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When Dennis trudges over to the section where the lockers are, at the end of his shift, he expects it to be empty since most people just grab their stuff and leave as quickly as they can.
Unfortunately, he’s wrong; Trinity is standing at the end, pulling a hoodie out of her locker, and determinedly trying to ignore Langdon who is clearly trying to talk to her about something. He waves his hands around as he talks and his tone is softer than usual, as if he’s trying to explain himself or apologise.
Trinity clearly doesn’t want to hear it. In fact, she’s currently pretending not to hear him at all.
Langdon probably isn’t intending to seem threatening at all, but Dennis spots his mistake almost immediately; he’s standing too close. Trinity can barely tolerate sharing personal space with someone she does trust, let alone someone she doesn’t.
Also, since Trinity is at the very end it means that she’s between Langdon and a wall. Not a great place to be trapped when Dennis knows how much she despises being in small spaces.
Other people probably don’t pick up on her unease in situations like this because she’s always careful to hide it. That’s what she’s doing now; keeping her body language relaxed, offering a snarky remark in response to something Langdon says, glancing at him only briefly in order to to side-eye him, with an almost pitying look fixed in place.
But it’s the slight hints which betray her, and when Dennis adds them all together then it immediately becomes clear that she’s uncomfortable. It’s the way that her shoulders are drawn slightly closer together than usual; how she grabs her backpack out the locker in a movement that’s a little rigid; the way her smirk clearly seems strained if you look at it for more than a second; how there’s a sharp edge to her voice as she makes the snarky remark.
Dennis’ first instinct is to try and help, but what holds him back is the knowledge that Trinity certainly won’t thank him for it. In fact, it will probably annoy her further if she perceives him as feeling bad for her in any way. She’s already defensive, and when Trinity feels defensive then she gets twice as angry at whoever’s made her feel that way.
Then Langdon makes his worst mistake yet; he lays a hand on Trinity’s shoulder.
Dennis automatically winces on her behalf, knowing how much she hates unwanted touch, especially when it isn’t something that she’s anticipated.
Suddenly Dennis realises that he doesn’t have to be just a silent bystander, so he rushes forward to intervene in the situation. He reaches them at the exact same moment that Trinity reacts. Her other arm shoots out, fingers latching round Langdon’s wrist and pulling his hand off her in one sharp movement. But she doesn’t let go. No, she keeps ahold, twisting his arm until he grimaces from the pain.
“Alrigh, Trin,” Dennis says, warningly, “please don’t actually hurt him.”
Trinity jumps out of her skin at the sound of his soft voice, clearly not having noticed his presence beforehand. She considers his words - not letting go of Langdon’s wrist completely yet, but also not twisting it any further.
“There are enough injuries in the ER already.” Dennis points out, hoping this logic will reason with her. He doesn’t think that her reaction is wrong necessarily, but he’s worried that Dr Robby will definitely have something to say if she ends up hurting Langdon on his first day back.
“Fine.” Trinity bites out, as she relents and releases her hold.
Langdon stumbles back, looking wounded and a little confused. He’s probably taking this personally since he definitely doesn’t know Trinity well enough to realise that this is how she’d act with any guy who cornered her and then made it worse by reaching out and touching her. Then again, the fact that it’s Langdon who’s messed up probably doesn’t help matters. If it had been someone like Dr Robby, then she’d have reacted and then have quickly let go and apologised. But Langdon? The guy who still holds some power, who has already given her a reason to not trust him? Yep, that’s probably triggered Trinity worse than she’s letting on right now.
“Sorry.” Langdon mutters, belatedly. “I was just trying to get you to see that I really have changed, you know.”
“I don’t fucking care.” Trinity replies, harshly. Her anger is almost enough to distract Dennis from how her hand has curled into a trembling fist at her side. Almost.
“Leave me alone.” Trinity spits out.
Langdon doesn’t even try to argue, clearly realising that opening his mouth to say something is exceedingly unlikely to redeem him at all. His shoulders slump in dismay and he turns around before slowly walking out of the locker corner. Trinity’s eyes are trained on his back, watching his retreating figure intently.
“You alright?” Dennis asks, cautiously. Again, since he’s quite a tactile type of person, his instinct is to take a step forward and reach out, in an attempt to soothe and offer reassurance. He just about manages to resist this instinct. Stays standing right where he is instead, allowing her lots of space. She doesn’t relax at all, still holding herself like she’s ready for a fight.
