A/N: I know, I know, the Tasha/Reade brotp is the best, yes... But have you ever considered the Patterson/Kurt brotp? It's not canon & it's hella awkward, but I've found I love it anyway. This is a random little ficlet I thought up simply because I love the idea of P & K getting a little tipsy and gossiping together. Please enjoy the silliness!

"She's probably out with her boyfriend."

Patterson hadn't meant to say the words aloud, that much was obvious the second stopped speaking. She clapped a hand over her mouth—spilling her drink in the process—and in the resulting chaos, Kurt didn't even pretend not to be interested.

"Boyfriend?" He couldn't help laughing when he asked. The idea was so outlandish: "Jane has a boyfriend?"

"No," Patterson answered at once, grabbing a handful of napkins to wipe up the spilled drink as the bartender removed the broken glass. "I didn't say—"

"Those were your exact words, Patterson," Kurt replied. "I said, 'Where's Jane, why'd she bail on team drinks?' and you said—"

"I said nothing, Weller!"

Patterson nearly shouted the words, and Kurt grinned. There were few things more entertaining than a trapped, flustered Patterson. And with both Tasha and Reade having cut out early on their Friday night meet-up for drinks—and Jane having never showed—he was actually pretty happy to have the analyst's company to himself.

"What's his name?" Kurt drawled.

Patterson shook her head. "Stop it. I promised Jane I wouldn't talk."

"Oh, come on. Who will I tell?" He leaned closer, nudged her with an elbow. "C'mon, Patterson. I know you want to talk to someone about this. It's been eating you up, I know it has. Spill the beans. How long ago did Jane swear you to secrecy?"

"At no point did Jane swear me to secrecy," Patterson snapped. "She just—well, fine," she sighed sharply. "But it was more like she begged me to secrecy, if we're getting technical."

"Ha! So does that mean she's embarrassed of him?"

"I think it means she wants privacy," Patterson replied pointedly, accepting a second drink from the bartender with a smile, and another apology. Her eyes cut to Kurt and she added sharply, "So leave her alone, Weller."

"Oh, I'll leave her alone," Kurt assured her, taking a sip of his beer. Half under his breath, he murmured, "I'll just go talk to Reade, or Tasha, or—"

"Don't!" Patterson ordered, smacking his arm, and Kurt couldn't help but laugh aloud. "Reade knows nothing—obviously, he's Reade—and Tasha…" Her eyes turned pleading. "C'mon, boss. I haven't had anything over Tasha in months. Let me have this. Please? This one thing? Let me have my moment."

For a second as she played up the puppy eyes, Kurt almost considered turning her down. Ruining Patterson's chance to one-up Zapata might be worth it to see Zapata's face when she found out she was the last to know Jane had a personal life. But then again, letting it drag out might make things more interesting. It would certainly make Zapata more furious once it was all out in the open.

"Fine," he said finally, to which Patterson cheered. "I'll keep my mouth shut."

"Oh, thank you!" Patterson actually jumped out of her seat at the bar to hug him, and then a second too late realized what she'd done. They didn't exactly hug, her and Kurt. "Um… Sorry," she muttered, returning to her seat. To clear the air, she added, "I'll buy the next round."

Kurt almost said she didn't need to pay to make the awkwardness go away, but it was a free drink, and he'd take it. He swallowed some of his, and then glanced around the bar as the conversation lagged. It was their usual spot—he and the team came here after work a couple Fridays a month—but he didn't recognize many faces in the crowd. But he'd be lying to himself if he said he wasn't looking for four faces in particular: Tasha and Reade and Jane and whoever it was that she'd been dating, somehow under all of their noses.

"How'd she even find someone to date?" he asked aloud, curiosity getting the better of him. He scanned every face, but he couldn't picture one of them with Jane. Then again, it was hard to picture anyone with Jane.

Patterson shrugged, stirring her straw around the bottom of her drink to get at what little was left. "I don't know. The way everyone else does?" She gestured around, "Sitting around in bars like this?"

Kurt gave off a snort of doubt, and Patterson was about to reply, to say if it worked for the rest of the world, it probably worked for Jane Doe, but then she realized something. She turned to him, excited as usual when she cracked a puzzle that had been bothering her. "You know, now that I think about it, I bet she probably met him in October. You remember that case we had at Camp Lejeune?"

Kurt frowned at the random mention. "What, the Marine base in Jacksonville? What made you think of that?"

"He had a tattoo, the boyfriend." Patterson gestured to her upper arm. "Marines."

Kurt raised a skeptical eyebrow. "And a tattoo makes him one? People get tattoos of a lot of things they're not, Patterson."

