Title: Falling Together

Fandom: iCarly

Pairings: Sam-centric with a lot of pairings, some that are alluded to, some that come out full force. What can I say? She's confused. But if you must know, there's shades of Sam/Carly and Sam/Spence with a side helping of Sam/OCs. Oh, yeah, and a pinch of Sam/Freddie.

Summary: Breakdowns can create breakthroughs. Things fall apart so things can fall together.

It's growing darker outside, later, now that it's June. The sliver of sky visible through the apartment window has long fingers of pink splayed across it and Sam counts them from her curled perch in one of Spence's easy chairs, the one he found outside months ago, worn in the arms and impossibly soft.

The lights are off. The radio is playing something old, at least by Sam's standards. She tries to hum along, giving up when the melody is lost to her. Lost, like so many other things and Sam thinks her heart might be breaking, just a little bit.

She's sixteen now, going on sixty. Things have changed since the days when the worst thing she could do was spit watermelon seeds at Freddie or hide Jeremy's bulging box of tissues, laughing when he panicked. She used to think a lot of things were funny back then. Everything was stupid and wonderful and she wanted tackle the world and make it her own, forever. It seemed a simple goal back then.

It seems an impossible dream now.

She shifts uneasily in the chair. The loft is too quiet, with Carly asleep in her room and there used to be a day when Sam wouldn't think twice about jumping on the bed, waking her up just for the hell of it but she doesn't feel comfortable doing that anymore. It's not that Carly means to make her feel out-of-place but people change and ...

Screw that, Sam thinks, her jaw tightening. She's never lied to herself before, why start doing it now? She knows that Carly isn't her best friend anymore, it's obvious in those looks she gets when Carly thinks that Sam is occupied with something else, glances edged with pity, on some occasions, ringed with revulsion.

Carly at sixteen is a star. At school, online, in life. Sam is her burden, a leftover from childhood she won't shake, if only for propriety's sake. The thought of not having Sam around makes Carly nervous in a primal way, like the loss of a beloved toy, but the day is coming when she won't be afraid anymore.

Sometimes Sam feels Carly's absence as if she's already gone, like ice lodged in her heart.

It's hard to blame Carly for all of it. After all, it's not like she's gone out of her way to keep her place at Carly's side. Sam had her first taste of booze at fourteen and decided she liked it, finishing off the six-pack of beer that Carly abandoned after a few sips. She threw up, of course, but that didn't deter her. It just made her stop drinking beer and move up to more interesting things. Her grades suffered, her interest in the webshow waned and Carly began doing more and more things without her, making new friends who looked at Sam as if she were a weird, unknown species of animal whom Carly had been keeping as a pet all these years.

Carly didn't go out of her way to disagree with them.

But she still kept Sam around, letting her stay in the loft just as before, eating their morning cereal together in silence. Sam's been reading a lot more lately, Cherryh and Wilde, Neil Gaiman and James Joyce, the latter she pretends to not understand. Carly finishes her homework and goes to the mall on the weekends, buying things made by Coach and Juicy, ridiculous, expensive things that make her look like everyone else.

Unlike Sam who buys her things from garage sales and flea markets, dollar t-shirts advertising some ancient TV show, stained jeans and shoes that will never fit right, having been worn through by someone else, years before.

Her mother's latest boyfriend has "nephews" and Sam sometimes hangs with them, throwing back shots of sickly sweet liquor, taking the occasional spicy drag from a joint. Taking turns kissing them, until they're a writhing heap, lying on the hard floor of some abandoned apartment. She always comes back to Carly after these trysts, reeking of sin and heat. Carly's eyes glaze over when she sees her, her mouth set into a hard line and she shrugs with an apathy Sam knows she doesn't feel.

Sam would like to think it's jealousy, a throw-back to the times when she and Carly would make out on Carly's bed, breathless and wide-eyed, shocked at how good it felt. They were just kids fooling around but Sam still remembers how soft Carly's lips were, how she'd arch up underneath her, making little noises the memory of which still sends a sharp throb between Sam's legs. Sometimes she thinks about Carly when she's with a boy, making Sam feel both guilty and hot as hell.

Carly pretends not to remember those nights and Sam lets her. It's just another one of those things on a growing list that they don't talk about.

