Work Text:
“I can't believe I have to share a lab with him!” Sheldon raged.
“We know,” Leonard muttered.
“I can't believe I have to share a lab with him!!”
“We know,” Leonard muttered.
“I simply cannot believe I have to share a lab with—”
“I'm not exactly happy about it, either!” Leonard snapped, surging to his feet. The group was assembled in the living room as usual, but Sheldon had spent the last half an hour pacing, moping, and whining to anyone who would listen, whether or not they wanted to. Enough was enough.
Besides, everyone agreed that Leonard was getting the way worse end of the deal, here.
“I don't get it.” Penny peered at them. “Why are they making you share? I mean,” she said to Leonard, consolingly, “don't they get that you have to live with him, too?”
“I tried to tell them that,” he sighed.
“It's some budget thing,” Howard explained, since Sheldon seemed to have moved on to muttering to himself in what was, to be honest, a really creepy way. “The university didn't get their usual alumni windfall, and now they're taking it out on the... shall we say, less lucrative areas?” He smirked.
Raj gave him a quizzical look, then leaned over and whispered something. Howard rolled his eyes. “That wasn't a Jewish joke or a sex joke, you idiot. I meant I'm the only one here who makes any money for the university.”
At once, the others turned on him.
“You built a toilet,” Leonard pointed out.
“A space toilet,” Howard said defensively.
“A toilet.”
“You can't really blame him for assuming it was a sex joke,” Penny chimed in.
Raj whispered something, but Sheldon cut in before Howard could relay the message. “Yes, yes, I'm sure we're all very proud of Wolowitz's contributions to both the fecal sciences and copulation humor. But,” he, too, rounded on Howard, “you and the administration are both missing the crucial point!”
“Which is?”
Sheldon looked flabbergasted. “The point that real science can hardly be measured in dollars and cents! And isn't just a matter of throwing a few lug nuts together and hoping the septic tank holds up under pressure!” He waved a hand irritably. “I mean, my God, anyone with a Master's degree can do that.”
“My God,” Penny echoed flatly.
“Exactly.” Sheldon nodded. “I'm left wondering if the university has any standards at all anymore.”
“Okay, but let me just be clear on this.” Penny sat forward, frowning thoughtfully at Sheldon. “Howard builds space toilets, Raj looks through telescopes, Leonard does...” She blinked at Leonard. “...I don't know, something.”
“We dated for a year,” Leonard hissed at her.
Penny moved on, unfazed. “And Sheldon, you, what? Sit in a room and think about science?”
Sheldon rolled his eyes and shuffled past them to sit down in his spot. “Your description is somewhat akin to calling the great fresco on the Sistine Chapel a 'neat doodle,' but it will do. Well, except for Wolowitz. That was pretty spot on.”
“Okay... I'm just saying, then.” Penny held up her hands, already ready for the defense. “What exactly do you need your own lab for, anyway?” A groan went up from around the room.
“Why did you have to ask that?” Howard shook his head at her. “You should know better by now.”
Penny glanced at the look on Sheldon's face. “I really, really should.”
“What do I need my own lab for?” Sheldon echoed. “What do I need my own lab for?”
“That is what I now regret asking, yes.”
Sheldon's voice took on a lofty—well, loftier—tone. “Penny, when the great minds of the world made their greatest contributions: when Newton discovered gravity, when Galileo discovered the rotation of the planets, when Einstein formed his theory of relativity, and when Gene Roddenberry sat down to write the first episode of Star Trek...
“When these mythic figures of history, as I myself will someday soon become, embarked upon these revolutionary ideas, none of them did it with a short, lactose-intolerant, inferior-minded experimental physicist breathing down their necks! My mind needs the quiet and space to expand and grow, and wrap itself around the deepest mysteries of the very fabric of the universe!”
There was a pause.
“Counterpoint?” Leonard offered.
“I'm listening.”
“Watson and Crick, the Curies, the Manhattan Project...” Leonard ticked off on his fingers.
“None of whom were as short as you or as lactose-intolerant, as far as I know.” Sheldon folded his arms. “But I take your point.”
