fic; iCarly: Like a Kick in the Head.
title: Like a Kick in the Head.
fandom: iCarly.
pairing: Freddie/Sam
rating: PG-13?
words: 4180.
disclaimer: Fiction and about characters that definitely do not belong to me.
notes: Yeah, apparently I write iCarly fic now. And it's not even Carly/Freddie, which is what I thought I wanted. I'm not sure about this, but, like, I've watched a lot of iCarly lately (and always?) and I feel like maybe this was inevitable. Or something.
When Freddie was a kid, his mom put all these crazy rules down about male friends.
Boys are too rough, Freddie.
Boys are too dirty, Freddie.
Boys will get you hurt or killed, Freddie.
He's not sure it ever occurred to her that Freddie was a boy and he wasn't any of those things, but, regardless, the line had been drawn: his friends were going to have to be girls.
Carly was a prime candidate -- right across the hall, polite and, to Freddie's little five-year-old brain, the prettiest girl on the planet.
Sam, well, Sam was almost more of a boy than Freddie was, but she fell within the rules just by virtue of biology and so there he was, with two best friends, two girl best friends.
None of this was a problem until high school, until they all got older, until he found out what being 16 and having female friends meant.
It meant everyone assumed you were hooking up with them.
Both of them, one of them, both of them at the same time, it just depended on which rumor you heard.
The first few times it happened, he assumed Carly and Sam were hearing the same things, figured they were getting elbow-nudged and winked at and high-fived by strangers.
He doesn't find out different, doesn't think to ask them, until it's been going on for almost six months. Turns out, Carly's offended and Sam thinks it hilarious. Like he would've expected any different.
"They say WHAT?" Carly's standing in the middle of the living room, hands on her hips. Just past her is Spencer's latest sculpture, another robot, and it's in the same pose as Carly, and Freddie smiles a little bit.
"Oh, sure, you'd think this is funny! Now the whole school thinks I'm some sort of -- some sort of --some sort of hussy!" She's really thrown it into Carly-is-worked-up overdrive, all stammering, arms flailing.
Sam looks up from her Snack Pack. "Hussy?"
Carly throws her arms in the air, "Hussy! Floozy! A girl who makes out with best friend type people!"
Freddie's not sure what he's supposed to say here, he didn't start the gossip, didn't spread it, he's just the messenger. He stares at her for a little bit longer, confused and then, because apparently he's a total nub, says, "Well...you are, right? I mean, there was that one time last year?"
Carly lets out a scream and storms upstairs.
Whoops.
Sam licks at the edge of her pudding cup and then puts it down, looking at him.
"Fredward, I'm not sure what's going on in that abnormally large head of yours, but weren't you supposed to not bring that up?"
Oh. Yeah. He'd forgotten that part. It was just, after it happened, after he'd finally made out with Carly, he'd sort of let that whole thing go.
It was probably that he'd had to win some ridiculous bet (with a no-telling clause, even) just to get her to finally come anywhere near his mouth. And it was probably that he felt creepy like Nevel and it was probably that when the 45 seconds were up, she'd jumped away from like he had a disease.
It was probably a lot of things and all of them together kind of killed it for him. The Carly thing wasn't ever going to happen and so it didn't seem like a big thing anymore. It didn't seem like something that would send her stomping off to the studio, making up curse words along the way.
"Shut up, Sam. What was I supposed to say?"
"Uh, how about anything else?"
"Listen, it's just as big of a shock to me that people think I'm, you know, hooking up with you guys. And I'm not flipping out about it."
Sam wipes her hands on her jeans and stands up.
"Of course you're not, you get to be a stud. Girls, well, Carly, gets to be a hussy or whatever. It's a, a, what do you call it?"
"A double standard."
"Yeah, brainiac, a double standard."
Sam starts up the stairs and Freddie realizes there's no way they'll get through rehearsal tonight. He starts to pack up his stuff before calling after Sam.
"Does that make you a hussy, too?"
Somehow Sam's figured out how to aim around corners and a foam football comes flying down the stairs, hitting him in the head.
Carly kind of overreacts for the next three weeks. Every time she's around him in the halls, she stands at least five feet away, loudly saying things like, "Hello, Freddie, my friend who I do not make out with!"
He would be offended if he took it personally, so he tries not to.
Plus, he's got bigger things to deal with.
Sam still thinks the whole thing is hilarious and has turned it into a joke -- hanging all over him in the halls, making kissy noises every time he walks by, pretty much ruining anything he could possibly try and start with any other girl.
It's his own fault, really, if he hadn't have blushed the first time she pinched his butt, she wouldn't have smelled blood, wouldn't have seen that he was uncomfortable and she would've stopped before it even started. Freddie's constantly disappointed in himself that he hasn't learned by now.
