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Holtzmann looked up from soldering a new circuit board for the next generation of proton packs and gazed around the laboratory through her yellow lenses. Abby was frowning at her computer screen ferociously, attempting to debug her latest SQL query, which was currently returning the entire contents of their entity and event database, rather than the few entity entries she was trying for. The rest of the firehouse was Saturday-quiet; Patty was visiting some friends in Jersey and Erin was meeting some former Columbia colleagues for a late lunch and shopping junket.
Long ago, Holtzmann had identified the two halves of her personality as Kirk and Spock. Kirk, of course, was the charmer who recklessly threw things together, going purely on gut instinct and whimsy. Her Kirkbrain was almost always right, but it was also responsible for many of the larger unintended poofs in her life. Spock was the way she got through college and grad school, how she focused on her projects and could nail things down in a ridiculously short time -- the part of her that could cut through the layers obfuscating a real issue with a design like a precise surgical instrument, fix it, and save the ship.
Some time in college, though, she also realized that Spock was subject to pon farr. And for her, that manifested as unreasoning, blinding, driving desire for certain women. She could take the edge off with a lot of sex with other women (Kirkbrain's suggestion). That was her solution in college and for part of grad school, because she kept falling hard for straight girls, or sometimes her professors, whose orientation was not on the table for discussion anyway. Finally, in grad school, she had some longer-term relationships because Kirk and Spock finally started discerning the difference between a flirty-teasy straight girl and a woman who was actually interested in her.
She had to balance Kirk and Spock in her relationships, though. Too much Spock equalled too much intensity, which drove people off. Too much Kirk equalled too much flighty charm, which also drove people off. She really hadn't yet figured out the right balance.
As she watched Abby, Spock ruefully determined intervals of date and time, with the variables of Abby's general tension level, her own insecurity, and the likelihood of their having time alone in the near future, derived the integral of all these values, and arrived at the answer she expected. Holtz carefully set down her soldering gun and said, "Hey, Abby."
Abby said, "Yeah?" without looking up.
Holtzmann glided over to look at Abby's screen -- she knew as long as she had Abby's attention, that kind of vulturing was okay. "It's probably mis-formatted, as you know, Bob. You should just print that sucker out and do the parsing by hand."
Abby sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Yeah, I know."
Holtz gently set a hand on Abby's shoulder and squeezed a little. Abby looked up at her, eyebrows raised.
"We haven't fooled around lately," Holtz said, deliberately casual. The actual last date was a couple days before Rowan's attempted apocalypse, when they'd retreated to Abby's microscopic studio apartment to attempt to catch some sleep. Coincidentally, of course, that was just before Holtz had slept with Patty in all the high-running emotions after winning (oh, Spock). Holtz had told Abby about it the next morning (and in so doing determined that Abby had not been the person to overhear them). Then last week, she told Abby — with more delicacy than she thought she had in her — about seducing Erin (seriously, Spock). Abby had taken the news in both cases phlegmatically, with a "Cool" and a change of subject, the same way she'd taken previous news of Holtz's conquests during their years of lab buddy sex.
Abby looked at Holtz with an unreadable expression on her face, and then looked back at the screen. "I didn't want to horn in on your new relationship stuff."
Holtz took a moment to process that. Had she been acting differently? Probably. She'd ended up at Patty's Bed-Stuy apartment a fair amount. And had spent five nights in Erin's apartment here, which was nearly the whole time they'd been in the firehouse. She needed to talk to Patty to make sure she wasn't feeling neglected.
"You've never been bugged by that before," Holtzmann said after thinking about things for a few moments.
"I didn't say I was bugged," Abby said, in a tone that suggested the opposite.
Holtz waited, shushing Kirk's ideas for the conversation.
Abby finally said, "Before it was never people you really cared about. It was people who didn't matter."
Holtzmann opened her mouth to argue, then stopped herself. No, that's true enough. None of them had mattered much. They were cute and hot, but in the end, I didn't stay over with them more than once or twice, I only went on a few dates, whereas I was always in the lab with Abby. "Why would that change anything between you and me?"
"Does it?" Abby stared at her screen for a long moment, then looked up at Holtz. "Does it change anything, Holtz? We were always just lab buddies fooling around, right?"
