She stays eight months before she leaves, and no one's surprised because the Seattle rain never suited her in the first place, even if she was born there and called it her home for eighteen years (but the storm clouds remind her of dark hair, and the distorted lights through a curtain of rain make her think of shining headlights reflected on glittering wet tarmac). Still, he chases her to the airport – only to let her go without a kiss or a word of goodbye.
He leaves as well after three months with ten dollars in his pocket, a map and an old photo album in his backpack. But his head is far too heavy and aches too much for him to truly know where she is, and there's no trail for him to follow anyway. So instead, he sits on the hard chair in the waiting room, watching planes fly in and out, in&out for half an hour, waiting for his plane to come and take him far, far away.
(Tick Tock. TickTock. TikTok – boom.)
.
He travels for two years, to Mexico, England, France, Spain, almost living her dream, but without the smile or the feel of adventure. He watches as the map gets creased and crumpled, and his ten dollars is longlonglong gone, and the thought of an actual career is scattered among unfilled resumes, resignation forms, and bitter phone calls that leave him with a grim face and an itching in his fingertips.
But those two years do manage to leave him with a liking for alcohol, dark, dingy and dirty alleyways, the smell of cigarette smoke, and a habit of watching the sun rise in the cold morning air as he trudges back to his hotel.
.
Twelve year old Freddie plucks the green grass from the ground, watching as the bright green blades fly away in a light wind as he lets them go from between his fingers, smiling slightly as he sees one of the blades land in Carly's hair. He brushes it from her light brown hair, biting his lip when he sees her blush. He looks down at the grass again, all awkwardness forgotten when he sees that her toenails are the same colour as the grass.
"Doesn't the sunset look pretty?" Carly says, running her fingers through the grass. He nods, even though somewhere he wants to say something corny, something about how he loves her, but for now, he's content to lay back in the grass with her. Letting the sun begin to warm his face and the grass begin to stain his back, he turns and looks at Carly, smiling when she begins to smile (and ohmyohmy, doesn't she look ever so pretty?).
"When I we going to go home?" He asks. He hears her giggle slightly, the sound like tinkling glass.
"Freddie, it's five-thirty, and it's Summer, the sun will never go down. We can have all night if we want to," she says.
They stay there until the sunset is over, and the sky is starting to get darker, the stars only just beginning to peek through the curtain of blue. He turns his head to the sky when he sees Carly's hand pointing.
"Look," she says. "It's the first star of the night. Make a wish." He's about to argue, because he's rational and believes in the science and mechanics of the atmosphere, not on the brightness of a star that is slowly dying. But he sees her eyelids close, her face looking ever so peaceful, and then he feels his own eyes gently shut and his fingers twist themselves over the other – just for the good luck that he secretly doesn't believe in.
He opens his eyes again when he feels Carly move, sitting up and smiling at her as she wraps her hands around her knees. She smiles at him, and then without warning, gets up and begins to run, arms outstretched.
"What on earth are you doing?" He asks, watching her run around in circles, only just able to make out the outline of her feet on grass.
"I think that the first star we saw was a plane," she answer back, and he can hear the laughter in her voice. "Be a plane with me, Freddie!"
Rationality flies out of his head as soon as he sees her hair whip around her face, framing her smile. He runs after her, chasing her as he puts his arms out as well, smiling. He catches up to her, wrapping his arms around her small frame and managing to lift her up and spin her around. They drop to the ground, but they're laughing and smiling, and his hand is in her hand and it just feels right.
They walk home and watch the city lights turn on in the night.
.
He finds Sam in Boston, leaning against one of the tallest skyscrapers in the city. He almost expects to see a liquor bottle in her hand, visible puncture marks on her arm, a cigarette that glows the same colour as her hair. Instead, he sees her sitting on the ground, arms resting on her bent knees with the backpack she's had since Year 10 right next to her. She turns her head and he catches sight of the blue eyes that seem so familiar and so cold.
He looks at her, takes her in and compares her with the Sam he knew all those years ago (and she hasn't really changed). He realises that he can't look her in the eyes (because all those memories that are in that same photo album that he carries in his backpack are there, and he hasn't turned one single page of that album in two years). But Sam grabs her backpack and leaves, her black converse hitting against the dirty pavement, before he gets one cracked word out.
He walks away.
He doesn't get far though before he has to sit down, his feet refusing to move any further. He sits on the edge of the sidewalk, silently wondering if maybe, just maybe, a car will come skidding along the road and hit him (makeawish). He wants to move, begs his feet to take his weight because he has a bag to pack and a plane to catch, and he should just go.
