[fic] root, root, root for the home team, bbtfic, s/p, 1500 words
Title: Root, Root, Root for the Home Team
Author: allthingsholy
For: juniperlane at the sheldon_penny Saturnalia 2011.
Prompt: A SportsNight AU where Sheldon & Penny are Jeremy & Natalie. Basically, they work on a cable sports show. She’s the producer’s assistant and he’s a stats-obsessed production guy. And if you haven’t watched SportsNight, well. I guess that’s enough to be getting on with.
Notes: For Meg, because of course, and thanks to slybrunette for the looking over. This is just the first bit. I’ll probably go back and write, you know, the rest of it. Later. At some point. Any and all mangling of sports trivia/knowledge is all my fault.
--
“Do we have film from Seattle?” Dana slides into her chair and bumps up against Penny’s elbow. Her coffee cup tilts a little but manages to stay upright, not that Dana notices. She’s in pre-show mode. Casey could be walking around without pants on and Dana wouldn’t register it at all. (At least she didn’t the time it actually happened before.)
Penny squints down at the clipboard next to her. “Yes, we have the film.”
“Are we sure?”
Penny did notice that time Casey wasn’t wearing pants, but she double-checks anyway. “Yes.”
Dana grabs her wrist and leans in close. “Are we really sure? This isn’t going to be like last week when Dan and Casey narrated what should’ve been the Ohio State game but was instead footage from Pebble Beach?”
Penny barely manages not to roll her eyes in her boss’s face. Instead she leans around Dana and says, “Kim, do we have film from Seattle?”
“We do!”
Penny looks back at Dana (stressed, over-worked, beautiful Dana) and says, “We really do.”
And when they get to the thirties, the Seattle film’s the Seattle film and everything goes off without a hitch. Dan stumbles over his words in the sign-offs, but other than that it’s smooth sailing. Penny makes an America’s Cup pun in her head and Dana catches her snorting into her Diet Coke when they’re doing the post-show breakdown in her office.
“What’s so funny?” Dana’s got her feet scrunched up under her, her shoes kicked off and under the coffee table.
“Nothing,” Penny says. “I told you the Seattle film was ready.”
Dana leans back and stretches her hands above her head. It’s been a lot of long nights for the past few weeks and it shows in the slow reach of Dana’s arms toward the ceiling. They’ve all been carrying extra weight (Dan, Casey, even Eliot) but nobody carries as much or works as hard as Dana. And nobody beats herself up as much as Dana does when something slips through the cracks.
“You know,” Penny starts, and her voice is extra sweet and unassuming, “you wouldn’t have to worry so much about little things like the Seattle film if you’d hire a new guy.”
Dana doesn’t say anything but she does let out an impressive sigh and glare at Penny just a little bit. It’s the fifth or fiftieth time they’ve had this conversation in the past two months and Dana’s reaction is almost the same every time.
“Penny,” she starts, but Penny leans forward on her knees, scoots close and interrupts.
“We need to replace Kyle. I know you don’t want to, but we have to. And it’s not that you aren’t doing a great job holding everything together, but we need another set of hands.” Penny waits for a second and tries to judge her boss’s reaction. “I mean, it’s not like Kyle’s irreplaceable.”
Dana sighs again. “I know.”
“Kyle was an idiot.”
“I know.” This time when Dana looks up, there’s a bit of a smile on her face. “We’ll look at some resumes tomorrow.”
Penny leans back against the arm of the couch and smiles. “Good.” She nudges Dana with a toe. “And quit harping on me about that Pebble Beach thing.”
Dana shakes her head. “Pebble Beach, Penny. Casey was talking about a sixty yard punt return over footage of Phil Mickelson chipping onto the green.”
Penny shrugs her shoulder. It’s the end of a long night. The show went well and outside Dana’s window there’s a whole Manhattan skyline, lights in the sky as far as the eye can see. Tomorrow they’ll look at resumes and find someone to replace Kyle, and until then they’ve at least got their hands around it. She takes another drink of her Diet Coke and smiles. “You know, there’s a good reason that film got screwed up.”
“And what’s that?” Dana asks.
