Josie Veilleux was tall-ish, with long hair brushed over their eyes and tied back into a ponytail. They were consistently overdressed to any situation in their antique formal wear, like an overgrown porcelain doll that still stood around looking creepy. Every single detail about them was vague, like they were specially crafted to be impossible to form an opinion on. They were currently barreling straight towards him.

Josie and Alex had a strange, strange relationship. This was because Josie was Alex's primary patient. This kind of favoritism isn't something that normally happens, let alone in this particular complex, but Josie lived on the eighth floor just underneath him, and his office happened to be just part of their daily exercise route. At least once a week, every week, they would show up sweaty and out of breath, asking for a checkup.

Alex had enough of their medical records to start a brand new landfill in his office, and sometimes he wished he could.

There was almost certainly something wrong with Josie, one of those obsessive disorders that was making them do this all the time, but Alex wasn’t being paid enough to start double-dipping into psychiatry. Frankly, it wasn’t any of his business, and he was sure the other staff must have been doing something to help them. But Josie kept visiting, regardless, and they developed something that was constantly threatening to become a healthy close relationship one day. Alex hated it.

“Dr. Process, is that you?”

‘Great, we’re doing this now,’ is what Alex nearly said, before settling for a better answer: “No.”

Josie had seen through his clever ruse, and was already trying to get him to come out from behind the plant. “Oh my! I haven’t seen you out of your room since the Christmas party you threw up at!”

“I know,” he replied rather flatly, hoping if he stuck to short sentences he could begin to transfigure himself into a part of the wallpaper.

“It’s been so long since you were out and about! How is it going?” Josie asked excitedly, and then they grabbed him by the hand and pulled him out from his hiding place, and then they put their other hand on top of the back of his hand and now Alex felt like he was going to throw up.

“Fine,” he managed to say, pulling his hand away and wringing it like he had touched something wet.

Josie didn’t seem to take any offense or even notice his behavior, already pushing ahead to whatever it was they wanted to talk about. “I was just about to drop by, you know,” they said, twirling one of their bangs around their finger. Alex found himself distracted again by their… gender-ish quality – it wasn’t that it was any of his business, and he didn’t care, but they were so girly, and then their clearly deliberately kempt mustache threw a whole wrench into the thing. “I was hoping to ask some questions…”

Well, clearly wallpapering wasn’t working. “I’m on break.” Alex started walking down the hall, hoping that would throw them off at least for a little bit.

“That’s fantastic! We can go down to the lunch room--”

“Not good with stairs.”

“Oh, right…” That seemed to finally disrupt whatever train of thought they were having. “I could bring you some lunch?”

Alex was about to protest, but his own thought-train was now colliding with theirs, sending them both into the uncomfortable wreckage of silence. He was actually really hungry after whatever he got up to last night, and hanging out with another person was starting to sound more and more appealing. “Actually, could you bring me some chips from the vending machine downstairs?”