Chapter Text
“You don’t get that good without practice,” Howard says after the third time Raj sucks him dry, and Raj nips his thigh just hard enough to show that he means it before crawling up to stretch out beside his best friend who now, apparently, comes with benefits.
“Don’t look at me, dude. You’re the one who brought condoms and lube to the Arctic. What were you going to do, hit on a polar bear?”
“Habit,” Howard, who is still regaining control over his breathing, says. “You never know when a chance might crop up. We might’ve had a hot chopper pilot drop us out here.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” Raj smoothes Howard’s bed-tousled hair back from his forehead; he looks older without the bangs hanging in his eyes.
“Condoms happen to be very useful in survival situations. You can use them as water bags, for example.”
“Oh yeah, and the strawberry-flavored lube was for what, in case we decided to make snow cones and ran out of topping?”
“God, imagine Sheldon’s face.” The two of them share a laugh, but then Howard asks again, or insinuates again, “Still, you must have done this before.”
“Played with my best friend’s North Pole? No.”
Howard smacks his arm. “It’s meant to be a compliment, stupid.”
Raj privately thinks that glancing up and seeing Howard biting down on the side of his own hand in an effort not to be noisy and alert the others was more of a compliment than anything concluded with “stupid”, but he’ll take what he can get.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I was just, you know, curious.”
Raj raises an eyebrow at him. “I’d guessed that much.”
Howard jabs him in the ribs; Raj catches his wrist and pulls him closer, and the conversation pauses while they tussle. Raj wins because Howard a) has all the upper body strength of a boiled string bean and b) doesn’t seem to be trying too hard to win. He keeps Howard pinned face down with one hand between his shoulderblades; the other hand lazily explores Howard’s body, fingertips skimming over his pale skin, making Howard squirm.
It doesn’t take very long to get Howard doing more than just squirm, which is good, because Raj is still aroused. In the short span of time since the stupid pillow fight (what an idiotic, clichéd way to start things off; they were only the wrong gender away from being a slumber party porno), the only dynamic they’ve really established is that Howard almost always gets off first. It’s not out of greed or selfishness, it’s just how it is. Neither of them is always the top or the bottom, which is nice; Raj hates getting stuck in one role and always has.
Tonight, though, as he holds Howard down with one hand and opens the lube with the other, he knows which he wants to be.
It’s only the second time they’ve done this and Howard is naturally tense. Raj has to take his time soothing him open and the room smells of fake strawberry by the time he’s ready. Howard’s making a real effort not to be noisy, aware of how thin the walls are, but the disappointed noise he makes when Raj takes his hand away is at once clearly audible and quite arousing.
“Be patient.”
“I am.”
Raj has zero trouble finding a condom because Howard packed enough for a polar bear orgy. It makes him feel oddly fond of his friend; however desperate and lonely and horny Howard might be at times, at least he’s not stupid about it.
Although thinking he might have had a chance to hook up with the chopper pilot was kind of stupid.
Howard tenses again when Raj pushes against him, and Raj distracts him with a series of kisses to the back of his neck until Howard’s gasping and Raj can ease in an inch or so.
“Okay?”
“Mfff.” Howard’s biting his hand again.
Raj takes this as a yes and pushes in further, eyes closing at the sensation of tight heat. Howard’s legs spread wider as Raj sinks into him and Raj wishes he’d rolled Howard over first so he could watch his face, but this feels too good to back out now, as it were.
Next time.
He manages to avoid the subject of his experience until the night that the heat goes out, when Leonard brings it up, and that reminds Howard that he doesn’t know yet.
They have the whole day to get through first, with its inherent awkwardness as the other three don’t seem to know quite where to look, and by the end of it Raj wants to just yell at them, Guys, be cool, okay? Can’t you learn to just enjoy things like this when they happen and move on? He knows he should think the whole thing was weirder than he does, but he just doesn’t.
The way that Sheldon and Leonard keep sneaking little kisses and hugs when they think nobody’s watching is pretty funny, though. He never thought he’d see Sheldon be so touchy-feely, but it’s like the dam around Sheldon’s affections has broken and now they’ve started seeping out.
Finally their work day ends and they gather around the television for a fuzzy episode or two of Star Trek and the delightful freeze-dried food of the night (pasta that was apparently made by someone learning to make pasta using a recipe translated from Italian to English via Klingon). Raj waits until Howard is done eating and drapes an arm casually around his shoulders; Howard seems surprised but leans against him after a moment. Good. Last night Howard was giving the other two a running commentary on a handjob; the least he can do in the light of day is be at least vaguely demonstrative.
The other two are being uncharacteristically quiet. Normally Star Trek episodes come with a running Sheldonommentary, but this time he’s just watching the show, long legs tucked up under himself, a faraway expression on his face.
It’s only when Raj gets up to clear their plates that he notices their linked hands, Leonard’s thumb rubbing slowly over Sheldon’s fingers.
Cute. Weird, but cute.
Bedtime can’t be put off forever, even if there seems to be a degree of reluctance on certain people’s parts to go to bed, mostly on the part of Dr Eidetic Memory who’s clearly got last night irrevocably imprinted on his brain and doesn’t know whether he wants it to happen again or whether he should just go outside and try to walk home. But finally Leonard and Sheldon disappear into their room, and Raj leads Howard into theirs, where the beds are still pushed together, dryer-fresh sheets and blankets artfully spread to make it look more like a double instead of two singles.
Howard lets out a little surprised laugh. “When did you do this?”
“Earlier.”
“Nice.” Howard gives him a slightly shy smile. “I’m not used to anyone but my mom thinking of things like this.”
“First off, I am not your mom, so don’t even make that comparison, and secondly, I really hope your mom doesn’t come up with ways to make your sex life more convenient, “cause dude, that’s just disturbing.”
“She’s the one who picked out my black satin sheets.”
“Still disturbing.”
“And my matching pajamas.”
“I’m sleeping on the couch.”
Howard pulls him close before Raj can even pretend to open the door and walk out, which he wasn’t going to do anyway, and then Howard’s kissing him and he’s not at all hesitant about it any more, not like the first few nights.
Although to be fair, going from sharing a room to sharing a bed never goes as smoothly as it theoretically should, no matter how natural the progression seems.
They get as far as in bed and shirtless (and very grateful for the heat) when Howard asks again, “Are you ever gonna tell me how you got so experienced?”
Raj lets out the same sort of beleaguered sigh that Sheldon does when someone’s pestering him, and curls an arm around Howard’s shoulders. “All right then. Story time it is.”
“Do I get cookies and cocoa?”
“No, we ate the last of the cookies seven weeks ago and I’m not getting back up just to make you cocoa. Now be quiet.”