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fujiidomTitle: The Effervescent Chlorine Submersion
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
A/N: Thanks for your patience, everyone! I had a lot of personal stuff going on and then my motherboard fried itself up sometime early last week. Hopefully I'll have some more soon, but for now you have some schmoop! I blame it on hormones, or whatever. Only five more chapters left! Enjoy!
Ω
“Yes, I am serious. Why would I kid about something that ridiculous?”
“Um, you should hear some of the things you’ve kidded about around me. Usually its amoebas or Jar Jar Binks-based, but still. So why?”
“I’ll have you know that joke was about amino acids and was hilarious. Also, Jar Jar Binks is a pathetic incompetent clown.”
“Whatever,” Penny breathed out. “So, if you can get to my question sometime today,” she trailed off, dumping her leftovers into the garbage can.
“At the time, the woman two trailers over had gotten into the New York Times for causing a stir at the Parent Teacher Association’s meetings, calling for the students to pray in classrooms,” Sheldon huffed out at last. “My mother was still holding a grudge that this same woman had poisoned her Blue Bonnets and wanted a bit of publicity herself.”
“But—it’s Harry Potter! My little cousin dressed up as a house elf for the last book and he was like four. You should have seen how huge the outfit we got was on him,” Penny chuckled at the memory and rinsed off her plate, moving aside allowing him to do the same. “And that didn’t make you mad? Wouldn’t you be not able to take it out of the library? That sucks.”
“Penny, at the time I was deeply immersed in work with Calabi–Yau manifolds and was preparing for my second thesis—the shelf life of a novel was far from my mind. Missy had already graduated, too. When the school figured that out, they had her drop the case.”
“Yeah, okay. You didn't care because you’d read them already,” she smirked, knowingly.
“Perhaps.”
“Wow, that’s some pretty crazy stuff,” she returned to her spot on her couch, he was on his third and final rinsing of his dish. Drying his hands with a neatly torn paper towel, he cleared his throat in what he hoped was a non-committal, casual way. Penny’s attention was now turned back to Alex Trebek and the capital of Cambodia. Which is Phnom Penh.
Sheldon sat down and absently pulled out his cell phone, brushing his fingers softly over the screen to open a new audio note and gently placing his phone on her coffee table. Out of sight.
“What is Phnom Penh?” someone answered onscreen.
“So, Penny, have you ever been to Planetarium?”
“Um, no. Why?”
“Well, I’m trying to figure out a way to get Leonard off my figurative back,” Penny answered a question about T.S. Elliot incorrectly and was absently nodding while looking confused, still watching the game. Sheldon went on, “He wants to know where to take Leslie on a fancy date and asked my opinion.”
That pulled her attention back to what he was saying. Plus, he didn’t think Penny would be looking to answer the Franco-Prussian Dressing final question.
“Leonard asked you for dating advice?”
“I am dating you, aren’t I?”
Her breath caught a little, since they hadn’t particularly put a title on it. It was the first time either one had spoken aloud. Besides that business with Howard, but that was theatrics. This was different. This felt different.
“Yeah,” she said steadily.
They didn’t say anything for a few more seconds before Sheldon looked uncomfortable and fidgeted with the hem of his dark green shirt.
“So, do you feel that most women in your age group enjoy horseback riding?”
“What, Sheldon?”
“I told you, I’m conducting research to help Leonard with his problem.”
“I like horseback riding, yes. I don’t think Leslie Winkle would. I didn’t even think her and Leonard were together still, didn’t they get in another argument about him wanting to carpool or something stupid?”
“Well, it was about that at first and then whether they should start thinking about kids, again. So you’re not too far off, children would allow them use of the carpool lane. They, um, uh, have since worked thing out, however.”
Penny eyed him once more before getting caught up in excitement over the second ‘cute puppy’ ad in the fifteen minutes they’d been watching.
Sheldon covertly checked his pulse on his right arm, in an effort to maintain his calm.
She didn’t fight him over any more details, so he continued his questioning. “Which is your favorite ride at any of the local theme parks?”
“Are they even tall enough to ride them?” she mumbled into her can of Diet Coke. Sheldon fought to hide a grin, but he couldn’t figure out why.
“I don’t really do theme parks. I had a bad experience getting lost at a town fair, so. I do like the boardwalk stuff, though. Actually—no, it’s stupid,” she worried the little metal tab back and forth, mind wandering.
“What?”
The metal made a soft clink as it snapped off the top of her can.
