Work Text:
September
Erin’s phone vibrates violently against the table. She had been so lost in thought, staring at the screen of her laptop that the noise startles her. She jumps so forcefully that the feet of her chair squeak against the floor. She clutches at her chest with one hand while reaching for her phone with the other.
It’s not a phone call. An icon appears on the screen. A red triangle with an exclamation point in the middle.
Severe Alert.
Flash Flood Warning this area til 9:00 PM EDT. Avoid flood areas. Check local media. -NWS
Great.
Now that it’s pointed out to her, she hears the sound of heavy rainfall right outside that she hadn’t noticed before.
She’s already at the firehouse later than she’d like to be, and now she doesn’t think she’ll be leaving any time soon.
Everybody else has already left for the day. The light bulbs flicker and a giant clap of thunder makes Erin jump again.
The sound of the rain becomes louder, clearer, and then the front door slams closed, shutting it away again. Erin jumps. Again. And then an avalanche of metal onto the hard floor makes Erin hop right to her feet. She only has to take a few steps until the door is in view, and Holtzmann stands just inside, her clothes sopping wet and sticking to her body, a pile of metal pieces at her feet.
“Hey! It’s raining, did you know?” Holtzmann calls out to her, bringing a hand to push her limp hair from her forehead.
“Oh, is it?” Erin answers, looking down at all of the metal on the floor as well as the ever-growing puddle where Holtzmann stands. She leans against the wall, crossing her arms over her chest, taking in the full view in front of her. She suppresses a laugh.
Holtz pulls off her boots, tossing them to the side. One foot is covered in a blue and white argyle ankle sock, the other in a grey sock that reaches her calf. She peels them off. And then she pulls her shirt over her head, dropping it to the floor.
“Whoa, hey there,” Erin laughs. “Just undressing in the doorway?”
“My clothes are wet,” Holtz tells her simply, not even glancing up at her as she undoes the closure of her pants.
“You could take them off… in the bathroom? Maybe? That might be a good place?” she suggests.
“And track water all over the floor? Nuh-uh. Safety hazard. Nobody’s slipping and tripping on my watch.”
“You literally start a fire at least twice a week, but you’re worried that water is a safety hazard?”
“Fire is easier to control,” she shrugs.
“So you’re just gonna get naked right here?” Erin asks.
“I’m not getting naked , Erin. Unless you want me to,” she grins up at her, shimmying out of her pants.
“Nope. I’m good,” she shakes her head. Holtz stands there in just a black sports bra and a pair of simple black cotton briefs.
“Your loss,” she says with another shrug, tiptoeing around her puddle of rainwater and her pile of metal pieces until she gets to dry land. She leaves a trail of wet footprints as she walks past Erin towards the staircase.
As she passes her, though, Erin catches a glimpse of something small and colourful on Holtzmann’s skin -- on the side of her thigh, a few inches below where her underwear cuts off.
“Do you have a tattoo?!” she asks incredulously.
“Huh?” Holtz pauses at the foot of the staircase and looks back at her.
“A tattoo. Is that a tattoo?”
“Oh. That?” she nods her head in the direction of the small shape that Erin can’t quite make out. “Yeah.”
“How long have you had that?” Erin asks. Holtz has continued her journey up the stairs, but Erin is far too curious about this new discovery, so she follows her.
“Couple years.”
They reach the second floor. Erin trails behind Holtz.
The second floor is mostly Holtz’s space. She has her lab up there, and it continues to grow as she continues to acquire and invent more and more things. There’s a corner of the second floor that Holtz had constructed walls around, literally overnight. She had spent so many nights falling asleep in her lab that she’d created a separate room specifically for late nights. It’s smart, Erin has to admit.
She hasn’t been inside of it since it went up, though. She expects for there to be some sort of cot, a few changes of clothes, not much more than that. So when she follows Holtz inside, she’s taken aback by how lived-in the room looks. There is a mattress pushed into one corner, sheet and blankets bunched on top, trash and food, a massive pile of clothes, several pairs of shoes, some sort of blueprint taped onto the wall, a mirror propped up with a blanket thrown over it, covering the reflective part.
“Holtz…,” she says slowly, looking around at her new surroundings. “Do you… are you… Are you living here?”
“ Nooo ,” Holtz answers, sounding scandalized. “I mean, not really .”
“Not really? What does that mean?” Erin asks, but she doesn’t answer. Instead, she steps over a pile of books and papers, towards the mass of clothes. Now that she thinks back on it, Holtz is always here when she arrives in the morning and also when she leaves at night. “You have an apartment, don’t you? Are you homeless?”
“I’m not homeless. I have an apartment. But it’s all the way in Park Slope and I spend so much time here that the commute doesn’t usually seem worth it,” she explains with a shrug.
“We get paid government salaries now. Why don’t you find somewhere closer?”
“Because I like my apartment! Besides, I’m really avoiding the moment when my landlord finds out just how much damage I’ve done to the place.”
“Oh, jeez, I don’t even want to imagine,” Erin shakes her head, remembering why she had followed Holtz in here in the first place. “Anyways! Tattoo! You have a tattoo! Why have I never seen it before?!”
“Because I don’t typically traipse around in just my skivvies.”
“Can I see it?”
Holtz walks towards her, stopping in front of her, allowing her to look. Erin peers at the side of Holtz’s leg. Holtz cocks her hip slightly, bringing it closer to Erin, but Erin still has to lean down to get a good look.
It’s a flower. A rose. Blue. With a thin, twisting stem. It’s delicate. Feminine. Pretty.
“Huh,” Erin muses. It isn’t what she had expected. It isn’t that Holtz isn’t delicate, feminine, or pretty, it’s just that… well… she isn’t. She’s the exact opposite of delicate. Her femininity is understated. And admittedly, she’s attractive, but Erin thinks that “pretty” is an adjective better used to describe the likes of Kevin. Not Holtz. Holtz is...striking, bold, handsome .
“What does it mean?” she asks, straightening up, and Holtz relaxes her pose.
“My sister has the same one,” she explains casually. “It was her idea. I just went along with it.”
“Ohh,” she nods, and then stops, eyes snapping back to Holtz’s face, even as she crosses the room again. “You have a sister?!”
“Mmhm.” She’s rooting through the pile of clothing in the corner.
“I didn’t know that.”
“Now you do. Hey, I’m about to get very naked. Feel free to turn around if you’d like to spare yourself from the horrors. Or not. I don’t care. We all took a basic anatomy class at some point.”
“Oh. Okay,” Erin says, turning her back to Holtz. She takes in this new area of the room. Trash is scattered on the floor -- mostly empty soda cans, paper bags, and an alarming number of crumpled-up balls of tin foil. There is a window ledge where several pill bottles of different shapes and colours sit side-by-side. Advil. Iron. B-12. D-3. And two orange prescription bottles with labels too small for Erin to read from where she’s standing.
“I don’t have any siblings,” Erin offers.
“I know,” Holtz answers, her voice slightly muffled.
“Oh? Have I mentioned that before?”
“Nah. I can just tell.”
“You can? How?” Erin asks, momentarily forgetting why she’s turned around and glancing over her shoulder to see the back of Holtz, her top half covered in a black t-shirt, but stopping at her hips, ass still bare. Erin would have usually immediately turned around again, but she’s distracted by the dark fuchsia, lacy panties that Holtz is holding up in front of her, her head cocked to the side.
