& im adding lincoln & o get married my good Good children
part two of the actual story even tho yknow it follows on chapter wise in ao3 but in case u wanted it here
raven realising the extent of lexa & clarkes Gay & clarke having trouble w math
lexa & clarke are the GAYEST non couple in the world & finn is a good dude & gets asked out for what dinner or coffee or smth ah yes coffee a good drink
frat boy clarke feat. hot-for-frat-boy-clarke lexa
lexa returns from a summer away incredibly HOT & clarke gets slapped w the gay
aden is a dramatic smol bean who has to just face facts & realise that his sister is in love w the girl he is ALSO in love w but he doesnât stand a chance sorry lil buddy
lincoln asks octavia to dance, gets glared at but still gets his dance, is an all round Good Dude & they have a LITTLE KISS & ITS CUTE
the kind of excessively cute sweet gross soft gayness that comes in the morning after clarke proposes to lexa
clarke is MAD bc costia is HOT & sheâs staying w them while sheâs in town & lexa used to LOVE HER & she touched lexas tattoosÂ
lexa adores clarke & gets yet another drawing of hers tattooed on her body to love Forever & clarke gets weird bc sheâs terrible at dealing w change my terrible lovely disaster hoe child
ew clarke worships lexa in ways that make sense to her like learning the anatomy of the body she loves the Most & loves so well
& once again, the third chapter is on ao3 & carries on but in case u want a link to part 3 alone here u go
classic lexa. she comes out to clarke when sheâs like fourteen in the middle of a rant isnt she the smallest lil lesbean âgirls especially though. i like girlsâ amazing. sheâs so good
literally v sweet they eat honey cakes & celebrate nowruz as family
the alumni game isnt v fair all the alums are Drunk thats a little bit anyas fault & lexa has whipped her team into a frenzy & soundly destroys her sister
clarke gets a Gay haircut & lexa is the human form of đđđÂ
o looks totally hot, blue box finally stops being a wang & is actually trying rly hard to be good, they get coffee together & talk
one perfect evening, with the stars dashed on the ceiling, a warm honeysuckle evening & good good friends all around. & love. plenty of love.
jude & i have written more since i last updated this so:
raven is a goddamn boss queen & lexa is the cutest friend
clarke & octavia fuck up her hair & lexa laughs at both of them
this is my fucking favourite thing jude has written for me o helps lexa when sheâs having a bad day feat. anyaÂ
carm & elle moving in together theyâre gay & sweet
only lexa could make the phrase âthereâs no godâ sound this funny. also carm is a lil sad & small her wrists hurt but she gets better & there is so much love
elle comes home after a few weeks away doing movie stuff like a hot shot & she gets to come home to !! her family!! continuing on with the theme of so much love
straight vs queer ships in shows are always likeâŚ.omg girl and boy shared a lingering glance once? that must mean theyâre in love?âŚversus i killed my father because he dared lay hands on you. when i was doing it i felt like the divine light of justice and my love for you felt pure and clean and holy because i rid the world of evil in devotion to you.
people on here are always saying âwe NEED a story where the art of storytelling is abandonedâ like ugh literary devices are soo annoying like that wouldnât happen in real life that only happened to further the story (why is there story in my story) why would orpheus turn around when he was explicitly told not to why would icarus fly so close to the sun romeo&juliet catcher in the rye why are they so earnest why pour your heart and soul into anything why bother why cant all art be quippy logical monotony like my marvel movies thereâs a void in my heart bc i refused to fill it and the curtains were blue
âi hate poetry its so pretentiousâ but then you reblog a quote or a throwaway line and say âwhy does this go so hardâ you are desperate for poetry you are starved for it and u dont even realise youâre hungry
you Fools. Riverdale has been here the whole time but you turned your backs on Her. She died for your sins yet you Donât Care. When judgment day comes She will not spare you and I will dance with Lili Reinhart on your grave
it also includes short films, animated movies, documentaries of every genre, full recordings of live performances. all spanning different decades from different countries. YOU DONT EVEN FUCKING KNOW
there are also websites like worldscinema, solidaritycinema, and rarefilmm hosting incredible obscure world cinema for free! and if you're more inclined towards the esoteric, there's also evilbjork's avant-garde canon playlist on youtube! also important to mention Maya S. Cade's incredible black film archive and the otherness archive, an obscure queer cinema archive! You could always be watching more films !
i think i've figured out how dropout works. brennan stands in a courtyard, points a gun at the intrepid heroes, only to discover they're all actually pointing guns at him, so he turns around, but he's stopped by katie marovitch, behind him, also with a gun. sam reich (also pointing a gun down at brennan, naturally) steps out onto a balcony from the shadows, going unnoticed, and aims. but actually behind him the whole set falls away and vic michaelis and lisa gilroy are pointing flamethrowers at sam.
also sam looks back down and yeah, now brennan's pointing a gun at him too.
it's just that i'm always worried i'm doing the wrong thing even when there's not a wrong thing to be doing. in the grocery aisle i'm doing the wrong thing. stopping for a moment to retie my shoelaces i am doing the wrong thing.
it is the first time i've visited this friend at her house; i'm doing the wrong thing already, what if i have the wrong address, what if she has special rules i don't know about, what if my presence here was more of a politeness and not a true request. it is the first time i've been to this restaurant, and surely yes i've been to many of these but what if i'm doing the wrong thing in this one. and even if i've been to this gym a million times what if this time the rules have changed somehow (or i've been doing it wrong all along and it was pure luck that nobody noticed) and what if this time i'm doing it very wrong.
they're taking orders for lunch at work, what if i order the wrong thing somehow, or what if - what if i am not even supposed to order anything - is this a test? my friends ask if i want to see a movie but what if i suggest a movie that they won't like and that's certainly doing the wrong thing. yes im certifiably happy and she's amazing and i love being a lesbian but if i bring her on a date where everything isn't blisteringly perfect (the weather is a bit chilly, finding parking was harder than i thought, the event started 3 minutes late) isn't that doing the wrong thing? i know i can't control everything obviously but i should have planned better; this was my fault. and of course i know i'm only human but - a lack of omnipotent foresight really is doing the wrong thing now.
am i doing the wrong thing writing about this? i'm doing the wrong thing, aren't i, i'm so sorry, i always seem to be doing that somehow.
do u think whitaker knows abt santos sh? maybe she's been too used to living alone & leaves smth in the living room or mayb he notices she's sore/tender or w/e
[cws: no active sh, just acknowledgement that it's A Thing. active but then resolved depersonalization/derealization etc. sheâs got atough brain!]