It takes an entire month, but Carly finally lets it go, mostly because she's got a new boyfriend -- some ass in skinny jeans that calls himself an artist. Freddie's not even the slightest bit sad when she starts gushing about the guy, Topher (what a name, good grief), in the Groovy Smoothie after school.
All he feels is relief because maybe now things can go back to normal and she can stop making public service announcements each week on the show that say things like, "I just say no...to making out with our cameraman."
And things do go back to normal -- with Carly. Sam though, Sam just steps it up even more, watching him squirm as she asks him where he's taking her Friday night in front of the entire dance team.
It gets to the point where this is just something Sam does, as regular as eating, or hanging kids up by their backpacks in the lunchroom.
Freddie can't pinpoint the exact moment he starts rolling with it, but it's probably somewhere around the winter dance. The few times he gets close enough to a cute girl to ask her to be his date, Sam's there, telling him about the color of her (non-existent) dress and advising him on what color corsage to get her.
He gives up trying to ask anybody and the afternoon of the dance, he's halfway into offering to help Spencer with his latest creation (a paper mache dog standing on two legs) when Sam and Carly fall through the door, arms full of shopping bags.
"Oh good, you guys are home! Look at this dress I got for the dance, it'll totally match Topher's eyes." Carly's got her whole goofy-over-a-guy glow on and she starts tearing through bags, coming up with a shiny, light blue strappy thing.
Spencer looks at the dress and back over to his sculpture and his eyes gets wide, "It's perfect! This will look great on Daisy!"
Carly smiles and clasps her hands together, "I know! When I tried it on, I just knew it wou -- wait, Daisy? Who's Daisy?" Her face falls.
Spencer puffs up his chest proudly and points with both hands to his sculpture, "Daisy! She's a dog who thinks she's human!"
"Well, Daisy's gonna have to find her own dress! This one's mine and Topher's going to love it!" Freddie figures if he squinted hard enough he could probably see little cartoon hearts around Carly's head. How much longer is this going to go on? Just because he isn't crushing on her anymore doesn't mean he can stomach this level of cutesy adoration. A man's got to have some pride, right?
"Fine," Spencer says, looking dejected. "Sam, did you get anything you won't let Daisy wear?"
Sam shuffles her feet a little bit, looking almost...nervous? No, that can't be it. Sam doesn't get nervous. But still, she's not really saying anything and then all of the sudden Carly blurts out, "Yes, she did! She got an actual dress! Show them, Sam!"
Sam shoots Carly a pissed look, but it's too late, Carly's already back in the shopping bags, pulling out a red and black dress and holding it in the air like a trophy.
"I told her I'd buy her cheese fries if she tried on dresses with me and this one ended up totally perfect -- right, Sam?" Carly's beaming like a proud mother or something.
"Yeah, it was fine, I guess." Sam's shoulders are slumped and she looks almost embarrassed. "But then Carly made me buy it and now I can't buy that potato launcher I was saving up for."
Freddie gets a weird feeling in his stomach and his eyes keep going from Sam's body to the dress. It actually looks like it would look really nice, which is a weird thing for him to be thinking. He tries looking at Sam's face to shake it off, but she's wearing this mixture of resigned and maybe a little, like, hopeful? He can't figure out what's going on, so, in another epic nub move, he opens his mouth.
"Where are you going to wear that, Sam?"
The question isn't even all the way out of his mouth when Sam snaps to attention and gets her devious face on. Well, that 30 seconds was nice while it lasted.
"Ah, Fred, did you forget already? You're taking me to the dance. Mama doesn't just give the milk away for free, you've gotta take me out."
Somehow he didn't expect this. He didn't think it would go this far. Stupid fake flirting with him in the hall is one thing, actually going some place in public with him, like a real date, that's totally beyond. He's seen her take pranks pretty far before, but this feels different.
Maybe he can just call her bluff. Maybe if he agrees, like it isn't a thing, maybe she'll drop this and they can spend the night here like they're supposed to -- him helping Spencer and her shooting watermelon seeds at him through a straw.
He tries to stop himself from thinking about how nice she'd look in the dress and how his cheek burned for all of history class when she'd kissed him there during passing period two days ago. It didn't matter that it was in front of a group of sophomore girls.
"Oh, I know that, Sam. You're a classy lady." He tries for a smirk.
"You bet your butt I am, dork."
"Aw, honey, you know I love it when you call me that. I think I have a black tie -- that should match your dress." He's not sure where this is coming from, he's -- he's sort of flirting with her.
Carly's stopped bouncing and Spencer's stopped paper mache-ing and Freddie can see both of them, watching him and Sam, back and forth like a ping-pong match.
"You're on." And Sam grabs the dress from Carly before heading toward the stairs. Carly runs after her and as they round the corner, Freddie can hear Carly asking Sam what that was all about.
