081. Flood

Noah's Work

House slowly opened his eyes, staring into the dark room and trying to figure out what had woken him. Wilson was a warm weight against his side and the pain in his leg had been reduced to a dull throb. He lay there, blinking sleepily then when he realised he couldn't hear anything unusual, he tightened his arms around Wilson a bit and slowly fell asleep with Wilson's indistinct sleeping murmurs in his ears.

When House woke again, sunlight was streaming in through the window and he frowned for a moment before turning his head to look at the clock. He blinked when he realised the face of the digital clock was dark and he swore quietly. He reached out and grabbed his watch off the bedside table, tilting it until he could read it. When he saw the time, he swore loudly and tossed the watch back on the bedside table before giving Wilson a shake.

"Whrr?" Wilson mumbled sleepily, showing no signs of moving in the near future.

"Get up. It's 9.30," House snapped, unceremoniously pushing Wilson off him and yanking the sheets back.

He got a sleepy protest for his actions then Wilson's eyes shot open and he sat up abruptly.

"What?"

"It's 9.30," House said acidly. "Looks like the power went out last night."

"Oh, crap," Wilson groused as he started untangling himself from the sheets.

House eyed him with amusement for a moment then slowly shifted his legs until he could put his feet on the floor. He froze instantly and slowly looked down.

"Fuck," he said after a moment of consideration.

"What?" Wilson asked absently as he shifted towards his side of the bed.

"I think I know why we have no power this morning," House said with disgust.

Wilson frowned and crawled back across the bed, leaning against House and wrapping one arm around his waist as he peered over the side of the bed.

"Huh," Wilson said with admirable calm. "That's something you don't see everyday."

House gave him a look of disgust then looked back down at the three inches of water his feet were sitting in. He opened his mouth to say something but as he did one of the cell phones on the bedside table started ringing. House picked it up then scowled as he answered it.

"What?" he snapped into the phone.

"House, if you're going to avoid working, I usually prefer it if you do so at the hospital," Cuddy said into his ear in impatient tones. "And to not drag Wilson into your delinquency."

"For once it wasn't deliberate," House said, lifting one wet foot and watching the water drip off it. "My apartment looks like Noah's making a house call."

"House, what?" Cuddy said, sounding both confused and increasingly pissed.

"There's three inches of water in my bedroom," House said with profound disgust. "I'm presuming the rest of the place is in the same state. Not surprisingly, I have no power, my clock isn't working and my rubber ducky is floating out into the hallway."

There was a long, slightly baffled silence from the other end of the phone that made House smirk. Wilson slapped him on the shoulder, looking amused, and gingerly got out of bed, sloshing his way over to the dresser and pulling out a pair of boxers. Their clothes from the previous day were a soggy mess on the flooded floor. He then sloshed his way out of the bedroom.

By this stage, Cuddy had managed to get her brain working again.

"I…take it you're both going to need the day off then?"

"At least," House replied sourly.

"Well, let me know this afternoon if you need extra time," Cuddy replied, a hint of laughter now entering her voice.

"Whatever," House grumbled in reply then he hung up.

He put the phone back on the bedside table then grabbed his cane and followed Wilson's lead. He then limped out into the apartment and scowled as he saw the water that was slowly swirling around his living room, papers and assorted crap floating and turning in the lazy eddies.

"What the fuck happened?" he snarled as he limped over to Wilson.

His lover was standing in the doorway, talking with someone as water flowed over his feet. When House arrived the man outside, dressed as a workman, eyed them both with surprise then amusement.

"Water pipe burst last night," the workman said calmly. "The entire street's flooded. We're working to get the water stopped but we've hit a few problems. Once we stop the leak, the water should drain pretty quickly. I was just telling your…friend that the power's out because the water shorted the transformer down the street. That'll be sorted out once we stop the leak. We're expecting to have everything under control in about an hour."

With that the workman gave them a nod and headed back out. House watched him go with a scowl.

"Nice to see efficient work practices," he snapped.

Wilson snorted and closed the door with a bit of a shove. He raised an eyebrow at House.

"They'll be done when they're done. I take it Cuddy knows we probably won't be in today."

House glared down at the water swirling around their feet. "Yeah."

Wilson's smiled suddenly changed to something more heated. "Well, we've got an hour to kill before we can start cleaning this up. How 'bout we go back to bed?"

House raised an eyebrow, surprised at this. "You don't want to…do anything about this, Mr Anal Neat Freak?"

Wilson looked around and shrugged. "Not much point, is there? What's wet is wet and we can't really do much until the water drains. We can't go into work and we've got some time to kill before we can clean up. Why not…go back to bed?"

House slowly started to grin. "Just as long as we're not sleeping."

Wilson gave him a bland look that was completely ruined by the wicked twinkle in his eyes.

"I hadn't planned on it."

He then turned and started sloshing his way back to the bedroom. House ogled Wilson's arse as he followed and his grin widened.

"Cool."