Not Going Anywhere (The Big Bang Theory fanfic)
She’s not exactly…surprised that Sheldon can play the piano. The technical aspect, at least, makes perfect sense, and between the fact that he’s a genius and that Mary is his mother, it really doesn’t come as a shock that he learned. Except…music isn’t just the correct spacing of certain notes, music is about passion and emotion, and describing that passion and emotion through one’s music, and Penny has (legally and illegally) hundred of CD’s because she’s so fascinated by what music can say, and what it can mean, to both the artist and the listener.
So the playing of music, well that makes perfect sense to her. But the way his tie is hanging loose and his shirt is unbuttoned at the top and the way his neck arches just so as he leans into the piano, eyes shut, playing from memory but also from somewhere else, somewhere inside, his long, slender fingers touching the piano as sensually as another man might touch a woman…she sucks in an unsteady gasp of air, closing her eyes for a moment, trying to regain her mental balance.
She’s here because he asked her.
Raj and Howard and Leonard all offered in their own ways, heartfelt in some, relieved to be let off the hook in others. And he’d thanked them, for what it was worth. He’d thanked them all, but he’d asked Penny to accompany him to his Meemaw’s funeral. He’d asked her in clipped, analytical terms, and she’d said yes, of course, when, I’ll drive and hadn’t hugged him even though she’d wanted to, because she’d known that he’d break at kindness right then, that she’d be left holding shattered pieces of him, and she didn’t think that either of them would be ready for that. So she’d danced around him, afraid to say the wrong thing, afraid to hurt him.
“She liked this song,” he says, voice low and hoarse, and she flinches as he doesn’t stop--can’t stop--playing, back still towards her, but somehow he knew.
“Sheldon-” she starts, but stumbles to a stop almost immediately, because she’d followed him here to this room, when he’d wanted privacy, because she’d invaded his life yet again when all he wanted was to be alone.
She stands frozen for a moment, and then turns on her heel, but before she can take more than a step, she hears him inhale shakily. “Stay,” he breathes out, and she bites her lip to keep the tears from falling.
She walks closer to him, unable to take her eyes off of his back-all tense muscles and pain-and without thought she rests her hand on his shoulder, and he jerks slightly but doesn’t stop playing.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she says, soft, so soft, don’t scare him away, and his breath hitches again, a little gasping choke as their worlds shift slightly.
“I don’t-Penny, I don’t know what to-” he stops abruptly, and she sits down sideways, facing his side. She wraps her arms around him and he hits a wrong note, the sound discordant and harsh in the air.
“It’s okay,” she says, “Sheldon, it’s okay.”
There’s a long moment where they’re both frozen, his fingers braced lightly on the keys, the note fading, and then he turns and grabs her, pulling her tightly against his body.
“Penny,” he says, “Penny Penny Penny Penny Penny…”
“I’m here,” she says. “I’m here.”
His lips seek hers out, her lips salty from tears she couldn’t quite hold back, and there is something of desperation in him that she’s never seen before. His hands are snug against the small of her back as he curls downwards, tasting her, his tongue sliding forwards to brush along her teeth. When he kisses her, it’s his permission, it’s his admission that she is allowed to help him, that he is willing to give himself up to her.
I love you, he tells her as his eyelashes brush against her cheek, I want this he promises her as her hands crawl up to cup his face.
His hands find purchase on her slim waist and he pulls her up and onto his lap as she grabs his tie and pulls his closer, her other hand working the remaining buttons on his shirt as he starts rucking up her skirt.
He palms her through her panties and she shudders against him, her fingers sliding across his finally bare chest, her nails and the soft pad of her fingertips trading off as she draws designs along his sensitive skin. When she bites into his neck just so he groans into her hair and she smiles into his skin.
He stands, shoving her onto the piano, the keys loud and startling, except this is right, it’s not supposed to be soft and sweet, and she pulls him down by his tie, until she can kiss the tears away, until she can kiss the pain away, her manicured nails working the zipper on his jeans. His hand dances up underneath her shirt, he pinches her through her bra as she pulls his hair, he bites her ear as she digs her nails into his back, pulling him closer always closer.
“Penny,” he gasps, half-prayer, half-absolution, and she says “Sheldon,” when he enters her as if she finally understands everything, as if it all makes sense, and he’s gazing at her like she’s the answer to the equation he didn’t know how to draw.
His hand comes down hard on the keys as she wraps her legs around him; he’s trying for balance, for sanity, for peace, for perfection, and she kisses him again, because he’s solid inside of her, and if nothing else makes sense, this does, and really, that’s all that matters.
“Penny,” he groans, and she smiles blindingly up at him, tightening her fingers into his sides, her legs along his body, because he has to feel it, has to know it, has to believe it.
“I’m here.”
And when he comes she swallows his yell, rides his high, and keeps him against her, keeps him with her, doesn’t let him go.
He’s tense for one last moment before he collapses against her, legs half buckling as he pulls her back onto his lap on the bench, and she wraps herself around him as he buries his face into her neck and let’s himself go.
“I’m here,” she says. “Sheldon, I’m here.”
...Finis...