Chapter Text
It’s pretty normal for Holtzmann to be the last one standing at the Ghostbusters HQ, especially when she’s in the midst of developing new tech for her colleagues to make use of, so when the clock hits 3 am, she’s not particularly surprised. However, she is a little startled when, 15 minutes later, there’s a sharp crackling sound, followed by the shock of utter silence as the lights over head flicker and die, plunging the lab into complete darkness. She can’t help but let out a bark of laughter, more at the shock of it than in actual humor, before she drops her blowtorch onto the workbench below and flicks the flashlight on her phone into existence. Stumbling toward the fuse panel on the wall next to the door and cursing a little when she stubs her toe on the industrial toaster she’d been building, she’s convinced that she’s finally exceeded the output capabilities of the admittedly dated firehouse. It’s not until a massive clap of thunder shatters her train of thought that she realizes what actually happened.
The firehouse, it would seem, had been struck by lightning. This time her cackle is filled with mirth…and a little relief that the surge of power wasn’t enough to overload any of the more volatile devices in her repertoire. But, as she is woefully aware, genius halts for no storm. Her wimpy phone light is barely strong enough to cut through the gloom to provide her a clear path, much less allow her to safely continue building a hollow-laser powered proton net, so she heads out into the hall in search of more illumination. She’s halfway down the stairs before she realizes that the backup generator should have kicked in by now. Maybe go check that first.
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The first thought in Erin’s mind is that she can no longer see the whiteboard in front of her and she wonders if she’s fallen asleep at her desk again. Her second thought is that Holtz blew another fuse and the lights would be back on in short order. But the seconds crawl by like hours and nothing changes. The darkness consumes everything and she can’t even see her own hand in front of her face.
Oh no.
She slowly crumples to the ground, shock like white noise deadening each of her limbs until she’s barely sitting upright.
No no no no.
She’s eight years old and hiding under the covers again.
She’s begging her parents for a nightlight for her ninth birthday.
She’s too old for that and they refuse to enable her delusions anymore.
She’s crying, pleading with the old woman to leave her alone, find someone else to haunt, just please
“GO AWAY!”
She’s screaming at an apparition that hovers at the foot of her bed until her parents come in, flickering out of existence with an evil smirk just as the door handle begins to turn, the faintest whisper taunting her every waking moment…they’ll never believe you…
“Erin? Are you still here? I thought you went home…” Holtzmann’s voice flutters into the room from the hallway. “I checked the backup gennie, we’re out of juice.”
The floating pinprick of light startles her but offers no relief. It’s too similar to the way the ghost’s eyes would pulsate in the darkness before the skin of her face melted away, leaving nothing but a gleaming skull, grinning hellishly into the night.
They’ll never believe you.
Erin whimpers as the light bobs closer, the logical part of her mind telling her that it’s just Holtzmann with a flashlight because the bobbing matches the unique cadence of the engineer’s gait, but that small, hollow voice is quickly drowned out by a screaming maelstrom of childlike terror that slashes reality to ribbons.
“I think Kevin has room for another member on his hide-and-go-seek team, if that’s what you’re going for over here.” The light stops, hovers for another half a second and Erin can’t pull her gaze away. She knows what’s comeing next.
The light inverts itself to shine directly on Holtzmann’s face, all gleaming goggles and sinister toothy smile, and it’s more than Erin can take. She folds in on herself involuntarily, eyes clamped shut and hands shooting up to block out the deafening roar in her ears as she hyperventilates.
“Okayyy…so it’s definitely not time for scary stories, I take it…” Holtzmann mutters more to herself than to Erin, quieting when Erin begins to knock back against the desk.
“There’s no such thing as ghosts. There’s no such thing as ghosts. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
It had been her personal mantra for years, something to reassure her parents and the therapist, something to shout defiantly when she saw the telltale flashes of blue in the middle of the night. Something to fall back on when she was reliving her own worst nightmare.
Listening raptly to Erin’s gasping and fervent repetition, Holtz can’t help but make one dry observation: “You are aware that you are a member of the Ghost Busters, are you not?”
