Radioactive

Jillian played with her penknife when she was upset or nervous. She put it in her mouth and sucked it, running her tongue over the countless gouges and pushing it upwards until it touched the roof of her mouth.

She was very nervous now. She could hear Erin calling her, and she didn't know what to do. She would very much like to disappear.

The way she saw it, she had three options.
Option A) Suck it up, go and sit with Erin under the nice warm space blanket and possibly get to talk about her nonexistent machine whilst trying desperately not to touch her friend, because her self control was slipping already and she'd just spent 7 hours watching her.
Option B) Run and Jump off the edge of the roof and hope to god she survived. She calculated the risk. Option B was out. She didn't believe in God anyway.
Option C) try and run past Erin and get back downstairs. Then: run. Option C would probably fail, and become an embarrassing version of Option A.

Suck it up it was. She sidled over to Gilbert as casually as was possible. Her shoulders felt wrong.

"The stars are nice. Not often you see 'em with the light pollution" she offered. A blatant lie.

It worked though. Erin laughed. "Holtz, I think that IS the light pollution."

She'd unwrapped the packet and shook the foil blanket out. Jillian frowned for a second. She was sure there were actual blankets.

Erin spread it out on the floor, pulling two cushions from nowhere. It confused Holtz but Gilbert looked nonplussed. She tossed the engineer a pillow.

"Get under." Erin said. It came out lower than she'd expected and she laughed nervously.

This was more Holtzmann's ballgame. She could deal with Erin being the uncomfortable one.

"If you say so, cap'n" she grinned, winking. She threw herself at the ground gracefully but carelessly, and rolled towards the foil blanket. She lifted it up, and then rolled right over to the edge where Erin was standing.

"Aren't you getting in?" She husked, decidedly in her natural state of being. She grinned again.

Erin rolled her eyes, stepped over the woman and got in beside her. She lay back, thrusting the pillow beneath her head and sighing.

"Holtz." She said, in a kind of now or never moment.

Holtzmann mirrored her, but on second thought flipped to her side so she could look at her colleague.

"Bet you never thought you'd be in bed with THE Jillian Holtzmann, did you?" She said.

Erin snorted anxiously. Jillian had never heard anyone snort anxiously, but Erin managed it all the same.

Still, when she said "Holtzmann, please be serious." Jillian's stomach looped. Twice. She felt sick. She had no distractions in her arsenal, she was trapped.

She hummed nervously.

"Jillian." Erin said, sitting up rapidly. Holtzmann followed suit.

Nobody called her by her first name. Not even her parents. It was some great aunt's name. So why did it feel so nice to hear someone finally say the name?

Erin turned her head slowly, needing to lock eyes with Jillian, who might run in a second.

"Jill-I-an." Erin rolled it around her mouth. She liked the way the name moved around her mouth. It was like its own flavor. Her tongue vibrated against the roof of her mouth on the double "l".

She felt drunk.

Jillian continued to stare at her. Erin couldn't remember where she kept her tongue or what she even wanted to say if she found it.

Erin looked away. Wondered whether she could ever look back. She thought about what she'd spent the advance on, and felt embarrassed. Her skin turned a violent shade of purple.

Holtzmann bit her lip. Hard. The tension was almost a physical being, sitting between them. Jillian found herself desperately wanting to touch Erin's face. Under normal circumstances she would have just done it, but sitting on a roof with a woman who you've been steadily watching for 7 hours didn't count as normal. In fact, it was probably illegal.

"Wish I'd made us coffee" Erin mused aloud, imagining that it's a lot easier to hold a conversation when you had somewhere to put your hands.

She didn't particularly expect Jillian to do anything about it, so it was a bit of a shock when Jillian did a marvelous impression of the road runner back into the fire house. Erin lay back again, the cool concrete seeming to soothe her.

-----

Jillian could breathe. And God, did breathing feel good. Lying next to Erin was like coming too close to a black hole, it was beautiful and intoxicating as it pulled you in, then it sucked the air from your very lungs and killed you. She sucked thoughtfully on a spoon, before pulling it out of her mouth and scooping up instant coffee. She dumped it into Erin's mug and went back to sucking the spoon.

Holtzmann leaned against the counter thoughtfully, ignoring the kettle that whistled angrily on the stove. She stared at Erin's desk.

Erin's desk did not stare back. The absurd thought invaded Holtzmann's mind and made her snort so hard that she snorted her spoon out. It wasn't funny, she didn't know why she'd laughed. She hurriedly shoved the spoon into her mouth (to clean it before she finished making Erin's coffee) and deliberately turned away from Erin's desk.

She took the screaming kettle off of the stove and poured the boiling water into the two cups, stirring them with her spoon. She dumped 3 heaped sugars into her own mug, and added milk. Holtzmann did not need to think about what Erin took in her coffee, she'd filed that information into her "Erin" brain-folder. ("One sugar. Level, Holtz. And don't even think about putting that spoon in your- Holtzmann!")

She could see the desk in her mind. See the black box on the desk, hidden from view of her own desk by a stack of books. Which explained why she hadn't noticed it. She could see the black rose on top of it.

Holtzmann was not an idiot. She knew what roses and gifts meant.

Erin was in a relationship. Erin did not, could not, would not love Holtzmann. No matter what Holtzmann did, no matter how many things she built for her. She made a mental note to dismantle the night-sky projector she'd been building. It was useless now.

She tipped the milk into her coffee, and then into Erin's. Sighing to herself, she began the ascent to the cool, night air, and tried to psych herself up.