//
'hey trin,' whitaker calls as he walks through the front door. you startle as he drops his keys into the bowl on the small hallway and drops his bag to the ground. you feel disoriented: it's dark now; you have no idea how long you've been standing in the kitchen. he had been gone all weekend, and yolanda was on call andâof courseâhad to leave in the middle of the night.
dennis dutifully takes his boots off and places them in the shoe rack, neatly as always, and hangs up his coat. even with that, your body comes back to you so slowly you don't have time to do anything that would seem normal, like turn on a light or just move. you feel embarrassment but distantly, like you're running underwater. you've had a diagnosis for years, one that you agreed with, one that made sense, that, theoretically, explains why you don't feel real sometimes, or why the world around you doesn't feel realâthat awful fucking depersonalization that creeps up on you when the morning light is too bright and your hips hurt and you're alone.
'trinity?' he asks, turning on the floor lamp in the living room and then waiting a moment before walking toward you. it pisses you off, the way he looks like he's approaching a cornered, scared animal, but maybe that's what you areâthe soft animal of your body and all that shit.
it takes an astronomical amount of effort to say, 'i'm fine,' and let go of the ice cube you've been holding. your hands are red and raw, so you've probably been doing it for a while, probably started doing it when it was still light outside. you hate that he knows, based on the furrow in his brows and the way he softly shuffles his feet covered in socks with stupid little pickles on them, how he knows not to touch you but you need him near anyway.
men, your whole life, and still, have not been gentle, have not been kind. they've made you feel small, powerlessâand worse than that too, feelings so rotten and empty there's no word that can hold them. you know your brain is colored by a swath of these, patchworks of hurt and grief and terror and nothingness that you try, every fucking day, to healâin yourself, if you can, but more importantly, in your patients.
'are you sure?' dennis asks, and you actively have to stop yourself from lashing out, from hating him for it: you never asked for him to see you. it's one thing to help him out; it doesn't do anyone any good if he's unhoused, if he can't afford groceries or an adequate jacket for the pittsburgh winter. but it's another thing to let someone know youâto let him know you.
you wipe your hands off on a dish towel, fight down the urge to grimace because they sting, and then nod. 'yeah.'
he waits for a few seconds, weighing his luck, probably, before he says, 'you're crying.'
'oh.' you hadn't realized, which, in some ways, is even worse. you sniffle and he seems to decide, in that moment, that even if you are mean to himâeven if you do bare your teeth, even if you might biteâit's worth it to help you. he hands you the tissue box from the counter and waits, scrolling on his phone, for you to blow your nose and wipe your eyes.
the problem is: you can't fucking stop crying. nothing even happened, nothing worse than normal, at least. you saw some truly heinous shit on your last shift, but it's emergency medicine, and you love it. yolanda hadn't left for any reason that was unfair or cruel or even impolite: she woke you up on her way out to kiss you goodbye; you remember it blearily but she was sweet, kind, even. the problem is: you don't really remember most of the day, and it's your only real day off for the whole month, and you're so fucking tired because you can't sleep, and â
'alright,' dennis decides, his voice just commanding enough to make it through the rising tide of frustration and panic, 'i'm gonna order pizza, and you're gonna sit on the couch, and we're going to watch vanderpump rules.'
'i thought you were tired of it,' you say, hate how wobbly and wet and sad your voice sounds, but it's something at least.
he shrugs. 'you said season ten is some of the best reality television ever made.'
the first step you take toward the couch aches everywhere, in a way you can't describe, but he smiles at you with enough stupidly genuine encouragement you keep going. 'i'm right about that, as i am everything else.'
you don't need to look at him to know he's rolling his eyes, but he tosses a blanket to you anyway. 'uh,' he says, his first falter of the evening, 'can we order from your uber eats? i know i said i would get us pizza, butâ'
'âi know you're broke, huckleberry. it's fine.' truly, the least groundbreaking request. 'you can use my phone.'
he nods, annoyingly bashful, and you hand it to him from where it had, apparently, been sitting on the coffee table. you hate losing chunks of time like this, hate what you discover, sometimes, when you finally get yourself back.
but dennis helps: he goes to his room to pee and change into pajamas and rushes back, which would be endearing if it wasn't annoying. he turns on the tv and finds the right streaming app and the right episode, goes and gets you both seltzers from the fridge. he actively participates in the show, too, drawing you into it despite how hazy you still feel: he laughs and asks questions and gasps at particularly wild revelations, nudges your knee in incredulity. it's fun, to share space with him, to have a home he's part of.
you eat pizza out of the box and things start to even out by the time you're three episodes into the season. it's probably later than he wants to be up because you both have a shift tomorrow, but he's doing a subinternship in family medicine right now that sounds truly so fucking boring, so he doesn't complain.
the fourth episode loads and he stops playing the little worldbuilding game on his phone he likes to fiddle with from time to timeâanother embarrassing hobby; he doesn't even pay for ad freeâand clears his throat.
'out with it,' you say, lolling your head over to look at him while he fumbles along.
'did youâdo you, uh, need any help withâŚ' he huffs, and you let him start over again because this is at least making the torture of letting him check in slightly more bearable, 'did you, you know, do anything today?' you have to ask the actual question all the time; youâve heard him ask patients: are you thinking of hurting yourself or others? have you? but youâre not a patient, and he always gives you that grace. 'that i could help with, if you need help?'
you'd peed during episode two and, to your deep relief, hadn't seen any new cuts or bruises; your hands are fine now, the ice cubes earlier apparently doing their job. you shake your head and fight the urge to feel nauseous, the bile that sits sour with shame: you're older than him, you've seen so much shit and you're not scared like he is, you can handle yourself. you don't need a little brother protecting you; that's not how things are supposed to be.
butâhe smiles, relieved and, horrifyingly, proud. 'i'm glad your sessions with dr. reyes have been helping.'