Erin only breathes harder, fighting to grab onto one wispy atom of oxygen before her traitorous lungs send them hurtling back out. The words stumble out more slowly, bent and broken and fewer at a time. She knows, somewhere in the warzone that is her mind, that if she could see anything, it would be purple blotches floating in her periphery, and she feels relief flood through her. She’s about to pass out. Passing out means oblivion, it always has. When she wakes up, the ghost will be gone and there will be light.
“Erin, honey, you’ve gotta calm down. I can’t help you if you pass out on me, Sweetcheeks.” Erin tries to shake her head, to communicate that it’s okay. Passing out is preferable. But then Holtzmann is shining that god-awful light onto her and she’s tumbling back down again. Fresh adrenaline floods through her veins, heightening her senses until her own breathing sounds like a waterfall and she swears she can feel the air abrading her skin.
“Light…” She gasps, pouring every ounce of focus and will into spitting that one syllable out into the open. Holtzmann, for all her sideways thinking, doesn’t understand.
“Erin, this is light. If you gimme a sec, I can go find us a real flashlight.” The words are softer than she’s used to hearing from Holtz, but the frustration of being misunderstood only serves to add to the nervous energy currently tearing its way through her fragile being.
“Too harsh…” She pauses as another jagged icicle of air floods her lungs. She can physically feel the question emanating from the void where Holtz should be, and she wracks her mind for a way to get the message across.
“Candle!” Her fingers and toes are going numb, but it’s hard to tell if it’s the panic or lack of oxygen at fault. In an instant, the light brushing of fingertips on her thigh is gone and she lets out a cry of loss. She’s alone with the ghost in her mind and not even Holtz can help her.
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It takes Holtzmann what seems like an hour to get to the kitchen, but in reality is probably more along the lines of a few seconds; however, she’s running on panic time and it’s already been too long. She shouldn’t have left her there, not alone; she should have carried her out fireman style to…to where? The whole firehouse was down and she wasn’t strong enough to carry her to the roof. Plus, they’d probably get struck by lightning. Or get pneumonia. Or something.
Taking too long taking too long taking too long wait there it is.
To celebrate their ascent to acceptance and also the HQ upgrade, Patty had baked a cake and Abby had really gone all out on the decorations. Holtz remembers at least three separate boxes of birthday candles in the cabinet next to the microwave. Or was it the drawer underneath?
Taking too long taking too long taking too long oh my god where are they wait there they are do I have my lighter what kind of question is that??
Grabbing the small box with her left hand and digging furiously for her lighter with the other, Holtzmann runs back to the squad room like she’s never run in her life. Upon arrival, she notices that Erin’s breathing has quieted considerably, and a pang of worry flashes through her chest. Upon further tactile inspection, the box she’s holding doesn’t quite feel as it should when she opens it. She reaches in to find a small cylinder that is pretty much the opposite of what she was expecting and her stomach sinks to her toes. Wincing as she turns on her flashlight and hears a sharp whine coming from beneath Erin’s desk, she prays she hasn’t made a monumental mistake.
Instead of a traditional pack of birthday candles, she’s grabbed something better. They’re those little self-contained filler candles, tiny round things that can burn for hours. There’s about twenty of them in the package and she feels a gargantuan smile break out onto her face.
“Aw fuck yeah!” She quickly lights the one in her hand and skids to a stop in front of Erin before setting the small flame on the floor, for once careful not to set anything on fire. Holtzmann lights four more with a skill only an arsonist should have before she can begin to make out Erin’s face. What she does see sends icy shivers down her spine. Erin’s eyes are screwed shut so tight it must be painful, but this does nothing to prevent the absolute torrent of tears winding in rivulets over her delicate cheeks. Her face is so pale that she almost resembles a ghost herself, and Holtzmann can feel the sobs that wrack her fragile frame from where she is sitting. Pausing to light a few more candles, Holtz feels the first of her own tears break free. How did she not know? She prided herself on being observant, but how could she not have seen it until now? The way Erin was always the most enthusiastic after a successful bust, or even the way she was the most ferocious during…And it explained what had happened when Heiss had walked in all high and mighty. But this? This was a level Holtzmann hadn’t even known existed. She slowly hooked a finger through Erin’s own pinky and tugged her hand away from her ear.
