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Erin Gilbert is not quite what Holtzmann expected.
She doesn’t fall in love with her right away, but she is intrigued by her. In everything Abby’s said about her - and honestly, it’s extensive; she’s still hung up on her all these years later even if she likes to pretend that she isn’t - she always somehow omitted to mention how pretty she was. Then again maybe the way her cheeks go a dusky pink when she's embarrassed, or that twitch at the corners of her lips when she’s trying not to laugh at something she wants desperately to be annoyed about, and the way her teeth toy with her bottom lip when she’s nervous, are all things Abby has never had much of a reason to notice, much less fixate on in the way Holtz does.
She’s heard terrible things about her, but she’s drawn to her all the same, can’t help but feel this weird spark between them, even when Erin is supposed to just be making introductions. She knows she has this weird need to make people laugh, and alway has done, but somehow with Erin it’s different. With Erin she knows which buttons to press, and the feeling she gets out of it - even that first time, when she’s filming her in a haunted mansion, and she thinks ‘huh, I’ll probably never see her again’ - makes her keep going, keep pushing harder.
At first, she doesn’t think it will go anywhere. Actually, she’s pretty much convinced that she knows it won’t, but it doesn’t matter. It isn’t like she needs anything more than this. Being able to glance across her junkyard and watch the outline of Erin’s face as she flips through books, chewing thoughtfully on the end of a marker, or occasionally - and only ever with caution, because she saw that look on Erin’s face when Benny touched her without her permission on that very first day - touching her lightly as she moves past, ignoring that tingle that goes through her nerve endings at even the minimum amount of contact. Those things are enough, to begin with.
Holtz even dismisses that feeling that sinks into the bottom of her stomach when she sees Erin practically throwing herself at Kevin because it makes her smile to see her all flustered, and it takes a while for her to realise that it’s different when she’s the one doing the flustering. That the rest of the time, it’s paired with this horrible taste in the back of her throat. She likes the idea of Kevin, because finally there’s somebody who is more ridiculous than she is, and god he’s an excellent test subject if she ever saw one (he doesn’t even notice when he’s being examined), but there’s still something about him that makes her wish he would go away. For those first few days, anyway.
The first indication that this thing that’s growing inside of her is more than just interest comes when Erin begins to tell them about her childhood. Of course, Holtzmann knows the details. She’s read Abby’s book, still has a copy of it at the side of the bed, tattered from flicking through it so many times, and covered in little diagrams and notes in the margins. She’d picked it up as soon as Abby had approached her about working together. But the Erin who had written that book, and the Erin who sits awkwardly on a chair eating pizza and quietly divulging her past are two very different women. It’s only when she’s right there, pouring out the story, that scared and hurt look on her face like she thinks maybe still no one is going to believe her, that this might all just be a big practical joke, still, that it really hits Holtzmann how fucked up all of this is. How Erin gave up everything she believed in because she couldn’t bear to be the butt of people’s jokes for a second longer, and the most ridiculous part is, she’d been right all along. It makes Holtzmann’s heart ache, thinking about this sad, lonely little girl who, even as an adult, is still so obviously hurt by a childhood of being called a liar.
Holtz has to glance at Patty, just for a second, to make sure. She doesn’t quite trust her fully yet, and if she’s going to hurt Erin…
That’s when Holtzmann realises that she’s attached, already, and if she’s honest that’s sort of terrifying, because before Abby, she’s never been attached to anyone, not really. Or at least not for a long, long time.
She makes a joke, because that’s what she does, but she really hopes it comes across as reassuring as she intends. She’s never been good at conveying her feelings unless she does it bluntly, and this doesn’t seem like the right situation. But Erin’s smile is genuine, not the same uncomfortable, confused half-smile that she usually responds with, and Holtzmann silently hopes she gets to see that look again.
(She does; again and again and again and again.)
They fall quickly into an odd kind of routine, with Patty becoming such an integral member of the team that Holtzmann almost feels guilty for ever considering her anything but. They hunt ghosts and Holtzmann builds weapon after weapon after weapon, and containment units, and devices she doesn’t really even know the purpose of. She just keeps building. It’s exhilarating in a way that work hasn’t been for her in a long time, and she knows she isn’t getting enough sleep, that Patty has to literally bribe her to eat sometimes, but it feels so good and raw, and like she’s doing exactly what she should be doing.