'i guess.'
'no, for real, trinity,' he says, leans forward, his eyes wide like he really fucking means it, 'i'm glad you stayed safe. really glad.'
'less of a mess to clean up after a long day on the farm, i guess.'
he sighs, not falling for the bait like he still does sometimes. it had been probably one of the most embarrassing moments of your life when, to literally add insult to injury that you thought you'd been years beyond, in a moment of mistimed walking-around-without-pants-on, he'd seen your scars, and a new cut too. it'd taken you weeksâand a bottle of wine and half a jointâto tell him anything, but he was kind. one thing you can give him, and probably the only thing that lets you stomach his very sincere care: he has never pitied you. you think it actually makes him respect you more, the knowledge that things aren't easy, that your walls are to protect you, that you have teeth because you need them.
'i was kinda scared,' he admits.
'you and me both, dude,' you say without thinking about it first, without feeling its weight. it's hard, and heavy, and it's a blessing he doesn't even understand to be able to just let it sit for a moment without reproach in someone else's company, to admit it. 'but,' you say, 'now you get to watch an impeccable season of television with your even more impeccable roommate.'
'yeah, exactly what i was thinking about myself.'
unfortunately it makes you laugh, and he grins. 'i'm gonna eat an edible so i can sleep, maybe. but one more episode?'
'do we have ice cream?'
'i like the way you think.'
he gets out his phone and points it at you. 'can you say that again for the camera, dr. santos?'
you swat it away from you. 'never. and don't push your luck, i'll eat the entire pint of phish food by myself. don't think i won't.'
'i wouldn't think that,' he says. 'i've seen you do it on more than one occassion, actually.'
'i'm a woman of many, many talents.'
he grimaces. 'oh, i know.'
'listen, i got you, according to like four reddit threads, the best noise-cancelling headphonesâ'
'âplease, spare me the reminder,' he says, hand coming to cover his eyes, but his lips are quirked up, fighting a smile.
'alright, alright,' you give in. when you stand and stretch, you're relieved beyond belief that you feel somewhat normal: your hips hurt, like they always do, and your shoulders pop, and your left knee twinges, but that's all par for the course. your skin isn't too sensitive and your vision doesn't swim and nothing rings in your ears; it's easy to breathe.
so you bring dennis a spoon and share a pint of ice cream with him, while he is truly so shocked at the sandoval revelations that you laughâa real laugh, real happiness. it surprises youâastonishes youâthat, with him in your life, you can make it through a day like today, where your brain and body disconnect because it's too hard to be in the world. with him in your life, you can make it through a bad dayâone where you miss whole chunks of time, one where you can only hope you stayed still and didn't hurt yourselfâand end up with a full stomach, laughing on the couch. he came home and your hands were stinging but not hurt, and he turned on the lights. he pulled you out of the dark.
he turns the tv off when the episode endsâhe can sleep, and you can at least tryâand gives you a hesitant but heartfelt sidehug. you sink into it; he won't say anything to anyone else, and he'd never do it in front of other people either. you bring both arms around his back, shifting after a few seconds once you're sure it's what you want, and you feel him smile into your shoulder while he hugs you back tight.
'night, trin,' he says.
'yeah, don't wake me up to check under your bed for monsters, huckleberry.' he shoves you a little but he laughs too, helps you up and then turns toward his room. 'sleep well,' you say, trying again to be kind, to mean it, just this once.
i wish that i could catch you (in the right light)
[ao3
"you're not nothing to each other, and you can be careful when you touch her. against a lot of oddsâgenerations of themâyou're both here, alive, together. it's dark and the world around you is steeped in pain and so is she, but, 'so fucking beautiful,' you say, and, right here, right now, in the quiet and the grief and the soul, you can mean it."
the ten months between season 1 & season 2âthey're not in love, but they are familiar. trinity & thoughtfulness, through yolanda.]
//
it was joy, I was living in it,
I bled, I cried.
âdana levin, 'body of magnesia' from in the surgical theatre
//
september
yolo â
sorry i had to leave without saying goodbye. you were very soundly sleeping (i won't tell anyone you drool if you teach me something really cool next time we're on shift together) and i would be pissed as fuck if you woke me up in the same situation when we both know we're just going to work. you're mean enough as is and i didn't want to make it worse ;) on that topic last night was fun, thanks. your coffee machine is too fancy for me to have made you anything for when you wake up, it just screamed at me when i tried briefly, but know in my heart i thought about it lol. i ate one of your "heart-healthy" bran muffins, disgusting. i'm going to bring you real pastries next time. anyway have a good day off, i'll see you soon
â t
/
october
'you were so good for me,' you say into trinity's hair, kiss the top of her head, and she sniffles into your chest, her arms wrapped around you. you haven't spent too much time or effort on aftercare in the pastâof course, enough to be polite, enough to make sure your partners feel safe and that everything is consensualâbut trinity is⌠not just anyone. she loves when you're rough, loves when you're commanding, loves when you're mean. she's a generous lover, responsive and bratty and she gets off on praise once she finally listens and does what you say.
she's not just anyone because you work with her, sure, but you've slept with people you work with before. she's not just anyone mostly because you recognize yourself in her: her temperament, her walls, her ambition. a few weeks ago you'd woken in the middle of the night to low voices and dim light in her kitchen down the hall, hers rough with the remnants of tears, whitaker's soft and patient and tired.
you waited, quiet and still, even though you had to pee, for her to eventually come back to bed a few minutes later. when she saw you were awake, you watched her shrink into herself, eyes wide in the moonlight, and she glanced at her bedroom door for a moment before you told her, 'please don't escape from your own home on my account.'
she huffed a laugh, self-depricating, and slowly walked to bed, folded herself in.
'you okay?'
you waited while she pulled her duvet up to her shoulders, hands tucked underneath. 'yeah. fine.'
you felt a pang ofânot guilt, you didn't do anything wrong, but something. care, maybe, as simple as that.
