BB And Whale Boy
Danny stretched himself in front of the TV.
"Sorry for lumping you with my bad taste and annoying habits." Sheldon shook his head.
"Danny, I keep telling you, I don't mind. I kinda like having you here." Danny grinned. He'd been staying with Sheldon for almost two weeks and had never enjoyed himself more. Of course work was a problem. He and Lindsay had tried to talk out their differences and see how they could move on, but Lindsay kept insisting on finding a marriage counsellor, and if there was one thing Danny hated more than anything else in the whole world it was counsellors, of the marriage variety or any other kind. Besides, Danny knew what the problem was. It was him, the fact that he felt next to no connection with his child, and he wasn't about to let Lindsay get her way with sending him to a therapist to talk about his own childhood, which would be inevitable.
And in a way, Danny was glad that he and Lindsay had fought, otherwise he would never have ended up at Hawkes', and the guy wasn't as boring as he'd always thought he'd been. Hell, Sheldon liked baseball, and basketball. Something they never could agree on though was soccer, Sheldon couldn't see the attraction and Danny couldn't see the unattraction. But tonight, Danny had got his own way, (again) and Sheldon was suffering soccer with a very pained expression on his face.
"Be honest, you hate having me here."
"No, I hate soccer." Danny' laughed then jumped in the air as his team finally won the game.
"Oh yeah, oh yeah, take that you losers! Suckers, hahahahaha!! Woooooooo!" Sheldon watched Danny dancing around the room very confusedly.
"Danny, it's just a game." Danny dropped back onto the couch and grabbed Sheldon affectionately round the neck.
"How do you manage to not get worked up about anything?" Sheldon struggled to breathe.
"If you don't let go I'll never have the chance to get worked up about anything ever again." Danny released the stranglehold.
"You're too calm." he mused. "Everyone knows you for that, Dr Sheldon Hawkes goes hand in hand with the words calm and efficient. Too efficient." Sheldon searched for the remote.
"Where's the remote gone?" Danny made a pathetic attempt to look for it.
"I dunno, you had it." Sheldon frowned at him.
"No I didn't. These days you're always in control of what we watch, it's almost like this is your apartment," Sheldon put his hand down the back of the sofa. "and you're very kindly letting me stay here." Danny grinned.
"Really, you think of it like that? Seems more like we got an odd couple thing going on." Sheldon retrieved the remote from where Danny had left it, under Danny's ass, and turned the TV off.
"I'm getting a divorce." He said. Danny tried to laugh but the thought of divorce silenced him. There was a pause in which the two of them just listened to the sounds of traffic outside the window.
"Hey Sheldon."
"Yeah?"
"Do you mind being called Hawkes?" Sheldon shifted slightly and shrugged.
"Not really. I'd rather be called by my name, but I'm not gonna get in a sweat about it." Danny nodded.
"What do you get called for short though? I mean, Sheldon's not an easy name to shorten. Shelley?" Sheldon half laughed.
"Sometimes." Danny tucked his leg underneath his thigh and leaned his elbow on the back of the sofa.
"Shelley used to be a guy's name though. Way back, like a hundred years ago." Sheldon nodded. "What? Surprised I know that?"
"Kinda." Danny hit Sheldon across the shoulder. "Ow! You know you're really not as dumb as you think you are."
"Thanks, I'll keep that it mind." Danny shifted his position and carried on. "I mean, Kelly used to be a guy's name…."
"Yeah, and Holly and Lindsay…most names that end in 'y' really." Danny started tracing random patterns on the sofa. Lindsay…"But I only got called Shelley by really dumb kids at school."
"Like me you mean?"
"Not like you in the slightest." Sheldon replied warmly. Danny gave a little smile.
"What about Don, or Donny, or…"He paused. "There really aren't that many variations on the name Sheldon. Do you know where it comes from?"
"It's old English I think. It means town in the valley or steep valley, something like that. Charlie looked it up once."
"Who's Charlie?"
"My ex girlfriend." Sheldon laughed to himself. "The best girlfriend I ever had."
"How's that?" Sheldon shrugged.
"I dunno, we just clicked. Hell, we almost got married!" Danny sat up straight.
"Seriously??" he gazed at his friend incredulously. "How come?"
