[big bang theory] kafka, schmafka (1/2) - pg

[ishie]

Title: Kafka, Schmafka
Rating: PG
Length: ~20000 words
Fandom: Big Bang Theory (Penny/Sheldon, Howard, Missy, Raj, Leonard)
A/N: ...I don't even know. This is all fujiidom's fault. Also: vodka and pink lemonade. Mostly Maura though! I'd like to tell you why it's crackfic (with a major detour to Plottyville), but, um. It's kind of embarrassing enough that I wrote this? And I don't want to spoil the surprise. Yeah, that's the ticket. I don't have any idea when this is set but it's future-y. And possibly more AU than it seems? Basically I don't know anything. And there will be more Covalent Bond some day, oh yes, there will

Hugenormous thanks to the_wanlorn, without whom this thing would literally have never ended (ILU BEST BB), to julie_reads for not telling me to stfu, and to htbthomas for a really fast and helpful beta ♥

Part one | Part two


Leonard stopped reading their orders off of the piece of paper on his knee and squinted over at Raj. "Beef lo mein? Are you sure? I thought you were back to vegetarian again."

"Just order the food," Sheldon commanded. "We're already one minute, forty-six seconds behind schedule."

Everyone else rolled their eyes. Raj made some kind of complicated hand gesture in an attempt to explain and Leonard sighed.

"Yeah, the platter. But no egg rolls with the lo mein," he said into the phone. "Howard, you want your usual?"

Howard didn't say anything.

Penny, looking like she'd rather do anything else, leaned away from Sheldon and poked Howard in the shoulder. "You want the shrimp or not?"

He half-turned toward her. "Huh?"

"Are you okay? You don't look so good."

He didn't. He was sweating profusely and much paler than normal.

"Oh, I'm better than good," he leered, but it was clear that his heart wasn't in it.

"No, Penny's right," Sheldon said.

Penny beamed a little.

"You look like the rider on a pale horse after a run-in with a can of Sterno," he continued, then sucked in a breath and chuckled.

Leonard put down the cordless and leaned toward Penny. "The rider on a pale horse is..."

She interrupted him. "Yeah, Death warmed over. I got it."

He blinked at her and she huffed. "What? I grew up on a farm. I know my Johnny Cash."

"What does Johnny Cash have to do with-"

"Oh my God, did all of you grow up in the same cave?"

Howard wiped sweat off his forehead, disheveling his carefully arranged mop-top. "I'm fine," he insisted. "It's just a little warm in here, that's all."

The other four exchanged looks. Southern California was in the middle of an unseasonably cold winter, and Sheldon refused to let anyone open the radiator supply valves until the boiler in the basement had been properly sterilized. Predictably, the landlord placed that on an even lower priority than fixing the elevator. They were all wearing twice as many layers as normal; even Penny was huddled on the couch in an oversized sweatshirt with Cheetos stains on the sleeves.

Sheldon was the first to respond. "Clearly you are not fine. You've been sitting next to Penny for approximately eighteen minutes now and you have yet to make an off-color remark about her choice of attire. Such as: that outfit would better suit the decor of my bedroom."

Penny patted him on the thigh. "I think that one needs a little more work, sweetie."

Sheldon looked to the others. Leonard nodded, but he looked a little queasy at the same time. Raj added a thumbs-down.

Howard jumped to his feet, swaying a bit once he was standing. "Look, seriously, I'm fine! But if you guys are going to make such a big freaking deal out of everything, maybe I'll just take my Commodore 64 and go home."

He leaned down to pick the console up off the coffee table in preparation for storming out. Raj made a strangled noise and pointed at Howard's back where two lumps were visible under the purple and black stripes of his sweater, just above the familiar protrusions of his bony shoulder blades. Howard reached for the plug end of the power cable, pulling the sweater tight across his narrow back. When he did, the lumps twitched and wiggled like something alive was trapped under the fabric.

Penny gasped and knocked Howard’s hands away from the Commodore 64. It wobbled on the edge of the coffee table. She pushed Howard back down onto the couch, trying to flip and pin him so she could get a good look at whatever was under his sweater; he shrieked and fought her as best he could but he was no match for her greater strength.

At the same time, Leonard leapt over the coffee table in an attempt to keep the ancient computer from crashing to the ground. Raj, doing the same, collided with him in mid-air and they hit the floor in a heap. Sheldon stood and took two jerky steps away from the chaos.

Penny made sure Howard's arms were trapped under him and planted a knee in the small of his back. Once he was relatively still, she leaned over to pull Sheldon back to the couch by the waistband of his pants. She stripped off her sweatshirt, leaving her in a white t-shirt with Robot Kong emblazoned across her chest, and tossed it over her shoulder at him. "Here, tie his legs before he bucks me off. He's got a wicked kick."

While Sheldon did that, she shuddered and pushed up the back of Howard's sweater. He was wearing a dickey instead of a full turtleneck and she shuddered again. She exposed his upper back in one quick motion, like pulling off a band-aid, then froze.

"It's a good thing I've been practicing my cat's paw," Sheldon said, pulling the sleeves of the sweatshirt tight. "Unfortunately, there is not enough material here for me to do it properly."

When no one responded, he straightened and looked around. The others were all staring at Howard's bare back so he did the same, then snapped his mouth closed with an audible click.

Howard kept squirming and tried to make a joke. "Look, Penny, it's great, really, that you finally decided to get on board the Wolowitz Express but getting your boyfriend to tie me up is not exactly what I had in mind."

"What." Raj looked just as surprised by the word that came out of his mouth as he did by the tiny, iridescent green wings sprouting from Howard's shoulder blades.

"What what?" Howard shrieked. "Guys, seriously, what's going on?"

No one said anything; they just froze in their various poses of horrified fascination and stared.

Penny carefully slid her knee off of his back, stepping backward and almost tripping over Sheldon's feet. He steadied her with one hand on her hip and one on her upper arm, his fingers slipping up under the sleeve of the t-shirt she'd appropriated from his laundry basket.

"Um," Leonard said from where he was flat on the floor under Raj's legs, the bulky keyboard lying on his chest.

