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The student council room was sweltering hot, the half broken fan that was sputtering weakly in the corner the only relief from the humid heat. The dark room is mostly silent save for the scratching of Lisa’s pencil against whatever club forms she’s taking care of and the creaking of the small fan blades. Wilson is stretched across two chairs, sleeves rolled up and top shirt button undone. He’s fanning himself with his hand as he reclines with his back to a desk, eyes scanning over some flyer he has to approve for putting up.
The sun is still high in the sky despite it being past the end of school. There’s an occasional shout that reaches their room from the soccer practice happening outside but most of the students have left for the day. Wilson would love to be one of those kids but his mom had guests home and he was instructed to stay clear until they were gone.
At least here there was shade.
“This one’s alright for posting.” Wilson sighs, dropping the brightly colored flyer on the table next to him. His head rolls lazily so he can see Lisa from where he’s sitting halfway across the room. She simply nods, not looking up from her work. “Want me to go tell them? The club meets today.”
“No. We’ll group them all and have Chase run them tomorrow.” The president replies, pushing her hair out of her face and placing her pencil next to her paperwork. She finally looks up at Wilson and raises an eyebrow at how he’s laid out.
“Alright…is there anything else to do before tomorrow?” Wilson asks, a smile tugging at his lips at Lisa’s own rumpled look.
“No, feel free to head home. I don’t have much left to do either. Your house probably has air conditioning.” She sighs, a look of longing crossing her face when she mentions the possibility of cold air.
Wilson groans, “I can’t go home yet, my mom has guests over.” He puts on his best kicked puppy act as he returns Lisa’s act of disapproval. She gives up, sighs, and glances back down at her paper.
“Suppose you can stay here for a bit then. I can’t say I’ll be the best company though.” She hums, picking her pencil back up and shuffling the papers on her desk. Wilson nods and turns to look up at the ceiling.
The heat is really getting to him today, it’s a record high for this year that reminds him of just how close this school year is to being over. The broken AC is just another reason to look forward to being out of this building for a couple months. It’s the type of day where you’re sweating despite being indoors and not doing anything active. Today for gym they all just sat around and talked instead of playing some sport outdoors.
He’s wondering whether it's worth it to get up and move towards their shitty fan when the door to the student council room bangs open, hitting the wall and bouncing back so that the perpetrator has to nudge it open again.
“Hello losers!” Sings the voice, Wilson would recognize that voice anywhere and immediately startles into sitting up, knocking the chair he was resting his legs on over. Lisa startles as well, head snapping up to look at the intruder.
“House! You can’t just barge in like that!” Wilson shouts, standing up bending over to go and pick up the discarded chair. He’s stopped by a foot holding down the edge of it and glares up at House who is, much to his chagrin, smirking down at him, a nondescript box held in one hand and his backpack over his shoulder.
“Uh yes I can, Wilson, anyway you’ll forgive me soon enough.” House grins, foot sliding off the chair so the taller boy can spin on his heel and deposit his bag on an unsuspecting desk. Wilson glances at Lisa who gives him a displeased look, as if this were somehow his fault. He huffs and turns back towards House who is now holding his box up in the air like he was showing it off to the heavens.
“And that is?” Lisa prompts, one hand flicking her pencil repeatedly against her desk. She’s shooting House a flat glare that he doesn’t even seem to notice.
“Tsk tsk, Cuddy! You’re no fun!” House jumps towards her desk after placing the box next to his bag. He swipes her water bottle from the table and flips it upside down, a lone drop spilling out of the open top. “Water bottle empty?” He questions, voice taking a note of a TV advertiser. He sweeps a hand towards the sputtering mess in the corner, “Fan not working?”
“What does this have to do with anything, House?” Wilson asks, placing his hands on his hips after rolling his sleeves up a little more.
“Then boy do I have a solution for you!” House crows, completely ignoring him and twirling back over to his box to tear open the top. Wilson and Lisa look at each other and then back towards the box with thinly veiled distrust and interest.
“Voila!” House exclaims, turning around dramatically to reveal an orange and a blue popsicle dangling from his fingers. He’s got a heavy smirk on that Wilson would be annoyed at if he wasn’t so busy trying to beat Lisa to the blue popsicle.
