fall from grace, an icarly fanfic

I'm looking at you, really looking at you, without the happiness that I keep picturing you forever touting around like a shield, and I think I'm seeing for the first time that you're human too.

I think it terrifies me. It absolutely terrifies me, watching somebody who I'd thought of as untouchable and in a relationship that I considered unbreakable, falling from grace and crashing on the ground in front of me. It's a bit dramatic, sure, but that's about how I feel.

It's shocking, really.

I think I might be reading too much into at, as though you getting dumped and being truly heartbroken for the first time in all the time that I've known you is some kind of symbolic gesture towards all my musings about nothing being permanent. But really, we're just teenagers, and no matter how much time I kill philosophizing, I'm not coming up with anything new or intelligent at all.

You're looking back at me, catching my gaze, and even though your eyes are red and puffy it's like you're still refusing to cry in front of me, like it's admitting some kind of weakness. You're my best friend, damnit, why can't you just trust me enough to admit that you feel too?

"Sam?" I hear myself saying, and you give me a crooked half smile and try to shrug it off, try to shrug off the look on your face and everything that just happened like you do in every part of your life, and it almost makes me want to cry too. It almost makes me want to break with you, because it's the only thing I can think of to show you that it's okay. Almost, though, because it's not like I've never cried in front of you, and obviously it hasn't changed your view on things very much.

You look at me again, or you keep looking at me, I'm not sure, but something changes and it's like you're just realizing that I'm here or you're looking at me for the first time tonight. Normally that would probably fall under the 'bad things' category, but something changes on your face and your posture and it's a positive thing, I think. Who knows though, I'm wrong all the time.

"Yeah?" You say, and you're trying to cover it up but your voice is hoarse and breaking from crying and your nose is still just a little bit red, and I didn't think I'd ever see you so broken up over a boy but you're sitting here and you're living proof that yeah, I'm wrong. Not that proving that I'm wrong is really important right now, because in all these years this is the closest I've ever seen you to crying.

I don't have anything to say, and I look at the ground and try to pull words out of the carpet between the fabric with my mind, but all I manage to do is maybe move a couple of pieces of dust. Except, wait, no, never mind, that was just because you moved your foot.

That really didn't work out at all.

So I just hug you instead, and I can feel you shake like you're about to start crying again, and I'm not sure if I should hug you tighter or let you go, but you're hugging me and you're not letting go so I guess I'll just do the same.

"You know.." You start, and then you trail off with your breath on my ear and I smile, kissing the side of your head.

I guess I never really was any good with words.

"Uhm, Sam?" I ask, still hugging you and I can feel you moving your head like you're trying to look at my face without letting go of me. I don't really think necks bend that way, but you never know.

"Yeah?"

"Do you want some ham?"

I think I may have said the right thing for once, because you're smiling and you're relaxing your shoulders and you laugh a little bit, and you say, "Carly, you're going to make me obese one day,"

"Don't worry, I'll pay for the gastric bypass," I tell you, not that you and your metabolism will ever have to worry about being morbidly obese and having your feet amputated.

"Fuck that shit, you're paying for my soon to be fifteen thousand calories a day,"

I shrug, grab a potato chip from a bag next to my bed and throw it at you. You catch it. In your mouth. You're just a ninja like that, what can I say?

"So I have half a pound of ham, a bacon egg and cheese, half a dozen movies and a blanket and my Carly," You say, sounding quite happy with life while you snuggle into the blanket wrapped around you and me and the pillow next to us, the one with the weird neon splatters on it that you said reminded you of puking up scene kid clothes.

"You do,"

"Can I go get dumped by stupid cheating guys more often?" You ask, grinning at me and leaning your head against my shoulder in a sweet but uncharacteristic and rare show of affection. It's another little thing that kind of makes me feel like my heart is breaking, watching you and not being able to fix things and letting you pretend that you're fine.

"No, let's not, I don't have that much money and there aren't that many pigs,"

You shrug, and take another bite of your bacon egg and cheese and drop some chips in your mouth.

"Have you ever realized how good potato chips taste with these?"

"Uhm.."

