"HOWIE! SOMEONE'S AT THE DOOR!"

"I HEARD MA! -oh!- Hi Leonard, why didn't you tell me you were coming? I would have gone to pick you up from the airport."

Howard pulls Leonard into a one armed hug and it's sad how happy that makes him feel. Leonard needed to get out more if that hug almost made him cry.

"I didn't want to be a bother, you're already opening your hom-"

"HOWIE! WHO IS IT?"

"IT'S LEONARD MA! -what were you saying?"

"...Just that I'm happy to be here in California."

"It'll be amazing dude, as soon as you get hired by Caltech we'll go out every weekend. You'll see, we'll be the hottest bachelors out there."

"Than-"

"CLOSE THE DOOR HOWIE! YOU'RE LETTING THE COLD AIR IN!"

"MA! IT'S 120 DEGREES OUT HERE, WHAT COLD AIR?"

As Howard and his mother argued, Leonard started having second thoughts about moving to California.

"HOWIE! LENNY! BREAKFAST!"

Leonard woke up with a start. He was never going to get used to Mrs Wolowitz's voice. He's been staying in the spare room for the last week and honestly, it's been okay. He had been afraid that Howard's mom would be too much to deal with, but other than being loud, she was a perfectly reasonable human being.

"I'M NOT REHEATING THE PANCAKES! HOWIE! LENNY!" She was a reasonable human being, most of the time.

Glancing at the alarm clock showed that it was seven in the morning, Leonard groaned a little to himself. He didn't mind waking up early, but weekends were his 'sleep in' days. However, he didn't want to upset Mrs Wolowitz so he tiredly went to eat his pancakes.

"I HEARD YOU MOM! IN FACT, THE WHOLE NEIGHBORHOOD HEARD YOU!"

Maybe it was time to find his own place.

Leonard liked Raj, the Indian man was a nice change of pace from Howard's constant horny energy.

"Dude! What do you mean you don't eat Cheesecake?" Raj gaped at him.

"I'm lactose intolerant. It's not that I don't want to eat it. I literally can't." Leonard tried to keep the whine out of his voice.

"Lactaid? Hello?"

"I'm allergic to it, trust me, I tried." Leonard shuddered, that particular ER visit had almost been his last.

"Oh dude. That sucks." Raj truly looked sad for him.

"That's fine, I prefer chocolate cake anyway. Reminds me of my childhood."

"Okay ladies, shut up." Howard told them. "We're about to arrive at the club. Leonard, remember, you're a hunter, feel free to roam the wilderness and sink your teeth on good game."

"Dude, stop it with that, that's why you've been going home alone for years." Raj looked queasy.

"I don't know Raj, I kinda like the metaphor." Leonard tried to puff up his chest, the weather in california was mild but he still had a hard time letting go of his layers.

"Ugh, I can't say I'm fully on board with this." Raj still looked dubious.

"Look, buddy, you're with the Alpha Males now." Howard said with a straight face. "This is how we roll, we're the hunters and the women are prey…okay, I'm hearing myself now. I know Raj, I know, you were right, we need to find a better metaphor." Not even Howard could keep the whole 'predator' thing going and not cringe himself into oblivion.

"Look guys, I just want to celebrate being accepted into Caltech, please nothing crazy tonight." Leonard knew his own luck, he didn't want to end up passed out in a back alley somewhere.

"It'll be fine buddy. Oh! Did you see that new Folgers commercial?" Howard said excitedly.

"The blonde!"
"The blonde!"

They both said at the same time.

"She's so hot Howard, you gotta take me to that store. I can learn to play Magic." Howard shot Raj an apologetic look while Raj simply glared at him. "...Or not."

"Buddy, I said I was sorry." Howard groveled.

"We can't go back to that store anymore because Howard here decided that it was a good idea to hound the girl behind the counter about any and all information on 'blonde girl'." Raj looks properly pissed. "They threatened to call the cops if they saw us again."

"Raj, look, I still say they overreacted." Seeing Raj widen his eyes in shock, Howard quickly adds "I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, how was I supposed to know the girl had mace behind the counter?"

"You think that's the issue?" Raj's accent gets more pronounced when he's upset.

Leonard doesn't say anything while Raj and Howard argue, but he has to admit to himself that he would have done the same thing as Howard, even at the risk of a facefull of mace.

Leonard's clubbing experience isn't great.

Whenever he approaches a girl to try and chat they always cover their drink and quickly claim their friend is calling them.

What was it about him that repelled women? He was a nice guy, if they gave him the chance he could show them. Why did they have to choose the dumb guys over him? When would it be his chance to get the girl as a reward? Didn't he deserve a girl?