“Hey. Babe, I need you to open your eyes for me, okay?” Erin shook her head vehemently. She knew what she was going to see if she did, and she couldn’t handle it again. “Erin, it’s me. Jillian Holtzmann, cohost of NPR’s ‘Take Two’. I know it was super dark in here, but now we got some sweet candles in this here equation, and honestly, it’s bordering on ‘romantically disgusting’, so if you could just open your eyes, love, I’m right here. It’s over, I got you light.” The shudders running the length of Erin’s body settle down to slight tremors, and she’s relaxed her hands enough that Holtzmann could intertwine their fingers without personal risk of injury. “That’s it, come on babe. Take a nice deep breath for me alright?” Erin takes a breath: in for four, out for eight. Just like her therapist taught her.
And she opens her eyes.
“Nice of you to join us here at New York’s smallest Christmas Mass. Granted, it’s not Christmas and, as far as I know, neither of us is Catholic, but we’ll make it work.” Holtz is gazing at her so earnestly and there’s such genuine concern in her crystal blue eyes that Erin can’t help but explode into another flood of tears.
Holtzmann begins mentally preparing another lengthy monologue of a soothing nature, but before she can get a word in, Erin has disentangled their hands and thrown her arms around Holtz’s neck. She is momentarily stymied by the sudden invasion of her space; as comfortable as she is doing it to other people, they don’t reciprocate nearly as often, but the warmth of Erin’s breath in the crook of her neck, and the sensation of being melted into aren’t things she can ignore. Residual tears slide onto her shoulder and her heart breaks for a little girl whose only wish was to be seen.
After what feels like an eternity, Erin pulls back. Holtzmann instantly misses the delicate brush of Erin’s lips against the skin of her neck and her heart does this weird flip-flop when Erin keeps her hand resting on Holtz’s arm, as if she can’t bear to lose contact entirely.
“Erin-“
“I was 8, and all I wanted was for my birthday was a nightlight.” Her voice barely cuts through the twelve inches of space between them, and it’s so hollow you could walk through it. Holtzmann waits for more, but none seems to be forthcoming so she pushes a bit.
“Tell me what happened. Please.” Tears reappear in Erin’s eyes as she stares at the plethora of tiny flames dancing through the darkness.
“They said I was too old. And when I kept begging they told me that…” Erin pauses, hitching up her shoulders into what she thinks might be an authoritative stance, and adopting a gruffer tone. “’We just can’t continue to enable these delusions anymore. It’s time to grow up.’ The therapy started a week later and stopped when I got to MIT.”
Holtzmann is having trouble deciphering the various emotions that are zooming through her mind: there’s a sense of abject horror at the whole fucked up situation, and a deep underlying affection for the woman absentmindedly stroking her forearm, but blanketing it all is this red, burning sensation blossoming to shroud everything else. It’s a feeling she latently recognizes as rage. She’s mildly surprised to find that she’s absolutely livid. At her parents. At the ghost. At a world that seems so intent on blotting out the brilliant spark that is Erin Gilbert. Holtz subconsciously clenches her fists and Erin can sense the change taking place in Holtzmann’s mood. Panic grips her, telling her she’s done something to upset the engineer.
“Holtz?” Her voice is small and uncertain, and she visibly starts when Holtzmann explodes.
“This is so exponentially fucked UP.” She’s breathing hard, and she almost convinces herself that it’s got nothing to do with the flush that’s slowly creeping into Erin’s cheeks. “To date,“ She continues more quietly. “I have only ever truly hated two people in this world, and one of them was me. But now I think I have to add two more to that list.” Erin has this look on her face that might resemble adoration, and Holtzmann reminds herself that she’s here to make things better, as impossible as that task seems. “Hey, can we try something?” Erin looks a little startled at the change of pace but quickly remembers with whom she is speaking and nods hesitantly, head bobbing forward in a distinctly bird-like motion.
“Five things you can see. Go.” It sounds more like an order than the game she had wanted it to be but it seems to snap Erin out of it a little, so she’ll take it.
“Umm…Candles…and the floor, and hands, and my desk…and you.” The last word escapes on a whisper and Holtz deliberately tries to ignore the way there doesn’t seem to be enough oxygen in the room, so she gives her next order.