“I tried to go once, but it was too much. Back when I lived in Omaha, when we took a trip to Disney World for a Junior Rodeo thing, I snuck off on our free day. It was too crowded and scary and hot and I really only went because I love lions and I know they had a safari exhibit with a lion or something and I like the zoo, but they’re all caged up or penned up or whatever. They’re free out on safari, you get to see, like the lion just hanging out. It was stupid, the wait would’ve been like an hour and half and I already had been walking around lost for hours just trying to find it and, yeah,” she rambled out, taking a large breath afterwards. “Wow, kind of been holding onto that for a while, so don’t tell anybody. I went alone and it was embarrassing and—,” she paused again, “actually you can tell people, whatever. I don’t want you running away to keep quiet again. Who’d clean my room on Thursdays?”
He didn’t mention how much of a run-on sentence her reply had been. Or that a safari located in Southern California was constitutionally enclosed. As most safaris were, for that matter.
Instead, reached for his phone, fumbling around for a few seconds before slipping it back onto the table. He’d gotten the information he needed and he didn’t want to hear a three minute audio clip of them kissing noisily through the rest of the commercial break.
“Oh-oh—ooh! Queen Victoria! Definitely Queen Victoria,” she squeaked out, pulling away and blurting out the question about the female sovereign.
At his look, she claimed feminist solidarity and something about Kathy Bates. Rather than point out the arguments that could be made to her points, he pulled her back into him.
He was wrong. Hm. He was oddly okay with that.
Ω
Almost a month had passed and Sheldon had been sleeping over Penny’s off and on for a week.
They had originally wanted to avoid the smell that had resulted from Leonard’s new flame’s incense and other nasty stuff.
Sheldon had called it a cacophonous assault on the olfactory senses, but to Penny smelly patchouli was smelly patchouli.
It stunk on that guy Rainn she’d dated, it stunk now.
They cuddled innocently, fully dressed. Sometimes they made out, sometimes they just slept. It was nice in a way that Penny was sorta unsure about.
She felt great about it, mostly, but there was a growing part of her that wanted to flat out ask for a date and time when Sheldon would be ready to… take another step forward.
It’d been a while since she’d gotten anything besides some hand action. The progress they’d made in those areas made her yearn to start trying other things. If only his love for experimenting had transferred a bit more strongly. But, whatever. She really really liked him.
If it was going to happen, it’d happen.
No sense in pushing him before he’s ready, she’d made that mistake before and didn’t want to risk any problems that were avoidable. So she was mostly happy about it.
Until he left the morning after a sleep over without a note or sign--she was a little annoyed.
Maybe it was her sexual frustration. Or her hormones. Whatever it was, it had her good and pissed for a while.
Leaving her surprised when he showed up four hours later and knocking three times and smiling into the keyhole. “Sheldon, where did you go this morning? I texted you and you didn’t leave a note and why are you holding binoculars?” She spat out quickly.
“Hello, Penny. These are part of the mystery I have created, as was my abrupt disappearance. I am regretful of leaving no notice and not responding to your messages, but I assure you it was only in an effort to keep the lid on the events planned for this afternoon,” he pulled out a thick, scarf looking piece of fabric.
“Sheldon, what the hell? This is creepy! Binoculars and a... blindfold?” She continued pondering his presence and what he wanted, but followed him down the stairs and outside… to a limousine?
“Okay, not as creepy, you’re forgiven.” He opened the door and handed her the blindfold.
"For now,” she stared at the bunch of fabric in her hand. “Sheldon, where are we going? I mean, I know you don’t want to tell me, with the blindfold and all, but really what’s with all the cloak and dagger stuff?”
“This outing is in no way Dickensian, I promise.” Not understanding, but giving up on any chance of that being likely anytime soon, Penny felt around for his hand and they continued the ride with Sheldon explaining the origins of her comment.
She was getting a little afraid of these Sheldon Cooper Fun With Facts moments because she was becoming more and more interested in what he talked about.
She was hoping that was her rubbing off on him, rather than him rubbing off on her. With him so close and the blindfold leaving too much up to her mind, already—Penny continued the ride fantasizing about Sheldon taking her to various places where she’d be able to make some of that rubbing a reality. God, she needed to get some.
Ω
What felt like hours later, they came to a stop and Sheldon nudged her to get ready to maneuver her way out of the limo.
“Okay,” Sheldon steadied Penny and took an audible breath. “Well, while in most romantic and/or non-romantic relationships call for a gift exchange on the date they were born, I thought you wouldn’t mind if I gave you yours a little bit early. Six days, four hours, fifty-two minutes early, that is,” he looked at his watch briefly. “So, you can take off the visual obstruction and happy twenty-third birth week, Penny.”
