Work Text:
“You wanna have sex and eat ramen in bed, I’m your girl. But if you want to talk about this Dr. Langdon shit, again, get a therapist.”
Santos thinks this was the worst day of her life. She says was generously because it’s not even over, she’s still sitting doing her charts long after the night shift has taken over. The computers finally came back online around six, but that did nothing to slow down the chaos of the ED on a holiday weekend. She gazes longingly at Dr. Ellis flitting about the room, wishing she could be helping patients right now because then at least she’d be moving.
As if the day itself wasn’t bad enough, things with Yolanda are… bad. She needs to be honest with herself. It’s bad. It all started a week ago when they were in bed one morning and Yolanda asked if she wanted to grab dinner. Santos, innocently, pulled out her phone, opened DoorDash and asked what she wanted. As it turns out, Yolanda meant a date. Like, a real date. Even though they’ve had nothing but ten months of sneaking around in hallways, spending weekends at each other’s places, and forcing Whitaker to spend his first paycheck on a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. There was nothing date-y about that.
Santos didn’t date. She’s no good at it, never has been. So, in a panic, she said, “Oh, I thought this was just a casual thing.”
Now, it seems Yolanda is paying that statement back to her tenfold. Today was brutal and if it wasn’t brutal enough, it seems she’s determined to make Santos regret that casual statement for the rest of her life.
Speaking of the devil, she hears a curse as Yolanda herself steps out of the elevator in a rush. Without thinking, Santos jumps up and falls into step beside her. “I thought you were off at five.”
“You were, too. Things change. Can this wait? I have a patient.”
“Wait, just—” Santos groans, trying to think of what she can say that won’t make a scene in front of the entire ED. “Can you let me know when you’re finishing up? I’m gonna be here all night charting and I… wanna talk.”
Yolanda looks her up and down, something curious yet unsympathetic in her eyes. “Fine.”
She walks off without saying goodbye, but the intensity of the single word fine tells Santos everything she needs to know about where they are. Santos might be better off if she simply never opens her mouth ever again. Exhaustion pulls at her bones as she sags back down in front of the computer, the charts starting to blend together on the screen in front of her. She rubs her eyes, takes a deep breath, and gets back to work.
***
It’s almost ten by the time her phone finally lights up with a text from Yolanda. Trinity miraculously finished her charts and was standing by the lockers getting ready to go, having given up all hope that she was going to receive the text that is now staring at her from her screen. Parking lot, is all it says. Proper capitalization and a period.
Fuck. They’re breaking up. It has to be. They want different things, clearly. Maybe it’s for the best. This would go down a bit easier if it wasn’t some of the most mind-blowing sex Santos has ever had. Or if she didn’t light up every time she hears My name is Dr. Garcia, I’m from surgery while she’s working on a patient. She should’ve never told her she wanted to be casual. She wasn’t even sure if she meant it at the time, but even if she did, she certainly didn’t mean this cold shoulder, no-strings-attached bullshit Yolanda has been giving her all day.
Santos pulls off her sweat-soaked scrub top as she exits the ED, leaving just the gray long sleeve underneath, and finally lets her hair all the way down. It’s grown more in the last few months and she almost cut it but then one morning, after a very active night, Yolanda had sleepily run her hands through it and gone it’s getting so long. Looks nice. Santos hasn’t even thought about a pair of scissors since then.
She finds Yolanda standing next to her car, hair in a looser bun than it was before. She’s out of her scrubs, wearing jeans and a tank top in a vain attempt to combat the July heat of the city. Not only do they have to have this conversation, but now Yolanda is going to make her have it while also subjecting Trinity to the strong arms that have held her down more times than she can count, arms she’s bitten into as she came, arms she—okay, she needs to focus.
“Well?”
