25Hi, It's Regina again! I started this little thing months ago, and finally had the chance to work on it. It's just a silly, short and (hopefully) funny little story.
Check the end to know how this idea was originated, it's a curious fun fact!
Enjoy!
On a very quiet Thursday night, Leonard was sleeping soundly, wrapped in Penny's arms. She was asleep as well, and a little trail of drool had started to escape from her mouth. Her cheek was in full contact with Leonard's chest, moving in time with his breathing. The only sound in the room were the snores the pair exhaled occasionally. Leonard and Penny were experiencing the peaceful bliss of having the apartment all to themselves, after all these years sharing the space with Sheldon. No weird sounds from the other room, no Morse code knocks on the wall, no bongos or theremin solos in the middle of the night. Nothing. Just calm.
"BAM!" The door opened abruptly as a determined Sheldon entered the room wearing a safety helmet, with a sleepy Amy just behind him. Once in the dark room, he stopped in his tracks and checked his watch. This was a good time to be grateful he owned a watch that glowed in the dark. It was 2.03AM. Time was important and his neighbors were already wasting it.
"TIME TO WAKE UP!" Sheldon shouted, noticing that the sleeping pair didn't even flinch with the sound of the door.
"AHHHH!" Penny screamed, startled awake. The silhouette surrounded by the dim hall light that towered above her didn't help to calm her down. "LEONARD!" She shouted, trying to hit the unknown figure with her fist.
"AHHHHHHWHAAAT?" Leonard jumped from his sleeping position as he was the only one hit by Penny's self-defense movements. He nervously tapped the night stand for his glasses, trying to cover himself with the bed sheets in the process.
Suddenly, light illuminated the room just as Leonard put his glasses on. Sheldon, hands on hips, with a serious look on his face, was staring expectantly at Leonard and Penny. Amy's head behind Sheldon revealed she was the one who switched on the light just seconds before.
"Come on, time for our quarterly Emergency Preparedness Drill" Sheldon tapped his watch with a smug face.
"SHELDON!" Leonard and Penny shouted at the same time.
"Quarterly what?" Penny snapped furiously. "WHAT'S GOING ON?" She demanded to the couple who almost startled her to death. She could hear her husband's growl of frustration at her side and a muttered "Already?" from him.
"Shhh, not so loud bestie" Amy shushed to Penny, closing her eyes in pain. She had a huge headache at that moment. Being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night by Sheldon's weirdly timed schedules was never easy to deal with. She kept yawning and rubbing her eyes while trying to keep her helmet on. But the helmet was a little too big and it kept falling down in front of her eyes.
"Leonard? Is this a joke?" Penny turned to Leonard, now fully awake and with her eyes wide open, asking, or better, demanding her husband to do something, anything, to put an end to whatever was happening in their room, in their apartment!
Sheldon crossed his arms and glared at her. "We don't joke about safety Penny!" Penny's deadly glare meet his eyes and he nervously uncrossed his arms. "So, as I was saying… chop chop, start moving!" Sheldon clapped twice. "Put the helmets on and let's do the evacuation."
"Sheldon..." Leonard pinched his eyes in frustration.
"Where are your emergency kits?" Sheldon started looking for the bag Leonard usually had inside the closet, under Sheldon's strict orders (as described in the roommate agreement) where the helmets and the emergency kits were usually stored.
"Not this again…" Leonard growled, remembering all the times Sheldon had woken him up for this nonsense while they were roommates. Wait a moment! Being half asleep and scared to death was not helping Leonard think properly, but he suddenly realized something.
"SHELDON! Stop that! We are not roommates anymore!" Leonard affirmed angrily "If you want to have your stupid emergency drills, fine! Now you have Amy and can ruin her nights! Not me! Not us!" He pointed to his wife and himself with a shake of his hand.
"Excuse me." Sheldon stopped rummaging in the closet and turned to Leonard, puffing up his chest before starting his well-known speech. The one he reserved for any carefree person who doubted his emergency drills procedures: "Knowing the security procedures of the building is a very important matter to all inhabitants in case of a catastrophic event due natural disaster, or any other calamities, like fire, floods, electricity outages, zombie apocalypse...
"But we're not roommates anymore!" Leonard shouted, while Sheldon kept enumerating his list of emergency cases. "Sheldon, listen to me!" Leonard finally was able to cut him off. "Now you live with Amy, I'm sure she would agree to your… your… agreements!" He hated to say it that way, but he was not especially calm at that moment. "So, no roommate agreement! No emergency drills in the middle of the night! No crazy rules anymore!" With that, Leonard crossed his arms and put his chin up.