What took the sting of the whole thing was seeing his fellow geeks have the same luck he was having. Howard actually received looks of disgust and even a slap, but the man acted like it didn't matter, as if the insults slid off of him.

Raj on the other hand…well, that was a revelation, the man sober was a wonderful and shy person, but drunk? He was an asshole to put it bluntly. So why did he decide to drink in the first place? Because he couldn't talk to women otherwise. Quite a group they were.

And as a group they went back to Howard's house to play WoW until 5 AM the next morning.

At least his first day at work goes swimmingly.

The labs at Caltech are amazing, he will be able to recreate experiments and even make some of his own. He also talked a little with Leslie, she is another experimental physicist and Leonard thinks that they really hit it off, she likes emo rock as well, plays WoW and her staunch belief in loop theory makes him think she might be onto something, he had agreed to help her with an experiment later that week.

She was amazing…except, she was also very opinionated and aggressive.

But she was great! He could see himself talking to her for hours and hours, and she might be into him as well, which was already more of a win than he could say about his entire dating experience since, well, forever.

And Leslie was…plain looking. Leonard cringes at himself once the thought comes up.

He doesn't think of himself as a shallow person, he is not. But if starts dating Leslie, no one will high-five him like the jocks did in High School when they scored the top cheerleader or hottest girl. No one will turn to look at him like he's the man, no one will be impressed. Leslie looks like someone that should be dating Leonard.

Didn't he deserve better? Hadn't he suffered enough? Was a hot girlfriend really that much of an ask out of life?

He pondered those questions as he waited in line at the University's cafeteria. Raj and Howard were already moving towards a table but Leonard had to make sure his lunch didn't have dairy, nuts or wheat so he stayed back until he was satisfied he wouldn't die after a bite of his food.

"How's your first day going, Bud?" Howard looked happy.

"Oh, it's great. I met Leslie Winkle and she showed me the newest laser that was installed."

Raj nods as he eats his meatloaf. Howard nods as well "Ah, Leslie Winkle, that's one fiery beast Lenny."

"Dude. You agreed no more animal metaphors." Raj does not look amused.

"Sorry Buddy, it slipped out." Howard at least does look apologetic. "No more of that, I swear."

Raj mumbles a thanks and goes back to his food. Leonard couldn't understand the relationship between his two friends, he had suspected that they might be dating in secret, but Howard was way too horny about women for that to be true.

"Yeah, she's really cool." Leonard dips his head and smiles shyly at them.

"Good for you man, I asked her out once and she almost tore my head off without reason." Howard looked confused.

"Dude…seriously?! You said 'Did you just fart? Because you blow me away!'" Raj gaped at Howard. "I still don't know how you didn't end up meeting with the Ethics team after that one."

Leonard laughed at his friends, Raj looked back at him with his eyebrows raised. "I wasn't joking."

"Oh…" It will probably be a good idea to not let Leslie know he's friends with Howard then.

"Whatever. People take things way too seriously, so I can't flirt with a hot girl because it's called harassment?" Howard looked offended. "People are too sensiti-OH! Gentlemen, please direct your eyes at the back of the line, that tall redhead is the man dating our blonde goddess." Leonard almost got whiplash from Howard's sudden change of topic.

Turning to look at where Howard mentioned he can see a tall and handsome man, but before he can notice anything more about him, Leonard's eyes were focused on the man behind the redhead.

"That's Sheldon Cooper!" He whispered to the other two.

"Where, where?" Howard moved his head frantically.

"Behind the redhead, the even taller man."

"Oh dude, you're right. That's Dr Cooper." Raj's tone was wistful and Leonard had to turn to look at him. Raj was, well, there really was no other word for it, Raj was swooning. "I was able to attend his latest lecture on dark matter, the man is an artist." Now also Howard turned to look at Raj.

"Whatever man, I still say he's not that big of a deal." Howard pouted.

"He is."
"He is."

Both Raj and him corrected Howard which only made him pout more.

"I wonder who's the redhead then? They're talking like old friends." Leonard had heard the rumors about the infamous Dr Cooper's behavior to those he deemed lesser.

"I had never seen him before." Raj is just as clueless.

"Man, if only I had a face like his. Look at him, he's making the cashier girl laugh effortlessly." Howard focused on the important part.

The trio observed as Dr. Cooper and his friend moved to a corner table to start eating and continue talking.

"That red-haired bastard is also dating our blonde Goddess. Life is truly unfair." Howard viciously stabbed at his food.

"Maybe we can ask someone if they know who this guy is. Do any of you have any friends in other departments?" Leonard turned to look at them expectantly.

