Work Text:
The text comes in just after seven, just as she’s walking Emery through night shift handover.
“One second,” she says, cutting her off mid-sentences. She reaches for her phone on instinct the second she feels it buzz in her pocket, ignoring the frown Emery sends her way when she does.
On any other day, she might pretend to have at least a smidge of decorum, let Emery actually finish her sentence before ignoring her so openly, but today she has none of that compunction. Today, she knows exactly who’s texting her, a reply Yolanda’s been waiting for maybe a little too eagerly since she’d got her first message forty minutes ago.
can u do me a favour? the text had read, and Yolanda had buzzed with excitement at the prospect of just what that might mean. A ride home? A home-cooked meal? Cancelling their plans for the night and staying in?
Her face drops the second she reads the words on the screen.
“You have got to be kidding me,” she says in disbelief.
“What?” Emery grunts, clearly put out at Yolanda’s lack of interest in whatever it was she was asking about appendix-guy from earlier, something about his recovery plan.
Unimportant, Yolanda thinks, eyes scanning over the text again and again, as if the ridiculous request is somehow going to change if she looks at it hard enough. You can live without an appendix. She, on the other hand, cannot live with the idea that someone could have gotten her vibe so deeply and, frankly, insultingly wrong, after ten months of knowing her.
“Do I look like someone who would be willing to go to a Party City and buy 21st birthday decorations?”
Emery snorts at the idea. Good. At least there’s one person who still knows her. “Until you just said that, I couldn’t have been sure you even knew what Party City was.”
“Thank you.”
“Who the hell is asking you to do that?” she asks. “And who do you know that’s turning twenty-one? Your niece can’t be that old yet.”
“No, she’s sixteen,” Yolanda frowns as they step into the elevator, eyes still glued to her phone. Emery raises an eyebrow when she presses the button for the ED rather than the parking garage, but says nothing. “It’s Shamsi’s kid, the nepo baby.”
Yolanda had thought she’d been clever, dodging the first part of her question. It’s only when she can somehow feel Emery’s eyes widening over at her, a far too smug excitement settling over her, that she realises her own mistake.
“And who, pray tell, might be asking you to buy birthday decorations for Shamsi’s kid?” she prods, her voice dripping with amusement.
“Shut up,” she snaps.
Emery lets out a long, low laugh, far too pleased with herself. Yolanda kind of wants to punch her.
“So, she’s talking to you again?” Yolanda crosses her arms against her chest, watching as the floor numbers flicker down impatiently slowly back at her from the wall. “Your whole stalking her in the parking garage thing worked?”
“I was not stalking her,” she says, maybe a little too defensively. Second floor. Get her out of here. “I just had something I wanted to ask her. Is that a crime now?”
“And what was that?” Oh, Emery is enjoying this far too much. “I’m sorry I was such a dick to you, please can I strap you into next week to make up for it?”
Because the world hates her, the doors open onto the first floor right in the middle of that sentence, just as a mousy looking intern she’s never seen before is stepping in. Wide-eyed and pale, he reminds her a little of Whitaker, especially when he splutters audibly in shock at what he’s just heard, trying and failing terribly to cover it up with a cough.
If anything, this only seems to amuse Emery even more.
“Funny,” Yolanda hisses, darting her elbow out and jabbing her in the ribs with it, delighting when she lets out a ridiculously high-pitched ow! when it connects.
Serves her right.
They finally descend to the ED, and she wastes no time in storming out of the elevator when the doors open, bee-lining straight for the nurses station where she can already see Trinity leaning over the counter, saying something to Princess.
She pokes at her shoulder to get her attention when she approaches, before pulling back and crossing her arms over her chest, pulling herself up to her full height and putting on the best affect of stern she can muster.
“No,” is all she says when Trinity turns around. Short, simple. No room for argument.
Her stomach does not flutter at the look on Trinity’s face when she sees her, eyes softening, shoulders relaxing. Absolutely not. She’s being stern.
“Please?” Trinity asks immediately, eyes widening up at her, a look that Yolanda’s seen far too many times before, although not usually in this context.
Dear God, she’s going for the jugular already.
“No, Trinity,” she says firmly. “I have to go home and shower, get changed, check on Zeus. I don’t have the time to stand around picking out birthday banners and balloons.”
Undeterred, Trinity moves a little closer, mouth shifting into a shape that could ostensibly be called a frown, but Yolanda knows is really more of a pout.
“I’ll owe you one,” she promises. “I’ll owe you like, five.”
Yolanda huffs out a puff of air and looks away, unwilling to be lured in by those green eyes again -- or, at least, not at work. She has to have some dignity left intact. “No,” she reaffirms. Then, sensing Trinity’s not going to give up asking, diverts with, “Why can’t you do it? Your shift’s over, you have time.”
“I have to pick up the cake,” she says. “Both places shut at eight, I won’t have time to do both.”
Fuck. She turns to Princess and Perlah, who aren’t even pretending not to be listening in on their conversation, and asks, “Isn’t this party your whole thing? Why the hell is she doing all of the grunt work?”
