fic; TBBT: Statistical Anomaly.
title: Statistical Anomaly.
fandom: The Big Bang Theory.
pairing: Penny/Sheldon
rating: PG-13?
words: 4556.
disclaimer: Fiction. I don't even know any real-life scientists, so.
notes: Valentine's Day fic. And, I think, the first time I've written Valentine's Day fic, ever. I didn't even know I wanted to write Valentine's Day fic. Who knew! Also, this is the fourth fic I've written in a single fandom/pairing. I don't think that's happened before either! Ah, growing up.
Penny's taken four acting classes in her entire life. She doesn't remember anything useful from any of them. Just stupid, mundane filler stuff. Nothing that's ever helped her land gigs. But sometimes, just for fun, she applies acting class nonsense to life.
It goes like this: In one class, taught by some guy who made everybody pronounce his name totally different than it was spelled, the class had to boil things down to five words. Some garbage about finding its "essence." A scene, an event, an emotion, whatever -- five words, that's it.
So when she realizes it's February 13 and that tomorrow is Valentine's Day, she boils it down to five words.
Her Valentine's Day words are, in their simplest and (maybe vulgar) form:
MORNING
ASSHOLES
BULLSHIT
VODKA
SLEEP
It wasn't like this when she was a kid, the words when she was a kid were probably stuff about hearts and candy and flowers and french kissing.
They were definitely not jaded and they definitely didn't make her wish that when she had to choose between groceries and kickboxing class a few weeks ago, that she had chosen kickboxing instead.
All the stuff in between, all the stuff that made her change, it wasn't disastrous in just one go, it slowly chipped away at her, year after year of disappointments, arguing, cheating and that one time, with a guy named Peter -- a muddy walkway, a trip to the hospital and a broken arm.
So really, it's not that she's always been like this, it's just been drilled into her and it's taken hold better than any stupid method acting technique or whatever.
The thing that's better this year is she's living across from, no, wait, she's friends with two guys who aren't going to celebrate Valentine's Day, no way in hell, so that night, the night before, she goes to sleep thinking, at least she'll have someone to hang out with tomorrow. Someone to talk to about hokey Hallmark holidays and how Cupid was actually like, a fat kid with no friends or something. Whatever, it helps her sleep.
MORNING
One of the things that's awful about the radio station her alarm clock is set to is how seriously annoying they are. Every damn day some stupid story, some stupid song, she has no idea why she doesn't just change the station (the dial's stuck, actually, but that's not the point).
Today they're blasting some stupidly sweet love duet out of her speakers and it's ricocheting off her pillow and right into her ears and in addition to sounding an awful lot like: you have no one today, you're a loser, it also sounds a lot like: get out of bed so you can go serve pink cheesecake to douchebags and their girlfriends.
She maybe throws the clock against the wall. She definitely gets out of bed.
ASSHOLES
Douchebag was pretty much the biggest understatement she'd encountered this month (and that includes last week when she'd told her mom that her neighbors ended up fixing her TV and her mom had said that they must be "pretty smart" then).
Something she's learned in all her time as a waitress and all her time dating horrible boys is that if a guy is taking a girl out for their Valentine's Day date on lunch, he definitely has another girl lined up for dinner.
And that's the crowd she walks into when her shift starts -- a bunch of cheating, lying, scummy dudes and the second-string women who love them.
She turns down the opportunity to be some asshole's "dinner date" three times and has to request that the cooks draw hearts on pieces of raspberry cheesecake eight times.
The highlight is somewhere around 3:30. She watches a particularly sleazy guy (shirt unbuttoned four too many buttons) get up to go the bathroom and leave his Blackberry on the table. His date picks it up, scrolls a few times and gets a super pissed look on her face. When the guy gets back to the table, the girl shoves the heart-adorned cheesecake right down his shirt.
Penny had smiled as the girl stormed off and the guy noticed and didn't tip her at all, but it was totally worth it. And it totally made the remaining two and a half hours of her shift kind of, sort of, bearable.
BULLSHIT
The drive home is even more ridiculous than normal. Some dude with a Bluetooth headset and a backseat full of balloons cuts her off and she nearly slams into the guardrail. When she goes to lay on her horn, it doesn't even work and she ends up screaming instead.
She practically sprints up the stairs to her apartment and changes into all black (in protest), so she can get over to Sheldon and Leonard's apartment and start like, wailing on the Rock Band drums or shooting at some enemy spy.
It doesn't occur to her (because, really, why would it, no, seriously, why would it) that maybe either of them is going out, but then she's halfway to knocking on their door and it swings open and Leonard's standing there in his corduroy suit.
He looks surprised to see her or something and she cuts him off with what probably came out sounding like a growl, so he doesn't ask what she's doing there and instead just fumbles an awkward hello.
"Hi, Penny." He's shuffling his feet and Penny can see Sheldon inside the apartment, sitting on the couch, looking at them.
"Hey Leonard, ready to play some Halo?"
"Um? It's Valentin--"
She kind of growls again.
"Right. I'm just heading out, but Sheldon's home."
"You picking up the food?" It still hasn't occurred to her that he could possibly, in any way, have a date.
"No...actually, I have a date." And he puffs his chest up, squints his eyes and does that grin that shows all his teeth, like he's some sort of awkward, nerdy peacock, all proud of himself.
Oh.
"A date." She doesn't even say it like a question, which is fine because he doesn't answer her, Sheldon does. He gets up off the couch and walks over to them.
"Yes, Leonard is subscribing to the juvenile and commercial notion that in order to validate one's existence, one must engage in some form of romantic endeavor on February 14th."
