Title: The Cerebral Inducement Deferral
Author: RJ1013
Summary: It has been almost a year, and Sheldon and Amy are circling one another, neither one quite sure of how to get where they both want to be. Starting after 10.08, "The Brain Bowl Incubation," this is a series of post episode stories to fill in some of the gaps of season 10. Each chapter should be able to stand on its own, but they also go together as parts of a larger story. My intent is to avoid conflicting with anything that we see on screen, but I'm not prescient, so we'll have to wait and see if that works out.
Rating: T. I don't think we quite cross the line into M territory here, but we sure do snuggle right up close to it and get handsy.
Chapter 1: Post ep for 10.08, "The Brain Bowl Incubation". Amy and Sheldon need to get through the night, and her 36 hours are still ticking...
A tangentially relevant factoid: For those unaware, the eggplant emoji, and by extension eggplant itself, is considered by many to have a certain phallic, sexual connotation these days.
—-
I.
Once Amy's knees have regained enough strength to support her body in an upright fashion, she wobbles unsteadily across the hall. A few rose petals cling to her orthopedic shoes as she follows the red path to 4B, and she wastes no time making her way inside the apartment in search of a temporary reprieve.
What the hell, Sheldon?
He will follow her over here soon enough, of that much she is certain. Amy is decidedly less certain about what she's going to do once he arrives. She has no desire to have a child at this time, but she sure does desire Sheldon himself. It feels like she's been waiting forever for him to pursue the sequel to last year's initial coital adventure. Correcting her own hyperbole, she reminds herself that in truth it has only been 329 days since she last got the chance to feel him moving inside of her. She looks down at her watch. Make that 7893 hours. Or 473,580 minutes.
Amy shakes her head, hoping to shake off her mind's stupid wanderings. Thinking about that night last year is the last thing she ought to be doing right now. Cleaning the kitchen seems like an innocuous enough distraction, but once she catches sight of Sheldon's glass of brandy and a plate of unopened oysters on ice, she wonders if even that mundane task might be too much for her overtaxed nerves. Frustrated, Amy takes a sip of Sheldon's alcohol in the hopes that it might have a calming effect. It burns as it goes down the back of her throat, and she can feel the flush of heat growing throughout her entire body. Dammit. Drinking can't be a good idea right now either.
It suddenly occurs to her that there is no escape. They live here together, and it's not like she's going to feel less randy once she heads into their bedroom where she will sleep cuddled up next to him for hours on end. Amy glances at the kitchen countertop where the plate of unopened oysters mocks her from its bed of ice. She plucks out the shells one by one and places them into a container for storage, trying to put a sense of normalcy and order back into her day. It doesn't work. By the time she is left with a plate full of nothing but ice, she finds herself giving serious consideration to dumping that heap of cubes straight down her underpants.
—-
II.
Sheldon wants to know if they are aroused. Penny doesn't even need to do so much as glance at Leonard to know that the answer for both of them is a resounding 'hell no'. She doesn't say it out loud, though, figuring that Sheldon doesn't really care what they think anyway.
His shoulders begin to slump, and it's like watching the remaining hot air of his male ego deflate right in front of her. Oh well. At least he has stopped dancing. Penny's not sure if she could've contained her laughter for even one more second if he hadn't.
"Do you think it's too soon?" Sheldon asks.
Leonard looks at her, his forehead wrinkled in confusion, but she doesn't have the slightest clue what the hell he's talking about either. She takes a guess. "Too soon for that dance?"
"It's always going to be too soon for that dance," Leonard adds.
"We had planned on one full year, and it has only been 329 days since Amy's birthday. That's a good 90.14% of a calendar year, but perhaps she still isn't ready."
There's no way to hold back a snort at the ridiculousness of Sheldon's assumption. Penny pinches the bridge of her nose to prevent her snort from becoming a full-fledged chortle. "Um, seriously? She's not rejecting the coitus. It's the having a baby part that she's not ready for. She told you that."
His posture straightens out as his ego puffs back up with arrogance. "Yes, but I explained that our progeny would be exceptional, and she's expressed prior interest in procreating with me someday on a number of occasions. That can't be it."
