Arlandria is an area in Virginia that Dave Grohl, the lead singer of Foo Fighters and former drummer of Nirvana, escaped to during his Nirvana period whenever the fame became too much for him. The song, in my opinion, is about getting away from the fame and finding a place that is all your own. Therefore, despite the different interpretations out there, that is what I loosely based this story on.
Also, I'm aware that most song-fics follow the common format of lyrics and then the story and then lyrics and story and lyrics and story, and that's what I've done in the past, but I want to take a bit of a looser approach to this and write it a little more freely. The song is only the inspiration for this story, so that is why I don't think I should match the events to the song verse by verse.
Just to clarify, this takes place in iStart A Fanwar when they are waiting in that room where all of the fans were during the conference, but it's before any fans come in. I know Sam was supposed to be out getting a fatshake and they were supposed to be behind a curtain but just disregard that for now.
Sorry for the long author's note! If you read the whole thing, you get a gold star!
I don't want to bring up my headache with Carly. She already has enough to deal with. Webicon. Adam. Spencer's crazy antics. The whole Creddie vs Seddie ordeal. Carly doesn't need one more thing to worry about, and it's probably just a little headache. No big deal.
I take a deep breath and try to relax. Easier said than done. There are crowds of people filling into the conference room and taking their seats. Everyone is talking. They're talking about iCarly. They're talking about me.
When we had started the web show, no one had any idea that it would end up so big. Carly loves it, of course. She slaps on loads of make-up and genuine, sparkling, boy-winning smiles and waves to the people.
Freddie loves the attention he's finally getting. That's partially my fault. I've been teasing him as long as I can remember, but most of the things I tell him aren't true. Although he's a nerd, vice president of the Audio-Video club, member of Future Business Leaders of America, Debate Club president, steady Honor Roll member, and on the Yearbook Committee, he's actually a pretty cool guy. I mean, he doesn't wear sweatpants that are too small for him or nerdy glasses or bow-ties. He's reasonably attractive. He just doesn't realize it because I tease him all the time. It's not great for his self-esteem, and I should feel bad, but I don' t really care.
It was kind of funny to see him dive into that crowd of girls. Weird. But very funny.
My eyes glaze over and I focus on taking deep breaths. When you are one of the most famous people on the web about to answer questions in front of hundreds of fans who are going to post them on every web page imaginable and over-analyze every stinking word, it's hard not to crawl under the table and rock back and forth in the fetal position.
My head starts throbbing right behind my ear. I squeeze my eyes shut and rub my home-manicured nails over my temples, trying to ease the pain and block out the noise coming from the crowd of people.
"Hey, Sam. You okay?" Freddie asks as he catches my eye. He slides a fat shake across the table to me and takes his seat in the swivel chair. I stop the cup with my hand but don't take a sip. Nerves are making my stomach flip out and I'm afraid that I won't be able to hold anything down for very long. Now is so not the time to be puking my guts out.
I take a shaky breath and let the cold air relax me before answering the dork.
"Yeah. I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?" I try to put an edge in there and make myself sound like Sam, but I probably just sound stupid. I'm pretty sure he picks up on it. He raises an eyebrow at my shaky response.
"You sure? Cause you look kind of-"
"Dude!" I cut him off, yelling and attracting Carly's attention.
"What?"
"Would you stop?" I beg, cradling my throbbing head in my trembling hands. It feels like my throat is closing in and my heart is pounding so loud, I'm sure the security guard can hear it all the way across the room.
"Stop what? I'm worried about you!" Freddie protests. I look up at him and I'm suddenly self-conscience. I hadn't slept all night because I was nervous and I hadn't put on new makeup since this morning around 2 am. I probably have bloodshot raccoon eyes. I moan loudly and bury my head in my arms on the tabletop.
"Asking questions. Talking. God, you're so loud!" I scream, muffled by the table.
I hear Carly voice her concern from behind me. I don't know why everyone is freaking out so much. It's just one conference. I can push through it. They know that. I'm Sam Puckett. It's going to be a walk in the park compared to some of the other things I've gone through.
I feel Freddie wrap his arm around me and help me get up from my chair, but it doesn't really register. I'm just going through the motions at this point. My eyes are open the entire time, but I don't realize where we are. It's just a room. A cold room. It echoes. Every step. Every breath. Every swallow is echoed. And it's all so loud. My stomach is churning and my fists are knotted in my hair, desperate to relieve the pressure in my head. Freddie helps me into a chair. I'm uncomfortably aware of the whicker material poking through my jeans, and for some reason, the fact that it isn't entirely smooth, bothers me. My feet reach the floor in a way so that only my toes touch it and my heels are just suspended in space. The unevenness of it all isn't right. My feet should be flat on the floor. Not all sideways. I don't like them hanging. It's not how it should be. They aren't parallel. I panic and kick my feet around, accidentally hitting Freddie in the shin.
