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Baran let herself into Trinity's apartment. The key was on a key ring that Trinity gave her, with a little metal handstamped charm that read FUCK THE PATRIARCHY. She slipped it back into her pocket out of habit, as if someone might see it, even inside the quiet apartment. It's not that she disagreed with the statement — in fact, she felt a surge of affection every time she saw the keychain, ran her thumb over the grooves of the imprinted letters — it was just that she couldn't bring herself to be seen as the kind of person who carried around something that read FUCK. No matter the sentiment attached.
The lights were dim in the apartment. The curtains drawn. Trinity was on her couch, buried under blankets. She was awake at least, and fooling around on her phone. She set her phone facedown on her chest when she heard the door click shut, glanced over the couch's arm as Baran toed off her shoes at the door.
"You're supposed to be on shift," Trinity said.
"I am, technically," Baran replied. "I'll go back soon. It's just—you weren't answering my texts." She tried not to look too pointedly at the phone on Trinity's chest.
A strange light found its way into Trinity's gaze. People who didn't know better would guess that it was a sly sort of glee. It was actually something much more guarded. Hopeful. "You were worried about me."
Baran went into Trinity's kitchen, found a clean cup, and filled it with tap water.
"Of course I was," she said as she made her way back towards the couch.
Baran stroked her face softly, smoothed damp strands of hair away from her face.
"I brought you water," Baran said, her voice low. "You're still feverish. You need to stay hydrated."
Trinity had been complaining about not feeling well for days, really playing it up, too, whining, listless, and overall pathetic, but the fever had only started in earnest last night. Baran had felt the heat radiating off of her body lying next to her in bed. Sometime in the night, Trinity had migrated to her sagging corduroy couch. It didn't appear that she'd moved since, which was more than a little concerning.
Trinity shook her head as Baran brought the cup to her lips. Sipped it and spat it out, let it dribble down her chin, onto her t-shirt already damp with sweat.
"I need water," Trinity said. Baran brought the cup to her mouth again.
"This is water," she insisted. But Trinity tugged her chin away, petulant even as she was half delirious.
"Water," she croaked.
Baran sighed and set the glass down on the coffee table. Trinity shifted her legs to make room for Baran at the end of the couch. Baran settled in and pulled Trinity's feet into her lap.
Trinity made a little moaning sound and let her eyes close.
"I want to go home." Trinity's voice was small.
"Of course," Baran soothed. "Where's home to you?" She only knew vague details: something about the west coast, the ocean.
Trinity was quiet enough that Baran almost thought she had fallen asleep. But no: when Baran glanced over she saw that her eyes were open again, and she was staring hard into the middle distance. Baran didn't press further; she understood the longing for a home that she didn't know anymore, maybe had never known. She wasn't sure that that was the nature of Trinity's quiet, exactly, but she guessed she might not be so far off.
"What would make here feel more like home?" She asked instead.
—
Baran let the water run cold before filling the tub. It made her nervous, running a bath so cold, far too cold, really, but Trinity had insisted.
Trinity appeared in the doorway, face pale and drawn. She was clutching a box of table salt with both hands. She shuffled over to the tub's edge and dumped the entire box into the water.
"I could pick up Epsom salt for you," Baran watched her as she set the emptied box down onto the tile and dipped her fingertips into the water, testing.
"This is better," Trinity said, voice still rough. She stepped into the tub with her clothes on and sank down until the water touched her chin. Her shirt clung to her, translucent. Tiny bubbles silvered her bare skin where it was underwater.
"I can't let you stay in there long," Baran said. She was already searching for signs: shivering, blue lips, even though she knew hypothermia wouldn't settle in quite so quickly.
Trinity looked up at her, hands still swirling the water softly. "I'm fine," she told Baran. "You can leave me here."
Baran shook her head. She wanted to touch Trinity's face, prove that she was already too cold, prove that she had to get out immediately. "Out of the question."
Trinity considered this, then bent her knees so that she could slide her body until her entire face slipped under the water. It was only a few seconds before surfaced again, but watching her go under had made Baran's heart hammer.
Trinity wiped the water out of her eyes and looked up at her with a look that was so existentially exhausted.
"In my bedroom, top drawer" she said, and it took Baran a second to realize she was receiving instructions. "There's something there that might help." Her eyes flashed then with familiar mischief. "Don't go looking through the rest of my stuff like a perv. You'll find exactly what you might expect."
"What am I looking for?"
Trinity gave a little shrug that translated to ripples in the bath water. "It'll be easier to explain once you find it. You'll know what it is."
Baran was familiar with Trinity's room as a place to sleep and a place to fuck. She knew the basic geography: she could feel for the switch on the bedside lamp in the dark with reasonable precision, she knew that the drawer in the same bedside table held the toys, the lube. But she'd never lingered in the space before, looked at the detritus of Trinity's life (mostly blurry polaroids and hair elastics). She'd certainly never gone through Trinity's dresser.
She pulled open the top drawer, as Trinity had instructed. It was a sock drawer, mostly, but next to the balled up basic crew socks was a folded animal fur. Baran lifted it out of the drawer gently. It was surprisingly heavy.
Trinity's eyes were liquid as they watched Baran return carrying the pelt in her hands. She looked absolutely terrified.
"I don't usually let people touch it." Baran tried to hand it to her then, so that she could stop holding it. So that maybe Trinity might stop looking so scared. Trinity took it from her and hugged it to her chest, the chestnut fur turning slick and shiny where it touched the water. The fur was soft leaving Baran's fingers; it left a briny smell on her hands.
"It's a pelt?"
