Chapter Text
Whitaker huffs as he shuffles out of the now-empty room, his arms loaded down with nearly all his earthly possessions in a gigantic cardboard box that is very much falling apart. He tries not to stare at the shorter woman walking in front of him. Santos' steps are strong and quick on the linoleum of the empty wing, his ratty backpack hanging off her shoulder.
He wants to ask again, if she is sure that he can bunk with her. He has a good thing going here after all. There’s only been a few close calls with some of the janitors, and one or two nurses who’ve pressed the elevator button for his floor on accident. But he can manage.
“Santos--”
“If ask me again, I will throttle you, Huckleberry.”
He wisely keeps mum, because if Dennis Whitaker has learned anything over his years on Earth, it is that when a woman tells you to keep quiet, you do as she says.
His mama would be very proud.
Santos pushes the button for the parking garage, crossing her arms over her chest while they descend to the distorted humming of whatever Muzak is coming out of the old speakers. Whitaker tries very hard to keep still, not wanting to be annoying.
“I know you’re quiet normally, but this is a little weird,” Santos says snappishly, breaking the awkward silence that had settled over them.
“Sorry,” Whitaker murmurs, cringing when Santos turns back around, one sharp eyebrow raised with annoyance, “Sorry! I just... sorry.”
“That’s rule one. No sorry’s.”
“I’m--” he cuts himself off when Santos tsks in annoyance as the doors of the elevator open with a quiet ding, “--Pardon?”
Santos hums, walking with purpose out of the elevator, “that’s the first rule of our cohabitation.”
Dennis huffs as he tries keeping up with her, readjusting the box in his arms to give the straining tape holding the limp carboard together a bit of a break.
“I thought the first rule was to keep our clothes on at all times.”
“Fine. Second rule. You have to stop saying sorry,” Trinity says quickly, her hand reaching for the jangling set of keys on the side pouch of her backpack, “Clothes on, apologies out. Got it?”
“Yes ma’am,” he purposely ignores Santos’ huff of annoyance in favor of keeping up with her.
His eyes grow wide when Trinity grabs for the handle of a very shiny and new looking Jeep Wrangler. Whitaker has never cared much for cars—he learned how to drive his dad’s old Ford F150 and the tractor as soon as he was able to reach the pedals, so of course he knows how to drive, but what he drove never really seems to matter so long as it can get him from point A to point B and back safely. That said, he knows an expensive car when he sees it. Or, if not expensive, at least way out of his admittedly nonexistent price range.
“Are you just going to stand there?”
Dennis feels his cheeks grow red at Santos’ annoyed tone. Her intense stare certainly doesn’t help. But he manages, somehow, to shuffle his box of stuff into the trunk of the car. He reaches his hand out for the strap of his backpack and smiles queasily at Santos, who tosses her own duffle uncaringly atop his stuff before slamming the trunk door closed.
“Let’s go then, we have to be back here in a few hours.”
***
The ride is very quiet, since Santos seems more focused on getting them to her apartment than she is on making small-talk, and Whitaker has never been a chatterbox to begin with. He’s especially not chatty as he watches the apartments and homes fly past them, the bright lights and surprising liveliness of the city at such a late hour, and especially after the events at Pittfest, slowly quieting until they reach what appears to be an industrial area.
Dennis isn’t stupid, nor does he live under a rock. He’s heard plenty of The Strip and the revitalization of the area. He knows enough to know that anything considered “chic-living” is way out of his pay grade, such that it is, and so he’s never had any need to venture out that far. But, frankly, the eerie quiet that surrounds them, broken only by the crackling of pavement and gravel under the Jeep’s tires and the occasional cracked window on the behemoth buildings that surround them is not exactly close to what he thought his classmates were talking about.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to drive me somewhere to steal my kidneys, Santos,” he risks whispering, watching the R1 out of the corner of his eye.
Instead of looking insulted, Santos looks delighted at his words. She sits up, dropping her elbow from the door where it’s been perched since they left the hospital and grins widely at him.
“Watching a lot of Dateline lately?”
“Listening to a lot of true crime podcasts, actually.” Whitaker answers, “Though if you had wanted to steal my kidneys, it might have been better to do it back at the hospital.”