Howard turned an inquisitive look at Raj who shook his head and said "Yeah no, you guys are my only friends."

"Same here." Howard shrugged. "Kripke is an acquaintance at best…and if you think I'm creepy, wait until you meet him."

"Dude, maybe Leslie will know?" Raj offered.

"I don't know, but it's worth the shot." Leonard wanted to know more about this guy, it was their only connection to the stunningly hot blonde. "Oh, but what if they're not dating anymore?"

"He will still know who she is, and if they ended up on bad terms he might be willing to, you know, sell us pictures of her or something."

Raj groaned in disgust and threw his fork on his plate. "DUDE! C'mon"

"Not like that! I meant her headshot or a selfie!" Howard started to apologize to try and calm Raj down. Hopefully Leslie will know who that guy is.

"Wait, did he look like a Conan O'Brien clone?" Leslie said as she calibrated one of the lenses.

"Yeah, now that you mention it, yeah, he did." Leonard stopped writing to frown at himself.

"Ah, that's Dr Frederick Chadwick." Leslie said with a grin. "Protégé of one Dr Cooper."

"Protégé?" Leonard asked, confused. If that were true then everyone in the scientific community would know about him. "Is he also a theoretical physicist?"

"Astrophysicist actually."

"Huh…wait, what?"

"I don't know what to tell you Hofstadter, that's all I know. Rumor has it that Dr Chadwick was even Dr Cooper's best man."

"Dr Cooper is married?!" Leonard's jaw couldn't close.

"Yep. Haven't met the Mrs yet, I've only been here for half a year."

"Huh…"

So even the infamous antisocial and caustic Dr Cooper had been able to marry someone. Ouch, on top of everything else he also had to beat Leonard at that, and he was a year younger than Leonard. Double ouch.

"Now, enough yapping Hofstadter. Focus."

"No way dude! Married?" At least Raj had the appropriate reaction.

Howard blew a raspberry. "Big deal, he probably married a female version of himself." Howard made a jerking motion with this hand. "The important part is that now we know the name of our target. Watch the wizard work his magic."

Howard started typing on his laptop.

"Hmmm, no. Not here either. Nothing here." He kept muttering to himself as he typed. "Either this Frederick guy doesn't have social media or I'm just dumb and can't find him."

"Can you find Dr Cooper's page?" Raj suggested.

"Hmmmm…here it is." Howard showed them, but there wasn't a lot to see. Just a couple of posts regarding his published articles but nothing about his personal life and his friend's list was empty. "No dice."

"C'mon Howard. You're supposed to be good at this, this is our only clue to find that blonde girl." Leonard whined.

"Hold your horses, We just need to approach this from another angle, we need to be smarter. We need to talk to this guy directly." Howard said smugly.

"Wow…" Howard said slowly.

"Shutupshutupshutupshutupshutpshutup." Raj was holding his blushing face in his hands.

The plan had been easy. Raj was going to approach Dr Frederick, as fellow astrophysicists it should be easy to strike up a conversation. Except, the moment Dr Frederick turned his smile on Raj, it was all over. Raj flushed so much that everyone could tell even with his dark skin tone, he also lost the ability to speak and once Dr Fredrick laughed, Raj had run back to their table.

"Er Raj, are you gay?" Leonard asked his friend.

Howard turned to look at Leonard, an offended look on his face, but before he could say anything, Raj very softly said. "I don't know."

Leonard cringed away from Howard, he liked the man but he feared what his reaction might be to this news. But Howard was frowning at nothing while his hands fisted on his legs. Leonard didn't have anything against gay people, Raj was still Raj. However, Howard's relationship with Raj might change forever after this revelation.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, Howard took a seat next to Raj and put his arm around the still blushing man. "Raj, buddy. You're going to be the perfect wingman." Howard grinned and squeezed Raj against him.

Raj had been oblivious to Howard's reactions. He finally looked up from his hands to roll his eyes at Howard. "Of course, that's what you're focusing on." But Leonard didn't miss the relieved expression on Raj's face.

Leonard and Leslie had a thing going on. He didn't know if he should call it a boyfriend-girlfriend thing, but it was a good thing as far as he was concerned. They worked together, played in the University's band together, and more importantly, they slept together…as in, they had sex.

Leslie was a fierce woman and honestly, it scared him a little.

Wasn't he supposed to be an Alpha male? Sometimes it felt like it was the other way around. Leslie didn't like it when Leonard paid for her stuff, she drank as much beer as he did and she hated girly stuff.

Leonard was happy. BUT.

