Assets Ogling
Penny Wearing Heels
Months and months and months and months ago on livejournal, gilove2dance and I had a conversation that stemmed into this fic, and then I took a break from writing and it never got done. I wasn't going to post this until I was finished with all 5 parts, but I figured if there was ever a time we all needed a little pick-me-up, it was now.
"Sheldon!" Penny cried out dramatically as she threw open the door to apartment 4A – ok, overly dramatically, but one of these times she was going to manage to surprise him into jumping and spilling what was in his hand, or running a jagged line across his whiteboard in shock – to find him staring at her mildly.
"Is there any particular reason you're interrupting my Stargate Universe marathon?" he asked, turning his attention back to the television.
"I'm about to go out on the town with my friends," she told him, standing in the doorway. "And I'm wearing new shoes."
"You know girl-talk flummoxes me more than idle chit-chat. It is a level of torment I thought I had left behind with my sister in Texas."
"Girl talk?" Penny echoed incredulously. "No. Remember that new Blister Block Stick I loaned you a few weeks ago? You said you'd return it after studying the ingredients to determine whether you wanted to buy your own."
"Yes, I remember," he responded off-handed.
Penny stared at him meaningfully. "Well?"
"It's composed mostly of hydrogenated vegetable oil." He looked at her. "Shortening. Combined with cetyl alcohol, the effect offers both lubrication and protection that I believe could offer a sufficient shield against blisters and chafing. I could easily create you a life supply for under $10 compared to the $5.39 you paid for what amounts to mostly the application apparatus."
"Sheldon," Penny said with barely veiled impatience. "Where is it?"
"My room."
"Could you get it?"
"I could," he affirmed, not moving.
"Sheldon? Seriously?"
He looked from her face, probably trying to analyse the annoyed expression flicking across her features, then down to her shoes, then back up to her face. Other men would be taking in the expanse of leg between the shoes and the silk skirt she was wearing, or at least lingered at her plunging neckline, but Sheldon wasn't checking her out, he was just putting together the pieces of the conversation up to this point.
"Oh."
Penny rolled her eyes as he got to his feet. For a genius, he wasn't too bright sometimes. Geez. He really didn't get the subtly of conversations, and she knew this about him, so why did she keep assuming he'd be able to have any kind of chat with her? Maybe because sometimes he was actually able to? She wasn't sure if he just had 'on' days, if it had to do with his level of concentration, or if it was certain topics of conversation. She'd never been able to figure out a pattern.
He handed the tube to her without comment, his eyes focused on her shoes again. "Those are impractical."
"Yep," Penny said, popping her P and staring up him with a grin. "That's the point. Thanks for the Crisco," she said, indicating to the stick in her hand. "I'll see you tomorrow, Moonpie." She threw back over her shoulder as she sauntered back towards her apartment. She could feel the five inch heels tightening the muscles in her calves, feeling a kick of empowerment over the idea of how good she looked.
Like all beautiful women, she was used to having men check her out, but when she felt the eyes on her back she realized the only person behind her was Sheldon. Sheldon Fucking (or Not Fucking as the case may be) Cooper was staring at her. She knew this with the confidence of a well-disciplined radar for eyes on her ass-sets. He hadn't moved from the doorway, hadn't closed the door behind her, though there was no reason for him to still be watching her. No reason at all.
Except one.
She misstepped in surprise, her foot turning over in the heel and she careened off course, flailing wildly as she toppled over sideways.
Oh yeah. She was so totally sexy. She was totally going to rock the scraped bloody knee she had now.
"Penny?"
She pulled the material of her dress back down over her ass, glad she was wearing actual underoos rather than a thong, or like nothing. If her butt in this dress had Sheldon's attention, gawd, what would her naked butt-cheek do?
He was hovering over her uncertainly, hands clenching and unclenching at his side. Penny imagined this to be caused by the need to make sure she was ok versus his distaste with personal contact, blood, and floor dirt.
"I'm fine," she told him, climbing to her feet with an ungainly lurch. Her knee hurt, her ankle was throbbing, and her pride had just taken a huge smackdown.
What made it worse, was now that she thought of it, Sheldon probably hadn't been checking her out at all. She'd just been feeling all femme fatale for a moment and attributed his actions to what she expected from normal men. He'd probably been curious to see if she could walk in what he thought to be ridiculously high heels, as a question of physics or whatever.
Turns out he was right to question her ability to do so. She totally couldn't.
"You're bleeding," he noticed, voice thready.
"I'll be fine. I'll have to wear jeans out tonight, but I'll be fine."
"Come in," he said. "I'll locate the disinfectant and surgical gloves."
That was how she ended up sitting on their kitchen counter, Sheldon sitting in Leonard's computer chair with a cotton swab liberally doused with rubbing alcohol, an antibacterial cream at his side and a kit of bandaids and other medical bandages behind it. He dabbed at the wound with precision. Penny didn't react with the sting and his eyebrow rose a bit. She'd always had good pain tolerance.
"Thanks Sheldon, you didn't have to do this, I know you have a thing about blood."
"Would you have followed the proper procedure if left to your own devices?"
Penny shook her head.
"I don't have a thing about blood," he elaborated, "besides the obvious reluctance to be in contact with any bodily fluid. Blood is treated as a biohazard due to blood-borne diseases and infections, so I don't think I am remiss to be wary. I've certainly seen enough of my own blood and treated the subsequent wounds over the years to overcome any squeamishness in the area, which I believe is what your insouciant remark was attempting to convey."
She smiled tenderly at him. So often, she thought about their interactions as her looking after him, but as always Sheldon surprised her with his capacity to reciprocate. "Thank you sweetie. I appreciate this. Consider yourself hugged."
Sheldon looked alarmed, rapidly propelling the chair away from her. She'd be insulted if his look of betrayal wasn't laughable.
"No, I mean in my mind I gave you a hug because I know you don't like physical contact. It was a mental hug."
He frowned at her. "Brains can't hug."
Penny snickered. "Why not? If you can try to blow up my mind with your mind, why can't I hug your mind using my mind?"
"Where's your evidence?"
"Right here," she said, placing her hands up on either side of her head and schooling her expression into a soft look. "Can you feel that?"
"Negative," he responded, bending over her knee again now that he knew physical contact wasn't imminent. "I do prefer the concept of a mental hug to a physical one, regardless of your primitive cognitive functions and inability to carry out such measures."
Heh. That was Sheldon code for permission to mind hug him if she ever heard one. "Can I have a Batman bandaid?" she asked, giving him puppy dog eyes.
"Excellent choice," he commended, handing it to her. The entire time he had avoided direct contact with her skin, despite his gloves, maintaining the barrier of the cotton balls between them.
Penny shrugged and slapped it on at a jaunty angle and then bent her knee. "Good as new, Doctor Doctor Doctor Cooper, PhD PhD MD."
Considering he was in top Whack-a-Doodle mode tonight, rarely catching on to her jokes or going along with her whimsy, Penny expected a lecture on how he didn't have an MD and how the additional Doctor was extraneous, but instead he sat back in his chair, seemingly relaxed, and looked up at her through hooded eyelashes.
"A medical degree hardly held any challenge to someone of my intellect, Penny. Some days, theoretical physics hardly holds any challenge. My largest constraint is modern technology's inability to keep pace."
Penny had always known he was super-freaky-deaky smart, but he rarely put it into perspective for her, and even if he had in the beginning, she wouldn't have understood exactly how ridiculously difficult theoretical physics was and what it meant for him to find it easy (some days).
A/N: Penny wearing heels is somewhat of a gimme. Next up: hooking up a television.