Princess’ eyes sparkle at the question, and once again, Yolanda realises her own mistake just a second too late. “Well,” she says. “Santos here was supposed to be helping us out with the logistics this weekend, but someone distracted her, and she ghosted until today.”
Her eyes drag suggestively over Yolanda’s body at someone. Beside her, Trinity flushes prettily, a pink blush crawling up her neck and onto her face, her ears bright red already; humiliatingly, Yolanda can feel herself wavering just a little at the sight of it. A shy Trinity is one of her biggest weaknesses.
Yolanda frowns, and turns back to face Trinity. Princess will not be helpful here. “Get Whitaker to do it,” she says. “Or Mel.”
Trinity sighs, and rubs at her temples stressedly. The movement draws Yolanda’s attention to her hands, which in turn draws her attention to her thumbs, which in turn draws her attention to the tattoos that live there, some of Yolanda’s favourites of hers. She loves stroking over them when they hold hands, loves watching the way Trinity shivers when she presses kisses to them.
Stern, she reminds herself, blinking away the distraction.
“I can’t,” she laments. “Huck’s babysitting Crash until it’s time to go, and Mel has to take her sister to her boyfriend’s place.”
Yolanda feels bad for her, she does, but not bad enough to subject herself to whatever fresh hell lives within the four walls of Party City. The thought alone is enough to make her shudder.
“Trinity,” she says. “The fact that you’re getting me to give up my night to even go to this thing is bad enough. Don’t push your luck.”
It’s true -- Yolanda’s still not entirely sure what had come over her when Trinity had asked this morning. She’d been too caught up in the moment, the feeling of Trinity pressed against her for the first time in a week, sleepy body curled around her back as Yolanda made their coffees, face smushed adorably against the line of her spine.
When she’d asked if Trinity had any plans tonight, if she wanted to maybe come over to her apartment instead, give Whitaker’s ears a break, she’d been disappointed to hear about the impromptu surprise party that Princess and Perlah had apparently been planning all weekend. She only just got Trinity back, now she was expected to go without her for another night?
You can come, if you want, Trinity had suggested almost nervously, hands sliding around to fiddle with the ties of Yolanda’s scrub pants. Hang out with my friends you’re sooo desperate to get to know.
Yolanda had opened her mouth to turn her down, brain already formulating an excuse to get out of it halfway through Trinity’s sentence, and had been surprised to find herself shrugging instead. Why not, she’d said, leaning back into Trinity’s arms, something unbearably warm flooding her at the feeling of Trinity’s responding smile against her back.
Something flickers over Trinity’s face now at her words, dejected and small. It’s gone almost as soon as it came, pasted over by a fake smile, but something in Yolanda’s heart clenches at the sight of it, of her crawling back into the unaffected façade she’d spent so long peeling away last night.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Trinity says, looking down at her feet. “It’s fine, actually. I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry about it.”
Fuck.
She forgets how sensitive Trinity can be sometimes, how hard she takes rejection, even in its slightest forms. She never asks for what she wants outright, and yet here she is, doing it for one of the first times since Yolanda’s known her, and she’s putting her down. The realisation of what she’s going to have to do settles over her, and she lets out a long, drawn out sigh.
“Jesus,” she says, already irritated at the thought of the disruption to her routine. “Fine, I’ll do it. Just send me a list of what you want.”
Trinity’s head snaps up, surprise written plainly across her face. “Wait, are you serious?”
She’s already regretting this. “Yes, fine, whatever. Don’t make me take it back.”
Emery laughs loudly behind her, as though this is the best thing she’s heard all week, and Jesus, she hadn’t even realised she was still there. She can practically see Princess and Perlah’s fingers twitching in the directions of their phones, no doubt itching to send out a million texts to half the hospital, telling them all just how easily big bad Dr. Garcia folded under the slightest bit of pouting from a pretty girl.
She flushes under the attention, irritated, and goes to say something snarky on instinct, but stops herself when she sees the look on Trinity’s face, her teeth tucked between her lower lip, clearly trying desperately not to smile and give away how pleased she is. The ease with which she’s managed to unspool Yolanda is obviously humiliating, but it’s a little worth it just for this, the sparks of satisfaction that shoot through her at finally doing something to surprise Trinity in a good way, as opposed to how it’s been going lately.
Still. She’d rather not show quite so much vulnerability in front of their coworkers.
“Thank you,” Trinity says shyly. She sways forward on her feet for a second, stretching up just a little like she’s going to lean in and kiss her, but she stops before she can get anywhere, seemingly remembering where they are.
She settles instead for reaching out and brushing her hand quickly over her waist, a piece of contact so chaste Yolanda would feel entirely comfortable doing it in front of her entire family and God, and yet apparently, just doing it in front of their coworkers makes Trinity blush so hard her face looks like it might catch fire.
God fucking help her, Yolanda finds herself biting back a smile at the sight of it, for some reason atrociously charmed by her awkwardness.
“It’s fine,” she says. “Send me the name of the bar and I’ll drop the shit off on my way home. I am not staying behind to put anything up.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Emery chimes in, because of course she does. “I’m sure she could be convinced, Santos.”