Before Santos can help it, everything comes pouring out. “Don’t well me. You’ve been shitty to me all day—and before you say it’s about the Dr. Langdon stuff, you know that’s not just it—I don’t know what you’re trying to get back at me for when I’ve been nothing more than your fucking booty call for ten months, but the minute I say the word casual, I’m public enemy number one. Fuck, Yolanda, I like you and I don’t want to fuck this up, but if I can’t say something like that without you throwing it back in my face then I don’t think this is going to work.”
Yolanda’s eyes widen, arms crossed against her chest as she takes a step back, almost as if she hadn’t expected the outburst from Trinity. In her defense, Trinity didn’t expect it either. “Okay, this isn’t middle school, I’m not getting back at you.”
“Could’ve fooled me, Jesus Christ,” Trinity scoffs, running a hand through her hair. She’s fully aware of people milling about in the parking lot, but she doesn’t even care about that right now. She and Garcia have been the worst kept secret in PTMC since day one. They went for a drink after Trinity’s first shift and the rest was history.
“Look, if you’re mad I made plans for tonight, then—”
“That’s so clearly not what I’m mad about. I’m mad that you’re doing it to spite me.”
She watches the way Yolanda’s jaw tightens, her entire form tensing up. When she speaks next, her voice is quieter, but it’s strained. “I asked you on a date. You said no. I figured I had crossed a line and stepped back. If you’re telling me I overcorrected—”
“I’m sorry, we've been a dirty little secret for ten months, of course you asking me on a date is going to catch me off-guard, I mean, I had just come! You didn’t even give me, like, a five-minute orgasm break,” Trinity groans, stepping in a circle as she runs a hand over her face and turns to face Yolanda once more. “I can’t tell if we want different things or if we want the same thing and just neither of us know how to say it.”
“I’m a grown woman, Trinity, if you don’t want to be with me, I’m not going to beg you,” Yolanda says, that same weariness to her voice as there was before.
A realization starts to wash over her. Yolanda does want something more. That was just her—frankly awful—attempt at saying it and now she feels hurt and rejected. And Santos is just hurt. “It’s not that I don’t want to be with you, but if we can’t talk about our feelings without hurting each other then… what’s the fucking point?”
Yolanda pinches the bridge of her nose and lets out a deep sigh. Without another word, she unlocks her car and opens the door, nodding to the passenger side. “Get in.”
Santos does a brief double-take. “What?”
“Get in. We’re going to get a drink and we’re going to talk about our feelings. Like adults.”
This is certainly not how Santos thought this was going to go. Warily, she walks around the side of Yolanda’s car and opens the passenger side door. When it turns out this isn’t a test and she isn’t going to drive off without her laughing in her face, she slides in and closes it.
They’re barely out of the parking lot when Yolanda starts talking. “I was trying to hint at something more for a while, but you weren’t getting it and so I figured I would be a little more direct, but I got impatient and then you hit me with the casual and I just… it didn’t feel great, Trin.”
“I’m sorry,” Trinity sighs as Yolanda navigates through the packed city streets. “Yo, we’re never gonna find a bar that isn’t packed, just—there’s a bottle of shitty wine at my place, let’s just go there.”
“If this is your ploy to put this conversation off again by sleeping with me—”
“That’s—” Santos cuts her off, sighing, “No. That’s not what I’m trying to do. I get that I wasn’t the most communicative, but fuck, Yo, today sucked. I just kept getting hit again and again by charts, by Langdon coming back, by Robby yelling at me, and the one thing I thought I could rely on… was you. And you threw it back in my face.”
Yolanda doesn’t look at her as she starts driving the route to the apartment Santos and Whitaker share. She prays he’s already run off to the farm for the weekend so they can have some privacy after having to steal moments in hallways all day. “Today wasn’t exactly a cakewalk for me either. I had to take an eight-year-old kid into surgery for a crushed larynx, he almost didn’t make it. Crashed twice before we finally got him stable.”
“Kids die in the ED too, you know,” Santos retorts, even though she knows that isn’t the point. As her eyes draw to the window, her mind goes to the little girl that drowned on her first day, rescuing her little sister. She sucks in a breath and turns back to look at Yolanda.
