Title: The Inevitability Affinity
Fandom: The Big Bang Theory
Characters/Pairings: Penny/Sheldon
Summary: Sixteen established facts Dr. Sheldon Cooper finds highly illogical. And one he doesn't.
Rating: G
Spoilers: Anything mentioned in this (http : / www . youtube . com / watch?v=d_YbPoSeuh4) video by g_girl143, which is possibly the best freakin' thing ever.
Word Count: 1,300
Notes: Um, I've only seen the first season and a bunch of clips on YouTube, so please forgive any canon-butchering.

I

The distance between Caltech and the Cheesecake Factory in relation to the Korean grocery is equidistant.

Yet Penny, unlike Leonard, always has time to pick up the hot mustard on her way home.

II

Penny has hit the PvP and PvE level caps in Age of Conan.

She still chooses to waste Sheldon's time by asking for pointless leveling advice.

III

Soft Kitty is strictly a Cooper family tradition.

He doesn't particularly mind when Penny sings it.

IV

He's made several diagrams to solve the Halo conundrum: statistically, it is improbable, if not impossible, to possess both an Xbox proficiency and attractive features.

Except, within seconds, Penny's Arbiter annihilates a pack of brutes on cooperative.

V

Penny has sent him pictures of cats pushing invisible shopping carts.

He hasn't blocked her email address yet.

VI

Neither Penny nor Rajesh are aware that Sheldon's favorite amino acid is Lysine. Penny doesn't even spellcheck her essay.

But he kicks Rajesh out.

VII

He has a shelf of rules and regulations, organized with the Dewey Decimal System in mind and easily accessible via PDF copies he sent to everyone. So they should all be cognizant of the fact that there are three things they are forbidden from breaking into: his bedroom, his external hard drive, and his World of Warcraft account.

Penny easily raids all three in one night.

VIII

With the invention of formula, female breasts are now an obsolete mammalian feature that Sheldon would like to see reclassified as vestigial secondary sex characteristics, to properly prepare future alien visitors for analyzing the inferior human organism.

Penny's breast, however, makes him briefly reconsider finalizing the petition.

IX

Homo novus has no compulsion to operate a motor vehicle because homo novus prefers not to die in fiery car crashes.

Homo novus drives Penny to the hospital with minimal objection.

X

"Hey, Sheldon?" she tells him, hunched over her laptop. "Did you know most, if not all, Nobel Prize winners are married?"

"They're called laureates, Penny," he huffs, poking at his cereal. "And more importantly, what possible reason, aside from annoying me, could you have for informing anyone of this unnecessary piece of trivia?"

She waves him over, scrolling down the page. "They have this site online with, like... stuff. Look, even Albert Einstein was married, and he had that whole..." she flexes her fingers, "...hair thing going against him."

"Yes, and Albert Einstein also failed math." He shuffles to loom above her, bending his neck to read. "Like I'm failing to see your point."

"Yeah, really? 'Cause this website's telling me he didn't." She angles her head back to look up at him. "The Internets never lie, Sheldon."

Sheldon's eye twitches. "To expedite this excessively cyclical social exchange, allow me to quote Leonard. Is there a point to this, Penny?"

She tabs over to YouTube. "No. Just sayin'. You don't have to be alone to win the Nobel Prize. Or whatever," she shrugs. "If anything, it looks like it helps if you actually have someone." She makes a face. "I mean, did you see Al Gore making out with Tipper?" She glances off to the side, thoughtful. "There should be a Nobel Prize for making out. I could win that. Hey! We could both have one."

His fingers wrap around the spoon as he contemplates. Then: "Preposterous."

She grins. "Which part?"

XI

This is paintball warfare, and it is clear: only Penny can save the team. It is the best, most compelling, approach to surviving, and being annoyed with her should not, even momentarily, factor into the equation. The needs of the many should never outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.

He shoots her anyway.

XII

Penny has no working knowledge—or knowledge, in general—of elements. She has been exposed to the periodic table while assaulting their bathroom, of course, but it is hardly possible that she has succeeded in memorizing even a single noble gas, let alone a sufficient number of—

"Hydrogen," she says, barreling past an obvious stop sign. "And then you can say Sodium. Is that how we play?"

XIII

"Even Spock shacked up."

Sheldon turns his head to look at her, chopsticks stuck in midair.

"Penny, Penny, Penny," he says, preparing for a long lecture. "Pon farr, as you've hopefully inferred by now, is a Vulcan cycle that must either be properly consummated or, if you subscribe to the new canon, be resolved by kunat kalifee lest the subject suffer an agonizing death. It would be ridiculous to even contemplate comparing it—"

She pops a clump of rice into her mouth. "I meant with Kirk, but okay."

He twitches. "—to 'shacking up.' "

"Done?"

He straightens indignantly. "Proceed."

She shrugs, peeling a deformed shrimp. "I'm just saying. Repressed pointy-eared guy sort of ends up with a lovable ladies' man... no? It really doesn't remind you of anyone?"

Sheldon pauses to consider. "Not Leonard, certainly."

"...yeah, not Leonard, Sheldon."

XIV

Sheldon will not eat food that has been even slightly compromised.

When Penny is sleepy, and Sheldon is sick, and the toaster and the grill are buried alongside MONTE, she slaps a slice of cheese between two pieces of lettuce, jeopardizing the moisture barrier.

He eats it anyway.

XV

"Bender had a girlfriend, and he was an actual robot."

XVI

This is Sheldon's spot. He has done everything short of urinating on it to mark it as his.

Penny seems to gravitate to it as though she is completely ignorant of semiotics and rules of territoriality and, frankly, gravity.

Sometimes, he eats at the counter to accommodate this vicious attack.

1.

Penny says, over tangerine chicken that is neither tangerine nor chicken, "Did you know that 42 is the answer to everything?"

"Penny," he tells her with a sigh, "regardless of what Adams and his ilk would have you believe, the probability of that little disinformation being accurate is scientifically inviable. For example, if I asked you what color this couch was, the answer would surely not be a number. Even if we factor in a binary component, it is highly unlikely that 42 is the answer to anything other than: are its factors two, three, and seven?" He extends his neck. "Penny, please stop going to that website."

Penny nods sagely. "Okay, Dr. Cooper," she goads, "so, who has all the answers, then? You?"

"I'm fairly confident in that assumption, yes."

She cracks open her fortune cookie. "What's my cookie say?"

"Penny, cookies don't speak."

She gives him a look. "What's 38 times 49?"

"I had sincerely hoped you would take this a little more seriously."

"Top ten best dressed celebrities this year?"

He digs out the remote and points it at the TV. "Irrelevant."

"Are you Spock?"

"Yes."

"Who's Kirk?"

"You."

Sheldon's fingers pause over the On button.

Oh.

Penny's lips twist into a grin. Smug, she returns to her subpar tangerine chicken.

Sheldon hesitates, then quickly raises a flat palm. "Formal objection."

Her knee casually knocks against his.

Affronted, he lowers his hand, not looking at her.

"I saw this on, like, every show ever," she says slowly, poking around her container, eyes averted. "If, by the time I'm forty-two, I'm still not—"

"Acceptable."

She gives him a startled look. "What, seriously?"

"Only because I imagine the San Andreas Fault will have ruptured and consumed the state of California by then, thus rendering our agreement null and void."

She quirks an eyebrow. "Thanks?"

He shifts uncomfortably. "Penny."

She tilts her head. "Yes, honey?"

"In the unlikely event that California does not vanish into the abyss—"

"Deal, Sheldon."