The Juxtapose Accentuation

The Cognate Accretion

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One of the many things that Sheldon hate, is when someone doesn't respond to a text message or answer a call right away. It's been almost 30 minutes since he texted Wolowitz to give him one of his games back, but he's still yet to receive even an acknowledgement that the engineer received his message. "He better have a good reason for not replying," he muttered, dialing said man's number on his phone. 

"Hello. What's going on, Sheldon?" said Howard, upon answering the call. 

"What is going on, wha-- Have you been sleeping?" replied Sheldon; his voice, taking in a higher note.

"No."

"Are you ill?!"

"No, Sheldon, I'm not."

"Then what is taking you so long to respond to my text message?"

"What text message? I didn't get anything from you," says Howard, with confusion in his voice.

"No! I sent you," he says, as he pulls his phone away from his ear . He puts it on speaker and started to check his outgoing messages. "Here, at 7:15, I sent you a message telling you to return my Crash Bandicoot disc. It was successfully sent!"

"And I'm telling you, I didn't receive any!" Exclaimed the man on the other line.

"And I'm telling you that it was sent! 7:15. recipient, Vane-- Oh." Sheldon went silent and blinked a few times as he realized his mistake. Just then, a knock sounded on the door and he glanced to where the sound came from. 

"Sheldon? Are you still there? Hello..."

"I'll call you back." He hung up and walked to the door, not even bothering to check through the peep hole. When he has a feeling, he knows it, and currently he has a strong feeling about who was on the other side of his door. As he opens it, sure enough, the tall Texan girl he recently met was there.

"Hi Sheldon." She greets with a smile.

"Good evening, Vanessa. Look, there may have been a mistake, see--"

"Oh, I realized that. To be honest, I don't know why I didn't just tell you that you sent me the message instead of to whomever it was intended for. I guess it has something to do with the fact that, yet again, I'm spending a weekend at home, alone," she said quickly, cutting him off immediately,

"Well, uhm... Okay, but you don't have the game that I need, so why did you come here?" Sheldon pointed out.

"Hold it! Actually, I do," she says, while pulling out the plastic case that looked a bit old, but still decent. "See, I figured, instead of doing a movie marathon maybe it would be better to beat a brilliant man on one of the most fun video games I've ever played." She finished with a side smirk.

Sheldon's hearing picked up the word beat, more than the rest of her sentence. Vanessa knew she got him when his eyebrows shot up after hearing the magic word. She was sure a man with so many achievements, hated the idea of losing. 

"Ha! I'm sorry, you must be high on paint fumes to think that. I excel at most things and one of those is playing vintage video games." He spoke with wide, challenging eyes. Vanessa just smiled smugly at him, which irritated him.

"I'm sorry, too, but I'm going to need evidence that proves you excel in this particular matter," she tells him, waving the plastic case in front of him, back and forth. 

That was all it took. Sheldon moved aside to let her in the apartment. "Let me demonstrate then," he says, gesturing for her to come in. 

An hour and a half, a box of pizza, and a seemingly endless trash talk later, they were two for two. It was a tight competition, both reaching so many checkpoints before losing all of their character's lives. 

"Ready to give up yet, Dr. Cooper?" Vanessa asks, tilting up her head a little and smiling widely at the physicist, who had his brows drawn together in frustration. 

"Sheldon Lee Cooper, never gives up. If we have to stay here all night, we shall do so."

"Oh I would hate for you to miss sleep, just because you want to try and beat me."

"I've done it twice, I just need one more, you know!" he says.

"No! Not if I can help it!" Sticking out her tongue at him. In a quick motion that Vanessa did not anticipate, Sheldon lunged at her and tried to reach for the controller. Instinctively, she leaned back on the other side of the couch and moved the controller out of his reach. It was a little too late for Sheldon to realize how awkward of a position they'll be in because of his action. 

Silence enveloped the apartment as they stared at each other. Sheldon was on top of her, while she was practically laying down on the couch. Vanessa felt like she should move away from him and Sheldon thought that he should get off of her. Sheldon moved his sight down to her lips and back to her eyes. That was all it took to consume Vanessa; she raised her head to meet Sheldon's lips. He froze. It was a chaste kiss; it lasted five seconds before Sheldon leaped up from the couch until the back of his knees hit the white chair. Vanessa was startled by his sudden movement. They looked into each others, wide eyes for what seemed like a long time. 

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that." Vanessa finally spoke, when she could no longer take the silence. 

"No, uhm..." was all that Sheldon could say.

"I should go." She got up and picked up her things. She nodded to Sheldon and headed out the door. Before Sheldon could come to his senses, the sound of her footsteps descending the stairs was gone. 

He stood, motionless for almost five minutes, before looking at the PS1 on the floor, realizing she didn't take out the game with her. Sheldon slumped down in his spot, still dazed from the recent events. His eidetic memory, not helping as it constantly replays what occurred a few minutes ago. He was confused and overwhelmed by the onslaught of emotions crossing him that moment. What surprised him was the realization that he wasn't even thinking about his mysophobia. The kiss wasn't what he might call repellent; he might even go so far as to say that it felt nice. Nice and wrong at the same time. Shaking his head, he started cleaning up and putting his console away. 

Later that night, while he was in his bed, absentmindedly touching his lips. The scene from earlier that evening, was in a loop and he couldn't think of anything else. His phone buzzed and he reached for it. He looked at the screen and saw that it was a reminder for thanksgiving. The screen read, Thanksgiving at the City Aquarium with Amy. He read it twice before dismissing it. He clicked the home button which held a screen saver of his ex-girlfriend. All too soon, he finally figured out why the kiss felt both, nice and wrong.