Chapter Text
Erin’s apartment, much like most areas of her life, is kept perfectly neat. So much so, that on the odd occasion that Abby drops by after work, she cracks jokes about it looking like something out of a catalogue, and Erin supposes it probably does. The walls are eggshell, bare besides a few large paintings that hang over her bed (they came with the apartment), and the hard wood floors are always perfectly swept. She never leaves clothes out, always keeps on top of her laundry, and nothing every lurks in her fridge longer than it ought to. The few weeks between reengaging with Abby, and saving Abby from being sucked into a vortex to another plane, the place might have looked slightly more dishevelled than normal, but it probably would have only been noticeable to her.
In all honesty, she doesn’t spend that much time at home. She eats, sleeps and breathes work, having fallen asleep with her head buried in a book at the firestation more times than she cares to count. They order take out almost every night, and they take it in turns to do the deli run for lunch. Erin’s fridge contains a bottle of orange juice, a carton of blueberries, a half-eaten lettuce, and a single tupperware of leftover Chinese food. It isn’t like she needs anything more than that.
Since becoming a Ghostbuster, she might have let a few of her habits slip - the uptight clothes, the blouses buttoned right to the top, with long, tweed skirts, and matching blazers; even the need to please absolutely everybody is being slowly discarded - but the most notable is probably her anxious late-night cleaning habit, that has existed for as far back as Erin can remember. Whether that is down to the fact she comes home each night too exhausted to worry, or - and this is more likely, in all honesty - she’s been feeling too content to need the distraction cleaning used to give her, she can’t be completely sure, but either way, she’s been getting a lot more sleep, and her apartment is beginning to look slightly more lived in. She even slips a picture of the four of them into a frame on her windowsill, the first personal touch she thinks she’s ever added.
Home is Erin’s haven, and it’s always been that way, ever since she moved out and became self-sufficient.
Apparently, this is a difficult concept for cockroaches to grasp though.
The morning she steps on her very first roach - and in her favourite pair of heels which have only just recovered from ectoplasm, no less - she feels like she might throw up. She lets out a shriek that probably wakes every single apartment in the block. So, she might be able to deal with ghosts on a daily basis, but roaches?
Appearances have always been everything to Erin, so she doesn’t tell the girls at work that anything is wrong, mostly out of embarrassment. She calls the fumigator, and he tells her that she’ll have to find somewhere else to stay for the week, and Erin gives into the probability that she will be sleeping cooped up on a secondhand couch in the firehouse for the week. She’d rather that, than admit to her colleagues that her apartment is anything less than perfect, or burden them with her presence outside of work.
It’s not like anybody will notice. She’s often the last to leave, and almost always the first to arrive. Punctuality has always been important, even now that she’s self-employed. Occasionally, she arrives at work to the bass of 80s music pumping quietly through the ceiling, but Holtzmann pretty much keeps to herself, unless there’s food or ghosts involved. Erin figures she’ll be safe enough camping out in the waiting area for a few days.
Erin spends the evening up in Holtzmann’s lab. It’s been her chosen nook to work in for a while, partially because it’s where the building gets the most light in, and partly because there’s something soothing about listening to Holtzmann tinkering next to her. Plus, she’s always on hand to put out fires, which comes in more helpful than she had imagined. Holtzmann eventually gave her a desk, and some sort of tropical plant in a partially-broken pot that Erin suspects may have been stolen from a dumpster somewhere. All the same, it’s touching. Probably more so than Erin likes to let on.
As much as she loves it up here, tonight she’s getting frustrated with how long Holtzmann is sticking around for. It’s gone nine o’clock, and she’s still playing around with her latest invention, despite the rest of the team having left hours ago, and Erin’s getting antsy.
“I’m heading out,” she finally says, after what feels like an impossibly long time, “gotta catch some Zs,” she grins at Erin, sticking her hands deep into the pockets of her overalls, and if Erin weren’t so tired, she might have grinned back.
“Right, yes, I ought to head off too.”
Holtzmann tilts her head to one side, a somewhat manic look in her eyes, though Erin supposes no more manic than usual, “I’ll walk you out?”
Erin forgets to blush, Holtzmann’s usual effect on her not really working tonight. She sees Holtzmann’s shoulders sag when she gets no real reaction, Erin distracted by pretending to be absorbed by her formula.
“It’s okay, I just want to get this done first,” she murmurs, barely raising her tired eyes from the page.
“Okie dokie. Night, don’t let the bed ghosts bite,” Holtzmann drawls, tugging on her leather jacket and heading for the stairs. Erin flinches uncontrollably at the mention of bugs.
She waits until she’s sure Holtzmann is gone before she tiptoes down to the bathroom, carrying her weekend bag with her. Fortunately, the team are used to her ridiculously large handbags and didn’t pass any comment when she showed up with it that morning. She fishes out her toothbrush and toothpaste, brushes her teeth, and changes into her clean, flannel pyjamas to head downstairs.
