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English
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Published:
2021-01-08
Completed:
2021-07-11
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30,106
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13/13
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34
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204
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The Many Worlds Declivity

Summary:

When her usual booze bender proves ineffective as a memory wiper after a messy break up with Leonard, Penny seeks solace in Sheldon to numb the pain. She’s perplexed by his new erratic behaviour and manic obsession with alternate timelines, but oblivious to the fact that he’s slipping off the deep end, and taking her with him.

Notes:

This is set right after S3E19 The Wheaton Recurrence, in a canon divergence where Leonard takes the breakup a lot harder and moves out. Felt obligated to give my two favorite characters an arc and ending they deserved, since Canon sucked balls.
There will be some sporadic mentions of drug use, alcoholism, physical injuries and childhood abuse from chapter three onwards, thought I'd flag it here first, so please proceed as cautioned. Do comment—they truly brighten my day—and as always, thanks for reading!

Chapter Text

Penny’s apartment is empty. And worse still, quiet. The constant flow of indecipherable jabber from 4A that never seemed to cease has faded into memory. Every creak seeps through the building's thin walls, and it always brightened her evenings when she caught snippets of Sheldon’s tirades or Howard’s creepy regales as she attempted to microwave undercooked pasta, before giving up altogether and crossing the hallway to grab a takeout box from their table. Leonard always bought her share even on nights where she told him she wouldn’t be joining them. There were stray pizza boxes and shards of glass from wine bottles littered all over her wooden flooring. Maybe if she made the place look like a typhoon had just swept through it, Leonard might come back to tidy it up like he did the night after she moved in. He would knock at her door, sheepishness etched into his every pore, wringing his hands with furrowed brows. She would throw her arms around him and it’ll be okay. They’ll be fixed. She just needed to wait.

She’s sprawled out on her couch. A total wreck. Hasn’t looked into a mirror in days, she probably looked worse than the time Sheldon got her hooked on Age of Conan. It had been two weeks since the disastrous incident at the bowling alley, when she and Leonard had that awful argument which caused him to move out. He had been sulky and unbearably passive aggressive for days after she refused to tell him she loved him. She planned to say it at the bowling alley, but was dumb enough to let Will Wheaton of all people get to her. The look of desperation and confusion on Leonard’s face after she yelled at him was like a sucker punch to the gut. Everything was going wrong. Her career couldn’t end because it never started. Her time spent with Leonard and the guys was her only solace. And now it was all ruined.

She’s completely hammered, barely able stand. It’s been years since she had last chugged down a bottle of Merlot and chased it with another of Cuban rum. Making dinner was out of the question, she could barely whip up mac and cheese even when she was sober. Right then, a knock on her door. She leapt up and immediately slumped back down on her couch.

“Leonard?” She slurs. No response.

Getting down on her stomach, she army crawls to her front door, opening it with both hands with help from her teeth. No one, except for a lone Chinese take-out box, chopsticks balanced diagonally on its lid at a perfect forty-five-degree angle. The hallway is silent, except for the low drone of the Battlestar Galactica theme song emanating from 4A. No, it couldn’t be. Sheldon? He never got take out by himself. But he would have to now, since Leonard isn’t living with him anymore. She grabs the box, shuts the door and digs in, too wasted and hungry to wade through the possibility and implications of Sheldon Cooper doing her a favor without her having to renounce her dignity and endure ridicule for days on end.

Each replay of that disastrous night of bowling brings new details to the surface. It was mostly a blur of emotions. Then the warmth Sheldon’s shoulder, the soft cotton of his shirt against her cheek. She closes her eyes and focuses. Pre-game cocktails. Bickering with Leonard in the car. Bowling. Three strikes in a row. Will Wheaton. Her finally snapping. She made it out into the hallway before breaking down. She was about to stumble into the ladies when she felt cool fingers on her elbow. It was Sheldon, who retracted his hand swiftly right as she turned around.

“Penny—"

“Sheldon, for God’s sake!” She shouted. “Can’t you see I’m—”

“Leonard was being an asshole.”

She had never heard him swear before. “What?”

“He was asking you to lie to him.” His voice was level, unlike hers, and something about it calmed her down slightly. “To tell him you love him even when you don’t mean it.”

“So you’re an expert on love now?”

“I’ve never claimed to be one. But human attraction is formulaic at its best, dreadfully vacuous at its worst. I’m a scientist, Penny. I observe, if nothing else. You avoid eye contact with Leonard even when he’s gawking at you. You limit lip contact to a friendly peck, presumably in fear that allowing his tongue access into your buccal cavity would encourage more attempts at coitus. And most noticeably, you’ve dodged every attempt to be alone with him, even going as far as to invite Wolowitz along to attend an ill-advised bachelorette party at your friend Kim’s house.”

She sighed and sunk against a wall, pulling her knees up to her chest. “You noticed all of that?”

To her surprise, he pulled out a Batman picnic blanket from his crossover bag, spread it out on the space next to her and sat down. From his back pocket, he retrieved a pack of Kleenex and handed to her.

“Thanks.” She blotted at the mascara and stray fake eyelashes all over her cheeks. “And you’re wrong. I do love him, it’s just…complicated.”

