[fic] let nothing you dismay, bbtfic, s/p, 2500 words
Title: Let Nothing You Dismay
Author: allthingsholy
For: ishie at the sheldon_penny Saturnalia 2011.
Prompt: Penny and Sheldon and the things they're afraid of. (Let’s just SAY that this fits the original prompt.)
Notes: Thanks to juniperlane for the beta.
Summary: Sheldon, Penny, New Year's Eve, and conquering a few fears.
----
New Year’s Eve is and has always been Penny’s least favorite holiday. Ever since she was a kid, dragged to her parent’s friends’ houses and shunted down to the basement until the wee hours of the morning, fending off Josh Simpson’s midnight kiss attempts every year from the ages of 6 to 16. It’s a continual disappointment and she’s tried to explain that to Leonard 5 times, but he doesn’t seem to be getting it.
“But it’s New Year’s Eve,” he keeps saying. He bounces up and down on his toe a little bit the way he does when he’s equal parts excited and exasperated, with just a touch of petulant child. “We should go out and do something. We’re young! We’re exciting! We’re hot!” He stops bouncing for a minute and shrugs his shoulders. “You’re hot! Let’s go out!”
Penny settles a little bit more firmly into Sheldon’s spot on the couch. “Every time I try to do something for New Year’s Eve, it ends up being a giant shit-storm. I’ll either end up in the hospital or in jail, or taking someone to the hospital or bailing them out of jail. No.”
Leonard cocks his head. “That’s not going to happen.” When Penny gives him the look, the look she perfected during the months they were together, he says, “We’ll leave Wolowitz and Bernadette to fend for themselves and that probably won’t happen. Come on.”
It might be mean, but Penny really doesn’t relish the idea of spending New Year’s Eve with her ex-boyfriend and a guy she almost slept with a few months ago. Plus, she’s already wearing her pajamas, pink pants with white polar bears in festive winter hats. She traces the bears with the tip of her finger and gives Leonard an apologetic look. He sighs heavily and seems to finally give up, walking past her toward the door. “Fine, I’ll leave you here,” he says. “But you’re going to be spending the night with Sheldon. Alone. With Sheldon. Who, might I remind you, has ended up at both the hospital and in jail with you at some point in the last few years.” He leans back around the doorframe and gives her a shit-eating grin. “So good luck with that.”
Penny listens to the click of the door lock and then kicks her feet up on the coffee table and reaches for the remote. There’s got to be a Law & Order marathon on somewhere.
--
Sheldon gets back to the apartment at 10 and if he’s surprised to see her sitting on his couch alone, he doesn’t mention it beyond shooting her an annoyed look and saying, “I suppose your cable got shut off again.”
Penny shrugs. “It’s so annoying how they make you pay the bill every month.”
Sheldon rolls his eyes and heads to his room lugging shopping bags in both hands. She tries to remember where exactly he’s been all day, but all she can remember is some rant about budget electronics and post-holiday discounts. She mutes the tv and flicks her toes back and forth while she waits for him to come back out. Benson and Olivia are chasing after a rapist or something, and no matter how many episodes she watches of this marathon (this is her third, for the record) they keep refusing to make out. It’s annoying, but she doesn’t change the channel. Damn Chris Meloni and his stupid jawline.
Sheldon finally comes back to the living room and stands in between her and the tv. “Move.”
Penny leans around him. Alex Cabot’s yelling at a perp. “No.”
“You’re in my spot.”
Penny looks up at him, tips her head so far back her neck twinges. “Sit somewhere else.” Sheldon doesn’t even deign to respond. She rolls her eyes and scoots over to the far cushion. “You know, it’s almost the start of a brand new year, Sheldon. Why don’t you venture out into the great unknown and, I don’t know, sit somewhere else?”
Sheldon settles down into the seat, his movements precise and affected as he adjusts everything until it’s perfect. “Perish the thought,” he says.
Penny turns back to the tv with a groan. There’s a commercial running for laundry soap and Penny actual sits up a bit straighter. She auditioned for this, she remembers, went in a few weeks ago and tried her best to look chipper and cheery about grass and red wine stains. Needless to say, she didn’t get the job. She didn’t get many jobs this year, or last year, or the year before.
