#holtzbert fic

Erin squatted and carefully placed the heavy gear on the floor. Relief flooded to each cramping finger joint as she uncurled her fists from around the handles. Each digit dripped with green goo; she could feel it in her hair, in her clothes, running down her back as she straightened herself.

“We’ve got work to do, Erin,” said Abby, who was almost equally covered in slime but appeared to care only about half as much. “This could be a major breakthrough for us! This kind of raw data is unprecedented!”

"Abby, I'm serious." She followed her colleague as she pottered happily around the lab, gathering tubes, vials and notebooks to begin her observations. "Don't you think we should be firing on all cylinders before we start a project like this? This amount of ghosts in one place...it could mean there's a leak somewhere. We make a mistake or a miscalculation and the whole city could be in trouble."

Abby huffed and stopped walking, her back turned to Erin, who continued, hoping she was maybe getting through to her friend.

"It's just...we worked some pretty long hours to get these ghosts locked up but they're in there now. They aren't going anywhere."

Abby pursed her lips in in frustration. It was a sweet deal the four of them had going on here -- well, five if you included Kevin, which they rarely did except when it was time to pay him. Since the battle in Times Square, things had been progressing fast for them. Really fast. The combination of generous funding and a whole lot of data had made for long, gruelling days for the last couple of months. It was taxing on all of them, and despite the strength of their collective passion for their craft, this kind of workload wasn't sustainable, and Abby knew it all too well.

Perhaps a few days away from the ghosts and the firehouse wasn’t the worst idea. Erin was right about the dangers of a miscalculation when working with the paranormal. Besides, the idea of a weekend spent by the pool or the beach, sipping cocktails with her three favourite people…it didn’t sound too bad.

She turned to meet Erin's stubborn gaze and bit the inside of her cheek, and Erin thought she might win this battle, right up until the sound of voices in the hall broke their focus.

“Uh-uh, Holtzy, no way,” came Patty’s voice as she and Holtzmann came through the firehouse door.

“Sorry, Patty, it’s just a fact,” Holtzmann replied, all lopsided smiles and swagger. She was carrying her pack over one shoulder, and she slung it off in one smooth motion, tossing a grin in Erin’s direction and managing to look good while doing it—despite the fairly large amount of ectoplasm in her hair.

“It’s not a fact, because you don’t have any proof,” Patty snapped, emphatically placing a box of gear on a workbench. “I don’t need to be a scientist to know that!”

“Guys,” Abby snapped, grabbing their attention and causing them to momentarily abandon their squabble. “Erin wants to go on vacation.” She sounded neither excited nor disappointed, leaving the final decision up to the others.

Patty seemed to forget the debate, her eyes lighting up. "Oh, for real? That would be amazing! All these long hours have really taken it out of me.” She tilted her head to the side and massaged the tight muscles in her own neck.

"You know, my brother has a house on the coast," Holtzmann added. "One phone call and it's all ours for the weekend."

"Really? This is what you guys want?" Abby said, looking around the circle at the other three women.

"It would be nice, Abby," Erin answered on behalf of all of them.

She sighed. "Okay. Fine. Let's do it."

Patty let out a whoop and Erin smiled brightly at Abby in response. Holtzmann took a step forward and swung an arm across Erin's shoulders, and then the other across Patty's. "Ladies, this is gonna be fun."

"I'm gonna go take a shower," Abby said. "We'll talk details later." With that, she turned and headed up the firehouse stairs towards the bathroom. Holtzmann took a step back, removing her arms from her friends’ shoulders, and started unpacking all the gear.

“So, uh, what were you guys arguing about?” Erin asked, looking anxiously between them. She almost didn’t want to know. Patty and Holtzmann playfully bickered often, about anything and everything.

“We were discussin’ who, out of all of us,” Patty did a circular gesture with a manicured finger, “has the most game.”

“Now it’s obviously between Patty and I, but Patty thinks it’s her and I think…” Holtzmann held her arms out in a presentational way, doing a quick 360 on the spot to complete the display. “Well, I mean, c’mon.”

“I’m sorry, ‘game’?” Erin questioned. The two contenders exchanged a look.

“You know, game,” Patty said, looking back to Erin. “Style, swagger, flair.”

“Panache,” Holtz added in a low voice, demonstrating the meaning of the word with little more than a look in Erin’s direction and a mischievously quirked brow. She pushed her yellow-lensed glasses down her nose and looked at her over the top of them. “Getting numbers for your little black book.”

“Oh.” Erin shifted where she stood, feeling her pulse pick up just the slightest bit. She understood alright, if the sudden appearance of butterflies in her stomach were anything to go by. Distractedly, she adjusted her jumpsuit, making the slime crawl down her spine afresh. Trying to distract herself from the feeling, she considered the options, and realised pretty quickly that she'd been left out of the race. “Hold on," she protested, a finger in the air, "how do you know I don’t have the most game?”

There was a heavy pause in the air as Holtzmann and Patty caught each other’s eyes. Simultaneously, their mouths twisted and their lips curled before the bellows of laughter eventually won out. It was stomach-clutching, gasping-for-air type laughter, the kind that couldn’t be faked.

