knee deep (big bang theory, penny/sheldon, pg-13)

[ndnickerson]

Title: knee deep
Author: ndnickerson
Fandom: Big Bang Theory
Characters: Penny/Sheldon
Rating: PG-13
Summary: And then she forgot about it, because honestly, what the hell. "This is my friend Sheldon, he likes talking about complicated science things and you can't ever sit on his cushion and he has labels on everything and if he gets sick you have to sing Soft-Kitty until he falls asleep, and he thinks he's better than you. Hey, want to have a baby he'll raise to be his clone?"
Spoilers: All aired (through 3x13)
Word Count: 3138
Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue.
Note: Written for Porn Battle IX; prompts: experiment, jealousy, soft-kitty.



Penny was half-watching a rerun of Jersey Shore, a mostly full cup of slowly warming yogurt at her elbow, trying to find an attorney online. She'd stumbled onto something called Bob Loblaw's Law Blog that looked pretty promising. Besides, all she needed was for someone mildly official-sounding to call Howard and threaten to send him to a North Korean prison if he stole another pair of her underwear.

A knock sounded at the door. Penny had exactly long enough to look around and register that her shirt had a bright splotch of fruit punch on it that might pass for the worst tie-dye job ever, her Cheesecake Factory uniform from the night before was trailed all the way from her front door to her bedroom, and The Situation was dancing against some bored looking coed, before the other pair of knocks sounded and Sheldon said her name for the first time.

Checking for pants (she didn't want a repeat of the "but it says soup" incident), Penny half-stumbled over a pair of winter coats that had slid off the couch and was pitched unsteadily on one foot by the time she hit the door. She had to wait until Sheldon's little ceremony was over. He got twitchy when she didn't.

A second after the last "Penny," she opened the door to see Sheldon standing there, one of his extra-disturbing smiles on his face, and a cellophane-wrapped loaf of nut bread held ceremoniously on one palm. Perfectly balanced, of course.

"You know, you've never really struck me as much of a baker," she said, plucking the loaf out of his hand and standing back to allow him entrance, which he of course ignored. "You can come in, Sheldon."

He gave her apartment a slightly disdainful glance before picking his way over the coats and standing awkwardly at one corner of the coffee table. "Baking is the simple matter of measuring ingredients and placing them via the prescribed order and method into a pan. Cooking, however, is an entirely different story. You will notice, Penny, the unprovoked offering of a baked good."

Penny plopped back onto the couch and pulled the laptop back onto her upper thighs, scrolling down the Law Blog for some contact information. While her breakup with Leonard had been as amicable as possible, and Sheldon had, of course, played a slight but crucial role in it, things between the five of them weren't quite what they had been. Then the guys had all been ragging Leonard about some scientist visiting from Korea (the walls were way too damn thin in this building) and, well, there hadn't been quite so many of the pining glances or heartsick sighs from 4A lately.

"Can I do you a favor, Sheldon?"

"I require you to find me a possible candidate for reproduction."

Penny did an utterly beautiful spit-take, the kind she wished she could bottle for later and use at auditions. "God, I need to get my ears checked. What?"

Sheldon repeated it, separating the syllables a bit more distinctly, with another one of his bizarre smiles at the end.

"Um..." Penny moved the laptop and stood, pressing her palms together, trying to figure out how to explain to a physicist exactly why this would never in a billion years work. "Mind if I ask why? I mean—" She fixed an eye on him. "I thought you'd just split into little baby Sheldons or something. But, are you sick? With some horrible terminal disease?"

Sheldon released a long-suffering sigh and started looking around for a place to sit. "No. While I feel their points may have been somewhat sardonic in nature, Howard and Raj have reminded me that, in the event my attempts to create a cybernetic organism to house my consciousness fail—"

He kept prattling and Penny's gaze dropped to his t-shirt. The green one with the symbol, Green Lantern maybe? Horrible golfish pants that went out of style with afros. His shoes weren't too bad, except they matched an entirely different person. Like a roadie for some indie band. College boy. Well, he worked at a college, so technically that was okay.

He'd stopped talking and was waiting patiently for some kind of response. Penny blinked and latched onto the last thing she remembered. "So you don't want to leave the world without the potential for continuing your research," she said slowly. "And you want me to find you a girlfriend."