“Be quiet,” Yolanda warns. “Don’t you have literally anywhere else to be right now?”
“No, not re--” As if by some act of divine intervention, they’re cut off by the sound of her pager beeping loudly, and then Lena loudly announcing an incoming trauma, ETA three minutes. Emery sighs. “Well, shit. At least I’m already down here.”
“Go,” she says, shoving Emery in the direction of the ambulance bay. She ignores the have fun! that’s yelled over her shoulder, and spins to face Princess and Perlah, still watching on with far too much amusement for her liking. “Santos will send you my Venmo. I want the money from you, not her.”
“Of course, Dr. Garcia,” Perlah says, sarcasm laced through her words, nodding sagely.
“Can’t wait to see what you pick out!” Princess adds.
She lets out a huff, and turns back to Trinity. “List. Address,” she reminds. “I’ll see you later.”
The tiny little thank you! that gets shouted her way as she stalks back to the elevator is just enough to soothe the sting of embarrassment that pulses through her as she gets back into her car and somehow finds herself looking up the directions to the closest Party City.
The bar is already crawling with people from work by the time she makes it back, just a little after nine thirty. True to her word, she hadn’t stuck around any longer than it had taken to drop the decorations off, although maybe that was just because Trinity wasn’t actually there when she arrived, still stuck at some bakery downtown picking up the cake.
Whatever. Not that it matters.
She lets out a sigh as she elbows past a group of vaguely familiar radiology techs, and immediately starts scanning the room for any sign of Trinity. It’s not that she dislikes spending time with her colleagues outside of the hospital, that’s not it -- most of her own friend group is made up of other surgeons, after all, a group of people she’s collected over the years, bonded in the way that only working together twelve hours a day, five days a week, can inspire.
No, it’s not that.
It’s just that she actually has standards for who she considers a friend. From what she’s gathered from Trinity and her merry band of weirdos, it seems like all you have to do in the pit to get invited into each other’s inner circle is exist next to each other for a couple of hours, and then suddenly you’re trauma bonded, like a pack of stray cats that have found each other in a gutter.
It sounds exhausting. Yolanda finds herself consistently exhausted just hearing about it.
She smiles perfunctorily back at Donnie when he waves over at her, exchanges quick and dirty hellos with Mel and Mohan as she pushes past them, eyes still searching for a familiar head of hair. All of her complaints at the setting immediately leak out of her when she finally spots Trinity, propped up at the bar with the birthday girl herself, laughing loudly at whatever it is she’s saying.
She looks good. She’s changed into a pair of baggy black jeans, just low-waisted enough to show off a sliver of her tummy, and a white tank top that clings to her body. She is not, Yolanda notes a little dreamily, wearing a bra.
Sometimes it feels a little like Trinity was made in a factory specifically to fuck with her, she thinks, as she paces quickly through the crowd to get to the bar. She slides in behind her as soon as she can, hands finding their natural position on Trinity’s waist before immediately sliding down to palm at her hips, letting out a little happy sigh at the softness of her skin.
Trinity stumbles a little, clearly startled, but her face melts into a smile when she turns to face Yolanda, body relaxing fully until she’s pressed against her front. “You made it,” she smiles.
“I wasn’t gonna go to all that effort not to see what you guys did with the place, was I?” Yolanda murmurs, unable to stop herself from pressing a kiss to the exposed skin of her neck. She’s wearing her favourite perfume, the expensive one she barely ever breaks out, all earthy and masculine; the smell of it makes Yolanda feel a little feral, like it always does. “You smell good.”
Her cheeks flush. If she’s being honest, half of the appeal of complimenting Trinity is in the way she reacts to it, how quickly she turns from the bold and brash front she presents to the rest of the world to shy and bashful.
There’s a high-pitched squeak to her left, and it’s only then that Yolanda remembers Trinity was technically in the middle of a conversation when she interrupted. She straightens up a little, turning to the side and removing one hand from Trinity’s hip, letting it come up and rest on the bar casually.
“Javadi,” she says, with a nod of acknowledgment. “Happy birthday.”
Javadi, who has apparently been resolutely looking away from them and Yolanda’s shameless public display of affection, looks over at her. She’s wearing the hot pink birthday girl sash that Yolanda had bought for her just an hour ago over her dress, and has little tiara sitting crookedly on the top of her head. She manages about two seconds of eye contact before she breaks it, looking over at Trinity in an extremely obvious plea for help; Trinity just shoves her face into her fist, clearing stifling a laugh.
“Um!” The kid looks like she’s buffering in real time, every inch of terror she’s clearly feeling at Yolanda interacting with her directly written plain across her face. The fear feels a little uncalled for, considering she’s only actually yelled at her the once, and even then, she went pretty easy. “I- hi, Dr. Garcia! I didn’t realise you’d be... here, tonight. Um. Thank you!”