“Guys,” Erin said timidly, not liking this feeling. “Guys.” It was to no avail. The other women continued to wheeze and splutter. Erin heard footsteps behind her and looked over her shoulder to see Abby, still covered in slime.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Erin said quickly, flatly, not wanting Abby to join in. “What are you doing? I thought you were going to go shower.”

“I was, but I forgot—” she reached for a label-less clear plastic bottle with yellow liquid inside, “—Holtz’s special anti-ghost soap.”

"It's actually just detergent," Holtz replied, wiping her knuckles across her cheek to catch what Erin was sure were fake tears of laughter. "But that anti-grime formula really cuts through the ghost goo. But who cares about that! You'll never believe what Erin just said." She settled herself on a stool and propped both feet up on a workbench.

"She said--" Patty started, but the laughter hit her anew and Holtzmann caught it like a cold. Erin rolled her eyes and finished the sentence for them.

“I said I had the most game,” Erin finished, receiving fresh peals of laughter from her colleagues. Abby just looked at her blankly.

“Game?”

“Yeah.” Erin avoided Abby’s eyes, trying to act like she could still believe the words she was saying despite the relentless treatment she was getting from the others. “You know, swagger, flair.” She did a number of what she thought were rather cool poses to reinforce her statement. "Panache."

“No, I know what it is, I just can’t believe you think you have it!” said Abby, bursting into laughter along with the others.

“Phew, man, I needed that today,” Patty said.

“Seriously, Erin, that is priceless,” Abby added, still wheezing.

“Why?” Erin demanded, hands on slimy hips. “I’ve had boyfriends. Plural. Men express interest in me.”

“That’s because you’re beautiful, not because you’ve got game,” Holtzmann said, in a manner so genuine and matter-of-fact that Erin wasn't even sure how to respond. She met the blonde's eyes, but only for a second. She seemed far more concerned on the debate than her own words.  

“I...well--" Erin stuttered.

"I think what Holtzmann's trying to say is that you don't really need game, because the guys do most of the talking," Abby clarified.

"That's not true! I do plenty of talking."

"Erin, I've known you since you were sixteen and not once have your attempts at flirting ever led to anything."

"What about with Kevin? Yesterday he bought me a burrito."

"Um, no, you ate the rest of his burrito when he said he was gonna throw it away," Abby corrected. Out of the corner of her eye, Erin saw Holtzmann roll her eyes, though she wasn’t sure whether it was about the burrito or something else.

Erin huffed and searched her memory thoroughly, but came up short. In the only examples that came to mind, the party on the receiving end of Erin's attempt at flirting had definitely not known that that was what she had been trying to do.

"Like, okay, if there had to be an order, I would clearly be first," Patty said with all her normal confidence. Holtzmann started to protest but Patty just held up a hand in a swift gesture to shut her up. "Then Holtzy, then Abby, and then you, Erin."

"You forgot Kevin," Abby reminded her.

"Oh yeah! Okay so me, Holtzy, Abby, Kevin, Erin."

"KEVIN has more game than me? Kevin can't even hold a conversation!" Erin protested, balling her hands into fists.

"Don't need words to speak the language of love, baby," Patty said with a toothy grin.

"I agree," Abby added, and Erin's jaw dropped open indignantly. "I mean, Kevin's not ahead of you by much but he is ahead."

"Well, Abby, I don't see you defending yourself, third place!"

Abby shrugged. "Hey, I get mine, but I'll take third place any day against these two." She gestured to Patty and Holtzmann, who exchanged a proud look. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got ectoplasm in places where it should not be." Detergent bottle in hand, Abby climbed the stairs to the bathroom once again.

“Patty, I must remind you, I have an excellent track record,” Holtzmann insisted.

“Guys, aren’t we a little…” She paused, not wanting to say ‘old’. “Mature? For this sort of thing?”

“Whatever, girl,” Patty replied. “Don’t be bitter about your last place. You’ve got…other skills!”

“Patty’s right,” Holtzmann said. “You, uh…” She gestured towards Erin. “You have nice hair! And you own more tweed than anyone I know.” Patty nodded, as if this was an acceptable answer.

"Man, I'm starving," Patty said, heading for the kitchen. "I'm gonna go raid the fridge.” She pointed at Holtzmann. “This ain’t over.”

"Don't touch my petri dishes!" Holtzmann called. Erin didn't even want to know what she was growing in there.

“What, uh, started this whole thing, anyway?”

Holtz clicked her tongue. “We parked Hearse II in a tow zone. Patty talked the parking inspector out of writing us a ticket in exchange for her phone number.”

“Wow, that’s…impressive.” Erin tried to imagine herself pulling off a feat like that. Didn’t seem very likely. “And you could do better?”

“Could. Have. Will.” Holtzmann smiled crookedly, leaning back in her chair. “Who do you think has more game? Me, or Patty?”

“I don’t…I don’t know.” She took a seat on a stool opposite Holtzmann, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear awkwardly. “I don’t think I’ve seen enough of your, uh, skills to make a call on that.”