"There's a guy at work with a pick-up truck we can borrow," Penny said as she sagged back against Sheldon. "We could head over to Arroyo Seco. It's freezing out but we had all that rain the other day, so the creek should be pretty high...."

He nodded but he didn't look that happy about it. "It does appear to be that kind of a day."

---

"And you said I was one lab accident away from supervillainy."

Leonard had just come back from picking up their dinner. "Look, just because he's got wings doesn't mean he's- Can we talk about this later?"

"Certainly. I'll add it to the nominations agenda for our next pre-roommate-meeting meeting. You'll present after Penny gives her rebuttal to the changes I red-lined in the grocery rotation."

"Fine, whatever. Has Howard come out of the bathroom at all?"

Penny didn't look up from where she was rooting through the bag of food. "Nope. He finally stopped crying about ten minutes ago though." She passed out cartons to Sheldon and Raj, then sat back down on the couch with her own meal.

Raj snapped apart a pair of chopsticks. "My guess is that he was exposed to something when he went out on that satellite retrieval project. Those JPL guys are bad news."

"Seriously, I know I keep saying it, but it's so weird that you're talking," Penny said around a mouthful of eggroll, her hand cupped under her chin to catch any stray bits of pork or cabbage. "And sober."

"How is this weird? Howard's turning into a butterfly."

She made a face at him.

"Actually, based on the glimpse I had before he fled, I think Howard's wings looked more like something from the Chrysopidae family," Sheldon mused. "The wide costal field in the wing venatio-"

"Shouldn't somebody go talk to him?" Leonard interrupted, still hovering awkwardly near the refrigerator with a bottle of juice in his hands. "He's been in there an awfully long time."

Penny swallowed. "Tried that. He just starts crying again. He wouldn't even let me in when I said I'd spilled water all over my shirt."

Leonard slanted a quick look at her chest then hurried to look at Raj when Sheldon shot him a narrow-eyed look. "What about when you tried?"

"She's the one who lost Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock." Raj pointed his chopsticks across the room at Penny. "In best of three!"

She stabbed her sweet and sour chicken and scowled. "I still say that stupid rock would crush Spock."

"You've already agreed to the stipulation that Spock would not be traveling in an area prone to rockfalls without a Type-1 phaser. Several times now, I might add." Penny sighed, and Sheldon kept layering hot mustard into his carton.

"Leonard," he continued, "perhaps you could take him some reading materials if he plans to stay in there for the duration of the evening. I put all of your pornography back in your room when I cleaned yesterday. Also, and I apologize for bringing this up outside of a roommate meeting, but I would appreciate it if you would stop hiding the magazines behind the toilet tank. There are far more sanitary-"

"Got it! Thanks!" Leonard yelped, blushing a deep red.

---

"Well, I'm stumped," Sheldon declared, closing the lid of his laptop and setting it aside. "And that speaks volumes, in and of itself. Penny, may I have my phone back now?"

"Just a second," she mumbled. "This idiot keeps trying to tell me that there was no way Chrysta would have hooked up with Pips in FernGully."

Sheldon made an exasperated noise. "You're supposed to be researching Howard's predicament, not getting into arguments on the IMDb message boards and exceeding my data plan usage limits."

"I was researching," she cried as he tried to pry the phone out of her hands. She let go suddenly and he pitched backward on the couch, phone clutched protectively against his chest while he eyed her warily. "Whatever. 'Watched the movie fifty times', my ass. That moron doesn't understand the first thing about rainforest fairies."

Sheldon's eyes widened and he started scrolling through menus to close down the programs she'd opened.

"Wait, I think I've got it!" Raj called from behind the couch where he had built a small fortification of books around himself. He turned the page. "Oh. Never mind, I thought it was something else. Can I borrow this McCaffrey, by the way? I've heard about the Dragonriders but I've never read any of the books."

"Yeah, go ahead. I think all of them are over there somewhere." Leonard slumped down in his desk chair and rubbed his eyes under his glasses. "I can't find anything either, and the new entomology guy just 'lol no'd me and logged off Facebook chat."

"Morrison? Yeah, he's an even bigger dick than Crawley," Raj declared.

"So what do we do now?"

Sheldon was concentrating on typing something into his phone. He didn't look up. "Since we've already lost two hours and as such are now hopelessly behind, I propose we shift our Secret Agent Laser Aardvark tournament to tomorrow night. That is, if the Commodore hasn't been damaged."

"No, let's do it Saturday after paintball. I've got a double shift tomorrow night, all the way up to closing," Penny explained.

"Works for me," Raj piped up.

"Did you switch shifts? You didn't amend the schedule," Sheldon chided Penny.

"Yeah, well, nobody penciled us in for a live-action remake of The Fly tonight, either. Roll with it."

"No, guys," Leonard cut off whatever Sheldon's retort might have been, "about Howard. What do we do about Howard?"

"Well, our first step should be to get him out of the bathroom. It's nearly 9:15," Sheldon said, his voice rising slightly at the end.

"Can't you just hold it?"

Penny slapped her hands down on the arms of her chair and pushed herself to her feet. "If I have to listen to his urinary health lecture again, I'm going to kick your ass, Leonard," she warned, pointing a finger at him before stalking down the hallway.

The guys followed, hanging back at a safe distance. She banged on the door and bellowed, "You've got five seconds, Wolowitz, or I'm coming in there. And if I see a copy of Big Pixels in your hand, there's going to be hell to pay."

She counted down in the same loud voice and when she hit one, the door swung open. Howard's face was blotchy and swollen, his eyes blood-shot. His hair was slicked back from his forehead with water and his dickey was gone, exposing the long, pale line of his throat and a prominent Adam's apple.

"Hey," he mumbled.

Penny's expression softened. She visibly braced herself then laid a gentle hand on his arm. "Honey, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Howard said, still clearly not. "I'll just call and get a doctor's appointment tomorrow and-"

A Star Trek communicator alert blipped from the phone in Sheldon's hand. "Hold that thought, Howard," he said, imperiously, holding up his other hand for quiet.

He turned away to answer. "This is Dr. Sheldon Cooper speaking. Oh, hello, Missy! Good, you got my text. Yes, that's what I- No, it's not- If you would let me finish!" His voice trailed off as he went back into the living room.