“These aren’t mine,” Holtz mumbles to herself. Erin raises her eyebrows.
“Do you bring girls here?”
Holtz turns her head, looking over shoulder at Erin with a guilty grin.
“Holtz! Really? Here ?!”
“It’s just so easy!” she exclaims. “I just ask if they want to come back and see my neuro-nuclear space fission reactor, and then…,” she trails off, swinging the panties around her index finger.
“Neuro-nuclear… space…?” Erin mumbles as she turns to face the other direction again, having seen more than enough of Holtz’s bare ass. “What… is that… is that even--”
Before she can finish her question, Holtz cackles, confirming her suspicions.
“It’s nothing!” she laugh-yells. “It’s completely made up!”
“And that works ?”
“Every single time!”
“Do me a favour? Marry the first girl that doesn’t fall for that crap.”
“If you insist.”
“You are totally living here ,” Erin mutters, shaking her head. Holtz laughs, but doesn’t deny it.
“Oh! I forgot! My new toy parts downstairs!” Holtz says. Erin turns around to find Holtz fully dressed and already halfway out the door.
“Yeah, by the way, what is all that stuff?” Erin asks, following her, but at a much slower pace.
“Just bits and pieces!” she calls out. “I love garbage night!
“Every night is garbage night.”
“Exactly!”
October
It’s a week before Halloween and the phones have been ringing off the hook. Kevin is overwhelmed. He hangs up a lot of calls.
Most of the calls aren’t about real ghosts. They’re calls from people who just got spooked by something, or they are just complete hoaxes. But there are still several serious ghost calls. Kevin is having a hard time.
They’re busy, though. They have serious ghost busts to handle. They furiously read, figure things out, and Holtz barely leaves the lab as she repairs equipment damage, works on upgrades, and tests out new features.
“We need to do something fun,” Abby sighs, removing her glasses to rub her tired eyes.
“I know a few places,” Holtz smiles.
They go a whole day without a serious ghost call. So they go out in the evening. Holtz leads the way. It’s a week before Halloween, and the city is already celebrating. Most people at the bar are in costume.
Erin watches as Holtz talks with the drag queens with familiarity, as if they’ve known each other for years. They probably have. They call her ‘Holtzy’, they call her ‘baby’, they kiss her on the cheek.
“You come here often?” Erin asks her as Holtz shoves a plastic cup into her hand. She shrugs.
“Every now and then.”
“What is this?” Erin asks, holding up the cup.
“Vodka cranberry.”
“Oh. Oh, okay. Yeah, I like those,” she nods.
“I figured,” Holtz smiles. “You seem like the type. You wanna dance?”
“Oh. I don’t know,” Erin hesitates.
“Come on. Let’s dance.”
So, they do. The music is loud and the lights flash and Erin is sweaty, but happy as she looks at her friends, and they’re all dancing and laughing, and this is exactly what they needed.
Patty keeps putting dollar bills into the go-go boy’s tight briefs. Abby does it once and can’t stop giggling for five full minutes. Erin looks around for Holtz, but she’s not beside her anymore, finally spots her leaning against a wall, talking to a girl. The girl is tall, pretty, a black crop top, tight leggings, platform boots, and cat ears sticking out from her curly hair. She smiles, touching Holtz’s arm lightly.
Erin turns around. She doesn’t really need to see the interaction. She doesn’t really want to.
When Holtz is by her side once more, alone, she looks at her.
“You didn’t take that one home?” she asks over the loud music. Holtz laughs.
“I’m out with you guys tonight,” she says simply, and then she dances. And they dance.
November
The day that Holtz shows up to the firehouse in an oversized loose-knit sweater, Erin thinks nothing of it. She barely even notices it. It’s the middle of November and even though, for the most part, it’s been unseasonably warm in New York, there has been a persistent chill in the air for the past few days. Holtz shows up to the firehouse in an oversized, forest green, loose-knit sweater over a pair of brown pants stained with something or other, stuffed into black combat boots, her usual leather jacket hugging her.
Erin is upstairs for the day. The downstairs furnace is on full blast and Erin can’t stand it. It’s cooler upstairs. Holtz even has a window open, letting the early winter air drift in. Erin sits at a table, opposite Holtz’s lab, and she’s reading over a study of paranormal entities in Norway on her laptop, a mug of warm tea in her hand, the soft sound of music and Holtz’s tinkering filling the room.
Business has been fairly slow lately, compared to how it had been. They haven’t had a ghost to catch in over a week now. But they’re still being paid by the government to research and work on new devices and plans, and Erin can’t really complain.
“Hey, Erin. Come hold something for me, will ya?” Holtz calls out.
“Be right there,” she mumbles, scanning through the last paragraph that she’s on, setting down her mug and standing up. She strolls over to the lab area where Holtz is holding a screwdriver in one hand, a blowtorch in the other, and trying to steady one piece of metal onto another with her elbows.
“Yeah, hey, hi, could you just um. Yeah. Take this a second,” she shoves the blowtorch into Erin’s hands, and she takes it. She uses her newly freed hand instead of her elbows to steady the metal pieces. “Okay, now I just need a--”
She reaches for something, outstretching her arm and twisting her body, but she stops, her eyes widening, mouth shaping into an ‘o’, and then she just lets go of the metal pieces and they clamor to the floor, making Erin jump.
“What did you do that for?!” she asks, but Holtz hasn’t moved. She’s in the exact same position, other than her head which is now tilted to one side, a pained grimace spreading over her face.
“Give me… just… one moment please,” she says calmly, slowly straightening up.
“What’s happening? Did you pull a muscle?” Erin asks, but Holtz just shakes her head quickly, and then she turns her back to Erin.
“Oh. Ow. Wow. Ouch. Okay,” Holtz mumbles, and then she laughs.
“Holtz, what’s going on?” Erin presses. Holtz laughs some more, turning back to Erin.
“I’m wearing a sweater,” she says. Erin doesn’t understand.
“Yeah….”
“Sweaters are made of yarn. They’re knitted together. Knitting is a series of little loops. Little fibrous loops. Little fibrous loops that can catch on things… like… say… a nipple ring, for instance.”
“You… oh, my god.” Erin mutters, closing her eyes and shaking her head. “You have...your...wow. Okay. That’s something that I never needed to know, and yet, now that I know it, I will never be able to forget it.”
“Yeah, so, I’m just gonna go over there and sort this all out,” Holtz nods, bringing a hand to gingerly cup her own breast, wincing slightly as she walks from the lab, towards her room.
“Oh, my booooob ,” she whines. “My poor, sweet, little boob. I’m so sorry, little boob! Wow, it’s really caught on there, isn’t it? Like, wrapped around it and everything. This has never happened before!”
“You know, you maybe should have worn a bra?” Erin suggests.
“They’re all dirty!” Holtz yells back.
“Of course they are.”
Holtz yells dramatically from inside the other room.
“Y’okay?” Erin calls out noncommittally, sitting back down in her chair, picking up her mug of tea again. She’s met by another over-the-top scream of pain, and then Holtz is walking through the door again, casually, as if she hadn’t been the one that was just yelling out.
“Well, that hurt,” she comments. She’s changed her shirt -- a woven top this time.
