fic: glass houses {sheldon/penny}
Title: Glass Houses
Fandom: The Big Bang Theory
Characters/Pairings: Sheldon/Penny, Leonard.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,865
Author's Note: For bebitched at the Rewriting History comment ficathon. She wanted fic where Leonard was the one to move into 4B.
Summary: AU. She'll come to remember the day not for the man but for the argument preceding meeting said man.
She’ll come to remember the day not for the man but for the argument preceding meeting said man.
There’s a U-Haul truck outside when she gets back from her Saturday morning jog -- when she thinks of it that way, she can almost believe this is a regular thing and not just a so that’s where my sneakers were, oh, hey, I should probably actually do that running thing at some point situation - and she largely ignores that fact right up until they both hear the very loud thud from the stairwell. There’s a distinctly feminine yelp.
Sheldon looks at her over the rim of his orange juice glass. She stares back over her coffee mug. Manages to look completely innocent, which she is. Mostly. It was just a moving truck. And, sure, 4B is the only apartment for rent in their building, but someone could also be moving out.
“Maybe it’s maintenance,” she lies.
Satisfied, he goes back to Doctor Who. There are footsteps outside. Someone fiddles with the lock across the hall.
“Can I have a little help here?” A man says.
Sheldon pauses and mutes the television. Goes back to looking at her expectantly, hands folded in his lap, and he fucking knows there’s something she’s not telling him. Damn.
“Fine. I think we have new neighbors,” she admits.
His face sours.
-
It’s worth noting that Penny and Louise actually got on really well.
It’s also worth noting that Sheldon disliked, in no particular order: the late hours their neighbor kept, the volume and regularity with which music could be heard coming from the apartment, and the fact that anytime Sheldon brought a complaint to Louise he would receive a stare down that was intended to remind Sheldon that Louise was a hell of a lot more menacing than he was. There was also, quite possibly, a pay to play porn operation running out of 4B, for which Sheldon had begrudgingly helped Louise hook up webcams.
He liked Louise for about three hours that day when he discovered he’d found a human being that was cleaner than he was, lamenting Penny’s propensity for leaving dirty clothing lying around. He even stopped saying “Louis-slash-Louise”. And then there was the issue with the fire alarms and the peace was, sadly, disturbed.
Penny was sad to see Louise go.
-
The argument is ridiculous.
Mostly because the argument consists entirely of Sheldon using big words to explain why doesn’t like, welcome, or encourage change. Maybe that would be useful information to Joe Blow off the street but Penny’s been living in this apartment with this crazed freak of a man for something like four years so, no, not new information. Not useful. Just annoying.
She puts her head in her hands.
“I take it you see my point.”
“No, Sheldon,” her voice is muffled by her palms, “I don’t see your point. Neighbors say hi to new neighbors. They do it to promote a peaceful environment, to avoid having them booby trap the stairwell,” like Mr. Carlson from 3C; she’d paid for that one with a twisted ankle, “and most of all to have someone to borrow coffee from when they run out.”
“If coffee is so vital to your being, perhaps you ought to consider keeping a backup can on hand,” Sheldon says, which is a totally valid plan except for the part where she proceeds to empty that too, and then she still wakes up to no coffee one morning. It’s just delaying the inevitable. Though if she says that, she’ll hear it about making a proper list again and…no. No thank you.
“Or I can befriend another caffeine addicted neighbor. Hey, there’s an idea.” She’s almost up and running but then Sheldon’s actually restraining her. Granted, it’s a hand on the arm restraining and not, like, bodily so, but there’s actual effort here. She makes a point of shaking him off before she sits back down. “What?”
“I feel introducing another person into my social circle could have potentially disastrous results. What if - “
-
Fun fact: offering Sheldon sexual favors in return for cooperation doesn’t work on him.
She’s absolutely never going to get used to that.
-
“You’re pouting because I rebuffed you, I take it?”
She isn’t pouting.
Okay, she is pouting. Full on, sad eyed, dejected little five year old with her arms crossed pouting. That still doesn’t mean he’s right.
“No, I’m pouting because our new neighbors have probably moved out by now.”
“Unlikely.”
-
“It sounded like it was a guy out there earlier.” Possibly with a girlfriend. That would be nice. This building is pretty much populated with men and older ladies she has nothing in common with. They’re all relatively friendly, and Penny’s nice to everyone as long as they don’t puke on her shoes at the Cheesecake Factory or make lewd comments about her breasts, which thankfully Howard has backed off from after that time she punched him and Sheldon banished him for a full week. “Maybe you two will have something in common. Maybe he’ll be into the whole science-y, comic book nerd thing.”
Now his arms are crossed, standing above her, glowering right on down. “Science-y, comic book nerd thing?”
“Whatever. I’m tired.”