“True,” Trinity acquiesces easily, her eyes gleaming with mirth, “Well, only if I wanted you to live after.”
He waits a beat, then two, his hand tightening around the strap of his bag. Maybe he can make a run for it. There are only a few cars in the street, but he’s sure he can figure it out.
Maybe squatting in the hospital hadn’t been that bad after all.
“I’m just fucking with you,” Santos finally says, shoving lightly at his shoulder, “Relax Huckleberry.” He cracks a nervous smile, and she rolls her eyes at him in a way that screams familiarity and it almost makes him forget that they just met, and either one of them could be a murderer for all the other one knows. Almost. “This was the compromise I made with my parents.”
“Oh?” he asks, his shoulders losing a little bit of that tension as she turns back to the road.
“They insisted on paying for an apartment while I went to med-school and through my residency, and I insisted that I got to pick the place,” she waves her hand toward the dark and quiet street, “so I went for the literal opposite of what they wanted for me and got a killer deal too.”
“Emphasis on killer?” Whitaker murmurs under his breath.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she chuckles, flicking up the indicator.
They turn up into a nicer street, or at least nicer in comparison. There are string lights hanging from one light-pole to the next, and there is less street parking to be found, but it’s still quiet in comparison to the chaos they left behind in the center of Pittsburgh. She turns onto the gravel lot of a large brick building and parks next to a run-down looking van that he’s very sure is shaking slightly. Like someone is inside jumping up and down. Or doing other activities that are perfectly acceptable to do in somewhere as public as a parking lot.
“I wouldn’t look directly at it if I were you,” Trinity pipes up, grabbing her keys from the console, “You of all people don’t need to become sexually confused or be scarred for life by what you see through that shitty tint job.”
“Oh god,” Dennis mutters, horrified, as he scrambles to open the door and unbuckle his seatbelt at the same time to the tune of Santos’ mocking laugh.
He manages to stumble out of the car without looking at the rattling van, slamming the door before taking quick anxious steps to the back where Santos already has her duffle bag slung over one shoulder and his box of stuff in her arms.
“Chop chop, Huckleberry, no time to lose,” He just manages to come to a stop and stretch out his arms before she’s chucking the box at him, the thunk of the box hitting his chest and his own squeal of protest harmonizing with the sound of the trunk door slamming closed. Santos turns on her heel and heads to the building across the street, which is more poorly illuminated than the one he thought they would be walking into. From what little he can see, the bricks of this one are cracked in many places, and there’s even the appearance of scorch marks on some of them—but all the windows he can see look brand new, there’s a beacon in the form of an outdoor floodlight illuminating the tall metal front doors, and there’s some semblance of life or at least warmth peeking through the crack at the hinge, so it can’t be all that bad.
“My dad had a conniption when he helped me move in, and my mom well, she likes to tell people I live on The Strip instead of admitting that her daughter decided to bunk with the people in the more affordable side of Pittsburgh, but,” Santos shrugs absentmindedly, turning so she can walk backwards to try and see his face over the edge of the box, “a roof over your head is better than nothing, right?”
“Right,” Whitaker agrees, huffing as he tries to get better hold of the box.
Dennis gets a beautiful three or four steps into the building before the inevitable happens. He tries to hunch in on himself, tries to catch the bottom of the box with his knees, but it’s useless. Gravity is a heartless bitch, and so is the integrity of overused, overstuffed and under-taped cardboard, as it turns out. With a resounding cacophony of noise all his belongings fall to the floor, like that scene in home alone where Kevin’s grocery bags give up the ghost. He’s only thankful that he had the forethought of cushioning his mug, plate and bowl with one of two sweaters he owns, so at least the rush of noise isn’t also accompanied by splintering ceramic.
“Shit,” he murmurs, staring forlornly at his meager possessions strewn across the dark gray vinyl flooring. He really does not want to start collecting his life into his arms as he kicks the remains of the box to the side.
“Shit,” Santos agrees, looking at him instead of his stuff, “lucky you that we’re right here, then.”
