Fic: The Effervescent Chlorine Submersion (6/15)

[fujiidom]

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: If you’d like to listen to a mini-soundtrack of what would be playing in the background go here! The link will take you to a free online playlist of what Penny plays in her apartment. It’s sort of Lauryn Hill meets piano. It also has the song from last chapter there, too.

Also, I tried to incorporate the challenge into that last bit. Just for fun! I hope you like this, it’s a bit more of a pay off after the teasing in the last chapter. I’m getting started on the next chapter soon! Watch your back, Leonard! ;) Enjoy. Again, adults only PLZ.

 

 

Chapter 6

Ω

“If I recall correctly you classified yourself as a big ol’ five,” Sheldon gave an expectant look, but Penny could do nothing but stare back with her mouth gaping open.

Missy had driven them back and eventually taken a taxi back to her hotel suite, giving them both hugs and goodbyes before heading out. Fixing Penny with an extra long look, which made Sheldon think his sister was a bit more perceptive than he sometimes gave her credit for. She would leave for Texas with her friends the next morning.

Sheldon and Penny had then launched into mixing drinks. They’d only been at the bar for an hour or so, altogether.

Penny was bouncing around on the balls of her feet, wired from dancing and kissing. Sheldon didn’t go to bed until eleven on Saturdays. Both wanted to delay dealing with Leonard for as long as possible.

Instead they decided to kill some time by playing a little Age of Conan and getting drunk. Again.

For some reason the involvement of alcohol was mostly as a sound excuse to ignore all the questions and issues that would arise the moment everything and everyone was sober and real.

A half an hour later, when they started talking abstractly about their characters taking a detour to practice sword fighting techniques, the whole thing became one big double entendre.

Soon enough they broached the subject of what had happened earlier and their attention turned away from the game.

“Big ol’ five?” Penny closed her eyes in a mixture of amusement and embarrassment. “I can’t believe you remember that.”

“I remember everything,” he corrected. “Well, everything besides that which occurred before my mind matured to the level required for properly storing memories within the hippocampus.” He stretch and put his head set on the table.

“Everything stored in the hippo? Wha—a—what? ” Penny mumbled, her mind still quite fuzzy.

“Hippocampus,” Sheldon reiterated.

Penny’s face looked to humorous to continue that train of thought.

Normally he’d be annoyed with the dulled mental acuity brought on by the ingestion of alcohol, but he couldn't remember these concerns long enough to get mad. Meanwhile, her confused frown and knit up eyebrows just made him want to kiss her again. He could hardly think of anything else.

He’d had three kisses throughout his lifetime. Compared to what had happened a few hours previous, none of were remotely in the same category.  They wouldn’t be in any analogous and still feasible dichotomy, for that matter.

“Would you be opposed to resuming the physical intimacy that was achieved earlier at the dance club?” Sheldon raised his eyebrows as high as they’d reach.

“Well, shouldn’t we talk about this before doing anything more? I mean we’re still pretty out of it, but I feel like it’s the right thing to do,” Penny took another gulp of her Screwdriver and eyed Sheldon cautiously, with a hint of suspicion.

She could tell what he was thinking, he was sure of it.

He was ashamed that his thoughts had trailed off to the types of things he usually held deep contempt towards fantasizing about. Then again, she had been to use the words ‘anything more,’ how could he be to blame for his testosterone induced day-dreams?

“Hello? Sheldon? Earth to Sheldon,” Penny waved her hand in between the two. Finally snapping out of his daze, the brunet looked around embarrassed at his space out. “I never thought you’d be the type to zone out mid conversation. How drunk are you?”

“Why did you use the words ‘anything more?’” Sheldon was hardly in control of what he was saying anymore. He couldn’t get the phrase out of his mind and desperately needed an answer. His words echoed throughout Penny’s empty living room.

“What?”

“Earlier, you said before doing ‘anything more,” he repeated, quietly.

“I don’t know! Any more of this hooking up! What else could that mean?”

“So, there will be more of this ‘hooking up?’” he sputtered out.

“Well, yeah!” She gave a goofy grin. “Unless you don’t want there to be, then I guess I’d understand. It is kind of—,” Penny started, meeker sounding than she’d started out.