Freddie's not even sure what that was all about, but he only has a couple of hours to find that tie and try to convince his mom that she didn't need to video him shaving before the dance.
Obviously, his mom ends up video-taping everything except his getting dressed (and she probably would've done that, too, if he hadn't put his foot down). She got over Sam being his date pretty quickly -- quicker than he expected actually. Just when he thinks he's got his mom figured out she surprises him with something like this. It's like the Fencing Bensons all over.
By the time everyone's gathered to leave in the Shay apartment, his mom has switched from the video camera to the digital camera and it's actually her fault that he's now standing with his arm awkwardly around Sam, smiling as three camera flashes go off. (His mom's, Spencer's and Topher's mom's -- Sam had said her mom was all set to take pictures and then remembered she'd rather go to a bar.)
His hand is sweating on Sam's back and her dress feels so thin that he's sure she can feel it, too, but she's not saying anything. Maybe when there are more people around she'll say something -- more embarrassing that way.
Maybe he's hoping she won't say anything though.
Maybe he can just think about how he was right, how she does look nice in her dress, and maybe Sam will get tired of this game and they can just have a decent night and that feeling in his stomach will go away. Maybe that feeling's just stress about what crazy thing she'll do next and maybe it doesn't actually mean that he likes it when they touch or that he finally got over one best friend to move onto the other.
By the time they finally get to the dance, Freddie's stomach still hurts, but it's from laughing. Turns out Topher's a little bit more of a tool than he or Sam had realized and Sam had spent the entire ride over walking him into saying one ridiculous thing after another. Carly looks annoyed, but he saw her smiling behind her hand a couple of times. It feels good to sort of have her back to normal, not-gushing mode. It makes things feel a little bit less like a parallel universe.
He's not sure what he expected from the dance, but no one even looks twice at them. Probably because, thanks to Sam and a bunch of rumor and gossip hungry classmates, everyone already thinks they're dating.
Carly's immediately pulled onto the dance floor by Topher (that should be a sign right there -- what guy actually wants to go to the dance floor?) and he and Sam head straight for the refreshments table. He keeps an eye on her the whole time, alternately watching how her collarbone makes her look kind of delicate and making sure she doesn't spike the punch. That's not quite her style, but, well, he wouldn't put it past her.
They wander around the edges of the dance floor for almost half an hour before Sam gets pulled into a conversation with the JV football team about the merits of boiling eggs before you throw them. He's about to give up and sit on the bleachers when a girl from his history class asks him to dance. It's kind of out of left field, especially since he can't even remember her name, but before he can answer, Sam's there, declining for him and pulling him onto the dance floor.
Some slow song is playing, which is just as well because he's been sort of scarred about faster dancing since that weird dream. He puts his hands on Sam's hips and starts to sway, not letting himself even begin to think about what the heck is going on. Her hands are behind his neck and he's kind of relieved to feel that they're sweaty like his were before (or, uh, are now).
"Getting ready to cheat on me there, Fredward?" She's doing that pursed-lip smile she does and for maybe the first time ever he's not annoyed by it. Not even a little. Seriously -- what. the. hell.
"Oh, no, never. You're the only one I want, dear." This new, feistier side of him is making him more than a little impressed with himself. He usually tries to dish it back out, but doesn't get very far. This actually feels more like volleying a ball back and forth, instead of her just pegging him with one.
She moves in closer to him, tightening her arms behind his neck and he gets dizzy for a second, but matches her, moving his hands around her back. Now that he's a little bigger, he can see just how small she is. It's kind of weird. This is either going to end soon or this is going to go some place they haven't been since his fire escape years ago. And that was only for ten seconds.
They stay on the floor, dancing through two more slow songs and then Carly's there. She looks at them and seems confused, but shrugs it off.
"I broke up with Topher, let's go," and she's back to her normal self, perky voiced and everything.
He thinks about asking why and he can tell Sam's thinking the same thing, but he figures no use in questioning a good thing and a few minutes later they're on the way back to Bushwell.
Sam's obviously staying the night (she said that the most recent time she tried to come home late her mom thought she was a thief and tried to hit her with a frying pan), so they troop back to the apartments together.
As soon as they get to the doors, Freddie's mom jumps into the hallway and drills them with questions. Freddie feels guilty that Carly and Sam are getting hit, too, so he nods at them and leads his mom back into their apartment, turning around and throwing a "good night" out as he shuts the door. He sees...something on Sam's face right before he closes it fully, but at the last second she sticks her tongue out and he's back to being on uneven ground.
It doesn't matter that not even an hour ago he was close enough to her to smell her shampoo or that at one point, before she realized what she was doing, she drew a couple light circles with her finger on the back of his neck. It can't actually be about that with them -- she just does stuff to needle at him, right?
He thinks about it for the next hour, lying on his back in bed, running through how he's spent two months basically dating Sam and how maybe he got in a little over his head, got a little confused.