Leonard rolls his eyes while Penny widens hers, fighting the urge to high five Sheldon. Mostly because she's not sure Sheldon would know what to do with a high five. He'd probably think she was trying to hit him.
"Actually, Stephanie called me a couple of days ago and asked that we reconnect and perhaps attempt to 'take it slower' this time."
Now Penny rolls her eyes.
"You're really buying that she just happened to want to get back together with you right before the most important date night of like, the whole year?"
Maybe that was a little bitchy, because Leonard looks sort of hurt, but before he can say anything Sheldon's backing her up.
"I must agree with Penny. There are several mathematic and scientific systems in place that would disprove that occurrence as coincidental. I believe the term is 'desperate?'"
Leonard looks even more flustered, like he's being ganged up on (which he sort of is, but whatever) and tosses off a goodbye before jetting out of the apartment and down the stairs.
So, it's just her and Sheldon and Leonard has a date. This is bullshit.
VODKA
It's not until they log on to the Age of Conan server and see that half their normal raid group is AFK for apparently, like, the whole entire night, that she realizes she forgot to bring booze over. Or it's because of that. Whatever.
"Sheldon, I am going to get vodka."
She doesn't know why she says it like that, why she tells him where she's going when she's only going to be gone for two minutes, but she does and he just nods, like it's something he expected. She has a brief thought to make sure he doesn't think she has a drinking problem. She totally doesn't, but he owes her an intervention after that whole driver's license thing and she's sure he hasn't forgotten.
There's actually two bottles of vodka on top of her fridge, she doesn't remember buying the second one, but grabs them both anyway. Who knows, maybe she can convince Sheldon that alcohol is sterile (...it is, right?) and it'll totally sterilize his stomach or kill bacteria or something like that.
When she walks back through the door, Sheldon's still on the couch, but on the phone and she can just make out Wolowitz's screeching from the end of the receiver. Wolowitz! Raj! She totally forgot about them. They can have a full Rock Band after all.
But wait, Sheldon's saying he'll see Wolowitz tomorrow, Sheldon's saying goodbye, Sheldon's hanging up the phone. What the hell?
"Where are the other guys? Wasn't that Wolowitz?"
"Wolowitz is presently incarcerated in the Magic Kingdom."
"Excuse me?"
"He's in Disney jail."
"Again, excuse me?"
"Every year on February 14th, Wolowitz drives to Anaheim and patronizes Disneyland dressed like history's stereotypical Prince Charming -- height, hair color and nose notwithstanding. He believes that he'll be able to prey upon vulnerable young women by invoking their idealized sense of romance." Sheldon scoffs.
"But why is he in jail?"
"He apparently got -- what's the phrase? He got 'fresh' with an official Disneyland character. Princess Jasmine, I think he said. After sustaining several lacerations at the hands of what I can only imagine was a 110-pound, diminutive 'princess,' he was escorted to, as I said, Disney jail."
Penny laughs because it's funny, even better than that guy getting cheesecake down her shirt. She also laughs because she's always wondered what Disney jail was like and never figured Wolowitz would be the one to be able to tell her. She should've guessed.
"So where's Raj?"
"Posting the figurative bail, I assume. After I refused, the logical conclusion would be that Raj was his next phone call."
She almost asks him why he didn't help Wolowitz out, but remembers Sheldon can't drive. That must be it. Not because he wanted to like, stay here with her or anything. And he probably didn't want to chance asking her to drive in case her check engine light was still on (it is).
"All right, well, I guess it's just us, Sheldor." She reaches over and messes up his hair with her hand. Kind of half giving him an open-palm noogie, half dog pat or something. Whatever she did, it sort of worked for his hair and she's happy to see he doesn't comb it back with his fingers. He just glares at her instead.
She cracks the seal on a bottle of vodka and takes a swig, making a little bit of a face. It's Valentine's Day, maybe she should be her own Valentine and at least chase it with something.
"You got any juice?"
He looks startled, like he was daydreaming about something. Or working out some physics problem -- whatever the Sheldon equivalent of daydreaming is.
"I believe there's cranberry juice on the second shelf. You can have some of that, although I must request you leave no less than a third of the contents in the container, so that I have a suitable amount for a full glass and a half at a later date."
"OK, Sheldon, whatever."
She pours herself a glass and takes a few sips to get the vodka taste out of her mouth. He watches her across the room and turns his head like he does when he's getting ready to ask a question.
"Are you concerned about your urinary health, Penny?"
She nearly spits a mouthful of juice all over the counter, but chokes it back and swallows at the last second.
"WHAT?"
"Cranberry juice has several properties useful in the staving off of bladder and urinary tract infection. I merely assumed that accounted for the zealousness with which you're attacking that beverage."
"Uh, no. I was just chasing the vodka taste away. You know how it gross it tastes. Blech."
He just stares at her.
She brings the juice back to the living room and sits down next to him on the couch.
She goes back to the bottle of vodka, unscrewing the top to pour some in her cup when she thinks better of it. Now that her brain's aware that she's going to be drinking alone, she feels kind of pathetic. Kind of sad and pathetic. It's kind of like being all alone on Valentine's Day anyway, even with Sheldon there.
"You've gotta do a shot with me."
His face looks like he's considering a bunch of different answers, but he lands on, "And what skewed logic was utilized in the reaching of that conclusion?"
She puts on her best smile, a big, (almost) genuine one and tries, "The logic of friendship?"
He just looks at her, totally blank, and says, "No."