Leonard points out the obvious. "Yeah, the key word there is 'someday'. That doesn't mean today."
"Be that as it may, today just so happens to be the right time in Mother Nature's book, and by following conventional, seduction-related wisdom, Amy ought to have been convinced and succumbed to my charms by now. No, I think this reproductive business is some kind of excuse on her part. There must be another reason behind her rejection."
"Conventional, seduction-related wisdom?" Leonard asks. "Is that what we have been witnessing?"
Sometimes there is simply no reasoning with Sheldon's particular brand of crazy. Penny shrugs. "Well, there you go. It's no wonder your attempts didn't work. There's nothing conventional about either Amy or you. There's no reason to think that this… seduction—or whatever the hell you want to call it—should work on an individual as... unique as our little Amy."
Sheldon looks frustrated. "Did you know that she made me sit through an entire season of Mad Men on Netflix last week?" He gestures down at his unusual attire. "This look always made the ladies fall into bed with Don Draper. I don't see how she could resist, and when you add in the rose petals, the dance, and the blatant display of my hindquarters at the lab, I'm at a loss as to what could be wrong."
Curious but not stupid, she isn't going to ask about his apparent ass presentation. Leonard clears his throat. "If you suspect that there is a reason other than not wanting a baby, maybe you should consider testing your theory. Remove the baby variable from the equation. Instead of rose petals and hair gel, try propositioning her while wielding some prophylactics."
Tapping his chin with his index finger, Sheldon mumbles, "Interesting."
There's nothing quite like watching a couple of geniuses disregarding the simple truths in life. Penny sighs. "Or, you know, you could try the common sense wisdom of sitting down and freaking talking to her like a normal human being."
Sheldon's eyes only flit to hers for a moment before he looks back at Leonard. "I'm going to need a ride to the drug store."
—
III.
Even cleaning the kitchen and vacuuming up the rose petals isn't enough to assuage Amy's internal ardor. It makes her feel thankful that Sheldon has not yet returned to their apartment. Her thoughts continue to swirl, and she supposes that she will need to come up with some kind of strategy to put him off for the evening. Her sweet baboo is tenacious when he latches onto an idea, and she has no reason to think that he will give up on this baby plan while her thirty-six hour fertility window is still wide open.
Then again, maybe Leonard and Penny will manage to talk some sense into him. The thought makes her frown. While it is true that she is not ready to be a mother anytime soon, she can't deny the truth to herself, the truth that she has always wanted Sheldon to pursue her in such a straightforward manner. She has been enjoying his attentions in spite of herself.
Of course, none of the past day is a genuine representation of the man she knows him to be, and that reality is the one thing that has allowed her to resist his persuasive efforts. Their relationship is and always has been a relationship of the mind above all else. Their bodies have come along for the ride more and more over time, but it's still nothing like Sheldon's behavior today. If he were to try to seduce her for real, with no motive beyond the pleasure of the act itself, she feels certain that he would begin by going straight after her mind.
It first became clear to her during their one night of coital intimacy. Prior to that, she had always wondered what Sheldon's 'deal' was and just what desire entailed for him. She'd had her suspicions, of course, and was pleasantly surprised to find most of her hypotheses to be so spot on.
While many people talk about wanting to be loved and desired for their mind, Sheldon actually lives it with her. He was physically attentive in every way necessary that night, but the thing that had truly gotten his motor running was talking to her during the act. In their shared, innocent naivety, he had asked her many questions. For every 'why?' that he had uttered, she proceeded to explain in wordy scientific detail while also demonstrating with explicit physical actions. Proving herself right over and over again while he shook and shivered against her body turned out to be even more satisfying than she could've imagined. It was a thorough introduction to the neuroscience of sex, and the two of them, as ever, turned out to be quick learners.
The result was profound in ways that Amy had not anticipated. By the time Sheldon began to penetrate her body, he was so much a part of her mind that she felt like his brain was somehow wedging its way into her cranium at the same time, their neurons melding together much like their neural network experiment. It was an intimacy far beyond the crude mechanics of the act itself.