That damned 'but' kept him from being truly happy. What if there was someone better out there, someone that was girly, that liked nerdy guys. Someone that he could brag about, that he could show around and have everyone be jealous of him.

Leslie was great! But she wasn't exactly…a bombshell, yeah, that worked.

He was happy with her, but…was it enough? He still didn't feel like one of the 'In' guys, having a girl should have made it all better. Should have fixed that hole inside of him that craved love.

Because he liked Leslie. But…what if he could find someone better?

Comic Con was a bust for all of them, except for Raj.

Raj was able to hook up with a guy dressed as a female orc of all things, and they made plans to stay in touch. His friend looked genuinely happy.

As for Howard, the man was thrown out on the second day for touching a girl's butt. He claimed it was an accident, but security didn't care, they were lucky that the cops weren't called.

For himself, well, Leonard started this whole thing with the left foot. He had assumed that Leslie would want to come, but she didn't. He had assumed so much in fact, that he was paying for 2 tickets to everything plus a stay in a more expensive hotel that was not getting the use he was hoping for.

He and Leslie had finally put a label on their relationship but he still felt at odds. Never truly committing to anything. He hoped that the upcoming Caltech Gala would go a long way to solving some of that hesitation he still felt.

Leslie would dress up and he would be there showing her off. At least he hoped that he could show her off, he was slightly afraid that she would show up in her regular clothes.

The Caltech Gala was a success so far. Leslie had dressed up and she looked great, Kripke almost had an aneurysm when he saw her. Leonard was feeling pretty great, maybe this whole thing was just what he needed to strengthen his commitment to Leslie.

And then the blonde woman of his dreams was there.

Leslie hated this entire pony and dog show but attendance to the Gala was non-optional.

At least Leonard had finally shut up about her not dressing up enough. She liked the guy, but he could be rather meatheaded about some things. Some days it seemed that he didn't want a girlfriend but rather wanted a mother.

She also hadn't missed how he tended to have wandering eyes when they were together. Blonde Barbie-like women seemed to be his Achilles heel. He would then notice that she had noticed which of course would lead him to give her his kicked puppy look.

He wasn't perfect, but Leslie wanted to give this relationship a try, it wasn't all bad, he could be rather sweet, not to mention that he shared her passion for experimental physics and classical music. She was sure that with some work, he could be a great boyfriend.

Except. He dropped her like a bag of flaming poop.

They were standing around and she was holding onto his arm, her heels were conservative so they were the same height instead of her towering over him. The Geology guys were in the middle of a lame joke when Leonard suddenly dropped her arm like it burned him.

Leslie was so shocked that she immediately turned to see if he was okay…only to find him drooling over some blonde girl. A Barbie. Leslie had to close her eyes to calm herself, she didn't care about the sudden silence in their little group. She cared about her boyfriend dropping her arm like he didn't want to be seen with her.

"Leonard." Her voice was strong and restrained. She would not make a scene. "Leon-"

But it was of no use, he had already moved towards the blonde girl, completely ignoring her.

Leslie didn't usually cry, but she was really close to tears now. Instead she laughed a little, of course, the night that she feels closer to him is the night he does this shit. She should have listened to her mom. 'Workplace romances are a bad idea.'

"Leslie." Turning her head revealed Wolowitz and Koothrappali. Their faces contrite "We'll go get him."

She shook her head. "Don't bother. I'm going home. Tell him we're through." And with as much dignity as she could muster, Leslie left.

'Fuck Leonard Hofstadter'

Leonard heard Leslie say his name, but he couldn't miss this chance. He just needed to talk to the blonde girl for a moment. He left as Leslie called his name a second time, it was fine, he'd apologize later.

The blonde girl was talking to an older woman but otherwise was alone. Leonard looked around and saw that Dr Chadwick was in the middle of a large group of people, telling a story. Dr Cooper was there as well.

Leonard stayed back and waited for the right moment to move in. He knew he probably looked like a loser right now, pining over a girl that didn't even know he existed, but he didn't care.

Hearing a communal groan he turned to Dr Chadwick's group and saw that Dr Cooper was saying something which made Dr Chadwick cringe a little. He quickly returned to look at his original target and saw that she was holding her face, embarrassed.

This was his chance, he quickly approached her and in his smoothest voice said "Embarrassing isn't it?"

He tried to grin but it quickly disappeared at her frosty tone and hard eyes. "Excuse me?" He needed to recover quickly.

"I meant Dr Cooper. You know, he's an embarrassment? He doesn't know how to be a regular person."

"Is that right?" Her tone was neutral.

"Yeah!" Leonard was excited, this seemed to be working finally. "He's also overrated and not as good as people think he is." Trying to puff himself up Leonard offered her his hand. "I'm Leonard. Dr. Leonard Hofstadter."

