Work Text:
The Frying Pan Amplification
Sighing, Penny eased her aching feet out of her three-inch heels (heels because she'd been feeling dowdy in her Cheesecake Factory uniform and wanted to pretty herself up a little; three-inch because she still wanted to be able to walk at the end of her shift).
As she bent down, a tendril of hair that had worked free from her messy up-do fell in front of her face. Her nose wrinkled as it inhaled stale beer, fryer grease and a variety of other vaguely gross scents. She always seemed to smell worse after the late shift.
Suddenly longing for a bath, Penny walked towards her bathroom, stripping and discarding layers of clothing as she went. Several minutes later, sweet-smelling once more and clad in her favourite vest and hot pants combo, Penny's body had relaxed but her mind was still wired. (She swore she could still hear cutlery ringing in her ears.)
Sleep wasn't coming any time soon.
Maybe some warm milk would help...
Sadly, an inspection of her fridge revealed half a carton of expired orange juice and a wrinkled onion.
Penny found herself thinking longingly of the meticulously arranged refrigerator next door with its three different kinds of milk (Sheldon had 1% with his morning cereal, 2% when he made Sunday pancakes and whole milk with his evening cocoa; and wasn't it a sad statement that she knew that?).
Penny knew that Leonard was working nights at CalTech again, but Leonard wasn't the problem: Sheldon was the one with the Klingon hearing, or whatever it was called, and the one who would flip if he knew she was stealing milk from him again... This called for stealth.
Fishing her emergency 4A keys from the specially assigned bowl by the door (an installation which Dr. Whackadoodle had insisted on after she made him help her find her own keys for the fourth time), Penny padded across the hall on bare feet and eased 4A's door open.
The apartment was in darkness but Penny didn't want to risk switching lights on and waking Sheldon. Thankfully, through a combination of familiarity and Sheldon's refusal to change anything, ever, she was able to navigate her way to the fridge without incident.
The fridge proved to be even better stocked than Penny had anticipated. Eyes rounding in delight, Penny was distracted from her desire for warm milk by the chocolate fondant pudding glistening under its saran wrap.
Lifting up the wrap, she had just brought a well-coated finger to her lips when a voice rang out from the shadows, deep and guttural:
"Infidel! Purloiner of dairy – ye shall pay for this treachery!"
A tall figure cloaked in darkness started towards her, distorted, coal-black face snarling and fiery sword bared. To Penny it was as though the devil himself had appeared ready to drag her back to hell with him.
Screaming in terror, her fingers closed on the nearest object to hand and she swung with all her cornhusker might.
There was a cartoonishly loud *DOING* as the object ricocheted off the figure's head; it swayed for a moment, sword falling to the floor, then collapsed like a poleaxed cow.
Panting in triumph, Penny groped for the nearest light switch and almost had another heart attack for an entirely new reason.
Her failed attempts at dating Leonard notwithstanding, Penny spoke enough geek to immediately identify the flaming red "sword" as a lightsabre and the distorted black face as the helmet of a Darth Vader costume. With a sense of foreboding, Penny gently manoeuvred the helmet over the apparently-not-an-evil-intruder's head and had her worst suspicions confirmed.
Yep.
She'd just cold-clocked Sheldon with a frying pan.
Sheldon's eyes snapped open, Vulcan hearing on alert.
After a few seconds he determined the provenance of what had roused him: someone was moving around in the kitchen.
Mind working even more rapidly from the epinephrine injection administered by his sympathetic nervous system, he swiftly assimilated data such as time of night, lightness of tread, the intruder's action – opening the door to the refrigerator – and, most damning of all, his eidetic grasp of Penny's work roster.
It was 2am. Penny would have returned from her shift precisely 47 minutes ago. As was often the case following the late shift, Penny must have found her circadian rhythms under threat and, like the wolverine he had once compared her to, was scavenging for soporific sustenance.
Thief!
Again!
Well, no more.
Nostrils flaring, Sheldon swung his legs out of the bed, mentally formulating the minatory monologue with which he planned to flay her, then paused as his gaze alighted on his closet and another avenue occurred to him. One far more likely to leave a lasting effect.
Most appropriately, a villainous smile stole across his face. Someone was about to fall victim to a classic Dr. Cooper practical joke.
Several minutes and one comatose Darth Vader later, Sheldon slowly regained consciousness.
His head was nestled in something warm and soft; chocolate-sweetened breath from an anxiously bent head ruffled his hair. On some level Sheldon was aware he should be deeply disturbed by this, but all he felt was drowsy contentment.
"Sheldon? Sheldon, honey? Are you okay?"
Sheldon opened his eyes to green and gold: all he could see was thickly-lashed iridescence. His vision panned out and incorporated skin like warm honey, plump full lips and tumbling gold curls.
Without warning, his mouth dessicated, his palms moistened and he was suddenly afflicted by pronounced cardiac dysrhythmia
This wasn't the first time Sheldon had had this reaction in Penny's vicinity: there had been other occasions which had garnered the same effect – a conversation over a whiteboard several years earlier; an expression on her face when he wore a suit of her choosing; a Saturnalia hug – but he'd never been able to conclusively pin down its inception – allergies? flu season? gas? In the end he put them down to physiological anomalies. (After the comprehensive strep tests, blood works and full body scan came back clear.)
But the symptoms had never been this strong, and Penny's proximity had rarely been so close. (He'd certainly never lain in her lap before.)
Sheldon was a man of science. Having formulated a hypothesis, he had no choice but to test it.
Slowly, he reached up and touched Penny's cheek. The look of concern on her face increased even as the physiological effects exponentially increased in turn.
"Penny, are you familiar with the fabled, ancient Greek scholar Archimedes who determined a method for calculating the volume of an object with an irregular shape when he got into his bath and noticed that the level of water rose, thereby proving that water is incompressible?"
Penny blinked, then smiled in relief. "Well, you're definitely okay if you're capable of that level of jibber-jabber."
Sheldon's hand went from touching to stroking. Penny's eyelids fluttered in shock; his respiration began to hitch.
"He is also attributed with coining the Greek expression which is employed to celebrate a breakthrough discovery."
Levering himself up on one elbow, he reached up with his other hand and cupped the back of her head, tugging her down until her lips met his.
After a few shocked seconds, Penny's lips softened deliciously against his own.
After a few seconds more, her hands were tightening in his hair and she was clambering into his lap.
This close her scent was intoxicating; Sheldon recognised the vanilla body scrub from one of the multiple gift baskets he had presented her with (she had recently informed him she was still working her way through them) but underlying that, mingling with it, was something infinitely more intriguing.
Sheldon found himself running his nose along her neck, inhaling deeply. He wondered if she tasted as good as she smelt. Experimentally, he touched his tongue to her skin. Penny made an involuntary whimpering noise, so he tried it again.
Trapping his face between her hands, she dragged his lips back to hers and opened her mouth. Cautiously, Sheldon mimicked her action. When her tongue started exploring, his cardiac rhythms became so erratic he broke the kiss, concerned he was about to go into arrest.
They stared into each other's eyes: Penny's were wide with wonder, desire and hope; Sheldon's were shining, too, giddy with the fervour of scientific discovery.
"Eureka," he breathed.
Then kissed her again.