Holtz bit her lip and reminded herself, Biology and psychology are messy, and this is why you're an engineer. She pulled off her glasses, leaving them hanging from one ear. Then she crouched down next to Abby because having Abby looking up at her felt weird. "It… maybe it started that way? But didn't it change?"
Abby looked away, not at her screen, but off into mid-air, and Holtzmann watched her throat muscles work, repressing her urge to lunge up and kiss Abby just under the jaw.
"I guess… I didn't think it changed until… until I saw how you looked at Patty after the whole apocalypse thing." Abby swallowed hard, and turned back to Holtzmann. "And then this week, how you've been looking at Erin."
"You've looked at Erin like that, I bet," Holtzmann said, and wasn't sure whether she regretted saying it.
"Yeeessssss," Abby said distantly. "Yes, I probably did. A long time ago."
"Our relationship didn't start the same way." It took me weeks to seduce you, you difficult woman.
"No, I guess it didn't."
Holtzmann climbed into Abby's lap, folding herself up in a way she knew Abby found both infuriating and endearing. "Those looks you're talking about are sort of… new relationship energy."
Abby huffed and put her arms around Holtzmann so the engineer didn't just slide onto the floor. "I vaguely remember reading that bit of that FAQ you got me to read when we first started fooling around and you wanted me to understand you being polyamorous."
"You said at the time that polyamory made a lot of sense to you and was probably why none of your relationships had worked out before, because you kept getting distracted by pretty people." Holtzmann nuzzled Abby's ear. "I liked you implying that I was a distracting pretty person."
"You are." Abby gave her an irritated glance. "And it did. Make sense. And I guess it was nice to be able to find something in myself to blame for Erin…" She cut herself off.
"Erin dumping you?"
"Yeah. Erin dumping me. I mean, maybe I wasn't attentive enough or something." Abby started to knead a knot of muscle under one of Holtzmann's scapulas, which hurt in a way that made Holtzmann sigh and lean into her more. "I guess now I'm realizing that it didn't have much to do with me. Except me not wanting to give up on the ghost research."
"Are you saying you don't think you're really poly?" Holtz asked in a small voice, stomach clamping down nauseously.
Abby looked at her, alarmed. "I… no, no, that's not what I'm saying. I just… maybe I'm envying your new relationships."
Holtzmann breathed again. "I'm sorry I haven't been… around as much as usual." She gently pulled Abby's glasses off and set them on the computer keyboard, knowing exactly how Abby used them as a wall between her and world. After all, Holtz did the same thing. I probably shouldn't have slept with Erin. At least, not without talking to Abby ahead of time. No one in the Enterprise of Holtzmann's skull could conjure up the least amount of guilt, though; just a little regret for possibly hurting Abby.
"Well, now that things are evening out, I'm starting to miss our old lab," Abby said. "When all this started, it was busy and crazy and fast-moving and there was no time to think. But now that the busts have slowed down, I miss the ability to just lock the door and… work out our frustrations. Together."
Holtzmann tossed her own glasses aside. "No one's here now. And I seem to recall that we still haven't tested a certain prototype I built just before the Aldridge Mansion thing."
Abby stared into Holtzmann's face for a long moment before grabbing Holtz by the chin and kissing her hard.
The heat always started on the surface of Holtz's skin when she was kissing someone, warming her from lips out and down, just behind a wave of goosebumps. Abby's hand slid up Holtz's cheek to her hair, and started expertly pulling the pins out to let Holtz's hair down. Holtzmann responded by tugging off the band that held Abby's hair up, and the familiar ritual relaxed her into Abby even more. When Holtz's hair cascaded down her back, Abby tossed the pins onto her desk and ran her hands up Holtz's back into her hair, which sent shivers down Holtz's spine that landed squarely between her legs.
Holtzmann ran her own hands through Abby's dark, wavy hair, enjoying the silken feel of the fine hairs sliding between her fingers. Abby wasn't giving up Holtz's mouth, deepening the kiss. When Abby's fingers tightened in the hair at the base of Holtz's neck, the advancing heat rushed down and out through Holtz's body, warming her to her fingertips and toes and fanning the fires at her core. She moaned into Abby's mouth.