Holtzmann sucked in her lips until her mouth formed a thin line, plucking a pencil from her birds’ nest of a hairstyle and writing a note at the top of a page. She murmured aloud each word as she wrote it: “Need. To. Make. Adjustments. Re: Erin.”

“What?” Erin asked, confused.

"Still, y’know,” the blonde continued, ignoring the question and speaking at normal volume again. “What's a hypothesis without proof? We are scientists, are we not, Dr Gilbert? I need evidence. Maybe I can create a machine that measures the changes in hormone levels and then set us up with a series of test subjects--" She scribbled down notes rapidly.

"Or, maybe," Erin replied innocently, "and I'm just brainstorming here, but maybe we could talk about something else because this is dumb?"

Holtzmann scoffed. "Somebody's a sore loser," she said in a sing-songy voice, still scribbling.

She let it go. "So your brother has a beach house, huh?" That seemed to grab Holtz’s attention.

"Yeah, and it's pretty big, too. And there's this great bar nearby that he always talks about--" Holtzmann froze. She swung her legs off the table and sat bolt upright. "Erin, you're a genius!"

"I don't--what?"

"This is fantastic," she continued, pacing excitedly. "A controlled environment and a level playing field of strangers will give us the perfect experimental conditions."

"Jillian, what are you talking about?" Erin asked, fearing where this might be leading.

"I'm talking about swagger. Flair." She grinned. "Panache. And most of all, science. I'm gonna prove who has the most game once and for all."

Before Erin could question further or object, Holtzmann darted out of the room, phone in hand, passing Patty on the stairs, who almost lost her grip on the grilled cheese she was carrying. They heard her talking excitedly into the receiver before she was even at the top.

"Damn! What the hell is she doing?" Patty asked.

"I honestly do not know," said Erin. "But I think she may have figured out a way to use science to win this argument."

"Whatever it takes to prove I was right, I'll take it."

Holtzmann suddenly emerged at the top of the stairs, fists in the air. "My brother said we could use his place this weekend." She then bowed in a showoff-ish way, clearly very proud of herself. "Get yourselves packed, ladies. The Ghostbusters are going on vacation. Now, if you need me, I'll be drawing up plans for the greatest modern science experiment of our time."

Erin smiled. She had gotten her way, though she wasn't sure what else she was in for.

…

“Ladies, you may be wondering why I summoned you here today,” Holtzmann began, pacing back and forth across her lab before an audience of her three fellow team members. It had only been a few hours since she had locked herself up there, for what they could only assume was one of her fits of inspiration.  

“Not really,” Patty answered.

“Did you finish that ghost grenade launcher thingy?” Erin asked, hopefully. She loved the cool weapons a lot.

“The reason,” she continued dramatically, “is two-fold. Firstly, I have spent the afternoon devising a plan which will help us to determine which of us truly possesses the most game.” She picked up a small pile of pamphlets from a bench and handed them to Abby. “Take one, pass it along,” she instructed.

Abby frowned. “When did you have time to make these?”

“The game is simple, ladies. I’ve created a points system which you can find on page two of your pamphlet. We will visit an establishment nearby to our base location and attempt to acquire the most points within a certain timeline. You get one point if someone buys you a drink, two for a phone number, etcetera. When the sun rises, the person with the most points is declared victorious.”

“And what will she receive?” Patty asked, sounding confident.

“Glory, respect,” Holtzmann answered. “And, obviously, a little action.” She grinned as Patty reached over for a high-five.

“This is actually pretty clever, Holtzmann,” Abby commented, examining her pamphlet. “Who knows, maybe I’ll even have a shot at the top spot.”

“I don’t know, guys,” Erin interjected. “This wasn’t really what I had in mind when I suggested a vacation.”

“Don’t worry, this is only one night. We got two more nights for all the normal vacation stuff,” Patty assured her.

Erin bit her lip. She still wasn’t sure that anything good could come of this silly feud—really, all she wanted was to spend time with her friends in a non-fatal environment. Switch off her brain and relax with the people who made her feel safe. Not spend her one weekend off making small-talk with strangers in some bar. Still, she remained in last place, and her lack of participation only cemented that. Erin Gilbert did not like to lose.

And maybe it would be fun, the four of them hitting the town, letting their hair down. The last time she’d seen Abby drunk had been in college, where they’d both thrown up all over someone’s dorm room. But they were adults now, and they would be able to handle their drinks like the sophisticated, proton-gun-toting, ghost-hunting ladies they were.

There was nothing about Patty that suggested anything other than ‘life of the party’, what with her vivacious spirit and raucous energy. And Holtzmann…well, she couldn’t quite imagine it, but she was intrigued.

“Alright. Goodbye, fifth place!” Erin declared.

“Actually, since Kevin’s not coming you’re technically in fourth place,” Holtzmann corrected.

Erin grinned smugly. “I’m getting better already.”

“The second reason I called you all,” she went on, “is ‘cause I totally finished that ghost grenade launcher and it is awesome.”

There were collective whoops and gasps from the other three.

“Garage?” Abby suggested immediately.

“Garage,” Erin agreed.

Since they’d moved, they no longer had to use an alleyway for their equipment tests. They now had a huge garage that had once been used to park firetrucks when this place had still been an operational firehouse.