Kissing Sheldon was kind of awesome.
He had great lips, all soft and surprisingly sweet. What Penny liked best though, was how close she felt to him. The warmth... It was much better than any hug. Why hadn't she done this before? It was fantastic.
In fact, Penny was sure it could only get better if Sheldon would kiss her back. So she kept kissing him, insistent. Sheldon remained frozen, as still as a statute. Finally, Penny pulled back, looking into his eyes questioningly. She didn't understand why he wouldn't kiss her back.
She was completely unprepared for him to sprint away from her, backing up until he hit her door and all but melding into it as he groped blindly for the knob. Then again, it was Sheldon, she shouldn't be.
Penny crossed her arms with a huff, "Kissing isn't that bad you know. If you stopped being such a whack-a-doodle for a second you might find you even enjoy it."
Sheldon spluttered, "Penny! You-You kissed me!"
Penny nodded, he was such a kid sometimes. Jason Afield had a similar reaction when she'd landed a wet one on him in seventh grade.
"Um, what's the word I'm looking for?" She paused for a bit, then snaped her fingers. "That's right; A-duh!"
Sheldon scowled at her, "Penny, you only kiss your boyfriends or prospective paramours."
Penny arched an eyebrow, just where was he going with this? Wasn't what she wanted clear? "That's right mister obvious."
Sheldon arched his own brows, crossed his own arms for emphasis as they squared off. "That would be Dr. Obvious to you. And let me put that statement into context for you, as you seem completely incapable of doing so for yourself. Penny, you kissed me, that implies romantic desires, desires which would land me as either a boyfriend or prospective paramour. Both of which you have killed. In fact, those seem to be your target kills, aside from that unfortunate hitchhiker, that's all you have killed... Hmm, it's just occurred to me, should I be worried about Leonard's safety?"
It was Penny's turn to splutter, "I-I so don't kill my boyfriends!"
Sheldon glared at her, "Yes, Penny, you do. Which is why I have no desire to be yours. Excluding a general desire not to be anyone's in particular."
"Are you kidding me?" Penny demanded. He couldn't be serious! So, yeah, she's killed some scummy guys who've done her wrong. It's not like Sheldon would ever be one of them.
"Kurt wasn't even my boyfriend! We'd just broken up!"
Sheldon huffed, "So the count is still one boyfriend, one paramour, and one ex-boyfriend. It still all of your general love interests. Penny, I don't want to be your romantic anything. I'm perfectly content to be friends. I'm certainly liable to live longer that way."
With that, Sheldon turned to leave. Penny gaped at him for a moment. Then began to chase him, this so wasn't over, not so easily. "Sheldon! Get back here."
The answer to that is the door to Four B slamming shut, and the decisive click of the lock. As if she doesn't have a key. Penny whirls around to get it and bumps straight into Alicia. Literally.
They tumbled to the ground. Two Pasadena actresses in an ungraceful heap.
"Walk much?" Alicia snaped. And Penny had a flashback to high school, and actually speaking like that. Who would have thought? She's murdered more people since then, but there's no denying she was a better person now. She wondered if Alicia could say the same.
They disentangle and Alicia shots her a faux pitying look, "Well that explains the lack of Career options. If you can't even get a geek to have sex with you."
That, Penny decided, was a resounding no, she really couldn't. "Well, at least I get my parts on talent, not my cock sucking skills."
"Cock sucking is a talent," Alicia sniffed, unashamed, "One you clearly don't have, and what parts?"
Penny bit back a growl, it would just invite bitch jokes. She knew how Alicia worked. Penny used to be just like her. A party girl, the kind that thrived on attention and putting down her enemies. Nowadays Penny knew better. There were much more... efficient ways to deal with enemies.
And she had to prove to Sheldon that she wasn't someone who just offed her boyfriends.
Penny was sure killing Alicia, sad representative of the female species that she was, would prove that... And if it meant she never had to see Alicia again, well, Penny was perfectly willing to make that sacrifice.
Man, she really loved being one in twenty-five.
xXx
Sheldon eyed the door to his room wearily.
Part of him expected Penny to bust through the door at any moment. The other expected the lock to work and for her to bang on it angrily.
Minutes passed and Penny did neither.
Sheldon didn't move. This was Penny, for all that she enjoyed wasting away in front of a television screen showing programs that taught her nothing, she hadn't actually atrophied all her brain cells. She could be quite cunning. No doubt she was only attempting to lull him into a false state of security. It was not going to work. Sheldon was wise to her game. He was not going to venture out into his apartment to be ambushed by an angry former farm girl. He was well aware that their kind could be vicious.