Penny sighs to herself and tries not to think too hard about all those other jobs, the times her phone didn’t ring and her agent “forgot” to call. She’s not even paying attention to Sheldon, who’s snagged the remote and changed the channel to something else entirely. They watch for the better part of an hour and Penny doesn’t say a word. It’s not that she’s paying attention (she’s really not paying attention) it’s just that she’s started on a downward slope now and it’s hard to stop. She finds herself sliding deeper in the couch until she’s practically sitting on the floor thinking about bad line readings and bad first dates and bad everything. Oh yeah. This is why she hates New Year’s. Because she always gets disappointed and maudlin and depressed.
“Sheldon?” She reaches her foot across the cushions and pokes him with her toe, which she knows he hates, because germs, Penny or personal space, Penny or something else ridiculous, Penny. Sheldon doesn’t look at her but he grunts in acknowledgement. “Did you make any resolutions for next year?”
Even though he doesn’t turn away from the tv (where aliens and other guys are chasing each other around, maybe, she’s reallynot paying attention) she knows the look of contempt on his face anyway. “I certainly did not.”
“Why not?”
“Because New Year’s Eve is an arbitrary holiday that serves no real purpose beyond marking time on the Georgian calendar and New Year’s Eve Resolutions are even more ludicrous. Plus, I never make it past January anyway.”
Penny rolls her eyes. “Well, what about something else? Oo!” She lifts herself up onto her knees, slides onto the middle cushion and gets way too close for Sheldon’s comfort. “What about end of the year resolutions? Let’s do something before the year is out! Something stupid or brave or whatever.”
Sheldon glares and leans ever so minutely away from her. “Stupid and brave are very often synonymous states of being.”
“Whatever, Sheldon.” Penny bounces a little on her knees. She doesn’t know why she’s so excited about this, but it probably has a lot to do with laundry soap. “What’s something you’re afraid of? Like, something besides academic failure and basic human intimacy?”
Sheldon mutes the tv again. “I won’t pretend not to understand the nature of your request, but I’d like to raise the following objections. Firstly, I don’t want to engage in your silly exercise. Secondly, I don’t want to engage in your silly exercise. And thirdly, Dune is on.”
Penny reaches for the remote and shuts the tv off entirely. “Well, Dune isn’t on anymore. Come on. What’s something you’re afraid of?”
Sheldon folds his arms across his chest and looks twice the petulant child Leonard did before. “Why should I have to go first? What’s something you’re afraid of?”
Penny grits her teeth and turns away. “Fine, I’ll go first.” She breathes in deep and rakes her brain for something big enough to be symbolic but not so big that it’s impossible, something that will get the ball rolling but not actually kill her. She finally leans toward Sheldon and says, “I’m afraid of heights.”
Sheldon narrows his eyes. “That seems unlikely. I’ve seen you on the roof before.”
“Well, I used to be afraid of them,” Penny says, “and I still just sort of hang out away from the edge where it’s safe. I’m not, like, terrified, but. They just make me uncomfortable.”
Sheldon sighs and drops his head, and Penny knows him well enough to know that he’s given up already. “Is it going to be useless to fight this?” he asks.
Penny grins. “Of course.”
“Is this going to end up with me on the roof?” He sounds so resigned it’s actually hilarious and Penny swallows the laugh that bubbles up in her throat.
“Of course,” she says, grabbing him by the hand and pulling him up off the couch. “Let’s go.”
--
“This building is not that tall.”
“I could’ve told you that from inside. On the couch. Where there was Dune and a roof over my head.”
“It looks taller from the ground.”
Sheldon says a lot of words after that that probably have to do with science (the distorted perception of reality and relativity and blah blah blah), but she doesn’t really pay attention. She creeps to the edge of the roof and looks down, over the parking lot and down onto the streets she can see.