"Well, yeah, but if you'd seen him, you would've believed it. He had the physique for it. Had the whole stoic, silent, tough-guy thing going on, too. They probably met while you all were interviewing the security team at the base after that breach." She paused. "Hm. I wonder which one asked the other one out."

Kurt laughed shortly. "I think I can hazard a guess."

Patterson waved a hand. "Oh, don't write her off. She can ask someone out. If she can kill a man with her bare hands, she can ask one out on a date."

"I didn't say she couldn't."

"You implied."

"Or I implied that he'd simply do the asking first. You don't see women like that in the Marines. You don't see women in the Marines, period." He glanced over at her with a sly smile. "One of the reasons I declined joining the armed forces, you know."

Patterson rolled her eyes. "Har-har."

Kurt turned back to his beer, finished the rest, and then signaled the bartender for another. He snorted to himself as it was passed back. "Great, so she's got a man on leave. Guess I know how they're occupying their time."

Patterson frowned at his side, accepting another drink from the bartender as well. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Kurt rolled his eyes. "Come on, Patterson. What did I just say? There aren't women in the Marines."

She stared. "You… No. You don't think they're—" She lowered her voice. "They're not having sex."

He leaned close, lowering his voice as well. "You don't have to whisper," he replied. Then he shrugged, straightened up, and raised his voice to its normal volume. "And what's the big deal if they are? She's thirty years old. I'm sure she's had sex before."

"The big deal is, she can't remember it!" Patterson shot back. "How would you feel if you had your memory erased and you couldn't remember the most intimate moments in your life?"

"I'd think, great, all of my most embarrassing memories have been wiped clean. Honestly, I'd probably celebrate the way Jane is now."

"Ugh." She shook her head. "You're such a man."

"Yes, I am a man, no argument there," Kurt deadpanned.

Patterson ignored him. "Sex is different for women, Weller. Especially when they're having it for the first time. Look, you have to understand, it's a very personal act—"

"Patterson, dear God, I do not need the sex talk! I'm gonna be thirty-six in two months. I know how sex works."

Patterson continued ranting anyway, but he'd had enough of her trying to lecture him on the apparent fragility of the female form and psyche. He highly doubted Jane was so easily breakable—or malleable. If she wanted to have sex, she'd be having sex, and if she didn't want to, she wouldn't. He couldn't imagine anyone being able to pressure her, emotionally or otherwise, into anything she didn't want to do. And physically—well, active Marine or not, Kurt doubted the boyfriend, or anyone else, would be able to successfully overpower her. Patterson was right; she was capable of killing men with her bare hands.

"Fine," he called out through Patterson's continued preaching, "let's say they're not having sex. What do you think they're doing right now instead?"

Patterson glared for a second, unhappy at being interrupted, but the next moment she grinned, chuckling to herself. When Kurt asked, she shook her head. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe they're having a pull-up competition instead."

Kurt almost choked on his beer. "What? Where did that come from?"

Patterson smiled, downing half her drink. "That's how I met him, you know. They were having a competition to see who could hold their breath the longest underwater. They wanted to go at the same time, head-to-head, you know, and they needed someone to watch the tank and make sure no one drowned. I guess Jane thought—"

"Wait, the tank," Kurt interrupted. "You mean they were at the Bureau? You let a stranger into the Bureau without checking with me? Without checking with Mayfair?"

"Um—" Patterson swallowed, the mirth leaving her. "No?"

Weller slammed a fist on the bartop. "Jesus, Patterson! How many times do we have to go over this? First you have photocopies of her tattoos in your apartment—"

"—and then David gets killed, yes, I know!" Patterson yelled back.

Weller blinked, chagrined for a moment by her outburst. He closed his eyes and drew in a breath, forcing calm over himself. Patterson didn't need to get beaten up any more for her ex-boyfriend's death.

"Look," he said quietly, turning to her. "All I mean is that the work we do is dangerous. It doesn't matter if the guy she's dating is a bona fide saint, we can't let people we don't know into the Bureau. I don't care who Jane chooses to be naked in front of; I don't care how many tattoos of hers he's seen. It's different in a clinical environment. It's different when it's in the Bureau offices, where we have so much more information than just the designs on her skin. We don't know who this guys is, he could've seen things—"

"He didn't see anything," Patterson interrupted sharply. "They came straight from the lobby to the basement; I watched them on the monitors. They changed, went in the tank, came out, and then left. I made sure they didn't go near the twelfth floor. And if Jane had got it in her head to take him up there, I already had my It's not show-and-tell speech planned, okay? I wouldn't have let them." She eyed Weller unhappily. "Give me a little credit, please. I'm not stupid, Kurt."