“All good now?”
“Yep.”
“Your boob okay?”
“It’s been through worse.”
“Great. Thanks for that bit of information.”
“No problem. Hey, get back here, I still need you to hold this for me!”
December
“Wow, that looks heavy,” Erin giggles. “But you’re doing a great job! So strong! Muscles. So muscular.”
“ Really ?” Abby shoots at her. Erin ignores her.
“Might be sore later. Maybe need a massage,” she mumbles out.
“ Come on, Erin!” Abby says. “You’d been doing so well. I thought you were over that.”
“Well, I was ,” Erin argues, finally tearing her eyes away from Kevin’s backside. “But then he had to go and pick up an entire tree!”
“Alright, Kev!” Patty cheers as the tall spruce tree is set in place inside the firehouse.
They begin to decorate the tree with ornaments that they found at the dollar store and at various thrift shops, as well as several metal pieces that Holtzmann had spent the past few days making. Christmas carols play softly in the background.
“Every Christmas Eve, we’d go over to my grandparents’ house, and my aunts and uncles and all of my cousins would be there, and we’d open presents from each other, and then all of the adults would get way too drunk and us kids would just destroy everything ,” Abby laughs.
“My Christmas Eve was always just me and my parents,” Erin says. “Nothing special. They’d usually let me open one present before bed, though. It was always pajamas.”
“I always got dragged to church on Christmas Eve,” Patty shares. “But Christmas Day? That was fun. We’d go over to my uncle’s, eat tons of food, have tons of gifts, sing Christmas songs all night….”
“Holtz, what about you? What were your Christmases like?” Erin asks, when she doesn’t immediately follow with her own memories.
“This is my first one,” she says with a grin, securing a thrift-store-found glass ornament of a Santa-suit-clad panda onto a tree branch.
“What?” Patty asks. “Your folks didn’t do Christmas?”
“Nuh-uh,” she shakes her head. “But for Hanukkah, we would always--”
“You’re Jewish?!” Erin cuts her off, her surprise getting the better of her.
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t even know that,” Abby comments softly.
“It’s not really a big deal,” Holtz shrugs as she picks up another ornament -- a horrifying old elf with most of the paint chipping off of it.
“Not a big deal?” Patty asks. “You don’t think that’s like, part of who you are?”
“Ehhh. I don’t know. I mean, I only ever went to synagogue with my grandparents. I didn’t even have a bat mitzvah -- although, to be fair, I was supposed to, but I didn’t have any friends to invite, so I figured out a way to get it canceled.”
“Figured out a way…?” Erin repeats, not even daring to imagine what a young Holtzmann was capable of.
“They wanted me to wear a dress. A dress! It wasn’t happening.”
“Oh, a little baby Holtzy!” Abby coos, her voice growing higher in pitch, laughing at the mental image she has clearly invented. “In a little dress!”
“Wait, so, if you’re Jewish and you’ve never celebrated Christmas before, why did you agree to make all of these ornaments and stuff?” Erin asks, holding one of Holtz’s metal-worked ornaments in her hand. Holtz looks at her.
“Because you were so excited about it,” she answers. “Besides, I’m not opposed to celebrating Christmas. It’s not really a religious holiday anymore. And, you know, new family memories and stuff….”
Erin smiles.
“Oh! I almost forgot!” Holtz yells, jumping up. “I know most trees have either a star or an angel on top. I wasn’t sure which you’d prefer, so I made this instead.”
She holds up a little metal ghost, and it’s perfect. Patty places it atop the tree, and then they all stand back, admiring their first Christmas tree together.
The next day, Erin buys a menorah. She sets on a windowsill close to the Christmas tree. A few hours later, she’s reading something over when she hears footsteps behind her, and then there are arms wrapping around her from behind. Blonde hair tickles her face, and the scent of motor oil, smoke, and patchouli fills her nose. The hug only lasts a moment, and then Holtzmann is walking away without saying a word.
January
Abby passes by Holtzmann, dropping something down in front of her, and then continues to walk away. Erin watches as Holtzmann reaches for the object -- a single packaged cupcake, from what Erin can tell -- and then looks over at Abby. Abby winks. Holtz draws the shape of a heart in the air with her index fingers and then blows a kiss in Abby’s direction. Abby pretends to catch it. They both smile.
Erin glances towards Patty, but she’s very much invested in some sort of thick history book, so Erin looks away.
“What was the thing you gave Holtz earlier?” Erin asks Abby later, when they’re alone.
“Hm? Oh. That? That was nothing,” Abby dismisses it with a wave of her hand.
“Oh. Okay,” Erin nods. “But what was it?”
“Why do you care?” Abby laughs.
“I don’t care . I just want to know what it was.”
“It was a cupcake. I gave her a cupcake.”
“But why?”
“You’re being weird.”
“Why won’t you just tell me?” Erin says with a laugh. She really doesn’t do well with being left out of things.
“Because it’s nothing,” Abby says. “I gave Holtzmann a cupcake. So what?”
“Are you sleeping with her?”
“ What?!”
“It’s a reasonable question! That little display this morning, and now you’re being all secretive!” Erin defends herself. But Abby is laughing too hard and too loudly to hear her.
“Sleeping with! Holtz! Me! Oh! Oh my god! Oh my god!” she practically screams. “Oh shit. Oh shit, I’m crying! You’re making me cry!”
Erin crosses her arms over her chest, patiently waiting for her to stop.
“I mean! Really?! Me and Holtzmann?! That’s actually an idea that crossed your mind?!”
“Abby, come on.”
“You know that I’m like, eighty percent straight!”
“Yeah, but I also know the effect that she has on women.”
“That’s true. I’ll give you that one. But come on! I’ve known Holtzmann for years! I love her, I adore her, but no! No! Erin, no!”
“So then what was with the cupcake and the kiss-blowing and all that?” she asks.
“You dingus,” Abby says, lightly hitting Erin on the side of her head. “It’s her birthday!”
“It is? Today?”
“Yes! It’s her birthday, so I got her a cupcake. She’s not really into celebrating her birthday so I didn’t say anything. The only reason I even know when her birthday is is because I had to take her to the emergency room once and fill out forms for her because her hand was too burned to do it herself. And I did not get that information out of her easily, let me tell you.”
“Oh. It’s just her birthday?”
“Yes. It’s just her birthday. Why do you care so much, anyways? You jealous?” Abby laughs. Erin rolls her eyes.
“Yes, so jealous,” she answers.
“Hey, I think Holtzmann and Patty went to get food together -- do you think they might be hooking up?” she jokes, and erupts into laughter as she walks away.
“That’s very funny,” Erin calls out after her.
“Sleeping with Holtzmann!” Abby practically screams. “My god! I’m gonna remember that forever! Use it whenever I’m feeling down!”
“Okay, that’s enough now.”
“Am I sleeping with her?! Oh my god! It’s never gonna get old!”
February
“What’s this one do?”
“Flies.”
“Cool. Then what?”
“Flies.”
“It...just flies? It’s…”
“Just flies,” Holtzmann says to Patty, who stands near the lab, examining the object in question. Holtz is barely involved in the conversation. She’s looking down at her cell phone, typing furiously.
“Oh. Oh, okay. Cool,” Patty nods, slowly backing away. She looks at Erin. “I think she might finally be losing it.”