"Sam!" he yells, grabbing my wrists and stopping me from flailing my arms around. I hear him yelling but no matter how hard I try, I can't answer him. I don't want to open my mouth. It's too cold. I dread the feeling of the air drying out my tongue or the way it'll make my teeth cold. I don't want to have to touch my tongue to my teeth in order to talk. My arms fall limp and I'm vaguely aware of bursting into tears. I just sit there for a while. Maybe ten minutes. He's silent. I don't move. Neither does he. He just stands over me, holding my wrists the whole time. I let the hot tears roll down my face, painfully aware of the tracks they follow. Sloping slowly down my cheeks. A few fall on my shirt and I can see the little wet marks they leave. I try to focus on those. I feel the tears slope inward toward my chin and roll down my neck. The air is cold against my wet skin and I imagine icy lines, drawn by my tears, streaking across my face, like purple and blue frostbite tattoos.
I take a deep breath, glad that I don't freak out at the feeling of air in my throat. My eyes begin to register things. I see my elbows resting on my thighs. They're shaking and I have no idea how I'm holding myself up that way without collapsing. I'm suddenly aware that I'm no longer sitting on the uncomfortable wicker chair. I'm curled up on the floor between Freddie's legs. He has his arms wrapped protectively around me. My back hurts from holding this hunched over position for so long, so I lean back against his chest. My back cracks as it realigns into a more comfortable position against his chest. My shoulders fall as I realize how tightly I've been holding myself.
"Sam?" He mumbles. His face is now in my hair, since I leaned back, but he moved. The sudden flip from the quiet stillness of the bathroom to the sound of someone talking feels like being punched in the head, but the feeling passes. I don't have the energy left to answer him so I muster up all of the strength I have left and manage a small groan. I hear him sigh and he slips out from under me, helping prop me up against the cold bathroom wall, making sure I won't slump over without his support, which I do a couple of times. He stands up and does something near the sink. My eyes are tearing up and I try to focus on the blurry image of the graffiti-covered wall in front of me. The sound of running water catches my attention and I turn to watch Freddie. He's standing at the sink, wetting a stack of paper towels and holding his phone up to his ear.
"Hey Carls." He answers in a hushed tone. I can hear Carly's panicked voice coming in over the telephone since the room is silent. He waits until her yammering stops before he answers slowly. His eyes remain locked on mine the entire time. "Yeah, she'll be fine. Just give us like, fifteen minutes, okay?" Then the yammering continues for a while. I can tell she's yelling. We had both ditched her right before the conference and she was probably being bombarded with questions. "Yeah, I don't know. I don't think she can talk right now. She's still kind of, uh, out of it." Freddie says slowly, trying to judge my reaction.
I try to shift so that I can stand up but I can feel the contents of my stomach lurch with the slightest movement. I groan and lean back against the wall again as I'm hit with a wave of nausea. After considering it for a second, I decide that it's not the type that's going to pass, and I weakly crawl over to the toilet, attempting to pull my sweaty, matted curls up away from my face. I hear Freddie flip his phone shut. Suddenly, he's by my side, raking his hands through my hair, and pulling it up in a messy ponytail.
I hate throwing up. I'm not going to go into detail, for your sake, and really, for mine. It's something I do not want to have to re-live if I can help it. So let's skip to right after.
I let out a sob and my knees collapse from under me, landing in an awkward sitting position with my legs sprawled out at weird angles. My head falls so that I'm resting it on the toilet seat. Which is nice because I don't have to hold my head up and I get a nice breeze blowing across my neck, but I'm afraid that the smell will make me sick again, so I scoot back about a foot from the toilet. I relax as something cold surrounds my neck and I briefly remember the stack of paper towels Freddie has. It's amazing, like magical powers or something. It soothes my headache, stomachache, and it makes me think clearer, all at once. I turn around to face Freddie, careful to keep my legs stretched out against the cold floor so I don't feel like I'm overheating. His arm reaches around my head awkwardly, holding one of the wet paper towels to the back of my neck. We're both silent for a few minutes. I'm thankful that even after everything I put him through, I still have a great friend in him. Better than Carly, even. He knew me well enough to realize something was wrong. I realize how big I owe him now and smile. I don't know why, but it makes him smile back.
"Samantha, what have you done to yourself?" he mumbles while he peels another wet paper towel from the stack he has next to him. He folds it in half and starts to wipe my eyes clean. I shudder when it touches me, but obediently close my eyes and let him wipe away the traces of tears.
"Do you know what happened? Like, why you got like that?" he asks, as he trails down to wipe my nose off. I shake my head and open my eyes. He throws the paper towel, skillfully making it into the trashcan across the room, and picks up another one. This time, he wipes my mouth, lingering around my lips.
