"Where do babies come from?", the little australian accent breaks the silence and the entire firehouse tenses up.
Abby feels herself freezing in place, her eyes wide open and her all senses suddenly so, so aware of her surroundings. Erin swears she can almost feel the coffee in her mouth make its way up to her nose as she chokes and coughs in panic. Had Holtz been downstairs with them, it's collective knowledge that a large smirk would've been spread across the engineer's face, her eyes lighting up with possibilities. Meanwhile, Patty just feels so done before anything even started.
When Kevin dropped his nephew off at the firehouse that morning, as if it were the most natural event to ever take place, and proceeded to leave for his hide and seek semiannual tournament, Patty already had a pretty good picture in her mind of how the day would unravel.
Lord knows she loves her girlfriends, all of them, very much, but she herself wouldn't dare to leave her own child, had she had one, in the hands of those ladies. But then again, she doubted it could be worse than leaving it in Kevin's muscly arms, so maybe there was a good side to that situation.
That said, in the short time period between coffee round and lunch break, Holtzmann had already managed to get banned from the ground floor, being rushedly pushed upstairs to the lab by Erin with a caution warning; if she were to return downstairs, she'd better do it clean and unarmed, no matter how much interest Kevin's little nephew seemed to be showing in her shananigans.
Apart from that incident, Patty thankfully hasn't been keeping tabs on the amount of times she's had to stop Erin from serving the 6-year-old mug-fulls of coffee every time she would wander into the kitchen to get some herself and end up instintively offering the little boy a cup. It's definitely happened more times than it should have, but then again, once is already one time too many.
Abby, on the other hand, seems to have turned the little blonde australian into a personal assistent, having him do multiple rounds around the firehouse simply to fetch her stuff, or stick that post-it over there, or to put this back in the top third drawer on the left, will you? Thanks. Every time Erin realises she is no longer telling the kid to quit drawing poops and flies all over her white board, she knows it's because he is off running errands for her girlfriend, and so forces herself to walk over to Abby's desk and remind her that Kevin's nephew is not an intern.
Now, Patty is aware she herself is no saint, and keeps getting reminded of that by the panicky wide eyes Erin sends in her direction along with the loud snorts coming from Abby every time she happens to let her not-so-child-friendly vocabulary get the best of her. It must've been around the fourth or fifth time that the little blonde boy came strutting over to her desk to ask her for another snack that she looked him dead in the eyes and let out a desbelieving 'Are you fucking with me?'.
That, and the fact that she's positive that all the boy's glee and joy will end with her stepping on him flat by accident.
But that question. That question. Patty wasn't expecting that question. Not today.
She lets out a loud, prolonged groan, letting her head hang forward for a bit, hoping to buy herself enough time so that her girlfriends could put themselves together and help her with this shit, "Why you wanna know? You wanna make one, little man, now do you?"
"Not really, I'm just curious."
"Well, you gotta do the nasty."
Erin is quick to rush over to Patty's side and elbow her on the ribs.
"What's the nasty?", the boy asks and Erin freezes.
"O-oh, um... well, when two people love each other very much, they, um- Oh, I guess it could also be an accident, sometimes it's an accident-", she stammers, awkwardly, before Abby intervenes.
"Listen, one of the two people has got a penis, right, and then the other one of the two people has got a vagina-"
"It's actually called a vulva", Erin mutters and Abby pauses, staring at her, "Oh, I'm sorry, go on. You're doing very well."
"Thanks", she quickly smiles up at her girlfriend, before pushing her glasses back up the bridge of her nose and turning back to the focused looking kid, "So what do we got til now? Right, we got the penis and we got the vulva, so the person will shove the penis into the vulva-"
Erin cringes at that, right about the same time as Patty does the same, speaking up, "You really gotta say shove in front of the kid, man?"
"Well, what do you suggest I say?"
"Insert?", Erin speaks up, "Maybe insert."
"Look, while we're at it, why not pick some more family friendly nicknames for this little story time, you know what I'm sayin'? Like, pee-pee, or willy, you know, some shit like that."