'sometimes i have nightmares,' she said, 'afterâŚ.' she shrugs, still small and bundled. 'whatever, don't worry about it.'
'i'm not worried about you,' you said, which is mostly trueâtrue enough. 'justâwas it something we did? something i did?'
she shook her head. 'oh, yolo, no. justâŚ' she blew out a big breath. 'ugh. the body keeps the fucking score and all that bullshit.'
'okay.' you waited a few moments but she didn't say anything further. you always talked before trying things, each time, made sure she felt empowered to say a safeword if she ever needed. you had, however, gotten up quickly earlier, afterward, and gone to showerâit had nothing to do with her; it had just been a long, gruelling, bad day. you filed it away: the opportunity to do something other than cut quickly, decisively, stitch things up and finish them as fast as you can, precise and onto the next. she had been comforted by whitaker, of all people, and you didn't need that to be a trend just because you're overworked.
and so tonight she curls into you, warm and soft and gorgeous. you take your time, languish in it in a way that makes you happy too, you find: you run your hand along the plane of her back, scratches along her spine soothed by your gentle touch, goosebumps in their wake. you cleaned her up afterward, as gentle as you could, saying sweet nothings quietly, and pulled soft sleep shorts up over her hips, something you've noticed makes her more comfortable, something she prefers. maybe it's too much for someone from work you fuck, but it's nice to offer a measure of care that, you're starting to realize, you both might need.
she stretches after a while, yawns and props herself up on an elbow.
'tomorrow is my birthday.'
'a halloween baby,' you say, a smile blooming on your face unbidden. 'makes sense.'
she laughs. 'full moon in scorpio too, when i was born.'
'nightmare.'
'allegedly there was also a tsunami warning.'
'you're joking.'
'i swear to god. i'd ask my mother to confirm but i do not want to talk to her more than i'm already going to have to in the morning.'
it's verging on territory that's beyond boundaries you've loosely set; it's familiar: birthdays, families, homes. 'well, it's 1:04 am right now,' you say, checking your phone. 'so, happy birthday.'
she laughs, just once, bright and quiet. 'i'd say i rang in the new year with a bang.'
'trinity.'
she laughs again, softer this time.
'i'm leaving.'
you make a show of getting up but she's still laughing, and she catches you by the arm and you let her pull you back into bed. you run a hand through her hairâit's getting longerâand then kiss her. 'if you stay,' she says, 'maybe i'll even let you see my halloween costume in the morning.'
'and what is that?'
'sexy doctor.'
'shut up.'
you start to laugh too, though, and pretend to push her off the bed until she shrieksâmortifying, honestly, and you both know it, so, for your birthday gift to her, you don't say anything, just help her back to her favorite spot and kiss her once she's settled.
'goodnight.'
'yeah,' she says, 'sleep well.'
and so what if you wake up earlier than her in the morning and put in an order at aldas for later that day. so what if she sleeps easily through the night and you kiss her awake at dawn. so what if you go down on her until she's spent and sated and dripping.
'what i'm gathering,' she says afterward, voice hoarse and perfect, 'is that my sexy doctor costume worked.'
'dios mĂŹo.'
/
november
you're outside the bar late; it's about to snow, one of the first of the season, bitterly cold. you're used to itâyour childhood in new york city, med school in boston, your residency and fellowship hereâbut trinity is shivering, even tucked into her parka and keffiyah and beanie, one hand in her pocket and the other holding a cigarette she hasn't really smoked at all.
it's late and it's freezing and she's drunk, and you're drunk, because the holidays are always the longest shifts, always the hardest: people are surrounded by love and accidents happen and they get hurt and they die; people are alone and accidents happenâor things happen on purpose tooâand they get hurt and they die. in another life maybe you're home with your family rolling your eyes with david and luis at your tio ramon's shitty politics, your mom glaring at all of you but still pouring you another glass of wine. you don't know where trintiy would be in another lifeâprobably not home with her brothers and her mom and her ignorant uncle. maybe this is better, you think, even if you're exhausted and you miss your family and you had held people as they died today; trinity is mostly done with a rant about the true historical context of thanksgiving, and how the colonization of indigenous peoples hundreds of years agoâlong, but not that long, she saysâhas carried with it a legacy that's destroying the world today: climate change and genocide and men in power who don't care who they harm, who don't care about bodies that are loved, queer bodies and women's bodies and children's bodies, who don't care about the soul because they don't have one themselves. 'it's just⌠lost,' she says. 'and,' she continues, barely taking a breath, 'now we're entering water bankruptsy and they still want us to use fucking generative AI.'
you've had two old fashioneds and three shots of tequilaâyou're too old for those; you'll be feeling them in the morning, but trinity is just 27 and undeterred, and on occasion you try to keep upâand snow has started to fall. the streetlights reflect in the puddles from the rain earlier, the alley awash in a glow that only happens when it's late and dark and you're exhausted and buzzing at the same time. her cheeks are flushed pink the way they always are when she drinks; her eyes are so green.
'you're beautiful,' you say, the words coming out of you on accidentâbut you mean them all the same. she blinks at you, and you don't regret them.
'oh.'
you shouldn't say them: this is different than calling her sexy or gorgeous or good. you're not even touching. but still, 'you're so beautiful.'
she furrows her brow and puts out the cigarette she didn't even take a drag of on the bottom of her boot.
it's clumsy, a little, to kiss her, and kiss her, and kiss her, to tuck yourselves away into the corner in the cold and unbutton her pants and when she nods fervently and fuck her right there. you bury your face in the crook of her neck and her perfrume lingers on her jacket, on her scarf, and you suck on her pulse point while she arches into you. in the grand scheme of things it doesn't solve anything but you can be kind to this body right now: you can be careful when you touch her. against a lot of oddsâgenerations of themâyou're both here, alive, together. it's dark and the world around you is steeped in pain and so is she, but, 'so fucking beautiful,' you say, and, right here, right now, in the quiet and the grief and the soul, you can mean it.