There's no good reason for that to have been it, the thing that really, finally made her lose it over a stupid day that's stupid every stupid year and today's apparently not a stupid exception.
It is it anyway.
She cries. She cries the whole nine yards of crying -- eyes welling up, tears spilling over, nose snotting. It all happens in a matter of seconds and months from now she'll try to tap into this memory to cry on command for an audition (it won't work).
Sheldon immediately looks panicked. He stands up and walks to the kitchen, rummaging through cupboards (what the hell is he looking for?), he comes back into the living room and paces back and forth a few times. She has no idea what he's doing, but it distracts her a little bit and she stops crying.
He watches her wipe her nose on her sleeve and he exhales loudly.
She feels bad for breaking down and crying and clearly scaring him, but it's Valentine's Day, she's going to get her period soon and really, she probably would've cried at an auto insurance commercial at this point. Whatever.
He hasn't said anything the entire time, all deer in headlights face and jerky, stilted movements. This is her groceries spilled across the hallway and the wrong key in the doorlock all over again.
"It's fine, Sheldon, it's just -- I'm fine."
Now he looks doubtful.
"There is no evidence to support that statement."
"What?"
"Your being 'fine,' I can find no evidence to back that statement. All factors point to your being," he pauses. "Not fine."
"No, really, it's cool." She gives one last sniffle. "I just hate Valentine's Day. And I know that's stupid and cliche or whatever, but it actually, seriously does suck."
He's got that 'weighing his options' face on again and it's one of the things she loves about him -- he, unlike every dude, actually thinks about what he's going to say. Sometimes too much.
"Would there be a marked positive impact if I did agree to partake in a 'shot' with you?" The way he says shot is so foreign and weird. It's the same awkward way she would pronounce like, 'large hadron collider' or whatever that thing is.
She starts to say no just out of habit, stupid mid-western hospitality guilt complex or something. Don't force people to do things they don't want to do and her mom's voice and you know what? Fuck it.
"Yeah, yeah it would." And she looks him right in the eye to see if he'll back down.
"I accept." That's it, he's agreed and they're off and drinking.
Apparently, like her, Sheldon can't do just one shot.
Or Sheldon feels like he has to prove himself better than her on something she's supposed to be good at. She only figures that part out when he mumbles something cryptic about being that smart and being able to 'hold his drink.' She doesn't press it because she doesn't want to dwell on the thought that drinking is something he thinks she's good at.
They don't actually get too far into the first bottle before she makes the executive decision to cut them both off. Since Leonard didn't get Sheldon food and she was too disgusted to eat at work, they're both drinking on empty stomachs. Plus, she's always been maybe kind of a lightweight and, well, Sheldon's Sheldon.
It's not that she's drunk, she's just sort of like, buzzed, but it's enough to take the edge off the shitstorm that's been her day and, if she's honest, the shitstorm that's been her social life lately.
She turns to look at Sheldon and he keeps screwing up his face like he's trying to focus and when it doesn't work he makes another face, directed at her, like she's done something wrong. Or that's what it looks like from behind her cup of cranberry-juice-no-vodka.
"Sheldon. What. are. you. doing."
"I'm regaining my composure." And, to his credit, the sentence comes out sounding mostly sober except for it's kind of high-pitched and he his face is all red.
"Stop trying to, like, swim through it. God, Sheldon, just be drunk like a normal person."
Now he looks insulted.
"You seem to have forgotten that I am hardly normal, in any respects."
"Oh, no, I could never forget that. Jesus, you're so weird."
And as she's saying it, he sort of droops into the couch a little bit and he looks sort of pathetic, but kind of -- kind of --
Kind of cute.
Fuck.
This is not how her night is going to go.
She immediately stands up from the couch and moves to the chair.
"Is this a party game? My parents tried to force some version of this on me during my fifth birthday, only there was music. I objected to it then and I will object to it now." He gets the whole sentence out totally straight and she's mad at him immediately.
In some slightly-more-perfect world, she's doing this same thing -- lonely and drinking with her neighbor on Valentine's Day, only her neighbor is like, a hot outfielder for some minor league team who works at The Gap part time and plays the guitar.
Instead she's here with sort-of-handsome when his T-shirt isn't fucking hideous, but way too smart for her to even understand sometimes and totally socially awkward Sheldon.
She's sad for a second and then realizes that was a pretty mean thing to think. Sheldon's really nice to her, in his own way and oh yeah, this is why she's cut back on drinking -- it makes her think too much.
"No, it's not a game, I just, I don't know, I'll move back over there." And she does. "See?"
She can hear Sheldon's hand banging around on the table for something and he eventually finds the remote and turns the TV on.
They watch 10 minutes of some show with that guy from the Old Spice commercials who sings Duran Duran before she feels sick.
"Sheldon."
"Shh."
"Sheldon, I don't feel good."
His head immediately turns from the TV to look at her.
"Penny, this is of the utmost importance, what kind 'don't feel good' are you presently experiencing?"
The room is sort of spinning a little bit and maybe she should've forced down some food earlier and oh shit.
"Throw up."
She lurches up from the couch and staggers to the bathroom before throwing up an awful vodka and juice mixture. She's immediately feeling better, but waits, stooped down, for a few minutes until she hears Sheldon on the other side of the door.
"Penny?"
"I'm good, Sheldon. Hang on." She really does feel a lot better and she stands up to splash some water on her face. She glances briefly at the toothbrushes in the holder and is half-considering going for one when she realizes where she is. She can just go home and brush her teeth.