"Ah, yes, and you really got your idea through, what by using 'shit' in your argument."
"How is it shoved by accident?", Abby's sarcastic remark is shortly followed by the curious inquiry from the little boy.
Simultaneously, Patty's and Abby's heads turn to face Erin, whose eyes go wide.
Abby pokes her on the ribs, "Tell him, Erin. He's dying to know."
The physicist's voice comes out very slowly and hesitantly, sounding very similar to a whisper, "Sl-slip? They slip?"
Abby snorts, "Good one", as Erin leans over to furiously whisper back,
"Well, you kinda put me on the spot there, didn't you?"
"They slip", Patty repeats, "Like, on a banana peel."
The shortest one turns around to look up at Patty, "He's 6, not stupid", she retorts.
"Well, what the hell you want me to say to him?", she whispers back, agitated, "Erin's the one who told him people slip into vulvas, pee-pee first!"
At that moment, Holtz slides down the pole into the ground floor, landing with a thump. She takes on the scene before her: two of her girlfriends bickering back and forth and the third one awkwardly fidgeting on her seat, the three of them huddled in front of a very lost looking blonde australian boy.
"Babies, what seems to be cooking up over here?"
Patty sighs, "Holtzy, get your ass over here. Babies."
"Yes, you guys", the engineer nods along, skipping her way over to the scene.
"No, I mean, actual babies. Where do they come from? Go."
Without missing a beat, Holtzmann stares right into the little boy's eyes, "Amazon. But only if you and someone you love sell part of your soul."
"Wha- no."
"And maybe Jesus, if you ask him really, really hard. But mostly Amazon."
Abby shrugs, "Sounds right to me."
Erin gawks at her, "Are you joking?"
"Oh, what? Do we really wanna go back to the pee-pee getting shoved into the vulva story?"
Erin cringes to herself as Holtzmann widens her eyes in a comic manner, whistling under her breath, "Wowza, you guys really do get lost without me around."
"Do the pee-pee and the vulva also come from Amazon?"
The four ghostbusters go silent, four sets of eyes glued to Kevin's oh-so-annoyingly-and-unexpectedly-observant nephew. On Holtzmann's defense, though, she does get back on her feet pretty quickly, if she may say so, "Why, yes sir, yes sir. Glad you asked. If you buy them in a combo, the shipping is free."
Patty's laughter comes out like a roar, while for Abby, it takes her some time to fully cash in what had been said, but when it does, her shoulders start shaking violently as she wheezes. Erin, on the other hand, hasn't seemed to ever unfreeze from the question in the first place. Not that it matters much to Holtzmann, seen as she stands there, with both hands on her hips, a grin stretching from one side of her face to the other.
At that ever so fortunate moment, the front door to the firehouse is busted open and their beloved secretary skips his way into the building, wildly waving his hand above his head, smiling cheerfully.
Kevin smiles brightly, seeing that at least the majority of his bosses seem content and his nephew looks to be in one piece, which is pretty satisfying in his book, "Hi, bosses! Having fun?"
A fond smile takes up its space in Patty's face as she turns to the bulky blonde, "Kevin, honey, how was the game?"
"Oh, it's not done yet, but I figured it'd be a real challenge for them to find me if I went home, you know, given none of them has the key", he beams, "What were you guys talking about?"
Patty suddenly finds herself unable to even begin to explain the circumstances in which they found themselves to be in; she simply lets out another loud chuckle and shakes her head to herself. She's pretty sure Erin hasn't moved a muscle in 5 minutes, and Abby seems incapable to even breath, violently laughing and clutching her stomach. Holtzmann, of course, is the one who steps closer to the clueless little boy, wraps one arm around his shoulders and grins proudly, speaking up in her poorest attempt at an australian accent, "Just telling the little mate over here about babies and their origins."
At that, Kevin suddenly lets out a relieved sigh, "Oh, thank god. You guys told him about Santa and the postal service, then. Whew, glad I don't have to have that awkward conversation, am I right?"