/
december
'yolanda,' your dad says, handing you a scotch like that will somehow rectify the situation he finds very disappointing; regardless, you take it, even though david and luis snicker. 'you're telling us that you've been "seeing"' â air quotes and all â 'another doctor who genuinely likes you, and, yet, you're not dating her?'
you sigh. you should've never admitted during hanukkah dinner that you're not totally single.
'yolo is keeping a lover, dad,' luis says, utterly unhelpful.
you groan.
'what does this trinity look like?' your mom asks, kissing you on the forehead in some sort of supplication to soften what she knows is a mortal blow.
'you're torturing me,' you whine, which is both beneath you and unbecoming, but whatever; you still get out your phone and find a nice picture of you and trinity smiling when you went out to get drinks after work recently at your favorite wine bar.
your family passes your phone aroundâsuspiciously quietâbefore david says, 'she's hot.'
'kill me now.'
'not during hanukkah,' your dad says, and your mom laughs. luis and david start to ask more questions but your mom acts mercifully for once and shoos you all to bed.
you get ready and settle into your childhood bedroom, the double bed that seems small now compared to the one in your townhouse, the warm quilt that your abuela made when you were born. a notification pops up on your phone as you're plugging it in and setting it aside.
happy hanukkah :), trinity's written. hope you're having a good time with your family
you're debating if you should just text her back in the morning when a few nudes come in just after that.
I'm in my childhood bed, you type back, embarrassingly overcome so fast.
hot, she writes back.
GOODNIGHT TRINITY.
yeah yeah, she writes. but enjoy those whenever, some of my best work
đ, you send, and then See you Tuesday
if you spend a few extra minutes staring at the full curves of her hips and the jut of her collarbone before you fitfully set your phone aside, well. she'll never have to know.
/
january
it's snowingâhard, the real winter kind, unrelenting and at an angle. it's wet and cold and normally you would be miserable, normally you would grumble and complain about how your hair will get frizzy, how you're missing the perfectly nice warmth in your condo with its brand new HVAC, the gathering of a few friends there watching the ball drop in the final minutes before a new year. normally you would be going around and making sure everyone has enough to drink, everyone has had enough food, everyone is good and taken care of.
but trinity is smiling, trinity with her sad eyes and steady hands and shaky breath, trinity who was just supposed to be someone you sleep with sometimes to blow off some steam, trinity who is at your house now, who has made your friends laugh, who helped you put together a charcuterie board without too many complaints. trinity is grabbing you by the hand and tugging you out to your balcony and handing you a flute of champagne. her smile is easy after a shared joint earlier and a few glasses of wine, and maybe a little excited, and the playlist she'd insisted on putting together for the party drifts out along with your friends counting down. her cheeks are flushed and she's shivering, just in a sweater, not having grabbed a jacket for herself, only you.
'happy new year,' she says, right at midnight, right as everyone inside cheers and blows on the silly noisemakers she insisted you get from party city. maybe she's not anything to you but maybe she hasn't had that many good years and maybe this won't be either, but snowflakes catch on her eyelashes and she tucks a curl carefully behind your ear, and your heart tugs a little in your chest.
'happy new year, trinity,' you say, and her smile softens, and you can't do anything but kiss her while the fireworks go off distantly, bright even in the snow, even with your eyes closed.
/
february
people die all the time. it's just the truth of the matter, and one you have to hold very close sometimes in your line of work. people die, all the time, regardless of how good you are, how much you practice, how much you know. people die even when your hands are perfect and you do everything right: sometimes there's just too much blood, too much damage, too many catastrophic ruins in the body that, just this morning, had been fine. most of the time you're able to just see the surgical fieldâwhat you try to fix; what you usually do; what you sometimes can'tâdraped and prepped and clean until it isn't, an impersonal body until it isn't, until a heart stops beating beneath your hands, still and heavy and impossible.
and most of the time, you're good at emotional boundaries. trauma surgery requires it of you: demands that you see the impersonal body, the surgical field, lungs and spines and spleens as parts of a whole, the heart as an organ with its anatomy you can understand. but the thing is: you remember. you remember each person you lose on the tableâwhat happened, what was insurmountable in the face of all of your years of learning and craft and talent. most of the time, those things overpower the sharp sting of grief: you did everything you could.
but today there was a sixteen year old boy whoâfor one reason or another; trinity would probably know, she would care enough toâhadn't wanted to be alive, and you couldn't save him. today there was a woman and her unborn child, hit by a drunk driver at eleven fucking am, and you couldn't save either of them either.
'their injuries were catastrophic,' walsh says, even her shoulders slumped, and you know it's true. you record everything in the chart: you know it's true. but still, you have to tell parents in the unrelenting fist of grief that their son will never come home. you have to tell someone's wife that they'll never meet their child, that the life they builtâdreamed of, fought forâwas gone, just like that.
it's clinical, it's all clinical, all scalpels and sutures and midline incisons and suction and retractorsâit's clinical until it isn't. on the worst days, you think you should've listened to your brothers and gone into law, or research, or any other fucking specialty that doesn't involve holding a still heart in your hands. on the worst daysâdays like todayâyou usually go home and take a hot shower and drink a bottle of wine in the dark and then try to sleep: there will always be people who need the very rare things you're capable of doing; you will have inevitable losses but you have so many wins too. you've gotten used to bringing it up in therapy, to taking a few minutes to scroll through the stupid memes in your family's groupchat, to eat one of the blander dishes you meal prepped on your day off, something easy you can mostly stomach.
but today trinity is waiting for you by the lockers, like she normally does when you've confirmed plans earlier in the day and are finished after her. she smiles when she sees you, a happy little quirk of her lips, and normally you'd immediately be thinking of all the things you have planned for her, but today you just⌠can't.
she notices immediately, of course she does. you've told her before that she's too perceptive for her own good, but today you think it's probably pretty easy: you're still in your scrubs, your clothes crammed into your bag, and, from the way her face falls immediately, concern wrinkling her brow, you're sure you look as spentâemptyâas you feel.
