time and not just because Mel isn’t left hanging, looking around for torturously too long and doesn’t feel a wave of relief, no. Just like last time their hands don’t come apart immediately, holding on longer instead, tighter, both of them adjusting slightly but not enough to intervene their fingers, which Mel… wants.
It’s not a fleeting realization, no, it becomes even more pronounced when Trinity lets go completely, surging in her chest and then settling more steadily, yet no less confusingly.
Mel knows two things:
- she wants to hold hands with Trinity Santos
- she wants to hold hands with Trinity Santos in a way she can’t fully process
Not for the lack of trying. She is still doing that a few days later, staring at her hand as if it might have the answer.
Then she looks up at Trinity herself. That doesn’t help either. If anything it makes things worse because she can hear her mutter “What I need is to get fucking laid,” glaring at Whitaker’s departing figure.
Huh.
Mel wants to hold hands.
Trinity wants to get laid.
Is that the answer to the weird feeling, the end of it?
If so it feels pretty damn dooming.
She doesn’t know what she was looking for but… not that.