Chapter Text
Holtzmann had kept the nightmares at bay several nights ago, simply by being there and holding her close as she had slept; since she figured though that, going up to the engineer every time she had bad dreams wasn’t quite an option, not wanting to end up being a burden, she gave her best to just ignore the nightmares, even when she woke up in a cold sweat and with tears on her cheeks.
And after her run-in with Halverstrum, the nightmares only got worse, no matter if she slept at her home or at the headquarter.
She tried to handle them on her own, for the first three nights after the event; on the fourth night though, the nightmare was so bad that she woke up trembling all over, her heart racing in her chest, tears streaming down her cheeks as she laid in the darkness, staring up into the darkness, not quite able to spot the high ceiling of the HQ in the dark.
For a while, Erin just laid there, trying to get her heartrate and breathing under control; and as she laid there, she heard the soft music from the second floor, and even though she was still worried that Holtzmann might get annoyed by this nightly neediness, she couldn’t help herself, but suddenly just knew that she had to go up there, that Holtzmann’s mere presence would be enough to make it better.
And so, she got up from the couch she had fallen asleep on shortly after she had given up working for the day; she made her way upstairs, not bothering to try being quiet, figuring that, if Holtzmann heard her come upstairs, she wouldn’t startle her when she’d enter her workshop, and at least, this little plan worked out, the engineer looking at the doorway curiously, alarm replacing the curiousness though when she saw that it was Erin and took a closer look at her face.
“Erin”, she said, before the physicist could say something, carelessly tossing her tools onto the table and coming to her feet, making Erin wonder how bad she actually had to look, “you okay? What happened?”
“Bad dream”, Erin mumbled in response, fighting the urge to look away from her face and down at the floor, “it was… really bad this time, then I heard the music and decided to come up here… If this is a bad time, I can go back downstairs…”
“What, no”, Holtzmann gave back, already moving to the couch and gesturing at her to join her, prompting her to move over and sit down next to her, “come on, you’re never coming at a bad time.”
Erin smiled weakly at that, allowing herself to lean into the engineer when she put one arm around her shoulders; it reminded her of how she had done exactly this at the fancy event, and of how she had come to her rescue just when she had needed it, and all at once, she couldn’t hold back the words anymore, even though she had been determined to never speak in detail about what had been done to her, somehow convinced that acknowledging it this way would only make it worse.
“They got worse again”, she began, in a low, small voice, barely noticing how Holtzmann pulled her closer, “after… after I ran into Halverstrum. He was one of the worst, you know, one of the popular guys, and… I don’t know, he got his kicks out of making his buddies laugh by bullying others. Me, a lot, and others, too, but I think I was one of his primary targets. And when I saw him there, and he grinned at me like that, just like he did when he’d shove me into lockers or insult me… I don’t know, it all came back. Even more than it usually does.”
“That guy is a dick”, Holtzmann declared in response, perhaps not the most tactful answer, but it had the effect she’d been hoping for – Erin let out a gasp, then smiled a bit, looking much less depressed about her own words than she had a few seconds ago.
“You know”, the physicist mumbled after a few seconds had ticked by, “what made it worse, I think, was that he just… laughed it off. He called me ghost girl, as if it was some sort of inside joke between us, and then didn’t get it when I wasn’t overjoyed to see him.”
“Guys like him never get it”, Holtzmann told her, and the way she said it told Erin she was speaking from experience, an impression the engineer confirmed moments later as she continued, sounding a bit thoughtful now, so much unlike her usual confident that tone that immediately, Erin was at the same time intrigued and just a little bit frightened, wondering if Holtzmann ever had told these things to anyone else before.
“You know”, the blonde was saying, still looking at her, but at the same time appearing distant, “I’ve been there. Pretty much like you, I guess, except there were no ghost girl insults, but plenty others. Guess I gave them ample ammunition, being the weird geek girl who dressed weirdly and enjoyed math, taking things apart and blowing stuff up. Not to mention being gay, I guess that is a given.”
She paused for a moment, and Erin reached out and grasped her hand, reminding her that she was there with her and listening; Holtzmann gave her a brief smile, then spoke on at last, not happy to be speaking about this, but figuring that it might help Erin to know that she wasn’t alone with her painful past.
“And, well”, she thus said, “there was this one guy, I guess he was my version of Halver-what’s-his-face. Shoving into lockers, wedgies, one time he actually shoved me into the toilet. I ran into him shortly after I’d started working with Abby, at the hardware store, of all places, and he acted as if we’d been best friends in high school. As if he never did anything wrong.”