Lisa shoves a hand into his shoulder just as he’s about to close his hand over it, knocking him off balance and into the desk where House placed his various things. He swears and quickly turns back to where House had snatched away the popsicle from Lisa’s cheating hands.
“House, I swear to God if you don’t give me that popsicle right now bad things will happen!” She hisses, getting all up in House’s personal space. He’s smirking down at her and leaning back onto the desk so that he can get the popsicle away from her.
“Oh come on, you could never resist me.” He smiles, twisting away from Lisa and tossing the blue popsicle into her waiting hands. She throws a fist into the air in triumph and tears open the plastic wrap, immediately sticking it into her mouth with a happy hum.
House opens his own popsicle, licking up the side of it with a wink at Wilson. “Gotta keep the ladies happy.” Noticing Wilson’s open mouthed expression of betrayal, the brown haired teen still rubbing at where his shoulder was shoved against the desk, House smiles around the cold treat in his mouth. “Oh don’t feel bad for me, orange is my favorite flavor.”
“That’s not the problem!” Wilson gapes, body language reeking of betrayal. His eyes flick back over to the student council president, “You too, Lisa! I’m way too hot in here too! How come you two get popsicles and I don’t?!” Lisa smirks at him, mirroring House’s expression.
“Jealous you don’t get to suck something?” House smiles innocently, pushing the popsicle to the back of his mouth to emphasize his words and to be absolutely sure Wilson got his joke.
Wilson flushed, “No! I’m mad that I don’t get something to help cool me down in this hellscape that is a room without AC!” He shouts, hands on his hips and chin jutted out.
Lisa and House exchange a look, House wiggling his eyebrows and Lisa rolling her eyes at his antics. Wilson looks at her with his sad doe eyes. “You cannot seriously be taking his side.” He whines, wiping away the sweat from his forehead.
“I’ll take the side of anyone who brings popsicles.” She shrugs, biting off part of the top of her popsicle. Wilson watches with clear want in his eyes. He turns towards House, who simply snorts.
“If you’re so desperate you can just take mine.” House offers, making sure to take an extra long lick of the entire thing.
“Not funny!” Wilson yelps, reaching over to House’s outstretched hand to grab the orange frozen treat.
House snatches it back before he can reach it. “Jeez, didn’t know you’d be so desperate.” He laughs, pointing a thumb at Wilson and rolling his eyes in Lisa’s direction. She hides her laugh behind her hand. Wilson glares at both of them.
“Then stop tormenting me, House! Lisa, tell him to give it to me!” Wilson begs, plopping down in a chair and unbuttoning another button on his shirt in a futile attempt to combat the sweat he had earned by his sudden movement. House’s eye catches the movement, eyes temporarily fixated to the newly exposed section of Wilson’s chest.
“It pleases me that you think I have control over him.” Lisa snorts, tilting her head in amusement but blanching when she sees where House is looking. Realization dawns in her eyes and she shakes her head, newly set in horror resting on her shoulders. She sighs and rolls her own sleeves up higher, grateful that she at least chose to wear a skirt and not pants like some idiots.
“No one has control over me!” House brags, swirling his hand in a circular motion that causes a bit of his popsicle to melt and slide off. He looks at it for a second and then laughs.
“Whatever,” Lisa sighs, “Thanks for the popsicle, House. I think I’m going to brave the heat and head home.” Wilson buries his head in his hands at the mention of the popsicle.
“Anytime, boss!” House grins, saluting her with two fingers. He furrows his eyebrows, looking at the floor and then back at her. “Actually that’s a lie, not anytime!”
Lisa snorts, gathering up her things to leave. “About what I expected.” She switches her gaze to Wilson, his head still buried in his hands. “James?” His fingers part so that Lisa can see the barest sliver of his eyes. “Put away my paperwork, I’ll see you both and the junior members tomorrow for the budget meeting.”
Wilson nods miserably, letting out a large sigh. “Will do…” He mumbles, giving a weak wave as she passes him, popsicle almost down to the stick. She pats him on the shoulder before vanishing down the hall, sneakers squeaking as she exits the door.
