The Things We Don't Say
iCarly | Sam/Freddie | PG | ~1,119
Sam's become so integrated in his life that he can't imagine what it'd be like without her.
A/N: For the schmoop_bingo prompt 'friendship'. Written before iOMG.
Sam wears boxer shorts and eats more than anyone he's ever met and she'd much rather throw a punch than watch a chick flick. She listens to music loud enough to burst eardrums and knows an encyclopedia of curse words and she has a fifty minute speech prepared about how high heels were created by evil, misogynistic men.
She was the first person to beat him up and the first person to kiss him, and Freddie's pretty sure that those two things really shouldn't make as much sense as they apparently do.
They wouldn't call each other friends, at least not aloud, and Freddie's not entirely convinced they're not just victims of Carly's circumstance even when he lets himself think about it privately. He'd still do anything to make sure Sam's safe, make sure she's happy, and he knows she'd do the same (has done the same) for him. Even if they have to drive each other crazy first.
No, they're not friends, not in the way he and Carly are at least, and that's more worrying than anything because quantifying everything as friendship would be easy, uncomplicated, but he can't and that brings up the layered and freaking terrifying question of what they actually are.
And the thing is, Freddie doesn't hate Sam; the word 'hate' lost its meaning between them years ago, became an excuse in itself, spoken instead as something bordering on 'I like you' and 'I want you' and 'I wish you didn't make me feel this way'. Words they've both fought against with every fiber but silently let slip anyway.
Sam's become so integrated in his life that he can't imagine what it'd be like without her. He thinks about college where he'll have no Carly and no Sam, where he'll have to brave the world completely alone, and it makes an uneasy knot twist in his stomach. He's supposed to be filling out applications, choosing where he wants to go and applying for scholarships he's pretty sure he'll get, but he can't seem to get any further than his name before he has to stop.
Carly's already finished hers, of course.
"I'm thinking Stanford," she says, smiling nervously as if every school in the country won't be fighting for her in a few months time. "Or maybe Brown."
"Yeah, yeah," Sam says between bites of her mammoth ham sandwich. "Just make sure there's plenty of money on your food card for when I come to stay. Or, better yet, get me my own."
"I'm not sure I can actually do that, Sam," Carly says, but Freddie knows she'll try anyway.
"How about you, Fredward?" Sam says. "Which unlucky school are you thinking about calling home?"
Freddie sighs, shrugs his shoulder and plays around pointlessly with his camera equipment.
"Don't know yet," he says, and then listens to Carly talk top speed about the importance of applying early for ten minutes whilst ignoring the curious look Sam's giving him.
Later, when the Shay's door closes behind them, Sam follows Freddie into his own apartment and out onto the fire escape.
"So," she says, after awhile, "why haven't you chosen a school? I figured you and Mommy would have had it all planned out since you were four or something."
"I don't know," he says, and the frustration is evident in his voice. He wonders when he became comfortable enough to show Sam his emotions, and then wonders if maybe he's just never learnt how not to. "It's just…It's such a big decision. I mean, it's going to be a whole new life. How do you know what's right?"
She shrugs. "I don't know. Pin the tail on the college guide?"
"Yeah, thanks." He sighs. "I'm going to miss this."
"What, me making sarcastic comments while you talk about your feelings?"
He rolls his eyes. "No. This. All of it. The three of us hanging out, iCarly, spending more time in the Shay's apartment than our own, everything."
"Yeah," Sam says, and her voice is just a little too quiet. "But we'll still be us. I mean, as long as you guys don't go off and become all academic and forget about me."
"Never," he says, knocking his shoulder gently against hers, and it sounds way too genuine to his own ears.
They stare out at the city, arms pressed close together, and Freddie thinks it'd be calm if he weren't so hyperaware of her every breath.
"You'll come visit me, right? Wherever I end up?" he says, and he knows it's stupid, knows he's pushing his luck, but he has to be sure.
She turns to look at him, her lip caught between her teeth, and he wonders then if she's going to kiss him. If this is it.
"Of course," she says instead, "but the same deal applies; I want my own food card."
Freddie laughs and it's partly relief and partly frustration.
"I wouldn't expect anything less," he says, and he feels the permanent knot in his stomach constrict a little more when she smiles.
"I gotta go," she says when the seconds have ticked by a little too long and they're beginning to stray into things they don't discuss, won't discuss.
"Later," he says, waving a hand absently as she climbs back through the window, stopping just before she's out of sight and leaning her head back through.
"You know, we do still have most of senior year left, so you don't actually need to freak out just yet."
"Right," he says, smiling.
"I mean, who knows what'll happen between now and then?"
She's gone before he can respond.
Maybe they are friends, he thinks, despite verbal wars and bruises that last for days, with or without Carly in the equation, and even if they refuse to utter the words aloud for anyone to hear. He thinks she means it when she says she'll visit him at college, can picture her sprawled out across his dorm room for so long he forgets what it's like not to have her around. He wonders whether his roommate will like her, and then thinks that it doesn't matter either way, not really. The thought of Sam sharing his life even months down the line, when he's no longer Fredward, the guy whose mom made him take tick baths until he was sixteen, but Freddie (or even Fred), the computer science and media student who used to do a cool internet web show…It's nice. More than nice. Even if Sam'll still mock him constantly for every life decision he makes, but then, he wouldn't have it any other way.
No, they're definitely friends. The question lies in just how long it'll be before they become something more.