"B-but…" Sheldon stammered a little. Leonard was right, and Sheldon hated it. It was true that they weren't roommates anymore, but they always did these emergency drills together, right? Why didn't he want to keep doing it? It was a safety procedure anyway, good for all of them in case of emergency. He wanted to do this with Leonard, just as they always did. "But the safety of our neighbors is as important as well as our own..." Sheldon looked sadly at Amy who was yawning again and put his head down. He started fidgeting, trying to come up with a better excuse for intruding in his friends' apartment in the middle of the night. He couldn't think of any bonding rule that made Leonard and Penny participate in his plans.
"Sheldon, maybe we should go." Amy finally said, tapping his arm softly. "Let's follow your plan and go to sleep."
"But Amy..."
Penny noticed how sad Sheldon looked and rolled her eyes. She knew Sheldon long enough to know he would refuse to go without them until someone dragged him out of the room by force.
"Leonard." Penny whispered to her husband "You're the genius, what are the possibilities of them leaving us alone right now?"
Leonard eyebrows went up and thought for a few seconds.
"Not even one in a million." He sighed. "Let's go with them and finish this as soon as possible." He said in a resigned tone of voice.
Penny sighed and followed Leonard out of the room.
As they reached the street, a few night pedestrians looked at them with curiosity. The group looked quite funny. Sheldon and Amy wore the security helmets and Leonard and Penny just had them in their hands. Sheldon insisting all the way down the fourth floors wasn't enough to convince them to wear the helmets.
"Ok, here we are, it works, everybody is safe, can we go back in now and sleep?" Penny gestured to the bags and to her sleepy husband.
"I don't think we can, we need to wait here for at least 5 minutes, right Sheldon?" Leonard said resigned.
"Yes, you are correct!" Sheldon beamed at his friend. He was in a good mood since they agreed to come, even if it was only with the condition that this would be the last time they did it. Sheldon had complained, but had agreed. He had plans to work on that point later. He would convince them that this was a necessary procedure to do together. "Good job, Leonard, I will give you a MeWow sticker later". Better keep reinforcing good behavior in his friend. He cursed himself for not having chocolates for Penny. But now that he thought about it, Amy had already pointed out several times that it was rude to try to modify her behaviour with those. The biologist told him! But as always, she probably was right.
Leonard chuckled at the MeWow sticker prize. How silly this sounded, and why did it make him feel… happy? Earning a MeWow from Sheldon was rare; stupid, but rare. He shook his head at his thoughts and sighed again.
"Would you stop sighing? It makes the time go slower!" Penny pouted, looking frustratingly at the dark sky.
"That Penny is, in fact, impossible." Sheldon said in his know-it-all tone. "Time is the indefinite continued progress of existence and events that occur.. Ouch! Why did you do that?" Sheldon was cut off by Amy's elbow hitting his ribs.
"Not now Sheldon!" Amy scolded him. This was not the time for Sheldon to state the facts, or Penny would be even madder at them. She was in fact, narrowing her eyes at him, arms crossed, defying to him to continue or he would face the consequences.
"But she's wrong!" Sheldon insisted, whispering to Amy.
"I know, but not now!" Amy whispered back, and then smiled and nodded to her bestie, who rolled her eyes. She had been listening to all their exchanges so she just decided to ignore them.
Leonard was looking down the street to pass the time. "At least we won't run into any flyer guy." He commented to no one in particular.
"A flyer guy?" Penny eyebrows went up in surprise. "Why is that important?" She thought that Sheldon and Amy exchanges were weird, but her husband was not making any sense at that moment.
"Oh." Leonard turned to her. "It's just… last time we did a fire drill at Caltech, we had to wait a long time outside. There was a guy giving out some flyers from a restaurant near there."
"Ugh!" Sheldon snorted at the mention of the flyer guy.
Penny decided to ignore Sheldon's insightful comment and focused on Leonard explanation. There was nothing else to do to pass the time anyway.
"He approached us to give us some discounts." Leonard continued. "But Sheldon started to shout SPAM! SPAM! as soon as he saw the flyers."
"You know I'm very strict with my spam filter, Leonard." Sheldon complained. "No spam! Not in my email, not in my hands."
