Work Text:
It starts with a mattress.
Because after a certain point, Erin is almost convinced Holtzmann just lives in the ever-growing, creature-like tower of contraptions in her lab. Erin doesn’t go up there all that much, but she’s noticed the metal slab in the corner usually has a suspiciously stained blanket and several items of Holtzmann’s wardrobe thrown across it, so she’s pretty sure that’s what the situation is.
Erin knows Holtzmann isn’t exactly typical in many respects, but back pain is universal and carrying proton packs around all day does its damage – Holtzmann absolutely cannot be comfortable if that’s what she’s sleeping on, if she’s sleeping at all.
The problem is, Holtzmann is also wildly unpredictable and Erin isn’t entirely sure she’d react well to being told she needs to sleep in a real bed no matter the reasoning behind it.
It gets harder and harder not to say something, though, because she hears Holtzmann’s boots stomping around upstairs even as Erin herself starts to stay later to test out her new hypothesis.
Conclusion, regardless of her sleeping habits: Holtzmann is definitely not leaving the lab enough.
Something large and metal slams down on the desk in front of her. Erin shrieks, then throws a quick, embarrassed look to Kevin to make sure he hasn’t noticed her distinct lack of composure as Holtzmann herself leans against the table next to her.
“He got the hole punch stuck in a binder about three minutes ago, he hasn’t seen a thing since,” Holtzmann says, looking at Kevin with a gentle, bewildered fondness. Erin tucks her hair behind her ears, about to tell the triangle of skin between Holtzmann’s overalls and the hem of her shirt that she wasn’t checking out anything of the sort, but then she’s confronted with Holtzmann’s still-goggled face right in her own.
Holtzmann is always brimming with the energy of a beehive and her eyes are always sparkling with something, but the more Erin has gotten to know her the more she’s been able to discern the differences between her moods. When Holtzmann has invented something she turns a little manic in her excitement to show it off, but when she’s fixed something there’s an almost childlike delight in her that Erin can feel coming off her in waves right now.
“New trapper,” she says in a near whisper, inches from Erin’s nose.
“What?” Erin replies, still half-concentrating on both Kevin and the line Holtzmann’s bottom lip makes as it curves around into a dimpled smile.
“For ghosts,” Holtzmann says, her enunciation aggressive, as though Erin has just come out of a bunker and knows nothing of what they’ve been doing the past six months. “I fixed it up.”
Erin can’t reply to any of that, because Holtzmann zips off on a tangent that Erin can barely follow – she’s never met someone whose mind works as fast as her mouth, but Holtzmann is damn close even as she clenches every word hard between her teeth. Erin only just catches up by the time she’s procured a crowbar from somewhere inside her overalls. Holtzmann, still jabbering, bangs neatly on one part of the trapper so a piece falls off, coating them both in… ectoplasm.
“Holtzmann!”
She’s never going to be rid of the stuff.
“Sorry Gilbert, I mustn’t’a cleaned it out properly after I gave it a test run, let me just--come upstairs, I found a pretty good way of getting it out of hair the other day.”
Holtzmann grabs Erin undaintily by the elbow and pulls her upstairs, sitting her right on the exact metal slab Erin has been staring disdainfully at for the past two weeks. She was correct: no human person should sleep on this surface.
She wants to ask Holtzmann about it, she’s bursting to, but Holtzmann ruins her train of thought by dousing her in a sweet-smelling powder and then running her fingers delicately over the spots on Erin’s face, shoulder, and hair where the ectoplasm recently splattered.
Holtzmann this close smells like engine oil, like gunpowder and the reminder of cloves, a smell that sits in the back of Erin’s nose and invites her closer. Holtzmann’s fingers, calloused and burned from building and tinkering, are surprisingly tender where they’re running over her scalp, and Erin forgets for a moment what they’re doing here. As she does with everything, Holtzmann hums and murmurs under her breath – Erin’s learned they’re not noises for her, they’re just Holtz’s brain working things out the best way it knows how.
“What is this stuff?” Erin asks, testing some of the powder between her fingers.
“Cake mix,” Holtzmann replies, and Erin is sure she’s misheard her.
“Cake… mix?”
“Mmmhmm yes,” Holtzmann says, “For some reason the ectoplasm sticks to it like glue and it rolls right off you like a big ol’ dough ball.”
Erin doesn’t think she wants to know how Holtzmann found that particular fact out, but she does want to know why she feels oddly disappointed when Holtzmann informs her all the ectoplasm is off her body and she no longer needs to run her steady fingers through Erin’s hair in sweetly soothing strokes.
Well… she’s beginning to think she knows why she feels disappointed. Holtzmann is not a subtle flirt, but she’s a talented one, and despite the abject fear Erin often feels for her limbs when she spends any decent amount of time around her gadgets and inventions, Holtzmann herself is undeniably a magnetic force of attraction.
Erin had thought it was something that Holtzmann just embodied generally – that understated, sure confidence, the swagger that comes with someone so settled in the skin and armour they’ve built for themselves. But then she started to watch Holtzmann with the others.
Holtzmann loves Abby. Abby’s the only one of them who calls her Jillian, the one Holtzmann leans on when things go badly or when even her furiously buzzing, lightning-fast brain can’t parse something it thinks it should be able to. Holtzmann seeks Abby out in the quiet moments, the moments where she wants to get back to herself. Holtzmann doesn’t flirt with Abby unless Abby is holding food or beer hostage, and Abby seems almost immune to sly winks from anyone at this point anyway.