After another few moments, Abby pulled back, flushed and panting, and said, "All right, where's this wonder of science you wanted to experiment with?"
Holtz leapt out of her lap and dove into a lower cabinet of the lab bench, restraining herself from babbling with delight. Abby said, disbelievingly, "You've had some prototype sex toy stashed in the lab?"
"Just in case!" Holtz called into the echoing darkness of the cabinet. She shoved some things out of the way, which resulted in a jangling crash as some other prototype of something fell over into a pile of scrap metal. She stretched back into the darkest bit of the cabinet and her fingers brushed a smooth wooden surface. "Aha!" she exclaimed, and scrabbled it forward with her fingertips until she could get her hand around the back of the box. Then she carefully backed out, toppling onto her butt on the tile floor while cuddling the container to her chest.
Abby walked over. "Did you actually laser-etch the Star Trek Federation emblem on the top of that box?"
Holtz looked up at her defensively. "Maaaaaaybe." Damn you, Kirk! Then she held up the birch wood box to Abby with a grin. "For vous, mon amie."
Delicately, Abby took the box from Holtz and carried it to an empty space on the lab bench. Holtz scrambled to her feet and craned her neck to watch both the unboxing and Abby's face.
Abby unfastened the hook and eye and swung the lid back on its hinges. She picked up the wrinkled blue and green nonrepresentational silicone dildo nestled on top of a cardboard separator. Holtzmann tried unsuccessfully to avoid thinking of it as a Klingon forehead dildo; it wasn't exactly the aesthetic she had wanted. Abby peered at it and exclaimed, "That's heavy!" Then turned it over in her hands, rubbing her fingertips over the ridges, and examining the base, which revealed that the core was steel and had an internal screw thread.
After a moment, she set it down, then pulled the cardboard insert out to reveal the base, a curved, ovoid steel plate. One side clearly screwed into the dildo. The other side had a ribbed silicone surface. A wire ran out of the side into a battery pack with a few controls on it: on/off switch, a dial, and a power indicator light.
Folded in the bottom of the box was a pair of heavy-duty spandex biker shorts with a reinforced waistline and a silicone-ringed hole in the center of the front, with reinforcing straps sewn into the fabric to run from that hole across the seat of the shorts.
Abby examined everything with great care, then looked at Holtzmann, eyebrows raised interrogatively. "You're going to help me try this on, right?"
Kirkbrain was already exclaiming, Awwww yeah, she likes it! Holtz grinned and couldn't stop herself from doing a little dance. "Yep!"
She started undressing Abby, starting with unbuttoning the buttoned-to-the-throat plaid shirt, and said, "I made the base to your specs…"
"Was this why you were prickling me with calipers a few months ago?" Abby said, sliding off her cardigan.
"Maaaaaybe," Holtz said evasively, pushing the blouse back off Abby's shoulders and taking the cardigan from her. I just really liked how you jumped, and I'd dulled the calipers anyway, but it was useful data. She folded the cardigan and then the blouse and set them aside on a chair. "Well, so, I made the base to your specs, and I saw someone making these great spandex shorts as harnesses, so I figured I could use that, because I think a regular harness just wouldn't hold up, and you said how you didn't like how that leather harness fit you…"
"That's very thoughtful of you, Holtz," Abby said, almost suspiciously, unbuttoning her slacks and pushing them and her underwear down.
Holtzmann unfastened Abby's bra and collected the rest of her clothes to set aside. "I did do basic testing, safety and function, but since it's built for you, and really built for partner use, there's a limit to how much I could test satisfaction." She turned and stopped, staring at Abby while Abby, naked, was standing at the lab bench looking over the equipment. Abby's broad hips and soft curves never failed to make Holtz's hands itch to touch her, knowing how warm her skin was, how she smelled and tasted. The dark hair falling over her shoulders also invited Holtz to press her face into it, to smell the faint citrus of Abby's shampoo.
"I assume this part —" Abby held up the colorful dildo and looked at her with a smile "— is made to your specs?" She carefully screwed it onto the base.
"Oh, yeah," Holtz said, and felt her face heating with a flush that was full of the knowledge of exactly what she'd done "to her specs." "Scientifically and everything."
"The base is pretty heavy-duty too." Abby hefted the assembly.