“I put Eliot in charge.”
--
The first three people they interview are, to put it mildly, awful. One guy talks about the Knicks for twenty minutes straight and when Dana says, “We do cover other teams, you know,” he gets this look on his face like Penny’s dad used to get when she asked to stay out past curfew. (The look he got on his face when Penny stopped asking altogether and just started coming home at dawn was entirely different.) One guy gives his entire career history to Dana’s chest. One guy calls them “ladies” when he sits down and asks when “the guy in charge” will be joining them.
“You know, I remember how to hog-tie a sow,” Penny says when the door closes behind the last guy. Well, the door’s not quite closed, in the sense that it’s still open and the guy’s still in the room, but he doesn’t say anything when he leaves (quickly) so it’s really all the same.
When the next guy finally sits down, Penny’s sure this is either going to be the best or the worst interview they have all day. He’s lanky, all knees and elbows and meticulously ironed clothes. His hair’s too perfect and when he sits down in front of them, his knees are probably perfect right angles. Penny sits a little straighter in her chair, suddenly super aware of her posture and the crease down the front of her shirt.
Dana launches right in with her usual slew of questions and Penny follows along on the copy of his resume on her clipboard: Sheldon Cooper, 28, graduate of MIT and former Fox Sports employee. His words are clipped and a little bit anxious, and he manages to fidget while also appearing rigidly controlled. Everything about him is at opposite ends of the spectrum, which is pretty much Penny’s exact reaction to him: he’s kind of super awkward, all elbows and knees and vaguely unflattering haircut, but at the same time Penny kind of can’t stop staring at his hands and his jawline and this little patch of freckles behind his ear.
“Penny?”
“Huh?” Maybe being a little too distracted by the hint of a drawl is a problem, since Dana’s looking at her expectantly and Penny has no idea why.
“Do you have any questions? Maybe about the Rangers or the Mets?”
“Oh!” Penny’s got a handful of hypotheticals at the ready, easy lobs and a few curveballs, things to check for general awareness of the sports world. “What do you think about the Knick’s prospect of picking up a big center? Will that help them get to the postseason?”
Sheldon clenches and unclenches his hands (Penny notices) and says, “I wouldn’t want to speculate.”
Dana shoots Penny a look. “Okay, well. I’d like you to.”
Sheldon draws his shoulder back and narrows his eyes. “I’d rather not.”
Dana draws herself up, positions herself just so in a way Penny recognizes immediately. This guy either gets his shit together in two seconds or this interview is over. “I’d really, really like you to try.”
Judging by his shoes and his general demeanor, reading social cues is maybe not at the top of Sheldon’s list of marketable skills, but he must be at least somewhat aware things aren’t going well because he stands up suddenly, curling his hands around the seatback of his chair. “Ms. Whitaker,” he starts, “I’m afraid if sheer speculation is all you’re looking for out of an assistant manager, we’ve reached the inevitable conclusion to this meeting. Speculation is imprecise and useless. I could tell you that a big man won’t do anything for the Knicks unless Carmello Anthony stops missing jumpers from outside the arc, or that D’Antoni needs to reinforce offensive rebounds in all his players, no matter their height, or that the Eastern Conference has teams stacked with big men who can’t perform and setting up a strong perimeter offense is more likely to keep the Knicks playing until May. But if you’re looking for thoughtful and detailed analysis, and I sense that you are, I’m going to need at least twenty minutes, a whiteboard, and a computer with Excel.”
Dana doesn’t say anything for a really long time. Sheldon just stands there, doing the times tables or naming every team in the AL Central and their average on-base percentage for the past three years. Penny looks back and forth between them and waits for Dana to say something, anything, to make this horribly awkward silence end. Finally Dana stands up and shakes Sheldon’s hand and for once she’s totally unreadable, even to Penny. Penny leans over and shakes Sheldon’s hand too, nods along for “thank you” and “we’ll be in touch” and then waits for the door to close and Dana to finally speak. It takes awhile. A really long while.
Finally Dana sits back down in her chair and looks at Penny. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing for sure: that guy wouldn’t mix up Pebble Beach footage with an Ohio State game.”
