Chapter Text
Trinity can’t believe how fast her space transformed from a quiet and bare apartment to one bustling with life, and if anyone asked her she would tell them that living with Dennis Whitaker is nothing short of loathsome, even if her soul feels a little lighter when she comes home on Dennis’s day off to the smell of cornbread wafting through the apartment and some shitty reality tv show that she got him hooked on, just loud enough that their cat ‘Dia’ stays draped lazily on the headrest behind him at her entrance.
They spent a long time on that same couch deciding on Dia’s name, they tell people outside their circle that her name is just a homage to the roman goddess ‘Dea Dia’ the goddess of growth when really ‘Dia’ is just short for ‘Diazepam.’
It was weird for her to think of leaving their safe space, and that her safe space had shifted from four taupe walls to a mousy farm boy. Today was their first day off of a long weekend and the two decided to put plan ‘Relax and Retreat’ to work by scraping all the spare change and savings they could afford to lose to spend their hard earned time off in a small bed & breakfast beside the Great Allegheny Passage, their itinerary being to relax and hike the stresses of being student doctors off.
Dennis had gone inside with the pet sitter and was getting her acquainted with Dia and all of her needs, it would be the first time she’d ever been without them since her adoption and both Santos and Whitaker where fretting about leaving her, trinity was still considering sneaking her in as a stowaway as she loaded the last of their stuff into her trunk but alas, living with Whitaker has made her a boring rule following huckleberry.
After an hour of sorting out keys and bags the duo finally set off with the last few minutes of daylight in Trinity’s rickety old car that she refuses to replace, no matter how many times Dennis takes a dig at her for having a car that he deems ‘nobody who doesn’t golf at 12pm on a Tuesday afternoon drives’. Regardless the car hums along the road unknowing of the nit picking coming from its passenger who for all his complaints curls comfortably In his seat and fiddles with the CD collection to his right.
The journey is easy, something Trinity could do in her sleep, but something in her gut felt wrong as if she shouldn’t be on this road, that she should stop and pull over however, looking at Dennis slumped in his seat, his body moving rhythmically with the movements of the car she passed the feeling off as anxiety about being away from home.
Then it happens
No warning
No screaming
Just a screech and then impact.
The car is catapulted across interstate 76 by an HGV whose driver fell asleep at the wheel, the car flipping onto its roof as it goes, creating a horrifying screech of metal burning with friction. Trinity feels the steering wheel drive itself under her ribs in an ugly motion, knocking the wind out of her. Dennis’s side takes the initial impact, his body loose from sleep contorts unnaturally.
It takes what feels like an hour for the driver side door to crumple against the concrete Jersey Barriers put in place to keep them safe.
This was not how Trinity Santos wanted to start their weekend away.
For one ridiculous a moment Trinity thinks of the Musical Ride the cyclone that she was dragged to by Mel one night and how they were now in that predicament.
There was screaming emanating from somewhere she couldn’t place as they hung upside down, their heads bent against the roof, her disoriented brain catalogued her surroundings, her mind clearing just enough to attempt to reach for her roommate beside her but is stopped short by a jolting pain down her shoulder as she moves. The car sways with her movements but Santos is level headed enough to understand that she needs to unbuckle herself to alleviate the pressure in her skull as she dangles from her seat. Her fingers numbly search for the release button but come short, she realises who is screaming finally, it’s her, her fear overriding her sense.
No one can hear her screams over the blaring, piercing alarm repeating like a mantra, ignoring her desperate pleas that they were there, breathing, and alive. Alive, they were alive, but she hadn’t registered any movements from beside her in the frenzy, that’s when she notices Dennis’s deformed shape, his neck uncomfortably twisted around the seatbelt as his head presses against the crumpled roof, a piece of what trinity can only assume is his door pushes against his lower abdomen.
All of a sudden, the insurmountable task of getting out of the seatbelt takes Trinity only four seconds as she bites through her pain and wiggles out of the confines that currently hold her best friend hostage with a desperation that cannot be rivalled, her subconscious wonders why it takes 10x the effort to move and why she feels numb, despite moving.
Trinity Scrambles for Dennis’s limp form, landing harsh against the roof that now becomes their floor ‘Dennis!’ she shouts attempting to wake him from his immobile state. Nothing. Dennis doesn’t react, no charming smile, no mousy eyes, just dead silence. Dennis is not someone who stays still, he bounces on his feet or twiddles his fingers.
That when she notices the pool of blood accumulating at an alarming rate down his neck.
The neck that sits wrong, as if becoming one with the car.
A blood curdling scream wrecks through Trinity’s body as she grabs him.
A feeble attempt to shield him from further harm, from gravity attempting to finish what the crash started as she blindly reaches for the seatbelts release.
She uses her hands to put pressure on the Lacerations in his neck and abdomen, the blood seeming never ending, once he’s lowered into her lap, her panic drives her to someone who she never believed in but Dennis did, even if only subconsciously.
‘please god, get my brother out of here, please’
The plea feels unnatural in her mouth as her voice becomes muffled through the tears that run down her face, the quiet confession of their relationship only making her resolve crumble faster.
By the time paramedics have arrived Trinity’s body is cold, only warmed by the blood she is soaked in.
The nearest hospital?
Of course, its non-other than PTMC.