Chapter Text
Trinity Santos is no stranger to discomfort. In fact, that’s all that she remembers. Pain has acted almost as a consistent release of sorts, something she relied on to stay sane while going through what she considers her fuck-ass life.
When she first got to PTMC, she met all these people who seemed like a family. Well, at least a family more functional than her own. She only realized that she became so close to all the doctors in the ER when she found Dennis hiding out in the backrooms of the hospital, Trinity was surprised as she found herself inviting Dennis to live in her apartment’s extra room. She really had found a family.
She didn’t like people, and yet she found herself growing a closer friendship with Dennis after he moved into her apartment. Weekly movie marathons after their shifts, going out to the clubs together, Dennis even let Trinity paint his nails. Eventually, she opened up to him about her depression and self harm, which Dennis provided a different form of comfort, one separate from the self inflicted type that she frequented.
When Dennis mentioned during their shift that he was going to stay at Robby's house, Trinity felt the first tingle of pain seep back into her life. Everyone leaves her sooner or later. The all too familiar stone cold facade came over her features, closing herself off from everyone.
“Whatever, fuckleberry," Trinity responded. She wasn’t proud of the look that spread across Dennis’ face when those words left her mouth, but she was too stubborn to take it back now. Just doing what I do best, Trinity thought to herself. Fucking everything up.
Dennis, confused, turned away and mumbled something about checking on one of his patients, leaving Trinity to her own devices.
The next day, Dennis starts packing to move his stuff temporarily over to Robby's house. Trinity offered to help and drove Dennis and his belongings to his new crashpad for the foreseeable months of Robby's midlife crisis trip.
“Thanks Trin,” Dennis said, closing the trunk of Trinity’s 2011 rusted Subaru. His eyes curled up into a smile and he leaned in to give her a hug.
Trinity put her arms out, jutting into his chest. “No problem, huckleberry, have fun.” She didn’t want a hug. He was abandoning her, and she felt resentment for that. With the singular gesture, Dennis moved back and slung his backpack over his shoulder while walking inside Robby's house. Trinity turned and opened the driver’s side door, and she pulled out of the driveway with a familiar emptiness filling her. Even though the passenger’s seat was now devoid of a physical form, Trinity felt a presence hovering next to her.
That night Trinity pulled out the razor she stole from PTMC. It was hidden in her desk drawer in her room, and this was the first time she began to revisit her old comfort.
Trinity was a doctor, but even before she knew the ins and outs of human anatomy, she ripped into her legs as a teenager. Lacerations deep enough to bleed, and large enough to rip back apart when she walked. A constant reminder of her failures. Why she was a burden to everyone that would ever get close to her. A plight on this earth.
Dr. Santos didn’t want to kill herself, really. She just wanted to feel anything else other than the feelings plaguing her heart or hear the thoughts swirling in her head. She worked hard to come this far into her career, halfway through her residency, but the thoughts of harming herself never truly went away. Now with Dennis being away meant that she had full rein of the bathroom tonight, a curse that she didn’t have ever since he moved in.
She started with the typical places, redrawing in red the scars lining the insides of her thighs. Santos meticulously moved outwards to the sides of her legs. The stinging was like a hug from an old friend. The pain from just her thighs wasn’t enough, so she ventured up to her bicep. Then to her wrists. The pain just wasn’t enough to stop the tears from flooding her vision. She needed more.
She made the first cut on her wrist. An area that she specifically never touched before, because wrist scars are harder to hide, especially in scrubs. Everyone would know. Tonight though, she didn’t care, because she wasn’t planning on going into work tomorrow. Trinity didn’t worry about hiding her cuts underneath her scrubs or hiding any part of herself anymore. It was time.
Trinity felt as though she was performing a procedure. She could almost hear the beeping of the monitors at PTMC recording heart rate and blood pressure. She knew where the radial artery was, and that she could bleed out in less than 15 minutes. She knew that she would lose consciousness in less than 5 if she did it right.
The razor made a cut across her full left wrist, moving parallel through her forearm. Warm blood from the artery spills out, the flow pulsating with the rhythm of her heartbeat. Breathing heavily, Trinity knew that she had to move quickly to the other wrist for everything to work. She withdrew the blade from her right hand, moving it into her now injured left. Shakily, she repeated the process through her right wrist. It was done. She did it.
Trinity’s head was beginning to feel heavy, and her vision started to dim at the edges. She released her grip on the razor and laid on her back, basking in the waves of pain that took over her consciousness. She didn’t hear Dennis banging on the door of the bathroom, yelling at her to let him in. It was too late.
Dr. Trinity Santos was about to be dead.