A/N: This did not want to come together, and I eventually decided to just post instead of worry more. Ugh.
Thank you everyone who has left reviews. Y'all are *super awesome* and make my day(s). Each of you wins an evening of cuddling on the couch with Sheldon (or Penny, I guess, if that's your thing) while watching the nerdy TV show of your choice. I'm hoping to reply to some reviews, soon, now that I have a bit of free time.
Sunday, January 4 7:32pm
They are finishing their third episode of Star Trek since Penny got home from her shift, together on her couch once more with his arm curled around her shoulders, her body curled into his. Penny holds his hand — stretched across his lap — between both of hers, and he finds that he is truly comfortable.
Added to his current comfort is the fact that he had a particularly productive morning in front of his white board. Despite thinking about Penny — her smile, her body, the warmth of her skin, her apparent willingness to touch him and allow herself to be touched by him, the possibilities of their future interactions — he has also found his scientific brain power undiminished. In fact, he impressed himself this afternoon with an intuitive leap that was later borne out by the math, solving a problem with which he had been fencing for some time. Leonard had assured him that his smugness was both unwarranted and unattractive, but Leonard has always been jealous of his success.
Still, even if it adds to his feeling of comfort and happiness, his scientific success is far from his mind with Penny next to him on the couch. She shifts against him slightly, and he becomes aware that his fingers are positioned near the neckline of her shirt, nearly touching the exposed skin of her upper chest. Almost unconsciously, he flexes his fingers, bringing his fingertips in contact with her skin. Comfort is quickly replaced by arousal at the vivid mental image of sliding his hand down and cupping her breast in the palm of his hand.
Penny's episode commentary, which has been coming in short bursts all evening, is noticeably absent when Bones picks on Spock in the last scene of the episode — she usually has something to say about that. His hand twitches against her sternum and he notes that her breathing has slowed, as though she is holding her breath, anticipating his next movement.
He has just shored up his resolve to touch her breast, as she clearly does not object, when his stomach growls loudly, reminding him that it is an hour past his usual dinner time. It cuts the sexual tension, and Penny giggles next to him and turns slightly — releasing his hand — in order to rub his belly playfully. It is both adorable and frustrating, and he shuts off the DVD player on the closing credits.
"I guess it's dinner time, huh?" She smiles up at him, but something in her eyes turns suddenly serious at the expression on his face. He holds her gaze as her hand slows its movements, coming to rest on the button at the waist of his jeans. She fingers the button absently before running her fingers along the waistline of his jeans, over his shirt. He swallows, almost overwhelmed at the arousal thrumming through his body as he wishes that she would slide her hand lower, that she would touch him.
When she does move her hand down, she doesn't even get to touch him before he groans her name in the heat of anticipation, and she pulls her hand away.
"Sorry, Sheldon," she whispers, her face flushed with either arousal or embarrassment.
He shakes his head, unable to find appropriate words but wishing that she would understand that he wantsher touch. She certainly doesn't need to keep apologizing. He has theorized — while standing at his white board, theorizing simultaneously about dark matter — that Penny is concerned about his relative lack of sexual experience and has decided to put aside her sexually aggressive nature in order to ensure his comfort. It is the only way he can explain her willingness — her obvious pleasure, even — when he touches her, but her embarrassment when she instigates any such contact.
Because he does not feel himself capable of beginning a conversation with her about their changing relationship — because he is not yet fully confident that she will acquiesce to a monogamous romantic paradigm with him — he decides that he needs to instigate more obviously sexual physical contact. His stomach growls again, reminding him that it is, in fact, past time for dinner. He will instigate such contact tomorrow, then.
Penny begins to pull away from him, to stand up from the couch, but he curls his hand around her shoulders in order to indicate that she should stay a moment longer. She takes the hint and lays her head on his chest, and he inhales a deep, shuddering breath to calm his arousal in preparation for dinner.
He finds himself breathing in the scent of her shampoo. Due to their close proximity over the past week, he has been vaguely aware of the fact that she has been using the many different scents in the gift baskets he purchased. But none have affected him as deeply as the green tea and mint she wore two days after Christmas, which made his head feel foggy and light. Today, however, her smell is completely intoxicating.
