Title: Three's Company

Author: jaded_river_hussie

Fandom: Drake & Josh

Rating: T/M

Pairings: slight Drake/Mindy and Josh/Mindy

Spoilers: general

Overall Summary: Snapshots of what life is like when Drake, Josh, and Mindy move in together—it seemed like a good idea at the time. Theme: edible.

Chapter Summary: It's hard to cool down during a heat wave.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or places referenced.

I. Popsicle

It's barely been a week since they moved in when the air conditioning goes on the fritz. Temperatures are still hovering around 100 degrees and air conditioning units are breaking down all over the city; it could be a week before a repair man gets there and two to get a new unit if theirs can't be salvaged. Mindy's volunteering at the hospital so Josh drags Drake with him on a mission to hunt down a few fans. Several stores are out of stock and Drake suggests that they just move back in with their parents until the A/C gets fixed. Josh reminds him that the house is a symbol of adulthood and freedom and sexual liberation. It's the last one that spurs Drake to continue the search. It takes seven hours and a trip to Del Mar but they successfully acquire five fans: one for Mindy's room, one for Drake and Josh's room, one for the living room, one for the kitchen and breakfast nook, and one for the study/den.

When the guys return to the house, Mindy's splayed out on the sofa, melting, in a spaghetti strap tank top and a pair of cut-off shorts, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, bangs plastered to her forehead. "Oh thank God," she says with as much excitement as she can muster in the sweltering heat. As Drake and Josh work to unpack the fans and get the air circulating, Mindy rises from the sofa and disappears into the kitchen. She returns a few moments later, a cherry popsicle in her hand. She bends down and picks up the assembly directions for the oscillating fan that Drake and Josh are examining the parts for as she starts sucking on the popsicle. Josh pauses, watching a bead of sweat trickle down Mindy's neck and roll down past the top of her tank top, traveling down the valley between her breasts and his mind blanks for a moment until he remembers that they're just really good friends now and any benefits that came with their dating are probably now void. Mindy perches on the arm of the sofa, alternating between reading the instructions aloud and sucking on the popsicle.

Drake doesn't quite catch what she says about screwing the leg into the stand and looks completely baffled, "Wait, what?"

"Well, I'm already using small words, so, do you need me to read slower so that your tiny brain can comprehend?"

He looks at her, ready to hurl an insult but he's cut short by the sight of the popsicle sliding between her lips, now stained bright red by the popsicle. It suddenly occurs to him that not only is she a girl but she's kind of pretty, if you like bitchy girl or girls with brains or both. Fuzzy images form is his mind of her in teasingly short skirts, lips wrapped around him. As the image of her face, her eyes taunting him, becomes sharper, he yelps, disturbed by the thought of Mindy Crenshaw as not only a human being but a sexual one. It's worse than when Josh told him that he and Mindy had become "intimate."

"Has the heat managed to completely fry what few brain cells you had left?" Mindy asks witheringly before placing the dwindling phallic red ice in her mouth.

He shrugs, pushing away all potentially dirty thoughts of her out of his mind, "Has the heat managed to amp your bitchiness 110%?"

Josh breaks in before things escalate, "Hey, guys, I'm pretty sure that the two of you fighting is only going to make it hotter in here, so if the two of you can press pause until we get this place cool, or, you know, below 100 degrees, that would be super duper."

In response, Drake pretends to ignore Mindy, making sure he doesn't look anywhere in her direction while Mindy simply resumes reading the instructions, pausing every few seconds to suck the popsicle into her mouth completely, her cheeks hollowing, then slowly pulling it back out. As Josh watches, he realizes that this must be what Hell is like. From all their years of on-again off-again boyfriend-girlfriend status, Josh has learned that Mindy is always fully aware of her actions. Clearly she is torturing him for inviting Drake to move in, even though she agreed, after much pleading and being plied with alcohol, to the three of them cohabitating.

It's not Mindy's intent to tease both of the boys. She knows that Drake's a pro at sexualizing girls and women but it doesn't cross her mind that her doing obscene things to a popsicle would have any effect on him other than disgust. But Josh, oh, Josh has got hell to pay for forcing her to live with Drake. This was supposed to be Josh and Mindy as friends and roommates, responsible adults moving on with their lives, not them plus immature and perpetually horny playboy "I'm a musician, isn't that hot—wanna make-out?" Drake. She is not looking forward to the parade of Drake's Slam-Piece of the Week to begin. If she has to suffer through that, then she feels that it's only fair that Josh suffer too. After all, that's what roommates do.