When she opens the door, Sheldon is leaning against the opposite wall and immediately stares at her with a super intense look.
"Penny?"
"Still fine, Sheldon. Just gonna go brush my teeth."
She walks down the hall and out the door and within minutes is back, all minty fresh and (mostly) clear-headed.
Sheldon's sitting on the couch when she walks in and he's watching that same TV show, but she can tell he's not paying attention. She sits down next to him.
"OK, catch me up. What did I miss?"
"By my estimation, about 70 percent of your stomach contents." It takes her a second to even realize it's a joke, that's how bad it was, but he actually looks really nervous.
"Haha."
He looks at her, all tight-lipped and thinking face and she can tell he wants to push the issue, but maybe doesn't know how and god, if somebody had worried over her this much after every time she'd thrown up a little vodka in high school, it would have been a long four years. God, that sounds horrible.
"Really, Sheldon, it's cool. That's the puke and rally, this is what you missed in college while you were busy like, being 12 and learning...stuff."
"What does the 'rally' entail?"
"In school, it meant more drinking, probably. Right now it means watching more of this show and maybe ordering a pizza."
"This seems like an unnecessarily complicated way to come around to eating dinner, but all right."
She orders a pizza on commercial break, half like he likes, half like she does.
It takes a full hour for it to get there -- another reason to hate Valentine's Day -- and by the time it does, they're both totally sober and she's tired.
She makes it through two slices of pizza before giving up in favor of leaning against a couch cushion and closing her eyes for like, a second. Just a second.
SLEEP
She falls asleep.
It couldn't have been for long because when she wakes up, she's leaning on Sheldon's shoulder, face smushed up against him, and there's no way in hell he would've let that go on for very long, right? She squints to see the clock on the DVD player and it's actually been a hour. She looks at Sheldon and he's sleeping, too, and it's a little too weird, a little too comfortable and she doesn't know what to do, so she clears her throat loudly.
He bolts up and starts a "DANG--" before figuring out he's in the living room.
Neither of them say anything for a few minutes, they both just go back to watching the TV, but she's not focusing, she's thinking about how her night has been sort of nice. Except for like, the puking part. But even with that Sheldon seemed genuinely worried about her. And he did agree to drink with her, after she cried and -- well, he seemed kind of concerned about her over that, too.
It's actually the most considerate she can remember a guy being to her on Valentine's Day in a long time.
Maybe she is still drunk or maybe she's just tired, but she turns to him anyway. It's kind of sappy, but whatever, it's late and this day usually sucks so hard.
"Thanks for being my valentine, Sheldon."
"I wasn't aware that I was your valentine, Penny." It's not the nicest thing he could've said, but his face isn't mean and it didn't really sound mean.
"Well, sort of right? We had some drinks, had dinner..." She almost says 'slept together,' just as a joke, but cuts herself off. She's getting her point across, whatever her point was. And she's already kind of wary of how he's going to react. There's a sort of sleepy calm in the room, but if anybody could bust that up quick, it would be him.
He doesn't though.
"I see your point. And if, as the evidence supports, I was your valentine, it was my pleasure."
It's so fucking, like, gallant the way he says it, nobody she knows, nobody she's ever dated, talks like he talks and although it usually sounds really bizarre, right now it sounds sort of nice, kind of like she's a princess or something.
She's not sure why she does it, but she leans forward and kisses him. She means it to be just kind of a friendly, silly thing, but she can feel pressure pushing against her lips and some part of her brain recognizes he's kissing her back and so, on instinct, she opens her mouth a little bit.
He opens his mouth, too, and she doesn't know if he's just mimicking her movements or if he knows what he's doing, but suddenly his tongue is moving kind of lazily around the inside of her mouth and her hands are on his face.
If she were going to guess, she would've said Sheldon would probably kiss like Leonard -- all frantic and sloppy and in a hurry to keep things moving, like it's some geek-finally-getting-a-girl stereotype, but really, that doesn't make much sense, now that she thinks about it. Sheldon's thorough and obsessive and gets things right with, like, everything, it would make sense that he's like that with kissing, too.
The back part of her brain is a little weirded out that she's making out with Sheldon, but she just keeps overriding that part, it's nice and slow and warm and she doesn't feel like they're rushing toward taking their clothes off, they're just kissing, that's it, that's all. His hands slide across her back and she moves into him a little bit more, but there's no pressure, it's just relaxed, it's just like, heavy kissing.
She's not sure how long it takes for her to pull back and she's not actually sure that it's her that pulls back, it might've been him, but it was kind of seamless and not awkward and then they're just watching TV again and sitting next to each other and did that just seriously happen?
Leonard finally comes home 15 minutes later, practically falling in the door with a panicked look on his face.
"How'd it go?" She's a little worried that her face is red or something, but Sheldon's isn't, so she's probably fine.
"Stephanie and I do not see eye to eye on the definition of 'taking it slower.'" And he's flustered and agitated and she remembers feeling like that after other Valentine's Day dates, but not tonight.
Leonard says a quick goodbye and then goes to his room.
"It's getting late, Sheldon. I'm going to bed." She stands up from the couch and looks at him, tries to see if he seems like he wants to talk about anything, but he's just got that eerily calm Sheldon look on his face and that's fine with her because it means things are normal. Sort of.