"Oh, ah, well, there's a vibrator built into it," Holtz said, finally going over. "It's kinetically-powered — not entirely, because that wouldn't keep it going, but movement starts the vibration and the vibration increases intensity with the speed of motion." Her face was still hot with self-consciousness, but she could feel that she was hot between her legs too. "So, uh, yeah, the more motion in your ocean the more, uh, quivers in your nithers."
"'Nithers'? That's what you're going with?" Abby said, about to step into the biker shorts.
"So sue me for trying for a slant rhyme. I got a C in my college poetry class." Holtz picked up the assembly and checked the wires for any potential problems.
Abby pulled the shorts up and wiggled her hips to settle them. "You took poetry?"
"Liberal arts requirements." Holtz eyed the way the spandex clung to Abby's ass and had to fight down the urge to go rub her face all over it. "So, the base, uh, fits the way you'd think."
With some effort, given the reinforced waistband, Abby pushed the dildo through the hole in the front of the shorts and settled the long part of the oval into her vulva, then let go carefully. She watched the dildo, then wobbled it, emitting a little gasp as she pushed the base against her own clit. "Nice… nice contact there."
Holtzmann hooked the control box over the waistband on Abby's right side, pressed the switch to "on," and grinned. "That's the point."
"All right," Abby said, hands on hips, bright blue and green swirly dildo bobbing gently from the front of her shorts. "Why are you still dressed?"
It had only been through sheer willpower that Holtz had been keeping Spockbrain coherent, but now it lunged off that cliff. So farr into pon farr. She tossed her clothes off to one side and stared around, mouth dry and other parts drenched with possibilities.
Abby saw where Holtzmann's gaze was resting. "Oh, no. I'm five foot two, and you're barely taller than I am. Lab benches were not made for people our height to screw over." She waved at her desk. "Put my laptop away before you throw yourself over it."
Holtz restrained herself from throwing the laptop away as carelessly as her clothing, and carefully put it into a drawer before bending over and putting her hands on the desktop. "Please, Abby, I've been waiting so long for this."
Abby slid another desk drawer open and fished around for a moment before producing a pink-labeled plastic squeeze bottle of lube. Holtzmann whined her impatience, but Abby snorted as she squirted a generous puddle into her palm. "You remember what happened that time we didn't use lube."
Holtzmann put her head down on the desk, her hair tumbling forward around her shoulders. She shifted her feet uncomfortably at the memory. "Yeaaaaaah." Still. She bounced her hips up and down. "Come onnnnnnn, Abby."
Suddenly, there was warmth behind her, and Abby's fingers dipped briefly — too briefly — along her labia. "You really have been looking forward to this," Abby said in the low voice that always made Holtz's knees weak.
Holtz felt the head of the toy sliding from her clit back, and she couldn't keep herself from gasping, "Please."
Abby leaned forward, pushing the slick toy home in one motion, making Holtz collapse to her elbows on the desk. Holding still for a moment, Abby ran her hand down Holtzmann's spine. "You're okay?"
Holtz nodded, looking back over her shoulder and saying, "My specs, remember?"
Abby rocked her hips, moving the toy inside Holtz, who groaned at the pressure of it, and the way the ridges dragged over the nerves of her entrance. Abby said, "Oh, there's a little vibration starting. I guess I have to go harder to get more, don't I?"
Holtz nodded, and braced herself, while Spock promptly let go of his restraint on her mouth. "Please, Abby, you know how I like it, please, you know what to do."
Hands gripped her hips, Abby drew back, and Holtz staggered and caught herself with the first thrust. The toy pushed into exactly the right spot, and she let out a harsh breath. Abby nearly purred, "Thaaat's nice, Holtz, you make good stuff," just before drawing back slowly and pounding in again.
Holtz grabbed onto the far edge of the desk and rested her forehead on her arms, giving herself over, letting her thoughts trail away. As Abby stepped up the pace, it felt, to Holtz, like something deep inside her was opening up under the regular, relentless pummelling, revealing some sweet, sensitive target that flooded her clit with heat and her head with a spectacular lightshow.