“Wasn’t this a surprise party?” Yolanda asks. Bored already, she lets her hand slide just under the hem of Trinity’s tank, scratching her nails gently against the flesh there just to feel Trinity shiver. “How could you have known any of us would be here?”
Somehow, her eyes widen even further. “Oh, no, well-- it was, yeah, but I just meant-- Dennis didn’t say-- I mean, when I asked him, he didn’t mention-- but it’s! It’s nice, to see you, um, you know. Outside of the hospital. With Trinity. Um--”
“Jesus, Crash, take a breath,” Trinity cuts in, clearly taking pity on her frazzled state. Briefly, Yolanda wonders if she’s already hammered on the free legal drinks she’s sure to have been receiving, or if she really is just like that all of the time.
“Sorry,” Javadi breathes out, some of the tension deflating from her shoulders.
“It’s fine,” Trinity laughs, before turning to face Yolanda. “Stop terrorising her on her birthday, she’s scared enough of you as it is.”
Javadi lets out another mortified squeak. “I am not! Dr. Garcia, I am not.”
“And stop groping me in front of her,” she continues, ignoring the protest. “Her eyes are gonna pop out of her skull if you move that hand any higher.”
Yolanda rolls her eyes but obliges, reluctantly pulling her hand out from under Trinity’s shirt and moving it to rest much more respectably on her waist. “Better?” she asks, tilting her head down at her. Trinity’s responding smile is enough to soothe the sting of not getting to have her hands properly on her.
The bartender appears suddenly, eyebrows raised over at them expectantly. “What can I get for you?”
Trinity steps forward easily, answer already poised and waiting on her tongue. “Vodka red bull for me, a martini for the lady, and... Crash? What do you want?”
Predictably, Javadi looks terrified again the second the attention is back on her. “Um... I don’t know?” she says, more of a question. “I haven’t actually like, ordered myself a drink yet. People just keep handing them to me and saying happy birthday.”
Yolanda can’t help but smile a little proudly at the confirmation of her previous assumption.
“Well, what did you like best?”
“I’m not sure,” Javadi frowns. “Dennis bought me a beer, which was kinda gross, and then Princess got me a tequila sunrise. That was alright, but it was so strong. And then Dana made me drink like, a whole thing of whisky, which was just-- disgusting.”
Trinity barks out a laugh. “Jesus, was she trying to kill you?”
“It felt like it. She just kept laughing and saying you’re a big girl now, Victoria. It was kinda terrifying.”
Yolanda smiles against her own will, unfortunately amused by the girl’s absolutely atrocious impersonation of Dana’s voice. “Get her a vodka cran, maybe a little easy on the vodka,” she says to the bartender. Then, to Javadi: “You’ll like that, probably.”
The bartender nods, and then goes to pull out the card machine. She bats Trinity’s hand away when she reaches out to tap her Apple Pay, pulling her own wallet out instead and holding her card out.
“Oh no, Dr. Garcia, you don’t have to do that!” Victoria exclaims, just as the little beep goes through.
“Lesson number one of adulthood, Crash,” Trinity says, bumping her hip back against Yolanda’s in gratitude. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. If someone wants to buy you a drink, let them. Especially if they have fancy surgeon money.”
“She’s right,” Yolanda agrees. “Besides, if you don’t like it, Trinity can just get you something else.”
“Oh, she can, can she?”
“Yes,” Yolanda says, squeezing at her waist. “She can.”
Their drinks are slid in front of them. Yolanda watches as Javadi eyes the vodka cran warily, staring it down like it’s an active bomb waiting to go off; her fingers hesitate around their grip on the glass for a second before she picks it up, swallowing down a far too large gulp of it.
Her face goes blank for a minute, processing, face contorting a little as the taste of it washes over her, until:
“Oh!” A happy little smile blooms onto her face. “That was actually nice! Thank you, Dr. Garcia!”
She lets out a soft snort. “Glad to hear it, Javadi. Maybe try a smaller sip next time.”
Princess pulls her away pretty quickly after that, something about a drinking game she just has to play -- it sounds like a recipe for disaster to Yolanda, but she can’t find it in herself to care, not when it means she gets Trinity all on her own for the first time tonight.
“Hi,” she says, twisting in her spot so that her back is pressed against the bar and she’s encircled in Yolanda’s arms.
“Hey.” She leans down and presses a welcoming kiss to her lips, delighting in the feeling of Trinity’s mouth against hers for the first time all day, the way she melts just a little into her arms. She tucks a strand of hair behind Trinity’s ear when she pulls back, rubbing over the softness of it for just a second. “Have I told you how good you look yet?”
Trinity preens under the praise. “No, not yet.”
“Well, you do.” She skims a hand over her ribcage, stroking her thumb appreciatively against the underside of her tit as discretely as she can whilst standing in the middle of a bar, surrounded by their coworkers. “I especially like this.”
Trinity shivers at the touch, but rolls her eyes as if she’s unaffected. “I knew you’d like that part, perv.”
“See, you’re playing coy, but all that tells me is you were thinking about me when you picked this out.” She leans in until her mouth is hovering just against Trinity’s ear, and takes advantage of the shield her own body is presenting to swipe her thumb carefully against her nipple. “This all for me, baby?”
