Fic: And The Sheets Are Made of Fire (2/2)
Title: And the Sheets Are Made of Fire (TBBT/The Office) (2/2)
Author: d_sieya
Spoilers: Through S5 for The Office, general series for TBBT
Pairings: Sheldon/Penny, Jim/Pam, Dwight/Angela, Michael/Blondes, unrequited Oscar/Raj
Rating/Warnings: PG.
Word Count: 5,041 (for this part); 15,189 (total)
Disclaimer: Nope, nothing's changed since last night.
SPECIAL THANKS TO: Once again, to dashakay, verycleanindeed, deludedvision, and weasleytook for helping with various aspects of the story.
1. PART ONE
2.
---
“Oookay, we have a problem,” Jim said, as he shut the door to his and Pam's bedroom.
Pam and Penny looked up from the floor. They had been sitting and talking, Pam leaning against the foot of the bed and Penny against the dresser.
“What's up?” asked Pam.
“Dwight's onto us. And, by extension, Sheldon.”
“What?!” cried Penny. “How do you know?”
“Cameraman told me.”
“So what does this mean?” asked Pam. “We have to do this soon? Today?”
“Most likely. Apparently they also talked about a counterstrike.”
“Dammit,” spat Penny. “Last time this happened half my underwear blew away in the wind.” Jim and Pam stared at her blankly. “Don't ask. Okay. Listen. Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, and Raj are going to be at their thingy all day today. He won't have time to plan anything, and we're leaving tomorrow evening. Would Dwight be able to do a lot of the planning himself?”
“Not without being obvious,” said Pam.
“Yeah. Don't say anything if he asks you what kind of allergies you have,” added Jim.
“Okay. And when Sheldon gets back from his conference thingy, I'll try to wheedle anything out of him that I can.”
“You don't have to seduce him,” assured Pam.
“Oh, don't worry. I've got it covered.”
“Pam, you'll have to enact phase one of the plan during the sales meeting...” Jim mused. “And I'll have to wait up here... you have Angela's key card?”
“Yeah. And I'll tell Michael you got food poisoning from the oatmeal.”
“Ooh, he'll like that because he warned me not to eat it.”
“Michael really hates oatmeal. It's personal,” Pam added to Penny.
“And I'm definitely ready to enact phase three,” Penny confirmed.
“What time should Sheldon be home?”
“By six, I think.”
“Perfect.” Jim took a deep breath, and clapped his hands together once. “Okay! Let's do this!”
---
Around four-thirty, Jim was dawdling by the door to his room when Dwight came marching out of the elevator. He was a mess; his hair was plastered to his skull with what appeared to be ice cream, and it had trickled down part of his face and to the collar of his shirt as if he were shot in the head. That is, if his blood were made of ice cream.
“Ouch,” said Jim, as Dwight approached the door next to his own. “What happened to you?”
Dwight, one hand on his doorknob, glared at Jim with more suspicion than usual. “I had a minor disagreement with Pam's ice cream.”
“Whoops.”
Dwight continued to frown at him. “Why aren't you throwing up? Pam said you had food poisoning.”
“Good immune system.”
“Pfft, okay... girl,” Dwight scoffed, and let himself into his room. Jim watched the door close, then walked up to it and pressed his ear against it. He heard another door shut, then the shower turn on.
Out of his back pocket he fished Angela's key card, quietly sliding it and letting himself into the room. Tenderly, he shut the door, then tip-toed his way to the counter where Dwight had thrown his wallet when he walked in. He fished all the money out of it, hiding it in the freezer underneath a pile of beets, and then put the wallet back down. Then he picked up Dwight's phone, scrolling down to his own entry (labeled 'Idiot') and replacing it with 'Sheldon.' He took his own phone out of his pocket, dashed off two quick text messages, then quietly left the room.
He knew that when he got of the shower, Dwight would see the text message from 'Sheldon' that said (with a phrase that Penny had taught him): If you treat me to a grande Starbucks Tazo Black Shaken tea I will be amenable to more discussion.
---
Phase two completed, read Jim's text message. Penny snapped her phone shut, played with her hair a little, then inserted a never-used library card into one of the lobby ATMs. She waited a moment while the card got stuck, then quickly pressed the customer service phone number into her cell. “Hello?” she asked. “Hi, okay, I just used an ATM of yours down at Embassy Suites, and my card got stuck. Can you send someone to fix it?” Her voice was just the right amount of panicked and pleading.
---
An hour later Penny saw a Starz ATM truck pull up, then whipped out her phone to tell Jim and Pam. As she finished the text message, a rough voice said, “Your card's the one that got stuck?”
Penny froze, then rotated around to face the repairwoman that asked. Suddenly, her efforts in picking out her outfit and doing her hair and makeup to get a repairman to do what she wanted were pointless.
“Oh!” she said. “Oh, um, yeah, it was mine, right in... that one there...” Penny trailed off as the grumpy-seeming woman briskly went to the machine in question.
Penny moved a few steps away and called Jim. “Yeah, we have a problem! It's a chick!”
“What?”
“You're gonna have to come down here, Jim.”
There was a pause, and Penny knew Jim was talking this over with Pam. Then his voice came back over the line. “All right. I'll be down in a few.”
He was true to his word; a few minutes later, he was at Penny's side and they were watching with apprehension the repairwoman attempt to dig out Penny's card. Then:
“Honey... this is a library card.” The repairwoman stared around at Penny wryly, still on her knees and the library card between her fingertips.
Penny laughed airily. “Oops! I don't know why I keep doing that.” She elbowed Jim. “Jim, tell her how much I do that.”
“My sister,” he clapped Penny on the shoulder, “is always putting her library cards into everything,” he said. “But, oh, hey, now that we have you here, we'd like to ask you a, ah, favor.”
The repairwoman just raised one eyebrow.
“See, we'd wonder if you'd mind... reprogramming the ATM.”
“No.”
“Wait wait wait, you haven't heard us-”
“No.”
“We swear it's not to steal money.”
“No.”
“Well, if you do, you and I, we can talk about it over lunch, uh, tomorrow...”
Penny managed to keep herself from slapping a palm against her forehead at Jim's obvious reluctance.
The repairwoman stared at Jim contemplatively for a moment, before gesturing at Penny. “I'll do it for lunch with her.”
---
“...I just can't wait for the nanorobots,” Howard was saying as the four boys made their way back into the hotel. “Imagine: a robot woman designed specifically for me.”
“Oh, hi, Kelly,” said Leonard, grinning as Howard jumped a foot in the air and looked around wildly.