***
Erin trudged into the firehouse. She should've known better than to to out with anyone from Columbia. Really, really should've known better. She hadn't needed to hear who'd gotten tenure, or who'd just gotten their book published, or about the scandal about the sleazy grad student and the hapless adjunct. Or even to hear about the nasty things the dean had been saying about another grad student's new baby. It reminded her of lost years, things she'd given up, and how so little of it actually mattered. It made her feel foolish for sticking with it for so long, for investing so much energy and ass-kissing in it all.
She peeled her high heels off her aching feet, sighed, and then started up the stairs.
Just below the second-floor landing, she heard a familiar voice saying, "Oh, fuck yes!"
There was a rhythmic noise of something scraping across the floor in small starts. Who was doing what in Holtz's lab? Was Holtz… testing something?
Without thinking about it, Erin tiptoed up the stairs to the landing and peeked around the doorway.
Abby had the fingers of her right hand laced through Holtz's long blonde hair, drawing Holtz's head back so that Erin could see her closed eyes and open mouth, could hear Holtz exhaling hard. Abby, who was naked except for black biker shorts that clung to her ass in a very eye-directing way, was bucking her hips against Holtz's, driving something between Holtz's sprawled legs, her hair down, glasses off, mouth twisted in an uncharacteristic snarl.
Erin ducked back around the doorway, pressing her back to the cold wall, and shut her eyes. I shouldn't be here, I shouldn't be here, I shouldn't be here.
Her mantra was interrupted by Abby hissing, "Are you going to come for me, Holtz? Are you going to come hard?"
Holtz laughed, broke off on a sharp inhalation, and said, "Yesss, you know I am. Are you gonna come for me, Abby? How's that vibration hitting you?"
Pant, pant. "You'll come before I will, Holtz." Growl. Liquid noises.
Holtz squeaked and moaned as the scraping noises happened faster. "I bet… I won't."
"I bet you will."
Holtz yelped and unleashed a torrent of filthy talk. "Goddamn oh fuck oh come on and fuck me hard, Abby, just like that, just like that, oh fuck, oh god, this is what I wanted this is what I wanted oh fuck…"
Erin pressed her legs together hard, felt the slippery heat growing there, tried to convince herself to sneak up the stairs, away from eavesdropping on… on… her girlfriend… and her ex-girlfriend… fucking…
And then, of course, Holtz screamed, and just after that, Abby moaned and cursed incoherently. Erin trembled and felt a rush of heat all through her body. She covered her mouth with both hands as she tried not to make any noise.
After that, she could hear only the sound of heavy breathing, and a probably-inadvertent whimper form Holtzmann.
Finally, Abby said, "I have got to sit down. Come on, Holtz, I'm not leaving you draped across the desk."
Holtz made a noise like a reluctant sleeper, then gasped.
There was a heavy thump into one of the chairs, and Holtz yelped.
"I didn't hurt you, did I?" Abby said, a little muffled.
"No," Holtz said. "Not at all. That was so good, Abby. We didn't even try the surprise I built in."
"Why do you think we're done?"
Erin told herself firmly to go upstairs now, while they were talking. Now. Absolutely now. Immediately.
Holtzmann moaned. "Oh god, Abby, that's so good."
"Yeah, I thought that would get you started again."
Erin desperately wanted to see what they were doing. It was so quiet.
Then Erin thought perhaps they were kissing.
She should definitely go upstairs.
She had just forced herself to take a single step toward the stairs up when she heard Abby said, "Hey, Erin, stop lurking out there. You might as well come in."
Erin's stomach landed somewhere near her toes and her face was on fire. After a long pause, during which she debated the merits of trying out the experimental laser trap that Holtzmann had warned her might turn her "into an eggplant, or maybe a tropical fruit," she shuffled, burning with humiliation and fear, into the doorway.
Holtzmann was on Abby's lap, back to Abby's chest, legs draped over Abby's thighs so she could lean on her hands on Abby's knees, and was grinding her hips back and forth. Abby was cupping both of Holtz's breasts, pulling her nipples out so that Erin could see them stretched, and was looking straight at Erin. Holtz looked up, heavy-eyed, biting her lower lip, and blinked at Erin slowly. Abby tugged on Holtz's nipples and Holtz groaned, throwing her head back.
"I thought you were out having lunch," Abby said, as easily as if they were both fully clothed without a naked, perspiring, intensely sexy Holtzmann moaning.