Howard's eyes bugged out and he clenched his hands into fists; Penny dropped her hand from his arm like she'd been burned and stepped away.

"I'm going all Kafka over here and he's talking to his sister? That's just great. Really wonderful. I'm feeling the love in this room, I can tell you that," he griped.

Sheldon re-emerged, tucking his phone back into the pocket of his plaid pants. "I was asking for her assistance, Wolowitz. If my hypothesis is correct - and why wouldn't it be? - she has the unique knowledge we require."

Raj squeaked. Then he clapped a hand over his mouth and groaned. Penny gave him a sympathetic half-hug.

"How is your sister going to be able to help?" Leonard asked.

"She's the only fully-grown adult I know who still possesses a pair of fairy wings and refers to pixie dust in common conversation."

"No, she's not," Penny corrected him. "I've got a pair of-"

Sheldon cleared his throat and gave her a crooked smile. "Cosplay doesn't count."

She grinned in return and leaned into him, her face tilted up toward his.

Howard summoned up a leer, looking even more grotesque than normal with his red eyes and swollen face.

Leonard groaned and looked around the hallway like he was trying to find a hole to crawl into.

---

"Howard, I really don't think you should go anywhere tonight. Why don't you sleep on the couch?" Leonard asked. "We've still got Barbarella on the TiVo!"

"Ooh, slumber party!" Penny squealed, clapping her hands.

Raj's eyes widened. He picked up his coat and quickly left the apartment without saying goodbye.

"Or, not? What the hell?"

"He fears a recurrence of his nocturnal enuresis," Sheldon said.

"Bed-wetting,” Leonard explained.

---

Penny stumbled down the hallway with bleary eyes and tangled hair hanging in her face. Sheldon was right behind her, robe neatly belted over matching pajamas.

"It's not even light out yet," she whined as she slumped over the kitchen table, pressing her cheek against the cool wood.

Sheldon pulled two bowls out of a cupboard and poured a single serving of Big Bran in both. He topped them off with milk: 2% for himself and skim for Penny. "We have to meet Missy's flight in ninety minutes."

Penny climbed onto one of the stools and took the spoon he offered, dipping it into the sugar bowl. "Why can't she just take a cab?"

Sheldon scoffed. "Penny, really."

"She did last time, you big jerk," she mumbled into her cereal. "Twice."

He ignored her. When they'd finished eating and Penny had slurped up her remaining milk, she stood and scrubbed her hair out of her face. She frowned at the section she'd accidentally dunked in the bowl.

"I'm gonna go jump in the shower. You wake up Howard. I don't want to leave him here all by himself."

"But Leonard's here," Sheldon balked.

"Yeah, and he's still sleeping like a normal person. Just get him up so we can get out of here." She stomped up the hallway and shut herself in the bathroom. The shower came on a few seconds later.

Sheldon crossed over to the couch. The pillow and blanket were still lying on the cushions but Howard was nowhere to be seen.

"Well, that's odd."

---

"What do you mean, he's gone?" Penny yelled over the spray of the water.

"Why must you persist in making me repeat the simplest statements?" Sheldon complained.

"Well, where the hell did he go?"

He sighed. "If I knew that, I would hardly have come in here to ask you."

She jerked open the shower curtain and glared at him. He stepped back to avoid the spray of water bouncing out of the tub.

"Maybe he felt better and went home?" Leonard offered from the hallway. He kept his back to the open bathroom door.

Penny's hand curled into a fist over argon's atomic number. "Do we need to talk about who's allowed in here when I'm naked?" she hissed at Sheldon. "Again?"

---

Leonard dropped the phone on the kitchen counter like it had grown fangs and tried to bite him. "Uh, Howard's not home. Also nobody should call there for at least a week. I think his mom was serious about the cops."

"Well, he can't have gone far," Sheldon said. "His wallet's still there on the table and Raj drove him here last night."

Penny came in, dressed for the day in several layers of clothing but with a towel wrapped still around her head. "Did you call Raj? Maybe he-"

"No answer," Leonard told her. "He's probably still asleep."

"Imagine that," she said, shooting a dirty look at Sheldon.

He made a distressed sound as he checked his watch. "We have only sixty-four minutes until we have to meet Missy at baggage claim!"

Penny grumbled and unwrapped her towel. She balled it up and tossed it toward the bathroom, missing by several feet and ignoring Sheldon's outraged "Hey!", and headed for the closet to grab her coat. Sheldon trailed behind her.

Leonard said, "I'm going to head over to Raj's place, see if he can think of anywhere Howard might have gone."

"Good idea," Penny said. "Call us if you find anything?"

Leonard agreed and went to hold the door to the hallway open for them.

"Are you truly angry with me or have your reactions this morning been due to a combination of sleep deprivation and worry?" Sheldon asked as they passed him.

"Little of both," Penny answered as she jammed one of the hats his mom had knitted over her still-damp hair. "Plus, you know, Howard within hearing distance all night."

"So that's why...." He noticed Leonard watching them and turned away from him slightly, lowering his voice. "I have a proposal that may temporarily ameliorate all of those irritants. Time permitting, of course. Once we reach the airport parking garage, perhaps we can engage in a brief session of-"

Leonard closed the door on the rest of his suggestion but it wasn't enough to block Penny's high-pitched and excited, "Sheldon Cooper!"

He picked up Penny's discarded towel and dropped it into the hamper in the bathroom, then went into his own room to change into something warmer than pajamas. On his way out of the apartment, he flipped off the lights and let the door fall shut behind him as he rushed down the stairs.

Once he was gone, Howard muttered sleepily, "Finally," and rolled over.

---

Penny and Sheldon hurried through the lower terminal entrance at LAX just as Missy's plane was due to land.

"I told you we'd have plenty of time," she panted, stuffing something into her coat pocket along with her keys and zipping it closed.

"Only because you took the route I suggested for a change."

"Hey, you gave me a good enough reason this time. Just for future reference: 'We're going to miss Stuart cutting open the boxes', no. 'Let's make out', yes."

"Witnessing the opening of the boxes is part of the tradition, Penny, which you would understand if you..." He trailed off, his attention caught by the arrivals display. "Oh, Missy's flight's been delayed."