--
Author: allthingsholy
For: juniperlane at the sheldon_penny Saturnalia 2011.
Prompt: A SportsNight AU where Sheldon & Penny are Jeremy & Natalie. Basically, they work on a cable sports show. She’s the producer’s assistant and he’s a stats-obsessed production guy. And if you haven’t watched SportsNight, well. I guess that’s enough to be getting on with.
Notes: For Meg, because of course, and thanks to slybrunette for the looking over. This is just the first bit. I’ll probably go back and write, you know, the rest of it. Later. At some point. Any and all mangling of sports trivia/knowledge is all my fault.
--
“Do we have film from Seattle?” Dana slides into her chair and bumps up against Penny’s elbow. Her coffee cup tilts a little but manages to stay upright, not that Dana notices. She’s in pre-show mode. Casey could be walking around without pants on and Dana wouldn’t register it at all. (At least she didn’t the time it actually happened before.)
Penny squints down at the clipboard next to her. “Yes, we have the film.”
“Are we sure?”
Penny did notice that time Casey wasn’t wearing pants, but she double-checks anyway. “Yes.”
Dana grabs her wrist and leans in close. “Are we really sure? This isn’t going to be like last week when Dan and Casey narrated what should’ve been the Ohio State game but was instead footage from Pebble Beach?”
Penny barely manages not to roll her eyes in her boss’s face. Instead she leans around Dana and says, “Kim, do we have film from Seattle?”
“We do!”
Penny looks back at Dana (stressed, over-worked, beautiful Dana) and says, “We really do.”
And when they get to the thirties, the Seattle film’s the Seattle film and everything goes off without a hitch. Dan stumbles over his words in the sign-offs, but other than that it’s smooth sailing. Penny makes an America’s Cup pun in her head and Dana catches her snorting into her Diet Coke when they’re doing the post-show breakdown in her office.
“What’s so funny?” Dana’s got her feet scrunched up under her, her shoes kicked off and under the coffee table.
“Nothing,” Penny says. “I told you the Seattle film was ready.”
Dana leans back and stretches her hands above her head. It’s been a lot of long nights for the past few weeks and it shows in the slow reach of Dana’s arms toward the ceiling. They’ve all been carrying extra weight (Dan, Casey, even Eliot) but nobody carries as much or works as hard as Dana. And nobody beats herself up as much as Dana does when something slips through the cracks.
“You know,” Penny starts, and her voice is extra sweet and unassuming, “you wouldn’t have to worry so much about little things like the Seattle film if you’d hire a new guy.”
Dana doesn’t say anything but she does let out an impressive sigh and glare at Penny just a little bit. It’s the fifth or fiftieth time they’ve had this conversation in the past two months and Dana’s reaction is almost the same every time.
“Penny,” she starts, but Penny leans forward on her knees, scoots close and interrupts.
“We need to replace Kyle. I know you don’t want to, but we have to. And it’s not that you aren’t doing a great job holding everything together, but we need another set of hands.” Penny waits for a second and tries to judge her boss’s reaction. “I mean, it’s not like Kyle’s irreplaceable.”
Dana sighs again. “I know.”
“Kyle was an idiot.”
“I know.” This time when Dana looks up, there’s a bit of a smile on her face. “We’ll look at some resumes tomorrow.”
Penny leans back against the arm of the couch and smiles. “Good.” She nudges Dana with a toe. “And quit harping on me about that Pebble Beach thing.”
Dana shakes her head. “Pebble Beach, Penny. Casey was talking about a sixty yard punt return over footage of Phil Mickelson chipping onto the green.”
Penny shrugs her shoulder. It’s the end of a long night. The show went well and outside Dana’s window there’s a whole Manhattan skyline, lights in the sky as far as the eye can see. Tomorrow they’ll look at resumes and find someone to replace Kyle, and until then they’ve at least got their hands around it. She takes another drink of her Diet Coke and smiles. “You know, there’s a good reason that film got screwed up.”
“And what’s that?” Dana asks.
“I put Eliot in charge.”