It’s not so much that she’s afraid of heights now as it is that she was afraid of them once and she’s less afraid of them now, but when she clambers up onto the ledge and swings her feet over, the pit of her stomach still falls a little bit and her hands are like a vice on the bricks. She kicks her feet back and forth a few times and feels stupid and brave, but when she looks over her shoulder, Sheldon’s standing in the middle of the roof. “Sheldon, come on.”
He shuffles back and forth from foot to foot but doesn’t move toward her. “No, thank you.”
“Sheldon,” she says again, more forcefully, “come on.”
“No,” he says again, and his drawl slips out in his vowels, “I won’t. This ridiculous gesture is symbolic for you, not me. I’m fine right here.”
Penny cocks her head and slides off the ledge, both feet planted firmly on the rooftop again. “You’re afraid of heights,” she says, leaning back against the rail.
Sheldon lifts his chin haughtily, which is hard to do when he’s backing slowly away from her but he manages it anyway. “I don’t fear them. I respect them. Come back over here.”
“No,” Penny says, crossing her arms over her chest. She can be as stubborn as he is and she’s got better aim, faster feet, and a mean right hook. “At least come stand over here.” Sheldon opens his mouth (to protest, of course he’s going to protest) but Penny settles him with a look. “Don’t make me make you.”
He clenches his jaw so hard she can practically hear his teeth grinding together, but he puts one foot ever so slowly in front of the other until he’s standing next to her looking out over the parking lot. His knuckles are white where he’s got his hands clamped down on the ledge, and he’s breathing too evenly not to be silently panicking a little bit.
Penny looks out into the night, at the buildings and the lights and the city in the distance. They’re not so high up, and it wasn’t the most grandiose gesture she could make while the year slowly winds itself out, but she figures there’s always next year. She feels the breeze lift her hair off the back of her neck and resolves to resolve herself, to go to more auditions or pull out her unfinished screenplay or do something that makes her heart beat as fast as it did when she heaved herself up onto the ledge.
When Penny turns to Sheldon (to thank him, maybe, though she’s not really sure what for) he’s still gripping the rail too tightly and the muscles in his neck are taut. “Jesus, Sheldon,” she says, grabbing his hand and pulling him away from the rail, “alright already.”
She drags them a few steps toward the middle of the roof and Sheldon wipes the specks of dirt and stone from his hands. “Are we done now?” His voice is mostly even but it’s still strained a little at the edges. He’s flushed and flustered and Penny wants to laugh or wrap her arms around him or jump back on the ledge just to see him faint.
“You did very well, Sheldon. But this was supposed to be my turn.” She takes a step toward him. “What’re you afraid of?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” He doesn’t look back toward the ledge but keeps his eyes locked on hers. “I am a leaf on the wind.”
Penny smirks. “So just academic failure and basic human intimacy, then?”
“Exactly.”
She hears horns blowing from the open windows of the building and when she leans back over the railing she can see people emptying out onto the street, noise-makers and sparklers in their hands. “It’s midnight,” Penny says.
Sheldon snorts and even though his heart rate is probably still through the roof he manages to sound as condescending as ever. “Your powers of deduction are astounding. Congratulations. There’s a fruit basket with your name on it inside. In my apartment. Where there’s a couch and Dune.”
“Oh, for god’s sake,” she says, walking back toward him. When she kisses him it’s as much about midnight as it is about the squeak in the back of his throat as her lips cover his, and when his hands scramble for purchase on her hips she can’t help but smile against his mouth. All in all, it’s a pretty chaste kiss, no tongue or anything (she wants to push Sheldon’s buttons a little bit, not send him into an all-out tailspin), but when she pulls away her heart’s beating a little bit faster and she’s got that stupid brave feeling in her fingertips again. Sheldon, god help him, is wide-eyed and silent, his nails digging into her skin through the thin cotton of her shirt. Penny steps away, leaving Sheldon holding onto nothing but the January night air.
She smirks at him and then turns toward the door to take them back downstairs. “So that’s basic human intimacy, then. I told you, Sheldon. Venture out into that great unknown.”
Sheldon pushes past her on his way back inside. “You manage to make even imaginary holidays uncomfortable.”
