So. My submission for the Fluff Crawlspace is really only, like, 2/3 fluff. Because I'm me, and I can't help but throw in a little angst in what's supposed to be a day to celebrate adorable, light-hearted Shamy goodness. But I hope you enjoy it anyways:
The parameters of Date Night became much more blurred once Sheldon and Amy started living together. They were with each other constantly now- at home, at work, and everywhere in between (literally; they drove together from the apartment to CalTech every day). They had virtually every meal together now, even at work, so did that make every time they ate together a date? What about when they watched a movie, or went to a lecture, or spent any kind of quality time together? It was a pesky game of semantics that Sheldon still wasn’t sure how to clarify in their Relationship Agreement.
Regardless, Date Night remained a fixture in their lives, every second Thursday of the month or every third in a month with five Thursdays. It was comforting, in a way; no matter how their relationship would evolve or change, no matter the discoveries they would make, the children they would have, or the years they would share together, taking one evening a month to get dolled up for a night on the town to reconnect would remain a constant. Their love would always be a priority.
So it took Sheldon by surprise, when it was Amy’s turn to pick the location of their next Date Night, that she chose to have a night in. Amy always enjoyed a little pomp and circumstance when it came to their dates, so when she told him that they were just going to order chinese food and stay in their regular day clothes, Sheldon was more than a little suspicious. He’d been with her long enough to recognize when she was trying to butter him up, but if there was one thing that he loved, it was getting his way even if there was an ulterior motive behind it. And besides, a low-key night at home with his girlfriend would be worth the price of whatever said girlfriend had up her cardigan sleeve.
Unless that price was watching what was to him the most dreaded movie sub-genre in existence. The rom-com musical.
“La La Land?” Sheldon asked as he sat on the loveseat, arms crossed and staring down his girlfriend. “You mean the movie that won Best Picture for all of two minutes before going to the actual deserving film?”
Amy paused in the middle of unwrapping the DVD to look at him. “You know about that?”
“Of course, it’s all Penny talked about for weeks. I also learned from her that the movie is full of unrealistic bursts into song, signs of Hollywood’s narcissistic self-absorption, and jazz.” Sheldon crossed his arms and sat back in his seat. “I won’t let you put me through this.”
“If I can sit through the extended edition of Batman v. Superman for you, you can sit through this for me.”
“No buts. It’s my turn to pick the movie. End of story.” And with that, Amy popped the DVD in and moved to the couch, plopping the popcorn between them as she went. “I won’t even make you hold my hand this time.”
Sheldon sighed. It was only when Amy was irritated that she started picking at years long fights like this one. “I’ve told you, I don’t object to holding your hand in general, but for prolonged periods it gets sweaty and itchy and keeps me from paying attention-”
“Just start the movie, Sheldon,” Amy said.
And so he did. From the moment the movie opened with people dancing on cars on a freeway he unfortunately knew well, Sheldon knew he was in for a miserable ride. He heaved a sigh at Mia’s acting woes and rolled his eyes at Seb’s hipster attitudes. Never mind that he found the colors aesthetically pleasing or the script surprisingly sharp, nothing could save the horrendous, erratic notes of jazz. Even if Seb’s passionate explanation of the genre reminded Sheldon of Physics.
Then as the movie was bathed in the purples and pinks and a hint of orange, and Mia and Seb tap danced to the backdrop of a Los Angeles sunset, Sheldon somehow found his toes tapping out a soft rhythm with them. Amy glanced down at his feet as well, and Sheldon quickly drew them closer to the couch and out of her line of sight.
But it was the scene at the Griffith Observatory that did him in, the horror he felt at their audacity to sneak in after hours offset by his fantasy of enjoying the museum without the usual throng of people surrounding him. And as Seb and Mia gazed into the astral projected sky, and as he lifted her into the starry night, Sheldon felt his hand creep slowly around the half-full popcorn bowl and towards Amy. Maybe it was his deeply secret love of astronomy, or their perfect waltz pose, or the memories of dancing with his own love as the universe watched over, but just as the scene began fading into white Sheldon decided to leave old arguments and his own stubbornness behind and take his girlfriend’s hand.
As the music drifted down from it’s crescendo, Amy glanced at him, and they shared a smile before turning back to the movie.
