[TBBT] Ch: 15 [Professor Duolingo] (Patreon)

[Apartment 5B] [3rd person POV]

For several seconds, nobody moved.

Penny stood near the hallway with a blue towel wrapped securely around her body, damp blond hair falling around her shoulders while she looked between Karl and the three strangers crowded outside his apartment.

Karl, meanwhile, had already decided this situation was going to become significantly more annoying before it became better.

"Your friends?" Penny asked.

Karl glanced toward the doorway. "Leonard is. Raj seems decent enough. The third one is currently under review."

Howard somehow interpreted that as permission to enter.

He stepped straight past Karl before anyone could stop him, adjusted the front of his shirt, and walked into the apartment with enough confidence to suggest the invitation had merely been delayed by an administrative error.

Karl slowly turned his head and watched him.

Leonard's eyes widened from the hallway. "Howard, what are you doing?"

Howard ignored him completely.

His attention had locked onto Penny the moment he'd seen her, and whatever remained of his common sense had apparently packed a suitcase and fled the building. His eyes moved over her for a moment before the familiar Wolowitz smile appeared across his face.

He stopped several feet away from her and gave a slight theatrical bow. "Enchanté, mademoiselle. Howard Wolowitz, Caltech Department of Applied Physics. You may be familiar with some of my work. At this very moment, hardware I helped design is orbiting Jupiter's largest moon and taking high-resolution digital photographs."

Penny stared at him for a second, clearly trying to determine what kind of response he expected from that introduction.

Then she smiled politely. "Penny. I work at the Cheesecake Factory."

Howard's smile somehow became wider.

Karl rubbed two fingers against his forehead.

'Yep. He's exactly like the show.'

Penny turned back toward Karl and gestured toward the hallway. "So, shower?"

Karl walked over to her, deliberately placing himself between Penny and Howard's increasingly obvious stare. "Yeah, come on. I'll show you how the diverter works."

They had barely taken one step when Howard called after her with a grin. "Bon douche."

Penny stopped and looked over her shoulder. "I'm sorry?"

Howard leaned casually against the back of the couch like he hadn't entered someone else's apartment without permission thirty seconds earlier. "It's French for 'good shower.' A sentiment I can express in six languages, in case you ever find yourself requiring internationally recognized bathing encouragement."

Karl closed his eyes for half a second.

Then he looked at Howard. "Could you stop being a sleazeball for five minutes?"

Howard put a hand against his chest. "Sleazeball? I'm being culturally sophisticated."

"You walked into my apartment without being invited and immediately started flirting with a woman wearing a towel."

"When you describe it like that, you're removing all the nuance."

"There wasn't any nuance."

Penny covered a smile with one hand while Karl gestured toward the hallway again.

"Come on. Before he discovers a seventh language."

Howard apparently took that as a challenge because he straightened and called after them, "See-ka-tong-guay-jow."

Karl stopped walking.

His shoulders dropped slightly.

Penny looked toward him. "What did he just say?"

Karl slowly turned around.

Howard wore the smug expression of someone convinced he'd just demonstrated an obscure piece of linguistic brilliance.

Karl stared at him for several seconds before asking, "Do you have any idea what you just yapped?"

Howard's confidence didn't move. "Obviously. You probably wouldn't recognize it."

Karl's eyebrow rose. "Because it's gibberish."

Howard scoffed. "What would you know?"

That question finally made Karl smile.

Leonard saw the expression from the hallway and immediately became interested.

Raj leaned slightly forward too.

Karl folded his arms. "I speak, read, write, and understand every available human language I've encountered, including several extinct languages, reconstructed historical languages, and constructed languages."

Howard blinked once before recovering. "Sure you do."

Karl's smile widened.

Then he switched languages without warning.

"chaw' Danoblu'be'chugh juHvam Da'elbe'nIS. bIDochHa'be'."

Howard's expression went blank.

Karl tilted his head slightly. "[You shouldn't enter someone's home without permission. You're being rude.] That's Klingon, by the way."

Leonard stared at Karl.

Raj's eyebrows climbed.

Howard's mouth opened before Karl continued in a softer, flowing language that sounded completely different.

"Istan peded Klingon a Sindarin, ar lamath rim."

Penny looked between them with growing amusement.

Karl gave Howard another small smile. "[Yeah, I can speak Klingon and Sindarin, along with many other languages.] That one was Sindarin."

Howard stared at him.

Karl pointed lightly toward him. "Also, whatever you said earlier wasn't Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, Japanese, or any other East Asian language I know. You basically threw some syllables together and hoped nobody nearby could check."

For the first time since entering the apartment, Howard Wolowitz appeared genuinely speechless.

Penny looked at Karl with raised eyebrows. "Okay, that's actually really cool."

Karl shrugged as casually as he could manage. "The useful applications are surprisingly limited. Mostly reading untranslated research papers and ruining people's fake foreign-language flirting."

Penny laughed before nudging him lightly with her elbow. "Come on, Professor Duolingo. Show me how your shower works."

Karl glanced toward Howard one final time. "And don't touch anything while I'm gone."

Howard finally recovered enough to protest. "I wasn't going to touch anything."

Karl looked pointedly at him. "You entered the apartment after I specifically told you it wasn't a good time. My confidence in your understanding of boundaries is currently undergoing peer review."

Penny laughed again as Karl walked with her toward the bathroom.

Once the bathroom door clicked shut, Raj finally relaxed.

Silence settled over the living room.

Howard remained standing beside the couch, staring toward the hallway with an expression that looked vaguely offended by reality itself.

Leonard and Raj were still outside the apartment.