“Plus the Wright Brothers, everything Thomas Edison ever did...” Howard threw in. Raj whispered to him, and he nodded approvingly. “He's right—what about Majel Barrett?”
“Oh, please!” Sheldon scoffed. “Majel Barrett was a perfectly good actress, although she was far better as Number One than as the wholly irritating Nurse Chapel—”
Another cry went up from the men, this time one of outrage. Instantly, all four were on their feet, shouting back and forth. Well, three were shouting; one was whispering, despite the fact that his shy-to-English translator was too busy shouting himself to pay any attention.
“Hey!” Penny jumped up. “I have no idea what this is about, but I have the feeling we're getting off topic, here!”
It didn't seem to have any effect. They were in the thick of it, yelling things about nurses and Vulcans and some lady named Hoora.
She tried again. “Guys? Guys!!”
“And do not even try to compare Zoe Saldana to—”
Penny sighed. It was time for the nuclear option. “I'll make out with the first person to shut the hell up?”
For a moment of pure terror, Howard paused, and she thought about the dread horrors in her near future. But no: he was only gathering himself for a rebuttal. “Excuse me, but in the classic episode Amok Time—”
Yeah, Penny was out.
As she shut the door behind her, she finally heard Raj burst out with: “Majel Barrett was a goddess!”
**
“There's no reason this has to be weird or inconvenient or anything but normal,” Leonard said as Sheldon set up what Leonard and the others had quietly dubbed his 'Thinking Corner.'
“I agree.” Sheldon smiled, plugging in his laptop. Leonard tried to relax. Sheldon had been remarkably calm lately. Sure, there was a mysterious wire stretched across the room now, but... Maybe, just maybe, this would work out smoothly.
Only as it turned out, Sheldon had had the same idea, but from the perspective of... well, lunacy, it looked a lot different. “I've taken the liberty of drawing up a contract, a timetable, and a seating chart.”
“You made a seating chart?” Leonard blinked, taking the papers Sheldon was holding out.
“Well, sort of.” Sheldon shrugged. “I wouldn't want you to accidentally position your seat too close to the electric fence.”
“The—what!?” Leonard whirled, staring at the wire. “Is that what that is?”
“Of course.” Sheldon stared at him, like it was obvious. “You're so nosy. How else am I supposed to keep you from invading my space?” Seeing Leonard's face, he smiled in what he must have thought was a comforting way. “Don't worry, it won't seriously harm you. Only a minor, but bracing electric shock.”
“Really?” Leonard drew cautiously nearer to the wire. Sheldon raised an eyebrow and went back to his equipment.
“Well, you're welcome to find out for yourself, I suppose.”
Leonard tensed and drew back. Sheldon snorted. “It's not on now, Leonard. Why would I trap you in my lab?”
Leonard decided not to remind him that this entire room was, in fact, his lab. It wasn't worth the battle. “All right. Well, I'm going back to my lowly experiment. Let me know if you need anything.” He stepped carefully over the wire and returned to his laser setup.
Behind him, he heard a click and a hum, and turned to see Sheldon nodding and looking typically self-satisfied. Sheldon, ringed off behind an electric fence, off in his own little world. Well, that wouldn't be so bad, really...
Wait.
“The bathroom is on your side!” Leonard pointed out. Again, Sheldon gave him the obvious look.
“Well, naturally, Leonard. I tested it out and the toilet's powerful flush is well within the parameters of my hearing. I simply can't have you going back and forth as you will, distracting me from my work. What happens if you decide to eat pizza for lunch?”
He paused, corrected himself. “Actually, that's forbidden under clause 13 of the lab contract, but the rhetorical point remains. Don't worry, though. As you can see, I've factored your bathroom habits into the timetable, along with break time, lunch time, dinner time if necessary, e-mail time, Facebook time, and comic book time.”
“Fantastic.” Leonard looked down at the sheet in his hand. Lucky him: apparently, he was going to have to make a choice between peeing and Facebook two days a week. There was also a very, very small box labeled Time Allotted for Conversation.
