Chapter Text
Honestly, Victoria doesn’t know how she got here. They finished their shift; exhausted, bloodied, and irritated, and Trinity turned to her in the locker room with a pained expression.
“Let’s hang out tonight.”
Victoria had gaped at her like a dead fish, and Trinity had taken it as a yes. She murmured a curse under her breath that wasn’t in English, picked up her backpack, and stalked out of the room without another word. Victoria looked back at Whitaker, who was pulling a grey hoodie on. He shrugged at her.
Victoria had lagged behind Trinity in the lobby, “Wait! What do you mean ‘hang out’?”
Trinity didn’t look back as she power walked into the parking lot. The sky was a hazy periwinkle, and if Victoria looked up, the bare bones of a constellation would be visible above her. Alas. Pollution.
“You’re like 21, Javadi. You don’t know what hanging out is?”
The scorn in her voice was practically edible. Victoria spat the bitterness out on the sidewalk and finally caught up to her. She nearly tripped over her shoelace on the way. Right, because she was tying it as Santos dropped the bomb on her.
“I do,” She said, irritated, “I just don’t know if my Mom will let me.”
Trinity spun around and gave her a disgusted look, and then turned and continued walking.
“Fine.”
And yeah, what if it didn’t take much pressure for her to agree? Truth was, her relationship with her mother was a bit spotty at the moment. Okay, it was always spotty, but more often now than not, what with her unforeseen affinity for the ED and her mother’s newfound appreciation for elevator speeds between the OR floors and the ED.
Victoria has taken to requesting Dana for the patients in rooms opposite the Elevator Of Doom (that’s the new name, no you can’t change it) and Dana laughed at her. Then her mother visited her four times in one shift, and Dana started sending Victoria to triage. It’s a small sacrifice.
Trinity is quiet the entire drive to her apartment. Victoria stares outside the dirty window of her Subaru, fiddling with her friendship bracelet that she made for herself and has an internal war to decide if she should keep her hair up or leave it down. She ends up taking it down, and yawns obtrusively.
Trinity pays no attention to it– doesn’t even hit her with a snarky comment. Weird.
She checks her phone quickly, to see if the text she’s been waiting on has come in. It has.
chan
chan: heyy are you still down for friday night?
me: hi! yes, ofc. is there anything i should bring?
chan: noo just bring yourself and a pretty dress
She’s grinning uncontrollably, even with all the issues this will bring. She has not told her mother about being busy on Friday night. She has not told her mother about hanging out with the night shift ward clerk on Friday night. She has not told her mother about going on a date with the night shift ward clerk on Friday night at her apartment. She doesn’t plan to.
She’ll figure it out: Victoria is already running through ideas in her mind, small lies that she can spoon feed her mother. Of course, saying that she’s hanging out with friends is out of the question– if she had any, they’d most likely be in Fiji from where they lived last. Victoria has moved too many times to entertain the idea of longevity, of connection.
Santos has parked by now, and she’s peeking at Victoria’s phone. Victoria’s head snaps up, and she stuffs her phone in her pocket while glaring at Trinity, “Nosy, much?”
Trinity shrugs, “Who’s Chan?”
Victoria swallows, “Chantana. The ward clerk at work.”
Trinity pauses, almost like she’s swirling the idea around in her mouth. Victoria pinpoints where her tongue bulges out of her cheek. Then, almost like she lost a fight with her bitten cheek, she says, “She’s Chan now, huh?”
“You call me Crash,” Victoria points out, “You can’t be hypocritical about nicknames.”
Trinity looks at her again. Here in the car, bathed in near moonlight with her hair still tied tightly, she looks really good. If Victoria were to be objective, of course. Objectivity is a good thing for a doctor to be. The crest of her collarbones– no.
“Crash makes sense,” Trinity tells her with a smirk, “‘Chan’ does not. Chan sounds like the last name of that night shift attending.”
“It’s Chen,” Victoria replies with a curled lip, “What, are you jealous that I call her by her first name?”
It’s an offhanded comment that she doesn’t mean to hit hard with. Regardless, Trinity opens her mouth to speak, shuts it, and promptly gets out of the car.
Victoria wrestles with the door, nearly forgetting her bag. She refuses to speak first. It seems like a small thing, but it never is with Trinity.
But she’s acting weird today. More than usual. The two of them walk in tandem to the apartment, where Trinity scans her hospital badge and then swears when it doesn’t and then rummages in her bag for her house card. She scans it with minimal snickering from Victoria, who gets elbowed in the side and shuts up quickly after.
