Ah, Pheromones…

By Shin Sankai

It'd been a long shift at the Cheesecake Factory and on heavy feet Penny trudged up the stairs to her apartment on the forth floor of the building. Someone really needed to kick the superintendent in the ass for not fixing the lift. Maybe she needed to go all junior-rodeo on his ass?

Rounding to the final flight of stairs Penny made her way up them, stole a glance at the apartment across the hall from hers where Leonard and Sheldon lived. She'd been doing some extra long shifts as of late, trying to save money where possible for more acting classes and hadn't had a chance to catch up with her nerdy neighbours.

Grabbing out her keys, Penny faulted in placing them in her lock as she noticed her door was slightly ajar! Her eyes grew wide, her heart raced at the thought of someone in her apartment. Taking a deep shaky breath Penny quietly, well as quietly as she could, opened the door and grabbed the closest thing possible, which for her was a baseball bat one of her old boyfriends had left behind one time.

Unfortunately for her, the door clicked shut and Penny scolded herself for if this was an acting audition she would have totally been fired right then and there. However, such a thought was not appropriate to even think about at such a time when there was an intruder in her home. Again her breath hitched, her hands tightened on the wooden bat as she padded towards her bedroom doorway to find the culprit crouched on the floor.

"SHELDON!" Penny couldn't help but scream, the bat instantly loosening in her hands as she watched the quirky and lanky young theoretical physicist stand and face her. "What are you doing here?" Penny exclaimed loudly, her heart returning to its usual normal rhythm in her chest.

"Oh, hello Penny." Sheldon had replied in his usual tone of voice, blue eyes blinking far too innocently over at her even though he had broken into her home, okay granted he and Leonard had a spare key to her apartment, but that was purely for emergencies!

"What the hell are you doing here? I was just about to attack you with this baseball bat."

"I hardly see how that is a formidable weapon given that I heard you enter your apartment and knew you would eventually see that it is I, Sheldon Cooper, in your home."

"How does that explain this?" By now Penny placed the bat against the wall, removed her bag and dumped it onto her unmade bed.

"Well such a weapon could only be used if someone of my intellect did not know you had returned. You really shouldn't close the door so loudly, I could have been anybody." Penny began to fume on the spot. "For you to defeat someone such as I, you would need to obtain some telepathic powers."

"Care to bet on that?" Penny voiced, a little pissy in her tone as she picked up the bat, smirking at the way Sheldon's eyes had widened slightly.

Perhaps he was getting used to her different tones of voice to not mess with her.

"Are you currently in your menstrual cycle Penny? By my calendar it is still some days away."

Or not.

"OUT!" Penny squeaked loudly, finger pointing towards her door. Maybe just a little he understood as on quick feet and in such a weird fidgety manner Sheldon headed for her front door.

"You know Penny…" Sheldon began, having turned around to face her, one hand up to emphasise he was going to begin a very long explanation when he in fact faulted as Penny snatched the article of clothing he had within his fingertips.

"I know I'm going to regret this, instead of just thinking you were being perverted like Howard, but then this is you Sheldon, so what the hell were you doing with one of my bras?"

"Oh, well its quite easy really, I have begun a new experiment that consists of…" Penny had tuned out as she blankly starred up at her tall neighbour, watching his mouth move, but to her the words were as similar as 'blah, blah, blah'. "So, considering you are the only female I converse, no, try to converse with, can I borrow your pink striped padded bra?"

"No!" Penny yelled in his face, her spare hand gripping the door frame ready to slam it in his face.

"Then can I take this sponge?" Penny didn't even have the strength to shout at him anymore and just ripped her exfoliating sponge from his hand and slammed the door in his face. She closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath and walked back into her bedroom. She looked around for a moment, not sure why she didn't feel crept out that Sheldon had been in her room for who knows how long and instead opened her chest of drawers and pulled out her pyjamas and decided to take a shower. She had to get up early for another double shift at the Cheesecake Factory.

"At least he didn't try to organise my stuff again." Penny voiced as an afterthought before heading into her bathroom and closing the door. "SHELDON!"

The young man in question who was still at the door, a loss as to why Penny would not allow him two tiny things from her cluttered and unorganised apartment since he thought his explanation was well delivered, quickly shuffled back into his apartment knowing that that scream of his name was not one requiring help from the last time she had yelled it so loudly after having slipped in her bathtub for she didn't have any adhesive ducks.