“You just woke up,” he checks his watch, of course, “four hours ago.”
“Yes, at eight in the morning on a Saturday. Then I ran three miles and had this hour long,” she’s probably, definitely, hopefully, exaggerating, “conversation with you. And now I’m tired again.”
“I feel like that was intended to offend me in some way.”
“Bingo.”
-
He makes the mistake of heading off to the bathroom five minutes later and she bolts. She may love Sheldon but if they ever get married, aka if hell ever decides to freeze over, there’s no way she’s promising to obey him. He is neurotic and it’s completely necessary that she balance him out.
No one answers the door to 4B when she knocks but she doesn’t even have enough time to feel that initial wave of disappointment that she’d missed the new neighbors when a shorter man wearing glasses comes up the stairs, carrying a large cardboard box of - she steps closer - game controllers. Fuck. Yes. Sheldon and him can bond.
It doesn’t occur to her that the man hasn’t said anything until she sees the way his mouth is hanging open a little too far to be completely natural.
“Hi,” she puts on her best smile, “I’m Penny. You must be our new neighbor.”
“Um,” it looks like he goes to shake her hand but forgets he’s carrying a big box because that little juggling act that almost ends with a lot of equipment coming crashing down to the floor cannot have been intentional. He recovers with a smile that gives hers a run for its money. “Yeah. Hi. Leonard Hofstadter.”
She can tell right off the bat that he’s enamored. Flattering but not at all good news. She gestures to the box. “You a big gamer, Leonard?”
He actually looks embarrassed. She’s forgotten what it’s like to have a guy be embarrassed about that kind of thing. Or any kind of thing, really. Sheldon and embarrassment aren’t two things regularly heard in a sentence together, other than occasionally when separated by ‘is an’ and that was so not her who said that. “Sometimes. It’s really more of a - “
Penny stops him before he can start lying to cover for the thing he apparently thinks is going to scare her off. As if. “Because my - “
Sheldon takes this opportunity to notice her absence. Pretty easy, considering she left the door partially open. He comes right on out which, admittedly, wasn’t part of the plan - she really just wanted to talk to this guy, get a feel for the new neighbor, possibly plural, and she figured he’d bitch at her for it later before she cut him off and told him all of the wonderful reasons why their new neighbor is awesome - but now that he’s followed her she kind of wants to take credit for that.
He gives Leonard a cursory glance and then launches directly into, “Penny, why must you do these things?”
She doesn’t bother with a retort. Instead, she kills two birds with one stone, looping an arm around Sheldon and keeping that smile plastered on her face. “Leonard, this is my boyfriend, Sheldon. Sheldon, this is our new neighbor Leonard.”
Leonard sputters at the term boyfriend. Like it or not, she gets that a lot.
In an attempt to get him to refocus, she asks, “Is it neighbor or neighbors?”
He manages to stop assessing Sheldon - just wait until he hears him talk for more than a sentence; then the real fun begins - for long enough to say. “Just neighbor.”
“Really, cause I swore I heard a - “ she stops herself before she can say girl. She knows where that scream came from now. No need to make enemies or, at the very least, embarrassed new acquaintances. “Anyways, we just wanted to say hi.”
“Forgive me,” Sheldon interjects, “but wasn’t it just you that wanted to say ‘hi’?”
That is a truly atrocious impression of her voice on the word hi, with way too much emphasis on a country twang that is not there. She shakes her head. “He’s right. Forgive him.”
-
“You can keep giving me the silent treatment but I can also refuse to drive you to work if you do.” She looks him dead in the eye. “And you hate the bus.”
When all else fails, threaten. Her follow through is excellent and he knows that better than anyone.
He shifts in his spot so that he’s no longer leaned as far away from her as possible while still remaining on the same piece of furniture. She’d call it childish but, you know, glass houses.
“You invited him to dinner.” Those are the first words Sheldon’s spoken to her since he got both feet back inside their apartment.
“Yes.”
“Against my express wishes.”
“Yes,” she repeats. Then, for good measure, “I also kissed you once, against your express wishes, and that turned out pretty well for you, didn’t it?”
Wisely, he has no comeback for that.
“For all you know, he might be your new best friend.”
“And for all you know, he might be your new boyfriend. There are infinite universes, Penny, with an infinite number of possibilities, but I’m fairly certain neither of those things are a part of this one.”
She doesn’t bother to cover her smile but instead twists her lips into something more mischievous. “I don’t know, he said he was some kind of genius and that seems to be a selling point for me.”
His lips twitch up slightly, amused but unwilling to show it. It’s okay, she can tell anyways, and when she slumps to the side a little, ends up with half of her body leaned against his on the couch, well, that’s probably negating her whole boyfriend switcheroo charade.
Sheldon presses a kiss to the top of her head, and she finds she doesn’t really care.