When they do attempt to conceive someday, she suspects that it will be an experience akin to their first time, not some hasty, primitive act where she is being bent over a table in her lab. Not that that doesn't have an allure all its own…
Amy wipes her hand over her sweaty face and takes a deep, steadying breath. It's time to think about something else—anything else. She makes her way into the bathroom, taking her nightgown and robe with her. It doesn't seem like a good idea to get dressed in their bedroom, not if Sheldon might be home by the time she gets out of the shower.
She sets the water temperature to be colder than normal, but it still isn't enough to cool down her thoughts. Even though it seems unlikely that Sheldon would care, she decides to leave the day's stubble on her legs. She has already picked out her oldest, most wrinkled nightgown to complete the look.
It's a difficult puzzle to solve. Leg stubble, uncombed hair, and sloppy clothes might make her less physically appealing, but she suspects that won't matter much to a man who is desirous of her mind more than any other part of her.
She wonders if she can somehow make her brain unappealing. If there's one person she is sure does nothing to stimulate Sheldon's intellectual passions, it's Penny. Perhaps she could engage him in some of Penny's gossipy jibber-jabber. But Amy's no expert on Brangelina, and she doesn't think that she could name all of the Kardashians if her life depended on it. Besides, Sheldon wouldn't fall for an attempt at feigned idiocy anyway, not if such an attempt is coming from her.
While she exfoliates with her loofah, she continues to ponder her predicament. There's something perverse about trying to avoid an act that she desperately wants to experience with him again. It's even more odd considering that she has so often been the one trying to restrain herself from seducing him.
Amy climbs out of the shower and towels off. With the water no longer running, she can hear the faint sounds of Sheldon moving around in the other room. At the sink, she splashes some cool water on her overheated face and then opts to leave her hair a mess. She dons her ugly old nightgown like armor, but she can't stuff her previous train of thought away.
It's true. She does possess the power to seduce him. She's been certain of it for some time now. Earlier this year, the realization had swept over her, and she's only grown more confident of it over time.
It had happened in the weirdest way. While updating some software on her laptop, Amy had made a joke to Sheldon about not reading the software licensing agreement. Initially aghast, Sheldon plopped himself down close to her and proceeded to take great pleasure in explaining that such an agreement is a form of a contract. He then expounded at length about the intricacies and importance of contracts in their many forms. As always, Amy asked relevant questions, and throughout his explanations, she watched as a familiar gleam of enthusiasm appeared in his eyes. In the instant after he had finished speaking, they made out on the couch in a passionate fashion that belied the dull conversation that preceded it.
After their first experience with coitus, Amy had assumed that the sexual nature of their conversation had been a factor in piquing Sheldon's interest, but as it has turned out, he is not so picky. Philosophical history, obscure literature, unusual factoids, and science in any form have all been enough to get him going at various times. And then there's vexillology, which she has found quite consistent at being able to hoist up Sheldon's flagpole. Heck, one time it was an unusually stimulating discussion about the cultivation of eggplant in Pakistan that did him in.
There have been times when they disagree, of course, and their conversations might become more like a debate, but that never seems to dampen his enthusiasm either. If anything, intellectually butting heads with her has tended to result in make out sessions that are even more passionate than ever.
It continues to strike her as a little odd, but she supposes everyone is different in what turns them on. If intellectual engagement with her is what does it for Sheldon, then so be it. Besides, she loves his mind every bit as much as he does hers, and nothing gets her hot and bothered quite like a lengthy soliloquy from her man.
Still, she refuses to push him beyond the point of making out. If she were to make a move in those moments, she doesn't think for one second that he would reject her. Nevertheless, after so many years together, Amy has come to accept that Sheldon only moves forward with her when he is ready. Living together ended up happening so naturally and comfortably because it was the right time for him as well as for her. Any kind of regular coitus is likely to commence in the same way. It will happen when it is meant to, and not one moment sooner.
Amy frowns at herself in the mirror. That moment cannot be tonight.
She isn't sure what level of self-awareness Sheldon even has right now when it comes to physical intimacy. There is a definite sincerity to his interest in creating a child with her, but she hopes that his pants-dropping inclinations go beyond that particular motivation. She supposes that time will tell. Someday he will be able to accept these things about himself. Taking a deep breath, Amy strengthens her resolve to be patient. His denial may be strong, but she has always found him to be worth the wait.