He's about to write the whole thing off and resolve to ignore it on Monday when his cell phone beeps. It's a text from Sam that just says, "Door."
He gets out of bed and walks to the door (he figured out years ago that a complicated tiptoe maneuver doesn't wake his mom) and when he opens it, Sam's there, still in her dress. He walks into the hallway and shuts the door behind him.
"What's up, Sam? It's a little late to be giving me a hard time, don't you think?" If there's an edge to his voice, well, she probably deserves it. Maybe she doesn't have emotions, but he does and they're a little shook up or crazed or something right now.
"Fredward." And she says it in this warning tone, like a watch-your-step sort of thing. What?
He looks at her, her hair's down and sort of messy and her make up is a little smudged and he's not sure why, but he gives up. Right there. Blood in the water and everything. He hasn't fully let his guard down around Sam since he was 9 and she tricked him into giving her all the money from his lemonade stand, but, well, she's pretty and she's his best friend and she's -- what is she doing?
She's moving toward him.
It's not aggressive, not violent-looking, it's almost hesitant and then she's right there, right in front of him, and oh my god. She's going to kiss him.
Freddie takes a half step toward her and then he's looking Sam in the eye (isn't that a dominance thing in dogs?) and then, without even thinking about it, he tilts his head a little bit and leans forward. There's a brief, horrifying moment where he thinks she's going to pull back, laugh at him and then slug him, but she doesn't. She definitely doesn't.
She tilts her head, too, and then she's leaning forward and then there's no more space left between their mouths. He's kissing Sam. He's kissing Sam again, but this is different, they didn't talk about this before. This is a real kiss and her mouth is moving on his and clearly she's had some practice since then, but he doesn't want to think about that and then he stops thinking about that because she opens her mouth and moves her hands up to behind his neck.
There's a thought in the back of his mind that if he doesn't step it up, she'll make fun of him about that, too, and the idea makes him kind of happy, but also makes him move. He works his hands around her back and opens his mouth to slide his tongue out and meet hers. It's almost the same position they danced in -- almost. Her tongue is kind of, like, wrestling with his, but it's so much hotter than any kind of wrestling he used to associate with Sam. It's full on making out, this is the stuff those rumors were made of.
She moves her hands up into his hair and, oh my god, she tugs on it a little and he can feel a noise choke up in his throat. His hands are sliding down her back totally of their own volition and because he's still kind of worried she's going to slug him (he's always kind of worried about that with Sam, regardless of how her tongue is practically counting his teeth right now), he lets them stop right at the top of her ass.
Freddie's seen Sam commit to a lot of things in his life -- a burger, a fight, toilet-papering a house, but he never really thought about what that level of energy would be like in a situation like this. It's, um, wow, really intense. He feels like he should match her, at least as much as he can, so he backs her up into the wall and presses her into it.
This is like years of snarking, years of bickering, years of whatever they do all wrapped up into something awesome -- he's skirting a hand around her side and pressing his lower body further into her (if she teases him about that, he really will never talk to her again -- that's just biology, seriously, oh god) when it feels like she's pulling back and away from him. Suddenly he's falling forward and then he's on the ground. How did that happen?
He looks up, trying to get his bearings and there's Carly and Spencer staring down at him and then to his side, also on the floor, Sam.
Oh. They opened the door.
Carly's eyes are huge and Spencer looks oddly -- proud? Something like that.
Sam scrambles up off the floor, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand before turning to Carly and Spencer.
"What's up, you guys?" She's all casual, the same tone she uses when she's doing something anybody else would think was crazy.
"What's up with us guys?" Carly's voice goes up at the end of the sentence. "What's up with you guys?"
"Nothing, think I'm gonna go to bed." And that's it. She walks toward the stairs and then up them, catching Freddie's eye and winking before disappearing.
He's still on the ground and Spencer sticks out a hand to help him up. He takes it, pulling himself up and then they're in an awkward three-way staring contest. Carly's mouth is wide open, Spencer has that proud look on and Freddie feels like his face is on fire.
"OK, well, I'm tired, too. Uh, night!" He darts out their door and through his own, slamming it behind him without thinking. It takes a full 8 seconds for his mom to get out to the living room -- she must've been sleeping pretty heavily.
He starts walking toward his bedroom, "Sorry, Mom, I thought I heard something in the hall." She looks skeptical, but lets him pass.
He starts to shut his door when he hears her, "If you don't wash that lip gloss off your face, you're going to get a rash."
He's so surprised all he can get out is a sputtered, "What?"
"You heard me, Freddie." And she shakes her head, but with a smile.
Wow, maybe he is in a parallel universe.
Monday at school, Sam tapes a "Kick Me" sign to his back in second period.
After school, she kisses him again in a hallway at the Groovy Smoothie.
He's not sure what any of that means, but if he waits long enough, he figures a rumor will let him know.