She smells sweet, like honeysuckle, and earthy like the cool soil in his Meemaw's garden, and fresh like cut grass. It's the smell of hot, spring afternoons spent in the shade of his Meemaw's backyard before she could afford air conditioning, and he inhales again, burying his nose more deeply in her hair to take in the combined smell of home and Penny.
"It's called 'Spring,'" she supplies, and he is momentarily embarrassed to have been so obviously smelling her. But she turns her head and smiles up at him, and the smile makes everything alright. "I've been trying out a new one every day."
"This is my favorite so far." He immediately wishes that he had not said it — he certainly doesn't mean to let her know that he's been smelling her on a daily basis. But she just smiles again.
"I'll remember that," she promises, before moving to sit up. He lets her pull away this time, despite his disappointment, and she rises from the couch, stretching her limbs in a particularly alluring way.
"It's Indian night, right?"
"Yes," he agrees. "Leonard and I generally order Indian on Sunday nights because Raj rarely joins us." She nods.
"Would you mind if we went out instead of ordered in? Tandoori Palace is pretty nice." She looks...hopeful, he thinks, that he will do as she is asking.
"That would be acceptable," he answers. He agrees because he doesn't want to disappoint her, but also because he knows that going out with her — a date — is the kind of social construct that he will be required to hold to within a romantic relationship paradigm. He needs to both adjust himself to the idea and show her his willingness to behave as a boyfriend. This is also the reason that he has exchanged his usual pants for jeans, worn tonight with his Green Lantern shirt.
"Cool!" He thinks Penny sounds genuinely happy as she ducks into her bedroom to change her shorts, but his doubts begin to surface as he rises to pace the room.
He has never been on a date before, excepting the dinner with Lalita Gupta which he did not realize was a date until afterwards, but he understands that it is a platform for a man to impress a woman. By ensuring that Penny has a good time on a date with him, he also ensures that she will want to further embrace a romantic relationship paradigm with him. His primary concern, then, should be with making sure that Penny is pleased with their dinner plans.
"Does Indian food agree with you, Penny?" His voice wobbles, the question barely audible, as he walks back towards her bedroom, where the door is wedged open five or six centimeters thanks to a short, fluffy pink robe draped over the top. He isn't trying to look, exactly, but when she doesn't answer his question, he steps closer.
Through the crack of the door, he sees her walking out of the bathroom in only her pink cotton Hello Kitty undergarments. He is returned instantly to his aroused state by his view of her well-proportioned figure and the exposed skin on display. Intellectually, he knows that he's not seeing much of her that he hasn't seen before. The panties are cut like small shorts, and her bra covers at least as much as the bikini tops she prances around in each the summer. The expanse of bare torso, bare legs, bare shoulders is mostly skin he's seen before.
But he's never seen this much of her while holding knowledge about the way her skin feels under his fingertips. Or the sounds she makes when she enjoys his touch. And the intimacy of the moment, of the way she walks her fingers up her ribs mindlessly as she looks through her closet, leaves him breathless. He backs away from the door, aware that his face is flushed and his pulse racing.
He's barely managed to get himself under control when she steps out of the bedroom a moment later, wearing a simple, long sleeved green peasant dress that hits her just under her knees.
"Penny." He can't help the way her name exits his mouth. It's a forced exhalation of air, like being punched in the stomach. She smiles at him, and he thinks she's nervous. He thinks she might be as nervous as he is, which he doesn't understand, but it makes it easier for him to relax. It is an interesting reaction.
"You look quite lovely in that dress." The words don't sound right to his ears, but she blushes, and it's as though she's being lit up from within.
"Thank you, sweetie." Her reaction seems to indicate that not only is she pleased with the the compliment, but that she dressed specifically to elicit such a compliment.
He clears his throat, trying to get his full voice back. "Although my Sunday schedule calls for Indian food, it is not necessary that we hold to my schedule. What...what would you like?"
Penny looks shocked for a moment before taking a few steps towards him and laying her hand on his wrist gently.
"I like Indian night," she says quietly, stroking her fingertips up and down his exposed forearm. "I'd actually really like to go to Tandoori Palace."
Sheldon can only nod in return. He doesn't understand the lump in his throat, doesn't understand why Indian food should affect him emotionally, but the way Penny is looking up at him makes it hard to brush the emotion aside. After a long moment, she slides her hand into his own, and they leave for dinner.