Penny craned her neck, trying to see around him to read the monitor as they passed it. "Twenty-five minutes, huh?"

Sheldon checked his watch against the time the airport displays were showing. "Given her assigned arrival gate, she should be at baggage claim thirty-two minutes from now. If you're bored, we could pass the time by trying to guess the departure point for the people coming to pick up their bags."

"Thirty minutes, huh?" Penny looked up and down the wide, mostly deserted concourse.

"Thiry-two minutes. Well, thirty-one now tha-Aahh!"

She pulled him in to the nearest restroom and ducked down to check under the stall doors for occupants, then threw the bolt on the door.

"Plenty of time," she repeated as she advanced on him.

"Here?!"

---

Missy was waiting for them at the baggage carousel with a large duffel bag slung over her shoulder and an old-fashioned hard-sided suitcase at her feet.

"Hiiii!"

Sheldon winced as she and Penny shrieked at each other. They hugged tightly, then Missy let go to turn to her brother. She punched him lightly in the shoulder.

"What was that for?" He rubbed his shoulder and scowled.

"That was for waiting until you had a big emergency to invite me back up here, you big dummy." She took some of the sting out of her words by giving him a big hug. He was quicker to return the embrace than he had been the last time she visited. He also didn't try to argue with her about his IQ, for once.

When they separated, it only took three hints from Penny for Sheldon to heave a long-suffering sigh and pick up Missy's suitcase. The doors slid open as they neared, bringing a frigid blast of air and the thick, oily smell of car exhaust.

Missy, wearing only a thin knit sweater and a pair of jeans, shivered. "Boy, Shelly, you weren't kidding about that cold!"

"I never joke about meteorological phenomena. And I see you didn't take my advice about packing appropriately. Typical."

Penny rolled her eyes at Sheldon's back as he started marching out ahead of them to the parking garage. "Here," she said, struggling out of the coat she'd put back on only moments earlier, "wear this. I've got, like, six layers on and I'm boiling."

Missy eyed her flushed face, then the way her brother's normally neatly combed hair stuck up all over as he waited impatiently for them on the sidewalk. "Sure looks like it."

Penny was patting down the pockets of her jeans and sweatshirt and didn't hear her. "Oh wait, I think I left the keys in my coat."

She tried to grab it back but Missy was already unzipping a pocket to dip a hand inside. She pulled out part of a lacy black strap. "I'm thinking maybe you missed a layer?"

Penny didn't look the slightest bit embarrassed. "You know, I think you might be right about that."

"We're going to get stuck in morning traffic if you two keep ... lollygagging!"

"You just hold your horses!" Missy pulled out the keys and handed them to Penny. "I don't understand how you put up with him. If I didn't know better, I'd ask if Mom was paying you somehow."

Penny just smirked, like she knew something Missy could never in a million years figure out.

It was Missy's turn to roll her eyes. "Hand to God, you two are a matched set."

---

As they merged into traffic on Sepulveda, Sheldon rubbed his hands together in the little bit of warm air trickling out of the dashboard and asked, "Did you arrange for a hotel room? I have a list of several acceptable establishments within easy distance of our apartment."

"She's family, Sheldon! And you're the one who insisted she fly up here. She's staying with us."

"I can just bed down in the living room," Missy said. "There's no need for you all to go to any trouble."

"Oh, it's no trouble at all," Penny assured her. "You can share with me! It'll be like the last time you were here before I moved across the hall, except- You know. With Howard growing wings and stuff."

"And just where am I supposed to sleep?" Sheldon whined. "You know the couch doesn't offer adequate lumbar support, and I can't use Leonard's room while he's there. And there is far too much ambient noise in the living room. And I never get enough rest unless I'm using my own blankets." He edged closer to the door, well out of the path of anything his sister might try. "Why can't she stay out there?"

"How about: if it's good enough for your twin sister and every other person who has to crash for a night, it's good enough for you, too?"

"Well, that's just blatantly untrue." He snorted. "What's good enough for everyone else is very rarely good enough for me."

When he continued to press the issue for the next five miles, Penny gritted her teeth and added, "Because Missy doesn't need to worry about whether she's getting back in bed with me when this is all over, that's why."

Sheldon turned to look at his sister in the back seat. "Try not to make any sudden movements while she's sleeping. Sometimes she kicks."

"I'll remember that," Missy said solemnly. When Sheldon nodded and faced forward once more, she caught Penny's eyes in the rearview mirror and winked. "Nice," she mouthed.

Penny gave her a broad smile and reached over to pat Sheldon's knee, asking him, "Do you want to play the elements name game? I've been studying in the shower."

"Rubidium!"

---

As soon as they got into the apartment and saw that Leonard hadn't yet returned, Penny dug out her cell to call him. Sheldon carried Missy's suitcase back to their bedroom, giving her instructions about schedules and timetables the whole way.

When Leonard picked up, Penny asked, "No luck finding Howard? Okay. Yeah, Missy's here, safe and sound. We'll see you guys in a few minutes."

She ended the call and chewed on one of her nails. "Where the hell is he?"

"I'm right here!"

Penny rubbed her right ear. "Howard?"

"No, it's the Hebrew Hammer. Of course it's me!"

"Where are you?" She looked around the room, then kneeled on the couch to peer behind it.

"Watch out!"

Penny looked down to find Howard sitting cross-legged on top of the blanket, just inches away from her knee. He was about as tall as one of her Barbie dolls and his wings stuck out of two ragged, off-center holes in the back of his sweater. It looked like he'd ripped them by hand.

She screamed and jumped away. Howard winced and covered his ears.

"Penny, what's wrong?" Sheldon cried as he and Missy burst into the room. He used Missy, who was brandishing a lightsaber like a baseball bat, for cover and pointed his phaser around the room. "Is it Morlocks?"

"Why the hell would there be Morlocks in the apartment?" Penny asked.

Missy looked down at the couch and sighed. "Oh, damn. It's worse than I thought."

"Hey!" Howard protested.

---

Missy brought Sheldon's laptop out of hibernation and plugged in the flash drive she had pulled out of her duffel bag.