But then he sees her reflection in the skyscraper, her hair illuminated by the fluorescent glow of the streetlight. She comes and sits by his side, and his hands tighten into fists and his nails dig into his palm. He looks down, not willing himself to look at her golden hair & blue eyes, instead looking at her converse and her unpainted nails. Suddenly, he feels hot breath on his neck and her body is pressed far too closely to his.
"I'm not glad you're here," she whispers, putting her hand on his thigh. "Then again, I bet you're not either."
(Home Sweet Home.)
She kisses him and he kisses back even though they don't really need too – but oh god do they want to. He pulls her into his lap and pushes her up against the street lamp, putting his hands on her narrow hips and his leg between her thighs, refusing to open his eyes the whole time.
Soon, he finds himself running back to broken down motel rooms with no locks and no secrets, on a bed with starched white sheets that itch against his skin. He grips her tight enough to leave bruises, and she leaves red scratch marks down his back, but that don't kiss again because even they're not that foolish or masochistic.
.
Oh, let's play a game of favourites now, shall we?
.
Carly's sixteen and three quarters and Freddie's one day away from being seventeen, and even though they haven't been dating for very long now, Freddie does know that there really is a happily ever after.
They've somehow managed to end up on the roof of the Bushwell Plaza, with the night air chilling their skin and the city being illuminated before their eyes. He sits right near the edge, with his legs dangling off the edge; with Carly fretting about him falling off right behind him – and it only puts a smile on his face. Eventually, she gives in and comes and sits beside him, kissing him on the cheek quickly when he puts an arm around her.
He looks at Seattle reflected in her eyes, the lights seeming brighter than the sun and all the other stars put together. He drops his arm and reaches for Carly's hand, smiling when she lays her head on his shoulder. He has to bite his tongue to stop himself from saying those three words, yelling it from the rooftop for all of the world to hear.
He tries to tell himself that it would scare her away, because hell, they've only been dating six months (and eleven days, by the way). But really, he can't get the thought of their own little fairy tale from his mind (and fairy tales always have a happy ending). Instead, he traces the letters on her skin and whispers it to her when he's sure she's asleep, her head still against his shoulder and her hand still in his.
He smiles at the stars and the city lights one last time before he picks her up in his arms and carries her inside.
.
Freddie leaves at four o'clock in the morning because it's just so fucking poetic and he has a plane to catch at eight o'clock. And he runs back to his motel with the rising sun in his hair and the taste of Sam's skin still on his lips, and he's ever so aware of the photo album that hits against his back in his backpack.
But Sam's at the airport anyway with her own backpack and small suitcase, and they both silently and nonchalantly figure out that they're catching the same airplane and wonder how long it will take for everything to just crash&burn their pretty little memories away.
Their next stop is San Diego and it's overcast when the plane lands on the runway. The taxi cab seems too small for the both of them, the pavement seems to narrow, and their separate motel rooms seem to lonely and too close together for both of them.
In a way, he wants to leave the motel room, feel the foreign San Diego air at night time, see their stars and their clouds without a window pane in between, forget about Sam being in the hotel room opposite. But really, he already has that glass of whiskey in the palm of his hand, and he doesn't need another one (and the stars and the clouds look the same everywhere, and it was only the sunrises he came for).
He taps on her door, and steps inside almost immediately after she's opened it, so close that their hips are touching and he knows that she can smell the whiskey on his breath – but he can still faintly smell the smoke from a cigarette in her hair and on her skin, so he call them even and looks her straight in the eye as he brings a hand around to her back to draw them closer to together still.
She looks him right back and fists her hand in his shirt, drawing their faces together until their breathing from each other's lips.
"Don't fuck with me," is all she says.
This time, he doesn't kiss her, merely backs her up against the wall, closing the door behind him and switching off the lights. He starts to kiss her neck, putting his hands on her slim frame and looking at her silhouette through half-closed eyes (small body, long hair, wide eyes – and the irony tastes far too metallic to be anything but blood).
This time, he stays. He wakes up at 5.49 in the morning, the sun penetrating through the weak curtains that hang above Sam's window. He tries not to look at Sam next to him, but as he gets up the sheet falls away slightly from her body, and he's left looking at the pale skin of her lower back. He gets dressed, and watches the end of the sun rise, its golden light giving the dispersing clouds a yellow halo.
Sam wakes up an hour and a half later, and leaves with a quick flash of her eyes and a slam of the door. He doesn't even bother to ask where she's going.
.
They travel some more, entwined in an unspoken agreement of you go with me, I go with you. More glasses of wine and whiskey pass between their lips then words, but somehow, there's a glimpse of endearing and vaguely attractive relationship that he thinks, in another life, he'd try to pursue (and that once upon a time, he did).