Wilson sighs and props his cheek on his hand, staring up at where House is lounged on a desk still enjoying his popsicle.
House snorts. “There’s more popsicles in the box, y’know.”
Wilson shoots up, eyes wide as he scrambles towards the box, pulling out a blue popsicle and ripping off the wrapper as fast as he can. It’s a little melted, artificial goodness in a tiny puddle at the bottom of the wrapper. He sticks it in his mouth, eyes closing in a happy manner.
House watches on with a fond look on his face as Wilson leans back on a desk, enjoying the cold treat. “I told the ducklings that there were popsicles.” He smiles, Wilson opening his pretty brown eyes to nod.
“Make sure Allison gets the red one, those are her favorites.” Wilson replies, tossing his wrapper in the trash with the hand that isn’t holding his popsicle.
“Oh? Hitting on my recruits isn’t allowed, Wilson. Almost forgot you were a player. Anyways, the box only has oranges and blues.” House snickers, face something unreadable.
Wilson splutters, “Hey! I’m not hitting on Allison! I just happen to actually check on the underclassmen! We had a conversation about popsicles earlier and it happened to come up!” He defends, pausing for a second before turning to House with narrowed eyes. “Wait a second…” Houses raises an eyebrow. “You were there for that conversation!”
“Yup. Sure was. How kind of you to remeber” House deadpans, rolling his eyes.
Wilson pops his popsicle in his mouth and uses both hands to pick up the box and peer inside. A muffled ah hah! can be heard. He pops it out of his mouth and spins around, pointing a finger accusingly at House, who is still staring at him with that unreadable expression of his. “This box only has blue and orange popsicles! The ones I said were my favorite!” He exclaims.
“Go on, Sherlock.” House hums, picking at his nails with one hand.
“You somehow left school to go pick up a box of popsicles that only had my favorites and your favorites!” Wilson pieces together, looking at his faintly blue stained hands as if he’s just solved some great mystery.
House just rolls his eyes. “Big deal.”
Wilson softens. “It kind of is House, you must have noticed what Allison and Chase’s favorites were and instead of getting the cheaper variety pack, you got the more expensive one that only had our favorites!"
“So what?”
“You’re nice, House!” Wilson crows, smiling like an idiot. House smirks and stands up, taking a step forward. He then takes another step. Wilson goes straight, flushing slightly as House gets closer. The taller teen hesitates before him but ends up walkign by him, waving to a group of three students rushing towards their classroom. Wilson’s wide eyes follow him, popsicle almost completely forgotten as the door is thrown open again.
“Popsicles? Where?” Chase yelps, trying and failing to hold back Allison and Eric from entering.
“Box is on the table, go ham!” House says, flourishing an arm towards the table of slightly melted popsicles. His blue eyes flick back towards Wilson as he picks up his backpack. “Want to walk home?” Wilson falters for a moment before shooting him a wait gesture and turning towards where Allison, Chase, and Eric are fighting over who gets the last blue popsicle vs who has to have the orange ones.
“Chase?” Wilson asks, the scuffling momentarily pauses and Chase looks up at him with mildly scared eyes. Wilson smiles and he relaxes. “There’s some paperwork on Lisa’s desk, could you please file it before you leave?” Chase nods and Wilson turns back to House with a self satisfied smirk.
House whistles. “Didn’t know you had it in you, vice prez!” He’s standing by the door, propping it open with a foot as he watches Wilson with a smile.
Wilson flushes, turning away from House to pack up his things. “Oh please, you’ve seen me do much worse than that.”
House hums, following Wilson into the brightly lit hallway as he brushes past him. They’re both grinning, House holding his popsicle stick while Wilson’s is held in his hand. “You’ll have to show me more of this side of you.”
Wilson pretends to consider it as they walk down the deserted hallway. “Hm, maybe. We’ll see.” He smiles up at House before looking down the hallway. “Thanks for the popsicle, by the way.”
House seems faintly surprised but laughs nonetheless. “Anytime, boss!” He replies, elbow knocking against Wilson’s.
He gets the sense that House actually means this one. It warms his heart more than this sweltering day ever could.