"Please tell me you've used a virus protection program on that at some point?"

"Relax. I run a scan every night, just like you taught me. This baby's clean as a whistle."

Sheldon sniffed. "Well, that's hardly reassuring. I seem to recall someone saying that very same thing about an actual whistle she was trying to shove in my mouth-"

"For the millionth time, that is not how you got the mono!"

"Oh, and I suppose your advanced degrees in epidemiology and-"

"Don't you be calling me stupid again, you-"

"Hey!" Penny shouted.

Both Sheldon and Missy stopped in mid-sentence and turned identical glares on her.

"Can we do the fighting thing later? We've still got Thumbelina over there to deal with."

"I can still hear you!" Howard called from his perch on the coffee table. He kicked his legs irritably and fluttered his wings. "I haven't gone deaf."

"I wish I would," Penny muttered.

Sheldon crossed his arms, looking mutinous. "Fine," he bit out. "Missy, we'll continue this at a more opportune time."

"You're darn tootin' we will," she said, turning back to the computer.

Sheldon stalked into the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water. Penny leaned over the back of Missy's seat, trying to see what she was doing. As she watched, Missy clicked open a few folders then highlighted and printed a handful of Word documents.

"So, what's all this?"

"Oh, just a couple of things I've picked up along the way." Missy picked up the papers as the printer spat them out. "This here's an identification guide so we can try to figure out what exactly we're dealing with - found that one on the internet, would you believe that? And I've got a questionnaire for Howard to fill out."

"Where'd you get that?"

"I wrote it," Missy said with a proud smile. "Well, with some help."

"Get out!" Penny nudged Missy's shoulder with her own. "Seriously?"

"Yeah! I was dating this guy who was kind of like an investigator for this kind of thing, I guess? Just sort of fell into it after that. I mean, it's not like I want to be a hostess at Fuddrucker's my whole life. I know some people," she threw a dark look over her shoulder at her brother, "think we're just a bunch of backwards hicks back home but that doesn't mean we're oblivious."

Sheldon snorted. "Yes, the great state of Texas and its citizens are regularly recognized for their all-consuming intellectual curiosity. Sometimes I'm almost sorry I moved away." After a beat, he added, almost to himself, "You know, I think I've finally mastered sarcasm."

Missy turned back to the computer but not before Penny saw the hurt that flashed across her face. She leaned down and whispered, "Don't let him fool you. He's got the first three seasons of Friday Night Lights on DVD, hidden under the bed. And every time we watch them, he spends half the time telling me all the ways East Texas is better than West."

---

"Hold still, Howard! This isn't going to work if you keep squirming all over the place."

"I can't help it. It tickles!"

Sheldon grunted in frustration, and Howard giggled nervously.

When the door flew open, Howard toppled off the coffee table onto the pillows Penny had spread on the floor for just that reason. Sheldon looked up from his tape measure and notebook with a mild look of surprise.

Leonard sagged against the doorframe. "Oh, thank God. I thought- Something I hope I never think again!"

Raj grimaced. "Dude, tell me aboooooooow!"

"Found the camera," Missy said, looking down at it and fiddling with the settings as she stepped down into the living room. "And I don't want to know why you were taking pictures of a bunch of dolls in your bedroom, Shelly."

He let the dolls comment slide, and the nickname, although his left eye and cheek twitched briefly. "I've almost finished measuring his wingspan. Should we move over by the windows so that we have adequate light for the pictures?"

"Nah, Penny's bringing out a couple of lamps."

Sheldon startled and dropped his equipment. "Tell me she's not dismantling the.... Oh, how would you know?"

As he disappeared around the corner, heading for their bedroom, Leonard took a tentative step into the apartment. "Hey, Missy!" he said, too cheerfully, cringing as he did.

Her head shot up and she flattened the hand not holding the camera over her chest. "Oh, my Lord, I didn't even see you there! How you doing, Leonard?"

He started to stammer out a response and she leaned to one side to look around him.

"Hey there, cutie," she said to Raj with a wink. "Penny mentioned you were on your way over."

Raj cleared his throat and waved limply, looking mortified.

"We're just getting ready to do my centerfold," Howard said as he crawled back up onto the coffee table. He waggled his eyebrows and directed an exaggerated lascivious look at Missy. "This is going to be great!"

Leonard and Raj paled.

"Am I imagining things or is he a lot smaller than he was last night?" Leonard asked, his voice rising higher and higher with every word.

"You are definitely not imagining it," Raj said. His eyes bugged out and he started to babble. "Did I just talk? Out loud? Oh! I just did it again. And with the most beautiful woman on the planet standing right there! Augh! I'm still doing it!"

"Well, aren't you sweet?" Missy purred.

Whatever could have happened next, didn't, as Sheldon distracted them all by yelling from his room, "There! Are! Four! Lights!"

---

"It's just that we've been really worried about you, Howard. Even Sheldon."

Sheldon scoffed, then grinned maniacally and nodded when Penny elbowed him in the ribs.

"I told you. It's not like I meant for you to think I disappeared. I just, I didn't realize how much smaller I was and that you couldn't see me." Howard hunched up his shoulders, making his wings shift. "I thought you were just being dicks, basically. I heard talking - really freaking loud for five in the morning, I might add - and then I fell back to sleep, and then when I woke up everyone was gone."

His face fell even farther. "And I was a Troll doll."

Penny tried to tease him. "Oh, come on, you looked like a troll before... Too soon?" she asked when everyone turned to glare at her.

"But look!" Howard's face contorted and he hovered several inches off the coffee table, wings moving so fast they were a blur.

Penny covered her face with both hands. "God, Howard, no offense but that's really creepy."

On either side of her, Raj and Sheldon sat forward with looks of avid curiosity.

Sheldon tilted his head slightly to one side. "Would you say the movement is caused by flexing your trapezius muscles or is there some other biological mechanism at work?"

"What about your heart rate and respiration?" Raj asked. "Is it taking substantially more effort to stay in the air than to it does to just, sort of, flutter them?"

"And can you stop?" Penny added from behind her hands.

Howard landed with a tiny thump and crossed his arms. "Oh sure, yeah, if it's creeping you out I'll just walk everywhere and hope a mouse doesn't eat me."