When she swings open the bathroom door, she spots Sheldon right away. He stands near the window, dressed in a pair of his everyday plaid pajamas, his presence making the whole bedroom smell faintly of talcum powder. He must've cleaned the goop out of his hair at Leonard and Penny's apartment, because it looks soft and fluffy, beckoning her to run her hands through it. She has to steady herself against the doorframe and swallow down the lump that forms in her throat. He is far more sexy and attractive to her in this instant than he has been all day.
—
IV.
With Amy's glasses off due to her shower, Sheldon can see exactly how wide her eyes get when she stares at him. A thin bit of white shows all the way around her irises, and her mouth is agape in a wide, circular 'o' shape to match. Within seconds, however, she shuts her mouth and begins to blink. She clears her throat and snatches her glasses from off the bedside table. Once she has done so, she then makes her way across the room and leaves without saying so much as a single word to him. That doesn't seem promising.
He follows her nonetheless. In the kitchen he spots her rummaging through the freezer. She retrieves an ice-encrusted cardboard box, something that must've been leftover from when Penny used to live here.
"What are you doing?" he asks.
Amy doesn't look at him while she answers, "Just making a little bedtime snack."
It appears to be some kind of garlic toast. Sheldon cringes at the thought of a garlic-scented Amy breathing on his pillow tonight. Doesn't she know that such a thing can get a person relegated to the couch? This seems like awfully peculiar behavior from her.
"You're hungry for something?"
His simple question seems to fluster her, and Amy bobbles the box in her hands, dropping it onto the floor. Stepping up close to her, he reaches down and picks it up. The frosty box chills his fingers, but it doesn't seem to be having the same effect when he hands it to Amy. Her cheeks are flushed a bright shade of pink.
"You never eat this close to bedtime," he points out. "Metabolism, insulin response, satiety, and the comfort of a regular circadian rhythm being your primary reasons, as I recall."
"Actually, recent research shows that a person's nighttime basal metabolic rate averages the same as it does during the day. Eating before bed can improve sleep quality and won't interfere with weight loss, depending on an individual's specific circumstances and the food in question. Of course, gastrointestinal distress, improper uptake of nutrients due to inferior digestion, and personal preference are still significant issues to consider."
Sheldon tilts his head and feels his heart speed up, pleased to hear her acting more like herself. He taps the back of her hand that holds the box. "I suspect that this ancient garlic bread from Penny's old hoard of junk food might tip the scales towards acid reflux and generalized unpleasantness. I'm sure we can find you something more satisfying."
Amy's voice sounds oddly squeaky when she says, "Um, yeah. Maybe I should put together a salad or something." She steps back from him and opens the fridge. Bending over, she checks the contents of the vegetable crisper bin. "We must have some onions in here somewhere…"
He leans up and over her from behind to have a look. The warmth of her posterior is more than enough to eclipse the bit of chill from the fridge. "There's definitely some eggplant down here that you could have," he suggests.
For some mysterious reason, his words cause Amy to pop right up, her body brushing against his as she straightens her posture, and the movement is so abrupt that he has to step back, lest she slam her head up into his chin. Without hesitation, she closes the refrigerator door and scampers across the living room. Perhaps she's not so hungry after all.
"Yeah, I think maybe I'll just hold out until morning," she confirms, sounding out of breath from her very short walk.
Sheldon raises an eyebrow and holds his empty hands out to his sides. "Are you sure? You can't think of anything that you'd like to have?"
She looks at him from head to toe, opening and closing her mouth. "It's okay," she replies, her voice cracking as she speaks. "I—I'm fine. I can wait." Her eyes begin to dart around the room, but she somehow avoids making any further eye contact with him. How odd.
As he walks over to her, she suddenly starts to pop her knuckles. One by one there's that awful noise, and Sheldon recoils at each and every crack. That's something he has never seen her do before. She knows that he considers that to be as obnoxious of an act as whistling. It makes him wonder if it's too late to whip up a Living Together Agreement for her to sign. Amy doesn't quite share his love of contracts, but he feels confident that she would do it with him if he asked her to. If he's careful with his phrasing, he thinks he could put together a number of clauses that would be mutually enjoyable for the both of them.