"I think you had a panic attack, Sam." He balls up the paper towel and throws that one away, too. "Here. Rinse your mouth out. You can just spit in the toilet." He says, handing me an open water bottle before leaning over to flush the toilet so that I won't be too grossed out when I spit. I take a swig and make a face. I can't help it. It tastes so gross. It's all I can do not to throw up again when I see what I end up spitting out.
"You were really jittery this morning, too." Freddie remembers.
"Yeah, well I kind of had a lot of caffeine…" I admit.
"Sam!"
"Well, what was I supposed to do? I didn't want to fall asleep at Webicon!" I cry weakly, holding my hands up in defense for a second or two before letting them drop to my sides.
"How much sleep did you end up getting?" He asks, giving me his adorably concerned face.
"Uh, not a lot. Like, none." I say, smiling, feeling strong enough to annoy him a little bit.
"Sam," He starts, but I don't want to hear it.
"I know." I interrupt him, in case he's going to start quoting his mom on healthy habits.
"Okay. How much coffee did you drink?"
"I didn't drink an coffee." I say honestly.
"Then what-"
"Only a couple of Rockstars." I grin at the horrified expression he gives me.
"Do I need to say it?" He smirks.
"Nope."
"Are you feeling up to walking? We should probably rescue Carly eventually."
I'm not ready to admit it, but I'm enjoying this time I have with Freddie. It's nice to be on the receiving end of this whole comforting thing. I usually have to do this for my mom. And I really don't want to have to manage the fans. It's one thing when it's a number on Freddie's computer screen, but when I actually see how many people watch iCalry and show up at Webicon to meet us, it seems impossible. Intimidating. I really don't want to go back to that.
"Maybe we could stay here a while. Just to make sure I don't freak out in public or anything." I suggest.
"Okay. We can stay as long as you want." Freddie agrees, giving me a small smile and sitting down next to me.
"Thanks."
"Here. This'll probably taste gross at first, but it'll help." Freddie tells me, holding out a stick of gum wrapped in silver aluminum foil.
"Thanks. You know I should've known what was going on. I've seen my mom go through, like, twenty of these. I usually end up doing for her what you did for me. So I know how hard it is. Thanks, I guess. I owe you." I mumble the last part. Those are words most Pucketts never have the nerve to say. I hide my shame by cracking my gum and startling him when it echoes through the bathroom.
"Yeah. You can make it up to me later. But that makes sense, you know. A lot of people think it's genetic."
"Huh. That's really nub-like of you to know that." I smirk.
"I knew you'd say that."
"Glad I don't disappoint."
"You never do. I don't blame you, though, for freaking out. I hate having to meet all the fans." Freddie admits.
"Really?"
"Yeah. I mean, they don't see me very often during the show, so they think they know exactly who I am based on the thirty seconds of footage that they have, and I have to act like that person when I meet them. It seems so fake. It's super stressful. Then there's the whole Seddie vs. Creddie stuff." he laughs, remembering the fans inability to sit on the same side of the room as each other.
"Oh my god, I know. It feels like twilight. It's like you're Bella, or something."
"Yeah. Wait, how would you know anything about Twilight?" he asks me.
"Carly never shuts up about it." I laugh. She's a die hard Jacob fan. To be honest with you, the amount of muscle he has is disgusting.
"Typical. Oh, and don't even get me started on the FanFiction."
"I know. You know, someone wrote a whole, like, 3,000 word story on that shirt I wore. The 'Church Pants' one." I smile, remembering all the crazy assumptions that author had made.
"How is that even possible?"
"Apparently, because I call you a nub, that means you wear things like church pants, which means I'm in love with you because I wore a shirt with something you could potentially wear written on the front."
"I'm speechless."
"I know."
"That's ridiculous."
"I know."
"And we have a color and a pattern, too." he says.
"Seriously?"
"Stripes and purple."
"Why?" I ask.
"We always wear red and blue at the same time and red and blue makes purple. And I'm always wearing stripes and you hate them but rarely call me out on it."
"Do they, like, have no life, or something?" I ask, shaking my head.
"I guess. Hey, did you see the way Carly acted when they started coming in to the conference room?"
"You mean how she practically ate up the attention she was getting?"
"Yeah. She's probably the only one who actually likes the fame we're getting."
"She's such a camera whore. It wouldn't surprise me if she becomes, like, some movie star or the second highest paid teenager in America."
"That sounds like her. Sam, can you be honest with me on something?" he asks. My guard goes up at the sound of his serious tone.
"Maybe." I say, trying to throw a warning in with my voice.
"Is she a good friend?" That catches me off guard.
"I don't know. She's my best friend." I answer carefully.
"Is she your best friend, or are you hers?"
"She used to be." I mumble. I haven't really talked to anyone about how I feel about Carly, but I don't really like her anymore. We've grown apart, I guess. Leave it to Freddie to notice that.
"What happened with you guys?" he asks, leaning his head on the back wall.