Just like clockwork, the next day as Penny arrived home she was ready to kill Sheldon, she having caught the physicist in her apartment again. This time she was dragging him to the front door, stuff the baseball bat this was more effective. Her short height made him hunch over as she had clasped the material of his two shirts, probably stretching the material in which Sheldon was all but telling her off for.

"That's two strikes Sheldon, one more and you're cut off, you hear me?"

"Really Penny, there is no need to act in such a way. I thought my explanation was clear enough yesterday."

"All I heard was blah, blah, blah, now get the hell out." Her eyebrows furrowed as she watched Sheldon leave dejectedly. Since when did Sheldon Cooper pout?

"Sheldon wait a second." Penny watched that pitiful face turn to look over at her even though his body still faced the closed door of his own apartment. "I swear to god, I'm going to regret this yet again. Explain to me why you keep breaking into my apartment." She watched him turn around to face her, standing halfway between his door and her own.

"Penny, the term breaking in would imply that I…"

"SHELDON!" Penny yelled not wanting him to go off on another tirade of explanations that would be in no way helpful to the one she really wanted to know about. She watched him quietly walk back over to her standing in the doorway of her apartment. "Sweetie, in the simplest way possible, please explain to me in no more then 10 words why you want my stuff." Penny watched in fascination at the way Sheldon seemed to map out in his mind, eyes moving to look up at the ceiling, what he was going to say to her. In this way, after all his scientific explanations he rambled on about, she did think he was sweet at times to 'dumb down' his explanations just for her. He could after all just walk away and leave her confused, but Sheldon seemed to become much more human when he would explain himself.

"I wanted to see why my pheromones, which I had believed I did not possess as they are not important to me, were now acting up." Sheldon paused for only a second just as Penny had parted her lips. "And I know what you are going to say, my explanation was more then 10 words."

"Wait, Sheldon what did you say?"

"Really Penny, I thought my explanation was fairly simple. Must I really explain it all in even simpler terms then what I just did? Alright, pheromones are…"

"I know what pheromones are Sheldon!" Penny snapped back at her tall neighbour. "I may not be someone with an IQ of 185…" Penny paused when Sheldon corrected her to mean 187. "Anyway, why would my belongings be needed for this…experiment?"

"Penny…" She couldn't explain it, but the way he said her name, the way his head had tilted slightly, his sweet face (only if he wasn't speaking most of the time) starring innocently down at her, it made something within her squirm slightly. Only slightly she tried to reassure herself. "I have already experimented with belongings of other females that I know of and they do not make my pheromones react in any way."

Penny bit her tongue to stop herself from asking about what other females had he "experimented" on.

"There is no way my pheromones would react to that poor excuse of a physicist Leslie Winkle. Frankly I don't understand how Leonard can copulate with such a person."

"So Leonard and Leslie are back on?"

"Yes, if you are implying that copulation between them is currently active." Penny rolled her eyes and thought maybe hell would freeze over before Sheldon could talk like a normal person. "I only associated myself with Stephanie on a professional level when she too was copulating with Leonard and my stalker, as Leonard explained to me, was too much of a nutcase to even bother with trying to locate and experiment with."

"And I'm all that's left?"

"Who else would there be? We communicate on a daily basis, though I have to say you have been very rude as of late."

"I've been working Sheldon." She could almost see the look on his face as if to say 'what does that have to do with anything' and instead tried to go back to the basics of the explanation. "So your pheromones have gone all wacko?" She watched him stare confusedly down at her, lips pursing slightly, something ready to slip forth from his lips. "Ah, what did I say about being simple?" Penny couldn't remember throughout this weird conversation when Sheldon had re-entered her apartment and why she was letting him ruffle through her belongings.

"If by wacko you mean out of sorts, then yes, I must find the source before life will return normally to Sheldon Cooper. I can return to my regular schedule when I have concluded the experiment."

Penny stood in the doorway of her bedroom, eyes watching Sheldon move about her room, he entering her bathroom, she not noticing his hands twitching as it was once again in disarray from when he had placed everything in order for her the night before. She watched him come back out, move passed her and into her kitchen and lounge room, circling it several times. She was becoming agitated when he moved passed her back into her bedroom.

"Oh for crying out loud Sheldon, surely you would have found whatever the hell it is you are looking for by now." Penny listened to him ramble on about how experiments may take days to figure out and about half way through the explanation she left the room and went to her fridge to get a can of soda.