They both watch her intently. She doesn’t even notice.
“Hey, Holtzy, I’mma go smash up all your favourite machines,” Patty calls out.
“‘Kay, have fun,” Holtz mumbles, still typing away on her phone. Patty and Erin look at each other again.
“Oh, god, she’s possessed, isn’t she?” Erin whispers to Patty.
“By the ghost of a fifteen year old girl?” Patty muses.
“Holtz! Hey, Holtz! I’m taking my top off!” Erin calls out. Patty raises an eyebrow, but Erin just shrugs.
“You do that.”
“Yup, she’s possessed,” Patty confirms with a nod.
“Psst! Abby!” Erin whispers as Abby walks nearby. “We’re pretty sure Holtz is possessed.”
“What?” Abby says, stopping beside the other two, looking at her. “She’s not possessed.”
“Yes she is. Watch this,” Patty says. “Holtzy! Watch out! There’s a ghost!”
“Mmkay,” Holtz just nods, still in her phone.
“Holtzmann!” Abby yells. “RuPaul’s Drag Race was canceled!”
“Bummer.”
“Oh my god. Yep. She’s definitely possessed,” Abby nods.
“What do we do?!” Erin whisper-yells.
Just then, Holtz’s head snaps up, away from her phone, looking at the other three. Erin grabs on to Patty’s arm in fear.
“My sister’s here,” Holtz announces. And then she turns and walks from her lab without another word.
“Karen’s here?!” Abby yells out after her, and then looks back at Erin and Patty. “Possessed? Really?”
“Hey, you thought it, too,” Erin says.
“Holtzy has a sister?”
The three of them all run down the stairs, reaching the first floor just in time to see the door open, and then a small boy yells out “Aunt Jillian!” and Holtz is scooping him up into a hug, and Erin freezes, watching the scene in front of her in mild shock. She knew that Holtz had a sister. She didn’t know that she was an aunt. A girl, younger than the boy, also latches onto Holtz.
“Whoa,” Patty mumbles beside her. Erin can only nod in agreement.
Holtz has the girl perched upon her hip while the boy is tucked under her arm, hanging sideways and laughing loudly. A thin, dark-haired woman quickly hugs Holtz. They say some things to each other, but Erin is too far away to hear.
“Did you make me something, Aunt Jillian? Did you? Did you?” the little boy asks.
“You bet I did!” she answers, setting him down on his feet. She continues to hold the girl, though, who has now wrapped her small arms around her neck.
“Where is it?! Can we play with it now?! Mom, can we?!”
“Yeah, okay, sure.”
“Come on!” Holtz says, grabbing the boy’s hand, and then they’re running towards the stairs together. Erin catches Holtz’s eye for a moment. Holtz grins at her, and then they’ve passed.
“Nothing explosive, Jill, please! I’ve only just finished paying off the neighbour’s vet bill from last time!” Holtz’s sister calls out, and then she looks towards where the three of them have been standing. “Abby!”
“Karen! It’s so nice to see you!” Abby exclaims, walking closer towards her. Erin and Patty follow. “Holtzmann didn’t tell us that you were coming.”
“She didn’t? Of course she didn’t. Why would she, right?” she laughs, and then looks towards the other two and smiles. “And you must be Erin and Patty, right?”
She has the same lips as Holtz. That’s what Erin notices. The same lips and the same eyebrows. But that’s it. Her hair is dark, long, and straight. Her eyes are brown. But she has the same lips and the same eyebrows as Holtz. And on the inside of her wrist, Erin notices a familiar blue rose with a twisting stem.
“You’re Holtzy’s sister?” Patty says, peering at her. “But you’re so….”
“Normal,” Erin finishes for her. Karen laughs.
“Yeah,” she nods. “She’s the crazy genius. But, hey! I got the-- no. I didn’t get the looks. She got the looks, too. That bitch.”
They end up on the roof. It’s cold, but the sun is out, and Holtz runs around with her niece and nephew, and Erin can’t tear her eyes away. It’s a side to Holtz that she’s never even seen before. Abby and Karen stand beside Erin, deep in conversation. Erin occasionally hears bits of what they are saying, but for the most part, she focuses on what she’s seeing.
“How is she doing?” she hears Karen say. She tunes in a little bit more.
“She’s doing good,” Abby answers.
“Really?”
“You know I wouldn’t lie to you, Karen.”
“I know. I just worry about her. Especially this time of year….”
“I know you do. But she’s… I think she’s okay.”
“I’m just so glad that she has you. I really don’t know what would have… well… you know.”
“I know.”
“She would have been so proud of her, you know?”
“Yeah, she would have.”
Erin glances at them. Abby has her hand on Karen’s arm and Karen is smiling sadly. She turns back to look at Holtz, who is telling her nephew something as he operates the handmade remote-control airplane. The boy laughs, and so does Holtz. Her niece merrily chases the airplane. She smiles.
They stay until the evening, and when Karen announces that it’s time to say goodbye to Aunt Jillian, both children begin to cry. Holtz hugs them both, and then she makes them laugh until they stop crying.
Erin, Patty, and Abby stand at the door with them, saying goodbye, and when Karen pulls Holtz into a hug, Erin is just close enough to hear a few softly-spoken words.
“You know, you should just ask her,” Karen whispers.
“Shut up,” Holtz grumbles.
“I’m very observant, Jill. And she was watching--”
“Shut up,” Holtz says again, pulling away from her with a bright smile.
“Okay,” Karen straightens up, and faces the other three. “Abby, it was lovely to see you again. Patty, Erin, so nice to finally get to meet you.”
When she leaves, Holtz closes the door and glances at them.
“Sorry I forgot to mention she was coming,” she says, and then she turns and goes upstairs.
“I’m tired. Kids are exhausting. They’re fun for a few hours, but damn,” Patty shakes her head. And then she heads out for the night. Erin is left with Abby.
“Hey, can I ask you something?” Erin says to her.
“Sure.”
“I heard you talking to Holtz’s sister earlier. She said that she worried about her… Did something happen?”
Abby sighs, looking at Erin.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you all of the details because it’s not really mine to share,” she says. “But yeah, something happened.”
“What?”
“Her mom died… Four years ago, now. It’ll be four years this Wednesday. And it… she had a really hard time with it.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“What happened? To her mom, I mean.”
“She had been sick for a while,” Abby answers. “It was just… it was not a good time.”
“Wow. I had no idea.”
“Well, no, you wouldn’t. You know how Holtzmann is. She’s very private about things like that.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess she is.”
March
Jillian Holtzmann has the most eclectic taste in music than anybody else that Erin Gilbert has ever met in her entire life. Granted, she’s barely gotten close enough to enough people to know all about their music tastes, but even so, she’s sure that Holtz’s is the most diverse. She goes from 80’s pop to classic showtunes to ‘angry girl rock’ (as Erin refers to it as) in just one playlist. And she is almost always playing music. Sometimes it’s soft, just background noise, and other times it’s so loud that it fills the entire firehouse, and Erin and Abby usually send either Patty or Kevin upstairs to ask her to turn it down. Strangely enough, the softer and gentler the music playing, the more explosive the projects she’s working on are. She has learned to fear the gentle hum of Chopin, associating the nocturnes with mortal danger.