She blanched. She had practically forgotten her birthday was next week, with none of her family around and all the Sheldon groping and kissing and not quite sex and a bunch of nerdy guy friends and Sheldon was giving her a birthday present—on his own accord, reciprocity be damned. Oh my God she was already crying.
She pulled down the material and felt the side bangs around her face flare up, statically charged. “What.”
Sheldon seemed confused over her phrasing. It was meant to be a question, but didn’t sound like one. So he just stood still, waiting for another clue.
“Sheldon, this is—this is—this is—,” Penny stuttered out.
“A safari," he supplied. "Or a pseudo safari, if you will. They didn’t have one at Disneyland and I didn’t want to make you get all the blood work done for a trip to an actual safari--I know you don’t have a fondness of needles. So, I thought this would do, for now.”
He reached out for her hand, gently. She let him lead her inwards, mouth still gaping. “Yeah, this’ll do.”
In a daze, Penny wasn’t sure what to make of anything. It seemed surreal, hell two hours ago she was planning on chewing him out over not leaving notes and now.
Now, he was helping her get into their Jeep and exchanging pleasantries with their personal tour guide. The best in the company, he whispered confidently in her ear. Something told her he’d done his homework.
Looking around at the wide expanse of land, it reminded her of home and her dreams—her heart swelled. The guy definitely did his homework.
They got tons of pictures of the lions and the flamingoes that reminded them both of him. Later on, she cooed to a tiny baby monkey in her arms while Sheldon looked on from the corner with a glint in his eye and a mask secured across the front of his face. Yeah, she really really liked him.
She convinced him to let it grab one of his long thin fingers, which it did and wouldn’t let go of for another six and half minutes. She liked the way the little guy thought.
By the end, Sheldon was no longer putting up much of a fight and had actually taken to humming something frighteningly familiar to her ears, although it was slightly muffled by the thin paper mask.
She realized he might already know this and got an awkward attempt at winking when she met his eyes. They both couldn’t stop grinning.
He really really liked her, too. If that day didn’t prove it, the following night did.
Sheldon slept over again. They didn’t cuddle until afterwards.
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
A/N: Thanks for your patience, everyone! I had a lot of personal stuff going on and then my motherboard fried itself up sometime early last week. Hopefully I'll have some more soon, but for now you have some schmoop! I blame it on hormones, or whatever. Only five more chapters left! Enjoy!
“Yes, I am serious. Why would I kid about something that ridiculous?”
“Um, you should hear some of the things you’ve kidded about around me. Usually its amoebas or Jar Jar Binks-based, but still. So why?”
“I’ll have you know that joke was about amino acids and was hilarious. Also, Jar Jar Binks is a pathetic incompetent clown.”
“Whatever,” Penny breathed out. “So, if you can get to my question sometime today,” she trailed off, dumping her leftovers into the garbage can.
“At the time, the woman two trailers over had gotten into the New York Times for causing a stir at the Parent Teacher Association’s meetings, calling for the students to pray in classrooms,” Sheldon huffed out at last. “My mother was still holding a grudge that this same woman had poisoned her Blue Bonnets and wanted a bit of publicity herself.”
“But—it’s Harry Potter! My little cousin dressed up as a house elf for the last book and he was like four. You should have seen how huge the outfit we got was on him,” Penny chuckled at the memory and rinsed off her plate, moving aside allowing him to do the same. “And that didn’t make you mad? Wouldn’t you be not able to take it out of the library? That sucks.”
“Penny, at the time I was deeply immersed in work with Calabi–Yau manifolds and was preparing for my second thesis—the shelf life of a novel was far from my mind. Missy had already graduated, too. When the school figured that out, they had her drop the case.”
“Yeah, okay. You didn't care because you’d read them already,” she smirked, knowingly.
“Perhaps.”
“Wow, that’s some pretty crazy stuff,” she returned to her spot on her couch, he was on his third and final rinsing of his dish. Drying his hands with a neatly torn paper towel, he cleared his throat in what he hoped was a non-committal, casual way. Penny’s attention was now turned back to Alex Trebek and the capital of Cambodia. Which is Phnom Penh.
Sheldon sat down and absently pulled out his cell phone, brushing his fingers softly over the screen to open a new audio note and gently placing his phone on her coffee table. Out of sight.