His hand twitches around hers at the sight of apartment 4A. Leonard is absent for the night, though, having chosen to play "wingman" for Wolowitz, so Sheldon does not drop Penny's hand. Leonard is an unknown variable in his relationship with Penny, and one that he has largely ignored. Even now that he understands — at least somewhat — what the changes between himself and his neighbor mean, he has yet to fully think about Leonard's probable reaction. Although he is attempting to fill the role of Penny's boyfriend, the lack of any formal acknowledgement of their new relationship paradigm has kept him from thinking too hard about how others will react. It is highly probable, though, that his relationship with Penny will change his relationships with his other friends.
"Hey," Penny's voice pulls him out of his thoughts, and he is surprised to find that they are standing by the driver's side door of her car.
"Hello," he answers, his voice quiet as he looks down at her. She smiles.
"Whatcha thinking about?"
The answer to that question is, of course, not one he is prepared to discuss with Penny, so instead of trying, he leans down and initiates a hug, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and smiling at the feeling of her arms around his middle.
"That's a good thought," she whispers into his shoulder. When they part, she turns and unlocks her own door, unlocking his side before he rounds the car.
When she starts the car, her check engine light begins to immediately blink, and his eye twitches in time with it. He manages to contain his thought — he is aware that Penny will find it unpleasant, so he does try — for only two blocks.
"Penny, your check engine light is blinking."
"I know, sweetie," she sighs. "It'll be okay, though. We're not going to break down on our way to dinner."
"Yes," he agrees. "The odds of that happening on a drive so short are minimal. It is much more likely that your car will break down when you have driven, alone, much further from home, and that you will find yourself stranded." He thinks of Penny, stuck in Hollywood, sad after another bad audition, with no way to get home. The thought is surprisingly upsetting.
"That's what cell phones are for," she smiles at him.
"So you drive around a car in need of engine repair planning on one day being in trouble because of it?"
"I don't have the money to fix it right now, Sheldon," she cuts in, sounding annoyed.
"But you must realize that waiting until the inevitable failure of your engine is likely to cost substantially more money than fixing the current problem."
"Yes," she answers quietly. "I understand that, Sheldon. I'm just hoping that by the time it breaks down, I'll have a little more saved up."
"If money is your problem, I can give you money," he answers, relieved that the answer is so simple.
"I'm not taking your money," she answers firmly, her voice raised just enough that he's a little scared. He can do nothing but stare at her as she continues on the short route to Tandoori Palace, having no words to offer to someone being so...illogical...about this issue.
"Penny," he finally says her name quietly, trying not to draw her ire. "That makes no sense." She narrows her eyes at him, and he flounders for words, trying to figure out what to say to make her see reason without being angry. "I just want to help."
"I know you do, sweetie," she answers after a long moment, pulling into the parking lot and grabbing a space before she finally turns to look at him. "I just...I can't take your money, Sheldon."
He wants to argue the point, considers the possibility of paying Leonard to take her car to be fixed without her consent. But more than anything, he wants to enjoy Penny's company and he wants her to enjoy his company. It is not in his nature to let issues drop, particularly when he knows he is on the correct side of the issue, but he slowly nods.
"Okay," he finally says, a little pained at letting her have the last word.
They each exit their car doors, and Sheldon worries over the probable awkwardness of their evening. He is surprised when she rounds the car very quickly and grabs his hand.
"I'm sorry, sweetie," she says, looking up at him. "I didn't mean to snap at you. I just...I don't like the idea of taking money from people, okay?"
He nods, squeezing her hand in his own. It's not okay, and he doesn't understand, but he understands enough to know that they cannot resolve this issue by simply fighting over her car.
They walk together into the restaurant and are quickly seated, and the difficult moment is buried underneath discussions about food. When their waiter, who introduces himself as Abdul, comes over, Sheldon begins to place their order but is halted by Penny's frown, indicating that he has said something inappropriate. The force of her displeasure strikes him silent, and she cuts in and places their order, getting every detail perfect.
He has never really considered his lack of interpersonal skills to be a failing. Others have pointed it out to him as such, but it has always struck him as unnecessary to worry about his interactions with lesser minds. Penny's frown, though, at what she would no doubt consider rudeness to their waiter, makes his stomach churn with the fear that she thinks poorly of him. The way he treats others, he realizes, is some sort of cue to her about how he will treat her, and even though the whole idea is flagrantly false because Penny is Penny and this waiter is nobody, he attempts the correct affect.