Today is an angry girl rock day. Loud. The furniture shakes.
“Patty--”
“Nope. Not doing it. I’m busy. You want her to stop, go up there yourself.”
“But,” Erin whines. “She listens to you.”
“Nope,” she shakes her head.
Erin groans, but stands up and trudges up the stairs. The music only grows louder and she resists the urge to cover her ears as the singer wails words that she can barely even understand. She might enjoy it if only it wasn’t so loud .
When she reaches the second floor, there’s the usual smell of oil and metal and lingering smoke, but there’s also something distinctly familiar that Erin can’t place. Something that reminds her of the hallways of her college dormitory.
Holtz isn’t working in her lab. Instead, she’s by the opened window, facing out, her body swaying and head bobbing along to the music.
“Holtz!” Erin shouts, but she can barely even hear herself. She sighs, carefully crossing into the lab area where Holtz keeps her speakers, careful not to touch anything, glancing around for improperly stored chemicals or explosives.
She turns the music down.
Holtz turns her head over one shoulder, spotting Erin, and then spinning around completely, holding one arm suspiciously behind her back. Erin notices, but says nothing.
“Too loud,” Erin states.
Holtz’s eyes are wide, her lips pursed together, and she says nothing. Just nods. It’s strange, even for Holtz. Erin furrows her eyebrows, carefully stepping out of the lab, closer to her. And Holtz stays stiff, her cheeks puffing out slightly, and it looks as if she’s holding her breath.
“Uh…,” Erin mumbles. Holtz’s eyes bulge, and then she coughs very suddenly, a cloud of smoke erupting from her mouth. And she continues to cough, her eyes red and watery, and she pulls her hand out from behind her back, and Erin spots a small, white, thin, cylindrical object between her fingers -- one end twisted up, the other end slowly burning. And it all clicks into place.
“You’re smoking pot?!”
“Shit,” Holtz croaks out as her coughing finally begins to cease.
“Holtzmann!” Erin yells. “Jillian Holtzmann! If I knew your middle name I would throw that in there as well, but I don’t! So I can’t! But! Jillian! Holtzmann! You are smoking marijuana?! Seriously?! You smoke marijuana?!”
“Wow,” Holtz laughs. “Abby was right.”
“Abby?” Erin asks. “Abby was right about what? What was Abby right about?”
“Nothing,” Holtz shakes her head, an amused smirk on her face.
“Jillian! Holtzmann!” Erin shouts, pointing a finger at her. “What did Abby say about me? You tell me right now!”
“Abby told me to never let you find out about the pot,” Holtz says with a quick roll of her eyes and a laugh.
“What?” Erin asks. “Abby knows?”
“Um,” Holtz laughs. “Yeah. Abby knows. Yeah. She knooows… where… to get the good stuff.”
“What? Abby? Abby?! ”
“Abby-Abby. The very same.”
“Abby?” she asks again, mostly to herself. “And… and… Patty?”
“Not really,” Holtz shakes her head. “Sometimes, though, but she’s not the biggest fan.”
“ Kevin?!”
“Once,” she holds up a finger. “It was funny.”
“And you just… made a pact to not tell me?!”
“I wouldn’t call it a pact , per se. More like a blood oath. We all had to slice open our hands and swear to never tell, or Abby would make sure that we would never so much as smell the sweet stench of that captivating cannabis ever again.”
“Holtz….”
“Okay, the first part isn’t true, but the second part is.”
“I can’t believe this! Why wouldn’t you tell me?!”
“Well, you do hear yourself right now, don’t you?”
“But I don’t care about the marijuana, I care about being left out!” she pouts.
“You don’t care about the pot?” Holtz asks.
“Not really,” she answers. Holtz shrugs, bringing the joint in her hands closer to her lips, but Erin yelps. “No! No! You can’t! That’s illegal! And -- oh my god! Do you do stuff in the lab when you’re high?! That is so dangerous!”
“See?” Holtz smirks, crossing her arms.
“I mean-- No. I don’t care. Smoke it… if you want…,” she says apprehensively, frowning.
“You obviously don’t want me to, so I won’t,” Holtz says.
“Am I not fun?” Erin asks, and Holtz raises her eyebrows.
“You’re overthinking, Erin,” she says simply. “I mean, admittedly, you can be a little uptight sometimes. That doesn’t mean that we don’t think that you’re fun.”
“So then why have I never been invited to smoke marijuana with you all before?!”
“Because you keep calling it marijuana. And because we know that you wouldn’t,” Holtz shrugs.
“I might,” Erin says. Holtz blinks at her.
“Prove it,” she says, and then holds the joint out to her. Erin takes it. Holtz looks impressed already. Erin feels a surge of rebellion flash through her veins just by simply touching the stuff. She’s never even been offered pot before. She knows that if she had, she would have refused it, but now she feels like she has something to prove. But she doesn’t know what to do.
“Um,” she mumbles, holding the joint up to her face and look at it more closely. “I don’t...know…”
“Oh, right,” Holtz smiles, and takes a few steps towards her. “You’re just gonna bring this to your lips -- it might be a little slobbery, sorry, didn’t know I’d be sharing -- and just, you know, inhale good, hold it in your lungs for a little bit. You’ll probably cough. A lot.”
And then Holtz lights the end of the joint, and Erin puts the twisted end to her mouth -- and it’s wet with Holtz’s saliva, and she tries not to think about it, and she draws her breath in, and then she’s spluttering all over the place, her eyes watering, and Holtz is laughing at her.
“You’re just not used to it! Here, here, try again,” she grins brightly. So she does.
“I don’t feel any different,” Erin comments once they’ve passed the joint back and forth until it’s too small for either of them to hold it.
“Are you sure?” Holtz smiles. “Because you’ve been staring out the window for a good five minutes now.”
“I was just watching the birds,” Erin explains. “Have you ever noticed them?”
“Noticed the birds?”
“Yeah. They’re so beautiful.”
Holtz laughs, and Erin glances at her.
“What?” she asks.
“Erin, you’re high,” she says.
“I am?” she asks, looking at Holtz’s face, noticing her dimples, the way that one dimple is deeper than the other when she smiles like that. And the way her hair is so perfectly coiffed. She thinks it would be a delight to touch. A delight. She laughs to herself. The word ‘delight’ sounds funny to her.
“Why are you laughing?” Holtz asks her. And she giggles again.
“Delight,” she says simply, and it makes perfect sense to her, but Holtz snorts.
“You are a delight, Erin,” she grins. Erin grins back, just looking at Holtz for a while. And then she realizes what she’s doing.
“Oh my god, I’m high, aren’t I?”
“You are so high and I love it so much,” Holtz answers. And Erin laughs. She laughs, and she can’t stop laughing. Her stomach hurts from laughing so hard, and she can’t stop laughing. She forgets why she’s even laughing -- is there a reason? And she can’t stop laughing. She sees Holtz watching her, her elbow resting on a table, head propped up in her hand, a dreamy smile spread over her face, and Erin almost blushes, but she doesn’t know why, so she just keeps laughing.
Finally, she calms down. They sit next to each other, ravenously eating from a can of Pringles, barely even speaking. Finally, Holtz turns to her.
“It’s Laura, by the way,” she says. Erin doesn’t understand.
“Who’s Laura?” she asks.
