Chapter Text
It’s not like she wants Holtzmann to be attracted to her.
The woman is a flirt, albeit an odd flirt but she does so rather effectively, with ease and with pretty much everyone. It’s just that Erin isn’t sure if that is true, because she feels like maybe Holtzmann flirts with her the most.
It’s just intrigue really, she wants to know if perhaps the engineer’s intense teasing and obscure flirting towards her is more than playful, maybe edging on genuine.
She is almost certain that it is just Holtzmann being Holtzmann, and really, it isn’t that she wants Holtzmann to be attracted to her, she just would like to know if it is sincere or not. For science. Nothing else.
So Erin does what any good scientist would do, she researches. However, she isn’t entirely sure where to start so she does an (admittedly juvenile) Google search. Clicking on a website entitled ‘Signs that Someone is Attracted to You.’
She reads the first sign on the list:
#1 – Close Contact.
Erin does a metal rewind of all their previous interactions and realises that research is may prove tricky, mainly because Holtzmann is unlike any ‘normal’ person; her understanding of personal space is loose at best. Holtzmann likes to keep people on edge, inching into people’s personal bubbles to purposefully create a feeling of uncomfortableness. She especially likes doing this to people who are wound a little tight, who are easily rattled. People like Erin.
It could just be that, Erin considers, just Holtzmann’s enjoyment at throwing her off but there is something that makes Erin believe all the teasing and touching and winking might be more than just mind games. So she decides to collate all her findings over the next few days.
It happens a lot during the following week. An arm slung over her shoulder, getting in close behind Erin to whisper in her ear, plonking down on Erin’s lap during movie night. She mentally tally’s the interactions, her initial hypothesis is proven correct when Holtzmann’s hits on her more than the others but Erin factors in the variables: Holtz likes flustering her the most, she doesn’t get the same reaction from Abby or Patty. Erin spends the most amount of time with Holtzmann; they work together a surprising amount. Erin likes being around Holtzmann.
Therefore, it is natural correlation that the most flirting occurs with Erin. She is about to write off her whole scientific research when something happens at the end of the week that tips the scale from flirty to gentle, from playful to something else, something soft. It is unprecedented.
Erin is reclined on the couch in the fire house watching Netflix, some dodgy horror movie that has a half star rating and even Netflix was telling her not to bother with it. Abby is away visiting her parents, Patty is on a fist aid course, Kevin has been on his lunch break for the last four and a half hours and Holtzmann has been out since the morning. Thankfully, that meant Erin had been alone during the horrific few hours earlier in which she did a fairly accurate representation of the Aldridge Mansion ghost and ecto-projected violently into the toilet bowl.
Her stomach is still cramping and her head is pounding behind her eyes but the intense retching has finally abated. She considered going back to her apartment but the idea of riding the subway right now seemed about as appealing as diving into a portal to a ghost dimension. Again.
Footsteps alert Erin to the presence of someone walking up the stairs. Heavy boots and the tell-tale clinking of metal against metal can only indicate one person.
Holtzmann walks in, overalls and leather jacket in place. She is carrying a box of scrap metal that looks, to the untrained eye, virtually unusable. Erin knows, however, that the engineer will probably make something spectacularly dangerous with the junk.
When Holtzmann spots Erin on the couch, looking glib, she grins a dimpled smile and drops the box unceremoniously on the floor with a clang that exacerbates Erin’s headache.
She winces as Holtzmann saunters over to her, smile widening with every step.
‘Hey Pukey, Ab’s just called me and filled me in. Said you’ve been throwing up since I left. Ya think it’s cus you missed me?’
‘I think it’s because that Indian restaurant last night had a hygiene rating on par with this shitty movie I’m watching.’
‘I ate the food too; you don’t see me hugging the toilet.’
Erin rolls her eyes. ‘You have the constitution of an ox.’
‘Why thank ya, darlin’,’ Holtzmann dons a southern accent and curtsies with unexpected poise.
Holtzmann yanks off her industrial gloves and tucks them into her pocket, she is still wearing her fingerless leather driving gloves underneath and Erin forgets the pounding in her head to smile at the woman’s eccentricity.
Crouching in front of Erin, she uses her teeth to pull off one driving glove and presses the back of her hand to Erin’s forehead. Holtzmann is clumsy, her hand is less than clean and a little clammy but Erin is charmed by the caring gesture.
‘You aren’t hot.’ She says, and then smirks, ‘I mean, you are hot. Even though you’re weirdly pale and sweaty and there’s up-chuck on your sweater, but your temperature is okay.’
Erin huffs, ‘Like you can tell, you’ve fried all the nerve endings in your hands.’
‘How dare you, Gilbert! These are my babies.’ She wiggles her digits at Erin.
‘Well then, someone should call social services because you are mistreating your children.’
