Chapter Text
Jillian Holtzmann had been working on her thesis day and night for months now. She couldn’t remember her last full meal, or the last time she had been outside in the daylight, nor could she remember the last time she had actually shut down her computer instead of keeping it in sleep mode. She was desperate to get her thesis perfect. Her facts and findings had to be 100% accurate otherwise she would barely sleep at night, if she were to actually get sleep in the first place.
Her closest friend, Patty, continuously told her that she desperately needed to take a break. She had to stop. Even if only for a little while, and Jillian would tell her that no, she couldn’t stop now because she had, “just one more paragraph to write,” or another experiment to do and write up her results.
Patty was getting sick of it. They had barely seen each other for weeks by now and she wanted her friend back, even if just for a few hours. Which was how Jillian found herself practically being dragged out of the lab she was working in by her friend.
“Patty, you know I can’t take any time off,” Holtzmann cried when Patty had walked in with a determined and slightly angry look on her face.
“Look girl, you need a break. I haven’t seen you in forever, and I haven’t even gotten so much as a goddamn text out of you either,” Patty pointed out. “You just need some time away and refresh yourself. I’ve got something exciting to do,” she grinned, hoping the promise of something fun would coax her friend outside.
“Not a chance, Patty-cakes. You’ve got it wrong. I need to stay here and keep everything in my mind instead of taking a break. I’ll lose momentum otherwise. Basic physics, that,” Holtz told her while fiddling with some wires on her workbench, not actually doing anything in particular, but she needed to look busy if she was going to get Patty to leave.
In all honesty, Holtz had hit a rough patch. She wasn’t making any progress and she was spending most of her days procrastinating by either stripping wires or watching Netflix.
“I ain’t taking no for an answer. I’ll drag you out kicking and screaming if I got to,” Patty looked Holtz dead in the eyes and raised her eyebrows, hoping Holtz would back down and agree.
Jillian just stared at her warily. “What is your plan?” she asked softly, simply out of curiosity, of course.
“Nuh uh, if you want to know you have to come with me.”
Jillian dropped her wire strippers and just stared at her friend. True, she hadn’t exactly left her lab or her apartment in a very long time. At least not for anything other than travelling from one place to the other. It was only late November, meaning she had plenty of time to get her thesis finished since she was well over half way through with it. And she had hit a wall anyway, not that she’d admit it to Patty.
Okay, so maybe it will do me some good to get out, she thought to herself. Holtzmann could tell that Patty knew she was coming around since the woman started to smile at her with a hopeful twinkle in her eyes.
“So?” Patty asked simply, sounding eager.
Holtz paused, narrowing her eyes. “Fine,” she relented. “Let’s go do this thing you have planned.”
And Patty whooped, literally yelled out in excitement because her plan had been executed.
“Can we go get some chilli cheese fries first? I’m starving,” Holtz said as she grabbed her leather jacket from the back of her chair and walked out of the lab with Patty.
Jillian had never been to this area before. It wasn’t like it was the dodgy part in town, but it wasn’t exactly the best either. The two women had arrived at what was almost like a deserted junk yard, except it was swarming with people. Everyone was walking into a big and dilapidated warehouse, getting their wrists stamped as they went through the open doors.
“What is this place?” Jillian asked as she and Patty walked towards the small line of people waiting to be admitted inside.
Patty looked down to her, grinned, then wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “It’s roller derby, bitch!” she yelled, to which a few other women around them yelled out in agreement of that statement.
“Roller derby?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t know what roller derby is, Holtzy.”
“I know what it is,” she said casually. “But I’ve never been before. Why have you taken me to a roller derby game?”
“I don’t know. It was happening?” Patty shrugged. “I’ve been a few times but nothing on the regular. It’s an exciting game! Look, it’ll be fun! Just try and forget about your work and enjoy yourself, okay?”
Holtz just shrugged and promised she’d only focus on the game and nothing having to do with her thesis. She was reluctant to get into it because she knew how much work she had to do, but this was going to be for Patty tonight, not for her own enjoyment.