She goes back to her apartment and gets ready for bed. Before she falls asleep, she mentally adds a sixth word to her Valentine's Day acting class essence exercise, even if it's against the rules. Now the list looks like this:
MORNING
ASSHOLES
BULLSHIT
VODKA
SLEEP
SURPRISE
&&.
fandom: The Big Bang Theory.
pairing: Penny/Sheldon
rating: PG-13?
words: 4556.
disclaimer: Fiction. I don't even know any real-life scientists, so.
notes: Valentine's Day fic. And, I think, the first time I've written Valentine's Day fic, ever. I didn't even know I wanted to write Valentine's Day fic. Who knew! Also, this is the fourth fic I've written in a single fandom/pairing. I don't think that's happened before either! Ah, growing up.
Penny's taken four acting classes in her entire life. She doesn't remember anything useful from any of them. Just stupid, mundane filler stuff. Nothing that's ever helped her land gigs. But sometimes, just for fun, she applies acting class nonsense to life.
It goes like this: In one class, taught by some guy who made everybody pronounce his name totally different than it was spelled, the class had to boil things down to five words. Some garbage about finding its "essence." A scene, an event, an emotion, whatever -- five words, that's it.
So when she realizes it's February 13 and that tomorrow is Valentine's Day, she boils it down to five words.
Her Valentine's Day words are, in their simplest and (maybe vulgar) form:
MORNING
ASSHOLES
BULLSHIT
VODKA
SLEEP
It wasn't like this when she was a kid, the words when she was a kid were probably stuff about hearts and candy and flowers and french kissing.
They were definitely not jaded and they definitely didn't make her wish that when she had to choose between groceries and kickboxing class a few weeks ago, that she had chosen kickboxing instead.
All the stuff in between, all the stuff that made her change, it wasn't disastrous in just one go, it slowly chipped away at her, year after year of disappointments, arguing, cheating and that one time, with a guy named Peter -- a muddy walkway, a trip to the hospital and a broken arm.
So really, it's not that she's always been like this, it's just been drilled into her and it's taken hold better than any stupid method acting technique or whatever.
The thing that's better this year is she's living across from, no, wait, she's friends with two guys who aren't going to celebrate Valentine's Day, no way in hell, so that night, the night before, she goes to sleep thinking, at least she'll have someone to hang out with tomorrow. Someone to talk to about hokey Hallmark holidays and how Cupid was actually like, a fat kid with no friends or something. Whatever, it helps her sleep.
MORNING
One of the things that's awful about the radio station her alarm clock is set to is how seriously annoying they are. Every damn day some stupid story, some stupid song, she has no idea why she doesn't just change the station (the dial's stuck, actually, but that's not the point).
Today they're blasting some stupidly sweet love duet out of her speakers and it's ricocheting off her pillow and right into her ears and in addition to sounding an awful lot like: you have no one today, you're a loser, it also sounds a lot like: get out of bed so you can go serve pink cheesecake to douchebags and their girlfriends.
She maybe throws the clock against the wall. She definitely gets out of bed.
ASSHOLES
Douchebag was pretty much the biggest understatement she'd encountered this month (and that includes last week when she'd told her mom that her neighbors ended up fixing her TV and her mom had said that they must be "pretty smart" then).
Something she's learned in all her time as a waitress and all her time dating horrible boys is that if a guy is taking a girl out for their Valentine's Day date on lunch, he definitely has another girl lined up for dinner.
And that's the crowd she walks into when her shift starts -- a bunch of cheating, lying, scummy dudes and the second-string women who love them.
She turns down the opportunity to be some asshole's "dinner date" three times and has to request that the cooks draw hearts on pieces of raspberry cheesecake eight times.
The highlight is somewhere around 3:30. She watches a particularly sleazy guy (shirt unbuttoned four too many buttons) get up to go the bathroom and leave his Blackberry on the table. His date picks it up, scrolls a few times and gets a super pissed look on her face. When the guy gets back to the table, the girl shoves the heart-adorned cheesecake right down his shirt.
Penny had smiled as the girl stormed off and the guy noticed and didn't tip her at all, but it was totally worth it. And it totally made the remaining two and a half hours of her shift kind of, sort of, bearable.
BULLSHIT
The drive home is even more ridiculous than normal. Some dude with a Bluetooth headset and a backseat full of balloons cuts her off and she nearly slams into the guardrail. When she goes to lay on her horn, it doesn't even work and she ends up screaming instead.
She practically sprints up the stairs to her apartment and changes into all black (in protest), so she can get over to Sheldon and Leonard's apartment and start like, wailing on the Rock Band drums or shooting at some enemy spy.
It doesn't occur to her (because, really, why would it, no, seriously, why would it) that maybe either of them is going out, but then she's halfway to knocking on their door and it swings open and Leonard's standing there in his corduroy suit.
He looks surprised to see her or something and she cuts him off with what probably came out sounding like a growl, so he doesn't ask what she's doing there and instead just fumbles an awkward hello.
"Hi, Penny." He's shuffling his feet and Penny can see Sheldon inside the apartment, sitting on the couch, looking at them.
"Hey Leonard, ready to play some Halo?"
"Um? It's Valentin--"
She kind of growls again.
"Right. I'm just heading out, but Sheldon's home."
"You picking up the food?" It still hasn't occurred to her that he could possibly, in any way, have a date.
"No...actually, I have a date." And he puffs his chest up, squints his eyes and does that grin that shows all his teeth, like he's some sort of awkward, nerdy peacock, all proud of himself.
Oh.
"A date." She doesn't even say it like a question, which is fine because he doesn't answer her, Sheldon does. He gets up off the couch and walks over to them.
"Yes, Leonard is subscribing to the juvenile and commercial notion that in order to validate one's existence, one must engage in some form of romantic endeavor on February 14th."