Trinity’s breath hitches. Her voice wavers when she says, “Well, it definitely isn’t for Crash.”
Yolanda pulls back, frowning. “Ew,” she says. “Don’t talk about Javadi while I’m picturing you naked, it feels illegal.”
“It’s literally legal in every sense of the word, as of today.”
“Still, she’s a kid. She’s my boss’ kid.”
Trinity hums, considering this. “Okay, fair enough,” she concedes eventually. Her eyes drop down to look her over, pupils widening as she takes in her outfit for the first time. “Haven’t seen you wear this before.”
“Yeah, it’s new,” Yolanda confirms. She hadn’t dressed up, not properly, because Victoria Javadi’s 21st Birthday Extravaganza, as Trinity has taken to calling it, is not a good enough reason to pull out anything particularly special. With that being said, she might have chosen to wear one of the new shirts she’d bought last week, and maybe she had decided to leave a couple of the top and bottom buttons undone, just because she knew it might inspire this reaction in Trinity. “You like?”
Trinity looks up at her like she’s just been asked a profoundly stupid question. In fairness, she has. “You know I do.”
She leans in, swaying forward for a kiss Yolanda is more than happy to return, when--
“Santos!” Fucking Whitaker. “Mel wants to do karaoke! Can you see if they have a machine?”
“No! No karaoke!” Javadi protests.
“Yes karaoke!” King cuts in. “It’ll be fun!”
“Jesus Christ,” Trinity groans, forehead dropping against Yolanda’s shoulder. “I’ve created a monster.”
“You’ve unleashed a beast I don’t think any of us are ready to deal with.”
“Shut up,” she says. “It’s at least like, half your fault.”
“Hey, I just thought you were gonna drag Farm Boy to watch the fireworks with you,” she argues. “I never told you to take King out and introduce her to the joys of screaming into a microphone.”
“Trinity!”
“Jesus fuck, I’m coming!” she bellows, shifting out of Yolanda’s grip and pouting up at her. “Sorry,” she says, voice softer. “I should go and... deal with that. Huckleberry will probably start trying to disconnect the aux cord if I don’t.”
“Go,” Yolanda encourages, pressing a quick kiss to her lips. Really, she’d rather Trinity just ignore them and stay here with her, but she’s trying to work on the whole playing nice thing. “Have fun with your friends.”
“You sure?” Trinity asks a little skeptically. “You’ll be okay?”
She rolls her eyes affectionately. “Yes, Trinity,” she says. “I’m a big girl, I can survive hanging out on my own for a little while.”
Trinity beams, bright and beautiful. It’s such a nice sight Yolanda kind of wishes she could bottle it. “I’ll come find you soon,” she promises, stealing another kiss before sliding out from under her, grabbing at her drink on her way out.
“I’ll hold you to that.”
Yolanda watches her the whole time she walks away, sighing mournfully into her martini at the loss. Even still, she can’t help but smile when Trinity finally reaches her friends and is immediately pulled into a loud, fourway conversation, their laughter ringing out across the room even over the sound of the music playing.
Fuck. She really is down bad.
She manages a whole twelve minutes of solitude at the bar before she’s being roped into conversation with Dana, her new little duckling trailing behind her awkwardly.
Considering the unending nosiness of the people in the Pitt, Yolanda takes this for the win that it is, and just counts herself lucky that it’s only Dana who’s managed to corner her, because at least she won’t be prodding her for gossip. She keeps smirking every time she sees Yolanda’s gaze drift back across the bar to Trinity, but Dana’s been in the game long enough now to be entirely unfazed by the emergence of a new workplace relationship, which Yolanda’s grateful for.
The duckling, on the other hand, doesn’t seem entirely sure of what to do with herself, hovering nervously at Dana’s side, fingers gripped tightly against the strap of her crossbody bag, bobbing her head silently at everything said to her but never contributing directly to the conversation herself.
She seems sweet enough. She’s hanging entirely off of Dana’s every word, entranced in a way that reminds her a little of Trinity when she’d first started, constantly trailing Yolanda around the Pitt, eager and wide-eyed, always wanting to hear more. She’s mostly sure this is a different kind of admiration than that had been, though, if the way she keeps staring over at that goth med student is any indication.
“Don’t you think you’d have more fun hanging out with the kids your own age, instead of propping up the bar with us old folks?” Dana asks her eventually, poking gently at her ribs.
Yolanda’s face scrunches in offence at the implication. “Dana, I’m thirty-two.”
“That’s still ten years on our Emma here.” The duckling blushes.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” she says earnestly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I like hanging out with you.”
“Me too, kid,” Dana laughs. “But it’d be nice for you to make some other friends, too, wouldn’t it?”
She shrugs shyly, and casts another glance over at the med student, now sitting with Trinity and her friends. This time, it does not go unnoticed by Dana. “Maybe, I’m not sure. I haven’t really had the chance to talk to anyone yet.”