They payed the small fee to get in and got a stamp on their wrists; it was of a roller skate with stars surrounding it. As they walked into the warehouse they could tell it was going to be a crazy night. There were so many people, mostly women, and they all had cups of beer and were walking around yelling, excited for the game Holtz guessed. Few people had actually managed to find seats yet, but that made it easier for Patty and Holtz to find some good seats close to the rink.
Holtzmann held a couple of seats while Patty went to get them drinks, and Jillian just had a look around. The track didn’t seem to be as big as she imagined. It was also on a lean which she thought would be difficult to skate on.
She’d only ever skated about twice in her life, and both times she had fallen down and grazed her knees so she thought never again. Though, she was only a kid back then and now her balance would be a lot better these days. She thought that maybe she should give it a go if she felt so inclined after seeing some experts do it.
Patty came back just in time for the game to start. A rather raggedy and stringy looking guy came out onto the track wearing knee length shorts, flip flops, a singlet and a rather old looking sports jacket. He held up a microphone and started getting everyone to quiet down.
“Alright, alright folks! Take your seats and shut up,” the man said into the mic and paused, waiting for everyone to get less rowdy. As he spoke again he introduced the first team; the Rough Diamonds. Patty even booed and Holtz threw her a confused look.
“They aren’t my favourite team,” she laughed and turned back to the track, shouting out again. Seemed like the other team was getting introduced. “Now these girls are the real stars,” Patty cheered as she pointed to the team.
Jillian looked out to the track and watched as each girl came skating out. The announcer informed the warehouse they were the Nuclear Bombshells. Holtzmann already liked their team name, and she even smiled a little as each of the girls names were called out.
There was one woman that really caught Jillian’s eye. She had been introduced as Eleanor Bruisevelt, and Holtz even laughed softly at the name, appreciating this pun over many of the other names. Holtz appreciated her look a lot more too.
The team colour seemed to be navy blue, since their uniforms (if you could call them that since they were all different) were also navy blue. This Eleanor Bruisevelt wore navy blue stockings with a high waisted skirt that flared out a little as she moved, and she wore a skin tight navy vest to match. Not to mention the tiny black bowtie tied around her neck to complete the look. Jillian couldn’t stop looking at her. She was just so beautiful. And with such dark and thick eyeliner the woman wore it seemed like she could kick Jillian’s ass, which she strangely enjoyed the thought of.
After a good five minutes of watching the woman go around and around the track with her teammates for a warm up she tore her eyes away and looked to Patty, who was already staring at her.
“Holtzy sees something she likes? Or someone, I should say.” her friend teased.
“What? No!”
“You’re lying, girl, but that’s okay. Just enjoy the game, yeah?”
Holtz nodded and turned back to look at the track. The two teams had gotten into their starting positions, and though Holtz had never actually seen a game of roller derby she assumed it wouldn’t be too hard to follow.
As it got to half time Jillian discovered she was wrong. Really wrong. She couldn’t keep track of who was meant to be scoring, and how the scoring worked. For one thing the women kept pushing and shoving each other. There was hitting and scratching and tripping everyone up. Holtz understood that roller derby was a pretty rough thing, but she didn’t know how much she would… like it. If she were completely honest she’d say she was totally turned on by it. All the women out there were having fun, despite all the shoving, and Jillian was completely into it.
Patty had to keep telling her what had happened in the technical terms just because she really couldn’t keep up, but by the end of the game she was cheering and yelling along with Patty and the rest of the crowd.
The Nuclear Bombshells didn’t end up winning but Jillian watched them all huddle together after the game ended and saw them smiling and hugging each other, which was nice, Holtz thought. That even though it was a competitive thing they were still just in it for the fun of it.
Holtz had started to walk around the warehouse, which was slowly getting less and less packed with people and they all left. Patty had said she needed to find the bathroom so here Jillian was, just wandering around. There seemed to be a few stalls set up, and Holtz could see some of the girls from the Rough Diamonds manning one of them. The other team members were just skating around, talking to people.
