Title: Prologue: Moon Landings
Author: hwshipper
Pairings: House/Alvie, House/Wilson
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Heel and Toe Films, Shore Z Productions and Bad Hat Harry Productions in association with Universal Media Studios.
Beta: srsly_yes hitting the nail on the head as usual
A/N: Set during 6.01/6.02 Broken.
Prologue: Moon Landings
The moon comes out from behind a cloud and sends a shaft of light across the room, falling on House's bed.
Alvie lifts his head to bathe his face in the glow. "Hey, the full moon. Awesome, man." He lets out a werewolf howl, and cups a hand around one of House's buttocks. "Richter was telling me the other day about the moon landings. How they were faked, I mean."
"Bullshit." House yawns.
Alvie puts his head on one side and hums a couple of bars of REM's Man on the Moon. "It's true. I mean, the evidence is massive. Like, there's no stars in the photos."
Alvie starts rattling off half-baked conspiracy theory junk, stripping off the condom and wriggling a little in the bed as he talks, and House listens with a quarter of an ear. He could start marshaling counter facts, but in his current post-coital state, he can't be bothered. Let Alvie expend some surplus enthusiasm on this.
The first time Alvie came bopping across the room and squirming into House's bed, House had muttered and moaned but not protested, and after that he hadn't resisted because, goddamnit, it worked.
It's as if there can only be so much energy between them in their small, bare space, and their couplings seem to shift the balance from Alvie to House. It calms Alvie down, tames the mania. It makes House more alive, less broken. Like fire and water, air and earth; poles equalize, equilibrium is reached, and they each gain some temporary respite from their demons.
It isn't lovemaking, and House never cries.
That only happens with Wilson.
That happens in snatched trysts in empty rooms, in hard institutional chairs, in darkness long after visiting hours. It matters not one jot that the body on House's lap has breasts and hips and lipstick and too-long hair. What matters is the same emotional landing place, connecting, actually caring for someone.
Someone who's ready to hand over car keys to House for a mad road trip, whether with a recently woken coma guy or a depressed deluded superhero. Someone who also has a hopeless bond with a damaged best friend languishing in a crater of timeless, bleak desolation. Hell, after all these years House has been involved with a man married or attached elsewhere so much of that time, maybe that final unavailability is even part of the attraction.
And they have quite similar faces, too.
House tunes in again to hear Alvie gabbling, "...and the flag flew even though there wouldn't have been any wind on the moon."
"The flag did not fly, it was held up in a frame," House says with newly-found patience. "Now stop talking moon crap and let me get some sleep."
END