It is, perhaps, not exactly the change of personality that his mother has been praying for his whole life, but he at smiles at the waiter — Abdul — as he leaves the table.
Once Abdul is gone, though, silence stretches out awkwardly between them. No topics of conversation beyond their argument in the car come readily to mind. The thought of formalizing their relationship is difficult; he cannot begin such a discussion, and particularly not when she is upset. Instead, he watches her, the way her eyes search around the restaurant, the way her fingers drum on the white table cloth. She is slowly becoming more and more nervous, he realizes.
"Are you going to ask me to take your money again?" She finally asks.
"Will it change your mind?" He answers. She shakes her head looking down at the table. "Will you explain to me why you will not accept my help?"
"Sheldon...I know you mean well," she says, seemingly dodging his question, "but it's...complicated." He blinks at her answer, cocking his head to the side as he attempts to pin down her expression. He cannot.
"We are under no time constraints that I am aware of," he answers. She smiles at that, and shakes her head.
"You know I have a brother?"
"Yes," he answers. "But you've only ever mentioned him once."
He recalls her talking about her sister on several occasions, four years older and divorced with two children, but her brother has never been a topic of conversation.
"Well, his name is Billy. He's twelve years older. My mom got pregnant with him in high school. He was the reason my parents got married in the first place, I think."
"My parents were married under similar circumstances," he says quietly. She looks up at him, surprised. "My mother's fanatical religious devotion did not come until later."
"Ah. Well, Billy was already out of the house when I was born. He was sent to a kind of boarding school for...difficult kids. Thing is...the school was really expensive, and my parents needed help in order to keep the farm."
"So they got a loan," Sheldon says, some of the puzzle making a little bit of sense.
"From my mom's sister and her husband. They came around every week, and they wanted a say in how the farm was run. My aunt would always tell us that they were just 'worried about their investment.' They always fought with my dad, and made my parents fight. And when my dad finally paid off the loan, they were never allowed to visit."
"And you fear that taking a loan from a friend will result in similar circumstances."
"At the very least, I worry things would be uncomfortable, sweetie," she tells him.
"May I offer two counterpoints, Penny?"
"If you need to," she answers, sounding annoyed.
"In the first place, you have unfairly extrapolated from this single instance."
"Because sometimes people help other people out, and they aren't mean or petty or 'worried about their investments'?" The words are dripping with sarcasm, and Sheldon bristles.
"Yes, in fact!" His accent twangs a little, both from emotion and from thinking about home. "When my Peepaw died, my Meemaw would have lost her house had her neighbors not each given her help in the form of both monetary loans and services. And no one ever worried about their investments. She paid back what she could, in both money and her own goods and services, but the point was that her neighbors wanted to help her because she was nice and because helping her was more important than worrying about money."
Penny smiles brightly at the story.
"That's really sweet, Sheldon," she tells him. "Your Meemaw must be really special for her neighbors to all care about her so much."
"Of course my Meemaw is special," he replies, offended that anyone could think otherwise for even a moment. "But that is not the point," he finally remembers.
"And what's the point?" Penny asks, smiling at him.
"The point is that you should accept my money because I am not worried about an investment. I merely want to help."
"But Sheldon," she says, her voice quiet, "I don't know when I'd be able to pay you back, and..."
"That brings me to the second counterpoint," he cuts her off. "I did not offer to loan you the money. I offered to give you the money." He honestly hopes that this will make things better. After all, if there's no need to pay back the money, then all of Penny's worries will go away.
He can't read the look on Penny's face, and her reply is cut off when Abdul returns with their food. They stare at each other awkwardly as their food is laid out: fragrant rice, naan, tandoori shrimp, and Sheldon's favorite, kadhai paneer. When they are alone again, they both stare at the food between them.
"I really can't take your money, Sheldon," she finally answers. "Especially if you're just going to give it to me."
"Well why not?" He's always heard men huff something about women and their irrationality, but he's never before understood how irrational women apparently are.
"Do you remember my friend Christy?" She asks, keeping her eyes trained on the table.