“Four things you can touch.” Erin can’t tear her away Holtzmann’s face, the ever present goggles now curiously missing, and it’s a little too much to handle at the moment, so she shifts quietly until she’s laying in the fetal position, head resting on Holtz’s thigh. She’s glad she had changed into sweats before the power went out. A shaky hand comes up to worry the collar of her sweater as she speaks slowly.
“Tile.” Referring to the floor beneath her. “Tiny bow tie.” It’s hanging off her desk from earlier when she’d gotten frustrated at her latest equation, and Holtzmann snorts when she takes it between her fingers, a tremor that Erin can feel as it rolls through her. She kicks a foot out a little until it strikes the leg of her desk. “My desk, which is cold and metal because you lit the other one on fire.” Holtz continues to chuckle, while Erin pauses, feeling a different kind of tension filling the air around her. Holtzmann can’t help herself as she lowers a gentle hand to Erin’s shoulder, brushing light fingers through auburn hair. Seriously, how is her hair this soft? Her thought is interrupted when Erin sighs slowly, rigid shoulders melting into the sensation. “You.”
“Three things you can hear.”
“Flames buzzing. Thunder rumbling.” She starts slightly as the crackling seems to boom in from every direction. Holtz steadies the hand in her hair and she calms again. Moments trickle by as the gentle sound of breathing filters in between the sharp cracks and distant tolling of the sky waging war with itself. Finally, a small smile wins out and floats across her lips. “You.”
“Two things you can smell.” Holtz has long since stopped fighting the rush of adrenaline flooding through her at the low sound of Erin’s voice.
“Engine oil.” Erin says smoothly, as if she’s had time to prepare this answer; almost as if she’s already been thinking about it. Holtz cuts in,
“Sorry.” A sheepish grin fixes itself firmly onto her face, despite the fact that Erin is facing away. She can hear it in Holtzmann’s voice though.
“And cinnamon.” Erin sighs contentedly, and really she wouldn’t mind if she had to inhale that heady mixture until the end of time.
“Uh…also sorry?” It’s Holtz’s favorite cologne, a spicy scent that would invade her senses every time her grandfather taught her how to strip wires or solder or rewire circuitry. It’s one of the few mementos she keeps from a period of time when there was one person who truly understood her. Deciding to forego further apologies, she soldiers on. “One thing you can taste.”
This pause feels thoughtful, and the soft candle light seems to be bolstering Erin’s courage, as if nothing that happens in this quiet moment could ever come back to hurt her. She slowly reaches up to take the hand not currently entangled in her hair and, ever so slowly, brings Holtzmann’s palm to her lips.
The gentle brush feels like frostbite and chemical burn, ice flowing through her veins followed by a gentle burning warmth and Holtz is so caught up in the moment that she almost misses the near-silent whisper. “You.”
The following silence that fills the air is neither oppressive nor light, and for all her usual hyperactivity, Holtz has never been this still, never been so paralyzed by the force of her connection to another human. Time ticks away into the stormy night, but whether it’s hours or minutes that have passed, Erin can’t tell.
“Holtz?” The sound of her voice is almost startling after an eternity of quiet, the only other sound the rain falling on the roof three stories above.
“Hmm?”
“How do you know all that?” She’s finally calm enough to actually feel the need to know everything about Holtzmann burning low in her chest.
“You weren’t the only one in therapy, Ghost Girl.” Erin can feel the smile underlying her words and she feels a gooey warmth spread through her limbs at the use of the nickname, the first time those words haven’t inspired nausea and a cold sweat, and she comes dangerously close to tears.
“Tell me about it?” She tries to phrase it cautiously, tries to convey the love that inspired her curiosity. Holtzmann chuckles easily and Erin feels the bubble of panic dissipate.
“As you may have noticed, I’ve got a touch of the old ADHD-“ She pauses as Erin laughs. “And college was like taking a deep breath for the first time. I -uh-basically lived in Gorin’s lab my whole first semester, and I may or may not have had a teensy-weensy incident with a very long week and no food, and I landed my first long-term gig in the hospital. I weighed 90 pounds when they brought me in, and part of my deal with Rebecca after they let me out was that I had to attend counseling twice a week. It was just…everything outside of the lab seemed so irrelevant and it took, um, a lot to figure out how to-uh- balance things. It’s still hard to do.” Holtz freezes when she feels the tension return to Erin’s shoulders and she fears that she’s revealed too much, too soon.