“Earlier,” Holtz clarifies. “When you were yelling at me. You said that if you knew my middle name, you’d use that, too.”
“Your middle name is Laura?”
“Yep,” Holtz nods. “And nobody else will ever know that, right?”
“Jillian Laura Holtzmann,” Erin smiles.
Erin isn’t sure if the pink on Holtz’s cheeks is a trick of the light or if she’s blushing. She shoves another potato chip into her mouth.
“Nobody else will ever know.”
April
Holtz is sick and she refuses to admit it.
She has started a fire twice by simply sneezing while working, and the other three refuse to go upstairs out of sheer fear.
“Kev? Hey, Kev, can you bring this upstairs to Holtz?” Erin shouts, tossing him a bottle of orange juice.
“Sure, boss!” he smiles.
“Please don’t die,” she calls out feebly after him.
“She’s going to burn this place to the ground,” Patty says. “She’s actually gonna burn it to the ground this time.”
“One of us should really do something,” Abby sighs. “If she blows herself up up there, I think I’d kind of miss her.”
“Erin, go convince her to go home,” Patty says.
“What? Why me?!”
“Because you’re the Mom,” Abby supplies.
“ What ?”
“It’s true,” Patty nods. “You’re Mom Friend.”
“I am… what? No. How? I’m? What? No,” she shakes her head.
“Just do it,” Abby pleads. “I don’t want to die today.”
“Fine,” Erin sighs, standing up.
“Holtz, go home,” she says once she’s upstairs, in front of the lab, and Holtz’s back is turned to her. She turns around, and her nose is bright red, her eyes are watery, and the bags under her eyes are darker than the times she’s been up all night long working on a project.
“What? No. I’m fine,” she insists, and her words are nasally and poorly enunciated.
“You’re not,” she says. “You’re sick.”
“If I was sick, would I be able to do this?” Holtz asks, grabbing for a blowtorch, but then just standing there, unmoving, and Erin watches, waits, and she does nothing.
“Do what?” she asks. Holtz shakes her head.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I was going to do,” she admits.
“Come here,” Erin says, gesturing her over. Holtz obeys. Erin lays her hand upon Holtz’s forehead. “You need to go home. You have a fever.”
“But--” she begins to protest, but is interrupted by a sneeze.
“Exactly,” Erin mumbles.
“Oh, god ,” Holtz groans. “It’s like I’m ecto-projecting from my nose. ”
“That’s disgusting.”
Holtz groans again, pulling her goggles from her face, letting them drop onto the table. She continues to groan as she drags herself out of the lab area, towards the sofa at the end of the room, and drops herself face-down onto it.
“Okay, yeah, this is good, this is the right idea,” Erin encourages, following her. She drops down to kneel beside the couch, placing a hand on Holtz’s back. “But you still gotta go home. To your home. Away from here. To be quarantined. You understand, right?”
Holtz groans out an incoherent response.
“What was that?” Erin asks.
“Medicine,” Holtz says.
“Medicine. Okay,” she nods, spotting the bottle of cold medicine that Abby had tried to give her yesterday, untouched and still sealed sitting on the table. She grabs it, opening the seal, and begins to pour out the suggested amount into the little plastic cup, but Holtz grunts, sitting up, and reaching out.
“Just gimme the bottle,” she says, Erin hands it to her, and then Holtz is knocking back several swigs of the cold medicine straight from the bottle.
“Okay, that was way too much,” Erin comments. “You are going to get very loopy. Great.”
Holtz flops back down on the couch. Erin sighs.
“Your apartment is all the way in Brooklyn, isn’t it?”
A grunt.
“It would be cruel to make you take the train.”
A longer grunt.
“I don’t have any cash for a cab… I’m going to have to drive you there, aren’t I?”
Erin sighs again, accepting her fate.
“Come on. Let’s get up,” she says gently, rubbing small circles onto Holtz’s back. “I’m gonna take you home, okay?”
“Oh, you’re taking me home, huh?” Holtz says, and she’s clearly attempting to be flirtatious, but her words are feeble and nasal, and Erin can only laugh.
“Let’s go.”
She drives. She doesn’t know what to expect when she reaches Holtz’s apartment. Frankly, she’s scared.
“If I knew I was bringing a girl back, I would’ve tidied up a little,” Holtz says, her words pushed together, the cold medicine having fully kicked in on the ride over. The apartment is messy. But Erin had prepared for worse. It’s not much different than the makeshift room at the firehouse, but there are burns and scorch marks on the walls and ceilings, and several holes.
It’s just a small studio apartment, and the bed is in the corner, so Erin leads her in that direction.
“I’ll be honest with you, Erin,” Holtz mumbles. “This isn’t exactly how I pictured it would be when you finally got me into bed.”
“Shut up, Holtz,” she says, rolling her eyes.
“I mean, call me a romantic, call me old-fashioned, but I figured there’d at least be a dinner involved first. But I’ll take what I can get.”
“Okay, that’s enough.”
Holtz drops down onto her bed, and Erin grabs for her blanket, tossing it over her body. Holtz shoots her a goofy, cold-medicine-induced grin.
“Hey. Hey. Hey. Erin,” she says.
“Yes?”
“You’re pretty,” she smiles, her eyelids drooping. “You’re so pretty.”
“Okay,” Erin says. Holtz smiles, pointing a limp finger in her direction.
“I’m gonna kiss you some day. Okay? So get ready for that.”
“Alright, Holtz. Go to sleep now,” Erin tells her, and she can’t fight the smile that spreads over her face. Holtz mumbles something that sounds a lot like ‘you go to sleep now’, but Erin can’t really tell.
She looks at a picture frame on Holtz’s nightstand. It’s a picture of a woman and two young girls. For a split-second, Erin thinks that the woman is Holtz herself, but it doesn’t make sense, because she’s wearing a dress and her hairstyle is seriously outdated. But it looks just like her. The same eyes, the nose, the lips -- even the same dimples when she smiles. But then she sees Holtz. Probably seven or eight years old. Dirty blonde hair. Mischievous grin. It’s her, almost exactly as she is now, but in miniature. Erin stares at the picture until she hears Holtz’s unsteady and rattly breaths, indicating that she is asleep.
She glances at her. Her mouth is open, a puddle of drool already collecting on the pillow beneath her. Erin pulls her phone out. She takes a picture of the photograph. She feels weird about it. She knows she shouldn’t do it. And yet, she can’t stop herself.
She makes sure that Holtz has medicine, tissues, fluids, and food in her apartment before she leaves. It requires a trip to the Duane Reade down the street. She’ll be back in the morning to check on her. She sighs.
She really is the Mom Friend.
May
Erin sits at the edge of the lidded toilet seat, elbows on her knees, head in her hands. Her head is spinning.
Everything is spinning.
She doesn’t know why she chose the bathroom of all places, but she walked, and there’s where she ended up.
Abby and Patty are just outside the door.
She can’t bring herself to cry.
Everything is too, too silent. But there are the thuds of footsteps. And then Holtzmann’s voice.
“Uh, guys? Why are we sitting on the floor? Outside the bathroom?”
Abby speaks softly. Erin can’t hear her words. She doesn’t need to. She knows what she’s telling her. Holtz wasn’t there when she got the call. The other two were.
