Chapter Text
Today was the day. It was Christmas Eve and Erin had a theory. She had figured out a way to put that theory to the test, but today was the only day to do so, and, like most instances in her life, she was getting nervous.
Over the past couple of months Erin had come to two realizations, the first being that she liked girls. She liked them in the soft, snuggly, lovey way, where the idea of spending an evening curled up on the couch with a girl watching Netflix and cuddling made her feel giggly and tingly in a way she’s never felt before. She also liked them in the hot, steamy, sexy way, where the notion of being pressed up against a wall, passionately kissed, and touched by a woman made her see stars. She was very attracted to women.
Her second realization came to her much more abruptly. About a week after realizing her attraction to the same sex, still barely even admitting it to herself, she was slammed with the image of Holtzmann in her underwear. She had made her way upstairs to the third floor of the firehouse to do a load of laundry, when she found the blonde standing in front of the washing machine in a black sports bra and rainbow boxers, staring at her phone.
She let out the tinest gasp and almost dropped her laundry basket when the engineer turned to face her, “Hey Gilbert,” she smiled, as if being half naked in front of her colleagues was a normal occurrence for her.
“H-hey Holtz… Um, why… why are you in… your… why are you… like that?”
Holtzmann looked down, almost as though she had forgotten, “Oh! Funny story, I was working on some new ectoplasm preservation methods, and one of the chemicals I was using spilled on my clothes. What a ding-a-ling, right?” she laughed, “It’s a harmless chemical, but I was wearing my favorite X-Files shirt, so I wanted to get it all in the wash before the stains set in.”
“Ohhh, okay…” Erin responded, trying to keep her eyes focused on anything but Holtzmann’s breasts. Or her stomach. Or her arms. Or her butt.
“Did you wanna toss your stuff in with mine?”
“Oh, sure! Thanks,” Erin said, noticing she was still awkwardly standing in the doorway holding her basket. Holtz opened the washing machine for her and she tossed in all her clothes.
She was about to go back downstairs to her desk and take a breath for the first time in five whole minutes when Holtzmann said, “Oh, wait! Come here, I wanna show you something!” The blonde hopped up and sat on the washing machine and motioned for Erin to come sit next to her as she pulled her phone back out.
Erin sat next to Holtz, the vibrations of the washing machine doing nothing to help her feel less aroused, when the engineer pulled up a video of a cat, “He’s wearing little booties!” She cackled loudly.
Erin was attracted to Holtzmann. Big time.
It wasn’t just point-blank attraction either. After about two months of secretly gawking at the blonde, she had also come to recognize that her fascination with her colleague had blossomed into a full-fledged crush. And it was major. She didn’t know how to approach any of this. Here she was silently suffering every time the engineer moved or spoke or breathed, but what was she supposed to do?
Surely, she couldn’t tell Holtzmann how she felt, because that would be inappropriate. They worked together. If the outcome was poor, then she had just ruined both a work relationship and a friendship. A best friendship! This was where her theory would come into play.
Erin was sitting at her desk this Christmas Eve morning with a sprig of mistletoe in her hand. Her theory being that if she could just get Holtz and herself into a situation where they might be forced to kiss, i.e. mistletoe, then one thing might lead to another and she might find out that Holtz feels the same way about her. On the flip side, if they kiss and nothing stems from it, she’ll feel a little bit more capable of moving on at the very least.
Holtz had been up in the lab all night long, fixing one of the proton pistols that had gotten severely smashed up during their last bust. On days when the blonde had pulled an all-nighter she would usually force herself to get breakfast around 9am, so Erin knew that she had at least 20 minutes to hang her mistletoe and finally test her theory. She decided that the most convenient spot would be the entranceway to the kitchen, so she grabbed a thumbtack from her desk and got to it.
…
She studied the little sprig that was now dangling overhead, praying that this plan would work. Holtz was going home for the holidays later this evening, so she figured this would be her only shot. Her heart skipped a beat when she heard Holtzmann’s music stop. Here we go, she thought to herself. She hurried over to the kitchen table to grab her mug of coffee, and then sprinted back to the kitchen entranceway, leaning her body against the wall in a way that she hoped looked cool and casual.
She sipped her coffee as Holtzmann made her way out of the lab and downstairs, “Hey Holtz,” Erin smiled, nervously, as the blonde reached the last step.
“Hey, E,” the engineer smiled back, as she walked into the kitchen and opened the freezer.
Erin felt a little deflated, seeing that the blonde didn’t immediately start climbing all over her, but she shook her head and told herself that Holtzmann was probably so tired that she couldn’t even think straight. Of course she wouldn’t notice a tiny little branch hanging from the ceiling. She was going to give it another moment or two before she said something about it herself.
“How’s the proton pistol coming along?” Erin asked.
“She's almost done,” Holtz smiled sleepily back at the physicist, as she popped two Eggo waffles into the toaster, “One of the charge ports still isn’t connecting properly, and the trigger doesn’t seem to be functioning correctly either. It’s giving me some lag,” she yawned, “so I just have to fix those things and then the rest of this wonderful holiday can be spent doing wonderful holiday things!”
Erin felt butterflies at the sight of the blonde yawning and rubbing her tired eyes. It was a sight she’d seen a million times before, having spent countless long days and nights at the firehouse with the girls, but now, of course, it made her feel new, peculiar feelings.
Just when Erin was going to make another move to guide Holtz’s attention to the mistletoe, Abby and Patty erupted through the front door, gusts of cold wind following, “Whew! It’s really comin’ down out there!” Patty yelled.
Erin whipped around to find her friends stripping themselves of their winter layers when Abby said, “The weather lady on the radio said that it could be going down to negative 30 tonight! We might be getting, like, 6 feet of snow!”
“Eh, I’ve seen worse,” Holtz said, as she danced around the kitchen, humming ‘Last Christmas’.
“Ahhh, my zipper’s stuck, Erin could you help me really quick? I can’t move in this thing,” Abby said, struggling to get her coat off.
“Sure!” Erin set her mug down and moved from her spot, over toward the front door.
Meanwhile, the toaster popped, signaling to Holtzmann that her waffles were done, so she grabbed them, plopped them on a paper plate and made her way back over to the kitchen entranceway.
“Oh hey! Someone stuck some mistletoe up here!” Patty said, as she meandered out of the foyer and towards the kitchen, still shaking some snow out of her hair, “Holtzy, get over here and give Patty some sugar!”
“Here I come, Pattycakes!” Holtz bopped over toward the taller woman, waffles in hand, and reached up on her tiptoes, planting a big kiss on Patty’s cheek.
Erin practically gaped in disbelief. How had her plan taken such an unexpected turn? It was foolproof, there was only one step: Get Holtz under the mistletoe. But, there went her kiss, snatched away by somebody else. How could she not have taken external factors into account? Always plan for extraneous variables, Erin.
“Okay, ladies, I hate to kiss and run, but I have an incredibly stubborn, incredibly unfinished proton pistol calling my name. See you guys in a few hours!” Holtzmann took a bite of one of her waffles, saluted her friends, and dashed up the stairs.
“Um, Erin?” Abby waved a mitten clad hand in front of the physicist’s face, and Erin realized that she had been virtually frozen for about 45 seconds, “Honey, I hate to interrupt whatever’s going on in your noggin, but I’m suffocating over here…”
“Oh! Right, sorry,” the redhead continued fiddling with her friends’ zipper.
Erin was going to need a new plan, and fast.