"A mouse?" Sheldon pulled his feet up off the floor, crossing his arms over his knees to hold his legs up. "You've seen rodents in this apartment?"

"Well, if you'd just let me get a cat then we wouldn't have to worry about it!" Leonard called from the kitchen where he was cutting the leftover shrimp in lobster sauce into Howard-sized pieces.

"I was speaking hyperbolically!" Howard bellowed.

"C'mon, boys, quit your arguing," Missy soothed. "And Shelly, put your feet down. You look like an idiot."

He glared but did as she told him.

"Now, the way I see it," she continued without missing a beat, "we're dealing with one of two things. Either Howard here got himself into something he shouldn't have - whether you want to call it science or black magic, I'm not saying which 'cause it's not my place to judge - or what we have here is what they call a supernatural awakening."

The four guys looked at her with matching blank expressions like they'd tuned out everything after she tried to equate science with magic.

Penny brightened. "Ooh, like Buffy!"

---

While the guys argued over the best way to build a carrier for Howard should the need arise, and Howard protested that he could just ride in someone's pocket instead, Penny pulled Missy into the kitchen.

"Okay, what's going on with Howard is really weird, but I'm a little more freaked out about Raj."

Missy's forehead wrinkled. "What do you mean? What's wrong with Raj?"

Penny stared at her for a moment then smacked her own forehead. "Right, I forgot. Last time you saw him was when he tried that drug." She explained about Raj's selective mutism and that in all the years she'd known him the only other times she'd heard him speak had been when he was drunk.

"Hmm, that's probably not good."

"You think it means something?"

"Yeah, could be. I need to go check on a couple of things - there a library nearby?"

"I think there's a branch over on Hill, about a mile away. I'd drive you over there but I need to take a nap or I'm going to be dead by the end of my shift."

"That's okay. I can walk."

"First rule of LA, sweetie: nobody walks anywhere except crazy people. And your brother."

Missy gave her a look.

"Yeah, yeah, but your mom had him tested or so he says. Hang on a sec." She raised her voice. "Hey, Leonard. Need to borrow your car."

"What? Why?" he whined. "I just got the dents fixed from the last time."

"Missy needs to go somewh-"

"Keys are in the bowl! Unless you want me to-"

Missy smiled, "Oh no, that's okay. I'll be back before you even know I'm gone. You all just get that questionnaire filled out."

There was a mad scramble as Raj and Leonard, and even tiny Howard, dropped whatever bits of junk they were playing with and dove for the papers on the table.

"Oh, for pity's sake," Sheldon grumbled. "She's still not going to choose to mate with any of you."

---

Missy still wasn't back by the time Penny got up from her nap. She scarfed down a bowl of instant macaroni and cheese she'd found at the back of the cupboard while standing over the sink, ignoring Leonard's pained looks and Sheldon's increasingly pointed eyebrow raises and head jerks toward the table.

"I just don't feel right about leaving you guys here alone," she said after swallowing a huge bite of rubbery noodles.

"Come on," Leonard said. "It's not like we're going to get in trouble sitting here in the apartment waiting for you guys!"

Howard and Raj nodded firmly.

She swallowed again and made a face. "Kind of what I'm afraid of."

"We're just going to fill out this questionnaire and finish constructing Howard's carrier," Sheldon assured her. "We'll be fine."

---

"Penny, this is Sheldon."

It had taken her a long time to convince him that he didn't need to announce his full name every time she answered his calls.

"Cooper."

They were still working on it.

"We're not fine."

---

Penny's manager cringed in horror when she threw down the phone at the hostess stand and ran back to his tiny office to claim "lady troubles." She was racing out of the restaurant and into her car within minutes. As she turned the corner onto Los Robles, she braced herself with both hands curled tightly around the steering wheel.

"I swear to you, God," she said into the cold air, "if the apartment building is on fire, or under attack by robots, or just straight-up missing altogether, I don't even know what I'm going to do."

When she pulled into the parking lot, there were no police, fire, or ambulance flashers. No gleaming metal leviathans. The building was as reassuringly sturdy as always under the gunmetal gray sky.

"Okay, so that just leaves miniature black holes and time portals," she muttered as she locked the car. She pulled out her phone to call Missy, then realized halfway through the directory that she didn't have her number, just an email address. "Fan-freaking-tastic."

The door to the apartment swung open as she was climbing the last flight of stairs and Sheldon stepped outside, pulling the door closed behind him.

"Sheldon, what the hell? Are you okay?"

"No," he said in a low voice. "I don't think I am."

As soon as she was close enough, she reached out to grab his arm. His skin was hot to the touch. "Oh my god, do you have a fever? What are you doing out here? Did the guys leave you alone like this again?"

She pressed her hand against his forehead and he swallowed hard.

"I'm not sick."

"Sweetie, you're burning up."

"It's not... It's not that kind of fever," he choked out.

"Huh?"

She could smell beef vegetable soup on his breath. He stepped further into her personal space, sliding his fingers along the nape of her neck, making her shiver.

"Ah," she said faintly. "Gotcha."

When he leaned in closer, she ducked under his arm and pushed her way into the apartment. He followed, his hand coming up to rest on the back of her neck, thumb tickling down under the collar of her uniform shirt and coat.

Howard was hovering near the door, a look of panic on his face. "Oh, thank God!" he cried. "I don't know what's going on! They've all gone crazy!"

Raj was leaning against the windows, talking away a mile a minute on speakerphone, a sultry female voice replying in Hindi. In the kitchen, Leonard was grinning and singing along, badly, to what sounded like a sickly sweet pop song.

Penny danced out of Sheldon's reach as his hand slid down her back and started to curve around her side, slipping up under the loose waist of her coat to stroke the lower curve of her belly. "What did you do," she said through clenched teeth.

Howard twitched, his wings beating twice as fast as he bobbed out of her reach. "What makes you think it's my fault?"

She just looked at him, making a frustrated gesture with the hand that wasn't busy keeping Sheldon at bay.

Howard bugged his eyes out at her, dipping down a foot in mid-air as he shrugged his shoulders. "What?"

