A/N: I'm taking a bit of a risk here and stepping into a fandom I've never really entertained the notion of even looking at before. And then one night, as I watched some newer episodes of TBBT in hopes to catch up to where it's at now, I suddenly found some insane appeal to the idea of Sheldon and Penny. Well, imagine my complete joy when this website provided me with a plethora of visual stimulation for my new-found addiction. Which I've been shamelessly pouring over because there's a LOT of it! For once! My whole greed for odd couples was answered with eye-candy! It doesn't happen very often. I keep picking fandoms where no one's took the risk and really applied some "out of the box" ideas to hooking up characters in a not-true-to-show form.

So, forgive me for any lapse in here in regards to the show. I've caught up TBS wise but up until Bone's switched to a new night, was unable to watch the new episodes because Bones and my husband's Wrestling needs came first. So if there's any discrepancies, I apologize for them!

This is an intended one shot that I'm posting with a few other ideas bouncing around as well but since it took me so long just to get this much…I'm not going to push it unless I really want/have to. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own TBBT and make no profit off of the writing of this fic. And my hubs can take full credit for getting me into this show so…technically I guess he could kind of take credit for this bit of ficcage…which I would never let him. J

Synopsis: There's a real reason Dr. Sheldon Cooper doesn't care for lip-gloss on Amy Ferrah Fowler. And it has nothing to do with how slippery it looks.

The Lip-Gloss Admission

There was something about a wine glass she just loved. Maybe it was the shape, maybe it was the feel of the delicate stem between her fingertips or the way the light filtered through the liquid. Or maybe it was the fact that post breakup, it was just downright handy to have a wine glass that held half a bottle of red. Or, if you were Penny on New Year's eve, the other half of the bottle of red.

After dropping the empty wine bottle in the garbage as she sauntered past it, Penny sighed and went to the couch, flopping down and eagerly losing herself in the New Year's Eve festivities flashing across her television.

This was new for her – celebrating the start of the New Year alone.

Not like I had a choice in the matter, she thought with only a mild touch of bitterness.

Things between herself and Leonard had been something much worse than tense ever since the night of her ill-planned drunken proposal. They'd been trying to force normalcy and she'd been ignoring those little warning signs that she should have been paying attention to – the ones that said "dead-end relationship, please turn back now."

And then Priya had waltzed into the boy's apartment behind her brother, surprising them all. Penny had no idea what had made her look to Leonard. She had no idea why that had been her immediate reaction. But she was glad she had. She watched his eyes glass over, that nerdy smitten smile spread over his face and knew…she knew…that there was nothing left of them. Whatever they were doing, it was fighting for something that had died a miserable death quite some time ago. And if she was honest with herself…really honest with herself…she would grudgingly admit that what she had for Leonard was some ill-placed notion of what love with someone intellectually out of your league should be. It wasn't love. It wasn't pity…but it wasn't love. It was something that cautiously played with the blurred line between inappropriate and damaging. They'd remained on the inappropriate edge which gave her hope that a friendship would still be salvageable from the remains of something that was never meant to be.

One hour-long conversation, several tears and some yelling later she was a single woman well on her way to being shit-faced. Which, in her honest opinion, was right where a woman should be after a second…no…third break up.

"Third," she muttered, scrunching her nose up slightly before waving a dismissive hand in the air and lifting her glass to her lips. Third…thirty…she'd lost count. And it didn't matter anyway.

She turned the television off and sat back with a deep sigh that she felt clear to the deepest part of her lungs, where the air burned ever so slightly before it was expelled in one long breath.

In oxygen, out carbon dioxide, she thought with a tiny smile. Basic science…but she couldn't help thinking that Sheldon would be slightly proud of her for knowing it.

That thought gave her pause. Why did she care if Sheldon was proud of her? She'd accepted, quite some time ago, the fact that Dr. Sheldon Cooper found himself to be above the circle of friends he associated with and therefore rarely complimented any of them on anything they did when he found it to be "something easily accomplished by grade-schooler's."

"He's insane," she muttered, tilting her head back and taking a long drink in efforts to silence the voice nagging in the far recess of her mind. Still, little bits and pieces filtered through the alcoholic haze she was forcing upon herself – reminders of how the "beautiful mind" whack-a-doodle would allow her in his room where no one was allowed to be, would only tell her in that stern way of his that she was in his spot without throwing another strike at her, how he would eat her cooking, their easy and constantly insulting banter every Saturday night surrounded by the hum of washing machines and the warm scent of fabric softener, how he had done yoga with her even after realizing she'd meant yoga, not Yoda, his support in her decision to quit the Cheesecake Factory and dedicate her time to pursuing her dream.

With each item quietly added to the list, something settled uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach. Something that sparked fear and curiosity at the same time. She lifted the glass to her lips again, this time draining the contents as her brain started to spin wildly out of control.

She couldn't possibly be devoting a thought process to him. Sheldon Cooper…annoying, patronizing, lanky, blue eyed, long fingered, tall and confident Sheldon Cooper with his knowing smirk and annoying schedule that so often coincided perfectly with her own. Dr. Crazy who had saved her, who had peeked because that's what the hero always did, who had made uncharacteristic attempts to appease her when she was angry, comfort her when she was sad or hurt.

"Oh, my God, I'm drunk." She sat up quickly, relishing in the feel of her head spinning from the affects of alcohol and not the thoughts running rampant through her head. At least that's what she told herself. Because the alternative was terrifying. The alternative was something she wouldn't…couldn't think about.