They catch their first ghost. It’s a moment of such absolute absurdity, that it takes every ounce of her energy not to do something entirely stupid, like kiss Erin. She thinks about it - hell, she’s thought about very little else, aside from her machines - and she imagines her hands tangled in Erin’s hair, and her lips pressed soft against Erin’s, and the smell of her perfume (something faintly floral, not that she’s been paying attention), but at the last second, she channels the adrenaline somewhere else. She smashes a guitar and the feeling isn’t quite the same, but the rush it gives her is enough, for now.
Erin dances with Kevin, and Holtz tries to pretend it doesn’t bother her. It isn’t like she’s patented dancing with Erin (though in her head maybe she has). Erin can dance with whoever she wants. She can touch whoever she wants, press her body against whoever else’s body that she wants.
Later, when they’re trying out the new and improved weapons, she makes sure to stand as close as physically possible to Erin. She ensures her front is pressed tightly to Erin’s back, her hands firmly guiding Erin’s, and she hopes it isn’t her imagination, and that Erin’s breath really does catch for a moment, her eyes glancing at Holtzmann’s lips for a split second before she laughs.
Holtzmann gives her her swiss army knife. Not because she thinks Erin can’t handle herself, but because she had a dream the night before that Erin had been mugged on the way home from work, and whilst that sort of thing wouldn’t normally phase her, for some reason this does. She makes a mental note to work extra hard on the gun Erin’s fingers clasp briefly around, hopes nobody notices that she always lets Erin pick from new weaponry first. Hopes it isn’t as glaringly obvious to everybody else that she’s sinking into this like quick sand and she couldn’t get out even if she wanted to.
Erin is seemingly oblivious to that energy that buzzes between them when she light puts a hand on her arm mid-conversation, or arrives at her desk with a steaming cup of coffee and ‘Patty says you haven’t eaten all day so have this’, handing her over a bagel.
Holtzmann’s never been able to relate to the sickly sweetness of love songs before, but now she goes through her tape collections, frowns over the box until she finds songs that relate, and listens to them on repeat. If anybody notices the change, they don’t say anything. She’s uncomfortable with the thought of love, and the word itself. She loved her parents, she supposes, though it’s been so long since she’s really thought about them. There were girls she gazed at at high school, girls who she would make laugh by goofing around, understanding that she liked the feeling it gave her, girls who confided in her in the dark of a quiet bedroom and would let her kiss them, but then immediately stopped talking to her. There had been girls since then, too, at college, but somehow, at some point, the work had become more important, and eventually she’d become a complete hermit. She isn’t used to feeling anything this intensely, and even though there is so much else going on, so much else for her head to be concentrating on, she can’t quite draw her mind away from Erin.
“Third time today, Holtzy?” Patty asks, nodding towards the tape player, blasting out a Joan Jett song.
“Mm?” she says, distracted. She can’t find the right song, and she can’t get into her usual groove, can’t get completely absorbed in her work, and she’s already realising this is a problem, but she doesn’t know how to stop.
In actuality, the whole thing is scarier than Holtz plays it off as, and it’s when they’re standing there, trying to talk Rowan down from a metaphorical ledge, that it really hits her hardest. Abby’s struggling to think of things that are worth living for, and Holtz realises, with this heavy feeling in her chest, that she has no answers either. Though machinery and physics and inventing, and 80s pop music and salty snack foods, have always been her go to happy things, the only thing she can think of now is Erin, and the curve of her smile, and the softness of her bright blue eyes, and the warmth that radiates from her even when she’s sitting silently reading a book. She thinks of Abby and Patty, too, of their friendship and the direction her life was going in right up until she met Abby that very first time, but it’s Erin that resonates through her, and Erin’s face that’s right there in the back of her mind, and she wonders at what point Erin replaced everything else.
Not that it matters. She has nothing to stop Rowan from hurling himself at a machine.
Erin goes home to rest, and Holtzmann wants to follow her, but doesn’t. She tries not to imagine what the inside of Erin’s apartment looks like; surely it’s as different from her own Aladdin’s Cave as possible. If her neatly organised desk in the HQ is anything to go by, anyway.
Holtz decides to organise equipment instead. She constructs holders for the proton packs, peels tape off to label each one, and carefully sticks hers directly below Erin’s, trying not to grin (and failing) at their names one on top of each other. It’s like a teenage crush, and she knows she ought to be embarrassed by it, but she can’t quite force herself to be.
She drives Patty to the deli for lunch, and Patty is unusually quiet and for a brief moment Holtzmann panics thinking she knows she knows she knows until Patty softly asks if she thinks Abby is okay, if she’s noticed anything off about her, and Holtzmann can’t help but feel guilty that no, she hasn’t noticed.
