Work Text:
“These are your colleagues?”
“Yes. Yes. And we’re dating.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I’m dating the receptionist.”
“What? No. No, that’s not accurate.”
“Whoops. Okay, back to the drawing board on that one.”
***
Holtz tried not to let it hurt, but it did. It didn’t help that Gorin gave her a pitying look as she left the firehouse, one that said “oh Jillian.” Holtz could hear Gorin’s voice in her head, clear as day, a reminder of the half a million times she must have said it to her before.
Oh Jillian, you’ve gone and done it again.
Gone and fallen in love with someone who doesn’t feel the same way. Gotten ideas into your head and not shared them. Made a mistake that in all probability was going to cost you a friendship.
You’ve really fucked up this time, Gorin’s tone had said. The words weren’t necessary. Holtz heard them anyway.
She stomped around her lab, banging random bit of metal together just to make some noise. She needed a distraction, needed not to think. Needed to get Erin and her denial out of her head for just one goddamn minute.
The urge to smack herself in the side of the head was overwhelming, but Holtz resisted. She’d promised she’d try to stop doing that.
There was a knock at the door and Holtz’s stomach deflated. Whoever was on the other side of the door, she didn’t need this. Didn’t need her friend’s sympathy, or their pity or their laughter.
She banged her pieces of metal harder.
“Holtz?” came a soft voice. “Are you in there?”
Holtzmann wanted to cry. Wanted to scream and shout at the sheer unfairness of it all. But she couldn’t. There was a friendship to salvage, if that was possible. So even though the last person she wanted to see right now had come looking for her, she plastered on an approximation of her trademark smile.
“What can I do for you Gilbert?” she said, aiming for her usual perkiness but ending up somewhere in the region of hollow.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Erin said, staring at the floor. “A-a-about earlier. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Holtz said, even though she clearly wasn’t. “Just peachy. Never been better. Thanks for asking.”
Erin stepped forwards like she was steeling herself for something. She still hadn’t looked Holtz in the eye. “I just– I wanted to know why you told Dr Gorin we were dating.”
“Uh, because we are?” Holtz said simply. “For about six weeks now.”
“We haven’t…” Erin’s cheeks went red and she was still looking at the floor.
“What did you think we were doing, all those evenings just the two of us?” Holtz asked, incredulous. “We went to the movies, I took you out for dinner. Hell I even pulled out my midnight picnic date for you and I do not do that for just anyone. What exactly did you think we were doing if not dating?”
Erin’s cheeks got even redder, if that was at all possible. “I– you know. Just hanging out, with a friend.”
“Just the two of us? In increasingly romantic circumstances.” Suddenly all the fight went out of Holtzmann and she sighed. If Erin didn’t want to date her then she didn’t want to date her, and Holtzmann needed to get the hell out of there and get as drunk as possible very soon.
“You never actually said the word date though.”
“No, the exact words I used were ‘do you want to have dinner with me?’ You’re a smart cookie Erin, I assumed you would be able to figure it out.”
“If we’ve been dating all that time then how come you haven’t tried to kiss me?” Erin asked. Holtz got the impression it took all her courage to get that sentence out.
“Because I really care about you Erin, and I wanted to do this properly. I just wanna know how the hell you got the impression you were dating Kevin.”
“Well, it was just the once.”
“Erin, we were all supposed to be going out and Kevin got the wrong bar. The only reason you ended up spending the evening with him was because you were running late and he had to give you a lift on his bike.”
“Yes, well.” Erin cleared her throat. “I just…”
“Look, it’s fine,” Holtz said. “I mean, clearly I have some unresolved romantic feelings about you but you’ve made it clear you don’t feel the same way. Message received and understood,” she said, popping off a brief salute, “I’ll you know, stay away from you for a bit if you want. I don’t wanna make things awkward.” She bit her lip to stop the tears she could feel building up. Not here. Not in front of her. “Did you need me for anything else?” Erin shook her head. “Great. I’ll see you later then Erin.”