Penny made her way to her couch, flipped through an entire magazine before hearing some mumbling going on in her room. Placing the can on her coffee table, Penny once more stood and walked to the doorway, glancing down at Sheldon who for some reason was lying flat on his back on the carpet.

"Found what you were looking for yet Moonpie?" She watched those sparkling blue eyes snap open to look over at her.

"It has returned."

"I'm sorry what?" Penny watched Sheldon rise from his position on the floor to stand tall and proud and stare over at her. She watched his eyes narrow as he took in a deep breath of air. "Hey, don't be glaring at me, I didn't do anything!"

"I'm not glaring, I'm examining."

"Examining? What?" Penny felt herself take a step back, her back hitting the door to her bedroom as Sheldon had slowly walked over to her, almost predatory as he continued to stare down at her, not saying a word. Granted she didn't mind it when Sheldon didn't speak, but she couldn't help but take note that the something from before was beginning to squirm again.

"It's you!"

"Huh?" Penny intelligently voiced; her eyes wide when Sheldon bent down. Instantly they shut closed and she froze in place. It was mere seconds when she snapped them open at the faint touch of Sheldon's short hair brushing against her skin. Dear lord the guy was sniffing at her neck!

"I have to go now."

"Eh, huh, Sheldon wait!" Penny scurried after the retreating Sheldon as he fumbled with the doorknob before pulling it open. Before he could escape to the confines of his own apartment, his shirts were once again clasped within Penny's hands as she yanked on them, holding him in place as he stumbled back slightly at her unexpected force. "What do you mean it's me? I didn't do anything."

"The pheromones which I believed my body did not possess have for some reason been awoken. After many days of research I have come to the conclusion that they are reacting to your pheromones. It is truly puzzling as to why this is so."

"Hang on sweetie, what is it you are saying?" She watched him turn around slightly, she finally removing her hands from his shirts. This was four shirts she had now overstretched, boy Shelly was not going to be happy. "And in no more then 10 words!" Penny ordered of him once more.

"Your smell is erotic." And her mouth fell open. He definitely did not need to explain any further then that, but then again he was Sheldon and rarely did he make sense to her. "Clearly you understand that terminology very well."

"Anyone with half a brain would understand it!"

"You are not giving yourself enough credit Penny." She was so tempted to smack him one for that but instead met her hardened gaze with his unwavering one.

"I know you are a man with an IQ of 187," Penny watched him nod, lips in a small almost nonexistent smile when she got it right this time. "…but do you not understand what you just said?"

"Of course I understand myself. I am merely stating that my pheromones have suddenly awakened and have taken a liking to your own."

"Yes Sheldon, that is what you said and this means?"

"And you said you understood. Penny, this of course means that it would seem my pheromones are appealing to your own and in order for them to be satisfied it would require copulation." Penny continued to stare at Sheldon, mouth slightly agape.

"Yes Sheldon, copulation…" Penny repeated, using his terminology this time. Now she definitely knew she was the genius in this department and stood with hands folded just under her breasts waiting for Sheldon to register his own wording.

"Oh…" Bingo…or should she say bazinga? She watched the now becoming uncomfortable Sheldon look behind him to his apartment and back at Penny. She watched him unconsciously bite his own lip, something very rare indeed. Just what the heck was happening between the two of them? What was running around in his mind? What was going on in hers?

Penny felt herself twitch on the spot. There it was again, that stupid damn squirm that seemed to make itself known whenever Sheldon was in the vicinity of her these past couple of days. It was really pissing her off and this seemed like a ridiculous explanation to her but perhaps that squirm was her pheromones as Sheldon stood at the threshold, he now completely clueless as to what to do about this current situation. Should she exploit it?

"Sheldon?" He'd turned his full attention to gaze down at her.

"Yes Penny?" Wow, did his voice just get deeper all of a sudden? Those expressive eyes of his standing out more as he seemed to be standing impossibly closer to her, his fidgeting hands near her own, the slight twitch of his body, his parted lips which, oh god, he just ran his tongue over and dear lord, was that a cute blush on his cheeks?

"Come here!" Sheldon stumbled forward, once again Penny's hands within his shirts as she pulled him into her apartment, slamming the door closed with a resonating loud bang.

"Dude, was that Sheldon being attacked by Penny?" Koothrappali questioned at the top of the stairs where he and Howard stood, both with disbelieving looks on their faces. After a short pause, Koothrappali jolted on the spot and turned to stare at Howard.

"Nooooooooooooo, I didn't get a chance to set up the wireless cameras in her home!"

The End.