"I… I was," Erin said, unable to look away from them. "It… was terrible so I came back." It felt like her wetness was going to start dripping down her leg any minute. "I… I can go. I'm sorry."
Abby regarded her blandly, then looked at Holtzmann's back. "I think you can make up for it by coming over here."
Erin couldn't believe her ears. "What?"
Abby looked back at her. "Come over here. Now."
Erin trembled and, haltingly, walked close. They'd played games like that so long ago, but she had no idea that Abby's voice could still compel her that way.
"Now take all that off," Abby said, letting go of one of Holtz's nipples to wave generally at Erin's clothes. "Get naked." She caught Erin's eye. They stared at each other for a long moment, and then, after an incoherent run of possible objections in her head, Erin nodded, just a little. Her hands went to the buttons on her blouse.
Holtz reached out with one hand and tugged her skirt down. Erin got the blouse off and stepped out of the skirt, then bent to push her hose and underwear down. While she was bent over, Holtz reached out and unhooked her bra, then winked at her when she looked up.
Erin could smell Holtz, and it made her mouth water like one of Pavlov's dogs.
Abby watched her strip with a vaguely critical expression on her face, still thoughtlessly rolling Holtz's nipples between her fingers. When Erin was naked, Abby said, "Get the pillow off the couch and bring it over here."
Erin padded across the chilly floor and picked up one of the little throw pillows with the floral designs. "No," said Abby. "The biggest one."
Swapping for the big square maroon pillow, Erin realized she was still blank on what it was for. Most of her conscious thought was drowning under a tsunami of shame right now.
"Right there," Abby said, pointing to the floor between her — and Holtz's — legs.
Erin dropped the pillow as indicated.
"Okay, get down there," Abby said, spreading her own legs and stretching Holtz open.
Erin stared down at where a blue and green dildo disappeared into Holtz. Holtzmann arched her back, hands on the arms of the chair. After losing a few moments to staring at Holtzmann, Erin looked back at Abby. "What?"
Abby smiled grimly. "On your knees, down there. I'm taking a little rest, but I think Holtz is feeling frustrated without some added stimulation, aren't you, Holtz?" She pulled hard on Holtzmann's nipples and the engineer's breath stuttered out of her.
Erin found herself on her knees on the pillow, running her tongue up Holtz's breastbone and throat. Holtz grabbed her by her hair and kissed her hard, panting into her mouth, and bucking her hips almost pleadingly.
Abby said, to Holtz, "How far back can you lean? Is it an okay angle?"
Holtz let go of Erin and laid back against Abby. Erin and Abby locked eyes again, and Erin couldn't stop tears from spilling down her cheeks before she bent to spread Holtz's wet, slick labia.
She licked up from where the dildo entered, sliding around Holtz's clit and back down. Erin shuddered at the rich taste of Holtz, the memories of Holtz seducing her, day after day over the last week. She could also taste the silicone, just a bit, and what was probably "flavorless" lube… and she could smell Abby. Abby, whose scent hadn't really changed much in all these years, muskier than Holtz, and also sweeter.
Her tongue found Holtz's clit hood and Holtz clutched at her head with an almost-sob.
"Abby," Holtz breathed. "Give that dial a quarter-turn? I just need more."
There was a little fumbling, and a click. Erin heard a tiny motor start up below her. When she looked down (Holtz gripped her hair tighter and whimpered) she saw the dildo swelling, growing visibly thicker, and the little ridges she hadn't really focused on before pulled taut and smooth.
"Oh my god," Holtz groaned. "Yes yes yes, so good, oh god, so full."
Erin dove back down, licking Holtz's clit, sucking the hood between her teeth and letting it slip away over them.
Holtz started moving again, fucking herself on the toy, which made Abby inhale sharply as a buzzing started somewhere below Holtz. Erin followed Holtz's movements, letting Holtz drive her clit against Erin's tongue on the downstrokes. Erin slid a hand between her own legs, pierced into herself with two fingers, and fucked herself in time with Holtz's motion. Abby groaned and her hips started moving under Holtz, just a bit.