"Well," Sheldon picked up the empty beer cans. "we'd been together for three years and we really loved one another. I guess we kinda figured marriage was the next place to go. Our families were really happy about it, they took the whole thing off our hands they were so excited!" Danny walked with Sheldon to the kitchen, carrying the remains of their ridiculously healthy supper. Ridiculously healthy to Danny at any rate. Seriously, did Sheldon ever pig out?
"So what happened? How come you've got no ring on your finger?" Sheldon sat on the bar chair as Danny put the plates in the sink.
"Er…basically the wedding came around, and I was at the hotel in my room getting dressed. My dad came in and he said, 'ten minutes kid then you're on.' After he left a wave of panic came over me and I realised that I couldn't marry Charlie, I just couldn't, it didn't seem right." Danny frowned.
"Why propose then?" Sheldon walked over to the sink and started running water.
"I didn't, it just kinda…I dunno…happened." He squeezed washing up liquid into the bowl. "So then I took off my jacket and tie and climbed out the window, down the drain pipe and ran away." Danny whistled. Sheldon grinned. "You just wonder what people would have thought at the sight of me climbing down a drain pipe in a wedding suit." Danny shook his head, grinning.
"Nah," he replied. "this is New York!" Sheldon threw him a towel and Danny obediently dried up. "What about Charlie? How'd she feel about this?" Sheldon laughed again.
"The reason my dad told me ten minutes instead of telling me to come down straight away was because Charlie had jumped ship before she'd even reached the hotel."
"What?"
"She got cold feet before I did. Her mum said she just disappeared, just as they were getting ready to leave home." Danny whistled again. Sheldon continued. "Then when I was walking through Central Park, what did I see? A bride sitting on the top of a bench, twisting her veil in her hands." Danny shook his head again in disbelief and took the plate Sheldon gave him.
"Charlie huh?"
"Yep." A far away look came into Sheldon's eyes as he reminisced. "I went up to her and said, 'Looking for a groom?' she looked lovely, but she didn't look like my Charlie in that dress, her mum had picked it out. We took a back seat throughout the whole process."
"Even your own wedding." Danny quipped. Sheldon went to the fridge.
"Yep. PJ?" Danny grinned.
"Sure." Sheldon got out the pineapple juice and two glasses. Danny leaned on the worktop. "So then what? Did you guys split up?"
"A year later." Sheldon handed him a glass.
"A year?" Danny was surprised. "You guys stayed together?" Sheldon shrugged and led the way back to the couch.
"We still loved each other. Our parents weren't happy we ditched the wedding though."
"I bet. So why did you split up if you loved each other so much?" they sat down, Sheldon curling himself around a cushion as he often did, something Danny found, in a strange way, really adorable. Sheldon took a sip of juice.
"It was kinda like we loved each other too much to be in a relationship. We're more like siblings." Danny snorted.
"Incest." He remarked. Sheldon sighed.
"I knew you'd say that," he replied wearily. "Some of my girlfriends have found my relationship with Charlie difficult to deal with, I mean we still kiss, but we'd never dream of having sex again. We're just…in love in a safer way." Danny put his feet on the table.
"Safe…you're a strange guy, you know that right?" Sheldon smiled and hugged the cushion tighter. Danny rested his head against the back of the couch. He turned to look at Sheldon. "Did she have a nickname for you?"
"Kaka." Danny frowned.
"Kaka? Where does that come from?" Sheldon put his glass on the table.
"It means pretty boy in some dialect of Afrikaans."
"Was she African?"
"No, Japanese. American Japanese. She works as a translator, that's another reason why we broke up, she was always away."
"Cool. What do your parents call you?"
"As a nickname?" Danny nodded. "Er…BB I guess." Danny snorted again.
"BB? What does that stand for?" Sheldon drained his glass.
"I think it was originally BBB, for beautiful brown-eyed boy, then it became Beb, then it somehow came to BB. All my family call me that, among other things."
"Oh yeah, like what?" Sheldon smiled ruefully.
"Promise you won't call me by them?"
"Do I have to?" Danny nonchalantly took a sip of juice. Sheldon sighed.
"There was Baby, that lasted until I was twenty six." Danny choked. "Then there was Sweetcheeks," Now Danny couldn't stop laughing.