“That’s awful, Holtz. I’m so sorry.” It takes a minute for Erin’s words to sink in, and another for Holtz to register the disbelief running through her mind. Erin had it bad. Erin had shitty parents and a personal poltergeist and none of it was her own fault. But here she was apologizing for something Holtz had done to herself.
“Erin…it was my fault… She trails off when Erin rolls over to look her directly in the eye; there’s something hard in that look that’s got Holtz a little bit terrified.
“Jillian Holtzmann, listen to me.” Ho boy. There’s a razor sharp edge to her voice that Holtz hasn’t heard before, and she’s legitimately panicking in a way that has nothing to do with feelings and self-preservation. “It’s not your fault.” The conviction in Erin’s words slices her to the core, and not for the first time that night, she feels tears crowding over her lashes. “It took me a long time to convince myself of that, and I swear to God I will use all my skills on you. You had a legitimate problem, and that will never. Be. Your. Fault.” There’s a fire burning in Erin’s eyes as she gazes into Holtzmann’s and this must be what falling in love feels like. She’s raw but it feels good and she’s got this desperate feeling that there’s nothing she wouldn’t do to give Erin the world on a silver string and it’s overwhelming. Something she’s never felt before. Just as she’s about to try to verbalize this soul-rending realization, Erin yawns, comically long and hard, and Holtz can’t stop the snort that escapes her.
“Looks like it’s bedtime, Gilbert.” She starts to stand, intending to make her way to the ratty mattress in the corner of the lab, but firm fingers claw her back to the floor. Erin doesn’t even realize that she’s digging into Holtzmann’s forearm until the engineer places a light hand over her own and coaxes delicate finger up to intertwine with rough, callused ones. “I stand corrected.” Erin blinks rapidly, mortified.
“Oh my god, Holtz, I’m so sorry!” Her voice is thick and Holtz will be damned if she’s gonna let Erin cry again tonight.
“Hey, hey, we’re okay.” She tries to use her most soothing voice, placing a soft kiss to Erin’s knuckles in punctuation. “What do you need me to do, babe?”
Erin has never been asked this question before. No one has ever cared enough to ask outright, not even Abby. She struggles to stutter a reply.
“I don’t-I can’t-It’s dark.” She finished lamely, feeling her spirits sink as she avoids looking at Holtzmann’s face. She hates feeling weak in front of people. She’s felt weak all her life and has gone to extreme lengths to make sure she never breaks down in front of others, but her it is creeping right back in. Holtz seems to notice this, and she grins reassuringly before lifting Erin’s chin with her free hand.
“Fret not, fair maiden, for I have a plan.” Erin has seen this look on Holtzmann’s face before, the instant before a major breakthrough, and she instantly feels simultaneously safer and more concerned.
“Here’s what were gonna do: I still have ten candles left in this box, and we’re gonna need all of ‘em.” Erin watches her raptly, unable to look away in the face of possible salvation. Slowly Holtzmann coaxes her into a standing position before gingerly reaching down to pluck the lit candles one by one from their places on the ground and setting them on top of Erin’s desk, careful not to spill wax on any of the notes littering the surface. She quickly lights the remaining ten, once again displaying her arsonistic skillset, before turning to face a noticeably nervous Erin. Fixing her with a devious smile, Holtz quirks an eyebrow and asks, “How do you feel about piggy-back rides?”
In the bolstered light of ten extra flames, she can clearly see Erin’s questioning look and she has to forcibly squelch a cackle.
“Here’s the conundrum: we need to get to the kitchen for more ammo,” Gesturing to the candles. “but we can’t do it in the dark, so here’s what I’m thinking.”
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By the time Holtz is done explaining the plan, Erin thinks that she might be dreaming. Except nothing in her own mind could come up with something so perfectly Holtzmann. So when Holtz gives the word, Erin clambers onto her back and holds out her hands to receive the first candles.
“Okay, go.” She says through a smile, and Holtz jogs away from their little oasis of light and into the piercing darkness. As per Holtzmann’s instruction, Erin keeps her eyes glued to the dancing flames as they move along, until they’re just out of the larger pool of light.