"I think it's because of iCarly. That's when we started fighting and stuff. I mean, we fought before, but it actually meant something after we started iCarly. There was the whole Penny Tee thing when we split up and then when we took different sides when Fleck and Dave were fighting. And then the bazillion times we've fought over a guy. You remember when my mom and I got into that fight?"
"Yeah. Didn't Carly, like, help you guys make up or something?"
"Or something. We ended up admitting to a ton of stuff we had done. Like, she told me she sold my bunny and I said that I told her boyfriend she was hit by a bus. She was so pissed. Things just got worse." I grimace, remembering that night. My mom had hit me for the first time.
"I'm sorry. And remember that time she was, like, super close to straight As and then that stupid teacher gave her a B in his class and she threw a mega-diva fit?" Freddie asks, poking me with the nose of the water bottle.
"Yeah. You know, I was pretty close to strait Cs that semester. But I ended up getting a D in History."
"I hate history"
"Me too. I just wish Carly had been grateful for her almost straight As. I felt so stupid while she was freaking out that day." I'm freaking out again on the inside. I can't believe how open I'm being with him. I'm not supposed to be like this with him. Or with anyone.
"So she's not your best friend?" he asks hesitantly.
"I guess not." I admit. It's the first time I've said that. It feels good to finally admit what's been on my mind for years.
"What about us?" he asks after a few minutes of silence. I let the words hang in the silence of the bathroom, turning them over in my head.
"What do you mean?" I ask, making sure that I don't give anything away in my voice.
"What are we? Are we friends?" he pushes. This is definitely not something I've thought about. At least, not very often.
"Normally I would say we were enemies, if anyone asked." Of course, this doesn't really answer his question.
"Same, but after all this, you can't really mean that, can you?"
He brings up a good point.
"Nah. So we're like, frenemies." I say, using a word that I'd heard Carly use to explain us all the time.
"Frenemies that…you know…kiss…every now and then." he says awkwardly.
I can't believe he has the nerve to bring that up. How do I answer that? Is he trying to send me into another panic attack? Does he enjoy holding my head while I puke and holding me down until I stop spazzing? That's when it hits me. He doesn't enjoy these things, but he puts up with them. He puts up with them because, somewhere down the line, we changed. Us. Whatever sort of weird, twisted relationship we had, changed into something new. It doesn't have a name. Not a simple one. But I know he cares for me. And I decide that I care for him. I choose my words carefully, and don't say anything until I am absolutely sure that they give none of my emotions away. I'm proud when my voice doesn't even shake.
"So we're complicated then. Who isn't?" I sigh and rest my head on his shoulder. I don't think much of it. I'm exhausted from the events of the morning and I'm sick of holding my head up. I feel like one of those babies who just learned how to sit up and puts all of its energy into holding up its head. I have new respect for babies. Heads are heavy. Huh. Random thought of the day. I hear Freddie sigh and his hands tangle in my hair, tugging gently at the knots.
"What are you doing?" I ask tentatively.
"I'm trying to fix your hair. I put it up before you threw up, but it looks like crap. Do you have a brush or something?"
"There's one in my purse, but I left it with Carly."
"S'okay. I'll just use my fingers." he says. I feel him take the hair band out of my hair, which is rather difficult. My hair sort of has a mind of its own, and in the fifteen or so minutes we have been talking, it has tangled itself around the band and made it pretty time consuming work to just let my hair down in one piece. It takes about twenty minutes for Freddie to work his fingers through the rat's nest of blonde hair that is threatening to consume my head, and even then, it is really frizzy at the ends.
"Huh. Kay, I'm so glad I'm not a girl. I could never handle having to do something with my hair every day."
"Wait, you're not a girl?" I joke, and although I can't see his face, he is probably rolling his eyes.
"Glad you're feeling better." He murmurs in my ear sarcastically. I know he can't see it, but I smile.
"You guys in there?" comes a yell from the other side of the door. Then Carly pounds on it, like, eight times. So much for a peaceful, relaxing moment with Freddie, my frenemy that I occasionally kiss.
"Let's go." Freddie whispers, and stands up, offering me his hand.
It doesn't matter how strong you think you may be, fame is a funny thing. Some people can handle it, some people can't. Fame doesn't choose its victims based on who it thinks can handle it. You'll find yourself in a situation where you have all the fans you could possibly want and then some. Everyone will know you, love you, want to be you. But whenever it becomes too much, find someone or someplace that you can fall back on. Return to. A place of your own where you can relax and be you without the cameras snapping in your face, be it a bathroom, a small town in Virginia, anywhere.
Fame, fame, go away, come again some other day
Oh, God you gotta make it stop
Hush, now settle down
button up, don't make a sound
Close your eyes, turn around
Help me burn this to the ground
My sweet Virginia, oh, God you gotta make it stop
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