Leonard rolls his eyes while Penny widens hers, fighting the urge to high five Sheldon. Mostly because she's not sure Sheldon would know what to do with a high five. He'd probably think she was trying to hit him.
"Actually, Stephanie called me a couple of days ago and asked that we reconnect and perhaps attempt to 'take it slower' this time."
Now Penny rolls her eyes.
"You're really buying that she just happened to want to get back together with you right before the most important date night of like, the whole year?"
Maybe that was a little bitchy, because Leonard looks sort of hurt, but before he can say anything Sheldon's backing her up.
"I must agree with Penny. There are several mathematic and scientific systems in place that would disprove that occurrence as coincidental. I believe the term is 'desperate?'"
Leonard looks even more flustered, like he's being ganged up on (which he sort of is, but whatever) and tosses off a goodbye before jetting out of the apartment and down the stairs.
So, it's just her and Sheldon and Leonard has a date. This is bullshit.
VODKA
It's not until they log on to the Age of Conan server and see that half their normal raid group is AFK for apparently, like, the whole entire night, that she realizes she forgot to bring booze over. Or it's because of that. Whatever.
"Sheldon, I am going to get vodka."
She doesn't know why she says it like that, why she tells him where she's going when she's only going to be gone for two minutes, but she does and he just nods, like it's something he expected. She has a brief thought to make sure he doesn't think she has a drinking problem. She totally doesn't, but he owes her an intervention after that whole driver's license thing and she's sure he hasn't forgotten.
There's actually two bottles of vodka on top of her fridge, she doesn't remember buying the second one, but grabs them both anyway. Who knows, maybe she can convince Sheldon that alcohol is sterile (...it is, right?) and it'll totally sterilize his stomach or kill bacteria or something like that.
When she walks back through the door, Sheldon's still on the couch, but on the phone and she can just make out Wolowitz's screeching from the end of the receiver. Wolowitz! Raj! She totally forgot about them. They can have a full Rock Band after all.
But wait, Sheldon's saying he'll see Wolowitz tomorrow, Sheldon's saying goodbye, Sheldon's hanging up the phone. What the hell?
"Where are the other guys? Wasn't that Wolowitz?"
"Wolowitz is presently incarcerated in the Magic Kingdom."
"Excuse me?"
"He's in Disney jail."
"Again, excuse me?"
"Every year on February 14th, Wolowitz drives to Anaheim and patronizes Disneyland dressed like history's stereotypical Prince Charming -- height, hair color and nose notwithstanding. He believes that he'll be able to prey upon vulnerable young women by invoking their idealized sense of romance." Sheldon scoffs.
"But why is he in jail?"
"He apparently got -- what's the phrase? He got 'fresh' with an official Disneyland character. Princess Jasmine, I think he said. After sustaining several lacerations at the hands of what I can only imagine was a 110-pound, diminutive 'princess,' he was escorted to, as I said, Disney jail."
Penny laughs because it's funny, even better than that guy getting cheesecake down her shirt. She also laughs because she's always wondered what Disney jail was like and never figured Wolowitz would be the one to be able to tell her. She should've guessed.
"So where's Raj?"
"Posting the figurative bail, I assume. After I refused, the logical conclusion would be that Raj was his next phone call."
She almost asks him why he didn't help Wolowitz out, but remembers Sheldon can't drive. That must be it. Not because he wanted to like, stay here with her or anything. And he probably didn't want to chance asking her to drive in case her check engine light was still on (it is).
"All right, well, I guess it's just us, Sheldor." She reaches over and messes up his hair with her hand. Kind of half giving him an open-palm noogie, half dog pat or something. Whatever she did, it sort of worked for his hair and she's happy to see he doesn't comb it back with his fingers. He just glares at her instead.
She cracks the seal on a bottle of vodka and takes a swig, making a little bit of a face. It's Valentine's Day, maybe she should be her own Valentine and at least chase it with something.
"You got any juice?"
He looks startled, like he was daydreaming about something. Or working out some physics problem -- whatever the Sheldon equivalent of daydreaming is.
"I believe there's cranberry juice on the second shelf. You can have some of that, although I must request you leave no less than a third of the contents in the container, so that I have a suitable amount for a full glass and a half at a later date."
"OK, Sheldon, whatever."
She pours herself a glass and takes a few sips to get the vodka taste out of her mouth. He watches her across the room and turns his head like he does when he's getting ready to ask a question.
"Are you concerned about your urinary health, Penny?"
She nearly spits a mouthful of juice all over the counter, but chokes it back and swallows at the last second.
"WHAT?"
"Cranberry juice has several properties useful in the staving off of bladder and urinary tract infection. I merely assumed that accounted for the zealousness with which you're attacking that beverage."
"Uh, no. I was just chasing the vodka taste away. You know how it gross it tastes. Blech."
He just stares at her.
She brings the juice back to the living room and sits down next to him on the couch.
She goes back to the bottle of vodka, unscrewing the top to pour some in her cup when she thinks better of it. Now that her brain's aware that she's going to be drinking alone, she feels kind of pathetic. Kind of sad and pathetic. It's kind of like being all alone on Valentine's Day anyway, even with Sheldon there.
"You've gotta do a shot with me."
His face looks like he's considering a bunch of different answers, but he lands on, "And what skewed logic was utilized in the reaching of that conclusion?"
She puts on her best smile, a big, (almost) genuine one and tries, "The logic of friendship?"
He just looks at her, totally blank, and says, "No."