Penny just laughs. “Happy New Year to you too, Sheldon.”
Author: allthingsholy
For: ishie at the sheldon_penny Saturnalia 2011.
Prompt: Penny and Sheldon and the things they're afraid of. (Let’s just SAY that this fits the original prompt.)
Notes: Thanks to juniperlane for the beta.
Summary: Sheldon, Penny, New Year's Eve, and conquering a few fears.
----
New Year’s Eve is and has always been Penny’s least favorite holiday. Ever since she was a kid, dragged to her parent’s friends’ houses and shunted down to the basement until the wee hours of the morning, fending off Josh Simpson’s midnight kiss attempts every year from the ages of 6 to 16. It’s a continual disappointment and she’s tried to explain that to Leonard 5 times, but he doesn’t seem to be getting it.
“But it’s New Year’s Eve,” he keeps saying. He bounces up and down on his toe a little bit the way he does when he’s equal parts excited and exasperated, with just a touch of petulant child. “We should go out and do something. We’re young! We’re exciting! We’re hot!” He stops bouncing for a minute and shrugs his shoulders. “You’re hot! Let’s go out!”
Penny settles a little bit more firmly into Sheldon’s spot on the couch. “Every time I try to do something for New Year’s Eve, it ends up being a giant shit-storm. I’ll either end up in the hospital or in jail, or taking someone to the hospital or bailing them out of jail. No.”
Leonard cocks his head. “That’s not going to happen.” When Penny gives him the look, the look she perfected during the months they were together, he says, “We’ll leave Wolowitz and Bernadette to fend for themselves and that probably won’t happen. Come on.”
It might be mean, but Penny really doesn’t relish the idea of spending New Year’s Eve with her ex-boyfriend and a guy she almost slept with a few months ago. Plus, she’s already wearing her pajamas, pink pants with white polar bears in festive winter hats. She traces the bears with the tip of her finger and gives Leonard an apologetic look. He sighs heavily and seems to finally give up, walking past her toward the door. “Fine, I’ll leave you here,” he says. “But you’re going to be spending the night with Sheldon. Alone. With Sheldon. Who, might I remind you, has ended up at both the hospital and in jail with you at some point in the last few years.” He leans back around the doorframe and gives her a shit-eating grin. “So good luck with that.”
Penny listens to the click of the door lock and then kicks her feet up on the coffee table and reaches for the remote. There’s got to be a Law & Order marathon on somewhere.
--
Sheldon gets back to the apartment at 10 and if he’s surprised to see her sitting on his couch alone, he doesn’t mention it beyond shooting her an annoyed look and saying, “I suppose your cable got shut off again.”
Penny shrugs. “It’s so annoying how they make you pay the bill every month.”
Sheldon rolls his eyes and heads to his room lugging shopping bags in both hands. She tries to remember where exactly he’s been all day, but all she can remember is some rant about budget electronics and post-holiday discounts. She mutes the tv and flicks her toes back and forth while she waits for him to come back out. Benson and Olivia are chasing after a rapist or something, and no matter how many episodes she watches of this marathon (this is her third, for the record) they keep refusing to make out. It’s annoying, but she doesn’t change the channel. Damn Chris Meloni and his stupid jawline.
Sheldon finally comes back to the living room and stands in between her and the tv. “Move.”
Penny leans around him. Alex Cabot’s yelling at a perp. “No.”
“You’re in my spot.”
Penny looks up at him, tips her head so far back her neck twinges. “Sit somewhere else.” Sheldon doesn’t even deign to respond. She rolls her eyes and scoots over to the far cushion. “You know, it’s almost the start of a brand new year, Sheldon. Why don’t you venture out into the great unknown and, I don’t know, sit somewhere else?”
Sheldon settles down into the seat, his movements precise and affected as he adjusts everything until it’s perfect. “Perish the thought,” he says.
Penny turns back to the tv with a groan. There’s a commercial running for laundry soap and Penny actual sits up a bit straighter. She auditioned for this, she remembers, went in a few weeks ago and tried her best to look chipper and cheery about grass and red wine stains. Needless to say, she didn’t get the job. She didn’t get many jobs this year, or last year, or the year before.