“That’s not the point and you know it. I was just stressed out today and I’ve been thinking about things with us and… I got overwhelmed. I’m not perfect either.”
“I don’t need you to be perfect, I just need you to tell me what you want.”
Yolanda pulls into the guest parking of Trinity’s apartment with the practiced ease of someone who has been there several times over the last ten months. She sighs and finally turns to look at her, admitting, “I thought I was being clear. I want you, Trinity. Since day one. I just thought that… with the stress of you doing your ED rotation and me finishing up my trauma residency that casual would be better, but I’m a fellow now and you’re an R2 and—”
“And we’re just as busy and stressed as before?”
“Right,” Yolanda sighs. They sit there in the car for a moment, AC blasting and radio playing softly. “I thought casual would be fine, but I was wrong.”
“I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard those words come out of your mouth.”
“I’ll drop you off and drive home if that’s what you want.”
“No, no!” Santos exclaims. She grabs her keys out of her bag and opens the door, nodding for Yolanda to follow her. Thankfully she does and Santos realizes it’s not over yet. “Look, Yolanda, I’m not… I’m really not the type of person to do relationships. This year is going to be hell for me, I mean, it’s been hell already, and I don’t know if I’m going to be… a person worth being with.”
Yolanda pauses as they get into the elevator. Thankfully, the lobby is empty; everyone out celebrating the fireworks. “I don’t think I am either. But if that’s what you think, then I think we need to just call it quits.”
There’s the other shoe Trinity was waiting for. The elevator doors slide open and she wonders if it’s even worth inviting Yolanda into her apartment or if she can finish her off in the hallway. For once, Trinity forces herself to have hope and continues walking towards her door. Yolanda follows.
“I think two things can be true,” is what Santos finally settles on saying, unlocking her door and pushing it in for Yolanda to enter first. As soon as they’re inside, Santos heads for her bedroom, desperate to get out of her work clothes. “Wine’s in the fridge.”
By the time she returns, now wearing a loose gray tank top and black sweatshorts, Yolanda has two glasses of wine poured for them. She knows this kitchen probably as well as she knows her own and she knows the same goes when she’s in Yolanda’s kitchen.
“Which two things?” Yolanda asks, taking a slow sip as she leans against the kitchen counter.
“I can be a bad person to date and still want to date you,” Santos admits. “I got scared and said what I thought I wanted, but if this last week has proved anything to me, it’s that I was wrong. I don’t want this have sex, eat ramen, go home shit. I want… to talk to you about things, about stuff at work or patients or shit outside of work, stuff with my family and my friends and just life. I want to share a piece of my life with you.”
Something in Yolanda softens and that small hope Trinity had in the hallway begins to rise again. “I want that too. I thought asking you out to dinner was a good way of doing that, but… maybe my timing was a little off. I’m sorry.”
Trinity takes a deep breath before downing half of her glass of wine in one gulp. As she places it down against the counter, she asks, “So, just to be clear: You don’t hate me, you don’t actually want to keep things casual, and you want to date?”
“Why don’t we start with dinner first?” Yolanda asks, scooting a little bit closer. Her hip rests against the counter, one finger hooked in her belt loop and Trinity wants nothing more than to take that belt loop and use it to bring Yolanda closer. “If we have nothing in common, nothing to talk about except the sex, then we can call it.”
“What if I’m bad at this?” Trinity asks, her words shaking with breathiness. “I haven’t had a serious girlfriend since… high school. I can’t remember the last time I went on a date with someone but it was probably before med school and—”
“Trinity,” Yolanda breathes her name slow and soft, stepping closer. She hooks two fingers in Santos’s waistband, pulling her closer. “Just say you’ll go to dinner with me.”
Trinity sucks in a breath, eyes darting down to Yolanda’s lips. “Okay.”
