Sheldon x Penny

Chapter 6: Laundry Night

{A month after the previous chapter. It's a Saturday night.}

Saturday night - Laundry night.

Clumsily, Sheldon staggered down the last flight of stairs, his visual pathway blocked by the overflowing laundry hamper he held with both hands in front of him. He wobbled as he fought to see around it, cautious not to loose his footing.

As his foot descended from the final step, he could hear that the laundry room was already occupied. This was an irregular occurrence. Every Saturday at 8:15pm exactly, Sheldon would carry out the ritualistic task of tending to his laundry, in a room that he knew (due to much observation and multiple calculations) was always empty at this particular time. Puzzled, he peered through the doorway to investigate. 'Of course', he thought to himself as he identified the mystery neighbour that had interrupted what was supposed to be a solitary evening of washing, drying, sorting and folding clothes.

"Hello Penny". Her back was turned to him. She huffed as she pulled her clothes from the dryer, throwing them into a crumpled pile on the floor beside her.

"Hi Sheldon" She didn't have to look to know that it was him - She had already been made very aware of his schedule via the PDF files that he sent to both her and Leonard at the beginning of each week. He cringed as he watched her scoop up the pile from the far from cleanly floor and deposit it upon the folding bench, jeopardising its sanity.

Her hair was scraped back in a messy bun, her baby hairs forming pretty golden ringlets that bounced beside her cheeks as she moved. As he approached her, placing his basket down beside the washer, his senses were reunited with her sweet green apple aroma, a scent that he had missed. They hadn't seen each other much since that night and still, they both refused to acknowledge that anything had ever happened. Penny had wanted to on multiple occasions, including this one, but there was an element of doubt within her mind that made her question wether the whole experience had been something that she had fabricated in a dream or on a drunken night. Regardless, wether it had happened or not, (which it almost certainly, possibly, maybe did) things had changed between them. He had been even more quiet and more reserved - working in his room instead of working at the desk when she came over and staying later at the university. It was as though he had been actively avoiding her. 

She watched as he arranged his clothes into three separate piles: Lights, darks and delicates.

"So Sheldon.. you been busy?" Penny asked timidly, folding her clothes that were already marked with dust from the floor.

"Not particularly." His expression fell flat, swallowed up by the rumble of the dryers that reverberated around the room. "Social convention dictates that I ask you the same question. Have you been busy Penny?" They stood side by side as they shared the length of the bench, their elbows occasionally brushing together as they folded their clean laundry.

"So busy! I've been working countless hours at the cheesecake facto-"

"Are you folding your clothes like a crazy person on purpose?!" he interrupted, his eyes wide with condemnation. He snatched the pair of jeans from out of her hands and folded them neatly with military precision. He leaned across her, reaching for another pair that had been poorly folded in a disorderly bundle beside her. He proceeded to do the same with the rest of her clean washing, rummaging through the pile with keen hands until he came across something he wished he hadn't.

His eyes met with hers for a brief moment before diverting to the cold hard floor of the laundry room, his cheeks and ears flushed pink. "Um.." The room fell silent, the noise from the dryer faded out as the cycle came to its end. "I presume you'd like to fold your own underwear" he whispered, his eyes staring through the ground in sheer embarrassment. He recognised this pair - A black seamless Brazilian brief with floral detailing and a lace trim. He had tried so hard to forget but the image was burned into the very core of his eidetic memory.

"Well Penny..its um..getting late. I'll leave you to continue your laundry night in peace" he stammered, his forehead glistening under the harsh light.

"Oh okay. Goodnight" she replied, bewildered by his odd behaviour. Sheldon had seen her underwear on multiple occasions. He had even once hung them out on the telephone wire opposite the building during one of their first fights.

Urgently, he gathered his half folded clothes and left. She could hear his footsteps ascend back up the stairs followed by a distant slam of an apartment door. Penny stood in the same spot, racking her brain for an answer as to why he had reacted so peculiarly.