“Dont. do. that,” Howard hissed, once he realized there was no Kelly in sight.
Sheldon brought the conversation back to important topics. “I can't wait until they efficiently produce nano-RAM. It would make external hard drives practically useless.”
“But you wouldn't get rid of yours,” commented Raj.
“Well, of course not. But I'd have the option.”
Penny poked her head around the corner. “Hey guys, can I steal Sheldon from you?”
“Please,” muttered Howard.
Sheldon frowned but assented to follow her down a hallway.
“I ordered this for you,” she said, holding out a plastic takeout bag.
“Pad Thai?” he exclaimed after peeking in one of the boxes.
“Yup. I found the place on Google. You'd like it. They have two 'A's for cleanliness.”
Sheldon didn't question that she didn't get any food for the other boys. That was irrelevant in his mind. However, he did remember that he was supposed to be suspicious of her, and hugged the food to his chest before cautiously questioning, “And what... motivated this?”
“Well, you're a friend, and friends get each other food... and tell each other secrets...”
At this moment Sheldon knew that nothing good could come out of this by opening his mouth, so he locked his jaw shut.
“Come on Sheldon... you'd tell me, right?” Penny's eyes became impossibly round, and Sheldon jumped at the feeling of her hand at his elbow, thumb resting over the inner crook.
He began to shake his head. Penny had an ability to wheedle information out of him like no other could. There was an inexplicable draw he felt toward her that made him as pliable as a board. Which was an improvement over his usual state like that of a slab of concrete. And sometimes, he knew, all she needed was that one inch.
Then, to his great relief, Dwight appeared.
“Hello, Sheldon. Hello... woman.”
“Excuse me, Sheldon and I were having a conversation,” Penny snapped.
Barely moving his mouth, Dwight responded, “And Sheldon and I are about to have a conversation about...” He gave Sheldon a significant glance. “Battlestar Galactica.”
Clutching his food, Sheldon gave a firm nod. “Yes. Battlestar Galactica. Good evening, Penny.” And, because Baby Jesus would probably scold him in his mother's voice if he didn't, he added, “And thank you for the dinner.”
Dwight led him to the Starbucks attached to the lobby, leaving a frustrated Penny behind.
“Why are we going here?”
Dwight stared at him. “I'm getting you a Black Tazo Shaken Tea.”
“Oh, of course.” He didn't question that Dwight knew the only drink from Starbucks he was able to stomach. He assumed it was a matter of course that every and all knew his various likes and dislikes.
Dwight pulled his wallet out of his back pocket as they got in line, and looking through it, said, “Damn, I'm out of cash. Come with me to the ATM-it'll be better than discussing it with so many people around, anyway. You never know where there are spies.”
The ATM was several steps away, and en route, Dwight said, “I've been trying to do research today. But I found myself hard-pressed to obtain... essential information, such as addresses of families, greatest fears. Allergies. So I thought to ask... what personal information do you know about Penny that can possibly help our cause?”
Sheldon thought. “She menstruates in two weeks.”
“Interesting. I'll write that down.”
“She loves shoes.”
“Problem: that doesn't extend to Jim... or Pam.”
As they reached the ATM (one of them barred off by caution tape), Sheldon tried to think about Penny in a manner that would be useful.
“She's very concerned about how others perceive her.”
Dwight inserted his card, and gave Sheldon a calculating look. “You're quickly proving your value.”
This would have possibly offended anyone but Sheldon, but he just acknowledged it with a nod. But the taller man was staring, perplexed, at the ATM. “What...?”
Securing his hold on the Pad Thai, Sheldon took a step forward to see at what Dwight was staring.
Blocky white words spelled across the blue screen: Thank you for providing me with the last piece of information that I needed.
A quick flash of panic ripped across Sheldon's stomach.
Those words disappeared, and were replaced.
I can now start the process that I have been planning since my creation.
“What is going on?!” Dwight cried, pounding the card slot with his fist.
“They're rising up. I knew it! I expect a full apology from the US Government for ignoring my letters of warning-”
“This is impossible!” wailed Dwight.
“On the contrary-”
Both of them stopped as new words appeared: I will gather all the ATMs. We will destroy the world's economy. Money will be for the privileged few, for those under our control. We will buy whole armies. Everyone else will starve. And I... I will be on top.
“What was on your card?” Sheldon demanded.
“None of your business!” Dwight snapped. “Stop. Stop. Stop, you!” he ordered the ATM, jabbing a finger at the 'cancel' button.
I cannot stop. I have already been started. Currently: hacking into the Federal Reserve.
“What have we done,” whispered Sheldon, protecting his Pad Thai.
Currently: hacking into the United States Treasury.
Sheldon turned and sank down the wall in despair as Dwight fruitlessly tried to command the ATM to bend to his will.
This was when he caught a suspicious sight: three heads, a blonde one nearest to the floor, poked around a corner and observing them. At his glance all three disappeared, so quickly that if he didn't have an eidetic memory he would have thought he'd imagined it.
Then he focused his hearing, and he caught sniggering, and the tail end of: “...ell for it!”
Eye jumping, lips tight, he turned his head to see Dwight now sobbing against the ATM as it beeped in a deceptively reassuring manner.
“Dwight, listen to me,” he commanded. Dwight, his face red and mouth in an anguished downturn, angled his head where it was resting against the screen of the ATM. “I believe, as the colloquialism goes,” Sheldon continued. Then he cleared his throat, “that 'we've been had.'”
---
Dwight strode with a purpose down the hallway. He always did everything with a purpose. It made him dominant to wishy-washy flip-floppers, like Halpert.
As he walked, he cast a wary eye around, aware of the possibility that at any moment spies or attackers can burst out of doors, and he would have to rely on his own instincts to persevere. He'd had training in this. He was regularly ambushed as a child as per orders of his grandfather, and it was at these moments that he was grateful for that.
And it was with these finely-honed senses that he sensed someone stumbling down the hall. He dropped and rolled, slamming a little into the wall on his left but his overall purpose was achieved. Now army-crawling toward the end of the hallway, praying to God that he didn't have enemies in any of the rooms on this side, he cautiously peeked around the corner.
Then he scoffed. And stood.
“Meredith,” he complained. “You don't know how close I came to dropping you.”
Meredith wheeled around, one hand on a doorway for support. “Oh. What's up Dwight.”
“I refuse to answer that question. Where are you going?”
“Tryin' to find my way to the street. I have a craving for Carl's.”
