A/N: Definite shades of Dexter, or at least what I know about Dexter since I only ever watched a couple of episodes. And no sane human would actually react like Penny does; give it a break, it's a fanfic, not a based-on-true-events story.
It's certainly not something I'd normally write, but I've got writer's block on all my other stories and one-shots, and I wanted to get something out, and for some reason this popped into my head.
Penny had just broken up with her boyfriend of four years, and was looking for a new apartment. So when she saw an ad in the newspaper looking for a roommate, being as strapped for cash as she was, she decided to check it out. He was an OCD, neat-freak, germaphobe, but he had a nice apartment, her half of the rent would be really cheap, he wasn't constantly ogling her like every other guy in California (in fact, he'd barely looked at her at all), and he seemed kind of nice in his own, weird, quiet, egoistical way.
So she decided to give it a try.
While not exactly her normal preference for a roommate, he wasn't bad. He mostly left her alone, other than occasional glares when she left stuff laying around or tried watching crappy reality tv, and long-winded scientific speeches she could care less about. But overall, he was a pleasant enough, if a bit eccentric, roommate.
One evening, a few months in, she came home from her job at the Cheesecake Factory a couple hours early. She had been scheduled to work a double shift, but midway through her second shift the boss's best friend's daughter had called demanding the evening hours. So when she got there, Penny had been sent home.
Irritated to no end at being cheated out of the most profitable time of the day, she'd stopped by the store to grab a bottle of wine before heading home.
Tired from having worked over a shift and a half, and irritated at her boss (and pathetic life in general), she opened the bottle as she started up the stairs of their apartment building, downing far too much of it far too quickly; but at that point, she really didn't care.
When she opened the door, it took her a few seconds to comprehend what she was looking at. The entire living room was covered in blood, and her roommate was calmly standing over a dead body.
As she stood there in literal disbelief, Sheldon calmly walked around behind her, shutting the door still open behind her, before walking back to the body. After a few seconds, Penny, sure that she must be drunk and hallucinating, stumbled back to her room, collapsing on her bed, out like a light before she even had time to process what she thought she'd seen.
The next morning, she woke up with a slight headache. Rolling over, and seeing that she was still in her work clothes, she slowly remembered what she thought she'd seen the night before. But with the sun shining through her window, and the feelings of a slight hangover bouncing around her head, she felt that it had to have just been an exhaustion and alcohol induced nightmare.
She changed clothes, and then carefully creeping out of her room, she peered into the living room:
Spotless as ever.
Sheldon sat on the couch, eating a bowl of Cocoa Puffs, watching Tom & Jerry. Everything in its meticulous place, not a single thing out of the ordinary.
Penny sighed to herself, convinced it had just been a really bad dream.
The next few weeks passed the same as they always had. Sheldon was still an annoying egomaniac, Penny still pushed his buttons when she wasn't too tired from her job, and everything remained the same.
One night after a particularly tiring day, Penny woke up in the middle of the night, hangover starting to form. While she didn't pay much attention to her roommates scientific mumbo-jumbo, one thing she had learned from him was that a nice cup of tea did seem to lessen the affects of her (far too frequent) hangovers.
So she got up, and headed to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. As she rounded the corner and looked into the living room, she saw Sheldon, facing away from her, once again standing over a dead body, living room covered in blood.
Praying that she was just dreaming, as quietly as possible she turned around went back to her room. She'd just had too much to drink last night, she was just dreaming, she tried convincing herself. But in the back of her mind, she knew if she really was dreaming she wouldn't think to convince herself that she was dreaming. Although the fact she hadn't screamed her head off either time did seem to indicate that it couldn't have been real…
She woke up to the sun streaming into her face, unaware that she'd ever fallen asleep. The events of last night flooded into her mind; this time, she was having a really hard time convincing herself it was just a dream.
Walking into the kitchen, she found the living room as spotless as ever, and Sheldon sitting at the island eating his cereal.
"Decide you didn't want any tea after all?" he asked her as she walked in.
Well, that certainly confirmed she had been awake last night. Deciding to push a little further, she replied, "Um, yeah. Stomach got a little upset when got in here."
"That's understandable."
While not exactly confirming that she had seen what she had seen, it confirmed she had seen what she had seen.
Slightly panicking now, she decided to test out some different waters;
"So, uh, I really like being roommates with you, but I've been thinking, and perhaps it's time I moved out and moved on with my life. This whole California thing isn't really working out."
"Don't worry, I would never hurt you," he replied, never looking up from the newspaper he had started reading.
So her attempt at discreetness hadn't fooled him one bit. She decided to risk being more direct.
"Um, it's not really that. Well, I mean, it's not just that, because it definitely is that, but it's more than just that."
"But it has nothing to do with 'California not working out'." He said it as a statement, not a question.
"Well, yeah."
"You're of course free to move out if you'd like, but I would never hurt you."
Starting to get angry at his seeming complete indifference, her voice started rising.
"It's not about you hurting me, it's the fact your still—"
She paused. She didn't actually know exactly what he was doing. It was bad, obviously, but she still didn't know exactly what it was.
He could obviously tell what she was thinking, because after a few seconds he answered her unasked questions; "I'm a psychopath who kills rapists who slide through the justice system. As a physicist, I can do so without ever getting caught." Except by my roommate, as it turns out," he mumbled in an undertone.
When she started to speak, he cut her off; "And before you think about going to the police, they will never find any evidence, and it would just be the word of a waitress who drinks too much vs the word of a prominent theoretical physicist with a Nobel prize, who, while being antisocial and a narcissistic egomaniac, has never shown any violent tendencies."
"Oh." was all Penny could choke out.
Her mind was strangely numb and blank. She knew she should be screaming in terror, or at the very least terrified, but her brain just wasn't functioning.
She knew she should go to the police. That was obviously the right thing to do, even though she was sure he was right about them never finding any evidence; he was the world's biggest neat freak, after all. But at the same time, she was having a hard time feeling bad about what he was doing.
As an attempting actress, she had been attacked and assaulted by directors and others in the film business. Nothing really bad had ever happened to her, she was lucky, but she knew how pathetic the justice system was out here; the police had never given the slightest interest or credence to any of her numerous reports.
And while she had no idea if he'd gone through something to cause him to snap, or if he was just a psychopath trying to use it for good, she certainly couldn't feel bad for his victims. Some people really shouldn't be allowed out in the world, and far too much time at auditions taught her that the California justice system certainly wasn't doing it's job of keeping them off the streets.
But she wasn't sure if she could still be roommates with him knowing this side of him existed. She didn't know if she could, or should, stay. She didn't know if she was staying or not.
Her roommate had finally looked up at her while she stood there looking at him, these thoughts going through her head. After a few seconds, he looked away again, a small smile playing at his lips, and taking his cereal bowl around to the sink, answered the question her mind couldn't quite bring itself to answer; "It's pizza and Mario Cart night. Don't be late."
A/N: I don't have a clue if hot tea really would help with a hangover, but it fits in nicely as something Sheldon would suggest.
