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Sheldon was able to enjoy his solitude for three whole stops. THREE WHOLE STOPS, man, that had to be some kind of Destiny City record!

The opponent to his sanity today: One Robin Goodfellow. Our contender was five-foot-one, weighing in at ninety-nine pounds; she might be small, folks, but don't take your eyes off of this one! She has a keen eye for picking out just the wrong person to bother at just the right time, and you probably wouldn't have to try very hard to guess who was in her sights today.

After paying her odd change into the fare box and collecting her fare, the pink haired new arrival began walking down the aisle. And further. And further. Past the kids, past the crazy man - there were all these opens seats she was passing, perfectly comfortable and unimposing places that she could sit, that were utterly ignored. Until, of course, she came to the one right by Sheldon.

Robin sat, and smiled. "You," she pronounced, pulling something from her pocket, "look like an adventurous sort."

He didn't, not really - but she needed him to think he did. Because what she was holding in her hands were two wasabi lollipops, bought the day before from an Asian marketplace. The kanji on the box had guaranteed that they would make your eyes water!... not that Robin could read that, but she had a good feeling about the candy nonetheless.

Just like she had a good feeling that this stranger was going to be the one to try it with her. Oh, poor Sheldon.

"Beautiful, aren't they?" Was the girl cooing at the candy? Why yes, yes she was. Slowly, she twirled one of the lollipops between her fingers, allowing Sheldon to admire the bright green wrapper. It was covered in Japanese characters, with a happy little anime-drawing of a sushi chef cat screaming something with great energy - Robin couldn't read it, though, but she was willing to bet that the cat was howling the sound of pure madness-driven ecstasy.

"I got the last ones off the shelf just yesterday. They are," her small smile tweaked, as though she were fighting it from becoming so huge that it would hurt her face, "wasabi flavored."

And lucky, lucky Sheldon; "This one's for you," she told him, offering one of the lollipops out.

"Nope," Robin answered, digging her nails at the edge of her lollipop's wrapper. They'd sure wrapped them up well, though - she had to pick at it several times before she could get a corner free, and even then, it was difficult to pull off. "But here's the way I figure it. I can't inflict these weird things on my friends, not until I've tried them to figure out if they're good; but I don't want to try them alone, either, because it's no fun to do things alone. That means that if I want to try new things, I have to find new people to try them with."

It was solid logic, and she rattled it off effortlessly. Sheldon was most certainly not the first person she'd had to explain it to, and - assuming these lollipops weren't going to kill them - he wasn't likely to be the last, either. But she was eying him now, just to make sure of the logic had reached him. After all, she'd only explained why she was doing this - that didn't mean Sheldon knew why he had to yet.

Fortunately, Robin had a ready excuse for that. "Besides," she hovered the candy just inches from her bottom lip, not actually tasting it yet (she couldn't without him!), but signalling her impatience. "If a girl like me is brave enough to try it, surely a guy like you is, too?"

Coming from pink-haired, innocent-looking Robin, it was the perfect challenge to a guy's masculinity. Usually, anyway. Long-haired Sheldon might not be batting for the traditional team, you never knew....

VICTORY! The moment that Sheldon popped the candy into his mouth, Robin followed suit. Yet unlike Sheldon, she didn't pull it out right after - rather, she let it sit on her tongue, tilting her head thoughtfully. Such a rare and unusual treat deserved her contemplation, after all!... even after her eyes started to water.

Finally, she tugged the candy out of her mouth, making a small "paaaaah]" noise as it departed. A few tears were squeezing their way free of her eyes now, and the spice on her tongue was nothing short of painful - and yet, Robin couldn't help but look disappointed.

"Huh. No fire-breath...."

The girl really did sound genuinely let-down by this, like she'd really expected that she'd be able to go stomping around like Godzilla after imbibing one of these lollipops. Then again, Robin supposed, it did make sense that it didn't actually make you breathe fire. As cool as a superpower like that was, it probably wreaked hell on your esophagus.

She was sort of sweating a little now, though. That was almost a superpower.

Replacing the sucker in her mouth and pocketing it in her cheek, Robin repositioned herself so that she had her feet on the bus seat under her, squatting and turning to face Sheldon. "It doesn't really taste like wasabi, does it?" she questioned, the look of a serious weird foods connoisseur on her face. Wiping away a few more tears, she criticized, "I can't taste anything except the spice. What about you?"