--
The first three people they interview are, to put it mildly, awful. One guy talks about the Knicks for twenty minutes straight and when Dana says, “We do cover other teams, you know,” he gets this look on his face like Penny’s dad used to get when she asked to stay out past curfew. (The look he got on his face when Penny stopped asking altogether and just started coming home at dawn was entirely different.) One guy gives his entire career history to Dana’s chest. One guy calls them “ladies” when he sits down and asks when “the guy in charge” will be joining them.
“You know, I remember how to hog-tie a sow,” Penny says when the door closes behind the last guy. Well, the door’s not quite closed, in the sense that it’s still open and the guy’s still in the room, but he doesn’t say anything when he leaves (quickly) so it’s really all the same.
When the next guy finally sits down, Penny’s sure this is either going to be the best or the worst interview they have all day. He’s lanky, all knees and elbows and meticulously ironed clothes. His hair’s too perfect and when he sits down in front of them, his knees are probably perfect right angles. Penny sits a little straighter in her chair, suddenly super aware of her posture and the crease down the front of her shirt.
Dana launches right in with her usual slew of questions and Penny follows along on the copy of his resume on her clipboard: Sheldon Cooper, 28, graduate of MIT and former Fox Sports employee. His words are clipped and a little bit anxious, and he manages to fidget while also appearing rigidly controlled. Everything about him is at opposite ends of the spectrum, which is pretty much Penny’s exact reaction to him: he’s kind of super awkward, all elbows and knees and vaguely unflattering haircut, but at the same time Penny kind of can’t stop staring at his hands and his jawline and this little patch of freckles behind his ear.
“Penny?”
“Huh?” Maybe being a little too distracted by the hint of a drawl is a problem, since Dana’s looking at her expectantly and Penny has no idea why.
“Do you have any questions? Maybe about the Rangers or the Mets?”
“Oh!” Penny’s got a handful of hypotheticals at the ready, easy lobs and a few curveballs, things to check for general awareness of the sports world. “What do you think about the Knick’s prospect of picking up a big center? Will that help them get to the postseason?”
Sheldon clenches and unclenches his hands (Penny notices) and says, “I wouldn’t want to speculate.”
Dana shoots Penny a look. “Okay, well. I’d like you to.”
Sheldon draws his shoulder back and narrows his eyes. “I’d rather not.”
Dana draws herself up, positions herself just so in a way Penny recognizes immediately. This guy either gets his shit together in two seconds or this interview is over. “I’d really, really like you to try.”
Judging by his shoes and his general demeanor, reading social cues is maybe not at the top of Sheldon’s list of marketable skills, but he must be at least somewhat aware things aren’t going well because he stands up suddenly, curling his hands around the seatback of his chair. “Ms. Whitaker,” he starts, “I’m afraid if sheer speculation is all you’re looking for out of an assistant manager, we’ve reached the inevitable conclusion to this meeting. Speculation is imprecise and useless. I could tell you that a big man won’t do anything for the Knicks unless Carmello Anthony stops missing jumpers from outside the arc, or that D’Antoni needs to reinforce offensive rebounds in all his players, no matter their height, or that the Eastern Conference has teams stacked with big men who can’t perform and setting up a strong perimeter offense is more likely to keep the Knicks playing until May. But if you’re looking for thoughtful and detailed analysis, and I sense that you are, I’m going to need at least twenty minutes, a whiteboard, and a computer with Excel.”
Dana doesn’t say anything for a really long time. Sheldon just stands there, doing the times tables or naming every team in the AL Central and their average on-base percentage for the past three years. Penny looks back and forth between them and waits for Dana to say something, anything, to make this horribly awkward silence end. Finally Dana stands up and shakes Sheldon’s hand and for once she’s totally unreadable, even to Penny. Penny leans over and shakes Sheldon’s hand too, nods along for “thank you” and “we’ll be in touch” and then waits for the door to close and Dana to finally speak. It takes awhile. A really long while.
Finally Dana sits back down in her chair and looks at Penny. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing for sure: that guy wouldn’t mix up Pebble Beach footage with an Ohio State game.”
--