Penny sighs to herself and tries not to think too hard about all those other jobs, the times her phone didn’t ring and her agent “forgot” to call. She’s not even paying attention to Sheldon, who’s snagged the remote and changed the channel to something else entirely. They watch for the better part of an hour and Penny doesn’t say a word. It’s not that she’s paying attention (she’s really not paying attention) it’s just that she’s started on a downward slope now and it’s hard to stop. She finds herself sliding deeper in the couch until she’s practically sitting on the floor thinking about bad line readings and bad first dates and bad everything. Oh yeah. This is why she hates New Year’s. Because she always gets disappointed and maudlin and depressed.
“Sheldon?” She reaches her foot across the cushions and pokes him with her toe, which she knows he hates, because germs, Penny or personal space, Penny or something else ridiculous, Penny. Sheldon doesn’t look at her but he grunts in acknowledgement. “Did you make any resolutions for next year?”
Even though he doesn’t turn away from the tv (where aliens and other guys are chasing each other around, maybe, she’s reallynot paying attention) she knows the look of contempt on his face anyway. “I certainly did not.”
“Why not?”
“Because New Year’s Eve is an arbitrary holiday that serves no real purpose beyond marking time on the Georgian calendar and New Year’s Eve Resolutions are even more ludicrous. Plus, I never make it past January anyway.”
Penny rolls her eyes. “Well, what about something else? Oo!” She lifts herself up onto her knees, slides onto the middle cushion and gets way too close for Sheldon’s comfort. “What about end of the year resolutions? Let’s do something before the year is out! Something stupid or brave or whatever.”
Sheldon glares and leans ever so minutely away from her. “Stupid and brave are very often synonymous states of being.”
“Whatever, Sheldon.” Penny bounces a little on her knees. She doesn’t know why she’s so excited about this, but it probably has a lot to do with laundry soap. “What’s something you’re afraid of? Like, something besides academic failure and basic human intimacy?”
Sheldon mutes the tv again. “I won’t pretend not to understand the nature of your request, but I’d like to raise the following objections. Firstly, I don’t want to engage in your silly exercise. Secondly, I don’t want to engage in your silly exercise. And thirdly, Dune is on.”
Penny reaches for the remote and shuts the tv off entirely. “Well, Dune isn’t on anymore. Come on. What’s something you’re afraid of?”
Sheldon folds his arms across his chest and looks twice the petulant child Leonard did before. “Why should I have to go first? What’s something you’re afraid of?”
Penny grits her teeth and turns away. “Fine, I’ll go first.” She breathes in deep and rakes her brain for something big enough to be symbolic but not so big that it’s impossible, something that will get the ball rolling but not actually kill her. She finally leans toward Sheldon and says, “I’m afraid of heights.”
Sheldon narrows his eyes. “That seems unlikely. I’ve seen you on the roof before.”
“Well, I used to be afraid of them,” Penny says, “and I still just sort of hang out away from the edge where it’s safe. I’m not, like, terrified, but. They just make me uncomfortable.”
Sheldon sighs and drops his head, and Penny knows him well enough to know that he’s given up already. “Is it going to be useless to fight this?” he asks.
Penny grins. “Of course.”
“Is this going to end up with me on the roof?” He sounds so resigned it’s actually hilarious and Penny swallows the laugh that bubbles up in her throat.
“Of course,” she says, grabbing him by the hand and pulling him up off the couch. “Let’s go.”
--
“This building is not that tall.”
“I could’ve told you that from inside. On the couch. Where there was Dune and a roof over my head.”
“It looks taller from the ground.”
Sheldon says a lot of words after that that probably have to do with science (the distorted perception of reality and relativity and blah blah blah), but she doesn’t really pay attention. She creeps to the edge of the roof and looks down, over the parking lot and down onto the streets she can see.