"You poor deprived child, try this," You say, waving the two in my face and I'm looking at you like you're crazy, and now that I think about it, that expression makes up a good eighty percent or so of what you see of my face.

"Really, I'm okay, thanks,"

"You don't know what you're missing," You shrug, chewing up your supposedly tasty concoction of fried artery doom.

You're looking at me again, I can just tell, even though it's dark and we were laying in my bed with our backs against each other. I can just tell things like that, and then I can hear your voice and you're saying my name, asking if I'm still awake.

"Sam, do I ever sleep?"

You're shaking your head, I can tell by the way your hair brushes against my skin, and I can feel you breathing on my cheek and that's when I realize just how close to me you really are.

We lay there in silence for a moment, and you don't move and I don't really know what to think, really.

"Can I be honest and say I don't really know how I feel about you?"

Christ, Sam, we dated a year ago and you broke up with me.

I wish I could be angry with you. I wish that I could just hate you and be done with it, because it really would make things so much easier. Honestly, it would. But you're my best friend and I can't exactly hate my best friend and god, I don't even know what I'm saying or thinking or doing anymore.

It's one in the morning. How am I supposed to function right now?

I don't think I'm supposed to. I'm most definitely not supposed to, so I just look dumbly at the ceiling in the dark and wonder if you're expecting me to say anything to that, or if you'll ramble on to a silent room and hope I'm not angry.

You know me too well to know that you can't make me angry though, not by feeling. It's not like you can help it. It's not like I've never thought the same thing.

You're still not saying anything, and maybe I'm supposed to talk. Maybe it's supposed to be me that rambles on to a dark empty room and an ex girlfriend laying in my bed next to me, but I'm not really sure.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I ask, because it's the best I could come up with. And I don't mean it in a mean, accusatory kind of way, I just really don't know what that's supposed to mean.

Maybe we shouldn't be having this conversation when neither of us are barely awake, but it's a bit late for that now.

Get the pun?

Yeah, I'm not funny, I know.

"I'm not sure," You say, and I can feel your arm brushing against mine when you put it behind your head, and we're both watching the ceiling like we might stars, but there's nothing up there except peeling old paint and cobwebs.

I don't know how I feel about you either, but I'm not going to tell you that. You're just rebounding. I'm not going to be your rebound twice. I absolutely refuse.

I don't think I can help it.

I can feel you shifting next to me over the blankets, and I'm not sure if it was me or you, but in the space of about five seconds we've gone from laying next to each other to you being on top of me and your hands in my hair and your lips against mine, just like autumn of our freshman year. And it's not some sexually charged, making out kind of 'on top of me' because you've never kissed me so softly, and I've never seen you touch something so gently as you're touching me now, like I'm some precious, delicate glass vase or something.

It's so unlike you in every way possible, but it's sweet somehow.

I don't know, really, but I'm kissing you back because I don't know what else to do. I've never known what else to do, so why should now be any different?

And you're breathing softly through your nose, and it's the only thing that breaks the nearly eerie silence of a dark room in an early winter Seattle night.

"I lied," You tell me, your forehead resting against mine and your lips brushing against mine with every word.

You've got me stumped and at a loss for words again, so I don't say a thing, and you tell me you think you might love me.

I know better though, because you don't, you just love the feelings and you hate being alone. You can't stand being alone. Never have, never will, and in a way I'm almost jealous; as long as you have someone, anyone, you're content.

It's me that kisses you this time, and you just smile against my lips and lay yourself down next to me, your head in the crook of my shoulder as you fall asleep for the first time in a while.

I wake up to you poking my cheek and grinning like a six year old at five in the morning on Christmas, and you tell me that Spencer just cooked bacon and eggs and pancakes, and that you know I want some.

Actually, I don't, but we'll ignore that.

The way you're acting makes me forget, even if just for a moment, that anything at all happened last night, and I open my mouth to ask, but you just shake your head and smile an almost sad looking little half smile, and then you pull me up and half drag me downstairs to breakfast.

I'll never understand, I guess.

I don't know what this is. At all. But you know what? I've lost all my motivation for writing and I haven't posted anything in weeks. I guess I have to start somewhere, right?