New chapter time! This is currently my only TBBT work in progress, so I'll have to get on publishing a bit more regularly!
#8: Snuggle with her at night.
Leonard wasn't a 'wham bam, thank you ma'am' kind of guy.
Sure, he'd had casual sex. He'd absolutely had casual sex. But if he and this one time girl were in his bed, he didn't ask her to leave. If he was in her bed, he didn't scamper out of there as soon as it was over. He was polite, and they always parted ways the following morning. But the night they spent together – the sleeping part of it – was always like a married couple on an old fashioned, conservative sitcom would be – on their backs, or on their sides away from each other, certainly not touching, certainly not entwining hands and feet, and certainly not one on top of the other, even partly, even in the most nonsexual way.
That, Leonard knew, was because he was never in love with those women. Leslie, Stephanie, Elizabeth, Joy, Mrs. Latham, and then Priya, he might have wanted a relationship with Leslie or Elizabeth out of desperation, but the closest he'd ever come to full out snuggling, apart from with Penny, was Priya, and that was just an arm across the other one, an affectionate kind of embrace. Not a passionate one, not one that radiated the connection between the two people.
When Leonard cuddled Penny, be it after sex, before sex, or on a night with no sex at all, she pushed herself as close to him as possible, and he curled his arms around her, either completely around her back if she was on her side, or around her shoulders if she was facing the ceiling. If their hands weren't otherwise occupied, fingers were laced with fingers, and, whether they were facing toward or away from each other, so were their feet. Sometimes their faces would be close together, so the hot air from their breathing would touch the other's face, or the other's neck or chest. Sometimes a leg would cross over another leg to get them closer together. Sometimes, "I love you" would float to his ears, those wonderful, perfect words that he never got tired of hearing.
But always did Penny fall asleep with contentment on her face. She could be stressed, or feeling sick, or exhausted, or nervous, but when Leonard cuddled her, she slept peacefully.
And if that was all that it took to relax her, Leonard would snuggle with her every second of every day. It was such an easy thing to do, and such an easy thing to want to do.