Sheldon shrugged and nudged a stack of junk mail away from the edge of the coffee table, keeping an eye on her as he did, in case she opted for the death glare she was a few seconds from giving him. "As many as possible, actually," he said, breezily, like she knew the entire female population of Southern California and had just the person in mind. "Bernadette seems an acceptable, if a bit naive, companion for Howard—"

"Companion. But you're talking about children. And you don't like other people."

"Oh, I would never want a companion," he protested. "No. Certainly not. A suitable woman who, through the miracle of science or biology, would carry my genetic line to posterity."

Penny sat back down on the couch, resigned to the utter insanity her life had become once she moved into this damn apartment. She should have taken the studio apartment she couldn't afford across town, but then she'd be living off ramen and wouldn't be able to watch Jersey Shore and her laptop would be broken and she wouldn't know the words to Soft-Kitty and when she fell in the tub that time, well, exactly no other guy on the entire planet would have been as (mostly) respectful as Sheldon was.

Still.

"And why can't you donate to a sperm bank? I mean, everything... works..., right?"

"I am fully functional, in every way," Sheldon said, and smirked a little, so it was some reference she didn't get and if she asked it would take him half an hour and a whiteboard to explain. "But I intend to play a role in the lives of my progeny. Ensuring that their scientific education does not consist of 'theories'," he made actual air quotes and his face darkened and it was odd, how nothing was quite able to incense him like "theories." "'Theories' that could prove obtrusive, even destructive, to a rigorous course in the sciences. Rather like our aborted physics lesson."

Penny really did try to stop herself. "But you told me about that theory that the sun was, something, fixed, or—"

Thankfully, Sheldon was already nattering about something else. "I would inculcate my sons and daughters with the lessons they would need to continue my invaluable research. Due to some unnecessarily stringent rules regarding the relationship between donor and recipient, I would be unable to pursue this course should I select that option. But you do make a good point." He turned a long-dirty coffee mug clockwise until its handle was parallel to the nearest side of the coffee table.

"Hmm."

He nodded. "I will expect a list of possibilities with age, physical characteristics, family history of any genetic disorders, and attached IQ and personality tests at your earliest convenience."

Then he swept out and Penny idly touched the loaf of bread, noting with some surprise that it was still warm. The others were pretty easy to describe; Howard was a horndog with a heart of vaguely suspect gold, Raj was cripplingly shy but sweet until he was drunk and turned into an insufferable ass, Leonard was stubborn and a bit snobbish but basically a good person.

Sheldon, though, Sheldon always came off sounding like a particularly well-read nutjob or a batshit crazy alien.

Penny sighed, dumped the yogurt into the trash and put the mug in the sink, and pulled up her Facebook page.

Surely someone owed her a huge favor.

--

Penny managed to tone it down to "hey, a name, and maybe a phone number if you're lucky," but when she kind of, hesitantly, out of the corner of her mouth, mentioned Sheldon's name to a few of her more nerdy friends, they burst into raucous laughter. And then she forgot about it, because honestly, what the hell. "This is my friend Sheldon, he likes talking about complicated science things and you can't ever sit on his cushion and he has labels on everything and if he gets sick you have to sing Soft-Kitty until he falls asleep, and he thinks he's better than you. Hey, want to have a baby he'll raise to be his clone?"

Penny came in on a Saturday night to pick her wallet up and find her beat-up old speed skates that she lugged all the way from home, and she was pulling a long white-and-baby-blue-striped scarf out of her closet when a cleared throat almost made her jump out of her skin.

She walked into the living room holding a baseball bat to see Sheldon sitting on her couch, eyebrows raised.

"We've talked about you not coming into my apartment when I'm not here. Or even when I am here."

Sheldon held up a palm. "I am abiding by the guidelines. You will notice that your slovenly housekeeping has not been disturbed. Generally I would not have even suffered their idiocy, but Leonard, Raj, and Howard, considerably more than moderately drunk, challenged me to come over here and, quote," he unnecessarily raised his hands and curved his fingers for air quotes, "'get the logistics down.' I am given to understand this would imply some misguided attempt at seduction."

Penny lowered the bat. She'd had a few tequila shots herself, but only the first guffaw had anything to do with it. The rest of the laughter, which left her breathless, her stomach aching, was all her.

"My better judgement tells me not to even ask, but," Penny propped her hand on the end of the bat and crossed her legs once she'd recovered, "show me what ya got."

