Chapter Text
To Erin’s relief, she had managed to find new mistletoe fairly quickly, and she had bought more than one, just to be on the safe side; she wanted to make sure that Holtzmann didn’t see it when she came back to the firehouse, but quickly learned that she didn’t need to worry about this, Holtzmann still up in her lab when the physicist returned.
She hid three of the four sprigs of mistletoe she had bought in her drawer, then looked for a good place to put the fourth one up; the kitchen wasn’t an option anymore, not after how Nino had taken apart the one she had hung up there, and anywhere where Kevin could see it wouldn’t work, either, the redhead worried that he’d try to eat it yet again and kill himself.
Frowning to herself, Erin tried to find another good spot; it had to be a place where Holtzmann would end up sooner or later, and one she could keep an eye on during her own work, her eyes lighting up when she looked over at the stairs and realized that the spot there was perfect.
Hopefully, Holtzmann will actually walk down those stairs at some point, and not use the pole all the time, she thought to herself as she walked over to the bottom of the stairs, looking for a good place for the mistletoe; she finally decided on a spot, close to the Christmas lights Holtzmann had put up, and carefully taped the mistletoe in place there before she returned to her desk.
Of course, for the next few times Holtzmann needed something from the ground floor, she did use the pole, to Erin’s increasing frustration; telling herself that the engineer wasn’t doing this on purpose, since she had no idea what Erin was planning, she tried not to get annoyed, even though this became more and more difficult each time she heard the thump of Holtzmann’s boots on the floor.
By the fourth time, she felt like slamming her head down onto the table, and seriously contemplated just grabbing Holtz and dragging her over to the stairs; since this wasn’t exactly romantic though, she pushed that thought to the far back of her mind, and was rewarded for her patience when finally, another hour later, she heard Holtzmann come down the stairs.
Oh thank God.
She quickly got up and moved to meet the blonde, who looked surprised to find her waiting at the bottom of the stairs, but smiled at her; Erin smiled back at her, shifting from one foot to the other, quite nervous now that the moment was coming closer with each step down the stairs Holtzmann took.
“Hey hot stuff”, the engineer said as she made it to the bottom, “something I can help you with?”
“Sort of”, Erin replied, shifting nervously again, “why don’t you look where you are…” She had been planning to ask Holtz to look where she was standing, but before she could finish, a weird crackling sound came up, accompanied by a sharp, unpleasant smell, one she had smelled around the firehouse often enough to identify as…
“Fire!” she yelped, eyes going wide as she stared at the burning mistletoe, which by now was barely recognizable as mistletoe anymore; Holtzmann started, then rushed to the nearest fire extinguisher without a word, Erin feeling glad that they had several stored all over the firehouse, what with the engineer’s penchant for making things light up and go poof.
She quickly got out of the way, feeling like screaming when, in addition to the burning mistletoe, the fire alarm went off, blaring loudly through the station; Kevin came running, instead of going outside as he was supposed to when the alarm sounded, Holtzmann beaming at him as she came back with the extinguisher.
“No worries, Kev”, she let him know, casually aiming the extinguisher and putting out the fire, “no biggie here. You can go back to work, I’ll shut this off.”
“Alright boss”, Kevin said happily, marching back to his desk at once; and while Holtzmann went to shut down the alarm, Erin pulled down the sad remains of the mistletoe, glad that she had bought more than one, sighing to herself as she tossed it into the trash, wondering if perhaps, her plan which had seemed so simple at first perhaps wasn’t so good after all.