Title: The Meeting Motivation
Author: Brenda Shaffer-Shiring
Universe: The Big Bang Theory
Genre: General/Friendship
Rating: K+
Featured Character(s): Stuart Bloom
Disclaimer: The characters and situations are not mine, but I promise to treat them gently and put them back when I'm done with them.
Author's note: With at least three more seasons to go, I'm sure TPTB of TBBT plan to keep playing Stuart as a lovable loser for quite some time (if not forever). But I like the character, and would enjoy seeing some good things happen for him.
Summary: Sometimes, knowing someone would miss you if you didn't show up makes all the difference in the world.
*tbbt*
"Hey, how about this, whether we're friends, not friends, scattered around the world, no matter what, let's all promise to meet in front of this building exactly 20 years from tonight at 8 p.m. and have dinner like we always do." – Leonard to Penny, Raj, Amy, Bernadette, and Stuart in "The Mother Observation."
*tbbt*
Because Stuart Bloom knew that in 20 years his friends would be expecting to see him, he decided he needed to eat on a more regular basis. Thanks to a few tips from his customers, he found the locations of a couple of local food banks, and made his applications. (He grew tired of the constant bags of macaroni, sometimes resorting to coloring the noodles and gluing them up them for wall art. But he did like the canned – and occasionally fresh – fruit.)
Because Stuart Bloom didn't want his friends to change the meeting place without telling him, he decided he needed to be more attentive to his personal hygiene. He started by occasionally spending the night at the "Y," instead of in his comic book shop. The showers there were nice – and being Stuart, he used them without the slightest bit of worry that anyone would hit on him. He just figured, why would anybody bother? And because he projected, "not only not interested, but probably not going to notice your approach" like a cheap car air freshener projected bastardized "new car scent," nobody did.
Because Stuart Bloom had never had so many friends in his life that he could afford to stand any of them up (decades down the road or no), he decided that he couldn't succumb to the temptation to shorten his own existence. He found a new counselor. When that one started getting snarky with him, he reminded himself that he was the person who had been invited to meet with Leonard, Penny, Raj, Amy, and Bernadette in a few years, and he found yet another counselor. This one had better manners, and a more attentive ear. Stuart actually started to think this one could stand to listen to him, although he didn't want to be too presumptuous about that.
Because Stuart Bloom didn't want to have to ask his friends to buy when he met them for coffee, he gave some thought to sprucing up the comic shop so that it would bring in a little more income. It turned out that there were a few decent free business-management courses on the internet (which he could access at the library), which gave him some valuable tips on improving his operations. Once he had a few extra dollars, it also turned out that his artistic skills were useful in doing a spiffy remodel. And when he worked up the nerve to ask, it even turned out that Wil Wheaton was willing to assist in the occasional promotional event. Sometimes he dragged along a few of his old show-biz friends. The shop began to pick up business. Though Stuart would never be a rich businessman, he made enough money to get a tiny apartment of his own again.
Because Stuart Bloom didn't like the idea of being the sad-sack that nobody would want to talk to when they all finally got together, he did his best to put on a brave face when Penny and Leonard moved to Los Angeles, pursuing their respective careers. And when, not too long after that, Howard's mom passed and Howard and Bernadette moved to Massachusetts, also travelling their career paths. (They all said they would visit, but mostly they didn't.) He got himself a cat of his own. Sometimes it even paid attention to him when he didn't have a can of cat food in his hand. He liked that a lot.
Because Stuart Bloom was afraid that, if he leaned too heavily on Raj or Sheldon or Amy, they would be tired of his company by the time everyone got together – also because Fluffy wasn't much of a conversationalist - he decided that he would have to learn how to make new people-friends. His counselor suggested he start by striking up a conversation with someone who came to his "Mystic Warlords of K'aa" play nights at the comic shop, so Stuart tried that. He didn't make friends right away, but he did have fun talking about the game. Then one night one of his conversational partners offered to help him put things away and close the shop after the game was done, and Stuart found, to his surprise, that he did have a new friend. Sheldon was typically oblivious, and Amy was pleasantly supportive, but Raj was a little jealous at first. Stuart didn't see why he should be; Raj was spending much more time with Leslie, the pretty British expat he'd started dating, than Stuart was with Danny. Though when Giovanni started sticking around after "Warlords" nights too, Stuart's non-Raj time was a little busier.
Because Stuart Bloom knew that guys who had been singled out as being friends worth remembering were supportive friends, though, he was right there at Raj's side when his longtime pal married Leslie. As Raj's parents did not support the match, and none of his siblings would attend, Raj had been up and down emotionally through the whole engagement, and Stuart actually felt he might have earned the role of "best man" that Raj finally bestowed on him. Feeling worthy was pretty cool too. And he discovered, to his surprise, that the old notion that it was impossible for a man to look bad in a well-fitted tuxedo was true, even for him. Which probably explained why Mary, one of Leslie's work-mates, approached him at the reception. She liked dancing, and "creature features," and comic books, so the reception wasn't the last time they saw each other. She went with him to wave goodbye at the airport when Raj and Leslie left the USA for England.
Because Stuart Bloom suspected that people who were valued by their friends might, just might, have something to recommend them, he wasn't as surprised as he might once have been, when Mary indicated she might want to be more than friends. To his delight, she said "Stuart!" at the exact moment when she should have said, "Stuart!"
*tbbt*
Twenty years after Leonard Hofstadter had proposed that he and his friends – said friends explicitly including one Stuart Bloom – should meet in front of his old apartment building, Stuart walked down the street toward that building. He hadn't seen any of the old gang in more than a decade, not since Sheldon and Amy – the last Pasadena holdouts save Stuart himself – had moved to Texas to help raise Sheldon's prodigy nephew. He was looking forward to it. He had a lot to tell them. (Though some of it they probably already knew, especially considering that the on-line edition of the Times had named the comic shop one of the hottest geek hangouts in California, just a couple of months ago. Stuart had enjoyed his interview with the awestruck young reporter.) Ah, here we were, this was the place.
Stuart checked the note on his hand. (True, he had long since consigned the information to his I-ssistant, but his hand was where he'd first saved his note on the meeting, so long ago, and he thought the others might get a chuckle out of seeing it there.) Yes, this was the right date, and the right time.
So where was everybody? Where, for that matter, was anybody?
He waited fifteen minutes, then half-an-hour, before he finally gave up. "I knew it," he muttered.
Oh well, who needed them anyway? They had been his friends at an important time in his life, true, but that didn't mean they were his only friends for all of his life. He walked back to the car, calling Mary as he did so. The night wouldn't be a total waste if she and the kids could join him for dinner.
END