"Were I to make some parallel between the behavior of protons and electrons—"

"Nope."

Sheldon looked down. "I would draw your attention to my apparel."

He was wearing a black t-shirt with a Superman decal, a pair of jeans, and Converse lo-tops.

"It's very nice." Penny brought her gaze back up to his eyes.

Sheldon stood. "Very well. While I was waiting, I am forced to admit, I reorganized your extensive liquor cabinet. Good night, Penny."

"Good night, Sheldon."

--

Penny got really drunk and dated a guy who was a drummer in a band that wasn't half-bad and went from God-this-is-unbelievable to something like pity. Things got okay with Leonard again and Sheldon got this look on his face when he had a new comic book, he looked like Christmas morning, even though they had to call it something goofy like Winter Solstice or something. And then Penny and Sheldon had the argument about the kitten (he objected to the kitten occupying her living space because she tracked dander and Penny said he wasn't the boss of her or the kitten and stomped out and hugged it and cuddled it to her chest and sang the Soft-Kitty song to it, as though to spite Sheldon, even though the kitten would never learn it and Sheldon would never hear it).

And then the next time she went over there was a brunette grad student sitting opposite Sheldon and blocking the television and trilling something about those damn particles, something, the thing after the break-in, Higgs-Boson particles (she didn't know why it stuck with her, maybe it was oh my God, Sheldon actually has feelings and he worries even if he doesn't want to) and Penny hated her. So she needled Raj and used the innocent triggers

("So are you going to see the Spiderman reboot?" "I can't not see it, Penny, you know that, literally tens of bloggers utterly depend upon my opinion and sterling reputation for film reviews. Also, I detect a distinct lack of hyphen in your pronunciation of Spider-Man.")

and hated the bitch when she drawled something about strange flavored quarks or something.

She went back to her apartment feeling irritated, once Leonard and Raj and Howard started playing Halo and Sheldon started drawing something on his whiteboard and there was nothing left for her, and scrolled through ONTD for a while, then idly pulled up Wikipedia.

Strange is a flavor of quark. (The rest of it didn't make any sense but there were diagrams and charts with odd squiggly writing and it's the kind of thing that would make Sheldon geek out, so it must have been right.)

Protons and electrons are in atoms and they like each other, they hold the whole thing together. Two electrons jerk and skitter apart, like a sober Raj would if he saw, oh, Angelina Jolie. Penny poured a glass of wine and laughed about that, a little, tossing her coats from the couch to the armchair.

But she kept seeing it when she tried to go to sleep. Two particles, tinier than she could see, tinier than a speck of dust, dancing around each other, never quite touching.

--

When the brunette didn't appear for a few days, Penny knew Sheldon had said or done something that he shouldn't have, and he would have no clue what it was, because he was just like that. Just like he (mostly) hadn't understood why telling Penny, so innocently, that Leonard was wondering if maybe she couldn't just be a little more accommodating, when, son of a bitch, she had bent over backward to—

But that was the thing. Leonard did stupid things but he adored her and she knew that and there was zero challenge there. Kurt was a douchebag asshole creep cheating cheating bastard but Kurt was a challenge, and Leonard wasn't. Leonard would waffle and maybe say something to Sheldon and Sheldon might say it to her and that would be it.

And Sheldon, oh, Sheldon. Sheldon was incredibly infuriating and surprisingly sweet and everything between, and if they shared living space she would want to break everything the first time he said anything to her in that self-satisfied drone, and he was hard. He moved through life making the world work around him, and enough people had shrugged and gone along with it, and he'd never really been broken.

She watched her father tame a horse once. She knew how it went, how it was to have a dad who wanted a real son instead of what he had, and how the little things meant so much because they were the only things you could control.

--

On a night when she couldn't hear Howard's nasal whine through the door, or the deep tones of Raj's voice, when Leonard shuffled down the steps jingling his keys, Penny took a breath and knocked on Sheldon's door.

"Who is it?"

"Penny."

Sheldon opened the door, looking even more insectoid with a game headset on, and gazed at her, mild interest on his face. Penny was wearing a tight black tank top with a Superman logo on it, jeans, and, well, she'd been wanting to try out the Skechers lace-ups.

"Yes, Penny? Leonard will soon return with dinner and, per our revised roommate's agreement, the portions are sufficiently large enough to afford you a modest meal."