The call. Her dad’s voice. Broken. It all happened so fast, he told her. She didn’t even have any symptoms until this morning. It was just a migraine. You know how she is, she never makes a big deal. It was over almost as soon as the aneurysm ruptured. Even if they had known, it would have been inoperable. A ticking time bomb. Unpredictable. It all happened so fast. She didn’t suffer.
“Holtzy, I don’t think she wants--”
“Just move.”
The door opens. And then closes. Erin doesn’t move.
Silence. Rustling. Movement.
“There’s a Jewish tradition,” Holtz says. “For when you lose somebody…. It’s called shivah. I don’t really understand all of it. We did it for my grandparents when they passed, but I was pretty young. And then I didn’t do it again until my mom died. My sister insisted that we do it. I didn’t really get it, because we were never a very traditional Jewish family, but Karen wanted it, so I went along with it.”
Erin listens. Holtz’s voice is low, steady and even, as if she’s simply explaining an old scientific study that she read about somewhere once. Soothing.
“It lasts for seven days. You don’t leave home. People visit. Bring food. Candles, prayer, stuff like that. There’s a lot. I don’t understand most of it. There’s a part to it, where you’re supposed to cover all of the mirrors. I don’t really know why. But you do. You cover the mirrors for all seven days of shivah. And for some reason, that’s the part that sticks with me the most. Sometimes when I start to feel overwhelmed by my mom’s death all over again -- when I wonder how in the hell I’m supposed to exist in a world where she doesn’t… I cover the mirrors. I like it. It makes me feel like it’s okay to hurt.”
She feels a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“This might be the hardest thing that you’ll ever have to go through.”
The hand is gone.
“It was for me.”
The door opens and closes again and the silence presses down around Erin. She looks up.
Holtzmann’s long jacket has been secured over the light fixture above the bathroom mirror, draping down, covering it.
She folds herself over, her forehead touching her knees, and finally allows the first sob to escape from her. She wants everything to stop, for just a second, maybe two. She wants the entire world to stop.
She hurts.
Everything hurts.
June
For two weeks, Erin can’t sleep. She goes back home for her mother’s funeral. Abby comes with her. They don’t stay long.
For two weeks, Erin lies awake at night, sometimes falling into a doze, but always jerking awake before she reaches sleep.
For two weeks, Erin is exhausted because she can't sleep.
And then, she can’t stay awake. She drinks cup after cup of coffee during the day, her eyelids burning, begging to close. She goes home early, falls into her bed, and doesn’t wake up until her alarm goes off the next morning. But it’s not enough. She can’t get enough sleep.
She falls asleep on top of her work. She feels gentle hands pulling her to her feet, remembers the short walk, and then the soft bed. And she sleeps.
She wakes up somewhere unfamiliar. She blinks. There’s a window. The sky is in its early stages of sunrise. Indigo. She blinks. She’s on a mattress on a floor. A blueprint of something taped to the wall above her. She blinks. She turns.
Holtzmann. Awake. Sitting cross-legged on the floor. Something in her hands. Tinkering. She’s wearing only a t-shirt and underwear. Her hair is down. It’s longer than Erin thought it would be. The light from a lamp on the floor casts a soft yellow glow over everything it touches. It touches Holtzmann.
She blinks.
“Holtz?”
She looks up.
“Have you slept?” Erin asks her. Holtz simply shakes her head. Erin pushes her body closer to the wall, freeing a significant amount of space on the mattress. She places a hand on the empty spot beside her. “Come sleep.”
Holtz doesn’t say a word. She simply climbs onto the mattress beside her.
The closeness with Holtz has been a constant since Erin’s mom died. Holtz has brought her food on the days that she hasn’t felt like eating. Holtz has sat beside her, their arms touching, without saying anything, for as long as Erin has needed. She gives her gentle shoulder-squeezes when she passes by her. She pulls her to bed when she falls asleep on top of her work. She continues to joke around, make her laugh, but when Erin needs it, she’s there to just sit in silence. Abby and Patty have been supportive too, of course, but it’s different with Holtz. Because Holtz knows. She understands. She’s been through it, too.
Lying beside her on a mattress on a floor in the corner of a room feels perfectly normal. She lies on her back, facing up to the ceiling, and Erin is on her side, facing her. She smells like soap and shampoo. Erin inhales deeply. It’s different from her usual scent, and yet, it’s still her. She wants to touch her hair. She’s only seen it down a handful of times. Once, when it got so mussed up during a ghost bust that it had nearly fallen down on its own, and so she took it down completely, only to tie it back up again in a matter of seconds. Another time when they’d had a late hunt, and got back to the firehouse in the middle of the night, and all four of them ended up crashing there. In the morning, Erin had spotted Holtz making coffee in her pajamas with her hair down, but then she went upstairs and when she saw her again, her hair was tied up once more.
She wants to touch her hair because it looks so soft, so she does, and it is. She touches her hair, and Holtz looks up at her, the corners of her lips twitching just slightly. Erin feels suddenly shy, so she stops, withdrawing her hands.
Her eyes dart down, over Holtz’s body, to her bare thigh with the tattoo that she’s only seen once before. She touches it. She traces her finger lightly over the thin lines.
“My mother’s name was Rose,” Holtz says softly. So softly, that if Erin hadn’t been lying right next to her, she doubts she would have heard her. “Her favourite colour was blue. And she loved the play The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. It was her favourite. She would travel to any regional theatre in a hundred-mile radius to see it.”
Erin thinks that she may have read that in high school English class, but she can’t really remember. She has stopped tracing her finger over Holtz’s tattoo, but her touch still lingers on her thigh.
“She was going to be an actress. But then she had my sister. And then she had me. And she became a mother instead. And she was the best mother that a person like me could have asked for. She always used to tell me that I should never be ordinary.”
Erin smiles. She watches Holtz, but Holtz looks straight above, eyes focused on the ceiling.
“I used to think that my mom would be the only person who would ever love me,” she says, her voice somehow even softer, and even in the complete silence, lying right beside her, Erin has to strain to hear her. “I miss her every single day.”
Erin doesn’t know what to say -- doesn’t know if she should say anything at all, so she simply moves her head to rest it atop Holtz’s shoulder. A few seconds pass, and then Holtz shifts, moving so that her arm is beneath Erin’s neck, wrapping around her, and Erin moves in closer to her.
“Your mom sounds like she was a wonderful person,” Erin tells her.
“She really was.”
“I wish I could have met her,” she says honestly, thinking about how wonderful it would be to meet the person who had created and raised Jillian Holtzmann. She peers up at Holtz’s face, only able to see part of it from her position on her shoulder, but she can tell that she smiles. And Holtz angles her head down to see her better.
“I wish she could have met you,” she says. Erin moves, lifting her head, wanting to see Holtz, to look at her face. Holtz looks back at her. Her expression is calm. Relaxed. It calms Erin. Her eyes make her think of cobalt, the chemical properties and formulas running through her mind. Her hair is spread out on the pillow around her head. Erin touches her face. Her fingers trail over her cheek. She looks at her lips -- perfectly shaped, the most inviting shade of pink.
And she kisses her.
Everything stops. For a second, maybe two, the entire world stops.
Holtz blinks up at her. And they kiss again.