Not so-- NOT SO--

Robin's nose had started dripping. As unobtrusively as she was able, she wiped it off on her sleeve. This candy was kicking her a**, and Sheldon was just rolling with it. Were Robin some lesser, pettier being, she might have decided that this situation was unfair. Why should she, the one who had bought the candy, be unable to appreciate it in the same manner at this stranger was? Shouldn't the ultimate pleasures of the wasabi lollipop experience be hers?

But fortunately, Robin was not such a person. After all, the game here wasn't won by enjoying the weird-tasting candy; it was in finding the right person to try it with her. And, quite obviously, she was successful in that!

So she pushed past her burning sinuses and watering eyes, managing a shaky, but satisfied, smile around the lollipop. "Yeah, I can sorta taste the ginger, too," she lied, tasting nothing but the fire that was consuming her tongue. "It's. Uhm. Good."

She wasn't being believable, in case there was any doubt. Instead, Robin was acting very, very cool; she obviously did not want to confront the truth of oh god this candy is TERRIBLE and I think I am losing a layer of skin off of my tongue.

As mentioned, there were two distinct ways that one could take Sheldon's concern. The first, sane way was to take it as an honest inquiry, maybe even the first glimmer of potential friendship, and roll with it. But of course, someone that was fully sane probably wouldn't be partaking of wasabi lollipops in the first place - leaving the course of contention.

Robin's cheeks puffed out in anger, and she glowered. She even removed the pop from her mouth for a moment, clearing her mouth so that not a single one of the words following would be made indistinct by an obstacle: "Liking it," she stated loudly, mopping at her brow with the back of her sleeve, "is not the point. If that were the case, I would have brought delicious fruit pies. The goal here is the experience and the journey."

Still glaring sternly at Sheldon, Robin replaced the pop between her teeth and cracked down. The candy, already weakened by a reasonable amount of saliva-time, broke.

Robin quickly regretted her actions.

If only she or Sheldon had been able to read Japanese! They could have had warning. There would have been time to prepare themselves, at least mentally, for what was to come. Because, it turned out, these lollipops were not just wasabi-flavored. They had a delicious creamy center of pure ******** wasabi.

"Mmph!" Was Robin's surprised little sound when the candy broke, and something unexpected spread over her tongue. Then her eyes began to grow wide, nearly bugging out of her head. "MPPH! MMMPH MPPPPPH!"

It was too late for her. She might have been smart enough to have spit the candy out if she'd been eating it on her own, but after a speech like that, she couldn't think of any course of action other than clamping her jaw and trying to swallow the wasabi - which, of course, her throat did not want to do. As her muffled screams became more insistent and agonized, tears began streaming down her face; she huddled over the back of the bus seat and started slamming her fist on it, trying desperately to cope with the overwhelming pain that was filling her mouth.

People on the bus were starting to talk. The bus driver was pulling over to the side now, aware that there was an obvious medical emergency taking place in the back of the bus. The nurses in the front of the bus seemed to be arguing with one another over which one had to go back and do something about it. And poor Sheldon was trapped on the window-side of the seat; he couldn't even try to slip away and pretend he was unaffiliated with the girl who had never even introduced herself to him.

Until now, Robin had been blissfully unaware of how strange her lollipop partner really was. It must have been some effect of the wasabi on her brain, however, that everything suddenly clicked into perspective.

Sheldon was impossibly calm. And nonplussed. His skin was creamy and smooth, no blemishes. His eyes gleamed mechanically, and sometimes he spoke like he was untouched by emotion. He could eat or drink anything, like he didn't taste it at all.

Say it, Robin. OUT LOUD.

Suddenly throwing herself away from the boy (and inadvertently into the nurse's arms), Robin shrieked -- "RAHBAAD!"

Unfortunately, Robin couldn't really enunciate her words right now. But if her tongue hadn't felt like it was swelling up inside her mouth, she would have been accusing him, very distinctly - robot.

SHE WAS ONTO HIS SECRET.

Of course, nobody other than her had any clue what she was trying to say. All that they saw was a girl, obviously in pain and face covered with tears, retreating from the older boy who she had been sitting beside and accusing him of something. And, apparently, chivalry was not dead in Destiny City.

It was the crazy guy, of all people on the bus, that came lurching over to the girl's apparent defense - he spoke just as unintelligibly as Robin, in just as loud a voice, but his aim was much clearer. Grabbing for Sheldon's arm, he proceeded to try dragging the boy out of his seat, angling to throw him from the bus.