Trinity squeezed it tighter. "Sealskin. California sea lion. It's…mine."
Baran nodded, sat down on the closed toilet seat lid. "It's beautiful," she said, because it seemed like the right thing to say.
But the look Trinity gave her was hard. "You aren't getting what I'm saying. It's mine," she repeated. "It's my skin."
Baran nodded again, but she understood in that moment that Trinity was right: she didn't get what Trinity was trying to tell her, only that the moment seemed monumental, a confession.
"I think the fever's because it's been too long," Trinity said. Tears welled in her eyes then, spilled down her wet cheeks. Saltwater meeting saltwater. "No, I know that it's because it's been too long. I just—" her voice hitched and snagged on a sob, "I can't put it on anymore."
She held the pelt up then, dripping over the edge of tub, for Baran to see. There was a large slash through the fur, a cut so clean it had to have come from a sharp knife or straight razor. Baran touched the sliced open edges with her fingertips.
"How'd this happen?" Baran asked, Trinity didn't answer, just kept swiping away at the tears trailing down her face.
She reached for the pelt again. "May I?"
Trinity nodded sullenly, but Baran still had to coax it gently out of her grip. She examined the cut more closely, then looked back to Trinity.
"I have to get back," she said, "but can I take this with me? I think I can fix it."
Trinity looked scared again. "You'll bring it back?" Her voice was barely a whisper.
"Trinity, of course I'll bring it back," Baran told her. "What would I do with a sealskin?"
Trinity seemed to realize something then. She laid back down in the tub, water lapping her chin again. She nodded. "Okay."
"Just promise me one thing," Baran said as she turned to leave, the sealskin draped carefully over one arm. "Get out of that tub soon."
—
Trinity was still in the tub when Baran returned, gym duffel slung over one shoulder. She looked up at Baran with glassy eyes.
"You came back," she croaked. Baran realized then just how awful Trinity must have felt while she was away: adrift on feverish thoughts and afraid that Baran might not actually come back, that her pelt might be gone forever.
"I came back," Baran echoed softly. "And I have something for you."
She reached into her gym bag and pulled out the sealskin, dry now, and held it out to Trinity, who reached for it with pale, pruned fingers.
She ran her hands lovingly over the fur. Her searching fingertips found Baran's work immediately: a tidy line of sutures.
Trinity looked up at her, searchingly. "Do you think this might work?"
Baran thought the sutures could hold up to a fair amount of tension (she had good technique), so she nodded.
Trinity considered this, then held out her hand to Baran. "Help me up."
Baran took her hand and pulled Trinity upright and supported her as she stepped out of the tub. Her skin was cool now to the touch, but Baran sensed that the fever still lingered underneath.
Trinity stood there, dripping onto the tile, clutching her mended sealskin.
"Um," she said. She seemed suddenly self-conscious. "It might be weird if you watch."
But Baran didn't want to leave Trinity alone again, not when she was too ill to get out of the bathtub on her own, too ill to take care of herself properly. She told Trinity as much. She didn't add that she was also curious.
"Okay," Trinity said, a little doubtfully. Then she drew in a breath, peeled off her wet, clinging clothes and, naked, slipped into the skin.
Baran watched, stunned, as Trinity's body winched forward to make a new shape.
Baran knew, distantly, that she was somehow not reacting to Trinity's transformation. That, outwardly, she was maintaining the same professional calm with which she dealt with blood and viscera and life-changing injuries. But on the inside her thoughts were a roiling counterpoint to her calm. What the fuck? She thought. What the fuck? What the actual fuck?
She was trapped in Trinity's bathroom with a six-foot long sea lion. A sea lion that, as far as her senses could be trusted, was Trinity. It had Trinity's eyes, startling in an animal face. And, yes, there it was: the line of sutures.
Baran wasn't familiar with sea lion anatomy but, if she were to guess, the wound that she had closed lay right over the heart.
Trinity barked loudly and the sound made Baran jump. She scrambled backwards out of the bathroom and pulled the door closed.
She kept moving backwards until her back met the wall across from the bathroom door. Baran realized that her heart was hammering. She was frozen, panic pinning her in place.
What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck?
There was a wet, crunching sound. A soft thump. Then silence.
Then: "Baran?" Trinity's voice was muffled through the door. Baran opened her mouth to answer but her words had run dry.
"Shit," Trinity swore, "Fuck. I tried to tell you. I—Fuck."
Baran's better instincts told her to just leave. Go home. Sleep the day off. Maybe check in with Trinity tomorrow. Maybe check her own temperature. Maybe she'd caught something too, was delirious, hallucinating.
Trinity cracked the bathroom door open. Her hair was wet, slicked back from her face. Her face, Baran noticed, had a little bit of its colour back.
Trinity opened the door a little wider when she realized that Baran was still there. Beyond Trinity (who was definitely naked) Baran could see the seal pelt puddled on the tile floor, wet and glistening, next to the pile of wet clothes Trinity had worn in the bath.
"Let me try and explain again. Better this time," Trinity looked down at her bare feet. "If I didn't freak you out too much."
Baran cleared her throat, tried to line up her words just right. "Freaked out doesn't begin to describe what I'm feeling," her voice came out strained. "But I'd love a proper explanation."
"Yeah," Trinity said. "I'll order in something. It might take a while to, um, get through everything."
She padded over to the couch to find her phone. "I'm thinking sushi?"
Baran couldn't be certain of her expression, but she supposed she must have looked appalled because Trinity immediately laughed awkwardly and muttered to herself.
"Too soon? Yeah, too soon. I'll think of something else."