Raj slowly leaned toward Leonard until his mouth was near Leonard's ear. "Do you think he was serious about knowing every language?"

Leonard kept his eyes on the hallway. "How would I know? I'm not Melkot."

Raj nodded sympathetically. "That is unfortunately true. If I had an option, I'd like to be a Talosian. They can completely project illusions into a person's mind and effortlessly read their deepest desires and memories."

"Yeah, great," Leonard said dryly. He finally looked toward Howard, who still seemed to be mentally processing the fact that his multilingual seduction technique had been publicly identified as nonsense.

"Come on, Howard. Let's go. Walking into Karl's apartment without permission was seriously rude."

Howard turned toward him. "I'm thinking."

Leonard sighed. "That's usually when we get worried, and you get in trouble after doing what you were thinking."

Howard slowly walked toward the doorway, although the confidence returned to his face with every step. By the time he reached Leonard and Raj, he'd constructed an entirely new interpretation of what had just happened.

"Gentlemen, I believe we've witnessed an obvious fraud."

Raj stared at him. "You just watched him speak Klingon and Elvish."

"Sindarin," Howard corrected automatically before realizing that correction wasn't helping his argument. He quickly continued, "Two languages prove nothing. For all we know, he memorized a couple of sentences because he's one of those guys who thinks speaking Klingon at parties makes him interesting."

Leonard gave him a flat look. "Howard, we play Klingon Boggle."

"That's different. Klingon Boggle is intellectually stimulating," Howard replied.

Leonard stared at him. "You literally tried using fake Chinese thirty seconds ago."

'This guy made me look stupid in front of the hot blonde. I'll show him...' Howard waved that away. "Irrelevant. The important question is whether Karl Peterson actually speaks every language known to mankind, because I'm telling you right now that there's absolutely no way anyone can do that."

Raj crossed his arms. "And how exactly are you planning to prove him wrong?"

Howard's eyes narrowed with renewed purpose as a grin slowly spread across his face. "Simple. I challenge him."

Leonard already hated where this was going. "To what?"

"A language competition."

Raj's expression brightened immediately. "Actually, I'd watch that."

Howard pointed toward him as though Raj had just volunteered for active duty. "Exactly. You're Indian. You've got Hindi, English, Punjabi, and probably another six languages your parents forced you to learn before you were allowed to watch television."

Raj stared at him. "First of all, that's racist. Second, why Punjabi? I’m from New Delhi. And thirdly, you already know my Hindi is terrible."

Howard sighed. "Fine. We all know Klingon. Sheldon knows some German, Raj has whatever survived of his Hindi, I know several useful international phrases, and then there's the Internet. Between all of us, we can expose Karl's ridiculous claim within ten minutes."

With that, the trio closed the door and began to go downstairs...

"Enjoy your temporary victory, Dr. Peterson," Howard muttered with theatrical seriousness. "Howard Wolowitz is coming for you."

Leonard glanced over his shoulder. "You realize he can't hear you."

Howard straightened his jacket as they continued downstairs. "Every great rivalry needs an opening declaration."

Raj smiled beside him. "Usually the other person knows there's a rivalry."

Howard dismissed that concern with a wave of his hand. “It's time to prepare a list of multilingual sentences, expose Peterson as a fraud, and then Penny can discover that Howard Wolowitz is fluent in the only language that really matters between a man and a woman.”

...

[First Person POV]

[Bathroom]

I reached past Penny and pulled the small diverter beneath the faucet upward. The water immediately shifted from the tub spout to the showerhead above us. "There you go."

Penny looked up as water started pouring properly from the shower. "Okay. Thanks." She said as she stepped into the tub and pulled the plastic shower curtain across most of the opening. She then removed the towel from around herself behind the curtain. A second later, one arm appeared over the top edge with the towel hanging from her hand.

I stared at it for half a second before understanding what she wanted.

"Right."

I took the towel and hung it on the wall hook beside the shower.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. Well, I'll just..."

I pointed toward the door and started leaving before this situation became any more awkward than necessary. I know what she was trying to do.

"Hey, Karl?" Penny called.

I stopped with one hand already near the doorknob.

"Yeah?"

There was a brief pause.

"Um. Can I ask you a favor?"

I glanced back toward the curtain.

"Depends on what it is," I replied. "But sure, go ahead."

"It's okay if you say no."

"Uh-huh."

Another pause followed, and I could practically hear her trying to figure out how to phrase whatever she wanted.

"It's just not the kind of thing you ask a guy you've just met."

...

[Next morning] 

Last night, Penny asked if I could go to her ex's apartment and get her TV. And I know how this was going to play out if I didn't take proper measures. So, I did take proper measures. I could've said no, but where's the fun in that? She'd have gone to Leonard for help, and the canon event would've played out exactly like the show, making all my efforts so far meaningless.

By the way, today's login reward was: Lesser Speed. It's actually better than getting more money. Now, I can run. How fast? No idea. Gotta put it to the test. 

[Gym]

The gym was fifteen minutes walking distance from the apartment building. I ran there in five minutes. It felt so good. I was like the wind. Anyway, the reason I'm here is for three reasons: The TV is really heavy for one person to carry out, I don't have a car, and I need people to keep me safe from Kurt. So, here in the gym, I will get all three things. 

How? 

I clapped my hands to get everyone’s attention. "May I have your attention, please? I need four strong men with big muscles from this gym and a car. They will help me carry a TV from someone's apartment who cheated on his girlfriend and then kept the TV, and then drive me back to mine. I will give each of them two large jars of protein powder of their choice. They can pick any brand or price. Alternatively, they can take cash equal to the price of the jars. So, who will help me?"