She opens the door to her right—a surprisingly sturdy and new looking black painted door with a large golden number 1 on it, which bounces against what must be a door stopper that makes an angry twang noise that builds on itself, though the door doesn’t slam closed.
He kneels, unfurling the hoodie and checking that his plate hasn’t been damaged by the fall before piling all his trinkets onto a soft light blue knit blanket, folding the corners together and tying them to form a makeshift rucksack. When he looks up Santos is nowhere to be seen, but he can see the edge of a white wall and concrete flooring, and what looks like a big wooden frame on the wall directly opposite the door.
“Take your sneakers off at the door please,” Santos hollers from somewhere, her voice louder in the hollow space, “oh my god,” her laughter cascades over him suddenly as the door falls open, an empty Ikea bag in her hand.
“What?” Whitaker snaps at her, trying to tuck all his things into the various pockets of his well-loved jeans. He knows his ears must be dark red from embarrassment.
“You asked why I called you Huckleberry, but look at you,” she bends a little to shake the box, loosening a few quarters, some lint and at least two or three pens from it before stretching her arms out, bag open wide, “you made a little run-away rucksack and everything.”
Dennis wants to cringe but instead he joins her in laughing, scooping his stuff into the bag and dropping the run-away-rucksack into it, his back shaking with laughter. She means well, or at least, that’s what he has to tell himself to avoid keeling over right then and there from humiliation.
“Oh god,” He groans, Santos’ hand tight on his elbow as she helps him off the floor.
“Yeah, me too,” Santos agrees.
She nudges him forward and Whitaker remembers to take off his battered sneakers, setting them beside her own haphazardly thrown chucks as the door closes behind them, a mechanical whir sound going off as soon as the door closes followed by the click of the deadbolt.
“Well, now I can get your kidneys in peace and quiet,” Trinity hums out and for once Dennis rolls his eyes at her, taking cautious steps forward.
“You did promise me at least 30K for one of them,” Dennis reminds her, peeking curiously at the collage of frames hanging on the wall to his left.
“There’s a closet on your right for your bag and stuff,” Trinity indicates, sliding a bit of wall open to reveal a few heavy coats, a handful of shoes and what looks like a pair of skis against the far wall, “Small bathroom on the left,” he swings his head toward the wall he had been looking at. It’s closed, but this door is at least real and not some weird slide-pocket-thing.
“Nice,” Dennis murmurs in lieu of any words, because he doesn’t really know what to say.
“Very nice,” Trinity hums mockingly, “Your bedroom is the door on the right here.”
The door swings open and Whitaker lets the bag lead the way, which he regrets right away when the bag bumps into the edge of something hard.
“Oh shit,” Whitaker rushes in, stumbling over a shag rug before landing face first on the plushiest mattress he thinks he’s ever touched in his life, “Oh, shit.”
Santos chuckles, leaning against the door frame, her hand reaching to flick on the light switch.
The space is surprisingly tidy if sparse, like Santos had never planned on it ever being used but had set it up anyways, just in case. The plush mattress is atop a simple wire bed frame right in the middle of the room, a dark blue duvet cover and comfortable pillows with white sheets already made up, a dark wood bedside table on the far side by the tall window and a tall lamp on the near side. Opposite the foot of the bed there’s two doors on each corner of the room, and a collection of boxes stacked in between, marked with “Trin. Coll.” in black sharpie.
“The door on the left is the en-suite, on the right is the closet,” Trinity waves her hand as she speaks, her movements unbothered and fluid for all but a moment as she notices the boxes, “You can stick those in there if you want.”
“I--sure, thank you,” Whitaker murmurs as he straightens up, hefting the Ikea bag onto the bed.
“The sheets are clean, if you want to keep them.”
“I didn’t exactly bring my own,” he reminds her, patting the bright blue bag lightly.
“For shame,” Santos replies with an amused huff, “let me show you the rest and you can unpack.”
She turns on her heel without another word, and he stumbles behind her, his hand settling lightly on the door frame for a moment. He tries not to linger on the feeling of having a door and a roof where he’s not jumping at every sound, worried that he’s about to get kicked to the curb, or worst, expelled from his rotations and his life ruined forever and ever and-
“Huckleberry!” Santos snaps from the end of the hallway, “you’re missing all my best tour guiderness.”