They’re silent across the lobby, up the elevator, and through the hallway to Trinity’s door. Victoria’s been here once before, an invite from Whitaker. Back then, she and Trinity disliked each other more than liked, so she spent most of the night studying with Dennis and ignoring Trinity’s eyes on the back of her neck.
Trinity positions her keys at the keyhole, and turns to look at Victoria coolly. “Are you going to waste our night like this, or are we going to talk?”
Victoria feels her lips part again. Trinity Santos leaning against her door, looking down at her smugly in sweats and a long sleeve is asking her if she’s wasting her night.
She plucks the keys from Trinity’s fingers without a word, and shoves them into the keyhole unceremoniously. Thankfully, they turn, and the door opens. Victoria is unsure where she got the courage from, but after several weeks of avoiding her parents at PTMC followed by awkward dinners, she figures it's a long time coming.
She takes her shoes off and lines them up against the wall before she walks in, finding the couch immediately and slumping into it. Her bag sits next to her, slumping into her lap. She sighs, putting her face into her palms. Victoria does not know why she’s here, in Trinity Santos’ well-lit apartment and dingy heating, but she knows that it’s infinitely better than whatever’s waiting for her at home.
mom
mom: Prota for dinner
me: mum im staying out tonight
mom: Incoming Call
Victoria swears under her breath, and picks up the call. Trinity is in her bedroom changing. Maybe she should call an Uber already.
“You didn’t tell me you weren’t coming home.”
Her mother is always so fucking dramatic.
“Mom, I’m coming home. I’m just at a coworker's house right now for a bit.”
“Coworker?” Eileen Shamsi can drench any word in vitriol, and that’s what she’s doing right now, “Who? Who is it? Is it a boy?”
I’m 21, Victoria chants silently in her head, and stands up to pace around the well-worn carpet. Trinity’s apartment is cozy though she’ll never say it aloud. Tons of lamps and small decorations. Pieces of Whitaker litter the living space but not in a messy way, just books and tools laying in the corners of the room. It even has a muted colour scheme, but not boring. Victoria wonders how it would feel to live here.
“It’s not a boy, Mom,” She groans, “It’s Santos. Brown hair, works with me in the ED.”
A pause, and then, “Study tonight. Be home before 10.”
“It’s literally 9:17. We ended late.”
“11:30.”
“I don’t have work tomorrow.”
Victoria doesn’t know what she’s fighting so hard for this small piece of freedom. She’s biting off more than she can chew, she knows, and she’ll pay for it for the next month of the Javadi Family Dinners. But she doesn’t want to leave this eucalyptus scented apartment that has a good view of the stars. She just doesn’t.
Trinity comes back into the living room, claw clip in her teeth while she ties up her pants.
“I will be checking the cameras. 12.”
“Thanks. Look, I gotta go now, Mom. See you. Bye.”
She hangs up quickly as Trinity looks up, and they’re quiet again. Victoria is starting to understand the gravity of being alone in Trinity’s apartment with no alarm set for tomorrow morning.
She decides to test out something. “Trin.”
“What?”
“I’m just trying your name out.”
“What do you want, Javadi?”
“What happened to Crash?”
They’re looking at each other, and Trinity maintains eye contact from across the living room as she slides her claw clip back in to coil her hair into a loose bun. Victoria looks away first, sliding off her white hoodie. She somehow forgot to wash her purple one, and when she had showed up at the hospital that morning, Dr. Ellis had taken one look at the cleanliness and laughed. It didn’t help that she was washing blood off of her chin.
“We’ll get back to our regularly scheduled programme tomorrow,” Trinity tells her with raised eyebrows, and then walks over to the couch and sits in Victoria’s spot.
Victoria glares at her, takes a deep breath in and out, and walks out to the balcony.
Again. She wouldn’t usually have the bravery for this, but she feels pulled apart at the seams from her shift today. McKay didn’t come to work today, and she felt lost at sea for 12 hours straight.
She pushes the sliding doors open and closes them behind her. She still has her phone on it, but she leans against the black wire railing for some purchase. Victoria has never been afraid of heights, but when she looks down the six or so stories, her feet tingle anyway.
It’s almost black outside. Maybe that’s why she jumps when Trinity slips beside her. Her arm nudges Victoria’s on the railing. Victoria likes looking at them– likes the muscle difference. Her scrawny wrists have no match for Trinity’s corded muscle in her biceps.
“Fuckleberry isn’t here today. He’s out at the farm playing husband,” Trinity announces to absolutely no one. She’s staring straight ahead, and she’s undone her hair. It’s gotten longer, resting below her chest. It’s unlike her.