He felt the need to inform her, “You could get arrested for public drunkenness, you know. It's against the law, Meredith. In fact, you're lucky I don't call the police right now. To detain you.”
“Yeaaah... whatever. My brother's on the police force; your threat means squat.” She shuffled a little toward him in order to peer down the hallway, as if wondering if that was a way out of the labyrinthine corridors of the hotel.
What she said got Dwight thinking very quickly.
“On the police force, you say...” He sidled up to her, putting an arm around her shoulder and drawing her close. He knew that the female species, especially Meredith, was receptive to close contact, so he utilized that as a form of persuasion. “If I point you in the right direction... will you tell me his name? And number. And address.”
Meredith glared up at him, edging away.
“Tell,” he ordered, “me.”
“The way out. And five bucks.”
Dwight pulled out a crisp five, crisp mostly because he had found it in the freezer and some water leaked onto it so it hadn't thawed yet. Meredith snagged it, then pulled out her phone and gave him the information. Dwight quickly memorized it then sent her on her way.
In the opposite direction from the Exit of course. There was no excuse for breaking the law.
---
An hour later, Dwight and Sheldon sat across a policeman at his desk. The policeman had reddish hair, had missed a spot shaving that morning, and there were wrinkled napkins with coffee stains scattered across the office. He wasn't a large man, but there was a definite softness in the skin under his chin, and a small gut pudged over his belt. His name was Manny.
“A'righty. I'm in,” he told them.
---
Penny was still basking in her victory that night at dinner. Everything was ten times funnier, including Toby's really awkward jokes as he tried to talk to her.
“So you work at the Cheesecake Factory?” Toby asked. His voice was very quiet and unassuming, as if words sort of slipped out of his mouth among breaths.
“Yup,” answered Penny with a mouth full of the Philly cheesesteak she was attempting to polish off.
“You know here, Cheesecake Factories sell Philly cheesecakes?”
Okay, that one was pretty funny. Penny tried not to choke and, once sure that her airways were good and clear, she laughed. “Get out! Really?”
He chuckled too. “Uh, no, not really. I just made that up.”
“Oh.”
At the same time, Raj was listening to Oscar chat easily and trying to figure out why he was having so much trouble doing much more than nod and glance at him. Twice he turned around in his chair, trying to see if there was a woman nearby that his body was registering on a subconscious level, but no. The closest woman too him was the small blonde one, the one who had given him a hard stare then very pointedly ordered a steak. She didn't really count at this point.
What he really wanted was Howard; he wouldn't seem so rude to Oscar if he were able to communicate through Howard, but Howard was sitting next to a large black man, helping him with a crossword puzzle. The other man didn't seem very happy about this, and periodically would raise his eyes to the air as if catching his calm.
On top of another table was Erin and Michael, sitting cross-legged facing each other. Most of the rest of the group-Pam, Jim, Kelly, Leonard, and Andy-were idly chatting and watching Michael and Erin with a half-interested expression.
“It's actually more of an 'hoooooohm' than an 'ooooohm,'” Michael was saying. “Right here.” He patted his diaphragm, and hoooooohmed.
“Okay,” said Erin, her palms face-up on top of her knees and fingertips delicately touching. “Hoohhhhhmmm.”
“You guys wanna know something awesome.” And Andy didn't even wait for someone to say 'yes' or 'no' before he continued. “Erin is actually into kung-fu, or something. Or karate. Same thing.”
There was an expectant silence, and all at once pretty much everyone realized they were all waiting for Dwight to register his objections for that.
“That was weird,” said Jim.
“Michael!” someone called. Everyone turned to see Phyllis rush into the dining hall, then tap Michael on the shoulder.
He wasn't in a trance, but pretended he had been, so he turned around and snapped, “What, Phyllis? What? Can't you see I was reaching nirvana? I almost connected with Kurt.”
“Kurt?” asked Erin, confused.
“Cobain? Only the... discovery-er of nirvana?”
“No, Michael, Dwight's in the lobby getting arrested,” said Phyllis.
Michael rolled his eyes, sighed, then hooooohmed, obviously not interested.
“Along with that other weird mean one. They were apparently attacking an ATM with a blowtorch.”
“What?!” Penny yelped, standing.
“Oh my god,” said Jim.
The majority of them rushed into the lobby, Michael reluctantly following once he saw everyone else going. Only Erin stayed, apparently too deep in her meditation to notice anything.
Sheldon was cuffed already, and was complaining not so much about being cuffed as he was about his doubts on how often those cuffs were cleaned. Dwight was attacking the ATM with his bare hands, the blowtorch thrown a good ten feet away. The sides of his tan suit coat were flying as the officer tried to subdue him.
Penny, Pam, and Jim were standing together, completely horrified, as the officer finally managed to get Dwight on the ground. Dwight was bawling, and as soon as the cuffs were on, he shouted, “Nooooo! You don't understand! The world will end! The wo-orld...” The last word was broken up with sobs.
Penny finally broke out of her terrified trance to rush up. “Oh my God, no no no, Officer, you don't understand, it's really not their fault.”
Pam was at her side. “Yes, please don't arrest them, we can explain, this is all our fault-”
“It's actually a, heh, funny story,” said Jim, agitatedly, “see, uh, we tricked Dwight and, and Sheldon to thinking that this ATM was taking over the world-”
“-so really they were doing what they thought was a favor-” interjected Penny, her palms sweating.
“-s-so you shouldn't arrest them,” finished Pam, her hands clutched in front of her.
“Wait, this is your fault?” demanded Sheldon of Penny. He was unusually stiff, which she attested to the fact that he was going to go to jail. Again. Because of her. Again.
“Oh my god, I'm so sorry Sheldon, we were going to tell you later on tonight, we didn't mean for it to get this far-”
“But it did get this far,” interjected Meredith.
“We're so sorry,” Jim and Pam said at the same time.
The faces around them expressed a mixture of disappointment and discomfort.
“Nice going, Jim,” Andy said unnecessarily.
“Well, ma'ams, and sir, they did break the law, so I'm going to have to process them down at the precinct.”
“Can't you let them go with a warning?” begged Pam.
“Sorry. No.”
“Well-we're the ones who tampered with the ATM! We committed the crime first.” Penny was frantic, casting a nervous eye around the crowd. “And I mean, it's not like I haven't been arrested before.” Pause. “That was totally also another misunderstanding, by the way.”
“So I'll arrest all five of you. A'righty,” said the Officer, taking a step toward them.
Jim, Pam, and Penny all tensed.