"It was a good discount, Sheldon!" Leonard pinched his nose. Why did he bring this up now? Maybe his brain was too tired to function at this ungodly hour.
"Time's up!" Amy said, happily switching off her phone alarm that had started beeping at that moment. She was dying to get back to sleep. Maybe she was more patient and understanding with Sheldon's needs and quirks, but she also needed her sleep.
"Thank God! Let's go!" Penny didn't waste a second in grabbing her bag and started walking towards the building. It wasn't a cold night, but it felt chilly after some minutes standing outside.
Leonard forced a smile to his friend, who was grabbing his and Amy's bags. Sheldon nodded in return.
"Leonard…" Sheldon suddenly said.
"Yes, Sheldon?" Leonard stopped and turned to him.
"Thanks for coming." Sheldon said.
"Of course, buddy."
Leonard grabbed Penny's hand, and they walked into the building together with Sheldon and Amy in trail, still wearing their security helmets.
"I think he misses you...buddy." Penny said jokingly to Leonard, making sure the pair behind them didn't hear her.
"I guess so." Leonard smiled to her. It'd been only a few weeks since Sheldon moved in with Amy, but it felt like an eternity to Leonard. Was he missing his friend? Probably yes, more that he wanted to admit. Even if it was… Sheldon. He loved his friend more than his own brother.
"Ok fellow neighbors." Sheldon said to the pair when they reached the hall of the fourth floor. "Have a good night. Remember to check the emergency kits every 2 weeks and..."
"Good night Sheldon!" Penny cut Sheldon and pushed Leonard towards their apartment, earning a huff from Sheldon.
Both couples started opening their doors.
"And now Amy, let's do our bed checkup." Sheldon cheerily said as they walked into their apartment. Leonard and Penny turned to them just in time to see Sheldon wink to a surprised Amy, who giggled in return.
Leonard and Penny exchanged wide-eyed looks.
"Look, no matter how much you miss your buddy, tomorrow we replace the lock on the front door." Penny said, afraid of any more intrusions. "And I don't want to find out what bed checkups they do! "
"Seconded!" Leonard replied and hurried to close the door.
Aaaand…. End of this silly story!
I have to thank Lluís, my partner, for this idea. One day, he told me his experience with a fire drill at his work. He originally invented a scene about the guys having a fire drill on Caltech, and a random guy approaching them to give them a flyer and Sheldon started shouting Spam alert! Spam alert! In fact, THIS is what he experienced, when Lluís coworker DID exactly that, (it happened for real! wtf!). Lluis found it super Sheldon-ish. It was super funny when he told me that I wanted to write about it. I finally changed it because I wanted to include Amy and Penny, and my idea morphed into what you just read. It was quite improvised, short, but I hope it was funny anyway.
I used to think Sheldon would not abandon all his quirky schedules in just days or weeks after he started living with Amy. Maybe in the beginning, he still kept doing some of those annoying things (for Leonard lol) but he eventually settled with Amy and they did their own new rules, schedules and all. I'm one of the people who love the character evolution of Sheldon (and of all the gang to be honest), but I know some may not agree with me (it's fine!). I also kind of miss his quirks and how he was in early seasons (because, it was so much fun, right?) but I also love love love his relationship with Amy and how he has grown over the seasons. Learning how to give from himself, not only making people do what he wants. And seriously, I'm writing this, days after the Nobel plot where Sheldon doesn't want to leave Amy aside of the fight for the Nobel prize. I'm still not over that! Amazing. Again, it's ok if you think differently! I just wanted to point it out, that this story makes more sense if it's settled near the time Sheldon and Amy started living together and Sheldon was still adapting to the situation. It's difficult to deal with change! Right? And he REALLY misses Leonard :)
Hope you enjoyed it, like and review if you did! I love to read your thoughts, it's the only way I have to know you read it and motivates me to write more. Remember to check the drawing I did based on this story (and the cover here) on my social networks. It was super fun to draw! There's more drawing than fic, lol, but well, it' was just a short thing I wanted to write. Thanks Lluís for the idea and to my beta for the corrections! Remember English is not my native language and there's probably typos and better ways to say the same, but hey, here I am, trying, like Sheldon with Jazz music LOL.
Do you want more stories from me? Let me know! You can also support my work and get the first news about new stories and drawings. Thanks for your love!
Until next time, if you want!
Regina rgbcn