“Candle.” Holtz barks, as though demanding a scalpel to perform a lifesaving procedure. And maybe, in a way she is.
Erin places the small oval into Holtzmann’s outstretched palm and watches as it’s lowered to the ground. They move another few feet forward and repeat the maneuver before turning and hightailing it back to their stash. After the tenth candle is placed and they begin yet another trek back down the hallway, Erin’s eyes tracking candle after candle like a moth drawn to a well- flame, Holtz can’t help but make the observation that this operation bears a striking resemblance to Busting. She’s carrying a Very Important on her back and there’s a common theme of chasing ghosts, although this time around, they’re ghosts of the past. Time passes in slow motion, and as they finally lower the last candle into the kitchen, Holtz feels like she’s completed a marathon in record time.
“Alright, Yoda.” She says in a low voice, sensitive to the difficulty of what comes next. “I’m gonna set you down on the counter, and I need you to keep watchin’ that fire, alright?” Erin tenses slightly at the thought of losing contact, but she keeps their plan firmly in mind.
“Okay. Go.” It happens so quickly that she barely has time to register that she’s no longer resting on the firm ridge of Holtz’s hips and she has to fight the urge to look up from the contents of her hands. Instead, she relies on her ears to track Holtz’s movement around the room, every bugle of victory and thump on the counter next to her serving to lift her spirits until she’s almost forgotten why she was nervous in the first place. Finally, Erin can hear the snick of Holtzmann’s lighter, and she dares to peep into the gloom.
“This is madness.” Holtz mutters, and for a second Erin worries that she’s referring to her, but then she sees the blonde gesturing to the table where there are literally hundreds of candles littering every available surface, ranging from the small fillers they’ve been using all the way up to hulking Yankee’s that smell like pumpkin spice and pine needles. Erin utters a dumbfounded laugh while Holtz begins lighting them up with abandon.
“Who needs this many candles?” Erin wonders aloud, still bewildered at the vast supply before them, and Holtz turns to give her a toothy grin.
“Evidently, we do.”
“Touché.”
Holtz has the whole kitchen table and part of the counter aflame in no time, and Erin can’t help but grin.
“Ready to implement Phase Two?”
“Aye aye, Captain.”
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Holtzmann truly is a genius. Erin thinks as she grins widely at the contraption before her. And to think, she had never seen the benefits of butcher’s twine. The concept itself was fairly simple, but Holtz more than made up for it in execution points. Using only a tea tray, the aforementioned butcher’s twine, and most regrettably, the world’s tiniest bowtie, Holtzmann had created an incredibly delicate, beautiful chandelier with rows upon rows of candles cascading down like meteors from the heavens. At least, that’s what Erin thought.
Phase Two goes off without a hitch, starting with Holtzmann briefly ducking out of the room to manhandle her mattress down to the first floor (she may or may not have thrown it down the fireman’s pole) and stealing every sheet, pillow, and blanket in the building. Once she has everything piled on the floor of the library, just one dark doorway down from the kitchen, she trails candles like breadcrumbs until the whole hallway was glowing. When she arrives back at what they’ve taken to calling ‘Base’, she finds Erin holding the Pumpkin Spice candle as close to her face as her eyebrows will allow. When Holtz asks, she tucks her hair behind her ear nervously and shrugs.
“It kinda smells like you…” This comment runs unchecked as Holtz momentarily forgets how to breathe, and then takes a moment to mentally run through the plan one more time.
Using the remaining twine and one of Kevin’s muffin trays, she fashions a carrier for the remaining unlit candles, and backs up to the counter until Erin can hop onto her back again. The real difficulty lies in the fact that Holtz has to somehow carry the very lit chandelier to the library, and it’s almost as tall as she is. Eventual it’s worked out that Erin, She-God of the Long Arms, will hold it to the side while Holtz handles the smaller.
When they finally shuffle precariously into the library, both physically and emotionally exhausted, Phase Two is successfully completed. Now comes the third and final phase.
“Holtz, I still don’t understand.” Erin gets grumpy when she’s tired, Holtzmann knows this, so she lets the comment slide. Phase Three in its original form was supposed to be a giant fort, gently backlit by candles, but Holtz had quickly come to realize that Erin was not a fan of small enclosed spaces, so she’d had to improvise.