“What is Phnom Penh?” someone answered onscreen.
“So, Penny, have you ever been to Planetarium?”
“Um, no. Why?”
“Well, I’m trying to figure out a way to get Leonard off my figurative back,” Penny answered a question about T.S. Elliot incorrectly and was absently nodding while looking confused, still watching the game. Sheldon went on, “He wants to know where to take Leslie on a fancy date and asked my opinion.”
That pulled her attention back to what he was saying. Plus, he didn’t think Penny would be looking to answer the Franco-Prussian Dressing final question.
“Leonard asked you for dating advice?”
“I am dating you, aren’t I?”
Her breath caught a little, since they hadn’t particularly put a title on it. It was the first time either one had spoken aloud. Besides that business with Howard, but that was theatrics. This was different. This felt different.
“Yeah,” she said steadily.
They didn’t say anything for a few more seconds before Sheldon looked uncomfortable and fidgeted with the hem of his dark green shirt.
“So, do you feel that most women in your age group enjoy horseback riding?”
“What, Sheldon?”
“I told you, I’m conducting research to help Leonard with his problem.”
“I like horseback riding, yes. I don’t think Leslie Winkle would. I didn’t even think her and Leonard were together still, didn’t they get in another argument about him wanting to carpool or something stupid?”
“Well, it was about that at first and then whether they should start thinking about kids, again. So you’re not too far off, children would allow them use of the carpool lane. They, um, uh, have since worked thing out, however.”
Penny eyed him once more before getting caught up in excitement over the second ‘cute puppy’ ad in the fifteen minutes they’d been watching.
Sheldon covertly checked his pulse on his right arm, in an effort to maintain his calm.
She didn’t fight him over any more details, so he continued his questioning. “Which is your favorite ride at any of the local theme parks?”
“Are they even tall enough to ride them?” she mumbled into her can of Diet Coke. Sheldon fought to hide a grin, but he couldn’t figure out why.
“I don’t really do theme parks. I had a bad experience getting lost at a town fair, so. I do like the boardwalk stuff, though. Actually—no, it’s stupid,” she worried the little metal tab back and forth, mind wandering.
“What?”
The metal made a soft clink as it snapped off the top of her can.
“I tried to go once, but it was too much. Back when I lived in Omaha, when we took a trip to Disney World for a Junior Rodeo thing, I snuck off on our free day. It was too crowded and scary and hot and I really only went because I love lions and I know they had a safari exhibit with a lion or something and I like the zoo, but they’re all caged up or penned up or whatever. They’re free out on safari, you get to see, like the lion just hanging out. It was stupid, the wait would’ve been like an hour and half and I already had been walking around lost for hours just trying to find it and, yeah,” she rambled out, taking a large breath afterwards. “Wow, kind of been holding onto that for a while, so don’t tell anybody. I went alone and it was embarrassing and—,” she paused again, “actually you can tell people, whatever. I don’t want you running away to keep quiet again. Who’d clean my room on Thursdays?”
He didn’t mention how much of a run-on sentence her reply had been. Or that a safari located in Southern California was constitutionally enclosed. As most safaris were, for that matter.
Instead, reached for his phone, fumbling around for a few seconds before slipping it back onto the table. He’d gotten the information he needed and he didn’t want to hear a three minute audio clip of them kissing noisily through the rest of the commercial break.
“Oh-oh—ooh! Queen Victoria! Definitely Queen Victoria,” she squeaked out, pulling away and blurting out the question about the female sovereign.
At his look, she claimed feminist solidarity and something about Kathy Bates. Rather than point out the arguments that could be made to her points, he pulled her back into him.
He was wrong. Hm. He was oddly okay with that.
Almost a month had passed and Sheldon had been sleeping over Penny’s off and on for a week.
They had originally wanted to avoid the smell that had resulted from Leonard’s new flame’s incense and other nasty stuff.
Sheldon had called it a cacophonous assault on the olfactory senses, but to Penny smelly patchouli was smelly patchouli.
It stunk on that guy Rainn she’d dated, it stunk now.
They cuddled innocently, fully dressed. Sometimes they made out, sometimes they just slept. It was nice in a way that Penny was sorta unsure about.
She felt great about it, mostly, but there was a growing part of her that wanted to flat out ask for a date and time when Sheldon would be ready to… take another step forward.
It’d been a while since she’d gotten anything besides some hand action. The progress they’d made in those areas made her yearn to start trying other things. If only his love for experimenting had transferred a bit more strongly. But, whatever. She really really liked him.