Dana barks out a laugh. “Come on, kid,” she says, clapping a hand over Emma’s shoulder. “Be brave, I know you’ve got it in you. Garcia here will take you over.”
Yolanda raises an eyebrow over at her. “Oh, will I now?”
“Yes,” Dana says, with an all too knowing look on her face. “I can tell when someone’s attention is split. Scram.”
Yolanda rolls her eyes, but doesn’t bother denying it. What’s the point? Besides, if she’s being actively encouraged to seek Trinity out, she’s not exactly going to complain. She pushes off her seat and nods for the duckling to follow her, biting back a laugh at the wide-eyed look she gets in return, as though she’s about to be thrown directly into a warzone, rather than just a group of some of the lamest twenty-somethings Yolanda’s ever met.
“Come on, Bambi,” she says. “Follow me.”
Trinity beams when she sees her, eyes brightening. Her eyes have gone a little glassy, and judging by the half-finished bottle of Corona now in her hand, she’s clearly found time to have a couple more drinks since Yolanda last saw her.
“Here, I found someone new for you guys to play with,” Yolanda says, nudging Emma into the fray.
The med student’s eyes flit over her appraisingly, something like intrigue flashing in them as the kid stumbles ungracefully towards her, knocked off-balanced. She says something that makes her cheeks flush, and Yolanda takes that as her cue, sliding into the booth to sit beside Trinity.
She really must be drunk, because as soon as Yolanda’s in touching distance she’s all over her, slumping into her side with a happy little hmmph, face buried in her neck, hands fisting against the material of her shirt. Although she’s always mostly happy to go along with Yolanda’s affinity for public displays of affection, she’s usually far too shy to initiate it herself, rarely giving her more than a quick peck before she’s pulling away.
“Missed you,” she murmurs against her skin.
Yolanda can feel several sets of eyes on them from around the table, all clearly shocked to see Trinity being so affectionate. Well, all except from Whitaker. He just has that long-suffering look on his face that he always has when they start getting like this, the one that makes it extremely difficult for Yolanda to not want to push things further, just to annoy him even more.
“Missed you too, baby,” she says, wrapping her arm around Trinity’s shoulder to pull her closer against her. “You having a good time?”
“Mm, yeah.” Trinity shifts back just enough for them to look at each other, blinking prettily up at Yolanda from under her lashes. “I managed to talk Mel down from karaoke for now, but I don’t know how long it’s gonna hold. She’s a fiend.”
“I don’t know, it could be fun,” Yolanda says, rubbing at Trinity’s shoulder.
Trinity snorts loudly. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, why not?”
“You’re telling me you, Yolanda Garcia, would get up on stage and sing to half the ED?”
“Jesus Christ, no. Obviously not.” It’s one of the most ridiculous ideas she’s ever heard. “But it’d be fun to see you up there.”
“What, you want me to serenade you?”
“Seems only fair, no?” Yolanda asks, raising an eyebrow. “Seeing as I missed the last song you sang about me.”
Trinity lets out an adorably disgruntled little noise and buries her face back in Yolanda’s shoulder. “You’re starting to develop a real complex about that,” she says. “It wasn’t about you. It was just... a song. A general song. About general things.”
“General things, riiight,” Yolanda laughs. “Hey, King. How would you describe Santos’ singing the other night?”
“Um,” Mel blinks at her from across the table, as surprised to be directly addressed as she seemingly always is. “It was... impassioned, for sure. Very much from the soul, I would say?”
Trinity groans, and raises her middle finger over at her accusingly. “You were supposed to say I was cool and unaffected,” she grumbles. “You’re totally ruining my street cred here, Mel-atonin.”
Before Mel can defend herself, the overhead lights dim, only for the room to quickly be illuminated by the soft flicker of candlelight as Princess appears, a heart-shaped birthday cake in hand. Trinity suddenly pushes off of her to scramble through the bag left abandoned at her feet, quickly producing the digital camera that she brings everywhere with her, fumbling around with it for just a second before it’s poised and aimed at Javadi, sitting in the middle of the booth.
A loud chorus of happy birthday immediately starts up, Trinity’s voice by far ringing the loudest over everyone; Javadi squirms under the attention, face bright red, only getting worse every time the camera flashes in her face. Yolanda barely notices her, too caught up in the sight of Trinity to focus on anything else. She looks so light like this, mouth stretched around a massive smile, eyes crinkled up at the edges, laughing loudly at the discomfort on Javadi’s face. All of her walls are down, none of her usual bluster present -- she’s happy.
Yolanda would live in this moment forever, she thinks, even if it meant constantly being surrounded by a roomful of people she couldn’t care less about, if it only meant Trinity got to stay feeling like this.
“Make a wish, Crash!” Trinity cheers excitedly when the cake is placed down in front of her, snapping at least twenty pictures of her as she blows the candles out.
Yolanda can’t help but lean forward and press a messy kiss to Trinity’s cheek when she finally puts the camera down, overcome with a surge of affection so deep it threatens to claw out of her chest.
“What was that for?” Trinity asks when she pulls back, heat blooming prettily on her cheeks.
