fujiidom | Fic: The Effervescent Chlorine Submersion (5/15)

Title: The Effervescent Chlorine Submersion
Author: fujiidom / Maura
Pairing/Character: Sheldon/Penny
Rating: MA
Summary: Almost drowning gives Sheldon some perspective, Penny suffers through the ups and downs of Life Debt as a cultural phenomena because of this.
Spoilers: Set around mid-to-late season two

Author's Note: This took no time at all! The song at the club in “2010” by Living Legends. Google it if you’d like an accurate soundtrack while reading. Hope you like! Warning: No Kiddies Allowed Past This Point. Enjoy!

Chapter 5

Ω

Missy had found her friends quickly and sat with her unnoticeably pregnant, but sober friend as the others danced around sloppily with each other and various strangers off to the left.

It had taken a bit of convincing on both the girls’ part, but Sheldon stood next to Penny, looking mildly terrified of what was going on around him. “It’s so loud!” He covered his ears, melodramatically.

“Oh, c’mon Shelly, sit and relax,” his sister introduced the two to her friend and patted the seats for them to sit at.

Penny grabbed a waiter and begged for a Long Island Iced Tea, Missy asked for rum and Coke (Seriously, they were so twin-like it was making Penny’s head hurt), and Sheldon requested the same without the rum.

A different waitress delivered their drinks and they sat quietly letting Missy and Emma Lynn catch-up.

Penny drained her iced tea within a minute and was soon signaling for another. Sheldon had finished most of his Coke and had his glass taken back, as well. Another pair of drinks arrived and soon another pair sent back for refills.

Finally feeling a bit of buzz, Penny stumbled into the conversation. They were talking about the gross group of friends that were dancing with her former tablemates. Penny didn’t blame her exasperation, they weren’t very good looking and she was alone and pregnant in a loud night club. That kind of sucked.

The subject turned to mutual friends that Penny didn’t know and her eyes wandered over to Sheldon. He was watching the dance floor with that same glazed look that usually denoted intense thought. Penny laughed a little; it was funny that even dance floors merited intense thought from Sheldon. At least he was consistent in his crazy.

After switching to a martini, she was starting to feel the warm sensation that felt almost as if you were about to fall asleep. Everything seemed to be going in slow motion and the loudness of the club seemed to die down for now.

Sheldon turned towards her, seemingly picking up on her staring. He smiled, calmly.

“What’s up?” She leaned over to hear whatever he might say in response.

“I don’t think those were virgin Cuba Libres,” he shrugged.

There was no stopping the guffaws that seemed to come straight from Penny’s stomach. How did this man always set out to not drink and accidentally get drunk? Sure, she’d been behind one of the experiments, but there was at least two other instances she could think of that had ended this way. Usually he was much more obnoxious and loud about it, though.

“Really?” She held a hand her stomach, which was aching from laughter. “Is that a bad thing?”

“No, not especially. They seem to taste better. I don’t mind the loudness as much, it seems like it has gotten duller,” he sipped at his non-virgin Coke, which was mostly ice.

“Yeah, I noticed that! I think they put better music on, but I’m kind of drunk so I don’t really know. You seem to be pretty interested in what’s going on out there.” He shook his head and let out one of his obviously fake dismissals.

She then had a brilliant idea. Or, at least she thought it a brilliant idea. Grabbing a waitress she asked for four Jello shots. “If we take it slow, would you want to dance? You might like it, this looks like a pretty decent time,” Penny grinned.

“What? Dance? Penny, I don’t dance,” even a buzzed Sheldon seemed pretty sure of this.

Frowning she whined, “Please, please, please Sheldon? I want to dance and I don’t know anybody here. Besides I want to dance with you, it’ll be funny!”

“See? You want me to dance to amuse you, because you too can speculate just how terrible I am at it. As will everyone else in this room, if I do,” he gestured wildly to make his points and almost knocked over the server’s tray when she came back with the shots. “Is that gelatin?”

“Yep! Alcoholic Jello!” She picked a small plastic shot glass and slowly brought it up to her face. She was going to explain this to Sheldon, but she realized it was probably pretty self explanatory. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her, anyways. She tilted her head back and gulped the Jello in one gulp, placing the empty plastic back on the table.

Missy was laughing at something Emma Lynn was saying, but interjecting various comments on how great it was to see Sheldon loosen up. She’d only ever seen him drink champagne under protest at a few family New Years parties; she’d almost forget he was even legally allowed to drink, sometimes.

Still not breaking eye contact, Sheldon mirrored her action and looked thoroughly surprised at how simple that was. They tasted like strawberries, too.

Penny grabbed another and repeated her previous action, this time in sync with Sheldon.

She then told Missy that she was going to attempt to get him dancing. Now that he’d be pretty reasonably drunk, it should come pretty naturally.

“Good luck!” his sister yelled out happily, going back to her conversation.

Penny grabbed Sheldon’s wrist and pulled him towards the crowd of people on the dance floor, out of sight.

“Penny, I thought we talked about this! I don’t dance,” Sheldon shouted over the music, but followed her nonetheless.

“You don’t dance well, there’s a difference. Do you think half the other people here can? They’re as drunk as you, which is what they’ve got going for them. It’ll come naturally, I swear,” she screamed near his ear. “Stop thinking so much!”

It was a fast mix of indie rock and hip hop, giving them an easy beat to rock along with. Penny grabbed hold of Sheldon’s shoulders and moved his body along with hers until he fell into step. If all else failed she’d just have him mirror everything she did, that way she’d get some dancing in and they wouldn’t look like crazy people.