"Ohhh, I don't know. Maybe because you're the size of a doll, you're flying, and- Why are you sparkly?"

"Oh, that," he waved it off like it was no big deal. "Sheldon made me sit on a heating pad when I bitched about the cold. Next thing I know, I'm sweating like a pig, only it's glitter instead of perspiration."

"And you wonder why I think this might be your fault?"

Penny glared at Howard, practically vibrating with indignation, and Sheldon took advantage of her distraction long enough to brush aside her hair and press his lips against the slope of her neck. Reaching up over her shoulder, she tried to shove his face away.

"Sheldon, no! Living room's a G-rated zone!"

"Don't care," he mumbled into her skin.

"Howard!" she barked. "Talk! When did this start?"

She tried to wedge her elbow in between Sheldon and her back, but when she made contact with his abdomen he made a growling noise and bared his teeth against the rise of her shoulder. Her knees wobbled and she had to cling to the back of one of the desk chairs to stay upright. She tried to concentrate on what Howard was saying as he drifted over to the back of the couch. He wasn't even leering.

"Well, Raj was sober and talking in front of you last night, Leonard started playing..."

"Yeah, yeah, okay, but what did you do?"

"Nothing! They were helping me fill out Missy's questionnaire, which is actually very well-constructed," Howard digressed. "She's mixed in some intriguing queries with the usual questions about age, sex, weight. I gather that she uses it pretty routinely."

"I'm famished," Sheldon announced as he suddenly stepped away from Penny. "That soup wasn't very filling. Are there any sandwiches left?"

---

It took more than half an hour for her to corral the other two and get them to sit quietly with Sheldon and Howard in the living room. She kept trying Missy's cell from Sheldon's phone in the meantime but it went straight to voicemail every time.

Raj pouted. "I was just about to seal the deal with Geetha," he reminded her for the fifth time in as many minutes.

"I know, sweetie." She patted him on the shoulder and sat next to Sheldon on the couch, tucking her skirt in under her knees and brushing her knuckles against his outer thigh as she did. He shivered and captured her hand with his own, giving it a brief squeeze before dropping it back into her lap.

"Okay," she said, "tell me exactly what you guys did after I left."

Sheldon picked up his social interactions log and started reading from the notes he'd updated after finishing his sandwich. "Leonard, Raj, and Howard rejected several of my suggestions regarding the design of the carrier. After a democratic vote failed to break the deadlock, Howard practiced take-offs and landings from a variety of positions and locations around the apartment. Raj subjected us to a litany of the eligible women he wanted to-"

"She doesn't need to hear that!" Raj hissed.

"Very well. Howard somehow became wedged inside the open computer case." He pointed it out to her like it hadn't been sitting in exactly the same spot for years. "Leonard rescued him and then logged in to YouTube to watch videos for approximately seventy minutes. I made soup. Raj began calling women from his list. I ate my soup. During that time, Howard spent approximately fourteen minutes complaining about the ambient temperature of the apartment, then twelve minutes sitting atop the heating pad, then another fourteen minutes describing his glitter in excruciating detail."

"Like you're one to talk," Howard muttered. Raj held out a finger for him to high-five.

"After all of that," Sheldon continued as if he hadn't noticed the interruption, "I attempted to get things back on course by making Howard complete Missy's questionnaire while Leonard began practicing his singing, if indeed one can call it that."

"That's it?" Penny said blankly. "Then what was all that ... that when I got here?"

The other guys looked around like they suddenly found the floor and the ceiling completely fascinating, but Sheldon held her gaze. "As you know, any part of my interactions log relating to our relationship is confidential. You may review it later if you like. In private."

"Sheldon, come on! You practically mauled me in a G-rated zone! I think that calls for an emergency overruling."

"And I have already awarded myself the appropriate number of demerits as per our agreement with Leonard."

"I gave up a double shift to come home!"

"Penny, this privacy rule is in effect for a reason. If I were to establish precedent now, how could I logically refuse to reveal intimate details at a later date?" He shook his head. "You're asking me to invite chaos and anarchy into our bedroom."

"Okay, yeah, never mind," she said, shifting away from Howard's studied - and entirely false - indifference.

Sheldon looked satisfied by her capitulation and continued. "All I will say is that when I first realized that the situation was spiraling out of control, I attempted to contact Missy and had no reply. Once I understood that I had been affected, and in what way, my only option was to call you." He closed his log book and sat back as if that settled the matter.

Leonard started singing an old Christina Aguilera song under his breath and Raj was furtively toying with his phone, so she sighed instead of arguing.

"Fine. Let me see that questionnaire."

---

Penny read the questions and answers aloud and watched the guys to see if their behavior changed. It didn't, but she kept a careful distance from Sheldon just in case something set him off again.

They had only just finished the first page when the door flew open and Missy stomped in, her hair damp and loose around her face.

"Can you believe it's snowing out there now?" she asked as she peeled off the coat and gloves she'd bullied Sheldon into loaning to her. "I thought this was supposed to be the Sunshine State."

"Florida is the Sunshine State," Sheldon corrected as they all started across the room to the windows overlooking the parking lot. "California's nickname is the Golden State, owing to the discovery of gold in 1848. Although, with the average number of sunny days per year around 70%, Sunshine State is perhaps a more apt nickname."

Missy just shrugged.

Sheldon made a frustrated noise, flinging his hands out to his sides. "Well, excuse me for continuing to try to educate you!"

Howard flew ahead of them, holding on to the latch and pressing his face against the glass as the rest of the group crowded in behind him. The cars in the lot were covered with a thick dusting of snow and more was still falling heavily. The Gabriel kids from 3-A were tossing snowballs at each other, a virtual army of angels pressed into the ground around them.

"Started about twenty minutes ago," Missy said as she peered over Leonard's head. "You should have seen everybody freaking out at the library."

Sheldon sketched a quick equation in the air behind her. "At the current rate of snowfall, the roads will be impassable in approximately ninety-five minutes. Provided the precipitation doesn't shift to sleet or rain in the meantime."

"It won't," Leonard declared. "The temperature's been dropping steadily since we had that rain on Monday."

"Since when are you an expert on weather patterns?"

"Uh, since I grew up in New Jersey? Where we have actual winters?"