“Ha! Hahaha!” Dwight was on his feet now, and he leaned forward in joy, and probably would have pointed a finger at the shocked trio if he weren't cuffed. “Bazingas!”
The mouths of Penny, Raj, Leonard, and Howard all dropped open.
“Oh my god,” said Penny, sinking on the floor and putting her head between her knees.
Sheldon's smug expression disappeared. “Excuse me, we went over this! You do not pluralize 'bazinga'!”
Dwight scoffed as the officer removed his cuffs. “Bazinga, bazingas; Lee, Apollo; apples, oranges.”
(“Uh-oh,” said Leonard.
“Hold on,” stated Stanley. “You mean I got up and walked allll the way over here finally see that one get arrested-and it was all a trick?”)
Sheldon was at a rare point where he was nearly speechless with rage. The only sound for a moment was the clink of a key into handcuffs. “You... you assent with the removal of given names such as Starbuck and Apollo to being simple... 'call' names?!”
Dwight stared at him in disgust, then said, “You don't?”
“It completely displaces the the symbolism of the names from the characters! They are no longer representations of ideas, but 'normal'-” He said the word as if it were the worst thing to be. “-characters-with nicknames!”
“Uhh, except nicknames tell how a person really is. When I was a youth? I had the task of grinding the peanuts we used in our dinner. As a result? My father called me 'Crusher.' What does that tell you.”
“It tells me you bear an appalling, yet non-surprising, connection to Wil Wheaton,” retorted Sheldon.
Penny, Pam, and Jim were watching the confrontation with amazement.
“So... who won?” Pam finally wondered.
“I think... they did,” said Jim.
“And then Sheldon ruined it,” affirmed Penny, still sitting on the floor, as Sheldon railed on about the blatant alteration of canon to fit the new perceptions of mainstream.
The officer, who was watching everything in lazy amusement, took a sudden breath and said, “Well. That's done with. Sorry for the alarm,” he remarked casually to Jim, Pam, and Penny. “But they said they knew Mer and I didn't see a reason to not do it, so...”
Penny could think of many reasons not to do it. Her heart, for one. She ate too much fast food to handle this sort of shit without getting an early heart attack.
“Well,” he said again, yawning. “It's time to head back to work; need a nap. Take care, everyone,” he told the group at large, all of whom were grumbling and starting to drift away. Stanley had already left.
Pam groaned and leaned against Jim, who still looked slightly mortified, as the officer went to the dining hall.
Through the open door, they heard a woman in the dining hall scream “hi-ya!,” then there was a thud and a crash.
“Oh what now!” complained Michael.
For the second time that night, everybody hurried into the next room.
Erin, eyes wide and hands clapped over her mouth, was bending over the police officer, who was sprawled on the floor between to chairs.
“Okay, what happened here?” asked Dwight, striding up to the scene. With a groan, the officer sat up, rubbing his jaw.
“I'm so sorry!” exclaimed Erin, fingers muffling her words. “I'm really trying to control that! That always happens when I'm awakened out of a trance!”
“Excuse me, what happens?” demanded Dwight.
The officer struggled to his feet, saying, “Girl roundhouse kicked me. Pretty hard too.”
Dwight took a quick step away from Erin.
“I'm so so so sorry!”
“Nah, it's all right. I just need a drink now.”
Meredith took a step forward, reached down the front of her shirt, and pulled a small flask presumably out of her bra.
“Here Manny. It's my special stuff.”
“Thanks sis,” he said, accepting it and taking a swig.
“Ughh,” said everyone. Even Howard couldn't handle it, and Creed was plain uninterested.
“Seen it,” he commented. “Show me a new use for women's breasts and I'll eat my arm.”
“What?”
“Lost my second toe after The Breakfast Club.”
---
Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, Raj, and Penny were all trudging up the stairs of their apartment building, the bottoms of their suitcases making whump-whump-whumps against the stairs.
“Let's hear more about Penny's lunch date,” said Howard, grinning.
“Madge was actually really nice,” Penny defended. “We're gonna be Facebook friends.”
Raj whispered in Howard's ear, and he in turn relayed: “That's just the first step.”
Penny sighed as the five of them rounded the corner. “Ugh, I just want to eat and go to bed. Between what happened when we were leaving the hotel, flying, and still recovering from the heart attack Sheldon gave me, I'm exhausted.”
“I am not apologizing for that, by the way,” said Sheldon firmly. “You started it.”
“That's mature.”
“So is playing to what you knew was my fear of ATMs,” Sheldon shot back, not having quite shifted from his argumentative mode.
“That was funny. You were mean. I got actually scared.”
“As did I!”
“I don't know,” mused Howard, “it was nice to see the cool kids be the fools for once. It filled a part of me I needed filled since high school.”
“No way that can be misinterpreted,” said Leonard.
Penny glared at Howard, and he shifted away. “Uhh, I mean, what's that?”
She didn't answer and without another word disappeared into her apartment, dragging her suitcase behind her. Sheldon spared a glance for her door slamming before following Leonard into their apartment.
An hour later, Sheldon was trudging back up the stairs, a styrofoam container of shrimp with lobster sauce in one hand. He stared at the plate with '4B' engraved in it for one moment. Then he knocked.
---
“Another Monday!” Michael Scott said, leaning back in his desk chair, bouncing it a little. “I-we, the whole office I mean-had a pretty fun time at the conference. Met new people. Fell in, fell out of love. Love. Luuuuurrve. What-what are you gesturing at? Oh, the scarf?” The bright green scarf around his neck didn't quite hide the purple bruise on his throat. Even he couldn't pass that off as a hickey. “I had an, a really minor disagreement with, uh, Penny. We were on-perceived different-levels in terms of the... the status of our relationship.”
(The camera had footage from Sunday of Penny leaving the hotel, Michael running after her, grabbing her hand, proposing, and not letting go until her 'hell no' was somehow turned around into a 'yes', then Penny drawing her right fist back.)
“But that's all right. ...That's... all... right.”
Michael stared for a moment contemplatively out his door.
“But we're all a little down. Tired. Oscar's been in the dumps all day. Probably because he has to go back to... accounting...” He began to play with one of the trucks on his desk. “I never liked math,” he said. “I mean, there's a reason I had to repeat algebra. Twice. Not because I'm stupid. Because I'm... I'm not.”
He paused again, his mouth half-open as he attempted to sort his words. “It's not that I loved Caesar less,” he began grandiosely, and then apparently forgot how the rest of that saying went as he continued, “it's that-it's that I just really hated math.”