'i'm sorry,' you say, the pang in your chest aching even more, because you know how exhausted she must be too: she saw both cases, she passed them both off to you with a modicum of hope still; you know, in general, how hard she works, how much she cares. 'iâ' mortifyingly, you feel tears prick at the corners of your eyes.
she stands, steps closer to you, waves off your apology. 'i heard about jared.'
'yeah.'
'and the mom and baby�'
when you shake your head, she frets for a moment, but then seems to get over whatever hesitancy she had and she takes both of your hands in hers. she doesn't say anythingâshe understands, blessedly, that sometimes there isn't anything to say to fix such a loss. instead, she quickly looks around, and then brings your hands to her face, kisses them both gently, holds them for a moment longer.
'still good,' she says, just like that.
you let out a shaky breath and you will yourself not to cry.
'do you want some space tonight?'
god, no, you think, but you have enough decorum to shrug instead. trinity rolls her eyes which is the first thing that makes you feel real and normal in hours and hours. 'i might not be up forâyou know, what we had planned.'
'you can still come over if you want, or we can reschedule. it's your call.'
it drives you a little insane because you know, even if you can't extend the kind of care she deserves, that trinity has way more bad days than you do. you've seen her old scars, you've bandaged new cuts with as little fanfare as possible, you've woken up to her nightmares. 'okay,' you say.
'well, i asked a question with choices, so that doesn't actually answer it.'
'smart ass.'
she smiles then, triumphant, and gets out her phone. 'what's your go-to comfort food when, like, way too many patients die?'
'i usually just reheat something i've meal prepped.'
'yolo. that is⌠so depressing, oh my god.'
'like you have room to talk.'
'fuck you,' she says, but she's still smiling, scrolling through doordash. 'also, we can pick up some wine on the way home. before you say anything, yes, dennis and i did drink the nice pinot noir i bought for you but it's only because we were watching the real housewives of salt lake city reunion on tuesday and it was either that or the tequila in the freezer.'
even the thought of their handle of kirkland brand tequila is enough to make you want to gag.
trinity, as always, is undeterred, though. she hands her phone to you as you head out to the parking lot. 'ethiopian? thai? italian?'
you scroll and try to let yourself remember it's okay to be hungry; you don't even know when you ate today, if at all. 'hot pot?'
'oh, fuck yes,' trinity says, taking her phone back as you unlock your car. dennis had driven hers back to their apartment earlier after he finished his shift. she flings her bag in the backseat even though you put yours in the trunk like always. 'great choice.'
she asks questions about what you want to get as you drive home, the radio playing softly in the background. she's quiet, after she puts in the order, not teasing you about your music ('old and lame, very elder millenial core, any moment i'm expecting a glee cover' are her usual complaints) or rambling on about the goriest cases she had that day when you were in the OR. instead, she waits a few minutes and then takes your hand again at a red light, staring determinedly out the window instead of looking at you. it would be too much, maybe, but it makes you smile anyway, lightens everything just a little.
you hand her your credit card and then wait in the car while she hurries into the wine store you like a few blocks from your place. it's soothing, to watch her through the windows: glassy, shimmering, laughing briefly with elias, the owner, who hands her a bottle you're sure you'll likeâthey know your taste well by nowâand then watch her pay. she gets in the car with a flourish, showing off elias' latest recommendation, and then puts it carefully in her lap for the rest of the drive.
you go through the motions when you get home: you change into comfortable clothes while you hear her puttering around the kitchen; she brings you a very generously poured glass after a few minutes of you just sitting on your bed, letting yourself feel every ache and pain in your body. she kisses the top of your head, a small comfort you wouldn't normally acceptâand she wouldn't normally giveâbut you aren't nothing to each other. she collects the hot pot order from the doordasher and sets everything up on the coffee table and turns on truly inane television that you reluctantly are quite invested in. it's quiet, and the easiest way to sit in the grief: she's just⌠here. she doesn't expect anything from you; she cares for you quietly, without complaint or reproach. you're not in love but it is a measure of one: she cleans up, changes into pajamas of her own she's stuffed into one of your drawers months ago.
'i'm notâi'm very tired,' you say, the best you can mean anything aloud.
'yeah, dude, of course.' trinity rolls her eyes as she turns down the bed. 'you know, i wasn't expecting you to suddenly feel awesome and want to fuck me.'
'i always want to fuck you, though.'
she rolls her eyes again for good measure but you delight in the blush that spreads all the way down her chest, beneath the loose hem of her old t-shirt. she lies down, though, curls up small and comfortably in your big bed, then pats the space next to her.
there are rules you have, boundaries and expectations and limits, but she's warm and funny and kind and familiar. this doesn't necessarily break any of the rules, push any of the boundariesâyou'd just had dinner in and she's sleeping here; maybe you'll have morning sexâbut it's quieter than usual, simple and achy. her big green eyes get you, time and time again, and tonight is no exception: she looks at you very seriously in the moonight.
'you feeling better?'
'yeah,' you say: you're full, and a little drunk, and not as wrung out as you were hours ago. 'i'll get there.'
she nods. 'you know the quote that's like "you remember too much. where can i put it down?" or whatever? something like that.'
'you're into poetry now too?'
she scoffs but her blush returns. 'don't make too much fun. i pulled a lot of girls in college and med school.'
'ah yes,' you say, then let your hand wander over her hip, her breasts, her collarbones, her jaw, before you run your thumb along her bottom lip. 'it was absolutely the poetry, i'm sure.'
her breath is a little shaky. 'listen, if you keep doing that and then just want to go to sleep, i'm gonna have to go rub one out in the bathroom.'
she's so sincere it makes you laughâa real, genuine unlocking in your chest. she beams, just a little, in the relief.
'anyway, whatever.' trinity squirms away from you. 'if i can, i'd like to help make things lighter. or, like, hold things with you or whatever. i don't know all the metaphor, but, like, you know what i mean.'
it's incoherent and a little nervous and completely sincere. you think of all the small ways she hurts, all the time, and how sometimes you want to make things lighter for her too. 'yeah, i do.'
'okay, well then,' she says, 'let's go to sleep before i say anything else dumb.'
'you didn't say anything dumb.'
'oh.'