He was sure their mean little spirits were encouraged by the animal cruelty farms typically practiced. It was something to think about. It was certainly a better option than recalling the feel of Penny's lips. How soft and warm they had felt against his own. The way some part of him he had long thought to be done with had awoken and demanded he kissed her back.
If Penny hadn't pulled back on her own, he's not sure what exactly would have happened. But he's horrified at the side of him that was disappointed that she had. Terrified of finishing the very thought of what could have been.
He doesn't want to think about it. He's already tried watching Star Trek, as is his habit, but it's been letting him down for once. No matter how hard he tried to focus on his beloved program, he kept thinking about kissing Penny.
It was unspeakably foolish.
Penny had a tendency to kill her lovers. He's helped her get rid of enough of them to know. And even if he hadn't, Penny isn't someone he wants to be in a relationship with. He had observed her with Leonard, after all. Penny liked constant attention, she liked coitus, and she liked a myriad of pointless activities for dates. None of which he was willing to provide.
Never mind that he was no longer as revolted at the thought of touching Penny sexually.
He knew how it went. A female would allow a male mating privilege, and then he would all but become her slave in order to keep his mating rights. He'd seen it happen often enough. It was not a fate he will allow to befall him. Sheldon knew better.
His work was far too important for that, he was far too important for that. As one of the great minds of the twenty-first century he had a sacred duty to dedicate himself to science.
That meant he could not allow any woman, no matter how devastatingly attractive, to distract him from his goals. And that meant not even considering becoming Penny's boyfriend.
So Sheldon glared at the door and tried to focus on the impending confrontation. Penny would have to be dissuaded of thinking of him in such a manner. Even if he did understand why she would be so insistent on having him as a mate. While he was quite the catch, she needed to understand that the very idea of them becoming more than friends was more improbable than his mother giving up her love of Jesus. It was never going to happen.
He nodded gravely to himself. Eyes locked firmly on the door.
He never removed them. Not when he heard Leonard return fruitlessly from his bar hopping. Not when dawn came. His eyes stayed on that door, never shifting aside from the occasional blink. And then his alarm went off. Sheldon stood mechanically. He went through his morning oblations in a similar state.
Penny hadn't come... That did not compute. She was Penny, stubborn was metaphorically her middle name. Wild dogs should not have been able to keep her from him. Let alone something as lackluster as a locked door. She had the key to his apartment.
He was still in disbelief when he reached the university. And maybe just the tiniest bit indignant.
The rest of the guys were amazed by how quiet he was. And they stayed that way as he was silent all day. The first thing he did when he got home was knock on her door. It was only prudent. If Penny wasn't acting that could only mean she was planning. And that did not bode well for him.
He'd rather be kept abreast of the situation if given the choice. It wasn't like he was worried or anything just...curious.
xXx
When Sheldon began his obsessive way of knocking at the door, Penny almost cried in relief. Finally! Help had arrived. She had been halfway to taking her new bat to his door and forcing him to help her. This wasn't supposed to be this hard. She would have never thought it could be so difficult.
It wasn't like she was some amateur. She'd killed a whopping total of three people. Three and a half if Kurt counted. Planning Alicia's murder was not supposed to bring her to tears. Or to tear her hair out in frustration.
Penny didn't wait for him to finish his stupid knock. She opened the door and yanked him inside. He was too startled to resist. Penny locked her door once she had Sheldon inside. Who was to say she didn't learn from her mistakes? No one is about to walk in on her while she was plotting to kill someone. She slid the deadbolt just to be sure. Leonard had the key for the knob.
Sheldon was giving her a very strange look. Penny would enjoy the apprehension in his expression on a regular day. Probably tease him and try to make it worse. But not today. Today, Penny had a goal in mind. So she needed Sheldon to be his genius self. Not a particularly skittish colt.
"Penny," Sheldon ventured, hesitant.
"I need your help." She stated without preamble. He blinked at her and Penny sighed. A heavy frustrated sound, she could feel her eyes water for the umpteenth time that day.
"I can't do it!" Penny nearly shrieked, as she plopped back down into her seat, and grabbed a couch cushion to punch violently. She was near hysterical.
Sheldon blinked some more, his mouth fell into a confused frown. "What?"
"I just can't do it, Sheldon! I just can't. I keep thinking about taking a bat to her head, I've done that before, but then what? Blood would splatter everywhere, and I'd have to get into her apartment first.-it's not like she'll just invite me in if I'm carrying a bat? So then I'd have to hide it right? but how do you hide something like a bat? And I'd still need an excuse for her to invite me in. It's not like I can just brain her in the hallway! How was it so easy before? I-"
"Breathe Penny," Sheldon interjected, as he sat beside her, and grabbed her shoulders forcefully. It was kind of hot.
"If I could just think of a way-" Penny half mumbled, barely aware of how hard she was breathing. She should probably stop that.