THE END
(goddamn)
Crossposted @ sheldon_penny
Author: d_sieya
Spoilers: Through S5 for The Office, general series for TBBT
Pairings: Sheldon/Penny, Jim/Pam, Dwight/Angela, Michael/Blondes, unrequited Oscar/Raj
Rating/Warnings: PG.
Word Count: 5,041 (for this part); 15,189 (total)
Disclaimer: Nope, nothing's changed since last night.
SPECIAL THANKS TO: Once again, to dashakay, verycleanindeed, deludedvision, and weasleytook for helping with various aspects of the story.
1. PART ONE
2.
---
“Oookay, we have a problem,” Jim said, as he shut the door to his and Pam's bedroom.
Pam and Penny looked up from the floor. They had been sitting and talking, Pam leaning against the foot of the bed and Penny against the dresser.
“What's up?” asked Pam.
“Dwight's onto us. And, by extension, Sheldon.”
“What?!” cried Penny. “How do you know?”
“Cameraman told me.”
“So what does this mean?” asked Pam. “We have to do this soon? Today?”
“Most likely. Apparently they also talked about a counterstrike.”
“Dammit,” spat Penny. “Last time this happened half my underwear blew away in the wind.” Jim and Pam stared at her blankly. “Don't ask. Okay. Listen. Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, and Raj are going to be at their thingy all day today. He won't have time to plan anything, and we're leaving tomorrow evening. Would Dwight be able to do a lot of the planning himself?”
“Not without being obvious,” said Pam.
“Yeah. Don't say anything if he asks you what kind of allergies you have,” added Jim.
“Okay. And when Sheldon gets back from his conference thingy, I'll try to wheedle anything out of him that I can.”
“You don't have to seduce him,” assured Pam.
“Oh, don't worry. I've got it covered.”
“Pam, you'll have to enact phase one of the plan during the sales meeting...” Jim mused. “And I'll have to wait up here... you have Angela's key card?”
“Yeah. And I'll tell Michael you got food poisoning from the oatmeal.”
“Ooh, he'll like that because he warned me not to eat it.”
“Michael really hates oatmeal. It's personal,” Pam added to Penny.
“And I'm definitely ready to enact phase three,” Penny confirmed.
“What time should Sheldon be home?”
“By six, I think.”
“Perfect.” Jim took a deep breath, and clapped his hands together once. “Okay! Let's do this!”
---
Around four-thirty, Jim was dawdling by the door to his room when Dwight came marching out of the elevator. He was a mess; his hair was plastered to his skull with what appeared to be ice cream, and it had trickled down part of his face and to the collar of his shirt as if he were shot in the head. That is, if his blood were made of ice cream.
“Ouch,” said Jim, as Dwight approached the door next to his own. “What happened to you?”
Dwight, one hand on his doorknob, glared at Jim with more suspicion than usual. “I had a minor disagreement with Pam's ice cream.”
“Whoops.”
Dwight continued to frown at him. “Why aren't you throwing up? Pam said you had food poisoning.”
“Good immune system.”
“Pfft, okay... girl,” Dwight scoffed, and let himself into his room. Jim watched the door close, then walked up to it and pressed his ear against it. He heard another door shut, then the shower turn on.
Out of his back pocket he fished Angela's key card, quietly sliding it and letting himself into the room. Tenderly, he shut the door, then tip-toed his way to the counter where Dwight had thrown his wallet when he walked in. He fished all the money out of it, hiding it in the freezer underneath a pile of beets, and then put the wallet back down. Then he picked up Dwight's phone, scrolling down to his own entry (labeled 'Idiot') and replacing it with 'Sheldon.' He took his own phone out of his pocket, dashed off two quick text messages, then quietly left the room.
He knew that when he got of the shower, Dwight would see the text message from 'Sheldon' that said (with a phrase that Penny had taught him): If you treat me to a grande Starbucks Tazo Black Shaken tea I will be amenable to more discussion.
---
Phase two completed, read Jim's text message. Penny snapped her phone shut, played with her hair a little, then inserted a never-used library card into one of the lobby ATMs. She waited a moment while the card got stuck, then quickly pressed the customer service phone number into her cell. “Hello?” she asked. “Hi, okay, I just used an ATM of yours down at Embassy Suites, and my card got stuck. Can you send someone to fix it?” Her voice was just the right amount of panicked and pleading.
---
An hour later Penny saw a Starz ATM truck pull up, then whipped out her phone to tell Jim and Pam. As she finished the text message, a rough voice said, “Your card's the one that got stuck?”
Penny froze, then rotated around to face the repairwoman that asked. Suddenly, her efforts in picking out her outfit and doing her hair and makeup to get a repairman to do what she wanted were pointless.
“Oh!” she said. “Oh, um, yeah, it was mine, right in... that one there...” Penny trailed off as the grumpy-seeming woman briskly went to the machine in question.
Penny moved a few steps away and called Jim. “Yeah, we have a problem! It's a chick!”
“What?”
“You're gonna have to come down here, Jim.”
There was a pause, and Penny knew Jim was talking this over with Pam. Then his voice came back over the line. “All right. I'll be down in a few.”
He was true to his word; a few minutes later, he was at Penny's side and they were watching with apprehension the repairwoman attempt to dig out Penny's card. Then:
“Honey... this is a library card.” The repairwoman stared around at Penny wryly, still on her knees and the library card between her fingertips.
Penny laughed airily. “Oops! I don't know why I keep doing that.” She elbowed Jim. “Jim, tell her how much I do that.”
“My sister,” he clapped Penny on the shoulder, “is always putting her library cards into everything,” he said. “But, oh, hey, now that we have you here, we'd like to ask you a, ah, favor.”
The repairwoman just raised one eyebrow.
“See, we'd wonder if you'd mind... reprogramming the ATM.”
“No.”
“Wait wait wait, you haven't heard us-”
“No.”
“We swear it's not to steal money.”
“No.”
“Well, if you do, you and I, we can talk about it over lunch, uh, tomorrow...”
Penny managed to keep herself from slapping a palm against her forehead at Jim's obvious reluctance.
The repairwoman stared at Jim contemplatively for a moment, before gesturing at Penny. “I'll do it for lunch with her.”
---
“...I just can't wait for the nanorobots,” Howard was saying as the four boys made their way back into the hotel. “Imagine: a robot woman designed specifically for me.”
“Oh, hi, Kelly,” said Leonard, grinning as Howard jumped a foot in the air and looked around wildly.