After a while, the fucking becomes merely sharing beds for warmth and bodies pressed against bodies for comfort. Though occasionally, her gold hair and his touch will get a little bit too much for them, and the sheets will end up tangled around them, twisting and turning so that they always end up looking at each other (goawaygoaway).
(She knows that the i love yous aren't for her.)
They're in Manhattan once, walking along the path, just on the verge of the road, in the late evening, watching a flurry of taxi cabs and busses pass them, making Sam's hair whip around her. Without a word, she begins to run, her feet moving in a way that just yells, catch me if you can. He'd forgotten how fast she was, his feet moving heavily and ungracefully after her footsteps as they run a little further away from the crowding of grey buildings, closer to the water and the reflected lights.
He catches sight of her by the water, tiptoeing precariously along the top of the narrow railing that signifies the end of the park and the start of the water. He stops for a moment, the strange image of her falling into the water – never resurfacing – filling his mind. He starts to walk over to her again, slower this time, feeling as if he was watching a movie. He sees her glance at the water, then at him, only to begin walking again.
He's almost by her side when she loses her balance, one of her feet slipping down one side and beginning to take the rest of her body with it. He manages to catch her before she does so, bringing her over to his side and holding her in his arms. He thinks he must look like some kind of promised prince charming, only with a backpack for a weapon and cheap, second hand clothes for armour, with the way he's holding her.
He puts her down, letting her feet touch the ground before he lets go, though his arm lingers on the small of her back for a moment. He realises that it's now night, the stars beginning to appear in the sky, and the lights from the city beginning to glow in the sky and on the water. His hand tightens on Sam's back.
"Go," she says.
He runs back to his motel as fast as he can. He tries to somehow feel guilty about Sam, but his thoughts are carried away as he sits on his window ledge, a bottle of beer beside him.
.
They're in Portland three months later, and secretly, it's a little bit too close to home – Seattle – for both of them. It's cool, and it's wet, and the abundance of coffee shops that they see on every turn manages to put them into a unwanted state of familiarity (and that's wrong as well).
It's ten o'clock at night, and they didn't really mean to stay up that late because oh fuck, it's another twenty minute walk back to the hotel room, and it's late and it's cold and it's dark because there are no stars to guide their way, and the city lights seem too dim. Sam stumbles slightly beside him, her eyes half closed and her hands stuck stubbornly in her pocket. Freddie just looks down at his shoes and pretends that he can't really hear her footsteps (because there really is supposed to be three of them).
Sam manages to catch up to him, a determined and grim look on her face, and stops him, grabbing onto the front of his shirt and turning him around to face her. Their eyes meet for a second, and she grips his shirt tighter, and in their drunken state they're glaring at each other for no reason (and it's sort of them, the Sam&Freddie but stick together).
"Caffeine, Freddie," is all she says, and then she drags him off to a nearby coffee shop and watches as she orders a completely black coffee. He sits on the plastic chair in front of her, it's hard back pressing against his and making him uncomfortable. He already has the beginnings of a hangover, and his eyes are bleary and making him confused and annoyed.
"She hated coffee," he blurts out, looking down at the dirty table and cradling his head.
"No she didn't," Sam replies. "And I'm not her, so fuck off."
He glares at the table and stays silent, and Sam grips her coffee cup in her hand and stares at it until it's cold and she has to buy a new one.
They walk back to the motel together, him looking down and she looking straight ahead as she sips her coffee. Tossing the cup into the bin, they walk through the yellow lit foyer and up the stairs to the rooms. Even though he's just another level up, he leans in the doorway as Sam fumbles with his keys and opens the door, punching the door when it doesn't unlock immediately.
She opens the door, but glares at him once she's in the room and he's just walking in.
"Go away, Freddie," she says, sighing and glaring at him at the same time, her blue eyes darkening in the light. She's about to close the door, but he grips her wrist so tightly that she winces slightly (and without his consent, his grip does manage to loosen).
"Fine," he says, dropping her wrist. He leans in closer to her, their faces touching slightly. "But only because you're not her," he whispers.
.
They fly away from Portland four days later at two o'clock in the morning with the morning air chilling their skin and icing their hands to their suitcases. The waiting room is almost deserted, with only Sam and Freddie and about four other people who either read magazines or try and catch up on sleep. The runway is similar, with only a couple of planes flying in on the blue-lit road. Freddie watches out the window as the sun rises and steals away his stars, while Sam goes and gets a coffee.