&&.
fandom: iCarly.
pairing: Freddie/Sam
rating: PG-13?
words: 4180.
disclaimer: Fiction and about characters that definitely do not belong to me.
notes: Yeah, apparently I write iCarly fic now. And it's not even Carly/Freddie, which is what I thought I wanted. I'm not sure about this, but, like, I've watched a lot of iCarly lately (and always?) and I feel like maybe this was inevitable. Or something.
When Freddie was a kid, his mom put all these crazy rules down about male friends.
Boys are too rough, Freddie.
Boys are too dirty, Freddie.
Boys will get you hurt or killed, Freddie.
He's not sure it ever occurred to her that Freddie was a boy and he wasn't any of those things, but, regardless, the line had been drawn: his friends were going to have to be girls.
Carly was a prime candidate -- right across the hall, polite and, to Freddie's little five-year-old brain, the prettiest girl on the planet.
Sam, well, Sam was almost more of a boy than Freddie was, but she fell within the rules just by virtue of biology and so there he was, with two best friends, two girl best friends.
None of this was a problem until high school, until they all got older, until he found out what being 16 and having female friends meant.
It meant everyone assumed you were hooking up with them.
Both of them, one of them, both of them at the same time, it just depended on which rumor you heard.
The first few times it happened, he assumed Carly and Sam were hearing the same things, figured they were getting elbow-nudged and winked at and high-fived by strangers.
He doesn't find out different, doesn't think to ask them, until it's been going on for almost six months. Turns out, Carly's offended and Sam thinks it hilarious. Like he would've expected any different.
"They say WHAT?" Carly's standing in the middle of the living room, hands on her hips. Just past her is Spencer's latest sculpture, another robot, and it's in the same pose as Carly, and Freddie smiles a little bit.
"Oh, sure, you'd think this is funny! Now the whole school thinks I'm some sort of -- some sort of --some sort of hussy!" She's really thrown it into Carly-is-worked-up overdrive, all stammering, arms flailing.
Sam looks up from her Snack Pack. "Hussy?"
Carly throws her arms in the air, "Hussy! Floozy! A girl who makes out with best friend type people!"
Freddie's not sure what he's supposed to say here, he didn't start the gossip, didn't spread it, he's just the messenger. He stares at her for a little bit longer, confused and then, because apparently he's a total nub, says, "Well...you are, right? I mean, there was that one time last year?"
Carly lets out a scream and storms upstairs.
Whoops.
Sam licks at the edge of her pudding cup and then puts it down, looking at him.
"Fredward, I'm not sure what's going on in that abnormally large head of yours, but weren't you supposed to not bring that up?"
Oh. Yeah. He'd forgotten that part. It was just, after it happened, after he'd finally made out with Carly, he'd sort of let that whole thing go.
It was probably that he'd had to win some ridiculous bet (with a no-telling clause, even) just to get her to finally come anywhere near his mouth. And it was probably that he felt creepy like Nevel and it was probably that when the 45 seconds were up, she'd jumped away from like he had a disease.
It was probably a lot of things and all of them together kind of killed it for him. The Carly thing wasn't ever going to happen and so it didn't seem like a big thing anymore. It didn't seem like something that would send her stomping off to the studio, making up curse words along the way.
"Shut up, Sam. What was I supposed to say?"
"Uh, how about anything else?"
"Listen, it's just as big of a shock to me that people think I'm, you know, hooking up with you guys. And I'm not flipping out about it."
Sam wipes her hands on her jeans and stands up.
"Of course you're not, you get to be a stud. Girls, well, Carly, gets to be a hussy or whatever. It's a, a, what do you call it?"
"A double standard."
"Yeah, brainiac, a double standard."
Sam starts up the stairs and Freddie realizes there's no way they'll get through rehearsal tonight. He starts to pack up his stuff before calling after Sam.
"Does that make you a hussy, too?"
Somehow Sam's figured out how to aim around corners and a foam football comes flying down the stairs, hitting him in the head.
Carly kind of overreacts for the next three weeks. Every time she's around him in the halls, she stands at least five feet away, loudly saying things like, "Hello, Freddie, my friend who I do not make out with!"
He would be offended if he took it personally, so he tries not to.
Plus, he's got bigger things to deal with.
Sam still thinks the whole thing is hilarious and has turned it into a joke -- hanging all over him in the halls, making kissy noises every time he walks by, pretty much ruining anything he could possibly try and start with any other girl.
It's his own fault, really, if he hadn't have blushed the first time she pinched his butt, she wouldn't have smelled blood, wouldn't have seen that he was uncomfortable and she would've stopped before it even started. Freddie's constantly disappointed in himself that he hasn't learned by now.