Right afterwards, Abby tries to kill her, and honestly, she has to laugh because if she doesn’t, she thinks she’ll curl up in a ball under her desk and never want to come out.
From there on out, the rest is a hazy mess of adrenaline and aching muscles and a certain level of disbelief. It’s better not to think too hard about it, Holtzmann decides. She’s had some truly crazy things happen to her, and it’s better to be nonchalant about it, to shrug it off and strut around like you know exactly what you’re doing, than to freak out.
She can’t, however, stop herself from watching Erin as she slays ghost after ghost, her excited expression as she realises she’s finally getting the hang of it. Which, in hindsight, is a mistake, because Holtz is swiftly knocked off her own feet and pounced on, only narrowly scraping through thanks to Patty’s quick reflexes.
Time seems to stop still in that moment when she realises what Erin is doing. She watches her disappear into the portal, and her heart is pounding in her chest, and her hands feel limp and sticky as she grasps a hold of the end of the rope. She can’t lose either of them, not like this, Abby the first friend she ever had, and Erin… Erin who is so many more things than she can even begin to explain.
The rush of relief that floods her when they pull them out almost knocks the breath out of her, and she knows it’s not going to hit her until much much later just how fucking serious this was, just how close she’d come to losing them. She grins, stumbling to her feet and launching herself at Erin, pressing their faces together, barely fighting the urge to kiss her. She doesn’t want to let her go, but Erin pulls free, grabbing for Abby instead, and Holtzmann knows. She knows this is a moment that will go down in history for the four of them, and that this isn’t the right time, and that whatever is going to happen isn’t going to happen until much later.
At least they’re alive.
When it finally does happen, it feels like everything Holtzmann ever thought it would, and more. They’re standing up on the roof, gazing out at New York City, and Abby and Patty have disappeared downstairs, and there’s the soft hum of the firehouse’s newly built generators below them. Erin smells like coffee and spearmint, and that same floral perfume, and Holtz is overcome with the need to kiss her. She knows it’s now or never, and she’s already cried once tonight, staring out at those bright lights and realising she’s finally found the place where she belongs.
Erin shifts against her, her arm still wrapped tight around the back of her. They slot into each other perfectly, side by side, and Erin’s hair tickles the side of her face as they both turn to speak at the same time.
“You first,” Erin says, awkwardly laughing, and Holtzmann wonders if she’s as nervous as she is, or if it’s just a trick of the light, of the situation.
She doesn’t speak. She lifts her hands to Erin’s face, tracing the lines of her jaw with her thumbs, and before she even has a chance to move forward, to finally do what she’s been longing for for weeks now - months - Erin leans in, and does it for her. It takes her by surprise; she’d never, not once in the long list of times she’s pictured this moment, imagined Erin kissing her first, but now that she has, it feels unlike anything she could have ever wanted or expected. Erin’s gentle and tentative, her eyes closed, her hands quickly tangling in blonde curls, pulling them from their accidentally intricate up-do, and Holtzmann melts against her, can’t get enough of her. She pulls her closer, and the kiss turns heated, and she keeps expecting Erin to pull away, to realise that she doesn’t want this, like all the other girls always have. But she doesn’t.
“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” Erin admits, pulling back from her, reluctantly. Her cheeks are a deep shade of red, her teeth quickly worrying at her bottom lip.
“I’ve wanted you to,” Holtzmann agrees, wanting to kiss her again.
“We saved the city.”
All Holtzmann can do is mouth ‘yes’, her heart hammering, that voice in the back of her head telling her this is all going to end any second. It always does.
“I don’t know what any of this means,” Erin’s voice is low, hesitant.
“We don’t have to—“
“I want to,” Erin breathes, “but,” she pauses, frowns, “my life has been so… empty up until now, until this, I’m scared of messing it up.”
“You won’t,” Holtz promises, pulling her towards her again. She kisses her softly, bringing one hand to the back of her head, the other holding gently onto the front of her shirt. She feels Erin gasp softly into her mouth, can’t stop the smile from spreading across her face before she eventually pulls away.
Somewhere, just a little way away, someone cheers, and it's followed by giggles, and then the door bursts open, and Patty and Abby come tumbling through, and if the situation weren’t so ridiculously perfect, Holtzmann might have been embarrassed. Patty claps her on the shoulder, handing her a glass of sparkling wine, and Erin looks bewildered, a particularly dark shade of scarlet, and maybe everything has been leading up to this moment the whole time. Maybe every single one of them has known this has been coming, that this is inevitable.
And if that’s the case, Holtzmann wouldn’t change any of it.