Then again, they've been doing fine without a Relationship Agreement, and he can hold out until they get around to the delightful legal confines of matrimony. His initial research has shown that there are 1,138 federal statutory provisions in which marital status has relevance. And that doesn't even begin to get into any state specific legalese!
It'll take a while to go through all of those details with Amy when the time comes. Sheldon fans his face. Maybe he ought to check the thermostat. She's been looking a bit warm ever since he got home, and now he's feeling it too.
"So, how about those Cubs?" Amy says as she sits down on the couch. "I heard that it's been a long time since they last won the, um, World Championship thingy."
Since when does she follow sports in any way? Sheldon takes a seat near her on the couch and tries to think of a response. Conversing with Amy is always one of the highlights of his day, so he supposes she's got something interesting to say about this, even if it's a subject that's far from their norm. He offers up the little bit that he knows.
"It has been over a century since their previous title, I believe. Apparently it was also quite the comeback story. You know, it used to puzzle me as to why grown men would be so eager to play with their bats and balls, to run around the bases and slide into home. It always seemed like such a messy business. But there are certain instances where I have come to see a sort of appeal to it."
Amy looks at him askance. She then shakes her head and mumbles something about bedtime.
That sounds good to him too.
—-
V.
After Sheldon has flushed, brushed, flossed, and exfoliated, he sits on the bed and waits for Amy to finish her own set of nightly ablutions. As he picks at a loose string on his pillowcase, he ponders what sleeping in bed with her will be like after today's seduction-related failures. He has been doing his best to get things back to normal, having come to accept that traditional methods of seduction aren't so effective for superior beings such as himself and Amy.
The simple truth is that he isn't sure what it would take to win her over. As such, Sheldon supposes he has no real choice but to wait for her to let him know when she is ready. While she took coitus off the table a few weeks ago, she also clarified that they would revisit the subject in time. After his trip to purchase condoms, he figures he is now as prepared as he will need to be for whenever that time comes.
Amy is being slow in the bathroom, and Sheldon finds himself once again pondering their experiment. There are still more tests to be done on their neural network, and he looks forward to continued stellar results in the future. Their combined DNA truly is remarkable.
His happy musings quickly fade when Amy emerges from the bathroom. He has had a vague suspicion all night, but it all coalesces in his mind when he sees her disheveled hair. She never combed it after her earlier shower, and she still hasn't done so, even though she would've been standing in front of a mirror while using the sink. Something is wrong.
His Amy might not go through the ridiculous, unnecessary primping and preening that someone like Penny does, but she does take care of herself, and she is never a slob. If anything, he would describe her as meticulous. As she steps closer to him, her messy hair stands out like a beacon of warning.
She sits on the very edge of the bed and then proceeds to lie down, curling up under the sheets facing away from him. When she is done wiggling, there is a big space left between the two of them in the center of their tiny bed. The lack of a good night kiss bothers him more than he'd care to admit.
It seems to him like she doesn't want to talk about whatever is wrong, but maybe she would at least appreciate a comforting cuddle. Sheldon slides himself across the gap and turns to hug Amy's back like she so often does to him. Her unkempt hair is distracting him, so he reaches up and finger-combs the part of her head that he can reach, taking care to be gentle and avoid pulling on any tangles. Since her humming rendition of 2001: A Space Odyssey soothed him not too long ago, he figures he should attempt something similar. He opts for the theme song to Little House on the Prairie.
At first she responds to his attentions by shifting her body back towards his. Unfortunately, a moment or two later her entire body jerks away. Her head shoots up, and she hops out of the bed entirely, leaving her standing next to it with her chest heaving up and down. Sheldon doesn't need to be good at reading body language to know that she has not been soothed.
"What the hell, Sheldon? This is not the right time for us to have a child together!"
He's not sure what she's getting at, but apparently he was wrong. She does want to talk. "We may not be experts at sexual intimacy, but don't you think that conceiving a child together would require fewer items of attire?"
Her eyebrows wrinkle up, an expression that always confuses him. "Please stop trying to seduce me."