Songs changed and the beat increased speed, this had the same guitar riff from that Bowie song, but closer in sound to the Nirvana cover. Only it was overlaid with rap, rather than the normal lyrics.

At this point Sheldon was comfortable moving around, clearly feeling the alcohol. He didn’t know how to do anything on his own, but if she took the lead and did something he’d understand enough to adjust his position and speed accordingly.

Penny loved dancing. Probably too much, but she couldn’t help it – there was something very organic and physical about it that felt like a good workout.

She was a little drunk, too. Okay, a lot drunk. If she was feeling it this strongly she couldn’t imagine what was going on in Sheldon’s head. Pulling his head down, slowly she asked him.

The way his body closed around her instinctively felt way too good. Penny giggled when he couldn’t find anything intelligible to say back and merely shrugged. She’d apparently found Sheldon’s verbal kryptonite. Alcohol and close proximity dancing.

All things considered, though, he appeared to be having a good time. He deserved this, because she didn’t think he unwound in any real way like this. Sure, he played games and went to ComiCon, but this type of human interaction just felt rejuvenating—no matter who you were.

The poor guy was in his mid-twenties and hadn’t even touched a girl. Or, at least she didn’t think he did. His hands were moving up and down her back often enough to make her think that over a bit more, but still felt he was just a fast learner.

God, she couldn’t imagine lasting that long without liquor and intimacy. Maybe that made her a bad person, or a worse person for having dragged him into this, but the look on his face was telling her that he obviously didn’t mind.

And he wasn’t a bad dancer. Or not anymore. At least not in terms of the basic grinding and swaying techniques.

The speed of this song was faster than the last few and they were having a bit more trouble keeping up without bumping into one another. Sheldon had a solution from observing the other dancers and fluidly turned her away from his front and continued dancing.

At that, Penny began flat out cracking up; the concept of Sheldon dancing doggy-style with anyone was ridiculous. The best part is how he didn’t miss a step, just continued what they’d been doing, but in reverse. Only this was even more intense. What the hell? He never failed to surprise her.

His hands were firmly placed on both of her pelvic bones and he was swaying casually in time with the music, pressed closely up against Penny’s back.

As if on their own accord, her arms found their way back around his neck. Leaning down a bit to give her arms less of a distance to reach up, Sheldon nuzzled his head against them as they wrapped around the back of his head. She noted that his hair was softer than she’d have thought. His nose would occasionally bump against her neck and Penny could feel his deep, heavy breathing as it blew against her collar bone.

This song would never end and she wasn’t sure that she wanted it to. The two were rocking together so perfectly and she was just the right amount of drunk. It felt so good. She felt Sheldon finally close the tiny amount of distance between his lower half and her back, now they completely flush with one another as they shook from left to right.

Sheldon had begun making small mewling sounds and taking sharp uneven gulps of air. At first just finding this adorably intense, but she soon found herself making similar sounds from the delightful friction their bodies were making.

He seemed to hear her soft whimpers in response, as well.

After a few small, cursory attempts, Sheldon put his lips to her neck. Penny nearly moaned out in response. She quickly pushed her head further up, strongly acknowledging her okay, without a thought. And so he went about kissing and nibbling at the entire length of neck exposed to him.

It felt like some high school vampire movie, but so so good. The best part is that they continued dancing, since Sheldon was nothing if not a great multi-tasker. Eventually it was too difficult to resist and she abruptly spun around and started kissing him face to face.

At first surprised by her willingness to kiss him Sheldon made surprised sound into her open mouth, before exhaling deeply and responding feverishly. Penny deepened the kiss quickly, hoping that the alcohol would keep him from spitting out her tongue for fear of germs. To her surprise he simply moved his hands up to her head and opened his mouth for better access, eventually moving his tongue into her mouth in return.

Taking large pulls of air as their faces slid against one another, neither one would have been able to tell how long they’d been standing there, locked together at the mouth.

Finally needing more than a few breathes of air, they pulled apart and were silently thankful that no one around them seemed to care or notice. In fact, a few other couples were doing just the same.

“I need another drink,” Sheldon sputtered, hoarsely.

“Let’s clean you up first, we can stop at the bar and put an order in on the way,” Penny smiled at his scared shitless look.

She gently found his hand and led him towards the bar and then to the women’s bathroom, with a small but genuine argument from Sheldon over etiquette. So, she pushed him in and locked the door to get him to shut up.

Twenty minutes later, he was cleaned-up. Penny was proud of how normal and non-groped she had made them both look.

Even if they had embarrassingly missed their drink order being delivered and made out for fifteen more minutes against the locked door.

Ω

Sheldon sipped his Cuba Libre, listening to the three beautiful women talk about roping cattle.

“All you need is a kick ass approach. I’ve got a killer technique, what else can I say? I’ve even got the awards to prove it,” she said jokingly self-righteously, raising her own glass.

Penny felt his gaze and turned to look at him.

She smiled, winking and putting a hand on his knee, rubbing her thumb pleasantly back and forth. He was glad to finally have a good answer for why he waited so long.

Ω

Current Mood: hot
Current Music: Living Legends - 2010 | Powered by Last.fm

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

tapas-girl.livejournal.com

LOVED IT!!! I was hoping that Sheldon would loosen up a lil bit if he went out but this is even more than I could hope for. I would like to see them sneaking around for a little bit before anyone else found out.

From:

Fic: The Effervescent Chlorine Submersion (5/15)

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