Victoria doesn’t reply. She’s already feeling herself curl back into her shell. Trinity looks down at her, lips set in a loose line, before she digs around in her pocket.
It’s a tell that Victoria knows all too well. “Did you bring your vape?” She asks quickly.
Trinity withdraws it from her pocket without a word, passing it over to her casually.
Victoria looks at it. It has a couple of stickers on it now, not like that night in the park. She studies it, and then leans over the railing and surreptitiously checks if there’s anyone below them. She chucks it onto the sidewalk without a second thought.
Trinity pushes off the railing quickly, “What the fuck?”
“I told you it’s not good for you,” Victoria attempts to hold her head up high, but it’s a challenge when Trinity’s glare is boring down on her, “If you’re an addict, you’ll go and get it right now.”
Trinity pointedly doesn’t move. It’s a silent challenge, and they both know it. There’s an ugly look forming on her face, and Victoria cannot pinpoint the origin.
Trinity goes back to the railing, and tilts her head away from Victoria like a petulant child. “What?” Victoria tries.
“I’m not an addict.” Her voice is hard.
“It was just a joke,” Victoria can feel her confidence slipping even more. Maybe she should look into the merits of social drinking.
“It’s not funny.”
“Okay,” Victoria says, and turns the other way.
They look stupid, lamplights shining on the street and passerby murmuring below them as they face away from each other on the 4x4 platform. Balcony was a compliment.
Trinity breaks the silence first, “That was expensive,” She says sourly. She touches Victoria’s shoulder, soft as a feather, and Victoria slowly turns to look forward again. She ignores the slight warmth blooming in her neck at the feeling of Trinity’s fingers through her shirt sleeve.
“So. Where are you and this Chantana chick going on Friday?”
“You read all that, huh,” Victoria mutters grumpily.
Trinity shrugs and waits,
“She invited me back to hers,” Victoria admits, “I’m supposed to cook for her.” She still can’t believe she agreed to it. But at the time, Chantana’s dark eyes were on hers and she couldn’t move, and is she really at fault for agreeing to something that she absolutely cannot do? Victoria started college at 13, med school at 17, and is an intern at 21. So what if she can’t cook pasta.
Trinity seems to agree, “Cook? You can’t cook for shit.”
“I found an Instagram recipe,” Victoria shoots back, annoyed, “And anyways, you don’t even know if I can cook or not.”
“Whitakers party. Potluck. You brought the slimy casserole.”
Victoria’s cheeks burn as she remembers. It was embarrassing– Trinity had thrown Dennis a birthday party in the apartment and spent the entire night grumbling as if she hadn’t planned it. Victoria and Mel had been invited, as well as some of their other med school friends. It wasn’t so bad. The food was excellent, present company excluded, and if Victoria didn’t have to leave a measly hour in, she might have said that it was one of the best nights of her life.
“You’re Indian,” Trinity sighs, “You’re supposed to make good food. I can’t believe I had a bite of your shitty casserole.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” Victoria argues.
“It tasted worse than that vomit that landed in my mouth last week.”
“Ew!” Victoria shrieks, and Trinity laughs gaily.
“That’s mean,” She nudges Trinity roughly in the shoulder, “I bet you can’t cook either.” Lie. “You wanted to try my dish, admit it.”
“Lapse of judgement,” Trinity responds, and pushes Victoria back rougher. She trips on the same shoelace and lands against the side railing with a huff, getting back up quickly. Trinity just smirks at her, and she knows not to wait for an apology. Since the day she saw Trinity’s eyes light up after she fainted, she’s known exactly how their relationship will go.
Victoria is no stranger to childhood bullies. Sure, Trinity is more handsome than most of them, but still. Bullies are bullies. Ignore them, and they’ll go away. She ignores the calm voice in the back of her mind that asks her why she doesn’t want to let go of Trinity’s attention.
“So,” Trinity clears her throat, shedding her sweater. She passes it to Victoria, who doesn’t even realize she’s shivering until she snatches it and puts it on. “What are you going to cook?”
Victoria is silent for a bit.
“Javadi.” Trinity says, “You seriously don’t know?"
“It’s in a week. I have plenty of time.”
“Bullshit, and you know it,” Trinity snickers, “You’ve probably penciled in the exact second you’ll start buying groceries. You know. In your cute little purple journal and scented gel pens.”
Victoria snaps her head to Trinity as she burrows deeper into the hoodie, trying desperately not to inhale the cologne that smells suspiciously like Whitakers, “Where the hell did you find it? I lock my lockers every day!”