-
Fandom: The Big Bang Theory
Characters/Pairings: Sheldon/Penny, Leonard.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,865
Author's Note: For bebitched at the Rewriting History comment ficathon. She wanted fic where Leonard was the one to move into 4B.
Summary: AU. She'll come to remember the day not for the man but for the argument preceding meeting said man.
She’ll come to remember the day not for the man but for the argument preceding meeting said man.
There’s a U-Haul truck outside when she gets back from her Saturday morning jog -- when she thinks of it that way, she can almost believe this is a regular thing and not just a so that’s where my sneakers were, oh, hey, I should probably actually do that running thing at some point situation - and she largely ignores that fact right up until they both hear the very loud thud from the stairwell. There’s a distinctly feminine yelp.
Sheldon looks at her over the rim of his orange juice glass. She stares back over her coffee mug. Manages to look completely innocent, which she is. Mostly. It was just a moving truck. And, sure, 4B is the only apartment for rent in their building, but someone could also be moving out.
“Maybe it’s maintenance,” she lies.
Satisfied, he goes back to Doctor Who. There are footsteps outside. Someone fiddles with the lock across the hall.
“Can I have a little help here?” A man says.
Sheldon pauses and mutes the television. Goes back to looking at her expectantly, hands folded in his lap, and he fucking knows there’s something she’s not telling him. Damn.
“Fine. I think we have new neighbors,” she admits.
His face sours.
-
It’s worth noting that Penny and Louise actually got on really well.
It’s also worth noting that Sheldon disliked, in no particular order: the late hours their neighbor kept, the volume and regularity with which music could be heard coming from the apartment, and the fact that anytime Sheldon brought a complaint to Louise he would receive a stare down that was intended to remind Sheldon that Louise was a hell of a lot more menacing than he was. There was also, quite possibly, a pay to play porn operation running out of 4B, for which Sheldon had begrudgingly helped Louise hook up webcams.
He liked Louise for about three hours that day when he discovered he’d found a human being that was cleaner than he was, lamenting Penny’s propensity for leaving dirty clothing lying around. He even stopped saying “Louis-slash-Louise”. And then there was the issue with the fire alarms and the peace was, sadly, disturbed.
Penny was sad to see Louise go.
-
The argument is ridiculous.
Mostly because the argument consists entirely of Sheldon using big words to explain why doesn’t like, welcome, or encourage change. Maybe that would be useful information to Joe Blow off the street but Penny’s been living in this apartment with this crazed freak of a man for something like four years so, no, not new information. Not useful. Just annoying.
She puts her head in her hands.
“I take it you see my point.”
“No, Sheldon,” her voice is muffled by her palms, “I don’t see your point. Neighbors say hi to new neighbors. They do it to promote a peaceful environment, to avoid having them booby trap the stairwell,” like Mr. Carlson from 3C; she’d paid for that one with a twisted ankle, “and most of all to have someone to borrow coffee from when they run out.”
“If coffee is so vital to your being, perhaps you ought to consider keeping a backup can on hand,” Sheldon says, which is a totally valid plan except for the part where she proceeds to empty that too, and then she still wakes up to no coffee one morning. It’s just delaying the inevitable. Though if she says that, she’ll hear it about making a proper list again and…no. No thank you.
“Or I can befriend another caffeine addicted neighbor. Hey, there’s an idea.” She’s almost up and running but then Sheldon’s actually restraining her. Granted, it’s a hand on the arm restraining and not, like, bodily so, but there’s actual effort here. She makes a point of shaking him off before she sits back down. “What?”
“I feel introducing another person into my social circle could have potentially disastrous results. What if - “
-
Fun fact: offering Sheldon sexual favors in return for cooperation doesn’t work on him.
She’s absolutely never going to get used to that.
-
“You’re pouting because I rebuffed you, I take it?”
She isn’t pouting.
Okay, she is pouting. Full on, sad eyed, dejected little five year old with her arms crossed pouting. That still doesn’t mean he’s right.
“No, I’m pouting because our new neighbors have probably moved out by now.”
“Unlikely.”
-
“It sounded like it was a guy out there earlier.” Possibly with a girlfriend. That would be nice. This building is pretty much populated with men and older ladies she has nothing in common with. They’re all relatively friendly, and Penny’s nice to everyone as long as they don’t puke on her shoes at the Cheesecake Factory or make lewd comments about her breasts, which thankfully Howard has backed off from after that time she punched him and Sheldon banished him for a full week. “Maybe you two will have something in common. Maybe he’ll be into the whole science-y, comic book nerd thing.”
Now his arms are crossed, standing above her, glowering right on down. “Science-y, comic book nerd thing?”
“Whatever. I’m tired.”
“You just woke up,” he checks his watch, of course, “four hours ago.”