If it was going to happen, it’d happen.
No sense in pushing him before he’s ready, she’d made that mistake before and didn’t want to risk any problems that were avoidable. So she was mostly happy about it.
Until he left the morning after a sleep over without a note or sign--she was a little annoyed.
Maybe it was her sexual frustration. Or her hormones. Whatever it was, it had her good and pissed for a while.
Leaving her surprised when he showed up four hours later and knocking three times and smiling into the keyhole. “Sheldon, where did you go this morning? I texted you and you didn’t leave a note and why are you holding binoculars?” She spat out quickly.
“Hello, Penny. These are part of the mystery I have created, as was my abrupt disappearance. I am regretful of leaving no notice and not responding to your messages, but I assure you it was only in an effort to keep the lid on the events planned for this afternoon,” he pulled out a thick, scarf looking piece of fabric.
“Sheldon, what the hell? This is creepy! Binoculars and a... blindfold?” She continued pondering his presence and what he wanted, but followed him down the stairs and outside… to a limousine?
“Okay, not as creepy, you’re forgiven.” He opened the door and handed her the blindfold.
"For now,” she stared at the bunch of fabric in her hand. “Sheldon, where are we going? I mean, I know you don’t want to tell me, with the blindfold and all, but really what’s with all the cloak and dagger stuff?”
“This outing is in no way Dickensian, I promise.” Not understanding, but giving up on any chance of that being likely anytime soon, Penny felt around for his hand and they continued the ride with Sheldon explaining the origins of her comment.
She was getting a little afraid of these Sheldon Cooper Fun With Facts moments because she was becoming more and more interested in what he talked about.
She was hoping that was her rubbing off on him, rather than him rubbing off on her. With him so close and the blindfold leaving too much up to her mind, already—Penny continued the ride fantasizing about Sheldon taking her to various places where she’d be able to make some of that rubbing a reality. God, she needed to get some.
What felt like hours later, they came to a stop and Sheldon nudged her to get ready to maneuver her way out of the limo.
“Okay,” Sheldon steadied Penny and took an audible breath. “Well, while in most romantic and/or non-romantic relationships call for a gift exchange on the date they were born, I thought you wouldn’t mind if I gave you yours a little bit early. Six days, four hours, fifty-two minutes early, that is,” he looked at his watch briefly. “So, you can take off the visual obstruction and happy twenty-third birth week, Penny.”
She blanched. She had practically forgotten her birthday was next week, with none of her family around and all the Sheldon groping and kissing and not quite sex and a bunch of nerdy guy friends and Sheldon was giving her a birthday present—on his own accord, reciprocity be damned. Oh my God she was already crying.
She pulled down the material and felt the side bangs around her face flare up, statically charged. “What.”
Sheldon seemed confused over her phrasing. It was meant to be a question, but didn’t sound like one. So he just stood still, waiting for another clue.
“Sheldon, this is—this is—this is—,” Penny stuttered out.
“A safari," he supplied. "Or a pseudo safari, if you will. They didn’t have one at Disneyland and I didn’t want to make you get all the blood work done for a trip to an actual safari--I know you don’t have a fondness of needles. So, I thought this would do, for now.”
He reached out for her hand, gently. She let him lead her inwards, mouth still gaping. “Yeah, this’ll do.”
In a daze, Penny wasn’t sure what to make of anything. It seemed surreal, hell two hours ago she was planning on chewing him out over not leaving notes and now.
Now, he was helping her get into their Jeep and exchanging pleasantries with their personal tour guide. The best in the company, he whispered confidently in her ear. Something told her he’d done his homework.
Looking around at the wide expanse of land, it reminded her of home and her dreams—her heart swelled. The guy definitely did his homework.
They got tons of pictures of the lions and the flamingoes that reminded them both of him. Later on, she cooed to a tiny baby monkey in her arms while Sheldon looked on from the corner with a glint in his eye and a mask secured across the front of his face. Yeah, she really really liked him.
She convinced him to let it grab one of his long thin fingers, which it did and wouldn’t let go of for another six and half minutes. She liked the way the little guy thought.
By the end, Sheldon was no longer putting up much of a fight and had actually taken to humming something frighteningly familiar to her ears, although it was slightly muffled by the thin paper mask.
She realized he might already know this and got an awkward attempt at winking when she met his eyes. They both couldn’t stop grinning.
He really really liked her, too. If that day didn’t prove it, the following night did.
Sheldon slept over again. They didn’t cuddle until afterwards.