Trinity starts laughing again, pushing at Victoria’s elbow. A gust of wind blows in between them, and it ruffles Trinity’s hair and Victoria Can’t Stop Looking. They’re standing beside each other and looking at each other and Victoria can’t tear her eyes away.
“I was fucking kidding. God, you’re insane, of course you journal.”
“It’s good stress relief,” Victoria’s mouth muscles hurt from grinning. She has to work to let her lips smooth into a presentable line.
Trinity mumbles something.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.” Trinity says back. She folds her arms to her chest and looks out at the view.
“It’s getting cold,” Victoria offers, though she hasn’t shivered since she got the hoodie. Her fingers are clutching the sleeves, and the hem goes to her thighs, and she’s quite comfortable. But it’s an olive branch nonetheless, and she extends it just to pull her hand back before she gets bit.
“No it’s not,” Trinity snickers, “You can go in if you want.” Is that what she wanted? A spot of conversation after their shift? Asking Victoria about her second date Of All Time? A companion to stare into space with?
“I’m fine.”
Silence flows between them for some time, before Trinity’s hands start to fidget with each other. “Fuck,” She says, disappointed, “I need to hit my pen.” She looks down at the sidewalk, “So far. You think I can land?”
“Addict.” Victoria says again.
“Shut up.” This time, it lacks gravity.
Victoria looks out at the view again, getting lost in her thoughts as her eyes focus into the dark. Rustling sounds behind her begin, which she pays no mind to. What time is it? She thinks. Mom’s gonna kill me. Dad’s probably gonna be proud.
Then she hears a small puff of breath.
She looks over beside her dazedly to see Trinity sneakily bringing her hand down from her mouth to her pants pocket.
“What the hell–”
Victoria’s voice gets cut off as she lunges without thinking. It’s been a long day, an even longer shift. Can you blame her? She wrestles at Trinity’s fist, digging her nails into the other girl’s soft palms, and they collide on the shaky railing together. Victoria’s face is too close to Trinity’s for comfort. She can see every pore. The gleam of her clean skin against the moonlight. The stray dust on her eyelashes. Her peachy pink lips that curve at the ends. They match. Trinity is very symmetrical. Victoria did a research paper on that once: not Trinity’s lips, but how a symmetrical face is considered more attractive than not.
“Ow-fuck-cut your nails–”
She has experience with childhood bullies, after all. She pries Trinity’s hands open quickly, grabbing a twin black stick as the one on the ground and stuffing it back in her pocket.
“If I see another one of these,” Victoria warns, and then flame goes out of her at once, “It won’t be good.” She finishes weakly.
Trinity has crossed her arms again stonily, but she’s panting slightly. Her face is pink. Vic takes a breath, and then backs up quickly.
Trinity is softer than she thought.
“Fuck, you’re relentless,” Trinity groans, “You can’t even afford these. Do not throw that one off the balcony, it's strawberry kiwi. My favourite.” She can tell: the sweet smell is curling in her nostrils.
“All the more reason for you not to buy more,” Victoria fires back. Her hair is a mess around her face, and she picks at the inky strands and puts them back where they belong.
Trinity waves her off, and goes inside without another word, leaving the sliding door open.
Victoria stands there, breathing heavily. When she touches her hands to her cheeks, they come back a bit warm. It’s the heat. It’s summer, she reasons. It’s July.
“You coming?” Trinity shouts from inside, and Victoria takes another sweeping look at the view before her: dark black colour seeping into the streets, belied just by the small circles of warm streetlights. Sweat on her skin. Blush on her cheeks.
“I’m going to teach you how to make chicken adobo for your little date!”
“Um, I think she’s vegetarian,” Victoria yells back. She doesn’t want to leave this moment just yet.
A sigh, and then the thump of a container. “Lumpia, then. She’s missing out.”
“Hey!” Victoria says fiercely, stepping inside quickly. She sheds her hoodie. The temperature problems lay with the environment, and definitely not her. “It’s not a date!”
“Victoria and Chantana, sitting on a tree,” Trinity sings aloud, “K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”
Later, Victoria is in bed. She got home an hour late, but she thinks that it’s the least of her worries. Worry number one: The best day of her life was yesterday, at approximately 11:43 pm, when she chased Trinity around the kitchen island with seasoning on her fingers and Charli XCX blasting. Worry number two: She thinks Trinity Santos is hot. She thinks Trinity Santos might think she's hot, too. Worry number three: She still can't cook for her date on Friday.