They're the first ones on the plane, their almost filled passports at the ready as soon as they're allowed to board. It takes more than fifteen minutes for the rest of the passengers to come, and by then Sam has fallen asleep, her head resting on his shoulder and bringing him back to be thirteen and ever so in love with Carly but strangely distracted by Sam (shh, you were supposed to forget, remember?).
Freddie looks out the window as they take off, feeling Sam stir and move her head from his shoulder.
"It's less cloudy then before," Freddie says.
"Don't care about weather, Benson," Sam replies. "All I care about is breakfast," she says, yawning and stretching her arms above her head. "When are we going to arrive in Canada?"
"Dunno," he replies. "You tell me."
After that they're silent, Sam waiting for breakfast and occasionally falling asleep, while he just looks out the window, watching the white clouds begin to roll under them, whiteonwhite, greyongrey.
(Be a plane with me, Freddie!)
It's only after he's too late that he finally understands the geography, feels the map fit into place and make bile rise in his throat. He sits there frozen, his eyes glazed and wide as they stare out into the blue sky, not really noticing it, and not really caring about what's above, but below. He starts to feel the familiar want of cheap champagne on his lips, its plastic numbness now welcome even though it's nowhere near five o'clock.
The metallic voice breaks through his thoughts an breaks through Sam's sleep and manages to break both of their hearts all fucking over again.
"Hello passengers. This is your captain speaking. We just wish to inform you that, due to stormy weather up ahead, we shall be stopping shortly in Bellingham. We are currently flying over Seattle, and shall arrive in Bellingham shortly."
He curses himself for not noticing the greying clouds, but he does notice Sam blanch white and her fists tighten on the arm rest. Without a word, she leaves her seat and locks herself in the bathroom for ten minutes, letting her coffee get cold. The rest of the flight goes on without a word or a look in the eye, and, bitterly he thinks, they're right back to where they started.
Once they arrive in Bellingham, Sam goes to bathroom again. She comes out eighteen and twenty three seconds later, just when they're beginning to call for boarding passes.
.
Freddie goes to Seattle the very next day, and it rains (oh what a fucking pretty little cliché).
.
He stays in Seattle for two weeks because he lost his map three and a half years ago and it really isn't coming back.
It rains for the first four days, soaking the last of his clothes because the rest of them are still in his suitcase, going round and around on the bag carousel because he didn't bother to pick them up. For those first four days, he stays in the city and runs away from familiar faces and buries himself in the promise of fluro lights (ohliarohliar).
After it's stopped raining, he catches a taxi and wastes half of his money going to the airport to pick up his stuff, and curses every time the suitcases bang at his heels and make him trip over his own two feet (and somewhere someone's laughing). After that, he books himself a hotel room – because shh, he doesn't actually live here. Of course not.
(And secretly, he spends some of his college money on those clear and green and beautiful bottles, but that doesn't really matter, because now his fate is sealed and he got sentenced to life.)
It's in his second week that he burns his photo album. He laughs by himself as he looks through each of them, saying goodbye for the last&final time as he takes them out of their sleeves, staining their perfect shades of black and white with his fingertips – and it's forever.
And then he throws those black and white photos into the fire, watching as the flames engulf them and destroy them, smiling bitterly and without cause when the yellow flames burn just a little bit brighter than all the rest and reminding him of Sam's hair.
The rest of his days are like a fucking tape recorder, going round and round and round. It's the same drink and the same taste and the same dream and the same coloured vomit every day, but he's not going to change because nothing else has, and the past keeps on catching up with him.
His impending suicide could never look less like an accident.
(And then bangbangbang, she swallows those fucking pills and her blood sprays the wall as the beer on his tongue spreads itself out.
– BangBangBang, the car brakes and it's too late and he can taste rain on his lips.)
.
Sam gets cremated even though Carly gets buried because somehow the thought of her being stuck in the ground for eternity scares him to death, while the thought of her being in the manages to calm him and fill him with bitter nostalgia at the same time (though really, he wonders if he's really jut becoming that bitter).
He lets the ashes go on top of his motel room, even though it's illegal and possibly not the Sam Puckett that he never knew but should've. But they still blow away on the breeze and they're still free, even if he can't quite see them in the blitz of lights and the rush of taxi cabs and the familiarity and sadness that has become Seattle.
He goes and sees Carly next. He has a range of flowers in his hand, because he can't quite bear to reach through the haze and the pain that is his memories, but they're pretty – just like her – and hopefully it's close enough (but it's never good enough), and his tears stain them all the same way. Somewhere in him, he wants his photo album, because it was the closest thing to the real thing he can get, but he knows that it's long, long gone by now.