"Breathe!" Sheldon commanded again. She closed her eyes, and trusting him the way she knew she could, Penny did. She took a deep breath and let her lungs settle. "Now tell me, concisely, why do you require my assistance?"
That, she could do, "I want to kill Alicia."
"I see," Sheldon nodded, "Why?"
"Um...Lot's of reasons?" Penny didn't mean for it to sound like a question. "Look, she's an utter bitch. She's punched me, she can't pass me in the hallway without saying something to bring me down. She used you guys, and she's robbing real actresses of roles by sleeping with people to get them. She just needs to die, okay? The world's better off without her!"
"So long as you have your reasons..." Sheldon shrugged. "I had similar sentiments towards Kripke. I'm hardly one to point fingers, Penny. The real question is, do you want her to suffer?"
"Suffer?" Penny questions, and she's just curious. So there's just the slightest smidgen of interest in her voice, so what?
"Well, there are many types of untraceable poisons that she would find quite unpleasant, before her death, of course, one does not feel things postmortem. Likewise, you could use chloroform in order to knock her unconscious and beat her to death at her own grave site. I believe you might find that more viscerally satisfying. Oh my, there are so many options, I can see why you would have trouble deciding what to do."
Sheldon's eyes glazed over, and Penny could have sworn she heard the whirring of a computer someone had just turned on. "I wish I'd taken the time to plan Kripke's murder. I would have liked him to suffer for all the times he'd mocked me."
Penny shook her head at him, and bit back a smile, "Who knew Kripke was a lucky guy?"
Sheldon shrugged again, then he smiled. "I suppose I mustn't complain, not when I never have to deal with him or his stupid speech impediment again."
Penny really liked the Idea of never having to deal with Alicia again. And as nice as all of Sheldon's ideas sounded, they also sounded like a lot of work. Time and effort Penny didn't want to waste on a soon to be dead hooker. "And hey, shouldn't we be careful? I mean we live in the same building as her. They might ask us questions and stuff. You know you can't lie to save your life."
Sheldon frowned at that. "I don't wish to test that. Very well, nothing elaborate then. But it still leaves us with quite a few options."
xXx
In the end, Penny picks the simplest solution.
It shouldn't disappoint him as much as it does. But there were just so many options...What Penny had picked was almost boring when compared to the rest. On the other hand, it was the safest. For him especially. He should really find a way around his lying handicap.
The plan was thus; Penny would push Alicia down the stairs. Short and sweet, Penny had called it. As she would still have the satisfaction of being the one to end Alicia's life. Much like he had with Kripke. Sheldon had schooled her on the best place to shove and the adequate amount of force. There was a surefire way to make sure Alicia would snap her neck upon landing. A formula, if you will.
For once, Penny had no trouble grasping it. She was a natural killer.
In the end, it was a great plan, he had thought of it after all. He had what amounted to intellectual gold. The plan would provide them both with alibis. Sheldon would be at work, and Penny would be in his apartment. Penny would claim she had simply sneaked into her neighbor's apartment for some milk. No doubt she would have been planning to do so anyway, so her props were set.
Then she would wait until she saw Alicia coming down the stairs. Wolowitz had never removed the camera he and Koothropali had used to spy on the end of Leonard's and Penny's dates. Sheldon would be monitoring the feed as well. He'd made sure it wasn't recording, lest Penny have any evidence against her, but the live feed would still play, and Sheldon wanted to watch.
It was his formula at work.
All Penny had to do was wait until Alicia was at the precipice of the stairway, burst out, and shove her. Then she could turn on her iPod and claim she had never heard the thump.
His favorite part of this plan was the lack of shovels.
For once, they wouldn't have to get rid of the body. As an added bonus he could finally get that petition for new carpets passed. No one would want to risk their own accidental death. They might even manage to get the elevator working once again. There were all sorts of benefits to planning a murder. Sheldon wondered why he hadn't done so before.
It was eleven when Alicia appeared on the screen. Sheldon sent Penny a blank text, getting a question mark in return. It was the confirmation signal.
Sheldon watched, eyes glued to the screen as Alicia reached the second landing and Penny appeared. Then, just as he had shown her, Penny jabbed her hand forward, striking Alicia's right shoulder and causing her to tumble forward.
Things were silent for a moment. Penny turned towards the camera with a smile, she flashed him a peace sign and winked.
Sheldon felt an answering smile spread across his face. The message was rather clear; mission accomplished.
xXx
And now Alicia bites the dust. First I thought I could make this a three-shot. That's clearly not the case. Then I asked my brain about a five-shot. I got a resounding no. I'm not sure how many chapters this is gonna be. All I can do is promise you a murder for everyone. And so the dark shenny bunny continues...