Holtz grabbed her leather jacket and slid down the fireman’s pole to the ground floor, ignoring Abby and Patty checking in on her well-being. She needed to get out of there, needed to get away from Erin.
She needed to be somewhere she could nurse her broken heart in peace.
***
Erin stood there for a good five minutes after Holtz had left, thoughts running a mile a minute. She was used her thoughts running away with her—it was how she spend most of her time after all, equations and questions and anxiety swirling around in her mind until she was dizzy from it—so she took a deep breath and concentrated on the most important facts. Three things stood out above the rest.
One: she and Holtz had effectively been dating for six weeks, whether she’d realised it or not.
Two: she had really hurt her friend by a) not noticing they were dating and b) by denying they were dating in front of her friend’s mentor.
Three: she had made a huge mistake in saying she was dating Kevin instead, because they weren’t dating and she didn’t really want to be either.
And now Holtz was gone, where Erin didn’t know, nor did she know when she would be back, and she had to fix it but she didn’t even know if it could be fixed and…
“Breathe,” Abby said, patting Erin on the back. She hadn’t even heard her friend come up she’d been so lost in the chaos of her own mind.
“Holtz has gone,” she said, her brain apparently deciding this was the most important fact.
“Yeah,” Abby said. “I’ve seen this before and she’ll be alright. She’ll go get trashed on cheap shots and be grumpy as all hell tomorrow but she’ll be okay.”
“I told Doctor Gorin we weren’t dating.”
“Yeah you did,” Abby said, patting Erin on the back. “Broke Holtzy’s damn heart in the process too.”
Erin’s entire body felt numb, kind of like it had in the few brief seconds after Abby had been sucked into the portal with Rowan. Before she’d tied a cable around her waist and jumped after her.
God, if she lost Holtzmann now…
The next thing Erin knew she was sobbing into Abby’s shoulder, tears soaking into her best friend’s favourite cardigan. “What do I do?” she managed to get out in between great heaving sobs.
“Well first you need to work out if you actually want to be dating Holtzmann. I think that would really help. And then you need to, you know, tell Holtzmann.”
“If she even wants me to speak to her after this.”
“Erin, Holtzmann practically worships the ground you walk on. Of course she’ll want to talk to you.”
Erin wasn’t convinced, her brain running through about fifteen separate worst case scenarios simultaneously. she was just calculating the odds of Holtz getting hit by a speeding taxi while out drinking in New York city when Abby snapped her fingers in front of her face.
“Hello, earth to Erin, do you read me?”
“Sorry, what?”
“I said ‘do you actually want to date Holtz’?” Abby had a look on her face like she was running out of patience and fast.
“Well we kind of already were…” Erin pointed out.
“And?”
“And… I didn’t hate it. It was actually… kind of nice,” she admitted.
“And if Holtz were to ask you out for dinner again would you say yes now that you know she meant it as a date?”
Erin hesitated. “Yes.”
“And if Holtz tried to kiss on on this date would you let her.”
This time there was no hesitation. “Yes.”
“Is that your final answer?”
“Yes.”
“Great. Now you just need to tell that to Holtzmann.”
“Oh god, I like Holtzmann,” she said, her knees almost giving out beneath her at the revelation. “I like Holtzmann.”
“Yeah you do genius. Now what are you gonna do about it?”
Erin’s brain was already working at lightening speed, coming up with and discarding ideas faster than she could articulate. “I need to show her how I feel.”
“That would be a good start.”
“I should build her something.”
“What?”
“No, no, no, hear me out Abby. I’m a theoretician, I work with numbers, concepts. I don’t build things. But Holtzmann does, she loves building things. So I should build her something to show her how I feel because I learned to do something she loves to make her a gift.”
Abby actually looked impressed. “Okay, that could work. Just do me a favour?”
“What?”
“Wait until Holtzmann has sobered up before giving her this whatever it is you’re going to make for her. Hungover Holtz is not a pretty sight.”
“Holtzmann is always pretty,” Erin mumbled, feeling her cheeks heat up.