He frowned, stealing a glance at her. She could almost see codes and graphs swimming in his irises. “Does love not constitute a desire for physical proximity and intimacy? Just when I think I’ve gotten a grasp on social etiquette and convention; an anomaly inserts itself and completely dismantles my meticulously crafted algorithm.”

She wracked her brain for a convincing explanation, a feat under Sheldon’s scrutinizing gaze. “I think I’m more comfortable loving him from a distance. You know, sometimes people just need some breathing space. A relationship can be one of the most exhausting things you’ll ever go through.”

“Then why do people do it? Doesn’t bungee jumping or watching a harrowing film provide the same amount of stimulation?”

Despite herself, she laughed. “We do it because we have no choice, Sheldon. Believe me, the day we evolve into your kind can’t come any sooner.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” He cracked a rare smile. “The Neanderthals were still attempting to communicate through cave art when they died out, I suspect sapiens will still be playing beer pong and pin the tail on the mating target when the sun reaches peak expansion and inevitably engulfs all life.”

Without thinking, she moved closer and rested her head on his shoulder, turning her head slightly so that her forehead pressed against his pulse. He stiffened, but didn’t push her away. He smelled like talcum powder and hand sanitizer, a hint of vanilla smothered by the heavy disinfectant. Throughout all her ups and downs, Sheldon was her one constant. She couldn’t pinpoint precisely when his incessant door knocking and scathing commentary on her every move had become so integral to her ability to get out of bed every morning. He was the only person who could talk her back into herself. When some guy had broken her heart, she felt like she had just been detonated within. Bits of heart gummed up on her azure walls. Then he’d knock at precisely 11am and she would open her door. He would stare at her for exactly three Mississippis before launching into whatever new vexations he had with mundane life and she would be whole again. Not patched up but as if she’d never been shattered at all.

Just as Sheldon began to relax, Leonard appeared from around the corner, frazzled and out of breath. Sheldon convulsed, his shoulder socket almost giving her a black eye. He peeled her off him and scooted to the far wall, wrapping his arms around himself like he'd just been electrocuted.

“Oh, this is just spectacular. You tear out of there like you’re on fire and I scour the entire compound in complete panic about the possibility that you’ve gotten yourself run over by a truck or something and I find you cozied up with him. You, my girlfriend who winces whenever I put an arm around her is literally two seconds away from making out with my psycho roommate.”

She stood up, eyes stinging from tears that were threatening to well up again. “Leonard, it’s not what you think.”

“We were just discussing your deficiencies.” Sheldon quipped, oblivious to the fact that his roommate was seriously considering throttling him.

Leonard scoffed, a rough and ugly sound. “My deficiencies? Well, guess what. Is it so hard to believe that your chauffeur and Penny’s errand boy is sick and tired of being treated worse than the steaming week-old garbage in General Tso’s dumpster? You think the fact that you have Asperger’s gives you a free pass to waltz into my girlfriend’s apartment and into her bed at 3am because you have the flu and unresolved parental issues? You’re really a genius, you know that. PhD at sixteen? That wasn’t a fluke. You preyed on her masochism from day one, bit by bit, while I fawned over her like an idiot. And then pulled out your trump card when she felt I was suffocating her. Brilliant.”

“Leonard, stop it.” Her voice was weak and she was starting to feel faint. She barely noticed when Sheldon stood up and shielded her with his body. He towered over Leonard, obscuring her view of him. He was always hunched over his laptop, she never noticed how tall he was, or how terrifying he could be when he was mad.

“If you’re suggesting in any way that I might have the slightest interest in pursuing Penny as a romantic prospect, you are deeply mistaken. If you have any plans on pursuing psychology—the village idiot of the sciences—when your career inexorably reaches its long due demise, I suggest you forego all premature preparations. You are an inferior physicist and drawing on Penny’s recent laments, an abject lover to boot. Penny has tended to me when illness rendered me immobile, and now I am simply repaying the favor by serving as a pillar of logic and support during her emotional toils. As for the manipulation you accused me with, I have not once pressured her into doing anything against her will by using our friendship as bait, whereas you have spent the last few days doing everything in your power to get her to spew out three meaningless words that you believe would bolster your frail ego. I believe you owe her an apology.”

Sheldon remained perfectly still as he spoke. Pallid skin closer to marble than flesh. His voice remained calm and steady, but from her vantage point she could see the rise and fall of his shoulders as he took in timed, measured breaths between each point. And did Sheldon say friendship? They were neighbours, staircase companions. Acquaintances who shared a bed platonically a grand total of two times.

Leonard took two steps back. He opened his mouth then closed it. “Whatever. She’s yours. I’m getting away from you before whatever incurable mental ailment you possess that makes you so infuriatingly intolerable mutates and becomes contagious. I’ll stay with Raj until I find someplace else hopefully on some other continent.”

He left. Then Sheldon drove her home in her car. At two miles per hour. They didn’t speak the whole way back, and trudged up the stairs in silence. He reached for her elbow again just before they parted ways, but she shrugged him off, shutting her door behind her. That was the last time they spoke. She traces circles on the empty takeout box, back against her front door. It suddenly occurs to her that today is Friday. Chinese takeout night even if hell froze over.

Lieutenant Zac’s voice blares from the TV across the hall.