Patty and Holtzmann are a different beast, but in a secret-society, other-wavelength kind of way. Erin can go fifteen minutes and realize she hasn’t understood a word Patty and Holtzmann have said to each other, but from what she can tell there’s nothing remotely sexual about it.
No, Holtzmann’s behaviour when it comes to Erin is decidedly specific, and she’s just realized it’s a lot of what she can only describe as a very bizarre kind of courting.
The thing is, Erin loves discovering something new to research, even if this project just so happens to flood her stomach with a lot of very strange feelings.
The guy who sells her the mattress isn’t exactly thrilled to know what she wants it for. He’s even less pleased to have to put their return policy in writing for the woman in tweed who purchases it, then proceeds to shove it unceremoniously in the back of her converted hearse.
Despite their work now being funded, Erin still hasn’t stopped feeling the financial sting of losing her tenure at Columbia, so she makes the painful decision to donate her second-best set of guest sheets to the new, blonde cause she’s taken on. The extra comforter and blanket she owns are added to the pile, then her plan is ready to set into motion.
First, she leaves the blanket folded on the metal slab while Holtzmann is out the back crashing and banging about with Patty and a new electro-magnetic gun. Erin can hear Holtzmann’s whoop and Patty’s decidedly louder screech – of what she can only hope is excitement – out the open window, and then retreats back downstairs.
Holtzmann says nothing about the blanket, but Erin is sure the arm she rests on Erin’s shoulder later that evening while she shoves most of a slice of pizza in her mouth is a confirmation of her thanks.
The mattress is a little tougher, but thankfully Kevin’s uselessness comes in handy for once when he drops his keys in a grate outside, seemingly because he forgot his shirt didn’t have pockets. Erin enlists his help while the other three are distracted, managing to drag the mattress out of sight just as Patty comes back in the building shouting about sewer ghosts.
Figuring she might as well go all the way at this point, Erin adds the comforter and sheets to the mess on top of the new mattress and scurries away to busy herself and not think anything else about it.
Patty and Abby invite them out for a drink that night, but Erin declines, wanting to finish testing a new theory about ectoplasm she’s been musing on since the cake mix incident, and to no one’s surprise Holtzmann wants to stay holed up upstairs among her trinkets.
It takes Erin a good twenty minutes to realize it’s gone quiet up there, and another ten before she works up enough nerve to satisfy her curiosity.
Holtzmann isn’t sleeping, though. In fact, she’s nowhere to be found. Erin heads towards the bed, and some hollow little space near her heart fills with warmth when she sees that – albeit haphazardly – the sheets and comforter have been thrown over the mattress in some semblance of a bed.
Holtzmann’s voice is always deeper than Erin expects, and she jumps when she hears it.
“You did that for me?” Holtzmann asks, right behind her.
Erin turns around and Holtzmann is looking at her the way she looks at an invention she’s trying to find the missing piece for. It’s hard and hot and hawk-like, as though Holtzmann is looking for a good place on Erin’s body to strike.
“I… you had to be uncomfortable, I just wanted to um, to make you… to help with…”
Holtzmann’s face sinks slowly into a grin like a sunrise, lips stretching wide over her teeth so her face colours beautifully with light. It’s the kind of smile that would net her hundreds of women if she ever stopped wasting time on Erin and actually went to a bar and talked to other human beings.
But then Erin thinks… she’s not really wasting her time anymore, and Holtzmann knows it.
Before she can think any more about it, Holtzmann has pressed her tight up against the bed, the metal cold against the small of Erin’s back. Holtzmann – soft limbs and rough fabric, her tongue running a path along her own lower lip – stares her down even more closely than before.
“You did that for me,” she says again, more decisively. And then she doesn’t say anything else.
Erin waits, but for once Holtzmann is totally silent. No humming, no cogs whirring or clicking almost audibly inside her skull, nothing. She realizes that Holtzmann is sure about something, but Erin doesn’t know what.
Then Holtzmann kisses her. It’s not gentle – she uses her thumb on Erin’s jaw to encourage her mouth open, then slips her tongue inside and kisses her dirtier than Erin can remember being kissed her life. It sets her body alight with a sudden burn, deep in her gut, and she feels lucky to be braced against Holtzmann and the cool metal at her spine.
They kiss for minutes or several days, Holtzmann’s hands thoroughly cataloguing every one of Erin’s ribs, and when she pulls back they’re both out of breath. Holtzmann, her hair a little dishevelled, her breath coming in satisfied pants against Erin’s chin, has never looked more appealing. Holtzmann winks at Erin, that teasing grin back in place, and then hoists herself up on the bed next to her.
“Pretty good rig you set up, Gilbert.”
“Thanks,” Erin replies, still trying to figure out the swooping feeling she gets every time she thinks of Holtzmann’s tongue slicking against her teeth.
“If you’re not going home any time soon, you should really help me test it out,” Holtzmann says, her voice lower this time, from the back of her throat. It’s got the flare of a joke but somehow Erin knows she’s dead serious.
She clears her throat. “Well we… are… scientists, I guess… we…”
Holtzmann, taking on the air of a belaboured professor, rests a hand firmly on Erin’s shoulder and finds her eyes. “Erin, I meant for making out on.”
She’s sure she’s never executed a better plan in her life.