After shoving the mattress diagonally into the far corner of the room, and hanging the chandelier from a bookshelf for the time being, she begins dismantling the carrier full of unlit candles and stringing sheets along with the twine. Erin continues to grumble until Holtz notices that she’s breathing particularly heavily and stops to kneel in front of her.
“Five.” She orders simply, and Erin fully looks up into her eyes for the first time in what feels like hours and stops Holtz cold. She’s never seen Erin look at anyone like that; it’s like she’s looking at someone she can’t live without.
“Couch. Table. Mattress. Pillows. You.” She doesn’t break eye contact and Holtz feels so very naked and so very cherished that it makes her head spin.
“Four.”
Erin feels the couch cushion beneath her hands dutifully reciting, “Velvet.” Reaching forward to the table and wrapping a length of string around her index finger. “Twine.” Stomping her feet a little. “Floor.” Reaching out a hand to caress Holtzmann’s cheek. “You.”
“Three.”
“Thunder. Rain.” Leaning forward until her head rests on Holtz’s shoulder, lips a millimeter from the soft skin of her neck, listening. “You.”
“Two.” It comes out somewhat strangled because Holtz is fairly certain sure she’s being turned inside out. Erin smiles into her shoulder.
“Pumpkin Spice.” A long inhale. “You.”
“One.” Holtzmann whispers, and Erin’s just so close that she worries she might spontaneously combust. Especially with the track record they have with number one. But this time Erin sits up brightly and grins.
“Salty parabolas!” It’s all Holtz can do to stay upright in the face of such sudden and ferocious laughter. (It was true, they’d scavenged more than just candles from the kitchen.) She has to physically stop herself from kissing Erin senseless, extricating herself before whispering,
“Just keep thinking about that.” Before she’s up and stringing sheets like her life depends on it and trying to ignore the blush creeping up Erin’s neck. A whole five minutes later, she can sense Erin getting restless again, but she’s just on the brink of pulling the whole brilliant plan together, so she starts humming the most calming song she can think of, which interestingly enough is Elvis’ ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’. As she ties off the last string and rolls back on her heels to examine her handiwork, something completely earth-shattering happens.
Erin starts singing along.
There’s a long, terrifying moment where Holtzmann’s heart stops, and she’s not sure if it will ever start up again. Erin’s voice is raw-probably from the crying- but it’s so melodic and rich that she might as well just set herself on fire because the spontaneous combustion is taking too long. Her every nerve ending is like a livewire doused in cold water, and she can only gape as Erin takes in the chorus with a depth and control usually reserved for the stage, and she can’t help but think: What the hell are you doing here?
Erin’s voice trails off slowly as it appears that she’s forgotten the words to the second verse but Holtz doesn’t even notice because their eyes are locked and, forget being on fire, she’s just been struck by lightning.
In a desperate bid to escape from the sheer power of whatever that feeling was, Holtz winks suggestively and tethers the last of her twine to the ground, effectively unfurling her creation into all its majestic glory. The sheets rise as one, like a sail billowing in the wind, but what takes Erin’s breath away is the sheer number of candles that have been interwoven into the construction, not to mention the chandelier hanging from the middle. A large part of her would have been worried about the potential fire hazard, but she can see from where she sits that each candle is somehow protected and she is in awe. A very peculiar and detached voice in her head tells her that, but for her love of science, Holtz would make a mind-blowing architect.
“C’mon, Princess. Your castle awaits you.” Speechless and exhausted, she can do little more than shuffle drunkenly toward the mattress, flopping onto it haphazardly and watching as the lights flicker along the walls of her flowing fortress.
A yawn of gigantic proportions forces its way through her, and eyelids softly flutter closed. When the mattress dips next to her, it feels only natural to turn and nuzzle her way into the crook of Holtzmann’s neck- rapidly becoming her favorite place to rest- with an arm coming around to pull her in closer. She doesn’t dwell on it, but even through the haze of oblivion, her nerves still manage to flare into life when Holtz whispers, “You know, when I thought about our first time sleeping together, it was not quite like this.”
It’s not enough to get the usual rise out of her, and ironically, the joke backfires heavily when Erin just manages to murmur back,
“Me either.”