"I didn't say you were," he replied quietly. "I just…" He sighed, shaking his head. He waved a hand to dismiss the topic.

"I get it, though," Patterson said after a moment, reaching for her drink again. "I mean, I know it's your ass on the line if any one of us screws up." She drew in a slow breath, and then let it go. She stared at the bar in front of her, ignoring Weller's eyes that she could feel watching her. "It was harmless," she whispered. "They were having fun." She turned to Kurt, "Look at me. Have you ever seen Jane have fun? Actual fun?"

At his silence, Patterson nodded once, and faced forward. "Well. That's all I wanted. To let her be happy for two seconds. I'm sorry I let them in the Bureau after hours without proper permission, it won't happen again. They can do their weird fitness competitions elsewhere."

Kurt nodded along, but didn't say anything to that. It was quiet for a minute or two between them as they each took shallow sips at their drinks and pretended to think of other things.

"So," Kurt said finally, breaking the silence. "Who won, him or her?"

Patterson spared him a tight smile. "Why don't you ask Jane when you see her next?" She sighed, turning back to her drink. "Honestly, I don't get the secrecy," she muttered. "She should tell you guys. You deserve to know."

"Well…" Kurt shrugged. "Maybe it's like you said. She just came back to the world, everything's new. This is like her first teenage romance all over again. I guess I can understand the instinct she has to keep it to herself."

"So if she's hiding it from us…" Patterson raised her eyebrows. "Does that make us her parents or something?"

Kurt laughed. "Well, she's not hiding it from you."

"Yeah, only because she needed my help." Patterson grinned a second later, "Wait, does that make me like the cool older sister? In on all the secrets?"

Kurt shook his head, reaching for his beer again. "Be whatever you want," he answered. "Just make sure she doesn't get too in over her head, will you?" Patterson nodded. "And hey," Weller added, turning to her thoughtfully, "speaking of secret dating, have you met the girl Reade's been seeing? Because I've asked, but he's been keeping it so close to the vest… I mean, I get that he's giving Tash the silent treatment, but I thought he'd at least tell me. It's not like I'll make fun of him like she does. It's not like—" He stopped talking when Patterson started laughing behind her hand. "What?" he asked, frowning at her reaction. Was it possible Patterson knew about this, too? What was the joke he wasn't getting? "What's going on, Patterson?"

"Nothing. Nothing, I promise." She did her best to compose herself, only to start laughing again when she looked at his face. "Oh, God…" She sighed, watching him with a faint smile as if he were an ignorant child. "This is beautiful, Weller. Truly, purely beautiful. I almost want to take a picture of you right now."

"What?" he snapped. "What is so goddamn funny?" Something clicked in his mind. "Wait—have you been fucking with me? Is Reade the one that's dating Jane? Is that why he ran out earlier? Was the whole bit about Camp Lejeune—"

"No, no, no," Patterson waved a hand, growing serious again. "That was all real; I've met Jane's boyfriend—or whatever he is—he's real, and he's not Reade."

"Then what's so funny about Reade? Who could he be dating that's making you—Holy shit," he whispered. He broke off, turning his whole body slowly to face Patterson. "Please don't tell me… Did him and Tasha finally make the worst decision of their lives?"

For a second Patterson stared at him blankly, not computing what he was getting at, and then it clicked, and she burst out laughing again. "Reade and Tasha? Jesus Christ, Weller—and you call yourself an FBI agent!" She shook her head. "God, you are so clueless. It's adorable."

"It's not adorable, it's annoying." He tapped his hand on the counter. "C'mon, Patterson. Tell me. What's with all the secrets? Why don't I know anything anymore?"

Patterson shook her head, mimicking pulling a zipper closed across her lips. "You'd have to ask Reade, boss."

"And Jane?"

Patterson shrugged. "Let her be a teenager. Eventually she'll talk to you about him."

Kurt shook his head, not pleased. "I don't like being on the outside of these things."

"What did I just say?" Patterson replied. "Ask them! Either they'll tell the truth, or they'll lie to your face—but at least the ice will be broken!"

"Yeah, it's not the ice I'm concerned about," Kurt replied.

Patterson smiled. "Ah, don't worry. After the initial chill, the water will warm up. It'll seem normal in days."

Kurt shook his head. "Forgive me if I don't trust your judgment here."

She caught his eye with a teasing smile. "Forgive me if I don't care. I just can't wait to see your face. And Reade's face. I'll definitely have to have a camera ready."

A/N: Thanks for reading and indulging my ridiculousness, people! :)