“I---I don’t think that’s a word,” Dennis murmurs, rubbing his hands together.
“It is in this house,” Trinity singsongs back, “Anyway. Here’s the kitchen and the living room.”
This space feels lived in and decidedly not sparse or tidy, which oddly feels a lot more like what he expects from Trinity Santos, if he even expected anything at all.
The kitchen is all dark wood and black appliances that look shiny and brand new like the truck they’d driven on, but there’s a stack of bowls on a drying rack that don’t match at all, about five different plastic cups that frankly seem like they were freebies at some event, probably a college fair, and a chipped bright pink mug that’s cupside down on the counter, resting on a paper towel.
Even though the space is what he knows is called an “open plan”, it feels oddly cramped but homey. The dining table is butted right up to the kitchen space, and it’s a large, dark rectangle that doesn’t fit at all with the modern look of the kitchen. It’s chipped in places and is clearly solid wood, with very beautiful and intricately carved legs. The chairs, much like all the crockery, seem out of place in a way that is both intentional and decidedly not stylish. One is high-backed; old looking and of a much lighter shade of wood than the table. The one beside it is a shorter three-legged stool with a cracked crossbar, across that is a lime green molded plastic chair that looks as though it has been scratched over and over by a very angry cat, or a child with scissors and no supervision, and the last one is an old office chair with skate-wheels instead of the usually clunky roll-y wheels and padding that has clearly seen better days.
Behind that is the cramped living room with a large, dark blue couch stacked high with throw pillows and chunky multi-colored blankets. It takes up most of the far wall and bends into an L-shape. Where the couch ends it meets what can only be described as an ugly-as-sin dark rainbow-colored corduroy armchair with a lumpy black pillow resting on the seat of questionable integrity. A glass coffee table sitting on a shag beige carpet rounds out the large items, all facing a ridiculously large flat screen tv.
Despite the thrown together space, there’s soft lighting from large lamps placed in every corner of the space, and honest to god twinkling Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling.
“I’m sorry,” Whitaker huffs in surprise, “why the fuck are you missing half the walls?”
It had struck him as surprising that the space had so much echo and that the ceiling seemed interminably tall, he’d call it somewhere around fourteen to twenty feet, but it makes sense now that he’s finally realized that the walls don’t meet the ceiling. Matter of fact, he’s realizing now that the ceiling is a bunch of crisscrossing steel beams, and all the bright hospital-like brightness was being delivered from large bay lights with white LEDs, which goes a ways to explaining all the lamps and twinkling lights that he’d thought up to now were a style choice.
“I didn’t think you knew how to curse, Huckleberry!” Santos crows with delight, “Yeah, it’s part of the charm. At least, that’s what I said to my mother,” she waves her hand toward the steel beams, “it was really annoying at first, but I was also the only one living here, and there’s a big ass floor to ceiling wall to separate this unit from the rest. Anyways I got some tutorials from YouTube together and after some trips to the hardware store managed to put together some drop ceiling things for the bathrooms.”
“Right,” Dennis scratches the back of his neck, trying to stand on the tips of his toes to look over the not-so-wall-like wall. Blessedly, they seem to go about seven feet up. “And the rooms?”
Trinity shrugs noncommittally, “Remember when I said I lived alone?”
“Right,” he shuffles his feet, uncomfortable with the thought that they might hear each other snoring or something, “I can help put up more of that stuff over the rooms, if you want.”
“I did ask if you were handy,” she points out, waving toward the last door in the apartment, “And this is my room, anyway. Tada.” She does half-hearted jazz hands as she crosses the threshold.
“Oh,” Whitaker feels his eyes grow wide with surprise.
“What, you thought that was part of the tour?” Santos scoffs, eyes rolling as she pushed her way into the room before slamming the door closed, yelling pervert with a maniacal cackle.
“No! I wasn’t--” Whitaker stutters, waving his hands in horror even though he knows Santos can’t see him through the closed door. If she jumps, she can probably see him over the god damn half wall though. “I didn’t mean--”
“Calm down, Huckleberry,” Santos calls out, her voice flowing over the wall, “Go, get comfortable. There’s some cereal in the pantry; I haven’t had time to get groceries delivered but help yourself.”