“That guy is as much of a dick as Halverstrum”, Erin told her, smiling at the sort Holtzmann let out in reply, a twinkle of amusement back in her eyes when she looked at the redhead.
“Why, Dr Gilbert”, she the stated, shaking her head, “such language from your mouth, I’m shocked.”
“I could have said something worse”, Erin pointed out, earning a low chuckle, “but I decided to make use of your wording. And… thank you for telling me this, I can tell it wasn’t easy and it means a lot that you told me anyway.”
“Same”, Holtzmann told her, earning another smile; she smiled back at her, then asked if Erin wanted to spend the rest of the night up here on the couch, not surprised the slightest when the redhead nodded immediately.
“Um, could you”, she then started, blushing a lovely shade of red which made Holtzmann’s heart skip a beat, “you know… Like last time?”
“Be the big spoon again”, Holtzmann clarified, smirking when Erin’s blush deepened in response while she nodded; at the same moment, she realized that she was still holding Holtzmann’s hand, but found it strangely difficult to let go of her all at once, even though she knew that she’d have to, at the latest when they’d go to sleep.
“Sure”, the engineer said, distracting her from her thoughts, “no problem. Did it help last time?”
“Much”, Erin told her, impossibly blushing even more; Holtzmann just smiled at her, for once not making some sort of flirty remark, but simply asked if she wanted to go to sleep right away.
“Kind of, yeah”, Erin admitted, feeling tired again now after all this serious talking, “unless you want to get some more work done first, I can help you out…?”
“Nah”, Holtzmann replied at once, “it’s okay, I was about to go to sleep, anyway. Just let me switch off the music and change into something more comfortable.”
The physicist nodded at that, and after giving her another smile, Holtzmann, to her dismay, pulled her hand back; she vanished into the adjoining small room where she kept a bunch of her stuff not related to work, emerging again not even a minute later though, dressed in a wide, comfy looking shirt, the faded colours and threadbare patches showing that she’d been owning it for a few years – and no pants, Erin noted with another flush, the boxers Holtzmann was wearing looking just as soft and comfy as her shirt.
“Hope you don’t mind the lack of pants”, Holtzmann stated as she walked back to the couch, holding back the urge to raise an eyebrow when, as if in response, Erin checked out her legs quite unabashedly, deciding not to comment on it, “but I don’t really do pyjama pants, so I don’t have any.”
“It’s okay”, Erin reassured her, even though the thought of sleeping next to a practically half-naked Holtzmann made her heart race; she hoped that the engineer wouldn’t notice as she moved to lie on her side, in the perfect position to be spooned, and immediately, Holtzmann joined her, the physicist relaxing at once the moment she could feel the smaller woman’s arm drape itself over her waist.
“Thanks”, she mumbled as she got comfortable, all at once so tired that she was sure she’d be fast asleep within a minute, “you’re the best, Holtz.”
“No biggie”, the engineer reassured her, “sleep well, Erin.”
She let out a vaguely agreeing noise in response, already half asleep… and as she drifted off, she wondered if she had dreamed Holtzmann tenderly kissing the top of her head, or if it really had happened, still wondering about this as she went off to dreamland fully.
She was back at the event, and that was not really surprising, she had gone back to these moments over and over in the past nights; and even though she knew that she was dreaming, she couldn’t control it, dread filling her as she just knew what would come next. Halverstrum would be there again, and he’d make fun of her, call her ghost girl and shove her; and the other people around would laugh at her, they would all laugh at her, chant ghost girl, ghost girl at her, tell her that the whole thing hadn’t been real, but just one big prank to make her look stupid and get her fired from her job, and soon she’d be penniless and homeless in the streets.
And there he was, right on cue, smiling cruelly at her, the smile she had seen so often after his shoulder had oh so casually rammed her into the nearest locker or into the wall next to her; he opened his mouth, and just then, she felt a strong, comforting arm move around her shoulders, and Holtzmann was there, like she had been for real when she had needed her the most.
As if she needed a reminder that this was a dream and not really happening, Holtzmann made finger guns at Halverstrum, and he vanished with an audible pop; she just had to look at the others, and they vanished, too, and quite soon, they were alone in the large banquet hall.
“There”, the engineer said, “that’s better. No more ghosts.”