There's no good reason for that to have been it, the thing that really, finally made her lose it over a stupid day that's stupid every stupid year and today's apparently not a stupid exception.
It is it anyway.
She cries. She cries the whole nine yards of crying -- eyes welling up, tears spilling over, nose snotting. It all happens in a matter of seconds and months from now she'll try to tap into this memory to cry on command for an audition (it won't work).
Sheldon immediately looks panicked. He stands up and walks to the kitchen, rummaging through cupboards (what the hell is he looking for?), he comes back into the living room and paces back and forth a few times. She has no idea what he's doing, but it distracts her a little bit and she stops crying.
He watches her wipe her nose on her sleeve and he exhales loudly.
She feels bad for breaking down and crying and clearly scaring him, but it's Valentine's Day, she's going to get her period soon and really, she probably would've cried at an auto insurance commercial at this point. Whatever.
He hasn't said anything the entire time, all deer in headlights face and jerky, stilted movements. This is her groceries spilled across the hallway and the wrong key in the doorlock all over again.
"It's fine, Sheldon, it's just -- I'm fine."
Now he looks doubtful.
"There is no evidence to support that statement."
"What?"
"Your being 'fine,' I can find no evidence to back that statement. All factors point to your being," he pauses. "Not fine."
"No, really, it's cool." She gives one last sniffle. "I just hate Valentine's Day. And I know that's stupid and cliche or whatever, but it actually, seriously does suck."
He's got that 'weighing his options' face on again and it's one of the things she loves about him -- he, unlike every dude, actually thinks about what he's going to say. Sometimes too much.
"Would there be a marked positive impact if I did agree to partake in a 'shot' with you?" The way he says shot is so foreign and weird. It's the same awkward way she would pronounce like, 'large hadron collider' or whatever that thing is.
She starts to say no just out of habit, stupid mid-western hospitality guilt complex or something. Don't force people to do things they don't want to do and her mom's voice and you know what? Fuck it.
"Yeah, yeah it would." And she looks him right in the eye to see if he'll back down.
"I accept." That's it, he's agreed and they're off and drinking.
Apparently, like her, Sheldon can't do just one shot.
Or Sheldon feels like he has to prove himself better than her on something she's supposed to be good at. She only figures that part out when he mumbles something cryptic about being that smart and being able to 'hold his drink.' She doesn't press it because she doesn't want to dwell on the thought that drinking is something he thinks she's good at.
They don't actually get too far into the first bottle before she makes the executive decision to cut them both off. Since Leonard didn't get Sheldon food and she was too disgusted to eat at work, they're both drinking on empty stomachs. Plus, she's always been maybe kind of a lightweight and, well, Sheldon's Sheldon.
It's not that she's drunk, she's just sort of like, buzzed, but it's enough to take the edge off the shitstorm that's been her day and, if she's honest, the shitstorm that's been her social life lately.
She turns to look at Sheldon and he keeps screwing up his face like he's trying to focus and when it doesn't work he makes another face, directed at her, like she's done something wrong. Or that's what it looks like from behind her cup of cranberry-juice-no-vodka.
"Sheldon. What. are. you. doing."
"I'm regaining my composure." And, to his credit, the sentence comes out sounding mostly sober except for it's kind of high-pitched and he his face is all red.
"Stop trying to, like, swim through it. God, Sheldon, just be drunk like a normal person."
Now he looks insulted.
"You seem to have forgotten that I am hardly normal, in any respects."
"Oh, no, I could never forget that. Jesus, you're so weird."
And as she's saying it, he sort of droops into the couch a little bit and he looks sort of pathetic, but kind of -- kind of --
Kind of cute.
Fuck.
This is not how her night is going to go.
She immediately stands up from the couch and moves to the chair.
"Is this a party game? My parents tried to force some version of this on me during my fifth birthday, only there was music. I objected to it then and I will object to it now." He gets the whole sentence out totally straight and she's mad at him immediately.
In some slightly-more-perfect world, she's doing this same thing -- lonely and drinking with her neighbor on Valentine's Day, only her neighbor is like, a hot outfielder for some minor league team who works at The Gap part time and plays the guitar.
Instead she's here with sort-of-handsome when his T-shirt isn't fucking hideous, but way too smart for her to even understand sometimes and totally socially awkward Sheldon.
She's sad for a second and then realizes that was a pretty mean thing to think. Sheldon's really nice to her, in his own way and oh yeah, this is why she's cut back on drinking -- it makes her think too much.
"No, it's not a game, I just, I don't know, I'll move back over there." And she does. "See?"
She can hear Sheldon's hand banging around on the table for something and he eventually finds the remote and turns the TV on.
They watch 10 minutes of some show with that guy from the Old Spice commercials who sings Duran Duran before she feels sick.
"Sheldon."
"Shh."
"Sheldon, I don't feel good."
His head immediately turns from the TV to look at her.
"Penny, this is of the utmost importance, what kind 'don't feel good' are you presently experiencing?"
The room is sort of spinning a little bit and maybe she should've forced down some food earlier and oh shit.
"Throw up."
She lurches up from the couch and staggers to the bathroom before throwing up an awful vodka and juice mixture. She's immediately feeling better, but waits, stooped down, for a few minutes until she hears Sheldon on the other side of the door.
"Penny?"
"I'm good, Sheldon. Hang on." She really does feel a lot better and she stands up to splash some water on her face. She glances briefly at the toothbrushes in the holder and is half-considering going for one when she realizes where she is. She can just go home and brush her teeth.
