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They stumble off the stage. Or, at least, Mel stumbles, almost trips on the single step down or her own two feet. She isn’t sure which; just that she lands unsteady and puts out a hand to brace herself, momentarily, against Trinity.
Everything tonight feels distinctly like something she's stumbled into. The invitation Trinity had offered so unexpectedly and Mel's greedy, wanting hands that had reached out to grab it. It is so unlike her to be here at all, out after work, with a coworker. Or was it “friend from work” now?
After the day she’s had, all its disappointment and humiliation and general wound to her pride, Mel can let herself have this. Something nice. Something light. Something fun.
She thinks of Trinity's words over and over, a truly abnormal amount, as she leads Mel through the bar, towards a table for two.
So it's just you and me then.
Mel tries to pull them apart in her head, examine her tone and the possible meaning it lent each word, but comes up empty. She’s never been any good at it, and she hardly has the bandwidth to force it now.
So she abandons the attempts at making sense and allows Trinity to take her drink order to the bar: a dirty Shirley, which utterly amuses her. She lets herself lean close to hear her better while they brainstorm a song they both like enough to sing, lets herself enjoy the loud and gloriously surprised laugh she elicits from Trinity when she suggests Megan Thee Stallion off the bat.
And Mel knows it's inevitable, she's been invited to karaoke after all, but she surprises herself, how easily she is led on stage by Trinity when their turn arrives. How she takes hold of the mic pressed into her hands and sings.
So the song ends and they stumble off the stage and Mel can hear her own heartbeat in her ears.
She's laughing, something joyful, but also her body's attempt to regulate the influx of emotions and sensory information. Like letting the sound escape will take some of the adrenaline with it. It doesn’t work, but that’s alright.
Mel is rarely so present in her body in a way that feels this good; the pleasant buzz of the drinks in her system, the out-of-breathness like she's just sprinted across the ED, the warmth blooming in her chest and across her cheeks. Even the adrenaline is a welcome sensation amongst them, prickling across her skin, alive.
Mel grins, or beams, really, as she moves away from the stage and the speaker which is now playing the next duo’s selection (Creep by Radiohead). This brings her closer to Trinity and the adrenaline spikes again in a way she knows is entirely unconnected to the karaoke performance.
Mel leans in close, near Trinity's ear. It’s innocent, an attempt to make sure she hears her. That’s alright, isn’t it? It's so loud in here, after all.
“That was awesome. We were so good up there. Right?” Mel asks and Trinity nods, flashes her teeth in a smile. And Mel is stumbling off stage all over again, the way her stomach drops, like she’s missed the step on the way down.
“Yeah. We were pretty fucking great.” Trinity’s voice is a little flat, but her smile (she’s still smiling at Mel) and the glint of her eyes in the dark bar make her feel like it’s the greatest compliment in the world.
There’s another laugh, a heady little giggle Mel doesn’t mean to let out, but one Trinity joins her in. They’ve sung Alanis Morissette together, and on the other side of that, things feel different. She can be a little bolder. Lean a little closer. Not worry too much about if a laugh or statement feels out of place.
“You were so good up there, oh my god.” Mel isn’t sure she meant to say that, but her thoughts are bleeding into her words and she’s just grateful she didn’t say the other thing she was thinking. You were so hot up there. And also right now. “We have to do this again. Soon.”
“Slow down, Melancholy.” There’s a beat where Mel feels the horrible, burning embarrassment of misreading a situation, of being somewhere she isn’t wanted and only realizing way too late.
It quickly evaporates when Trinity puts a hand on her shoulder and shakes her head, playful, grinning. She’s been smiling at her all night. “Scream therapy is reserved for only the most dogshit soul-crushing shifts. Helps keep the magic alive.”
And then, there is a moment that is plucked right out of Mel’s most shameful wantings, her truly desperate desire to be liked and known and wanted around. With a shrug, in the most casual way, Trinity offers her everything. “But we could do something else. What are you doing on Thursday?”
“Nothing!” Too loud, but so is the bar. Mel is, almost always, doing nothing. She wants to hand over her phone with her calendar of appointments and work shifts and hardly anything fun and tell Trinity, any night, every night, whenever you will have me.
Mel wants as many more nights like this, with her face flushed and hair down and standing so, so close to Trinity, as she can get her hands on. She will reach out to grab hold of every last one she is offered.
She settles for Thursday, which isn’t really settling at all, and feels more like being given the world.
“Cool. Me neither. Consider it a date.”
Mel knows what she means, thinks she knows, but it’s hard to be certain, all caught up in her wanting and her head rush and the tone of Trinity’s voice.
She’s found her new sentence to obsess over, at least, attempting to decode it, turning it over and over in her head, if only just to replay the soundbite in her mind. Just for the absolute rush of it.