'at this time. i'm sure you'll continue on your illustriously stupid streak tomorrow.'
'thanks so much.'
you salute playfully and she huffs but still meets you eagerly when you move to kiss her. she sighs softly into your mouth and it's intoxicating, how soothing it is, how much it feels like home.
but that's not something you think about, and she pulls back far too quickly. 'i'm serious, yolanda. i will get a vibrator out after you fall asleep.'
'where's the fun in that for me?'
'shut up and close your eyes.'
'i seem to recall that you enjoy that more than me.'
she turns over, grumbling, while you laugh. 'you're horrible. the absolute worst. i'm being tortured.'
you refrain from saying i know how much you like that because your eyelids are drooping and you're warm and the bed is soft. but you think about that too: the expanses of her skin and the arch of her spine when you're behind her and she's beggingâyou think about that but you also scoot closer to her and wrap an arm around her waist, a hand on her hip gently, not asking for anything else. it would be too much for you, to be held, but this is a comfort you can stomach.
'thank you, trinity,' you tell her, softly, into the back of her neck like a coward, too tender to say to her face.
but she understands. 'sure,' she says, easily, and she laces your fingers together and squeezes your hand. you can feel the fact of her pulse. you stay like that long after you both fall asleep.
/
march
it's pretty equivocally a date. not that you haven't been going on dates, and not that they're forbidden, really: it's nice to get food together and then fuck; it's nice, you can admit by this point to yourself, to know her.
originally you were just supposed to meet up at her apartment during the afternoon on your concurrent day off, but she'd called youâincredibly rareâand insisted it was too nice to be inside. so you meet at the nice park near your townhouse, and she lugs a blanket and picnic basket out of her trunkâ'whitaker's,' she says by way of explanation, shutting down your teasingâand then deposits them unceremoniously on the ground.
you're a little off-kilter, helping her spread out the blanket and take out the nice little snacks she'd gotten from your favorite market, the bottle of orange wine she knows you like when it's well and truly a spring day, however short-lived it might be in the face of another storm later this week.
trinity lies back and chatters on about her day and she had been the one to insist it's casual, to keep it easy, uncomplicated, which had been fine by you: trinity is a twenty-seven year old intern who lives in a walkup and does laundry maybe twice a month and has on more than one occassion had a panic attack in the bathroom she suffers through silently while you wait in the living room, picking at your nails and scrolling on your phone and hoping with all you have there won't be anything for you to bandage later. she has a hard time going to therapy, opening up at all you know bits and pieces, enough to make her feel seen and safe in the most important ways; you don't talk about it but you know that, on the worst days, she has a hard time staying alive. you also know her favorite foods and that her hips ache in the rain and you can name all her tattoos; you know what some of them mean.
she quiets eventually and tugs you down to lie back on the blanket with her. cherry blossoms bloom pink and white above you and float in the breeze.
it all sits in your throat: safety and care and maybe something more. you, mortifingly, want to cry. maybe you'll be brave enough to say it one day; maybe she'll be brave enough to let you.
but in the golden light you glance over and her eyes are closed and her face is peaceful, her breath deep. the sun is warm and you let yourself keep her fingers laced in yours, just for now, just until it gets cold again.
/
april
trinity's eyes are bright and triumphant as she finishes the procedure.
'good, dr santos,' you say, and you mean it: she's a talented physicianâeager to learn, talented, confident and steady when she's focused on a new, difficult task. you were an athlete too; you understand the fearlessness and repetition required to get things right. it's something you've respected about her as a colleague and a person in general: she's brash, maybe, but she's actually very careful, incredibly kind when it's deserved, and even sometimes when it's not.
she nods, ties off the knot easily, much more skilled than she was even a month ago. you know when she can't sleep she practices sutures, closures, techniques you show her and she works to replicate. you've woken up more than a few times to an empty bed but a soft light in the kitchenânot panic or tears anymore, most times, but the determined focus of someone who wasn't saved herself when she needed it, someone steadfast in not letting it happen to others. sometimes, when you're over at trinity's place, whitaker will join her in the small hours of the morning, and you listen to her quietly and patiently explain what you'd showed her earlier. there are ways to care that are in the background: you always have her favorite tea on hand; one day, your expensive shampoo, conditioner, and curl cream had magically showed up in the bathroom at her apartment. but sometimes there are ways to care that you know in your hands, the surest thing about you: when she's at yours, you'll sit with her, challenge her, andâmuch to her delightâteach her something even more difficult, just to watch her struggle, just to watch her shine.
'santos,' you hear dr robby say as you wheel the patient off, up to the OR.
'what's up, boss?'
'garcia teach you that in your spare time?'
you glance back to trinity blushing, her cheeks and down her chest and even up to her ears.
dr robby just claps her on the shoulder and laughs.
/
may
'you're insane!' trinity cheers, bounding up to you while you try your best to stand up straight and not feel like you're about to keel over with exhaustion. whitaker follows along behind, holding a tote bag crammed full of trinity's thingsâmostly layers of clothes but also snacks and a waterbottle; you'd watched her pack it the next beforeâand a poster that she'd held up when you ran by during the race, handmade with silly little stick figures in scrub caps and running shoes jogging that said RUN FAST and I LOVE WOMEN('S SPORTS) and GO GARCIA in her shitty handwriting.
you're sweaty but she pulls you into a hug anyway, even though she still smells nice and is wearing what you know is one of her favorite baby tees. she kisses your cheek easily, twirls you around a little. she's grumbled and called you crazy and a masochist for the last three months while you trainedâtempo runs before the sun is up; your long runs on your only day off each weekâbut, 'you did it! a whole ass marathon!' she says now, backing up and beaming at you.
even whitaker, who really did get dragged along to this one, who made him and trinity breakfast sandwiches earlier and wrapped them carefully in foil and spent his morning following her around to the different spots she'd picked out to cheer from, is smiling, is genuinely happyâto be here, for you. 'great job, dr garcia,' he compliments.