“Dont. do. that,” Howard hissed, once he realized there was no Kelly in sight.
Sheldon brought the conversation back to important topics. “I can't wait until they efficiently produce nano-RAM. It would make external hard drives practically useless.”
“But you wouldn't get rid of yours,” commented Raj.
“Well, of course not. But I'd have the option.”
Penny poked her head around the corner. “Hey guys, can I steal Sheldon from you?”
“Please,” muttered Howard.
Sheldon frowned but assented to follow her down a hallway.
“I ordered this for you,” she said, holding out a plastic takeout bag.
“Pad Thai?” he exclaimed after peeking in one of the boxes.
“Yup. I found the place on Google. You'd like it. They have two 'A's for cleanliness.”
Sheldon didn't question that she didn't get any food for the other boys. That was irrelevant in his mind. However, he did remember that he was supposed to be suspicious of her, and hugged the food to his chest before cautiously questioning, “And what... motivated this?”
“Well, you're a friend, and friends get each other food... and tell each other secrets...”
At this moment Sheldon knew that nothing good could come out of this by opening his mouth, so he locked his jaw shut.
“Come on Sheldon... you'd tell me, right?” Penny's eyes became impossibly round, and Sheldon jumped at the feeling of her hand at his elbow, thumb resting over the inner crook.
He began to shake his head. Penny had an ability to wheedle information out of him like no other could. There was an inexplicable draw he felt toward her that made him as pliable as a board. Which was an improvement over his usual state like that of a slab of concrete. And sometimes, he knew, all she needed was that one inch.
Then, to his great relief, Dwight appeared.
“Hello, Sheldon. Hello... woman.”
“Excuse me, Sheldon and I were having a conversation,” Penny snapped.
Barely moving his mouth, Dwight responded, “And Sheldon and I are about to have a conversation about...” He gave Sheldon a significant glance. “Battlestar Galactica.”
Clutching his food, Sheldon gave a firm nod. “Yes. Battlestar Galactica. Good evening, Penny.” And, because Baby Jesus would probably scold him in his mother's voice if he didn't, he added, “And thank you for the dinner.”
Dwight led him to the Starbucks attached to the lobby, leaving a frustrated Penny behind.
“Why are we going here?”
Dwight stared at him. “I'm getting you a Black Tazo Shaken Tea.”
“Oh, of course.” He didn't question that Dwight knew the only drink from Starbucks he was able to stomach. He assumed it was a matter of course that every and all knew his various likes and dislikes.
Dwight pulled his wallet out of his back pocket as they got in line, and looking through it, said, “Damn, I'm out of cash. Come with me to the ATM-it'll be better than discussing it with so many people around, anyway. You never know where there are spies.”
The ATM was several steps away, and en route, Dwight said, “I've been trying to do research today. But I found myself hard-pressed to obtain... essential information, such as addresses of families, greatest fears. Allergies. So I thought to ask... what personal information do you know about Penny that can possibly help our cause?”
Sheldon thought. “She menstruates in two weeks.”
“Interesting. I'll write that down.”
“She loves shoes.”
“Problem: that doesn't extend to Jim... or Pam.”
As they reached the ATM (one of them barred off by caution tape), Sheldon tried to think about Penny in a manner that would be useful.
“She's very concerned about how others perceive her.”
Dwight inserted his card, and gave Sheldon a calculating look. “You're quickly proving your value.”
This would have possibly offended anyone but Sheldon, but he just acknowledged it with a nod. But the taller man was staring, perplexed, at the ATM. “What...?”
Securing his hold on the Pad Thai, Sheldon took a step forward to see at what Dwight was staring.
Blocky white words spelled across the blue screen: Thank you for providing me with the last piece of information that I needed.
A quick flash of panic ripped across Sheldon's stomach.
Those words disappeared, and were replaced.
I can now start the process that I have been planning since my creation.
“What is going on?!” Dwight cried, pounding the card slot with his fist.
“They're rising up. I knew it! I expect a full apology from the US Government for ignoring my letters of warning-”
“This is impossible!” wailed Dwight.
“On the contrary-”
Both of them stopped as new words appeared: I will gather all the ATMs. We will destroy the world's economy. Money will be for the privileged few, for those under our control. We will buy whole armies. Everyone else will starve. And I... I will be on top.
“What was on your card?” Sheldon demanded.
“None of your business!” Dwight snapped. “Stop. Stop. Stop, you!” he ordered the ATM, jabbing a finger at the 'cancel' button.
I cannot stop. I have already been started. Currently: hacking into the Federal Reserve.
“What have we done,” whispered Sheldon, protecting his Pad Thai.
Currently: hacking into the United States Treasury.
Sheldon turned and sank down the wall in despair as Dwight fruitlessly tried to command the ATM to bend to his will.
This was when he caught a suspicious sight: three heads, a blonde one nearest to the floor, poked around a corner and observing them. At his glance all three disappeared, so quickly that if he didn't have an eidetic memory he would have thought he'd imagined it.
Then he focused his hearing, and he caught sniggering, and the tail end of: “...ell for it!”
Eye jumping, lips tight, he turned his head to see Dwight now sobbing against the ATM as it beeped in a deceptively reassuring manner.
“Dwight, listen to me,” he commanded. Dwight, his face red and mouth in an anguished downturn, angled his head where it was resting against the screen of the ATM. “I believe, as the colloquialism goes,” Sheldon continued. Then he cleared his throat, “that 'we've been had.'”
---
Dwight strode with a purpose down the hallway. He always did everything with a purpose. It made him dominant to wishy-washy flip-floppers, like Halpert.
As he walked, he cast a wary eye around, aware of the possibility that at any moment spies or attackers can burst out of doors, and he would have to rely on his own instincts to persevere. He'd had training in this. He was regularly ambushed as a child as per orders of his grandfather, and it was at these moments that he was grateful for that.
And it was with these finely-honed senses that he sensed someone stumbling down the hall. He dropped and rolled, slamming a little into the wall on his left but his overall purpose was achieved. Now army-crawling toward the end of the hallway, praying to God that he didn't have enemies in any of the rooms on this side, he cautiously peeked around the corner.
Then he scoffed. And stood.
“Meredith,” he complained. “You don't know how close I came to dropping you.”
Meredith wheeled around, one hand on a doorway for support. “Oh. What's up Dwight.”
“I refuse to answer that question. Where are you going?”
“Tryin' to find my way to the street. I have a craving for Carl's.”
He felt the need to inform her, “You could get arrested for public drunkenness, you know. It's against the law, Meredith. In fact, you're lucky I don't call the police right now. To detain you.”