“They were ghosts?” Erin asked, feeling surreal, but figuring that this made sense, seeing that it was a dream and all; oddly solemn, Holtzmann nodded, turning to face her, the room around them vanishing until they stood in a lightless, featureless void, but Erin wasn’t scared, knowing there was no reason to be as long as Holtzmann was with her.
“They were”, the engineer told her, her tone as solemn as her features, “ghosts from our past. We don’t need them anymore.”
“No, we don’t”, Erin agreed, and then, without any sort of preamble, they were kissing, and Holtzmann was pulling down the zipper on the back of her dress and she unbuttoned the blonde’s shirt quickly and then opened her pants and slid her hand inside, just as Holtzmann moved one hand beneath her dress, as well, and it was what she had been wanting for so long, and it was wonderful and good and right…
…and when she woke up with a gasp, her heart was racing in her chest, not with fear this time, but with a distinctively more pleasant emotion, and the sweat on her brow and palms hadn’t been caused by terror, either.
She laid perfectly still, feeling Holtzmann snuggled up to her back, the engineer’s breaths pleasantly warm on her neck; her arm was still resting on her waist, and in her slumber, she had draped one leg over the redhead’s, making her somewhat glad that she didn’t need to get up, since doing so would have been quite impossible without waking her up.
Jesus, Erin, she thought to herself, all too aware of Holtzmann so close to her, you had a sex dream. About Holtzmann. Well, it was better than a nightmare… Way better actually.
“Hmmm”, Holtzmann let out behind her, and she froze, suddenly sure that she had spoken out loud without realizing and Holtzmann had heard; then, the engineer let out a snore, unwittingly signalling to the physicist that she was still fast asleep.
Thank God, Erin thought, allowing herself to relax again; she was quite aware that she was attracted to the engineer, and had come to terms with it, too, to her own surprise quite skilfully avoiding any gay panic, but she certainly didn’t want Holtzmann to find out like this.
“Hmm”, Holtzmann repeated her previous noise, making her wonder if now, perhaps the engineer was having a nightmare, if talking about her high school time had brought the memories back enough to fuel one; then, the blonde mumbled something else, and Erin froze again, for an entirely different reason though.
“Erin”, Holtzmann was murmuring, at the same time tightening her embrace around her just enough to let her notice; it had just been a single word, but the tone with which she had said it…
Oh my God, Erin realized, freezing yet again, her heart seeming to pause for a moment before it began racing at triple speed, she’s dreaming of me. And judging from how she sounds, her dream’s not PG-rated, either.
She could just ignore this, she knew, and go back to sleep; any mutual feelings which might be between them perhaps shouldn’t be explored in the middle of the night, and certainly not after they’d both had rather… adult dreams about each other.
The rational thing to do, Erin knew, would be to wait until the next day, at least, or until a moment more well-suited than this situation would present itself; and she was a physicist, she was rational and logical, and so of course she did the most illogical thing her mind could come up with.
She turned on the couch and coughed to wake Holtzmann up, and it worked.
“Wha”, the engineer let out, blinking at her sleepily, simultaneously, to her dismay, pulling her leg back, “whaisit? Everything okay?”
“Oh yes”, Erin reassured her, endeared by her sleepy rambling, “it’s just… well, I woke up, not from a nightmare, and you were talking in your sleep.”
It was night, and dark, but some light from the street lamps outside filters in through the window, and by now her eyes got used to the dark, and so she could actually see that Holtzmann’s ears turned red.
“I was?” the blonde said, trying hard to sound nonchalant and failing miserably, “really? I hope that wasn’t what woke you up.”
“No”, Erin told her, “I woke up before I heard you. You must have been having quite the… interesting dream though.”
The emphasis she put on interesting was bold enough so even Holtzmann’s half-asleep brain registered it; the redness of her ears was joined by the flush creeping up her neck and to her cheeks, and she nervously began picking at the hem of her shirt, suddenly all too aware of the way Erin was looking at her.
“Um, you know”, she tried to talk herself out of it, beginning to sweat as she tried to figure out what she might have said – it must have been something juicy, because Erin looked amused and maybe a bit intrigued, too, but at least, Holtzmann reasoned with herself, she didn’t look freaked out, “I can’t really… remember.”
That had been fantastically lame, but she blamed that on being still half asleep; she could remember all too well, in fact, and her heart only now began to slow down from the dream’s excitement, but she certainly wouldn’t tell Erin that, not as long as she didn’t know what she actually had said.