When she opens the door, Sheldon is leaning against the opposite wall and immediately stares at her with a super intense look.
"Penny?"
"Still fine, Sheldon. Just gonna go brush my teeth."
She walks down the hall and out the door and within minutes is back, all minty fresh and (mostly) clear-headed.
Sheldon's sitting on the couch when she walks in and he's watching that same TV show, but she can tell he's not paying attention. She sits down next to him.
"OK, catch me up. What did I miss?"
"By my estimation, about 70 percent of your stomach contents." It takes her a second to even realize it's a joke, that's how bad it was, but he actually looks really nervous.
"Haha."
He looks at her, all tight-lipped and thinking face and she can tell he wants to push the issue, but maybe doesn't know how and god, if somebody had worried over her this much after every time she'd thrown up a little vodka in high school, it would have been a long four years. God, that sounds horrible.
"Really, Sheldon, it's cool. That's the puke and rally, this is what you missed in college while you were busy like, being 12 and learning...stuff."
"What does the 'rally' entail?"
"In school, it meant more drinking, probably. Right now it means watching more of this show and maybe ordering a pizza."
"This seems like an unnecessarily complicated way to come around to eating dinner, but all right."
She orders a pizza on commercial break, half like he likes, half like she does.
It takes a full hour for it to get there -- another reason to hate Valentine's Day -- and by the time it does, they're both totally sober and she's tired.
She makes it through two slices of pizza before giving up in favor of leaning against a couch cushion and closing her eyes for like, a second. Just a second.
SLEEP
She falls asleep.
It couldn't have been for long because when she wakes up, she's leaning on Sheldon's shoulder, face smushed up against him, and there's no way in hell he would've let that go on for very long, right? She squints to see the clock on the DVD player and it's actually been a hour. She looks at Sheldon and he's sleeping, too, and it's a little too weird, a little too comfortable and she doesn't know what to do, so she clears her throat loudly.
He bolts up and starts a "DANG--" before figuring out he's in the living room.
Neither of them say anything for a few minutes, they both just go back to watching the TV, but she's not focusing, she's thinking about how her night has been sort of nice. Except for like, the puking part. But even with that Sheldon seemed genuinely worried about her. And he did agree to drink with her, after she cried and -- well, he seemed kind of concerned about her over that, too.
It's actually the most considerate she can remember a guy being to her on Valentine's Day in a long time.
Maybe she is still drunk or maybe she's just tired, but she turns to him anyway. It's kind of sappy, but whatever, it's late and this day usually sucks so hard.
"Thanks for being my valentine, Sheldon."
"I wasn't aware that I was your valentine, Penny." It's not the nicest thing he could've said, but his face isn't mean and it didn't really sound mean.
"Well, sort of right? We had some drinks, had dinner..." She almost says 'slept together,' just as a joke, but cuts herself off. She's getting her point across, whatever her point was. And she's already kind of wary of how he's going to react. There's a sort of sleepy calm in the room, but if anybody could bust that up quick, it would be him.
He doesn't though.
"I see your point. And if, as the evidence supports, I was your valentine, it was my pleasure."
It's so fucking, like, gallant the way he says it, nobody she knows, nobody she's ever dated, talks like he talks and although it usually sounds really bizarre, right now it sounds sort of nice, kind of like she's a princess or something.
She's not sure why she does it, but she leans forward and kisses him. She means it to be just kind of a friendly, silly thing, but she can feel pressure pushing against her lips and some part of her brain recognizes he's kissing her back and so, on instinct, she opens her mouth a little bit.
He opens his mouth, too, and she doesn't know if he's just mimicking her movements or if he knows what he's doing, but suddenly his tongue is moving kind of lazily around the inside of her mouth and her hands are on his face.
If she were going to guess, she would've said Sheldon would probably kiss like Leonard -- all frantic and sloppy and in a hurry to keep things moving, like it's some geek-finally-getting-a-girl stereotype, but really, that doesn't make much sense, now that she thinks about it. Sheldon's thorough and obsessive and gets things right with, like, everything, it would make sense that he's like that with kissing, too.
The back part of her brain is a little weirded out that she's making out with Sheldon, but she just keeps overriding that part, it's nice and slow and warm and she doesn't feel like they're rushing toward taking their clothes off, they're just kissing, that's it, that's all. His hands slide across her back and she moves into him a little bit more, but there's no pressure, it's just relaxed, it's just like, heavy kissing.
She's not sure how long it takes for her to pull back and she's not actually sure that it's her that pulls back, it might've been him, but it was kind of seamless and not awkward and then they're just watching TV again and sitting next to each other and did that just seriously happen?
Leonard finally comes home 15 minutes later, practically falling in the door with a panicked look on his face.
"How'd it go?" She's a little worried that her face is red or something, but Sheldon's isn't, so she's probably fine.
"Stephanie and I do not see eye to eye on the definition of 'taking it slower.'" And he's flustered and agitated and she remembers feeling like that after other Valentine's Day dates, but not tonight.
Leonard says a quick goodbye and then goes to his room.
"It's getting late, Sheldon. I'm going to bed." She stands up from the couch and looks at him, tries to see if he seems like he wants to talk about anything, but he's just got that eerily calm Sheldon look on his face and that's fine with her because it means things are normal. Sort of.
She goes back to her apartment and gets ready for bed. Before she falls asleep, she mentally adds a sixth word to her Valentine's Day acting class essence exercise, even if it's against the rules. Now the list looks like this:
MORNING
ASSHOLES
BULLSHIT
VODKA
SLEEP
SURPRISE
&&.