“I, uh, right,” Whitaker stumbles over the shag carpet and only just manages to catch himself before he sprawls face first onto the cold concrete floor, “Shit. Okay,” He all but sprints toward his room, a thought that fills him with a strange warmth. Or maybe it was hope. Or maybe a little of both.
It only took thirty minutes for that feeling to dissipate.
“Do you want some pizza?”
Dennis turns around, a smile ready before his face flies quickly between shame, dawning horror and even more shame, the blood draining from his face before rushing back in. He even feels a little light-headed. He might only be a student doctor, but he knows the symptoms of syncope when he feels them.
“Oh my god,” he screeches, covering his face with his hands, trying to kick the door closed blindly, “Why are you naked!?”
“What,” Santos looks down at herself, “Grow up Whitaker, they’re just legs.”
“I didn’t mean that!” Dennis yelps indignantly, diving over the bed and tumbling down to the floor, trying to grab a pillow to cover his eyes on his way down, “I meant the whole,” his hands wave over the edge of the mattress at her, “The whole--”
Santos cackles madly, hands on her hips, “Oh my god Huckleberry, they’re just boobs!”
“You said clothes on all the time. All the time!”
He made a quick mental calculation of where he had stuck all his things over the past thirty minutes. If he rushed in a military crawl, he could feasibly make it to the closet and stick all his stuff into the Ikea bag without catching a glimpse of Santos. His toothbrush and toothpaste are a wash, but he’s sure he can find a new one somewhere in the hospital. The walk back there would be something hard to figure out at this time of night, and this distance, but everything was doable if he has a can-do attitude.
“It’s the same thing you see every day when we have to cut people’s clothes off them,” Santos leans her bare shoulder against the door frame, waving her hand up and down her side, “I mean, I’m not even naked Huckleberry. It’s a sports bra and shorts, surely nothing you’ve never seen before?”
“It’s not the same!” Dennis screeches, standing up slowly with his hand covering his eyes with one hand, his other hand raised in-front of him with his index finger raised, “rule number one,” he says, pumping his hand for emphasis, “Clothes on all the time. You said it, not me! I’m following the rules,” he waves at his ratty sweatpants and washed-out t-shirt, “Why aren’t you!?”
Maybe he could pull off some squatter's rights bullshit. He’d certainly thought of it a few times when it was getting cold outside and he’d been squatting in the university’s library. Surely Santos’ violation of the first rule she set up was worthy grounds.
“Alright altar boy, sheesh.”
Whitaker tips his head to the side, following Santos’ shuffling steps toward the closet and the shifting sound of cardboard on cardboard as she pops open one of the boxes that had been proverbially co-squatting in the space now occupied by his only other pair of tattered sneakers.
“Am I’m decent enough for your delicate farm-boy sensibilities?”
He splays his hand open a bit, looking at Santos through a small slit between his fingers. She stands in front of the closet door with her hands on her hips again, this time wearing a too big t-shirt with “Ivy Classics Champions” in cursive blue letters above what he well knows looks like the UPenn crest.
“You went to UPenn?”
Santos smirks in lieu of an answer and headed toward the door, a light spring in her step as she walks on the balls of her feet. “So, pizza?”
***
The next morning, he wakes up to Santos in the same t-shirt, her short hair a messy riot that sticks up in the back, with thick glasses hanging on for dear life from the tip of her nose, a bowl of Lucky Charms next to a slice of cold pepperoni pizza and a white board hanging up on the wall with “HUCKLEBERRY AND SANTOS’ LIVING TOGETHER RULES” in spiky uneven handwriting, with only two items underneath.
- Most clothes on ALL the time
- No saying sorry unnecessarily.
“Good morning.”
“Rule three,” Santos murmurs darkly, pushing the glasses back up her nose with the heel of her palm, “if you speak to me in the mornings, I will kick your ass.”
Whitaker smiles hesitantly as he takes the three-legged stool across her, hunching over his bowl while Santos slowly directs her slice of pizza to her mouth.
His life moving forward is going to be interesting.