“Don’t hurt yourself,” Abby said. She patted her friend on the back and left the lab. Erin pulled out some of Holtz’s electronics books and got to work.
***
When Holtz woke up the next day her mouth tasted like carpet, and not in a fun way. She groaned as she opened her eyes and discovered it was already daylight when her retinas started burning.
“Ugh, what did I drink last night?” she wondered aloud, her tongue thick in her mouth. At least she’d woken up in her own bed, in her own clothes and with no unexpected guests. That was something.
And then the memories of the previous night came rushing back. Telling Dr Gorin she and Erin were dating. Erin denying they were dating. Talking with Erin afterwards and finding out she hadn’t noticed they were dating despite Holtz having pulled out all her best moves. Trying to drown a broken heart in shitty vodka.
She felt sick, and she wasn’t entirely convinced it had anything to do with the amount of alcohol still in her bloodstream.
Holtz rolled over, buried her head under her pillow and tried to get some more sleep. Sadly her brain had decided it was going to torment her with thoughts about Erin, so she dragged her ass out of bed and stumbled downstairs for some coffee.
Patty was sat at the kitchen table when she entered. Holtz grunted a greeting in her vague direction.
“Morning sunshine. How’s the hangover?”
“Is it possible for your skull to actually cave in under the force of its own throbbing?”
“I ain’t a medical doctor but I really don’t think so.”
“Oh, shame.”
Holtz busied herself with making coffee; the Holtzmann special blend that only came out when she needed to work through the night on a new toy or when she was so hungover she wanted to die. She offered Patty a cup but she politely declined.
“I heard about what happened last night,” Patty said after Holtz had slid into the booth opposite her. Holtz just grunted again. She was trying her best not to think about it. She didn’t want pity. She mostly just wanted to forget about Erin Gilbert and her stupid perfect face.
“Where’s Abby?” asked Holtz after she’d taken a few sips of her coffee.
“Upstairs trying to convince Erin to have something to eat. I don’t know what that girl is working on but she’s been in the lab all night.”
Holtzmann felt an irrational flash of anger a that. It was her lab, filled with her tools and she didn’t like anyone else touching them. But then she remembered that what Erin did or didn’t do was none of her business. She just stared sullenly at her mug, trying to will her head to stop hurting.
Patty sighed and stood up. “There’s some pastries in the fridge from this morning. Y’all should eat something to settle your stomach. And have a shower. It’ll make you feel better.” She left the kitchen, no doubt to go settle herself in the firehouse’s unofficial library.
Holtzmann stared at her coffee cup some more.
Eventually she roused herself and, as much as she hated to admit it, she did feel better after some food and a shower. She shoved some clean clothes on, not really paying any attention to what her outfit looked like (its not like there was anyone to impress) and then she was at a loose end. She really didn’t want to go into the lab if Erin was there, still too raw from the previous night, but she didn’t really know what to do with herself if she wasn’t tinkering. She supposed there were engineering journals she could catch up on and settled herself in the library with Patty. She got thrown out after half an hour because she kept loudly correcting the papers she was reading.
She decided to go play with the Ecto-1 instead.
With a wrench in her hand and something mechanical to work on, Holtz felt more herself than she had done since the previous night. She pulled on an old set of overalls and got stuck into tuning up the engine, humming a tune as she worked.
It wasn’t as good as one of her inventions, but it was close enough that Holtz lost herself in it. Several hours had passed when she heard someone clear their throat behind her. Holtz straightened up and wiped her hands on an old rag.
It was Erin.
A very red-faced and obviously flustered Erin. Holtz belatedly remembered she’d gotten a little hot while working on the car and had stripped down to the waist, tying off her overalls so all she was wearing above that was a grease streaked tank top. Then her brain caught up with her and she wondered why Erin would be flustered by her in a tank top when she wasn’t interested in her.
“You looking for something Gilbert?” Holtz said. she was quite proud of the way she managed not to sound totally pissed off.
“I was looking for you actually,” said Erin. “I wanted to apologise for last night…”
“Already forgotten,” Holtz said, smiling through the pain in her chest. “It’s fine, really.”