It takes an entire month, but Carly finally lets it go, mostly because she's got a new boyfriend -- some ass in skinny jeans that calls himself an artist. Freddie's not even the slightest bit sad when she starts gushing about the guy, Topher (what a name, good grief), in the Groovy Smoothie after school.
All he feels is relief because maybe now things can go back to normal and she can stop making public service announcements each week on the show that say things like, "I just say no...to making out with our cameraman."
And things do go back to normal -- with Carly. Sam though, Sam just steps it up even more, watching him squirm as she asks him where he's taking her Friday night in front of the entire dance team.
It gets to the point where this is just something Sam does, as regular as eating, or hanging kids up by their backpacks in the lunchroom.
Freddie can't pinpoint the exact moment he starts rolling with it, but it's probably somewhere around the winter dance. The few times he gets close enough to a cute girl to ask her to be his date, Sam's there, telling him about the color of her (non-existent) dress and advising him on what color corsage to get her.
He gives up trying to ask anybody and the afternoon of the dance, he's halfway into offering to help Spencer with his latest creation (a paper mache dog standing on two legs) when Sam and Carly fall through the door, arms full of shopping bags.
"Oh good, you guys are home! Look at this dress I got for the dance, it'll totally match Topher's eyes." Carly's got her whole goofy-over-a-guy glow on and she starts tearing through bags, coming up with a shiny, light blue strappy thing.
Spencer looks at the dress and back over to his sculpture and his eyes gets wide, "It's perfect! This will look great on Daisy!"
Carly smiles and clasps her hands together, "I know! When I tried it on, I just knew it wou -- wait, Daisy? Who's Daisy?" Her face falls.
Spencer puffs up his chest proudly and points with both hands to his sculpture, "Daisy! She's a dog who thinks she's human!"
"Well, Daisy's gonna have to find her own dress! This one's mine and Topher's going to love it!" Freddie figures if he squinted hard enough he could probably see little cartoon hearts around Carly's head. How much longer is this going to go on? Just because he isn't crushing on her anymore doesn't mean he can stomach this level of cutesy adoration. A man's got to have some pride, right?
"Fine," Spencer says, looking dejected. "Sam, did you get anything you won't let Daisy wear?"
Sam shuffles her feet a little bit, looking almost...nervous? No, that can't be it. Sam doesn't get nervous. But still, she's not really saying anything and then all of the sudden Carly blurts out, "Yes, she did! She got an actual dress! Show them, Sam!"
Sam shoots Carly a pissed look, but it's too late, Carly's already back in the shopping bags, pulling out a red and black dress and holding it in the air like a trophy.
"I told her I'd buy her cheese fries if she tried on dresses with me and this one ended up totally perfect -- right, Sam?" Carly's beaming like a proud mother or something.
"Yeah, it was fine, I guess." Sam's shoulders are slumped and she looks almost embarrassed. "But then Carly made me buy it and now I can't buy that potato launcher I was saving up for."
Freddie gets a weird feeling in his stomach and his eyes keep going from Sam's body to the dress. It actually looks like it would look really nice, which is a weird thing for him to be thinking. He tries looking at Sam's face to shake it off, but she's wearing this mixture of resigned and maybe a little, like, hopeful? He can't figure out what's going on, so, in another epic nub move, he opens his mouth.
"Where are you going to wear that, Sam?"
The question isn't even all the way out of his mouth when Sam snaps to attention and gets her devious face on. Well, that 30 seconds was nice while it lasted.
"Ah, Fred, did you forget already? You're taking me to the dance. Mama doesn't just give the milk away for free, you've gotta take me out."
Somehow he didn't expect this. He didn't think it would go this far. Stupid fake flirting with him in the hall is one thing, actually going some place in public with him, like a real date, that's totally beyond. He's seen her take pranks pretty far before, but this feels different.
Maybe he can just call her bluff. Maybe if he agrees, like it isn't a thing, maybe she'll drop this and they can spend the night here like they're supposed to -- him helping Spencer and her shooting watermelon seeds at him through a straw.
He tries to stop himself from thinking about how nice she'd look in the dress and how his cheek burned for all of history class when she'd kissed him there during passing period two days ago. It didn't matter that it was in front of a group of sophomore girls.
"Oh, I know that, Sam. You're a classy lady." He tries for a smirk.
"You bet your butt I am, dork."
"Aw, honey, you know I love it when you call me that. I think I have a black tie -- that should match your dress." He's not sure where this is coming from, he's -- he's sort of flirting with her.
Carly's stopped bouncing and Spencer's stopped paper mache-ing and Freddie can see both of them, watching him and Sam, back and forth like a ping-pong match.
"You're on." And Sam grabs the dress from Carly before heading toward the stairs. Carly runs after her and as they round the corner, Freddie can hear Carly asking Sam what that was all about.
Freddie's not even sure what that was all about, but he only has a couple of hours to find that tie and try to convince his mom that she didn't need to video him shaving before the dance.