Hands roam, bury into hair, slide over thighs, squeeze at warm skin. Sharp inhales and slow exhales and the rustling of bedsheets fills the small room.
Erin pulls Holtz’s shirt from her body. She touches the little metal bars through her nipples lightly, glancing up at her face, and she smiles at her.
Holtz kisses down her neck, sucking a spot just above where her shirt begins, stopping to help her out of it, to unclasp her bra, to explore new territory. Erin lays back on the pillow, and Holtz is on top of her, over her, when she leans down to kiss her, her blonde hair falls in a curtain around their faces. Erin smoothes it back, holding it in place, and Holtz is on top of her, and she’s kissing her, and she holds her close, feels their bodies touching, kisses her, kisses her, kisses her.
Holtz buries her face between Erin’s thighs.
Erin’s breaths are heavy.
Even if the words that Holtz speaks and the machines that Holtz builds are any indication of what her mouth and hands are truly capable of, Erin is still surprised.
Her thighs are earthquakes and she’s a machine and Holtz’s hands have started so many fires, and the sparks inside of her are sure to lead somewhere unsafe, and she comes, and Holtz holds her. Holtz holds her and she kisses her, kisses her everywhere her mouth can reach, and Erin is still trying to learn how to breathe again, and she kisses her, kisses her, kisses her, can’t kiss her enough, her perfectly-shaped lips and her tongue, and the way her hair smells as it tickles her face. She kisses her.
They move against each other, a slow and steady rocking at first, a build-up, fingernails digging into soft flesh, holding each other close. She watches Holtz come undone, unties the complicated knots of rope holding her together with her fingers, elicits noises that remind her of Chopin’s nocturnes. The biggest explosions.
They collapse onto each other. Early morning sun floods through the window. She kisses her. Kisses her. Kisses her.
And then, they sleep.
July
“Holtz and I have been sleeping with each other. For a few weeks now.”
“No doy.”
“Huh?”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Well, you haven’t exactly been subtle about it,” Abby says, peering over the tops of her glasses.
“What? We. What?”
“Making eyes at each other from across the room? Both excusing yourselves at the same time to go upstairs? Coming back thirty minutes later all sweaty and glowy? Come on! And I’ve known Holtzmann a long enough time to recognize her I-Just-Had-Sex Face. It’s always the same fucking face. And she’s been wearing that fucking face all the time lately!”
“I...oh,” Erin frowns. She was so sure that nobody else knew.
“Patty and I have discussed it,” Abby reveals. “We’ve decided that you’re both grown-ass adults who are mature enough to maintain a professional relationship regardless of the outcome of your personal relationship.”
“Yeah,” Erin nods slowly. “Yeah, we are.”
“I’m glad you finally told me,” Abby says with a sincere smile. And then she laughs. “You know! It’s funny! Its funny because you thought I was sleeping with Holtz a few months ago! And now you’re the gay one!”
“I’m not-- I’m not gay ,” Erin says. “I’m not straight, either. Bi, maybe? I just...I don’t know.”
“She has that effect on women,” Abby smiles.
“Yeah,” she laughs. “I don’t know. It’s just, like… when I’m with her, it’s not like… the fact that she’s a woman doesn’t really factor into it, you know? Like, she is a woman, she’s obviously a woman, but I’m not thinking about the fact that I’m with a woman. It’s just… she’s just Holtz, you know? I’m just… I’m just with Holtz.”
“Oh my god,” Abby says softly. “This whole time, I thought it was just a sex thing, but you… you really like her, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I really do.”
“Holy shit.”
“I know,” Erin nods. “It’s… kind of unexpected.”
“But it’s not really that surprising,” Abby says.
“It isn’t?”
“I mean. No. Not really. Holtzmann has liked you for ages. The day she first met you, even.”
“What?”
“Yeah. I told her not to waste her time because I pegged you at like, a solid ninety-five percent straight -- also, I was still mad at you about stuff and didn’t want you steal my friend away, but…. I don’t know. I thought she got over it. That was so long ago. But… I guess she was just getting to know you better… And letting you get to know her, too.”
“--It’s an insult to my intelligence, is what it is,” Patty says as she enters the room, Holtz following closely behind her. “You think I didn’t know?! You think I’m blind?! I mean, come on!”
Holtz looks at Erin.
“Turns out they already knew,” she says to her with a grimace.
“Yeah,” Erin nods. “They did.”
“Of course we fuckin’ knew!” Patty yells.
“But! Patty!” Abby chimes in. “It’s more than just a sex thing!
“Of course it’s more than just a sex thing!” she shouts. “You think they’d be sitting us down to have the fucking Talk just to tell us about how they’re screwing around?!”
“Oh, yeah, that’s a good point.”
“An insult to my intelligence!”
August
Erin never expected that she would be walking through Central Park hand-in-hand with Jillian Holtzmann. She also never expected that she would make a career out of fighting ghosts, either. And she didn’t expect for her mother to die suddenly of a brain aneurysm on a Tuesday morning in the middle of May.
She’s learning that she can’t always plan for everything. It’s taking her a while, but she’s getting there.
She holds Holtz’s hand. Their arms are the perfect length for hand-holding, Holtz had pointed out to her. There’s no reaching. Their hands just line up in the right places, almost like they are meant to be holding each other.
They had been lying in Sheep Meadow for hours, Erin on her back, the soft grass beneath her, while Holtz rested her head on her stomach, reading aloud from a book to her.
The sun is beginning to set.
“Oh, look,” Holtz says. “Fireflies. I know it’s just bioluminescence, luciferase, adenosine triphosphate, all that stuff, but it’s still really cool when it’s coming from an insect’s butt, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, sure,” Erin laughs. She looks at Holtz. She’s sunburnt. Just sightly. Her nose and cheeks are pink, and Erin is very much in love with her. She doesn’t tell her this. She hasn’t told her this. Not yet. She will. Not yet. She thinks that Holtz already knows anyways, though.
She stops walking, and Holtz stops, too. She doesn’t say anything. She just leans in to kiss the pink tip of Holtz’s nose. And then they walk again.
“Hey,” Holtz turns to her as they walk. “You wanna come back to my lab and check out my neuro-nuclear space fission reactor?”
She waggles her eyebrows, and Erin cocks her head. The words sound vaguely familiar, but Erin can’t place where she’s heard them before.
“It’ll blow your mind, ” she says suggestively.
Erin shakes her head.
“That’s not even a real thing. You made that up,” she says. “That doesn’t even make any sense.”
Holtz laughs beside her, and then she’s kissing her, quickly, and pulling away.
“What are you even talking about?” Erin asks with a laugh.
“Oh, nothing,” Holtz sings, grinning at her, and then breaking the hold of their hands to walk faster, towards a cluster of fireflies.
She doesn’t always understand everything that Holtz says. She doesn’t think she ever will. She likes it that way.
“One of them landed on me!” Holtz calls out gleefully, a glowing bug on her outstretched hand. A few more dance around her head, giving her an ethereal glow.
She’s beautiful.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
She doesn’t say it.
Not yet.
“Come on, let’s go home,” she says, holding her hand out to her again. The firehouse isn’t really ‘home’, but it’s the closest feeling to home that Erin can remember. “Kevin’s cooking tonight, remember?”
“Oh, yeah!”
And their hands are clasped together again and they walk.
They walk.