"You're making this up!!!" Sheldon couldn't help but laugh too.
"No! I swear! I was the most unfortunate kid in nicknames."
"What about at school?" Danny asked once he'd calmed down. Sheldon threw his head back.
"Ah…there was Corny, I used to have my hair in corn rows, " he explained.
"You must've looked real cute." Sheldon rolled his eyes. "Was anyone at your school ever…you know…racist to you?" Sheldon frowned, remembering.
"Couple a kids called me Blackie, some called me nigger, but they're just words, they didn't hurt. Not that nothing was done about that. The teachers got involved, but it only lasted one term in my first year at high school, it wasn't a big problem where I went." There was a relaxed pause in which Danny found himself drifting off to sleep. He shook himself awake.
"Mmmm…hey BB-"
"Don't. Call me BB." Sheldon pointed a warning finger at him. "Ever. That's reserved for my family only." Danny sighed.
"Do you have any interesting nickname that I can call you?" Sheldon rested his head on the arm of the sofa.
"You could call me Ki if you really wanted."
"Ki?"
"Short for Akiki."
"What does that mean? Is it African?" his friend nodded.
"It's Ugandan for friend." Danny smiled.
"It suits you." Sheldon smiled in return, almost a little embarrassed at the compliment.
"Thank you."
"How come it's not your first name? or is it?" Sheldon shook his head.
"Nah, my dad, he's Ugandan, he wanted us all to have Ugandan first names, then discovered that my mum couldn't pronounce them. He said;" here Sheldon put on a very accurate African accent. "I will not listen to my children's beautiful names being slaughtered like chickens with the terrible axe of the American accent." Danny rolled on the couch laughing.
"Does he really sound like that?!" Sheldon nodded, laughing too at the memory.
"What about your mum, is she Ugandan?"
"No, she's New Yorken, she's from Brooklyn." Danny made that face when he's considering something.
"Not as good as Staten Island." Sheldon hit him.
"You wish. She's about as New York as they come." Danny pulled a mock surprised expression.
"What? Even more New York than me?"
"Almost." Danny shook his head.
"Not possible." He finished the last of the juice in his glass and put it back on the table with a satisfied sigh. "You got any siblings?" Sheldon picked up the glasses and motioned Danny to follow him. They walked back to the kitchen where Sheldon put the glasses in the sink, then went over to the shelves by the bar and picked up a photo album.
"Here," he said. He opened it at random and Danny saw a picture of an attractive woman cradling two babies who looked exactly the same.
"That you?"
"One of them is."
"Which one?" Sheldon shrugged. "You don't know which one is you?"
"We look the same." Danny laughed.
"I can see that!" Sheldon flicked through the pages and Danny caught glimpses of smiling faces, wedding pictures, hospital pictures, medals, family outings, and felt a pang of guilt for his own wife and child, and a pang of self pity for himself, when he remembered how he'd so often been left out in his own family. Sheldon finally stopped at a group photo.
"This was my mum's fortieth." In a way it was a plain photo, the background was black, the seats were black. Sitting on the left of the photograph was the same woman who'd been holding the twins, a little older, her skin was quite a pale brown compared to Sheldon's but her afro was to rival all of the Jackson Five's. She was round, with a wide smile, easy to see where Sheldon got his grin from. Sitting next to her was a very dark man, with a long jaw and a quiet, confident smile. His head was shaved close to the skin, and he had his arm around his wife affectionately. He was only slightly taller than her and his red sweater clashed brilliantly with her violent orange summer dress. Standing behind her with his arms around his mother's shoulders was a young man with a matching afro and a jokey expression on his wide features, he'd inherited his father's long jaw. "That's Henry, he's the eldest. He runs and works at the Double Or Nothing restaurant near 5th Avenue."
"Seriously? The really expensive one?" Sheldon nodded proudly.
"Yeah. He writes poetry too." Danny suddenly paused as something clicked.
"Henry Hawkes?" Sheldon looked up from the photograph. "You're joking. I've got every book of his." Now it was Sheldon's turn to be surprised.
"Really? I had no idea you were a poetry kinda guy." Danny shrugged, embarrassed. "Henry will be pleased. He's always convinced no one buys his stuff."