He traces her name on the headstone, feeling his fingers slip into the indent and trying to find something real to hold onto, something that isn't just stone and grass and dirt. He sits in front of her grave for what feels like an eternity, but nothing happens, and he's only left wishing and wanting more than ever before.
(And his clothes are black, the sky is white, and the headstone is grey, so where's his fucking rainbow?)
.
He travels.
He buys a map, takes out twenty dollars from his college fund, re-packs his bags, and catches the bus to the airport.
(He's too numb to feel the déjà vu.)
He doesn't go to Canada. Actually, he doesn't even know where he's going (the words were too loud and his eye sight was blurry, and all he could focus on was the plane ticket and the prospect of getting out) until they descend onto the runway.
He finds out that he's in Venice (city of romance and masquerades and canals). He checks into one of the most expensive hotels right by the water and sits on his window ledge, looking at the sparkling water and ignoring the cliché postcard look that moves along the canal (and all he needs now is a starry night sky and a smile on his face). He takes another sip of his beer – and hopes he drowns.
He only goes on one of the boats once, but it's white and there are still walls and windows and people around him, and it feels a lot like his hotel room, only with a blue carpet rather than a grey one. The boat is hot and confining, and the people are talking too loudly, and the fogged up windows are making him think of fading love hearts with initials.
It's just turning dark when he gets off the boat, the ground unsteady beneath his feet. The streetlights are just turning on, the waves rippling over the reflection in the water, sparkling and blinking. He looks at one of the streetlights and smiles at their light, before running back to his hotel just for the fun of it as he stares at the ever running river and jumps on each shadow he comes across.
The next day, he drains each bottle he has of their liquor and smashes the bottles, shards of glass falling near him and making his skin bloody as they prick him. The green and the brown and the transparent glass tinkle around the floor, catching the light and looking like the water just outside his window. He picks them all up and throws them in the bin, and stains the white window sill a rusty red when he looks out on the water.
.
(He travels, because he doesn't know what else to do and there's still some money left in his bank account.)
.
Three months and two weeks later, he goes to California. He books into a motel on the outskirts of Hollywood, and he can just make out the gleaming white sign in the distance from his window. He walks the Hollywood Walk of Fame, goes to see some museums, and even goes to Disneyworld (though there are only strangers by his side on the rides).
He keeps on smiling.
.
He's not sure why he goes there, but he thinks that it has something to do with the Hollywood sign shining too brightly, and her name not being intertwined with the shining lights. So he goes to the bar and decides that the lights look so much prettier through a haze, and it's so much easier to be a liar when the drunken truth is pouring out of his mouth through his smile (dirtylittleliar).
It's been raining and the pavements are damp and the windows are still dripping with rain, and his shoes almost slip on the pavement, but a laugh still manages to come out of his mouth. He calls a taxi and gets in, slamming the door behind him and silently wondering whether true love will come and drag him through death.
(Romeo & Juliet & Romeo & Juliet & A Tragic Happily Ever After.)
He tells the taxi driver to drop him at the beach even though it's nine o'clock at night. The taxi driver doesn't even look at him, only stares at the traffic lights and nods his head nonchalantly when Freddie hands him the money. They reach the beach and he gets out and slams the door, turning his head and watching the yellow cab drive off into a world of lights&liars.
He walks to the beach and takes off his shoes, just being able to make out the outline of the wave and the sand and the rocks. He takes off his shoes and breathes out a sigh when he feels the sand between his toes. He walks up to the waves, letting the water go up to his ankles. He walks into the waves some more, letting the water rise to his knees, soaking his jeans and making them heavy against his skin.
The tide wades out, and he walks away, letting the water drops stain the sand. He walks over to the rocks and sits on one of the highest, his feet dropping and grazing the sea. He closes his eyes, replacing the sound of the city and the cars and his heart thumping in his chest with the gentle roll of the waves.
When he opens his eyes again, the world is spinning slightly and his hands are tingling, but the stars are appearing in the night sky as well. He smiles up at them, looking at the burning constellations and making wishes on the still lights as the waves crash against his knees.
He begins to move upwards, towards a higher rock so that he can see the stars better. The rough edges of the rocks make his bare feet sore and scratched. He slips on a puddle, just seeing the mirror-like surface of the water, and falls, hitting his head against the rocks. Dizzily, he watches as his blood swirls in with the clear liquid, dispersing as the water crashes against the rocks.
(His blood starts to spell out his happily ever after, and it's never looked so pretty.)
Disclaimer: iCarly is not mine. Title and description from Fall Out Boy's songs Pavlove & The (Shipped) Gold Standard.
Yeah, so I needed to stop killing people off via car crash or suicide. That failed massively.