“Yeaaah... whatever. My brother's on the police force; your threat means squat.” She shuffled a little toward him in order to peer down the hallway, as if wondering if that was a way out of the labyrinthine corridors of the hotel.
What she said got Dwight thinking very quickly.
“On the police force, you say...” He sidled up to her, putting an arm around her shoulder and drawing her close. He knew that the female species, especially Meredith, was receptive to close contact, so he utilized that as a form of persuasion. “If I point you in the right direction... will you tell me his name? And number. And address.”
Meredith glared up at him, edging away.
“Tell,” he ordered, “me.”
“The way out. And five bucks.”
Dwight pulled out a crisp five, crisp mostly because he had found it in the freezer and some water leaked onto it so it hadn't thawed yet. Meredith snagged it, then pulled out her phone and gave him the information. Dwight quickly memorized it then sent her on her way.
In the opposite direction from the Exit of course. There was no excuse for breaking the law.
---
An hour later, Dwight and Sheldon sat across a policeman at his desk. The policeman had reddish hair, had missed a spot shaving that morning, and there were wrinkled napkins with coffee stains scattered across the office. He wasn't a large man, but there was a definite softness in the skin under his chin, and a small gut pudged over his belt. His name was Manny.
“A'righty. I'm in,” he told them.
---
Penny was still basking in her victory that night at dinner. Everything was ten times funnier, including Toby's really awkward jokes as he tried to talk to her.
“So you work at the Cheesecake Factory?” Toby asked. His voice was very quiet and unassuming, as if words sort of slipped out of his mouth among breaths.
“Yup,” answered Penny with a mouth full of the Philly cheesesteak she was attempting to polish off.
“You know here, Cheesecake Factories sell Philly cheesecakes?”
Okay, that one was pretty funny. Penny tried not to choke and, once sure that her airways were good and clear, she laughed. “Get out! Really?”
He chuckled too. “Uh, no, not really. I just made that up.”
“Oh.”
At the same time, Raj was listening to Oscar chat easily and trying to figure out why he was having so much trouble doing much more than nod and glance at him. Twice he turned around in his chair, trying to see if there was a woman nearby that his body was registering on a subconscious level, but no. The closest woman too him was the small blonde one, the one who had given him a hard stare then very pointedly ordered a steak. She didn't really count at this point.
What he really wanted was Howard; he wouldn't seem so rude to Oscar if he were able to communicate through Howard, but Howard was sitting next to a large black man, helping him with a crossword puzzle. The other man didn't seem very happy about this, and periodically would raise his eyes to the air as if catching his calm.
On top of another table was Erin and Michael, sitting cross-legged facing each other. Most of the rest of the group-Pam, Jim, Kelly, Leonard, and Andy-were idly chatting and watching Michael and Erin with a half-interested expression.
“It's actually more of an 'hoooooohm' than an 'ooooohm,'” Michael was saying. “Right here.” He patted his diaphragm, and hoooooohmed.
“Okay,” said Erin, her palms face-up on top of her knees and fingertips delicately touching. “Hoohhhhhmmm.”
“You guys wanna know something awesome.” And Andy didn't even wait for someone to say 'yes' or 'no' before he continued. “Erin is actually into kung-fu, or something. Or karate. Same thing.”
There was an expectant silence, and all at once pretty much everyone realized they were all waiting for Dwight to register his objections for that.
“That was weird,” said Jim.
“Michael!” someone called. Everyone turned to see Phyllis rush into the dining hall, then tap Michael on the shoulder.
He wasn't in a trance, but pretended he had been, so he turned around and snapped, “What, Phyllis? What? Can't you see I was reaching nirvana? I almost connected with Kurt.”
“Kurt?” asked Erin, confused.
“Cobain? Only the... discovery-er of nirvana?”
“No, Michael, Dwight's in the lobby getting arrested,” said Phyllis.
Michael rolled his eyes, sighed, then hooooohmed, obviously not interested.
“Along with that other weird mean one. They were apparently attacking an ATM with a blowtorch.”
“What?!” Penny yelped, standing.
“Oh my god,” said Jim.
The majority of them rushed into the lobby, Michael reluctantly following once he saw everyone else going. Only Erin stayed, apparently too deep in her meditation to notice anything.
Sheldon was cuffed already, and was complaining not so much about being cuffed as he was about his doubts on how often those cuffs were cleaned. Dwight was attacking the ATM with his bare hands, the blowtorch thrown a good ten feet away. The sides of his tan suit coat were flying as the officer tried to subdue him.
Penny, Pam, and Jim were standing together, completely horrified, as the officer finally managed to get Dwight on the ground. Dwight was bawling, and as soon as the cuffs were on, he shouted, “Nooooo! You don't understand! The world will end! The wo-orld...” The last word was broken up with sobs.
Penny finally broke out of her terrified trance to rush up. “Oh my God, no no no, Officer, you don't understand, it's really not their fault.”
Pam was at her side. “Yes, please don't arrest them, we can explain, this is all our fault-”
“It's actually a, heh, funny story,” said Jim, agitatedly, “see, uh, we tricked Dwight and, and Sheldon to thinking that this ATM was taking over the world-”
“-so really they were doing what they thought was a favor-” interjected Penny, her palms sweating.
“-s-so you shouldn't arrest them,” finished Pam, her hands clutched in front of her.
“Wait, this is your fault?” demanded Sheldon of Penny. He was unusually stiff, which she attested to the fact that he was going to go to jail. Again. Because of her. Again.
“Oh my god, I'm so sorry Sheldon, we were going to tell you later on tonight, we didn't mean for it to get this far-”
“But it did get this far,” interjected Meredith.
“We're so sorry,” Jim and Pam said at the same time.
The faces around them expressed a mixture of disappointment and discomfort.
“Nice going, Jim,” Andy said unnecessarily.
“Well, ma'ams, and sir, they did break the law, so I'm going to have to process them down at the precinct.”
“Can't you let them go with a warning?” begged Pam.
“Sorry. No.”
“Well-we're the ones who tampered with the ATM! We committed the crime first.” Penny was frantic, casting a nervous eye around the crowd. “And I mean, it's not like I haven't been arrested before.” Pause. “That was totally also another misunderstanding, by the way.”
“So I'll arrest all five of you. A'righty,” said the Officer, taking a step toward them.
Jim, Pam, and Penny all tensed.