“I do! I want there to be more! Plenty, even!” He practically screamed out, interrupting. Catching how brash that had sounded he decided to clarify his point. “I just,” he paused, lowering his eyelids while searching for the right words, “didn’t realize that feeling this way was a veritable mathematical prospect.”

Penny closed her computer monitor, without looking away from Sheldon. She scooted over to her stereo and hit play, hoping whatever disc remained in there was appropriate (Adele’s 19 drifted smoothly through the speakers.)  Turning back towards in his direction, she crawled up the couch where Sheldon was perched.

If that comment meant anything close to what she thought it did, she was giving up on keeping that discussion going.

He hadn’t moved since finishing his thought and appeared to be shaking slightly as she raised her head to eye level and made herself comfortable, using his knees to as a seat.

“We should really talk about other things, though,” Penny whispered as she leaned in purposefully, giving him a closed mouth peck on the lips.

Trying to refrain from reverting to how they had acted the first two times they kissed; Sheldon stared ahead, stiffly and took a deep breath to try to slow down his heartbeat.

He was trying to be a gentleman. “What would you like to talk about?”

Penny gave him another brief kiss. “About what kind of speed we should be taking things.”

“Speed?” Sheldon knitted his eyebrows in confusion at the phrase ‘taking things,’ as Penny continued her steady series of kisses. “Speed as an interval can be understood in many variations. Could you be more specific?”

“How intimate you’d like to get and how fast—,” she shifted around suggestively, sliding her knees onto the couch on either side of his legs, “—you’d like to get there.”

Sheldon took a minute to finally work out what was going on and a little bit longer to form a logical response to that question.

When his mind resumed functioning, he was mildly alarmed at not remembering putting his palms on either side of her bottom, or when he’d started moving them slowly back and forth. Rather than remove his hands, he simply stilled them.

He wanted her closer. He wanted her. He was supposed to be answering her question.

“Well, what is your standpoint on the subject?” he heard himself reply. Although he hardly recognized his voice, as it came out in a gravelly baritone—deep and gruff.

“Sheldon,” she leaned in again and he hurriedly closed his teeth around her bottom lip. Still sitting straight and keeping his head frozen in place, making the kiss last longer until Penny, again, pulled her lips out of his grasp. “I’m fairly certain you know my standpoint. These questions are being directed at you for a reason.”

He just wanted to stop talking. His mind reeling, there were so many answers on the figurative tip of his tongue. He couldn’t really come up with anything and forgot what he had been thinking about when Penny let him pull the bottom of her mouth again and keep kissing for a bit longer than before.

Deepening the kiss, Penny wrapped her arms around his neck. Sheldon was now barely maintaining his perpendicular stance while Penny was wiggling around on his lap, kissing him enthusiastically, and pushing fistfuls of his hair upward.

He felt like an inflexible ocean liner swaying about the unyielding, treacherous waters of a particularly turbulent storm.

They continued this fight for dominance for at least five minutes before Penny finally broke free and sat back on Sheldon’s knees and leaned back against his unmoving hands.

“Sweetie, need an answer,” she breathed out, touching her forehead to his. “Really, really need an answer.”

He was frantic, not wanting her to pull away. “But, I don’t know.”

“Sheldon, there are times when you won’t shut up about exactly how much you know. Why can you not give me a straight answer? You’re killing me,” Penny grabbed his face with both of her hands and looked him square in the eyes, stressing her words huskily.

“I—if your friend thinks he’s meant to be with someone, but he’s not because—in fact—you’re with that someone, does that make you a substandard human being?”

Penny couldn’t help but tilt her head back and laugh. “I’ve heard Leonard ask the exact question, only about another person. You two really are weird, adopted brothers or something,” she smiled kindly at him. “We can figure that out later, we’ll make it his business when it needs to be. Hopefully years from now, once he’d married with kids.”

Sheldon let out a strained chuckle, understanding exactly what she meant and accepting her proposal. He sighed, still smiling. “Then, I would like to ‘take our time,’ but not in the pedantic way the phrase can sometimes be interpreted. I would like to simply build up tolerance, as is recommended by most of the literature I’ve read on the subject.”