Holtzmann laughs at her, ruffles Erin’s bangs. She swats Holtzmann’s hand away but there’s a hint of a smile tugging the corner of her mouth.
‘Seriously though, you okay? You need anything?’
Erin’s heart warms at the offer, she shakes her head. She feels tired and sore and childlike. She wants to be comforted but feels too embarrassed to ask.
Holtzmann smiles and then traipses off, heaving her box of scrap metal with her. Erin tries not to feel too disappointed.
She needn’t anyway because Holtzmann returns a few minutes later, she has changed into a knitted maroon jumper and loose fitting jeans rolled up to above the ankles that are more rips than material at this point. She is also missing her shoes, goggles and glasses.
It always takes Erin aback seeing Holtzmann like this. She seems bare somehow, exposed down to her essence like the wires she strips, removed of her protective coating. Raw.
Erin’s heart leaps, rather embarrassingly, in her chest.
Saying nothing, Holtzmann walks over to her and scrambles, typically (and Erin assumes, purposefully) inelegantly, over the top of Erin to wrap around her from behind.
She startles at first, confused by the action. It isn’t what she is used to from the engineer, it isn’t a jostle or playful, it isn’t combined with a teasing remark or cheeky wink. It is an embrace, soft, meaningful. Erin gulps.
‘What are you doing?’ Erin asks
Holtzmann’s hand comes over Erin’s waist and rests on her aching stomach. She rubs small, soothing circles over her sweater.
Erin’s breathe catches, her heart flutters. This happens sometimes around the blonde, sometimes she elicits the same reaction in Erin as solving a particularly complex equation would. Erin does what she always does and ignores the feeling.
‘My mom always used to do this with me when I got sick.’
‘Were you sick a lot?’
‘Nope, constitution of an ox, remember? I just pretended to be sick a lot.’
Erin frowns, ‘Why?’
Holtzmann puffs out a laugh, it tickles the back of Erin’s neck and her stomach coils at the sensation. She assumes it is an after effect of the gagging earlier.
‘Well, I was a gay, science nerd who dressed like a freak and was socially awkward. I basically had a sign on my head reading “dunk my head in the toilet.”’
‘Holtz…’ Erin trailed off, unsure how to proceed. She tugs the hand on her belly into both of her own, plays with the calloused digits. Tries to temper down the odd surge of affection she has for the younger woman. She opts for playful, ‘…you’re still a gay, science nerd who dresses like a freak and is socially awkward.’ She tugs a finger, playfully.
Holtz laughs, another trickle up the back of her neck. ‘Yeah but I grew into it. Back then I was- it was…hard.’
Erin tucks the titbit of information away, she always feels like she has received something special when Holtzmann gifts her with a part of herself, a sliver of truth cutting through the guise of bravado. It felt precious coming from Holtzmann more than anyone else, because she is usually so closed off and hard to pin down.
‘So,’ Holtzmann continues, ‘I spent a lot of time faking illness and my mom would lay with me like this. I think she knew most of the time that I was playing hooky but she never made me go in, we just lay together like this and I’d feel better.’
‘Your mom sounds amazing.’
‘She is.’
A lump forms in Erin’s throat; she never had that unconditional support, that encouragement. Her mom thought she was strange and problematic and attention seeking. Who knows how different her life would’ve been if she had had a mom like Holtzmann’s?
Erin turns in their embrace, succumbing to the need for comfort. She takes a brief look at the engineer’s flushed face before she tucks herself into the crook of her neck. They have never done this before, she shivers a little as Holtzmann’s arms encircle her and it is nothing but tender. She is holding Erin, offering safety and protection and Erin let’s go, melts into Holtzmann, and pools around her, spilling into all the cracks and filling them up. Secure in the knowledge that Holtzmann will protect her.
‘You smell like garbage.’ Erin mumbles into her chest.
‘You smell like vomit.’ Holtzmann counters.
‘Do I?’
‘Yes, it’s disgusting.’ Belying her comment, Holtzmann tightens her hold, brings Erin in closer.
Usually, if someone told Erin mid hug, that she smelt of vomit she would be self-conscious, apologetic, she would pull away. But this is Holtzmann, regular rules do not apply. She is a contradiction to everything Erin is used to. Erin hugs her harder.
Her mind goes back to that Google list. She realises that this is a big tick against #1, because Holtzmann has never done this with any of the others, this isn’t just ‘Close Contact’ this is special, intimate contact and it feels genuine.
And maybe her heart is thumping in her chest at the realisation. And maybe her face is pressed into Holtzmann’s collar bone, squishing the smile she can’t seem to lessen. And maybe, hours later, Erin wakes up on top of a snoring Holtzmann with her right hand more than halfway up her sweater, but she puts all of that down to the delirium of illness.
It’s not like she wants Holtzmann to be attracted to her.