“Perfect.” Yolanda leans forward and kisses her and Trinity feels her entire body relax. She lets herself be pushed up against the kitchen counter, melting into the kiss as her fingers find Yolanda’s belt loops and bring her closer, closer than close. She spreads her legs and lets her walk between them, the kiss deepening. The chemistry certainly isn’t the issue, but apparently it doesn’t hurt to check.
In the dark kitchen, Yolanda’s hands slide beneath her tank top and Trinity sees reason, pushing a hand against her chest and asking, “Should we really sleep together when we just had the conversation about how we sleep together to avoid talking about our feelings?”
Yolanda considers this for a moment, “Probably not. But what are the rules about me eating you out on the kitchen counter?”
Trinity hesitates, two sides of herself at war. In the end, she settles for the one that makes her throb with want. “You know, we have the dinner plans, I feel like that’s allowed.”
“Excellent.” Yolanda wastes no time in wrapping her arms around Trinity’s waist and pushing her up onto the low counter, spreading her legs and tugging her shorts down. She’s probably sweaty and gross and really she should take a shower after that shift, but she and Yolanda have slept together in worse conditions, so she knows this is practically nothing.
She’s on her knees in an instant and Santos’s hand is there, undoing the already loose bun that holds her curls back, biting back a moan as Yolanda nips at her inner thighs, spreading her apart even though Trinity was already opening her thighs for her without having to be asked.
“You have no idea,” Yolanda breathes against her thigh, punctuating her words with a kiss, “How much I’ve been thinking about you.”
Trinity lets out a wry chuckle, one hand braced against the cool counter to support herself and the other with fingers gripping Yolanda’s hair. “Sure you don’t wanna try and make those plans you made?”
“I’m sure.” Yolanda gives no warning as she takes that first lick of Trinity’s cunt, tasting the waiting desire and pent up frustration from working alongside her all day while being at odds with her. There’s a promise to things now, plans to talk it out, plans to try and that almost turns her on more than anything.
She finally lets herself moan when Yolanda licks at her folds, strong thumbs digging into her thighs as she spreads her apart, moaning against her cunt and sending a new wave of vibrations through her sensitive desire. It’s only been a week since they slept together last, but it feels brand new, feels like she’s been crawling through a desert and is finally getting that first sip of icy water. It’s a sort of desire that can only come with being known, Trinity thinks, and there’s nothing she wants more right now than to be known.
Yolanda wraps her lips around her clit and sucks, sending a new wave of pleasure through her that has Trinity screaming towards the kitchen ceiling. Yeah, she really hopes Whitaker isn’t home right now. Her hand moves to the side, knocking over one of the glasses and spilling wine all over the counter, but she doesn’t care, she’ll clean it up later. For now, she’s so pent up she’s about to come in Yolanda’s mouth and they’ve only just gotten started.
She moans, bucking her hips up from the counter to meet Yolanda’s mouth, hands yanking at her hair and heels digging into her shoulder blades. God, she is stupidly good at this, just like she’s stupidly good at everything she does.
“Slow down, fuck, I’m gonna—” Trinity starts to say, at a complete loss for breath, but Yolanda only takes this as motivation to amp it up. The tingling sensation and tension in her stomach intensifies as she feels her orgasm getting closer, but she doesn’t want this to be over. Even so, there’s a security there now that wasn't there before. She knows this will probably happen again, they’ll probably get dinner and end up back in this same apartment, and they’ll figure it out. Because she knows she wants to figure it out with Yolanda, wants to see what they could be even if neither of them are sure it’s going to work.
She comes with Yolanda’s name on her lips, her supportive hand nearly slipping in the wine, but she manages to hold herself up as the aftershocks of her orgasm ripple through her. Yolanda cleans her up, licking every crevice of her as if she doesn’t want a single drop wasted, before pressing a wet kiss to her inner thigh.
“Consider that my apology for being a dick today.”
Trinity sighs, letting out a breathless chuckle as she pushes a strand of hair away from Yolanda’s face. She’s still sitting between her legs, looking up at Santos with wide, sympathetic eyes. There’s nothing else to say. She smiles. “Apology accepted.”