“No it’s not,” Erin said. “I hurt you, and I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry I didn’t notice we were dating and I’m especially sorry I told Doctor Gorin I was dating Kevin instead of you.”
Holtzmann felt a pressure in her tear ducts; she was going to cry again. “Apology accepted,” she said. “Was there anything else?”
“Yes. I wanted to give you this,” she said, holding something out in her hand. Intrigued, Holtzmann took it. “It’s sort of an apology present and well… sort of not.”
Holtzmann turned the object over in her hands. It was a plastic box, maybe ten centimetres cubed, with a couple of LEDs on one face and a few switches on the other. She gave Erin a puzzled look.
“What is it?”
“Well, it’s not much… just a simple circuit. You can turn the lights on and off with the switches.” Erin gestured at the box with one hand, arm flapping out kind of awkwardly. “It’s not really useful but I guess it might keep your hands busy when you’re concentrating on things.”
“You made this?” Holtz asked, and got a nod in return. “Why?”
Erin looked nervous all of a sudden. “Well, I was thinking about last night… and how bad I felt at hurting you. And I wanted to apologise for that, but I also wanted to tell you that… I kind of liked the dates we’ve had. And I thought maybe I could make some grand gesture, give you something that would show you how sorry I am and how much you mean to me and I can’t even solder but I learned how to make this for you.”
Holtz’s heart was pounding in her chest. Erin was trying to tell her something very important, and she was acutely aware that her future happiness could hang on getting this moment exactly right. “You learned how to solder for me?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Because I enjoyed the all those times we went out just the two of us. Because I really, really don’t want to date Kevin. Because the look on your face as you left last night was one of the worst things I’ve ever experienced. Because I would like to go on more dates with you Holtz.”
Holtzmann made a strangled sound in her throat. “You… you want to go on more dates?”
Erin nodded. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice we were dating before. I guess I was kind of… scared. And still used to pretending to be something I’m not. But I did enjoy myself and I’d like to do it again and I would very much like to kiss you.”
Holtz looked down at the box in her hands, the circuit Erin had built for her even though she had no idea how to. She flicked each of the switched and watched the lights flick on and off, red, yellow, green. She smiled. There was hope in her heart for the first time in nearly twenty four hours.
Erin wanted to date her. Actually properly wanted to date her. She might never stop smiling again.
“Apology accepted,” she said, looking up at Erin, who smiled. “I think this might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever made for me.”
“You’re just saying that,” Erin said.
“I’m not,” Holtz said, feeling her normal grin take over her face. “I mean, I know if I look inside it’s not going to be the most elegant circuitry I’ve ever seen but you made this, you learned to wire up a circuit. For me. It’s beautiful. Thank you.”
Erin’s cheeks went red. “Oh. Well. You’re welcome.”
“Now about the other thing you said.” Erin cocked her head to one side, looking confused. “About wanting more dates, and wanting to kiss me,” Holtzmann said with a wink.
“Oh. That.” Erin looked flustered at Holtz’s flirting. Everything was back to normal.
“Will you have dinner with me tonight?” Holtz asked, letting her voice soften. “As a date. After which I will probably kiss you.”
Erin looked her dead in the eye and said “why wait until after our date?”
Holtzmann almost swallowed her tongue, but managed to regain her wits just enough to surge forwards, take Erin’s face in her hands and kiss her. It was several minutes before the two of them pulled apart. There was a grease stain on Erin’s blouse now, but it didn’t really seem important in the scheme of things. She’d just kissed Erin Gilbert, and she couldn’t stop grinning.
“That was. That was,” Erin said, looking a little bit dazed. “Can we try that again?”
Holtz grinned wickedly and leaned in for another kiss. By the time they resurfaced next Holtz had Erin pressed against the bonnet of the Cadillac and Erin had her hand up Holtz’s tank top.
“You thought you were dating Kevin,” Holtz said in a sing-song voice, a shit-eating grin plastered on her face.
“Shut up,” Erin said and pulled her in for another kiss. Holtz happily complied.