The couch is comfier than it looks, and she had the foresight to bring blankets and a cushion. She’s set an alarm for an hour earlier than she usually would to give her time to get ready and remove all hints of her having stayed the night, and to ensure nobody else arrives before she gets back. The firehouse is eerily quiet at night, but it doesn’t take Erin long to drift off to sleep, despite being unusually cramped on its narrow surface.
-
“Is this a private slumber party, or can anyone join?”
Erin jolts awake, and for a moment she has absolutely no recollection of where she is or how she got there. Holtzmann’s amused face is drifting in front of hers, sideways, and beaming from ear to ear, and Erin almost chokes on her own saliva when she realises what’s happening.
“I…” she starts, then realises there’s no chance of talking her way out of this. She’s literally in her pyjamas. Instead, she smoothes out her hair, and hopes her morning breath isn’t too disgusting, taking a deep breath before telling Holtz everything.
“How long is your place out of action?” Holtzmann asks, her expression unchanging.
“A week. Look, you have to promise not to tell the others, I couldn’t bear it if—-“
“Hey, your secret’s safe with me, baby,” Holtz teases, miming zipping and locking her lips.
Erin blushes at the term of endearment, despite the fact Patty probably calls her it on a daily basis. It’s much more firmly rooted in her dialogue than it is Holtzmann’s, and the glint in her eye is different too. All things considered, she can’t decide if this is the best or worst person to have found out her secret.
“You really can’t sleep here for a week though,” Holtzmann comments, gesturing to the largely threadbare couch, “I could take you back to mine. If you’d be into that, of course,” she punctuates it with a wink, that makes Erin laugh uncomfortably, before adding, “I have a spare bed.”
“I couldn’t,” Erin stammers, feeling her whole face flush, “I wouldn’t want to put you out. Honestly, I’m fine here.”
“Erin, sweetheart, either you’re going to jump in a cab with me and go back to my place, or I’m going to physically carry you there. Either way, I’m not having you sleep here by yourself.”
Erin doesn’t want to admit that the idea of being firefighter lifted out of the building by Holtz isn’t entirely awful, so she laughs awkwardly instead, and eventually gives in, agreeing to go back to Holtzmann’s apartment, but only after ensuring three times that she wouldn’t be an inconvenience, and that it would indeed be kept a secret.
It’s only when she’s gathering her belongings that she catches a glimpse of the time and realises it’s 3:30 in the morning.
“What are you even doing here this early?”
Holtzmann shrugs, “couldn’t sleep. You know - machines to make, havoc to wreak. The usual.”
Something about her expression makes Erin think she isn’t telling her the whole truth, a rare moment of vulnerability that she hasn’t seen since the night Holtzmann made her toast in a bar in Brooklyn, but she decides not to question it. Holtzmann, though outgoing on the surface, has always been a somewhat private person, and Erin is already about to invade that privacy; she doesn’t want to overdo it.
-
Holtzmann’s lab is the sort of place where you don’t want to stand too close to anything for fear of it blowing up. To the untrained eye, a lot of what she keeps on and around her series of desks looks like junk, often found by rummaging through a dumpster, but Erin has learnt to know better than to attempt to throw any of it. In fact, she’s hesitant to so much as touch anything without Holtzmann’s permission. Whilst Holtz is surely a much more touchy-feely person than Erin has ever been (the Kevin thing aside), Erin has quickly noticed that she doesn’t like to be touched unless it’s on her own terms. Not that she ever says as much, but Erin’s noticed the way she flinches at unexpected contact in a way not entirely dissimilarly to herself. Erin thinks that in the months they’ve worked together, she’s beginning to uncover the mystery of Jillian Holtzmann bit by bit, perhaps even moreso than the rest of her colleagues.
If the lab is anything to go by, Erin anticipates Holtzmann’s apartment to be something of a junkyard. Certainly nothing like her own spotless and polished (and full of cockroaches at present but that’s beside the point) apartment. Still, when they pull up outside it and Holtzmann insists on shoving her own money through to the cab driver, Erin can’t help but feel a sort of anticipation twisting in the depths of her stomach at being allowed into the other woman’s private space.
Erin is still dressed in her pyjamas, though she did have the foresight to replace her fuzzy slippers with a slightly more appropriate (but not by much) pair of heels. The cold night air is making her skin prickle, even as she wraps her arms tighter across herself, waiting for Holtzmann to unlock the front door.
To Holtzmann’s credit, when she finally gets the front door open (she has three separate locks and Erin doesn’t know whether she should be suspicious or impressed by her surprising attention to safety - she certainly doesn’t seem that bothered at the firestation), the place doesn’t instantly smell of either burning or mould which were the two things Erin was dreading. In fact, the hallway is fairly inconspicuous. Normal looking, even. Grey walls, dark flooring, and an end table that is home to two different pairs of glasses with yellow lenses, and a bunch of keys that Holtzmann deposits there in a swift movement.