Penny jammed her hands in her pockets. "I don't know if you even care anymore, really, about that whole finding you a girl thing, and it's weird, I told a few girls about you and they just laughed, and I started thinking about it. Because you sound so damn weird when I talk about you. And I get irritated, because you won't shut up about the craziest things, and all they hear from me is how batshit you are, but really, there's no way to say that you're sweet, sometimes, and so eager, and smart, and funny—"

"My IQ is 187. I'm a genius, Penny. Not merely smart."

Penny glared at him. "And an idiot."

"Ahh, we have returned to familiar conversational ground." He turned around and walked back to the couch, taking his prim seat on his regular cushion.

She paused, then followed him in and took a seat at the other end. "Are we really like protons and electrons, Sheldon?"

"We are not like, we are constructed of—" He paused and tilted his head. "Oh. The bet. Yes. Except, I believe, in that scenario, I would be more aptly compared to the neutron." Off her furrowed brow, he explained, "The neutral particle. No meaningful charge. Combined with the protons in the nucleus of the atom."

"But, if you want to have kids, I think you have to be, kinda, um..."

He raised his eyebrows and let her hang, twisting, for a moment. "Charged? Hardly."

"Fully functional, and no charge." She slid across the cushion and touched his face. Smooth and clean. They all came back with beards from their summer trip and she kinda didn't hate it on him. Kinda.

Sheldon kind of shrugged. "Your line of inquiry only makes sense—and I realize that, given your general chaotic argument structure, this assertion is ludicrous at best—if you have identified yourself as the most likely candidate in your acquaintance."

"God, for someone so smart—do you want someone who knows you, or just worships you for what you can do?"

"There is no difference, Penny."

"There is so much difference. Else I'm just a Cheesecake Factory waitress with a shitty car and a stalling acting career. Shut it, Cooper," she warned as his eyebrows rose and his mouth opened.

He shut it again, then pulled his headset off, casting a look of some longing at his gaming system and muttering something about being treed by a chicken. "I find myself at a loss, Penny, to complete this conversation without violating any of the many thousand arbitrary social conventions. So I will ask, what is your proposal?"

"An experiment."

"An exp—"

And Penny slid her knees up onto the couch and bent forward, taking his face in her hands, and kissed him full-on, and he tasted like Mountain Dew and toothpaste, and even though at first he had no idea what to do and froze, she was a little surprised when his tongue slid into her own mouth and the awareness shivered down her spine and straight between her thighs.

"An experiment," she gasped, when they pulled apart. "And yeah, Sheldon, you're charged."

And for once, instead of arguing with her or correcting her or just being himself, he just leaned forward and kissed her back.

Comments

[wordsflow.livejournal.com]

I HAVEN'T EVEN READ PAST THE FIRST PARAGRAPH BUT I NEED TO SCREAM HYSTERICALLY AT THE ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT REFERENCE. Okay, and now that I've scared you, let me go back to reading.

ETA: That was wonderful. You have such a great Sheldon voice, and there's singing soft kitty to a kitty (!), and protons and electrons, and AHA the hyphen in Spider-Man, and the ending, and just - everything's perfect! Thank you for sharing!

[fujiidom.livejournal.com]

Utter, utter win. From start to finish.

[chinchilla3065.livejournal.com]

Gah, this is fantastic, and my new favorite S/P fic. Great job!!!

[lissapocalypse.livejournal.com]

LOVE IT.

Their experiment! I loved the last few paragraphs so hard.

(And the Arrested Development reference was awesome)

[tnhand1022.livejournal.com]

You had me at Bob Loblaw. Loved it.

[ozqueen]

This. Was. Awesome. &hearts

[renisanz.livejournal.com]

Oh, this was just awesome.

The chronology was hard to follow in some parts, as in it was hard for me to tell what exactly was going on because of how Penny's train of thought was written, but I got most of it. :)

And of course, all's well that ends with a kiss. :)

[pikasafire.livejournal.com]

Absolutely awesome! I love it!!

[jainamsolo.livejournal.com]

I love this SO MUCH.

[htbthomas.livejournal.com]

HEE, this is super awesome and really fun. :)

[boonies.livejournal.com]

Score, AD reference! And ONTD!

Half-surprised Sheldon didn't put his sample in a red cooler and just had Penny stash it under her bed.

I thoroughly enjoyed this jumbled, chaotic Penny and this positively-charged Sheldon. :D