“Yes, at eight in the morning on a Saturday. Then I ran three miles and had this hour long,” she’s probably, definitely, hopefully, exaggerating, “conversation with you. And now I’m tired again.”
“I feel like that was intended to offend me in some way.”
“Bingo.”
-
He makes the mistake of heading off to the bathroom five minutes later and she bolts. She may love Sheldon but if they ever get married, aka if hell ever decides to freeze over, there’s no way she’s promising to obey him. He is neurotic and it’s completely necessary that she balance him out.
No one answers the door to 4B when she knocks but she doesn’t even have enough time to feel that initial wave of disappointment that she’d missed the new neighbors when a shorter man wearing glasses comes up the stairs, carrying a large cardboard box of - she steps closer - game controllers. Fuck. Yes. Sheldon and him can bond.
It doesn’t occur to her that the man hasn’t said anything until she sees the way his mouth is hanging open a little too far to be completely natural.
“Hi,” she puts on her best smile, “I’m Penny. You must be our new neighbor.”
“Um,” it looks like he goes to shake her hand but forgets he’s carrying a big box because that little juggling act that almost ends with a lot of equipment coming crashing down to the floor cannot have been intentional. He recovers with a smile that gives hers a run for its money. “Yeah. Hi. Leonard Hofstadter.”
She can tell right off the bat that he’s enamored. Flattering but not at all good news. She gestures to the box. “You a big gamer, Leonard?”
He actually looks embarrassed. She’s forgotten what it’s like to have a guy be embarrassed about that kind of thing. Or any kind of thing, really. Sheldon and embarrassment aren’t two things regularly heard in a sentence together, other than occasionally when separated by ‘is an’ and that was so not her who said that. “Sometimes. It’s really more of a - “
Penny stops him before he can start lying to cover for the thing he apparently thinks is going to scare her off. As if. “Because my - “
Sheldon takes this opportunity to notice her absence. Pretty easy, considering she left the door partially open. He comes right on out which, admittedly, wasn’t part of the plan - she really just wanted to talk to this guy, get a feel for the new neighbor, possibly plural, and she figured he’d bitch at her for it later before she cut him off and told him all of the wonderful reasons why their new neighbor is awesome - but now that he’s followed her she kind of wants to take credit for that.
He gives Leonard a cursory glance and then launches directly into, “Penny, why must you do these things?”
She doesn’t bother with a retort. Instead, she kills two birds with one stone, looping an arm around Sheldon and keeping that smile plastered on her face. “Leonard, this is my boyfriend, Sheldon. Sheldon, this is our new neighbor Leonard.”
Leonard sputters at the term boyfriend. Like it or not, she gets that a lot.
In an attempt to get him to refocus, she asks, “Is it neighbor or neighbors?”
He manages to stop assessing Sheldon - just wait until he hears him talk for more than a sentence; then the real fun begins - for long enough to say. “Just neighbor.”
“Really, cause I swore I heard a - “ she stops herself before she can say girl. She knows where that scream came from now. No need to make enemies or, at the very least, embarrassed new acquaintances. “Anyways, we just wanted to say hi.”
“Forgive me,” Sheldon interjects, “but wasn’t it just you that wanted to say ‘hi’?”
That is a truly atrocious impression of her voice on the word hi, with way too much emphasis on a country twang that is not there. She shakes her head. “He’s right. Forgive him.”
-
“You can keep giving me the silent treatment but I can also refuse to drive you to work if you do.” She looks him dead in the eye. “And you hate the bus.”
When all else fails, threaten. Her follow through is excellent and he knows that better than anyone.
He shifts in his spot so that he’s no longer leaned as far away from her as possible while still remaining on the same piece of furniture. She’d call it childish but, you know, glass houses.
“You invited him to dinner.” Those are the first words Sheldon’s spoken to her since he got both feet back inside their apartment.
“Yes.”
“Against my express wishes.”
“Yes,” she repeats. Then, for good measure, “I also kissed you once, against your express wishes, and that turned out pretty well for you, didn’t it?”
Wisely, he has no comeback for that.
“For all you know, he might be your new best friend.”
“And for all you know, he might be your new boyfriend. There are infinite universes, Penny, with an infinite number of possibilities, but I’m fairly certain neither of those things are a part of this one.”
She doesn’t bother to cover her smile but instead twists her lips into something more mischievous. “I don’t know, he said he was some kind of genius and that seems to be a selling point for me.”
His lips twitch up slightly, amused but unwilling to show it. It’s okay, she can tell anyways, and when she slumps to the side a little, ends up with half of her body leaned against his on the couch, well, that’s probably negating her whole boyfriend switcheroo charade.
Sheldon presses a kiss to the top of her head, and she finds she doesn’t really care.
-