Obviously, his mom ends up video-taping everything except his getting dressed (and she probably would've done that, too, if he hadn't put his foot down). She got over Sam being his date pretty quickly -- quicker than he expected actually. Just when he thinks he's got his mom figured out she surprises him with something like this. It's like the Fencing Bensons all over.
By the time everyone's gathered to leave in the Shay apartment, his mom has switched from the video camera to the digital camera and it's actually her fault that he's now standing with his arm awkwardly around Sam, smiling as three camera flashes go off. (His mom's, Spencer's and Topher's mom's -- Sam had said her mom was all set to take pictures and then remembered she'd rather go to a bar.)
His hand is sweating on Sam's back and her dress feels so thin that he's sure she can feel it, too, but she's not saying anything. Maybe when there are more people around she'll say something -- more embarrassing that way.
Maybe he's hoping she won't say anything though.
Maybe he can just think about how he was right, how she does look nice in her dress, and maybe Sam will get tired of this game and they can just have a decent night and that feeling in his stomach will go away. Maybe that feeling's just stress about what crazy thing she'll do next and maybe it doesn't actually mean that he likes it when they touch or that he finally got over one best friend to move onto the other.
By the time they finally get to the dance, Freddie's stomach still hurts, but it's from laughing. Turns out Topher's a little bit more of a tool than he or Sam had realized and Sam had spent the entire ride over walking him into saying one ridiculous thing after another. Carly looks annoyed, but he saw her smiling behind her hand a couple of times. It feels good to sort of have her back to normal, not-gushing mode. It makes things feel a little bit less like a parallel universe.
He's not sure what he expected from the dance, but no one even looks twice at them. Probably because, thanks to Sam and a bunch of rumor and gossip hungry classmates, everyone already thinks they're dating.
Carly's immediately pulled onto the dance floor by Topher (that should be a sign right there -- what guy actually wants to go to the dance floor?) and he and Sam head straight for the refreshments table. He keeps an eye on her the whole time, alternately watching how her collarbone makes her look kind of delicate and making sure she doesn't spike the punch. That's not quite her style, but, well, he wouldn't put it past her.
They wander around the edges of the dance floor for almost half an hour before Sam gets pulled into a conversation with the JV football team about the merits of boiling eggs before you throw them. He's about to give up and sit on the bleachers when a girl from his history class asks him to dance. It's kind of out of left field, especially since he can't even remember her name, but before he can answer, Sam's there, declining for him and pulling him onto the dance floor.
Some slow song is playing, which is just as well because he's been sort of scarred about faster dancing since that weird dream. He puts his hands on Sam's hips and starts to sway, not letting himself even begin to think about what the heck is going on. Her hands are behind his neck and he's kind of relieved to feel that they're sweaty like his were before (or, uh, are now).
"Getting ready to cheat on me there, Fredward?" She's doing that pursed-lip smile she does and for maybe the first time ever he's not annoyed by it. Not even a little. Seriously -- what. the. hell.
"Oh, no, never. You're the only one I want, dear." This new, feistier side of him is making him more than a little impressed with himself. He usually tries to dish it back out, but doesn't get very far. This actually feels more like volleying a ball back and forth, instead of her just pegging him with one.
She moves in closer to him, tightening her arms behind his neck and he gets dizzy for a second, but matches her, moving his hands around her back. Now that he's a little bigger, he can see just how small she is. It's kind of weird. This is either going to end soon or this is going to go some place they haven't been since his fire escape years ago. And that was only for ten seconds.
They stay on the floor, dancing through two more slow songs and then Carly's there. She looks at them and seems confused, but shrugs it off.
"I broke up with Topher, let's go," and she's back to her normal self, perky voiced and everything.
He thinks about asking why and he can tell Sam's thinking the same thing, but he figures no use in questioning a good thing and a few minutes later they're on the way back to Bushwell.
Sam's obviously staying the night (she said that the most recent time she tried to come home late her mom thought she was a thief and tried to hit her with a frying pan), so they troop back to the apartments together.
As soon as they get to the doors, Freddie's mom jumps into the hallway and drills them with questions. Freddie feels guilty that Carly and Sam are getting hit, too, so he nods at them and leads his mom back into their apartment, turning around and throwing a "good night" out as he shuts the door. He sees...something on Sam's face right before he closes it fully, but at the last second she sticks her tongue out and he's back to being on uneven ground.
It doesn't matter that not even an hour ago he was close enough to her to smell her shampoo or that at one point, before she realized what she was doing, she drew a couple light circles with her finger on the back of his neck. It can't actually be about that with them -- she just does stuff to needle at him, right?
He thinks about it for the next hour, lying on his back in bed, running through how he's spent two months basically dating Sam and how maybe he got in a little over his head, got a little confused.