Gasping, buzzing, whimpering, incoherent begging. Little sloshing noises from Holtz and Erin. Holtz's clit, swollen and hot. Holtz keening, thrusting herself down onto Abby, pulling Erin's face against her, Erin's hips twitching hard as the fire of her shame and desire swept over her, carrying away all thought or time, Abby shouting...
Erin kissed Holtz's clit gently, knowing how sensitive the engineer could be, not wanting to move from where she was. She kissed both labia, then her thighs.
Holtz pulled her up, again by her hair, and kissed her, and Erin nearly came again because she found Holtz tasting herself on Erin's mouth such fucking turn-on, and then Holtz twisted and kissed Abby, her mouth still wet with Erin's labors, and Erin pressed her face into Holtz's belly to stop herself from staring, and suddenly wanting so much.
Abby reached around Holtz and caught Erin by the back of the neck, pulled her up, kissed her, before either of them could think about it, Holtz pressed between them, soft and pliant and ravished. The kiss grew heated, then desperate, tongues sliding against each other, and Erin made a soft noise into Abby's mouth and began to weep.
"Hey, hey, it's okay," Abby said, stroking the back of Erin's neck with her fingers. Holtzmann silently tightened her arms around Erin.
"I'm sorry," Erin said, and she was apologizing for everything, for eavesdropping, for leaving Abby without even a phone call or a note, for being such a bitch about Columbia, before becoming a Ghostbuster, for existing in all the wrong ways she'd done before this perfect and yet awful moment, everything. "I'm so sorry."
They held her, both of them, while she cried.
When she quieted, Holtz said, "Abs, could you turn that quarter turn back, please? Now it's kinda stretching."
And then they were pulling apart slowly, and Holtz sighed as the little motor noise happened again, and finally, she gently pushed Erin back and stood up off Abby, revealing the ridgy blue and green swirled silicone dildo jutting out of Abby's shorts. Erin wiped her eyes on her arm, not really caring that her eyeliner and mascara were probably a mess.
"Oh, my god, Abs, I'm gonna walk with my feet a yard apart for a week," Holtz said, stretching and making her spine crackle. "That was a fantastic first trial."
Abby nodded, eyebrows raised. "Like I said, you do quality work, Holtz. That was pretty amazing. Later, we can talk a bit about how to make the vibration a little more consistent."
Erin bent to examine the toy (and also, perhaps, to get another whiff of Holtzmann). "How did you make it expand?" she asked, touching it gingerly.
"It's a steel mesh cylinder around a rotating core," Holtz said. "There's a mechanism to spread it, and the silicone is laid over another mesh that's built to accommodate the expansion. It can go up to two quarter turns, but I think one may be enough for me."
"So that's what it was doing," Abby said, sitting more upright and stretching her own back. "All I could feel was that something was going on."
Erin scrambled up to her feet, pulling the pillow back so Abby could get up. Suddenly feeling shy and uncertain, she started trying to think of a way to gracefully — or even gracelessly, which was much more likely for her — extricate herself.
Holtzmann said, while still stretching in different ways and angles, "D'you guys want to come up to my place? I mean, to maybe continue testing...?"
Abby pushed herself up to her feet and gingerly reached into her shorts to extract the toy. "I could be persuaded, I think." She cocked an eye up at Erin. "How about you?"
Erin's brain was apparently still flooded with endorphins, because she was even less verbal than usual. "I… sure… I guess? You don't mind, Abby?"
"I wouldn't have asked if I minded," Abby said patiently, finally producing the entirety of the toy. "I think you need to clean this up, Holtz."
Holtzmann took it from her cheerfully. "I built it for easy cleaning, too."
Abby turned to Erin and said, seriously, "Erin, I know there's a bunch of stuff we never really talked about, but as far as I'm concerned, you… handled all of that when you came after me. Can we just start again? Or try? All I ever wanted was to try again with you."
Erin tried for words and failed, and just threw her arms around Abby. Tears pricked her eyes again and threatened to fall, and she just said, "I'm not going to leave you again, Abby."
Abby hugged her harder, and then Holtzmann put her arms around both of them.
***
Holtzmann thought, Pon farr is so good, Spock, so good that everyone caught it.
Her Spockbrain just said, Most illogical, and went back to planning the sex toy she wanted to build for Erin now.