Her words do not make things any clearer. Sometimes it feels like she is speaking a different language or perhaps speaking to him from some alternate dimension altogether. He sits up against the headboard, deciding that there's only one response to give her anyway. "I stopped trying to seduce you after the flamenco dance. Somehow you were immune to that, and now I'm all out of ideas."
"Oh, come on! You've been doing it all evening! Trying to help me 'satisfy' my hunger, offering me your 'eggplant', asking if I see anything I'd like, talking about bats and balls and sliding into home—and now you're rubbing up next to me with a little serenade, of all things."
"I have no idea what you're talking about. If anyone's been acting like a weirdo this evening, it's you. Regardless of that, you have made it clear that you aren't ready for us to progress in this manner at this time. And I'm not going to push you about it anymore."
She exhales a large breath. It smells minty fresh, making Sheldon thankful once again that she didn't opt for that garlic bread. He hopes that her big sigh is a sign that her anger is dissipating.
Her next words are far less cranky, and far more logical and level-headed. Well, not literally level-headed. Half of her hair is still sticking up. "We've only just begun to figure out how to live together, and you know as well as I do that you have a difficult time with change. Maybe after we both feel settled, after we both see what it's like for Howard and Bernadette, maybe then we can make a more informed decision about whether that's something we want. But I'm not willing to gamble with the stability of our relationship, and I'm not willing to treat a child of ours like some impromptu experiment."
That's interesting. Perhaps her earlier rejections really were about the procreational considerations as opposed to an excuse masking some other issue. It gives him a lot to think about.
He nods. "You make valid points. Consider this my official agreement that Howard and Bernadette's baby shall serve as a trial run."
"That's not quite what I meant."
He shrugs and slides over, patting her side of the bed in invitation. Amy takes him up on it, this time lying on her side to face him. Her position finally gives him the opportunity that he's been waiting for. He reaches for her head, starting to straighten out the tangled right side of her hair with his fingertips. There, now she's level-headed. It's not perfect, but it's a big improvement. Amy smiles at him while he does it, the biggest improvement of all.
"You know, you ought to consider working on your cultural appreciation of flamenco," he lectures when he has finished. "Far beyond the dance itself, or baile, flamenco encompasses an entire style of musical art. Having Spanish origins, it involves guitar playing, also known as toque, singing, which is cante, and vocalizations called jaleo. The clapping of the hands is palmas, and finger snapping is referred to as pitos. The word 'flamenco' itself is probably a derivation of fire, hence the passionate, fiery nature of the various stylings, or Palos. There is a distinctive structure, harmony, rhythm, and melody to flamenco. Would you like me to hum you a sample tune?"
Amy stares at him with rapt attention, her half-closed eyes sparing only the occasional blink. He can see how the dark circles of her pupils have dilated to cover most of the color of her irises. That's unusual considering that the room is still bright from their bedside table lamps. Her attention shifts away from his eyes down to his mouth, and she licks her lips, leaning her pink-tinged face even closer to his.
"Sheldon," she whispers. "You're doing it again with the seduction."
"I am?" he squeaks. While he always relishes the opportunity to teach her about something, he is surprised to find out that she is enjoying it to the same degree.
Her sleepy smile grows, and she runs her index finger through the hair over his left temple. "Indeed. The brain is the most important sexual organ of all, don't you think?"
He can only nod, feeling the pull of arousal that is now extending rather beyond the confines of his brain. Amy rests her palm on his cheek and sighs. He doesn't think he's ever enjoyed having her hot breath on his pillow quite so much.
In one quick motion, she then moves to peck a kiss on his lips, much like she does every night. "But I think it's for the best that we get to sleep. Good night, Sheldon," she adds, before pulling away and rolling over to turn off the light.
"Good night, Amy," he responds automatically. He is slower to get moving but soon flicks off his light as well.
He lies on his back in the dark and stares at the faint light along the edges of the window, wondering if he will soon feel Amy's body cuddling up close to his. It's tempting to move over to her himself, but if he were to snuggle up behind her, he'd be nudging at her with something far more substantial than a mere hug, and he has been told not to try anything tonight.
Sheldon sighs. Sleep is a long time in coming.
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. Where things go from here will depend on future episodes of season 10.