He's about to write the whole thing off and resolve to ignore it on Monday when his cell phone beeps. It's a text from Sam that just says, "Door."
He gets out of bed and walks to the door (he figured out years ago that a complicated tiptoe maneuver doesn't wake his mom) and when he opens it, Sam's there, still in her dress. He walks into the hallway and shuts the door behind him.
"What's up, Sam? It's a little late to be giving me a hard time, don't you think?" If there's an edge to his voice, well, she probably deserves it. Maybe she doesn't have emotions, but he does and they're a little shook up or crazed or something right now.
"Fredward." And she says it in this warning tone, like a watch-your-step sort of thing. What?
He looks at her, her hair's down and sort of messy and her make up is a little smudged and he's not sure why, but he gives up. Right there. Blood in the water and everything. He hasn't fully let his guard down around Sam since he was 9 and she tricked him into giving her all the money from his lemonade stand, but, well, she's pretty and she's his best friend and she's -- what is she doing?
She's moving toward him.
It's not aggressive, not violent-looking, it's almost hesitant and then she's right there, right in front of him, and oh my god. She's going to kiss him.
Freddie takes a half step toward her and then he's looking Sam in the eye (isn't that a dominance thing in dogs?) and then, without even thinking about it, he tilts his head a little bit and leans forward. There's a brief, horrifying moment where he thinks she's going to pull back, laugh at him and then slug him, but she doesn't. She definitely doesn't.
She tilts her head, too, and then she's leaning forward and then there's no more space left between their mouths. He's kissing Sam. He's kissing Sam again, but this is different, they didn't talk about this before. This is a real kiss and her mouth is moving on his and clearly she's had some practice since then, but he doesn't want to think about that and then he stops thinking about that because she opens her mouth and moves her hands up to behind his neck.
There's a thought in the back of his mind that if he doesn't step it up, she'll make fun of him about that, too, and the idea makes him kind of happy, but also makes him move. He works his hands around her back and opens his mouth to slide his tongue out and meet hers. It's almost the same position they danced in -- almost. Her tongue is kind of, like, wrestling with his, but it's so much hotter than any kind of wrestling he used to associate with Sam. It's full on making out, this is the stuff those rumors were made of.
She moves her hands up into his hair and, oh my god, she tugs on it a little and he can feel a noise choke up in his throat. His hands are sliding down her back totally of their own volition and because he's still kind of worried she's going to slug him (he's always kind of worried about that with Sam, regardless of how her tongue is practically counting his teeth right now), he lets them stop right at the top of her ass.
Freddie's seen Sam commit to a lot of things in his life -- a burger, a fight, toilet-papering a house, but he never really thought about what that level of energy would be like in a situation like this. It's, um, wow, really intense. He feels like he should match her, at least as much as he can, so he backs her up into the wall and presses her into it.
This is like years of snarking, years of bickering, years of whatever they do all wrapped up into something awesome -- he's skirting a hand around her side and pressing his lower body further into her (if she teases him about that, he really will never talk to her again -- that's just biology, seriously, oh god) when it feels like she's pulling back and away from him. Suddenly he's falling forward and then he's on the ground. How did that happen?
He looks up, trying to get his bearings and there's Carly and Spencer staring down at him and then to his side, also on the floor, Sam.
Oh. They opened the door.
Carly's eyes are huge and Spencer looks oddly -- proud? Something like that.
Sam scrambles up off the floor, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand before turning to Carly and Spencer.
"What's up, you guys?" She's all casual, the same tone she uses when she's doing something anybody else would think was crazy.
"What's up with us guys?" Carly's voice goes up at the end of the sentence. "What's up with you guys?"
"Nothing, think I'm gonna go to bed." And that's it. She walks toward the stairs and then up them, catching Freddie's eye and winking before disappearing.
He's still on the ground and Spencer sticks out a hand to help him up. He takes it, pulling himself up and then they're in an awkward three-way staring contest. Carly's mouth is wide open, Spencer has that proud look on and Freddie feels like his face is on fire.
"OK, well, I'm tired, too. Uh, night!" He darts out their door and through his own, slamming it behind him without thinking. It takes a full 8 seconds for his mom to get out to the living room -- she must've been sleeping pretty heavily.
He starts walking toward his bedroom, "Sorry, Mom, I thought I heard something in the hall." She looks skeptical, but lets him pass.
He starts to shut his door when he hears her, "If you don't wash that lip gloss off your face, you're going to get a rash."
He's so surprised all he can get out is a sputtered, "What?"
"You heard me, Freddie." And she shakes her head, but with a smile.
Wow, maybe he is in a parallel universe.
Monday at school, Sam tapes a "Kick Me" sign to his back in second period.
After school, she kisses him again in a hallway at the Groovy Smoothie.
He's not sure what any of that means, but if he waits long enough, he figures a rumor will let him know.
&&.