"The 'Whore of Omaha'?" It is in fact only in the context of talking about Christy that Penny had ever previously mentioned her brother, but since she does not seem to recall that fact, he does not bring it up.
"That's the one," she answers, rolling her eyes.
"I fail to see what she could have to do with anything," he answers, cocking his head to the side. She looks up at him, confused, before she finally smiles.
"No, you wouldn't, I guess." There's a long pause before she continues. "Christy would get close to a guy, and use sex as a way to get him to buy her things."
"Yes, I recall. This is part of the reason that the epithet applies to her so well."
"Sheldon...I just..."
"You have an irrational fear that if you take money from me, you will be behaving like your friend." She glares at him. "It is irrational, Penny, as you are far from a...a...whore." He whispers the last word, remembering that it is, in fact, a dirty word.
"You're the one who asked for my expertise in breaking up with someone because of the man after man leaving my apartment." She narrows her eyes at him, though her lips are curved slightly upwards, and he blushes.
"Surely you realize that at the time I found myself trapped in an unwanted relationship, and Leonard has certainly never broken up with someone." His eyes meet hers, suddenly adamant. "Penny, you are not...like her."
"I know, Sheldon," she says, "but I already owe you — you and Leonard, I mean — so much, and I..."
"You owe us nothing," he cuts her off.
"Yes, I do," she replies. "And even if it's not conscious, Leonard...Leonard does think I owe him..."
He feels anger at that. At the thought that Leonard does in fact, seem to think that Penny owes him. At the thought that he has been so obvious about it that Penny can tell. And at the thought that Leonard will be angry about this changing relationship not because Leonard loves Penny, but because he feels that he is owed something by Penny.
"Hey," she calls him out of his thoughts, and he releases the tension that had been pulling his mouth into a frown. "How about I promise I'll think about it, and we just eat and talk about something else?"
"I..." He had hoped to change her mind, but he keeps coming back to the promise he made to himself last week — always be considerate of Penny's feelings. So he is. "Very well. As long as you understand that you would be in no way indebted to me." She nods. "And that my desire to help you fix your car is motivated largely by self interest."
"So I can drive you to the comic book store?" There's a wry grin on her face that he returns.
"Partly that, I suppose," he answers. "Primarily because I do not like the thought of you stranded somewhere." She holds his gaze, once again searching for something in his eyes before she finally smiles.
"I'll keep that in mind, sweetie."
And like that, the discussion is tabled. She reaches across the table to serve herself, so he begins to do the same.
"Tell me more about your family, Sheldon," she says as she stabs a piece of paneer and brings it to her mouth.
And so the dinner conversation stretches on, discussing family histories that he has never shared with anyone else. No one has ever cared to hear about his family before, and he is surprised at how many similar experiences they have shared as children.
They exchange hunting stories — Penny enjoyed hunting because it was one of the few ways she and her father bonded; Sheldon disliked it for more or less the same reason, though he was always good at it. They swap sibling stories — Penny and her sister have a difficult relationship and never got to know her older brother well; she's already aware of his relationship with Missy, and he assures her that she isn't missing out much on big brothers. They swap parent stories — Penny's parents fought frequently but never separated; his own parents' marriage fell apart when Sheldon was only 8.
He tells her about the divorce, about his mother's descent into religious fervor. She tells him about her brother's arrest record.
By the time their plates are scraped clean — which takes some time, due to the talking — it is well after ten o'clock. He pays for their meal, waving away her proffered cash with an eyeroll, and they walk back to her car holding hands. He bites his tongue on the way home and avoids saying anything about her check engine light.
"Thank you for your company, Penny," he tells her quietly when they reach her door.
"Thank you for dinner, sweetie," she replies, smiling. Moving slowly, she rises up on her toes to place a kiss on his cheek.
He glances across the hall to his door and finds that he does not want to go home, yet. Penny seems to sense his trepidation.
"Hey," she offers, "you don't have work in the morning and neither do I. Want to stay up and finish season 1 of StarTrek?"
"Yes," he answers almost too quickly, too eagerly. She just smiles and pulls him into her apartment. He finds that his place on her couch feels more and more comfortable, more like his spot, and theorizes that actually, any spot in which Penny is tucked under his arm would feel like home.
[** The next 5 chapters are already fully written...they just need some revision. So they should be up quickly and also hopefully be better than this one. =) **]