“Really”, Erin gave back, sounding sceptical and giving her reason to wonder if she really was that bad of a liar – probably, she then realized, since she hardly ever lied to anyone, always having been told that she tended to be too brutally honest, “that’s a shame. Maybe I can help you refresh your memory.”
And with that, Erin leaned in, just a tiny bit – they were so close to each other, she didn’t need to move more than an inch, really – and pressed her lips to Holtzmann’s; if anyone had asked her what had possessed her in this very moment, she would’ve been forced to admit that she had no idea, but it felt like the right thing to do, and for once, she ignored her normally pretty good impulse control, giving in to that one certain impulse fully instead, and knowing it had been the right thing to do when immediately, without a moment of hesitation, Holtzmann kissed her back.
The engineer’s brain went from half asleep into overdrive within the blink of an eye, along with her heartrate; and it only got worse – or perhaps, better – when Erin moved one hand to entangle in her hair, and the other slid around her waist, beneath her shirt, coming to a tender rest on her back, heat radiating from where Erin’s palm pressed against her skin.
“Erin”, she brought out when the physicist pulled back, at first for air, then to bend her head a little so she could start kissing along her jawline to the sensitive skin of her throat, her hand simultaneously sliding from her back – leaving a trail of fire – to her front, to her chest, oh my God Erin Gilbert was touching her breasts; she had been planning to ask if she was sure about this, or if she just felt she had to, for some strange reason, but the feeling of Erin touching her, actually pinching her nipple between her index finger and thumb, blew all coherent thought out of her mind.
She had been fantasizing about this for so long, practically from the moment she had seen Erin for the first time, and had dreamed about it, and now it was happening, it was happening for real, it was not a dream, and she felt so turned on, she feared that might explode the moment Erin actually would touch her further south.
A little huff of dismay came from her when she felt Erin stop trail her tongue over her neck; before she could voice a complaint though, the physicist was kissing her again, deeply and with quite the passion, and she couldn’t hold back a moan, a moan muffled by Erin’s mouth, but still the redhead clearly had heard it, since Holtzmann could feel her smile slightly against her lips.
And then, Erin’s hand did go further south, and for a while, Holtzmann’s brain went into standby, shorting out completely at the things the physicist was doing to her, the world around them, even the room they were in forgotten as Erin and her touch and kiss was all she could focus on.
Afterwards, they both just laid there in comfortable silence for a while, Erin’s head resting on Holtzmann’s shoulder; they both basked in the afterglow of what they had done together, tired and satisfied, even though Holtzmann felt that simply thinking back to how Erin had moaned her name when she had started touching her, as well, would be enough to get her all worked up again within a moment.
“Wow”, Erin finally was the one to break the silence, craning her neck so she could look at the blonde’s face, feeling oddly proud at the look of tired content she found there, “I’m really glad I didn’t think about it when I had the idea to kiss you, but just did it.”
“Ha”, Holtzmann let out, making the physicist giggle, “so am I, believe me. I think you broke me, you know, my legs are all trembly.”
“Good thing we don’t have to get up anytime soon then”, Erin commented, snuggling up to her again and letting out a small sigh when she felt Holtzmann move one hand to caress her hair, “and can, in fact, get some more rest. Oh, speaking of rest, did you remember your dream?”
“Who cares about that when the real thing is so much better”, Holtzmann replied dismissively, realizing too late that she just had given away the contents of her dream without meaning to; Erin giggled, showing that she had picked up on it, her eyes sparkling when she looked at her again, a smile curling her lips as she replied, the coy tone in her voice making the engineer feel tingly all over again.
“Is that so”, the redhead wanted to know, “so much better, huh?”
“Way better”, Holtzmann reassured her, then moved them both a bit so she could kiss her; it was a tender and loving kiss this time, far from the passionate ones they had exchanged earlier, and it made them both feel warm and fuzzy inside, neither of them unable to stop grinning when they pulled apart again.
“And, you know”, the engineer then went on, idly playing with a strand of Erin’s hair, “not that I minded, far from it, in fact, but… what exactly brought this on?”
“Oh, you know”, Erin replied lightly, the coyness now replaced with a hint of mischief, finding the time for another brief kiss before she continued, her words making Holtzmann smirk knowingly, and making the redhead blush even though she knew it was nothing to be embarrassed about, certainly not after the things they had done together just minutes go.
“I had a dream, too.”