It’s not so much that she’s afraid of heights now as it is that she was afraid of them once and she’s less afraid of them now, but when she clambers up onto the ledge and swings her feet over, the pit of her stomach still falls a little bit and her hands are like a vice on the bricks. She kicks her feet back and forth a few times and feels stupid and brave, but when she looks over her shoulder, Sheldon’s standing in the middle of the roof. “Sheldon, come on.”
He shuffles back and forth from foot to foot but doesn’t move toward her. “No, thank you.”
“Sheldon,” she says again, more forcefully, “come on.”
“No,” he says again, and his drawl slips out in his vowels, “I won’t. This ridiculous gesture is symbolic for you, not me. I’m fine right here.”
Penny cocks her head and slides off the ledge, both feet planted firmly on the rooftop again. “You’re afraid of heights,” she says, leaning back against the rail.
Sheldon lifts his chin haughtily, which is hard to do when he’s backing slowly away from her but he manages it anyway. “I don’t fear them. I respect them. Come back over here.”
“No,” Penny says, crossing her arms over her chest. She can be as stubborn as he is and she’s got better aim, faster feet, and a mean right hook. “At least come stand over here.” Sheldon opens his mouth (to protest, of course he’s going to protest) but Penny settles him with a look. “Don’t make me make you.”
He clenches his jaw so hard she can practically hear his teeth grinding together, but he puts one foot ever so slowly in front of the other until he’s standing next to her looking out over the parking lot. His knuckles are white where he’s got his hands clamped down on the ledge, and he’s breathing too evenly not to be silently panicking a little bit.
Penny looks out into the night, at the buildings and the lights and the city in the distance. They’re not so high up, and it wasn’t the most grandiose gesture she could make while the year slowly winds itself out, but she figures there’s always next year. She feels the breeze lift her hair off the back of her neck and resolves to resolve herself, to go to more auditions or pull out her unfinished screenplay or do something that makes her heart beat as fast as it did when she heaved herself up onto the ledge.
When Penny turns to Sheldon (to thank him, maybe, though she’s not really sure what for) he’s still gripping the rail too tightly and the muscles in his neck are taut. “Jesus, Sheldon,” she says, grabbing his hand and pulling him away from the rail, “alright already.”
She drags them a few steps toward the middle of the roof and Sheldon wipes the specks of dirt and stone from his hands. “Are we done now?” His voice is mostly even but it’s still strained a little at the edges. He’s flushed and flustered and Penny wants to laugh or wrap her arms around him or jump back on the ledge just to see him faint.
“You did very well, Sheldon. But this was supposed to be my turn.” She takes a step toward him. “What’re you afraid of?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” He doesn’t look back toward the ledge but keeps his eyes locked on hers. “I am a leaf on the wind.”
Penny smirks. “So just academic failure and basic human intimacy, then?”
“Exactly.”
She hears horns blowing from the open windows of the building and when she leans back over the railing she can see people emptying out onto the street, noise-makers and sparklers in their hands. “It’s midnight,” Penny says.
Sheldon snorts and even though his heart rate is probably still through the roof he manages to sound as condescending as ever. “Your powers of deduction are astounding. Congratulations. There’s a fruit basket with your name on it inside. In my apartment. Where there’s a couch and Dune.”
“Oh, for god’s sake,” she says, walking back toward him. When she kisses him it’s as much about midnight as it is about the squeak in the back of his throat as her lips cover his, and when his hands scramble for purchase on her hips she can’t help but smile against his mouth. All in all, it’s a pretty chaste kiss, no tongue or anything (she wants to push Sheldon’s buttons a little bit, not send him into an all-out tailspin), but when she pulls away her heart’s beating a little bit faster and she’s got that stupid brave feeling in her fingertips again. Sheldon, god help him, is wide-eyed and silent, his nails digging into her skin through the thin cotton of her shirt. Penny steps away, leaving Sheldon holding onto nothing but the January night air.
She smirks at him and then turns toward the door to take them back downstairs. “So that’s basic human intimacy, then. I told you, Sheldon. Venture out into that great unknown.”
Sheldon pushes past her on his way back inside. “You manage to make even imaginary holidays uncomfortable.”
Penny just laughs. “Happy New Year to you too, Sheldon.”