“You see?” Sheldon smiled and sat down at the computer. “Everything is going to work out just fine. Leonard, I almost feel good about this arrangement.”
**
“I can't believe I have to share a lab with him!” Howard paced the kitchen, shell-shocked.
“He's an engineer!!” Sheldon paced on the other side of the living room, looking equally perturbed. Raj and Leonard sat in the middle, looking back and forth between them like a tennis match.
“I can't believe I have to share a lab with him!”
“Leonard, he's an enginee—”
“Okay! We get it!” Leonard threw up his hands. “No one is happy about this!” He turned to Sheldon. “Maybe you should have thought of that before you decided to start terrorizing the rest of us.”
“I think you mean before he decided to start being himself,” Raj muttered.
The arrangement with Leonard had lasted for two days before Leonard had gotten fed up and thrown Sheldon out, electric fence and all. Sheldon had said he was fine with it; Leonard kept talking all the time (“I'm recording experiment notes, for God's sake!”), and besides, Leslie Winkle kept dropping by to sneer at him. He took his fence and sauntered off to the astrophysics department.
Raj had shared an office with Sheldon before and, while Leonard was certainly the expert on the Sheldon in his natural habitat, was a little more used to Sheldon's particular working habits. It was generally assumed he would be able to handle things a little better, and he did.
He made it two and a half days.
It had taken significantly less time for Sheldon to completely alienate every other member of the physics department, until the only spaces that were left for him were one of the engineering labs or the boiler room.
“Why didn't you take the boiler room?” Howard demanded. “Why?”
“I thought about it,” Sheldon admitted. “But then I went down there and discovered that William Goldman's brainchild, the ROUS or Rodent of Unusual Size, is a very real thing.”
“Ugh.” Howard sank down against the kitchen island, burying his face in his hands. “This isn't going to work, you realize that, right?”
“I personally agree, but in the name of science, I suppose it can't hurt to try.” Sheldon, relaxing a little, moved over towards Howard. “Look, I made these documents to ease the transition. There's a contract, a timetable, and a seating—”
“No,” Howard protested. “This really isn't going to work. I mean, how are we going to share the space?”
“Well, that's in the seating chart, obviously.”
Howard reluctantly took the paper. “What's this line across the middle?”
“You don't want to know,” Leonard assured him.
Howard shook his head. “And how will we keep our experiments separate, and how will we keep from getting in each others' way, and how will you stop being you...”
Sheldon tsked. “Really, Howard. You should know that I've thought of all of this already. See? It's all planned.”
But Howard was still shaking his head. “No, look, even with all that—what about girls, huh? How am I supposed to, you know, tell a girl I'll take her back to show her my equipment—”
“Nice one,” Raj interjected.
“—with you there?”
Sheldon froze. “Do you think that's likely to happen?” he asked slowly, fear dawning in his eyes.
“Well... yeah.”
Leonard eyed Howard. “I don't think that's a new idea for him, Sheldon.”
“I try it out like, twice a week,” Howard admitted.
“How's that working out for you?” Raj asked, but Sheldon was bolting, racing to open up his laptop, fingers flying across the keys, and they all gathered around to peer over his shoulder at the words coming up on the screen.
“President Siebert… afraid that under my current working conditions I have no choice but to strike... will not return until I am given my proper due... department will crumble without me...” Raj narrated as Sheldon typed. “Oh, boy.”
“They'll see reason in no time, I'm sure,” Sheldon said through clenched teeth, typing furiously.
**
“Anyway, so that's why Sheldon hasn't gone to work in a month,” Leonard said.
“Makes sense,” Penny nodded. “But Leonard, what I really asked you over here to say was...”
Leonard swallowed and leaned in closer. “Yes, Penny?” he murmured, eyes growing wide and hopeful.
“Get him the everloving frak out of my apartment already!”
**
As the door slammed shut behind them, Sheldon sighed. “You know what my real mistake was?” Leonard glanced at him uncertainly. Could it be? A rare moment of self-awareness from Sheldon Cooper?
“...Do tell,” he said. Sheldon nodded sagely.
“I never should have lent her those Battlestar Galactica DVDs.”