Penny nodded, pushing Raj out of her way so she could see outside better. "Yeah, cold like this usually means blizzard."

"In Pasadena? That's preposterous," Sheldon scoffed. He flexed his fingers like he was already thinking of which search terms to use on Google.

"Apparently," Missy drawled, "it's not."

Leonard squinted hopefully over the rim of his glasses. "Does this mean we can finally turn on the heat?"

"Dibs on the radiator!" Raj and Howard said in unison while Sheldon grudgingly agreed to forego his careful supervision of boiler sterilization.

There was a brief game of Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock, during which Howard proved unable to maintain a steady beating of his wings while throwing wild Papers and Spocks. He dropped to the floor like a stone, cheering his victory.

"Damn it, how does he always know?" Raj said as he smacked his Rock into his other open palm.

---

After they'd picked up Howard and dusted him off, over Sheldon's scandalized protests that there was no dust anywhere in the apartment, Missy tried to explain what she thought was happening.

"I've never seen anybody who progressed this fast," she began. "Usually, it happens gradually, like over a couple of weeks or months. First you start getting the weird physical changes, like the wings. Shrinking's pretty common-"

Howard glowered.

"-but, again, it usually takes a while. Overnight's pretty much unheard of."

"What about the glitter?" Penny asked. "Is that normal?"

"Well, I wouldn't say normal, but yeah. It's a pretty common waste product of magical energy."

Sheldon and Leonard both blanched, hurriedly wiping their hands on the nearest cloth they could reach. Raj studied the sparkles dusting the tips of his fingers.

Howard sat up on his knees, bracing himself against a thick book on the coffee table. "Did you say magical?"

Penny held up a finger for him to high-five. "Guess this means you don't need that stupid top hat anymore!"

"I guess not!" Howard's face lit up. "So I'm made of magic now?"

"It's more like you're an instrument for magic. You don't really have any, but you can direct it," Missy paused, considering. "Well, kinda."

"Like the Force!" Raj said, his voice hushed and awestruck. "Dude, you're a Jedi!"

All four guys started talking at once and Missy had to stick her fingers between her lips and give a piercing whistle to get them to stop. "Sorry, hon, he's not a Jedi. He's more what you might call a common woodland fairy."

---

Penny and Missy sat on the kitchen stools, poring over the questionnaire, while Howard paced irritably on the counter.

"This is just ridiculous," he repeated, wings fluttering behind him as he turned and stalked in the opposite direction. "How am I a fairy?"

Raj called from the living room, "You know how I know you're ga-"

He swallowed the rest of the words when Penny twisted in her seat to glare at him.

Howard continued like he hadn't heard any of it. "I'm Jewish. My whole family's from Russia, for crying out loud! On both sides!"

Penny gave him a questioning look, and he dropped his voice.

"Ix-nay on the Atholic-cay?" he said with a shrug, raised eyebrows, and a hand he wiggled from side to side.

"Yeah, I don't-"

"It's got nothing to do with your heritage, Howard," Missy interrupted. "Most of the stories are about Irish magic, but I've met folks from all over the place who have fairy characteristics."

Behind her, Leonard and Raj snickered and guffawed, breathless with mirth, clinging to each other on the couch.

Sheldon, who was crossing from his desk to the kitchen, rolled his eyes. "It's like they've suddenly transmutated into members of a particularly juvenile fraternity," he mumbled into the fridge.

Missy snorted. "Not even Alpha Betas are this bad."

"Ooh, Revenge of the Nerds reference! Nice," Penny said.

"Yeah, it was on Comedy Central last night while I was packing."

"Which one? I like when they go to spring break best."

"Really, I thought you'd like the first one! Lewis and Betty totally remind me of you and-"

"Hello!" Howard yelped. "Can we get back to the part where you're explaining why I'm living a fairy tale?" He grimaced. "Literally?"

Sheldon put down his bottle of soda. "Not literally, unless you've been sent on some kind of quest or challenged by an ogre within the last twenty-four hours."

"Wings, Sheldon! I. Have. Wings!"

"Lots of non-supernatural beings have wings," Sheldon retorted. "At best, you can say that your situation is indicative of-"

"Oh my God," Penny muttered under her breath as she rose from her stool. She wrapped her hand around his bicep and started to drag him from the room. "Sweetie," she said when he tried to resist, "you can tell me all the ways that Howard's wrong and you're right, but only if you come with me right now."

Sheldon looked from her face to Howard's, and shrugged. "Fair enough."

When they heard the bedroom door close behind the couple, Missy gave Howard a sympathetic smile. "Just hold on a minute, will you? I promise I'll explain what's going on."

"Great," Howard said sulkily. "Finally."

She had to resist the urge to pat him on the head and moved off the stool instead.

"Raj? Could you do me a little favor?" she asked as she plopped down in the chair opposite the couch and leaned forward.

He scrambled upright, pushing Leonard away and visibly shaking off his amusement to put a solemn and inviting expression on his face. It came out looking more like he'd been punched in the face.

"Could you and Leonard maybe go get us something for dinner? I know it's terrible outside, but I am just starving," she said, laying the accent on thick. She even batted her lashes.

Raj nodded eagerly, opening his mouth to reply but a stream of gibberish came pouring out instead.

Leonard leaned forward. "Wait, did you just- He was just talking a minute ago!"

Missy turned to look at Howard, who was sitting on the edge of the counter.

"What?" he cried.

"What did you say right before I came over here?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Finally? Great?"

Raj's squeaky gibberish melted back into English. "-does this keep happening to me? Wait! Am I-"

Missy leaped out of her seat and scooped Howard off the counter. He struggled in her grasp, his wings quivering against her fingers. "Say it again!"

"Finally?"

"-English again! What the frak? Missy, what's going-"

She held Howard up to eye-level. "No, the other word!"

"I don't remember!" Howard shouted. "Fine? Great?!"

And Raj made a strangled, high-pitched noise like a dying chicken.

'Oh my god, this is great!" Howard wriggled out of Missy's grip and flew over to peer at Raj.

"Just you wait, tiny man," Raj growled.

---

continued in part two

Started: 26 September 2009
Finished: 21 November 2009