It’s too soon to say what Yolanda’s really thinking, she knows -- if Trinity was freaking out last night over just the concept of Yolanda liking her, anything more than that will surely overwhelm her to a new level, one that she doesn’t need to be dealing with tonight, not when she’s trying to have fun with her friends.
“Nothing,” she says instead, tamping those three little words down. “Just thought you looked beautiful. Wanted to let you know.”
The high that Trinity’s responding blush gives her is enough to tide her over for now, anyway. Declarations of love can wait.
She sticks close to Trinity for the rest of the night, finding that it’s a lot easier to stop giving a shit about their coworkers staring at them like they’re something out of a nature documentary after two more martinis and Trinity hanging off of her arm. Who cares if she’s letting them see her one weakness? It’s just for one night, and then she’ll be back on top form tomorrow, cutting them down over the trauma bays like none of this ever happened.
Besides, it’s worth it just for the pleased little smiles Trinity keeps sending her every time she slides in close, or kisses her casually.
She even makes a conscious effort to actually try and converse with Trinity’s friends, letting herself be drawn into conversations with Mel and Mohan when Trinity drags Whitaker off to dance; they’re the best of the bunch, she thinks, the one she respects the most. She likes that Mohan mostly seems interested in talking about work, rarely veering off-topic into her personal life or asking Yolanda about hers. She can’t exactly say the same for Mel, but there’s an earnestness in how straightforward she is that Yolanda is drawn to, amused by.
Javadi only continues to get sloppier the longer the night goes on. Clearly, nobody has thought to teach her about the art of pacing herself yet, although she’s sure the importance of it is going to become abundantly clear when she wakes up tomorrow. By the time they’re finally winding down for the night, she’s barely able to stand on her own, propped up in McKay’s arms and babbling away endlessly.
Yolanda can’t hear what she’s saying from where she’s standing, but judging by the way Trinity’s eyes have lit up like she’s just won the lottery, she can only imagine the ways she’s going to use it to torture her with whatever it is in the morning.
Just as she’s breathing a sigh of relief at finally being free -- Ubers booked, McKay guiding Javadi over to her truck, Trinity back by her side -- Javadi goes and fucks it all up in an instant, lurching over without any warning and emptying the contents of her stomach all over Whitaker’s shoes.
Trinity immediately squeals, with something that sounds like half-delight at the turn of events, and half-disgust at the sight of it. Whitaker immediately lets out a loud groan of protest, backing away from her like she’s radioactive, and then Javadi’s crying, heaving out these all-out sobs against the fabric of McKay’s t-shirt, apologies tumbling out of her mouth quicker than she can properly form them.
It is, in summary, the perfect representation of why Yolanda has never once agreed to hang out with Trinity’s friends before.
“Oh, my God,” Trinity says, a little concerned, but still half trying not to laugh. “Her mom cannot see her like this, she’s going to kill us.”
Yolanda is unfortunately inclined to agree: if Shamsi’s woken up in the middle of her night to her precious baby angel crying and puking everywhere, it’s going to be her that bears the brunt of her ire at work tomorrow, even if she doesn’t know that she was there to witness it.
“Yeah, you’re right,” McKay sighs. She rubs a soothing hand over the small of her back, sweeping her hair back into a fist when she gags again weakly. “I’d take her back to my place, let her sleep it off there, but Chad’s bringing Harrison around super early tomorrow. I wouldn’t want her to wake up alone in the morning.”
She knows exactly what Trinity is going to say before she opens her mouth. That knowledge doesn’t make it any less annoying when she crouches down to Javadi’s level, a comforting smile on her face, and asks, “How’d you feel about crashing with us tonight, Crash?”
Sorry, she mouths over at Yolanda, as if that’s enough to take the sting of the intrusion away. Just what she pictured when she asked to see Trinity tonight -- a puked-on Whitaker in the next room and a crying med student on the couch.
Even so, her heart tugs affectionately as she watches Trinity herd her into the Uber, an old grocery bag pilfered from McKay’s truck cradled in her lap, just in case she blows again. It only gets worse when she pulls her jacket off and drapes it over Javadi’s jittering shoulders, barely even batting an eyelid when a string of drool falls out of her mouth and onto the sleeve of her beloved Carhartt.
By the time they’re guiding her up the stairs and into the apartment, Trinity on one side and Yolanda the other, the irritation that had locked in her chest has loosened almost entirely, softened by the sight of Trinity acting so caring, her soft underbelly exposed in a way that she rarely lets anyone see.
“Oh, my God,” Javadi cries as they bundle her onto the couch, head buried in her hands, embarrassment practically leaking out of her pores. “I can’t believe I just did all that.”
Trinity’s in the bedroom finding her a pair of pyjamas, and Whitaker had jumped in the shower the second they got through the door, leaving them alone; she busies herself by grabbing a bottle of water from Whitaker’s secret stash and hunting down the pack of Advil she knows Trinity keeps in here somewhere, anything to get out of having to console the kid.
“I have to kill myself,” she groans dramatically.
Jesus Christ. Yolanda does not dignify that with a response.