It’s actually sort of… nice?
Holtzmann shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot, obviously waiting for Erin to say something, or at the very least finish taking in the apartment building. Erin is sure she’s given away her thoughts from the look on her face. It isn’t like Holtz to look so uncomfortable, when she’s usually so forward and outgoing, and Erin marks it down as another data point. Another piece of supporting evidence for her hypothesis that Holtzmann is a lot more private than she lets on.
(Not that that is an actual thing because that would be inappropriate, and Erin doesn’t spend that much time theorising about Holtzmann. She barely even thinks about her, really.)
“So, this is the place,” Holtz says, grinning, “the grand tour, m’lady?” she asks, holding out her arm with a goofy expression.
Erin links arms with her, and tries to ignore the way her pulse always starts thumping far quicker when she’s in close contact with her, like she sets all her nerve-endings ablaze. It’s comforting at the same time, walking through the apartment, Holtzmann describing things in a faux tour-guide type voice, cracking silly jokes just to make a sleepy Erin smile.
The apartment itself is something of an Aladdin’s cave. Erin thought that the lab was bad enough for its heaped piles of metal and wires, but every nook and cranny - aside from the hallway, it seems - has a box overflowing with parts and tools and papers. Design plans on graph paper - the kind she used at college - are spread across surfaces and stuck to windows, but in some crazy way, it doesn’t seem disorganised like it does back at the lab. There’s a kind of organised chaos vibe to it. Weird artefacts sit on shelves, alongside retro games still in their boxes, with labels with messy handwriting pressed along the sides. Some sort of game console is on the dining room table, taken apart, and half affixed to an old polaroid camera, some sort of strange ongoing project that probably only Holtzmann understands. It’s sort of like stepping inside the mind of a genius, Erin decides, struggling to take it all in.
It couldn’t be further from the minimalistic haven her own apartment offers her.
“May I show you to the presidential suite, m’am?” Holtzmann asks her, after what feels like an age of silence. She hooks her arm through Erin’s, and ushers her towards the only door they haven’t opened yet.
Unlike the rest of the apartment, this room is small and tidy. The bed - somewhere between a single and a double like it hasn’t made its mind up - is made up with what looks like a child’s duvet cover: a bright graphic of a nebula in pinks and greens and blues on a black background, with a mis-matched striped yellow and white pillow. Erin glances at it and then at Holtzmann, who looks a little like she’s wishing the ground would swallow her whole - a look that is entirely foreign on her.
“It’s not as uh fancy as you are probably used to, but it’s more comfortable than the couch at the fire station, I promise.”
“It's perfect, thank you,” Erin says, sincerely, placing her large weekend bag on the floor at the foot of the bed.
“I’ll leave you to sleep. You need anything, gimme a call. I’ll only be next door.”
Erin nods, slipping out of her shoes and pulling back the covers on the bed. She sits down, and takes in a deep breath, surprised when the scent that hits her is so familiar, though she’d never really identified it before.
“Oh, Erin?”
She looks up at Holtzmann expectantly, again surprised to see a faint look of discomfort on her features, before it shifts again.
“Good night,” Holtz whispers, slipping out and closing the door behind her.
-
Erin wakes before her alarm and for a split second she forgets she isn’t in her own bed. Then she remembers, and can’t help but feel a smile drift across her features. She snuggles deeper into the duvet, feeling sort of embarrassed as she presses her face into the pillow, taking in a deep breath. There’s a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach, like she’s about to be caught doing something wrong, a feeling she hasn’t really experienced since she was a child and sneakily reading in bed after lights out. She feels stupid. It isn’t like she’s actually doing anything. She’s a grown adult, for christ’s sake, why is she acting like a giggly teenager?
She slides out of bed and checks her hair in the mirror to the side of the room. It’s only then that her eyes flicker to the rest of her surroundings. The mirror has photographs and ticket stubs and pages from notebooks with doodles and paragraphs of messy writing tucked into the edges of it, a familiar piece of tape with HOLTZ scribbled across it over a crack in the corner. Erin feels a lump in her throat. She glances at the desk, noticing the piles of books in cardboard boxes, the large notebook open on scribblings for some kind of containment unit, a pen sat in the margin, like it could have been left there any time.
Erin has a sinking feeling in her stomach as she pads out of the bedroom. It’s still early, and she doesn’t want to wake Holtzmann up, flashbacks of awkward sleepovers at Abby’s and her habit of always waking up long before her friend flooding back to her. She tiptoes through to the living room, where her suspicions are confirmed.
Holtzmann is lying on the couch with a worn out looking blanket draped over her, her arm hanging over the back, her head tilted back, quietly snoring away.
“Oh, Holtz,” Erin mumbles, suddenly feeling insanely guilty for not realising sooner.
In Holtzmann’s tour of the apartment, there hadn’t been another bedroom.