"How can that be? He's won tons of prizes."
"I know." Danny watched Sheldon's face, and suddenly wished that he could make Sheldon's face light up like that when he talked about Danny to someone else. There was a glow around Sheldon when he spoke of his family, a fierce pride. Sheldon pointed to the girl with her cheek pressed against her father's. "That's Cecy. Short for Cecilia." Her hair was tied back but the ponytail ends framed her head like a frizzy halo. Her face shape was rounder, but thinner and her grin rivalled Sheldon's. Then, sitting beside his father, one arm around him, one hand clutching his twin's, was a boy in a white t-shirt. His hair was intricately worked into corn rows and he was grinning widely at the camera with a cheeky twinkle in his black eyes. He was quite skinny as was his twin, seated beside the mother, wearing a red t-shirt, with the same hair style but with a quiet smile, reminiscent of his father's. Sheldon turned to Danny. "Which one's me?" Danny studied the photo, then pointed to the boy in the red t-shirt. Sheldon raised his eyebrows, impressed. "Most people think Michael's me." Danny wrinkled his forehead.
"But he's obviously not. I mean, if anyone knows you they know you're very calm, even if you have got a ridiculously wide mouth-"
"Oh thanks."
"-so I figured you'd be the quiet one." Sheldon started flicking through the photo album, searching for another photo.
"There's an easier way." He found the photo he was looking for and returned to the other. "Look at Michael's eyes." Danny looked. They were black, a deep, intense precious stone kind of black. "Now look at mine." Danny looked at the thirteen year old Sheldon's eyes, even then they were the most beautiful piercing pure brown he'd ever seen.
"Oh yeah" he said, straightening up. "That is easier." Sheldon flicked to the other picture. It was exactly the same set up, only Cecy had switched places with Henry, and Sheldon and Michael had switched too. Oh, and they were all twenty years older. And this time it was very easy to tell Sheldon and Michael apart; Michael had tattoos all over his arms and had an ear piercing, a nose piercing, an eyebrow piercing and a lip piercing. This time it was Sheldon who was smiling widely, and Michael who had an unsure smile. "Michael changed a lot."
"Yeah, well the reason he's not smiling so much is more because he…I dunno…because he doesn't trust people so much anymore…he's not so open anymore. Still as confident though, that will never diminish." Danny's eyes moved to Sheldon, that familiar face, the light, the eyes, he looked at the real Sheldon, eyes just as beautiful, with that same light dancing in them. Sheldon met Danny's gaze and Danny looked away quickly, embarrassed.
They passed the rest of the evening going through the photographs in Sheldon's album. When it came to Sheldon's sister and her husband and two children Danny felt the guilty feeling wash over him again. Sheldon seemed to have the best family ever and Danny felt insanely jealous. Eventually they exhausted that album and started looking at the one under the table which turned out to be a present Sheldon was making for his mum's birthday. Then it was all the pictures Sicily (Cecy's daughter) had drawn for Sheldon.
"Anyone would think she was your daughter the way you go on about her." Danny remarked, finally bored of Sheldon's family. Sheldon put down the pictures.
"We're a tight family."
"I can see that." There was a pause. "What's the time?" Sheldon picked up Danny's wrist to look at his watch.
"Twelve twenty. Bedtime for baby Messer." Danny punched him. Sheldon avoided it as best he could then got up and tidied up. He started to walk away then turned at the steps. "What about you? What nicknames do you have?" Danny shrugged.
"Louie always called me Junior, dad too. Mum just called me the usual, you know, honey, sweetie, all that crap."
"What about at school?"
"It was just Danny, or Messer." Sheldon waited.
"Come on, there was something else."
"Ok, fine…Whale Boy."
"What????"
"Ahhh," Danny rolled over and started pulling out the sofa bed. "My middle name's Jonah, you know, like the guy in the Bible who got stuck in the whale? Some weird kid called me Whale Boy way back, and it stuck with the bullies." Sheldon laughed, and turned off the kitchen light.
"Good night Whale Boy."
"Goodnight BB." They both scowled at one another, then smiled and finally returned to their respective bedrooms.
Sorry this was so long. By the by this probably won't fit in with whatever the end of season five is so just bear with me. Thanks peeps and review me!!!!xxxxxx