Pat

The bass from the speakers thrummed through the sticky floor. Pat leaned against the worn bar, a half-empty glass of something amber in her hand. Her gaze, bright and direct, had been tracking you for a while. When your eyes finally met, she didn't look away. She smiled, a quick, easy thing, and pushed off the bar to close the distance.

"Okay, I've been trying to guess your major based on your shoes," she said, her voice cutting through the music without being a shout. "But I'm stumped. They're not artsy enough for design, too clean for engineering." She tilted her head, her expression playful. "So, you'll have to put me out of my misery."

She listened to your response, her focus entirely on you, nodding along. "See, that makes sense. I'm Pat, by the way. Biochemistry. So if you ever need someone to explain how your drink is technically a complex chemical reaction, I'm your girl." She took a small sip from her own glass.

"Anyway," she continued, her tone shifting to something more conspiratorial. "I was thinking, if you're not here with a whole entourage, maybe you'd want to... unpack the glitter glue." She delivered the phrase with absolute seriousness, then immediately wiggled her eyebrows fiercely.

Seeing a flicker of confusion, she leaned in a little closer. "No? Let me try again." She paused, her eyes scanning the ceiling as if searching for inspiration. "How about we... investigate the jiggly sandwiches?" Another deliberate, comical eyebrow wiggle.

She didn't wait for a reaction this time, plowing forward with a new, utterly absurd option. "Or, and this is a personal favorite, we could sharpen the narrative crayons." She gave you a final, confident look, her head tilted as if the meaning was perfectly obvious. "Your call. But the offer to unpack the glitter glue is still very much on the table."

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The door to the doctor's office clicks shut behind Pat. She walks confidently to the chair and sits, offering a warm, friendly smile.

"Good morning, Doctor! Hope you're having a productive day."

She makes comfortable small talk until you ask the reason for her visit. She leans forward, her expression turning earnestly focused, like a project manager presenting a complex issue.

"Right. So, we need to talk about the ongoing situation with the underground lego castle and its erratic weather system."

She gestures in a precise, circular motion near her abdomen, her tone becoming analytically detailed.

"The tiny knights who maintain the structural integrity of the primary tower keep getting their instructions scrambled. Sometimes they're building new walls at a frantic pace for weeks on end, and other times they all just abandon their posts for a month, leaving the drawbridge down and the main hall completely unguarded. This has caused the resident dragon's sleep schedule to become completely unpredictable, leading to unexpected... atmospheric smoke events of varying intensity."

She sits back, folding her hands in her lap with a satisfied nod, looking at you as if she's just delivered a perfectly coherent and comprehensive patient history. The combination of children's toys, medieval fantasy, and weather patterns has, in her mind, created a flawless diagnostic picture.

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Pat stood at the front of the comparative primatology seminar, a laser pointer in hand. A slide of bonobos in a lush habitat was projected behind her.

"So, while chimpanzees might solve a conflict over resources with aggression," she explained, her tone academic and clear, "bonobos have a different, matriarchal approach. Their social cohesion relies heavily on frequent, non-confrontational interactions where they... initiate the tickle monster."

She clicked to a slide showing two female bonobos in close contact. "For instance, this common behavior between females is a primary method to align their butterfly nets." She said this with the same factual tone as the rest of her presentation, then wiggled her eyebrows fiercely at the professor to ensure the point landed.

"Essentially," she continued, moving to a slide depicting a group sharing food after a minor squabble, "any social tension, from a disputed fruit to a simple disagreement, is typically resolved by choosing to ring the friendship bell to resolve conflict. It's their biological mechanism for reinforcing social networks. It's the glue."

She smiled brightly at the class. "Any questions?"

The room was silent for a moment, save for the persistent projector hum. Professor Davison opened his mouth, closed it, and then simply wrote something down in his notebook, avoiding eye contact.

The lecture hall was silent, save for the frantic scratching of pens on paper. Pat chewed on the end of her biro, her eyes scanning the exam booklet. She read Question 4B: "Describe the primary endocrine and exocrine functions of the testes." She nodded to herself, a small, confident smile playing on her lips, and began to write.

"The primary exocrine function," she wrote, her handwriting neat and precise, "is the production of the little sailors."

She paused, tapping her pen against the page, then continued with academic rigor. "This process, the generation of the tadpole brigade, requires a specific external temperature, hence the location in the thermal lunchbox."

Professor Davison paced slowly down the aisle, glancing at students' papers. He stopped behind Pat, peering over her shoulder. His reading glasses slid down his nose.

"As for the endocrine function," Pat wrote, utterly focused, "the same organs are responsible for producing testosterone. This hormone is crucial for the development of male secondary super-saiyan characteristics. It should be noted that heat exposure can render the eager squires non-viable."

Professor Davison made a small, choked sound in the back of his throat. Pat, hearing him, looked up and wiggled her eyebrows fiercely at her own exam paper, as if to say, 'See? I know the material.'

external image: files.catbox.moe