'let's get some pictures for your family,' trinity says, waves you back and takes your phone from you. she directs you to smile, to hold up your medal, tries to get you to pose with you biting it, which makes you laugh even though you don't fully appease her and give in to do it. your family has always been proud of you, even when you don't come home for holidays are respond in the group chat, even if you don't know how to be affectionate like they understand. but trauma surgery isn't a specialty where there's much praise or pride in anything you're able to do, the amount of work you put in. trinity, really, has no reason to be here this early, or to be as proud of you as she is.
but here she is, insisting on taking photos in landscape mode now too, crouching down so she gets "a more artistic angle," cheering you on for hours. no one has quite understood your ambition before, but trinity does. months ago, she'd showed you some videos of when she did gymnastics in undergrad, insistent because you'd been goading her on, saying you don't quite believe her when she'd talked about what she'd been able to do: tumbling passes on the floor and rotations on vault that make you dizzy, dismounts on the bar and beams that terrify you. mostly you'd been bothering her because you knew it would be hot, so it was selfishâand it was hotâbut you'd watched the mildly grainy videos she'd saved to her icloud and been genuinely a little overcome at how talented she was. or, more accurately, how talented she is, because you understood it a little more now, the stubborn insistence that she can learn things, that she can do things most people can't. 'didn't that terrify you,' you'd asked. she'd laughed. 'all the fucking time. and obviously i'm showing you videos where i killed it, but a lot of gymnastics is falling.' she'd shrugged. 'but, you know, do it scared, pain is weakness leaving the body, blah blah. all that stuff.' it had explained, in a lot of waysâand also those far more difficult that had happened to her for years, far more difficul than a wolf turn or layoutâwhy she has a hard time opening up in therapy, or taking ibuprofen when her hips are sore, or sleeping through the night after she handles a childhood sexual assault case at work.
but the morning is bright, warm now but perfectly cool while you had been running earlier, and she and whitaker are laughing at your reluctance, and you just finished a fucking marathon.
'do you want a picture together?' whitaker asks, easy, and trinity hands him your phone and then stands next to you, wraps and arm around your sweaty shoulders and the foil blanket over them. she kisses your cheek, grins at the camera.
later, after you're home and you've taken maybe the best shower and nap of your lifeâtrinity and whitaker had gone to brunch, but you were exhaustedâyou send a few nice pictures of just yourself to your family and friends. they congratulate you, of course, but they don't quite understand. it's not a clear line anymore, what you and trinity are to each other, but you scroll through the pictures of the two of you together, linger on how happy you both look, the spring green stretching across all the trees in the background, the strip of skin you can see between her shirt and cargo pants, the way your hand automatically sat on her hip, gently seeking out the warmth there.
you send some good candids to her, and also one where she's making a terribly unphotogenic face, just for fun. she hearts each single one of them later, texts you, proud of you yolo
you ice your knee and order a burger and fries for yourself, prop your feet up, turn on something stupid.
Thanks for being there, you send back eventually, and ignore the ache you feel anywhere other than your tired body. you're just spent, the adrenaline wearing off; you're allowed to care for each other, that's fine. that's enough.
/
june
'what was that about earlier?'
trinity acts innocent, shrugs with a little smirk, takes a drag of the joint she'd rolled. 'she was hot.'
'were you enjoying flirting with someone else in front of me?'
she kicks her feet up to rest of the fire escape railing, leaning back in the chair, unperturbed by your crossed arms and scowl as she passes you the joint. it burns a little in your lungs but you don't cough, don't give her that satisfaction at the very least. you let the smoke sit in your lungs until you start to relax, blow it out slow and controlled. she watches.
'like i said,' she drawls, ashes the joint in the tray, 'she was hot.'
'santos.'
she smirks at you with heavy-lidded eyes. 'ooh, last name. did it make you mad, to watch someone else want to fuck me?'
it shouldn't get under your skin the way it does: you've agreed to be casual, most importantly, but also a random woman waiting with her brother to make sure he doesn't need surgery for a badly broken wrist is not really importantâeven if she was gorgeous and tall and in a perfect sundress and made trinity blush with compliments, even if you watched trinity pocket the post-it she'd written her number on as her brother was being discharged with a splint and referral to physical therapy in six weeks.
it shouldn't get under the skin now, not with you being the one on her fire escape, not with her already just in a tank top and shorts in the suffocating humidity, even this late.
'do you want her to fuck you?' you ask anyway.
she picks at a loose thread of her shorts; you see her nipples get hard through the thin cotton of her shirt. 'no. i want you to fuck me.'
it makes you breathless, just a little, how she looks up at you and hands you the joint. you put it out in the ashtray instead of taking a drag. 'go inside. get on the bed.'
she swallows and fights a real, happy smile, which makes you roll your eyes.
'trinity, lock in.'
'okay, okay,' she says, 'yeah. i got it.' she climbs through the window. you follow her. she does lie down on the bed, limbs loose, waiting to be told what to do. you don't let her kiss you; you take her clothes off and tell her to turn over and you fuck her right to the edge of orgasm, biting her ass, scratches down her back, her face pressed into the mattress, until she's begging, pleading.
'i'm the only one who can fuck you like this,' you say, and that probably isn't fair, but she doesn't seem to care in the slightest, nodding frantically.
'yeah, you are, baby, the only one,' she says, desperate just the way you like. 'please.'
you coax her through an orgasm, finally, that makes her arch her spine and fist the sheets tight in her hands. afterward, she goes limp, breathing hard; you lie down next to her and brush hair out of her face when she turns toward you. you kiss her. 'my good girl,' you say.
she nods, takes your fingers into her mouth and swirls her tongue around her own taste left there. 'yours,' she says. neither of you talk about it, not when she eats you out in the shower later, not after you fall asleep together, not when she brings you coffee in the morning and kisses you awake.
/
july
Trinity Santos [july 2 9:27 pm]: hey do you want to come over after shift on the fourth and watch the fireworks
Trinity Santos [july 2 9:28 pm]: and make some fireworks of our own đââď¸
Trinity Santos [july 2 9:52 pm]: sorry that was terrible lol i'm so fucking tired
yolanda [july 3 5:02 am]: That was terrible lol
yolanda [july 3 5:02 am]: But sure if I'm free