“I don’t like you looking at me like that.” Trinity blurts out, eyes snapping to his face, her own expression twisting as she scowls at him fiercely. “I don’t need your fucking sympathy.”
“I wasn’t being sympathetic, I just wanted to check in with you. Maybe even ask if you’re alright?”
“Fuck off.”
“Kind of hard to do when we live in the same apartment.” Dennis reminds her. His ‘roommate’ status is no longer something tentative, because now he knows that he has a ‘friend’ status firmly fixed in place, so he’s no longer wary of her kicking him out when she’s annoyed.
Now, he’s started to understand that Trinity sometimes really needs the reminder that he isn’t about to abandon her just because she’s been mean towards him. She doesn’t need someone to argue with her, or push her to talk about it, she just needs someone to stay.
And so, that’s what Dennis does. He walks out of the building with her, careful to stay next to her, rather than trailing behind like he would around most people, knowing that right now she needs all approaching people to be in her line of sight.
When they reach the traffic lights, a harried looking woman, holding a shopping bag in one hand and clasping the hand of a little girl in the other stand, comes to be on Dennis’s right. So he switches, going in front of Trinity and stepping around her, so that he’s on her other side and she’s now standing next to the kid.
The little girl tilts her head up, brown eyes wide and curious in that way that children always seem to be. Trinity relaxes just a touch - exactly how Dennis expected she would - something loosening in her as she managed to muster up a small smile. The little girl smiles back, eyes sparkling with utter fascination as she stares up at Trinity. Dennis imagines that the little girl must be in awe of Trinity probably mostly due to her cool hair and earrings. And Trinity’s smile seems more genuine than it was before, eyes even becoming a little glassy as they look at each other. Dennis wonders if the kid reminds her of herself at all.
Suddenly, the green man on the traffic light flashes and the spell is immediately broken as music rings out for a few seconds, just enough time for the incoming car to come to a halt and the woman to rush across the road, tugging the child along with her. Dennis and Trinity cross the road too, but they have to go in the other direction.
Dennis keeps his eyes on the pavement, not wanting to see the way that Trinity’s face is shutting down again now that the little girl’s gone.
Children always seem to bring out the best in her; she’s incredibly gentle with them but also still treats them like normal human beings, asking them questions and properly listening to their answers. Like that one time when a little boy came in with a twisted ankle and told them, with the utmost seriousness, that the unicorn he’d been on had accidentally fallen over when he was riding it over a rainbow. Trinity had simply nodded, in a kind way, without a trace of amusement, and told him that she hoped that both he and the unicorn felt better soon. When the boy left a few hours later, Dennis noticed there was a unicorn sticker stuck to his cast, that the boy kept on glancing down at, a proud little grin lighting up his face.
Dennis glances over only to see that, yep, he was right. Trinity has raised both her hands so that her wrists are pressed against her forehead, in that way that she always does whenever she feels upset or stressed about something.
He decides not to say anything right at this moment and goes back to staring down at the cracked slabs of concrete in front of him instead.
When they finally get to the apartment, Trinity sticks her key in the lock, and shoves the door open with more force than necessary so that it opens too quickly and slams against the wall next to it.
She marches straight to her room to grab a change of clothes before heading into the bathroom to have a shower, where she’ll probably run the water hot enough to burn herself.
Dennis tidies up for a bit, before making them both dinner (a quick tomato curry) whilst listening to the mechanical whir of the hairdryer which echoes throughout the apartment.
Trinity seems to enjoy taking long showers, whether it’s some time during the day or the middle of the night. She must run the water hot enough to scorch her skin off. He can only guess the temperature, because when she finally emerges from her room, in a tank top and boxers, her skin is tinged pink and he can practically feel the heat radiating off her from all the way across the room.
He passes her a bowl of curry and she takes it from him, with a grunt in the way of thanks.
They both settle down on opposite sides of the sofa, with an uncomfortable amount of distance wedged in between them. Dennis doesn’t like it much, but he knows it isn’t up to him to change it right now. Once they’ve both finished and their dishes have been discarded onto the coffee table, Trinity gets up and heads to the bathroom (presumably to brush her teeth) so he stacks their plates, takes them over to the sink and loads them into the dishwasher. Then, he goes back to his room for about ten minutes in order to change into his pyjamas (comfy tracksuit bottoms and a soft, worn t-shirt) and do his teeth as well.