“Drink this,” she instructs, placing the bottle of water in front of her. “You’ll feel better when you do. I’m gonna go get you a bucket.”
The best she can scrounge up is the recently emptied trash-can sitting outside of Whitaker’s bathroom, but it’ll do. Javadi is still talking when she comes back in with it, halfway through a run-on sentence she’d missed the start of.
“-- and now you’re here, and you’re so totally gonna tell my mom, and she’s gonna kill me, like actually kill me, and --”
Yolanda lets out a long, drawn out sigh, and drops the trash can at her feet. “Javadi, if you ever hear me willingly telling your mother that I’ve spent time with you socially, you can assume I’ve been body snatched.”
Huge, unblinking eyes stare back at her. It’s a little freaky, honestly. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Yolanda affirms. “The less she knows about my personal life the better.”
That seems to calm her, at least for now. Just as Yolanda’s about to leave, though, escape into the bedroom and let Trinity deal with this mess, another loud groan sounds from behind her.
“I puked,” she says, as if only just remembering. “On Whitaker. And McKay saw me.”
“That’s just another Tuesday for White Chocolate.”
“No, you’re not getting it,” Javadi argues. Apparently, ten drinks and her first drunk-vomit is all it takes for her to get over her fear of actually talking to Yolanda. “McKay saw me. She’s never going to think of me as an adult now, I- I fucked it all up.”
She looks suspiciously like she’s about to start crying again, and Yolanda just can’t deal with that. Begrudgingly, she lowers herself onto the couch beside her and does everything she can to channel her best dealing with kids energy. Obviously, it’s the exact opposite of what Javadi actually wants from her right now, but it’s the only way she can see herself being able to push through this.
“Listen,” she says. “You’re twenty-one. You got drunk and embarrassed yourself a little in front of someone you respect, so what? Who hasn’t?”
She strongly suspects that whatever this meltdown is about goes a lot further than her respecting McKay, especially if everything Trinity’s already told her about them is correct, but there’s no way in hell she’s touching that one with a ten foot pole.
“She’s right, Crash,” Trinity says, slinking into the room, a handful of clothes bundled in her arms. She sinks down onto the sofa on the other side of Javadi, nudging playfully at her shoulder. “I mean, come on, it could be a lot worse.”
“How?”
“I don’t know if you remember this, but I once literally dropped a scalpel in someone’s foot.” She glances at Yolanda over Javadi’s head, eyes dancing with amusement. She leans in closer, dropping her voice to an exaggerated whisper, and adds, “And she still took me home with her after.”
Yolanda leans across Javadi to swat at Trinity’s arm. “Don’t encourage her,” she scolds, but it’s through a smile. Then, to Javadi, voice firmer: “Come on, it’s time to sleep. This will all look a lot better in the morning.”
The look she gets back is entirely doubtful. “Will it?”
Yolanda considers this for a moment, and then eventually shrugs. She’s not going to bullshit the kid. “Okay, maybe not,” she hums. “But there’s nothing you can do about it now, and spiralling about it is only going to make it worse.”
With that, she gets up, officially at her limit. She stretches her arms up over her shoulders until she hears a satisfying crack in her spine, and then leans over to press a kiss to Trinity’s head. “I’ll be in the bedroom,” she says. “Don’t make me wait too long. Goodnight, Javadi.”
It’s another twenty minutes before Trinity is finally crawling into bed with her, the apartment finally quiet, save from the sounds of Whitaker fumbling around in the bathroom; Yolanda lets out a sigh of relief when Trinity sinks immediately into her arms, head coming up to rest on her chest, legs tangling together beneath the sheets.
“Sorry about that,” she murmurs sleepily, voice muffled against Yolanda’s shirt. “Probably should have cut her off a lot earlier.”
“Mm, probably.” She cards her fingers through Trinity’s hair, scratching gently at her scalp in the way that she likes.
“Are you like, totally regretting agreeing to come now?” Trinity asks.
“Yes. Immensely,” Yolanda replies without thinking about it. She expects Trinity to laugh it off, maybe make some stupid comment about how it was what she’d asked for. When nothing comes and Trinity just tenses in her arms, she realises her mistake, and squeezes her arms around her waist. “I’m just kidding, baby. It was fine. I had a good time.”
“Really?” Trinity sounds unsure.
She adjusts herself, moving her hand from Trinity’s hair to press a finger against her chin, pressing at it until she tilts her head back and meets Yolanda’s eyes. “Really,” she promises. “I still think your friends are idiots, but it was nice seeing you with them. I like seeing you smile.”
There’s that blush again, just as pretty as ever. She leans down and lays a soft kiss against her lips, just because she can, just because she wants to. “You’re such a nerd,” Trinity says when they separate, grinning up at her.
“Just for you,” Yolanda admits, pressing another kiss against the tip of her nose. Trinity burrows further into her and she brings her hand back up to her hair, resuming her scratching.
“’s okay,” is the last thing she hears before she drifts off, Trinity’s voice hazy with sleep threatening to take over. “It can be our secret.”