The girl looked at his hand and frowned in distaste.

"I'm Mrs Cooper." She said firmly.

The grin on his face froze. "Cooper?" He managed to get out.

"The wife of Dr Sheldon Cooper." She was openly glaring at him now. "If you excuse me, I have to go meet my husband." And she moved towards the larger group where she whispered in Dr Cooper's ear and then in Dr Chadwick's ear.

Leonard saw the two tall men glare at him and his stomach did an unpleasant flip. He might have just screwed up big time.

Notes:

This was a chapter that took me a long time to be able to write originally. I added the following AN on the drabble fic but I feel that I need to add it here as well for clarity's sake:

I have been writing and rewriting this chapter for the past few days, I would usually not do this, but I think this is a special case that warrants a bit of a deeper diving into what I wanted to convey and show in this chapter.

1. Raj: Let's be honest here, the show treated Raj horribly. All around. The actor did the best he could with the shitty material he was given, but Raj's wings were clipped from the start and a character that could have been interesting instead became a laughing stock for the writers.

2. Howard: I'm not a fan of Howard, I get why the show had to give him so much leeway and I will admit that he had some funny lines. Now, it doesn't make him any less of a creep. He's the type of person that uses the word 'female' to refer to women. And with all of this said, I think his interactions with Raj are super interesting, it's obvious that they care for one another and this was yet another facet the show left unexplored in order to make some shitty homophobic jokes. He's still a creep tho and says creepy things.

3. Leonard: I think by this point I have made my dislike for Leonard pretty clear. I still stand by that. But as I mentioned before in another note, I think S1/S2 Leonard was redeemable, he was still toxic AF and had a pretty huge 'Nice Guy' problem, but you could see the inkling of a likeable character. That is what I wanted to show here, a dislikeable character but not a monster. Someone that was a shitty person with shitty opinions but who you could see growing out of it and eventually becoming a better person.
S1/S2 Leonard is someone that would cringe at the Manosphere while S3 onwards Leonard would embrace the Manosphere. That's the simplest way I can put it I think.

So, yes, this was a chapter that took a lot out of me for several reasons. Howard and Leonard are shitty people and in this chapter they're shown doing shitty things. Raj is trying to do better because I want to think he grew a spine at one point.

PS. Leslie was a fantastic character that wasn't given enough time/credit/love. I actually see her kicking Leonard's ass into shape to turn him into a decent person, but instead the show decided she needed the boot.

Addition as someone asked about my thoughts on the rest of the main cast:

4. Bernadette: She was such as a great character! Until she wasn't. I really liked Bernadette when she joined the rest of the cast, I think that she was able to provide that extra girl power...but then of course, the writers had to turn her into a cartoon as well. She started dating Howard and it was fun, until they started turning her into his mother. I get that it was done for comedy, however, it turned the sweet and understanding (but still with an edge) Bernadette into a nagging, screeching woman. She lost all nuance and became a cartoon. (Like the rest of the cast tbh)
I really hated how she pushed for Penny and Leonard to be together and (for comedy) they made her into a suffering cartoon wife right out of a boomer comic.
This is mainly the reason why I don't tend to include her in my stories, I don't know what to do with her. The character we first met was too good for Howard and the character she became, well, I don't like writing about that character.
As a side note, when Bernadette was first introduced and she interacted with Sheldon, I shipped them together for a bit. In fact there's a story in AO3 that I adore, which is basically Bernadette having a naughty dream about Sheldon, it's short and funny.
If inspiration hits I might try giving it a go.

5. Amy: Oh boy...Short answer, I don't like the character of Amy. Long answer, by the time Amy developed into more than a copy of Sheldon meant I had already left the show, for me Amy felt like the last slap from the writers to the audience.
"Laugh at these two neurodivergent people!"
I know that for the people that stuck around she became a favorite as well, and I can see it. I think that the people that ship Leonard/Amy are onto something, the characters match too well together.
But just like for Bernadette, I don't include her because I don't know what to do with her.
Sheldon and Amy don't make sense to me for many reasons but the main ones are:
-Amy tries (and succeeds) in changing Sheldon into someone that's no longer Sheldon. Not an evolution but what boomers think make people happy. Sheldon has to abandon his identity in order to be happy. To be 'Normal'.
-Amy doesn't challenge Sheldon. She becomes a doormat for him, everyone else has to step in order for Sheldon to even acknowledge he's treating her crappily.
-They infantilize her. (Same treatment as Sheldon.)

So those are my thoughts on the rest of the main cast.