I kissed a girl and I liked it

The taste of her cherry chapstick

I kissed a girl just to try it

I hope my boyfriend don't mind it

The sun is almost set. Sam closes her eyes, letting the darkness close in over her like a blanket. She might wake up here or go out, she hasn't decided yet, her cell phone kept on vibrate. She's not in the mood to party, especially not alone and Spence is puttering around somewhere, banging together another hopeless piece of "art" he knows isn't anything close to art.

He's lucky, she thinks. He's found the key to happiness, throwing crap wherever it might stick and enjoying the outcome. Sam likes Spence and he likes her, if his appreciative looks are any indication. Men are funny that way, Sam knows, what was once a little girl turns into a completely different person once they sprout those new and interesting body parts.

It makes her smile, the thought of Spence lusting after her, swallowing hard when she walks by, barefoot, wearing a halter top and shorts that fit a little on the tight side. She doesn't pull back her hair anymore, she lets it fall down the sides of her face, with punky strands of blue and black dyed throughout. Sometimes she cuts it herself, laughing at the mess she makes and Spence once offered to cut it -- he'd probably do a good job too -- but a glare from Carly made him stop mid-sentence.

If anything Carly's not, it's dumb and Spence's glances haven't gone unnoticed by his sister. He doesn't mention it again after that.

But he hasn't stopped looking.

Freddie has grown up as well, all wide shoulders and muscles rippling beneath skin where nothing but scrawny bone used to be. He lifts weights like it's a religion, doing sit-up after sit-up, grimacing with a determined defiance at the world.

Sam used to make fun out of him about it; "the Schwazerweenie" she called him, which made him lift even harder his face and chest sheened with sweat, his mouth set in an angry line. In a strange way, Sam understood what he was doing, he was escaping -- his mother, his body, his life ... her, even. She stopped mocking him about it after a while, stopped picking on him altogether when he casually picked up one of Spence's larger metal works and moved to the other side of the room as if it weighed little more than a feather.

Little Freddie Benson wasn't so little anymore. When the house phone rings and it's him on the line, Sam bites back the sarcasm. Who calls anyone on house phones anymore, she thinks. "Yeah?"

"Carly awake?"

"Nope."

"Okay, tell her I called," he finishes and the line clicks shut.

Nice talking to you too, Sam thinks, dangling the wireless phone between her fingers, letting it fall into a crack of chair. They were closer when they fought, even if Freddie sucked at defending himself against Sam's less charitable impulses.

There was a kind of love there too at one point, the uneasy tremblings of two enemies stumbling toward that point where hate blurs into passion but Sam had pushed him away one - or ten- too many times. Maybe it was fear, maybe it was a nagging sense that he could do better, or maybe they were too alike at heart for their own good, or maybe ...

Sam regrets it, sometimes. More than she'll openly admit.

Oddly, Freddie calls back. She fishes up the receiver from the folds of the chair and he starts right away, as if he's never hung up. "My parents are going away for a week, next Friday. Are you coming over? I'm throwing a party, but nothing wild. Just ... just friends."

Halting voice on those last words, and Sam wants to laugh, wants to come back at him with something harsh and witty, but she's too tired. "Yeah, I'll come by. Want me to bring anything?"

She's talking about food, but Freddie's obviously heard stories about what kind of things Sam's been getting a hold of lately and quickly demurs. "No, no ... just yourself. And Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't bring those jerks with you."

He's talking about her "cousins" as her mother calls them, but Sam pretends not to understand. "I know a lot of jerks, Freddie. You have to be more specific."

"Very funny."

"I'm not talking about you," she sighs, leaning her head back against the chair's velvet cover, jerking back when she remembers that the chair is one of Spence's "finds". "Anyway, I'll bring chips, is that good?"

"Bacon flavored?"

She can hear the smile in his voice and it warms her, straight to her toes. "Definitely."

"Sounds good. Talk to you later, Sam."

She stays on the line for a minute or two after he hangs up. It's the most civil conversation they've ever had. Pleasant, almost and Sam smiles against the phone. Things could be a looking up, a tiny bit. Maybe.

She'll have to wait and see.

more to follow ...

This is my first piece in this fandom so reviews are appreciated. Thanks for reading!