“You’ve read a lot of literature on that subject?” she smiled as she closed her eyes, pondering his use of the word tolerance, and kissed him shortly on the mouth. “So, what does that mean? I get the big idea, but I just want to know boundaries. As soon as possible,” she asked, as she decided her plan of action to get him back for the hickey she could feel forming below her right earlobe.

She moved down from his neck and onto his collarbone, where it would be easier to cover up and wouldn’t be a suspicious match for hers. Sheldon was fidgeting around underneath between her legs and she couldn’t keep the collar of his shirt pulled far enough wide to get a good kiss going.

“How could we have any boundaries, Penny? You saved my life, remember?” Sheldon answered innocently.

Ω

He did not fully understand the meaning behind the question, she guessed.  Or, what—freaking—ever. That was definitely a good enough conclusion for her.

If she got more answers like that she wouldn’t have waited this long into the conversation to swiftly yank his dark blue, Xavier Institute for Higher Learning t-shirt up and over his head.

Sheldon let out a shocked cry in brief terror at what was going on, before being silenced by Penny’s mouth.

Normally when you pull the shirt off, fun stuff was allowed to happen. Sheldon, of course, had second shirt, bright neon green with longer sleeves than the first.

With a huff, Penny pulled this shirt slowly up and above his head.

Then she turned her eyes down to see a third, thin white sleeved undershirt.

If Sheldon hadn’t already been shaking from having both shirts pulled roughly over his head and would have started once he made eye contact with the blonde.

Starting slow and quickly bubbling out to sound almost maniacal, she gave a few sloppy open-mouthed kisses amidst her laughter. She knew exactly what she was going to do.

“Oh, sweetie, you’re shaking! Don’t shake! This is a good kind of laughter,” she moved around on his lap.

In between her random bursts of giggling and kisses, Sheldon clarified his three shirts. “My doctors used to joke that I was ectothermal,” he said apprehensively, a small snort escaping him. At Penny’s confused look, he continued, “Cold-blooded. I have low circulation in my arms and neck, which is why I have found layering clothing the most appropriate remedy.”

She made a point of rolling her eyes at his words. She could picture him walking around east Texas with scarves and mittens bundled tight around his appendages.

“So, are you going to take off my shirt, or should I? I assume that is the direction this is going, because you’ve removed two other shirts and were attempting to suck the skin covering my clavicle unsuccessfully, a moment ago,” Sheldon raised an eyebrow, annoyed at her eye rolling, but still with a look of genuine curiosity. “Penny?”

“Sheldon, you can try to suc—dash—the romance out of the air, but I will not allow it. You say clavicle again, I will make you pay, comprende?”

“Were you not trying to bite my clavicle? It isn’t strictly part of the seven erogenous zones, but it is close enough that I believe it would be pleasant. You were trying to move my shirt aside to reach it and opted to take them both off, when that didn’t work.” Sheldon explained. Putting his long pointer finger to his closed mouth in thought, he added “Perhaps in riposte to my original attempts at kissing you when we were at the—”

“Sheldon.”

“—although it is lower by three quarters of an inch, slightly to the left—”

“Sheldon, you said clavicle,” Penny informed, darkly.

Mid-sentence, he was cut off by the blonde taking the collar of his white shirt in her teeth.

“So now you want to bite my shirt?” He barely stopped the incredulity from slipping into his tone. “Is this some technique that I’ve not read about, what is the pleasure derived from—,” but before he could get out another word, Penny had found her way to gnawing a hole just below the collar and ripping in a downward vertical line, as she slipped, lithely, from her place on his knees to the ground, yanking the thin shirt apart in the process.

Sheldon’s mouth was gaping open; his eyes read a mixture of fear and hunger.

Crawling back a small distance, she pushed him backwards so that his back arched over the edge of her couch. He would later tell her that he couldn’t shake the flood of images depicting female lions going in for the kill, as she neared.

She licked her lips slowly and leaned her head towards the side of his neckline. With his head so far back, they were able to maintain eye contact as she exposed her teeth and possessively bit down on the skin covering his clavicle.

Ω

When Sheldon eventually had his chance to respond with his own rolling of eyes, it was for reasons other than words.

And was entirely nothing to do with scarves and mittens.

Ω