Finally, they meet back on the sofa. She sits down on the left, pressing into the sofa arm a bit, so he dutifully sticks to the right.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Dennis finally asks.
“No.” Trinity replies. Then she adds, “But if I don’t, then you’re going to do the sad boy special, aren’t you?”
Dennis feels his eyebrows drawing together in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“You know. The sad, long, puppy-dog-like stare. Or how you widen your eyes, forlornly, when you’re pathetically desperate for us to communicate properly with each other. That thing.”
Dennis blinks, faking innocence, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Sure.”
After that, they play the waiting game with each other. Dennis manages to stay quiet (a skill learned through living with older brothers) for long enough that Trinity is eventually the one who breaks first.
“I don’t know.” She says, letting out a tired huff of air, her forehead scrunching up like she’s trying to figure out how much she should say. “It doesn’t really matter. He got to close and put his hand there and I freaked out.” She shrugs, like she’s trying her best to dismiss herself. “It sucked. But I’m used to it.”
“You shouldn’t have to put up with that, though.”
Trinity picks at her nail beds. “Whatever. It’s not like I care, anyway.”
A small laugh slips from Dennis’ lips, unbidden.
Trinity looks up and fixes a glare on him. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing… it’s just-“ Dennis shakes his head, “I just think that you care a lot more than you want to. And I’m never quite sure whether to call you out on it or not.”
Trinity reaches over to flick his arm. Dennis pretends to be hurt, but doesn’t make any move to escape from her reach. And Trinity must pick up on this because she shifts, finally bridging the distance between them by laying her head on the cushion that he placed on top of his knees when he sat down, and stretching her limbs out, like a cat, across the rest of the sofa.
Since she’s initiated it first, Dennis knows that touch is alright now. He takes it as his cue to weave his fingers into her hair, gently working to undo the few, loose tangles that have formed at various points in the day. Then, when he’s done that, he just leaves both of his hands there, resting loosely beneath her head, fingers still weaved around strands of hair, because he knows she finds it grounding sometimes.
Trinity doesn’t move her head away at all, but what she does do is stick her hand out to the side, fumbling around the surface of the coffee table until she manages to grab the remote off it. She presses the buttons to turn it on, then starts to flick through the channels without once turning her head to look at them.
Eventually, she finds what she’s looking for and stops, putting the remote back down and shutting her eyes. It’s the documentary about music. The one which Whitaker had suggested last night, that had caused Trinity to roll her eyes and call him ‘boring’. And yet here she is; channel chosen, head resting in his lap, eyes closed.
Dennis has never told her this, but he really does appreciate how much Trinity seems to trust him. At the start, he’d been convinced that she hated his guts, but then she’d offered him a place to stay after barely a day of knowing him.
Then, once he’d moved in he remembers hearing through the thin walls how the chair moved across the floorboards, as she (assumably) moved it to keep her door securely closed. Now, though, that chair has moved back into the kitchen, and last weekend when Dennis offered to drill a lock into her door, she simply shook her head. Dennis had been confused, because although she doesn’t seem wary around him any longer, she still seems to care about security in general so he’s expected her to take him up on the offer.
Then again, maybe she’d rather have him be able to get in if something bad did happen. There was one time when he’d walked past her open bathroom door, only to notice that she was washing a bloody blade in the kitchen sink, with fresh cuts clear on both her arms. She’d been really angry at him at first, but then after she’d finally calmed down then they were actually able to talk about it a little. Trinity had told him about some of the darker thoughts that sometimes clouded her mind on bad days, whilst Dennis applied some antiseptic to her arm as gently as he possibly could, before he placed band aids over her recent cuts. She still hurts herself, he knows that. And he also knows that he can’t force her to stop, and that trying to do so will only result in her pushing him away. Therefore, he simply tries to be there for her, always ready to offer band aids and an ear to listen. And gradually she’s become a lot less wary about taking him up on this offer.
Somehow they’ve muddled through their friendship to where they’re at now; to the point where Trinity is comfortable enough to allow herself to fall asleep on him. Dennis honestly just feels so thankful that she feels able to place so much trust in him. It’s mutual too; he’d trust her with his life within a heartbeat.