She started to look around to see if she could see one for the other team, the one she now called her favourite, even if she had only seen one whole game of roller derby in her life at this point. She just loved the energy and excitement it provided. It was an intense game and she really liked that.
She stood up on the tip of her toes to see over the sea of tipsy people hoping she’d catch a glimpse of her.
And then she saw the eyeliner, and almost immediately started walking in that direction, her feet walking of their own volition. The woman was talking to some other people, giving them a poster (even signing it for them) and Holtz just waited behind them. She had a glance over the big board behind the stall, wondering how much the posters would cost, because she definitely had to get one now. Truthfully she just needed a reason to talk to the girl she had been watching most of the night.
Holtz was looking around her, watching some of the other team members of the Nuclear Bombshells chatting to others when she heard,
“Come here often?”
She looked up and saw the woman smirking at her.
“H- hi,” Jillian stuttered as she stepped closer to the stall. She couldn’t formulate a sentence, which was completely unlike her.
“Your first time here then?”
“Yeah,” Holtz smiled softly, blushing a little because this woman had spoken to her and Holtz felt like a fan of her already, like she was some celebrity. The woman kept smiling at her, kindly too, like Jillian wasn’t standing in front of her being a silent weirdo.
“I, uh, you were really good out there tonight,” Jillian eventually said, and the woman beamed.
“Thanks, that means a lot, I guess,” she giggled, and Holtz almost fell in love with that sound right then and there.
“Anyway, I should probably head off,” Holtz mumbled and pointed her thumb out behind her. “I just want to say that, you’re all my new heroes.” She looked down to her boots, blushing and embarrassed.
And this woman just shrugged, “Well, put some skates on. Be your own hero.”
Jillian smiled at her and nodded, turning to walk away before-
“See you around, maybe?” the woman called out.
“Yes!” Holtz spat out before she even knew she was thinking it. “I mean, yeah. Yep, I might come back,” she tried to say nonchalantly.
The woman just laughed softly, “Okay then.”
As Holtz turned around again to walk away she caught a wink coming from her new hero, Eleanor Bruisevelt. A wink.
Jillian focused on walking out of there harder than she had ever needed before because it would not be cool if she were to trip now since she was so flustered over this woman, who to Holtz seemed just way cooler than Holtz ever could be. And she felt like she was cool.
Patty found her outside of the warehouse. She was drawing patterns in the dirt with the edge of her boot, trying to calm herself down a little.
“Holtzy!” Patty bellowed. “You had a good time, right?”
“Yeah,” she grinned. “Had a really good time. Thanks for getting me out. I really needed it.”
“Hah! Told you so!” Patty laughed as she took Holtz’s arm and locked their elbows together as they started to walk to the nearest subway station.
When Holtzmann got home that night (only because Patty said she needed a proper night of sleep) she found herself thinking of the woman she met. Everything about her seemed to radiate ‘cool’. She played roller derby, could elbow someone to the ground, wore eyeliner better than Adele (The Adele), and stayed completely chill while they talked and Holtz was a mess right in front of her.
Yes, she had a thesis to write and even some assignments to finish but as Holtz was showering that night she found herself promising she’d go to every roller derby game that the Nuclear Bombshells would be participating in.
As she got into her pyjamas and started to just towel dry her blonde locks she looked up the derby team on her laptop and made reminders in her phone on what days they had games on.
Holtzmann didn’t actually buy a poster, it had totally slipped her mind when the woman started talking to her, but this just gave her a reason to speak with her the next time they saw each other. Assuming Holtz could form a coherent sentence by then.
Just the idea of seeing the woman again, whatever her real name might be, was exciting to Holtz. She was going to have to wait a week until the next game was on, which she imagined might kill her since she really just wanted to feel that pumped about something again.
Patty had been completely right. She just needed a break, to pause for a while. Jillian now felt refreshed enough to get some decent work on her thesis done in the next few days. And if going out one night a week was going to help her work, then it’d be fine. Right?