She stood, ready for a refill and to bury the rest of whatever the hell she was feeling when that signature knock stopped her dead in her tracks. She turned slowly to face the door, listening to the way he said her name after each repetition in his horribly OCD way. And even as she told herself to ignore it because the alcohol hadn't completely swept away those disturbing thoughts quite yet, she walked to the door and pulled it open, looking up into those blue eyes and feeling something twist in her stomach.

"Hey, Sheldon."

"Hello, Penny," he returned, clasping his hands behind his back and giving a precise nod. "Might I come in?"

There was no escaping anything. She was as trapped now as she would be tomorrow or next week, or a month from now. "Yeah." She stepped aside, allowing him to pass and closing the door behind him. "What's up?"

He stood in the middle of her living room, looking comically uncomfortable. When he didn't make a move to sit down, she sighed and rolled her eyes. She may have been a bundle of confused nerves with her recent self-discovery, but that didn't mean his usual mannerisms couldn't still annoy her. "Can I get you something?"

"Why yes, a beverage would be suitable," he said, taking up his customary spot on her couch.

And a refill for me would be suitable, she thought as she went to the kitchen to pull a bottle of water from the fridge and slosh room temperature red wine from a new bottle into her glass. Returning to the living room, she handed him the water and sat down beside him, careful not to sit too close.

"Why are you here, Sheldon?" she asked, taking a sip before setting her glass on the coffee table.

"I'm here because social etiquette dictates that I show a suitable amount of support and remorse in light of a friends recent break-up." He shifted slightly to face her, studying her for one long, uncomfortable moment before saying in a voice that was significantly softer and lower than his usual tone, "I'm sorry about you and Leonard."

His words were equally distressing and calming – distressing because regardless of how necessary it was, break-ups and the unexpected rifts they caused not only in relationships but in life in general sucked and calming because it was him and there he was, giving her that damn support again that he never doled out for others. At least none that she was aware of. And in a voice that made the part of her trying to hash out her emotions melt slightly."Thank you, Sheldon."

"You're welcome."

Silence fell between them. She drank her wine, he sipped his water and the minutes ticked by with no need to fill the space between them.

"You said something to Leonard," Sheldon started almost hesitantly. "Right before you left."

Penny sighed and slumped back, dragging a hand over her face and feeling so impossibly tired. It was tempting to kick him out. To go sit in a hot tub and try to sort out the mangled mess in her brain that refused to relent. Or to go to sleep and force the thoughts into silence. "I said a lot of things to Leonard."

"There was one thing in particular though…one that I can't seem to stop thinking about."

She peeked at him from between her fingers and pursed her lips. "What did I say?"

"You stated that no relationship could survive without complete honesty." He looked at her now, his eyes completely unreadable. "What did you mean by that?"

She let her hand fall to her side and rolled her head on the back of the couch to regard him more fully. "I meant that it can't. Relationships are one hundred percent commitment. You can't…half-ass your way through one like I was doing with Leonard. I said that I loved him but…" her voice dropped and she whispered a curse as tears burned the backs of her eyes. "I don't think I loved him the way a person is supposed to love someone. I loved him because he wanted me to and I just wanted…to keep him from being so insecure all the time. I wanted to feel like I belonged with someone smarter than me. I forced this idea of love into my head when it was," she swallowed hard, hating herself for what she was about to say, "when it was never really there."

"I see," he said quietly, casting his gaze down to the water bottle clasped between his hands.

She suddenly couldn't stop looking at his fingers. They were so long, so masculine yet so elegant. How was it possible for a man to have hands like that? Hands the looked like they could play a woman's body like a well tuned instrument. Hands that looked like they could be so loving and yet entirely lethal.

Drunk…so drunk, she thought, appalled by her train of thought.

"Penny, can I tell you something?"

Sitting up, Penny reached for her glass, intent upon swigging the contents down and hoping that she would feel the burn of alcohol clear down to her toes. "Sure, sweetie."

He opened his mouth, closed it, set the bottle of water next to her now empty glass of wine and tried again. "The reason I believe I cannot seem to rid myself of your statement is because…I believe it applies to my own relationship."

She frowned, her brows drawing together. "Sheldon, what are you talking about?"

He looked at her then and her breath caught painfully. His blue eyes were fierce and determined, so blue that she wanted to look away but couldn't. "I lied to Amy."

"About what?" she asked, hearing her own voice as if it were miles away.

"About my distaste for lip-gloss." He was staring at her mouth now, a banked fire in his eyes. This wasn't happening. Sheldon Cooper didn't look at girls this way. He didn't look at her this way. And yet…he was and the heat in his gaze was causing her heart to pound in her ears, the blood to rush through her veins until her pulse tripped erratically. "It has nothing to do with how slippery it makes ones lips look."

"Oh?"

The tips of his fingers brushed her cheekbone and she drug in a sharp, unsteady breath, startled by the sudden contact. She had no idea how they'd gotten so close, how she was nearly in his lap, reaching for his hand like she had every right to and then grasping it like it was the only think keeping her there. That list from earlier, the one she had tried to drown in wine, was writing itself out persistently, adding items.

The way he helped you attempt to start a business-.

When he came to you for help with his work-.

Every time you call him Moonpie and he sternly reminds you that only his Meemaw calls him that-.

When he had his hands all over your delicates-.

When he kissed you-.

The last slammed into her with the force of a Texas Longhorn as his lips brushed softly over hers. She was so stunned that she couldn't move. All she could do was sit there as that mouth moved close to her ear and a hushed tumble of words fell free.

"I find the idea of Amy wearing lip-gloss distasteful because of how agreeable I find the sight of you wearing it, Penny."

She watched him stand, watched him allow her nothing more than a cursory nod before leaving her apartment. And then she stared at the door thinking the only thing her muddled brain would allow her to think.

Dr. Sheldon Cooper, PhD had kissed her and stopped the world entirely.