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It wasn't often that Albert got asked to be a guest lecturer, and he savored the opportunity, donning professional wear and contacts, along with his favorite hat - a fedora - for the speaking engagement. Unfortunately, it reached its end all too quickly. While he welcomed questions from the students gathered there, one face in the audience had stuck out in him, and she was among those who were approaching him for questions now.

Ohhhh no. Oh no no no no no.

The closer she got, the more obvious it was that yes, this was the young lady who had been... er... performing at the... particularly intriguing (and rather titillating) location Tom had dragged him to just the night before. The same young lady who he had seen in less than full attire.

The young lady who was... talking to him... er.... now?

All composure and poise that he had held about himself during the lecture evaporated in one moment of immense embarrassment, and there was nothing Albert could do to prevent his face turning the color of a ripe tomato as he stammered out a greeting - or what passed for one, at least.

"Er - I - hello there I - did you need something... er... yes?"

"Oh, ah, of course," Albert said, turning his gaze to his notes and regaining some of his composure due to the lack of eye contact. He could get through this, he could. As long as he didn't look at her and remember what she was - and wasn't - wearing the night before.

"You might try Make: Technology on Your Time; it's a quarterly that will give you some ideas for practical uses of robotics, even without a degree. I also recommend Physics of the Future by Michio Kaku. It's less focused on robotics but is a good source of information on technological development in the coming years."

There, he'd done it. Now maybe she would be on her way and he could... stop being red-faced any time now. Really.

Yes. Good. She liked his recommendations, maybe she could head to the library and grab them and leave before he turned into a living, thirty-something (he refused to think of the actual numbers) human tomato. Please, please...

"Thank you for coming," he murmured, hoping the blush didn't extend all the way to his ears at this point but fearful that it did, indeed, extend that far. "It's rare to find people willing to listen to a topic that they believe they won't understand," he added in a desperate attempt to regain his composure (there were still students around, after all!) and regain a sense of dignity that he was desperately lacking at the moment.

He was definitely not thinking about last night, although he was considering wringing his brother's neck for dragging him to a burlesque show in the first place...

Alright maybe he was having trouble getting that show out of his head, with one of the dancers standing right in front of him...

Oh no. Oh no, she hadn't finished her questions and left like he had originally hoped, because even though his composure slowly returned as the number of lingering people dwindled, he caught a glance of her again out of the corner of his eye and had nearly dropped his lecture notes.

So she wasn't just going to go on her way and leave, was she?

... And as she mentioned the night before, he couldn't stop the theatrical (and frankly quite pathetic) groan that escaped him at her words.

"Oh my god, I am going to kill Tom for this later."

Welp. That was it. There went the remainder of his dignity, flying out of the window to disperse into the ether. Albert's head drooped and he hid his face in his hands as a burning-bright red blush came over him, brighter than ever before.

"Oh god, I'm going to die of embarrassment," he whined, giving in to the horror and utter shame of the moment. "I'm going to die, and my daughter will laugh at my funeral because I am the only father ever to die of being embarrassed. Children will stick clown dolls on my gravestone. I'll become a household warning against letting your brother talk you into things."

"I'll be infamous in the worst way ever."

It was as though Kaida wasn't even there, the overly-dramatic man lost in his diatribe.

"Oh yes I am," Albert groaned. "If ever there was a case of fatal embarrassment, this is it. Won't it be a groundbreaking event? It will be in all the headlines tomorrow - First Ever Death from Embarrassment. Ohhhhh, what a thing to be infamous for!"

With a whine, he drooped against his speaking lectern and finally, finally dared to look Kaida in the eyes. Definitely the eyes. Certainly nowhere else. Not ever anywhere else.

"Ah.... what was that, now?"

"And I," Albert murmured, still fighting embarrassment but managing to calm down a little. Just a little, but even a tiny amount was better than nothing at all in the face of death via shame. "Am a man unfortunate enough to have an older brother who did not warn me where he was dragging me off to. That being said, my dear, you are..."

He trailed off as his blush picked up again, then offered a sheepish grin. "You are quite good at what you do."