The rest of the movie was expressed through their hands. Sheldon found his thumb tapping out a rhythm on Amy’s hand during the summer montage, and Amy’s fingers grew restless and fidgety when Seb left to go on tour. Sheldon’s nails dug into her palm during their argument, and they both held each other in a vice grip when Seb chose to skip Mia’s show. They relaxed during Mia’s audition, and as Seb and Mia sat on the bench afterward Amy slipped her other hand into the crook of his arm and rested her head on his shoulder. But Sheldon felt himself grow more and more tense throughout the epilogue, his hand going cold in hers, and in the final moment where Mia and Seb parted ways he dropped it altogether.
“Well,” Sheldon declared as he tossed the remote aside. “That was a colossal waste of time.”
“What do you mean? You seemed like you were enjoying it.”
“How can I enjoy a movie with an ending like that?” Sheldon stood abruptly, grabbing the long abandoned popcorn and taking it to the kitchen. “You take two characters, endear your audience to them, demonstrate over and over how perfect they are for each other, and then break them up for good?”
“They wanted different things,” Amy said. “Their dreams didn’t align anymore.”
“They would’ve been fine,” Sheldon said as he emptied the popcorn into some tupperware with a little too much vigor. “Mia could’ve done her movie and then gone back to Seb.”
“But he was touring with the band,” Amy argued as she rose to join Sheldon in the kitchen. “They just grew apart, that’s all.”
“They did try, and it only made them grow to resent each other,” Amy said, resting her arms as she stood at the island. “They broke up so they wouldn’t keep hurting each other. All that long distance, back and forth and back again. It would’ve been too much work.”
“It’s not too much work for the person you love!” Sheldon almost shouted, making Amy take a step back again. “No, the problem was that they put their own ambitions above each other. A partnership is about working to achieve your dreams together so that you can have it all in the end. Is it even worth it to open that jazz club, or get that Oscar, or win that Nobel Prize if you don’t have the love of your life to share it with?”
The air hung heavy after Sheldon’s words, the silence deafening. Sheldon felt his eyes grow wide in realization of the carefully guarded emotions he let slip to the surface, and he quickly turned to avoid seeing Amy’s face. He had no clue what Amy must be thinking, and he feared the worst until he felt her small arms come around to hug him from behind.
“I didn’t know you felt that way,” Amy whispered, her head pressed between his shoulder blades.
Sheldon’s hand came up to grasp her own, feeling like he and Amy were fused together as one, like this was how they had always been meant to be. “Well, now you know,” he said, speaking just as softly.
“Sheldon…” He heard Amy’s voice grow tight along with her embrace around his middle. “You know I’m always going to come back, right?”
Sheldon craned his head to look at the black suitcase sitting in the corner of the living room, its omen constantly draped over them as Amy’s departure for Princeton drew ever closer. He turned in Amy’s arms so he could look at her. “That wasn’t what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
Sheldon released a heavy sigh as his hands came to rest on her shoulders. “I wasn’t talking about you, I promise. I meant it when I said that this is a chance you need to take. I was talking about me, before, before…” Sheldon thought back to years of putting his work before Amy, of looking down on her achievements, of taking for granted that she would always be there until she left behind the shattered pieces of his heart in the middle of Howard’s living room. “Before.”
Amy stepped closer to him so that their chests pressed into each other, her heart beating beneath his. “Well… we’re just gonna have to find a way to make sure our dreams align.”
Sheldon tilted his head down so he could look at her, a smile playing at his lips despite his earlier melancholy. “We’re two of the smartest people on the planet. I’m sure we’ll think of something.”
Amy grinned back, then stood on her toes to kiss him before turning back to put away the popcorn. With her no longer looking at him, Sheldon took a chance to glance at the bookshelf beside their bedroom door, where Gollum stood watch over a certain something tucked behind a stack of comic books, where Amy was sure to never venture near. That could be one way to get their dreams aligned… but no, it wasn’t time yet. He didn’t know when it would be time, but people seemed pretty adamant that he’d know when it would. So for now, he would wait. Maybe after the summer, when Amy came back to him. Because she was right, no matter how long she left, she always came back.
But there was one thing he knew without a doubt, as he wrapped an arm around Amy and she held his hand in reply as they turned off the lights and went to bed. He was adding the La La Land soundtrack to his Spotify, even if it was jazz.
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