Who: Sheldon & Penny When: Shortly after this. Where: Penny’s cell What: Getting their drink on Warnings: TBA if necessary
Sheldon felt awkward as he lingered just feet away from Penny’s cell, shoulder leaning hard against the stone wall to prevent from being caught in her peripheral vision in case she crossed to the other side of her room. Feeling incomprehensibly small for a man of his height as he stood there without purpose. Thoughts conflicted over if this meeting was in fact wise or if it would turn to disaster like their last attempt. Penny’s words and her tears still fresh in his memory despite the days that had passed since. No amount of work consuming enough to take his mind away from that moment where epiphany had coalesced with blunder.
His words failing him that night as he realized a new facet of emotion he’d previously deemed himself incapable of with a sense of intellectual pride. Content to be free of the trappings and distractions emotional attachments often inspired. Even Amy had understood his need for a certain level of detachment, though ultimately her feelings had progressed further than his own. But now Sheldon was among the common man, mind circling around a girl he’d spent years criticizing and ignoring for the better part because of her romantic entanglement with his faithful companion.
The unfamiliar terrain was daunting at best, especially considering what the physicist had witnessed during the prison’s last bout of lunacy. The image of Penny in bed with another woman burned into his mind, dashing the beginnings of his wayward feelings to the ether before he’d discovered the true cause of it all.
Still the man had needed time to regroup, to examine and dissect these foreign thoughts into their separate components so that he could better understand their cause. But then Penny had called him out on his scheme and now she was waiting for him and Sheldon for once did not know how to proceed. Or at least that had been his dilemma until the cause of all of his frustration popped her head out into the hallway and caught him. Her stare enough that the accompanying words were unnecessary as she told him to get his ‘chicken butt’ inside already.
Annoyance at the name was enough to kick start Sheldon as he moved to comply, providing a healthy distraction for his mind as the line of his mouth remained flat and unimpressed, “Must you insist on calling me that? I have a name. I've grown quite attached to it.”