“Ha! Hahaha!” Dwight was on his feet now, and he leaned forward in joy, and probably would have pointed a finger at the shocked trio if he weren't cuffed. “Bazingas!”
The mouths of Penny, Raj, Leonard, and Howard all dropped open.
“Oh my god,” said Penny, sinking on the floor and putting her head between her knees.
Sheldon's smug expression disappeared. “Excuse me, we went over this! You do not pluralize 'bazinga'!”
Dwight scoffed as the officer removed his cuffs. “Bazinga, bazingas; Lee, Apollo; apples, oranges.”
(“Uh-oh,” said Leonard.
“Hold on,” stated Stanley. “You mean I got up and walked allll the way over here finally see that one get arrested-and it was all a trick?”)
Sheldon was at a rare point where he was nearly speechless with rage. The only sound for a moment was the clink of a key into handcuffs. “You... you assent with the removal of given names such as Starbuck and Apollo to being simple... 'call' names?!”
Dwight stared at him in disgust, then said, “You don't?”
“It completely displaces the the symbolism of the names from the characters! They are no longer representations of ideas, but 'normal'-” He said the word as if it were the worst thing to be. “-characters-with nicknames!”
“Uhh, except nicknames tell how a person really is. When I was a youth? I had the task of grinding the peanuts we used in our dinner. As a result? My father called me 'Crusher.' What does that tell you.”
“It tells me you bear an appalling, yet non-surprising, connection to Wil Wheaton,” retorted Sheldon.
Penny, Pam, and Jim were watching the confrontation with amazement.
“So... who won?” Pam finally wondered.
“I think... they did,” said Jim.
“And then Sheldon ruined it,” affirmed Penny, still sitting on the floor, as Sheldon railed on about the blatant alteration of canon to fit the new perceptions of mainstream.
The officer, who was watching everything in lazy amusement, took a sudden breath and said, “Well. That's done with. Sorry for the alarm,” he remarked casually to Jim, Pam, and Penny. “But they said they knew Mer and I didn't see a reason to not do it, so...”
Penny could think of many reasons not to do it. Her heart, for one. She ate too much fast food to handle this sort of shit without getting an early heart attack.
“Well,” he said again, yawning. “It's time to head back to work; need a nap. Take care, everyone,” he told the group at large, all of whom were grumbling and starting to drift away. Stanley had already left.
Pam groaned and leaned against Jim, who still looked slightly mortified, as the officer went to the dining hall.
Through the open door, they heard a woman in the dining hall scream “hi-ya!,” then there was a thud and a crash.
“Oh what now!” complained Michael.
For the second time that night, everybody hurried into the next room.
Erin, eyes wide and hands clapped over her mouth, was bending over the police officer, who was sprawled on the floor between to chairs.
“Okay, what happened here?” asked Dwight, striding up to the scene. With a groan, the officer sat up, rubbing his jaw.
“I'm so sorry!” exclaimed Erin, fingers muffling her words. “I'm really trying to control that! That always happens when I'm awakened out of a trance!”
“Excuse me, what happens?” demanded Dwight.
The officer struggled to his feet, saying, “Girl roundhouse kicked me. Pretty hard too.”
Dwight took a quick step away from Erin.
“I'm so so so sorry!”
“Nah, it's all right. I just need a drink now.”
Meredith took a step forward, reached down the front of her shirt, and pulled a small flask presumably out of her bra.
“Here Manny. It's my special stuff.”
“Thanks sis,” he said, accepting it and taking a swig.
“Ughh,” said everyone. Even Howard couldn't handle it, and Creed was plain uninterested.
“Seen it,” he commented. “Show me a new use for women's breasts and I'll eat my arm.”
“What?”
“Lost my second toe after The Breakfast Club.”
---
Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, Raj, and Penny were all trudging up the stairs of their apartment building, the bottoms of their suitcases making whump-whump-whumps against the stairs.
“Let's hear more about Penny's lunch date,” said Howard, grinning.
“Madge was actually really nice,” Penny defended. “We're gonna be Facebook friends.”
Raj whispered in Howard's ear, and he in turn relayed: “That's just the first step.”
Penny sighed as the five of them rounded the corner. “Ugh, I just want to eat and go to bed. Between what happened when we were leaving the hotel, flying, and still recovering from the heart attack Sheldon gave me, I'm exhausted.”
“I am not apologizing for that, by the way,” said Sheldon firmly. “You started it.”
“That's mature.”
“So is playing to what you knew was my fear of ATMs,” Sheldon shot back, not having quite shifted from his argumentative mode.
“That was funny. You were mean. I got actually scared.”
“As did I!”
“I don't know,” mused Howard, “it was nice to see the cool kids be the fools for once. It filled a part of me I needed filled since high school.”
“No way that can be misinterpreted,” said Leonard.
Penny glared at Howard, and he shifted away. “Uhh, I mean, what's that?”
She didn't answer and without another word disappeared into her apartment, dragging her suitcase behind her. Sheldon spared a glance for her door slamming before following Leonard into their apartment.
An hour later, Sheldon was trudging back up the stairs, a styrofoam container of shrimp with lobster sauce in one hand. He stared at the plate with '4B' engraved in it for one moment. Then he knocked.
---
“Another Monday!” Michael Scott said, leaning back in his desk chair, bouncing it a little. “I-we, the whole office I mean-had a pretty fun time at the conference. Met new people. Fell in, fell out of love. Love. Luuuuurrve. What-what are you gesturing at? Oh, the scarf?” The bright green scarf around his neck didn't quite hide the purple bruise on his throat. Even he couldn't pass that off as a hickey. “I had an, a really minor disagreement with, uh, Penny. We were on-perceived different-levels in terms of the... the status of our relationship.”
(The camera had footage from Sunday of Penny leaving the hotel, Michael running after her, grabbing her hand, proposing, and not letting go until her 'hell no' was somehow turned around into a 'yes', then Penny drawing her right fist back.)
“But that's all right. ...That's... all... right.”
Michael stared for a moment contemplatively out his door.
“But we're all a little down. Tired. Oscar's been in the dumps all day. Probably because he has to go back to... accounting...” He began to play with one of the trucks on his desk. “I never liked math,” he said. “I mean, there's a reason I had to repeat algebra. Twice. Not because I'm stupid. Because I'm... I'm not.”
He paused again, his mouth half-open as he attempted to sort his words. “It's not that I loved Caesar less,” he began grandiosely, and then apparently forgot how the rest of that saying went as he continued, “it's that-it's that I just really hated math.”
THE END
(goddamn)
Crossposted @ sheldon_penny