Disclaimer: everything iCarly is property of Dan Schneider, man of mystery.
It didn't take much to make Sam Puckett smile. This he knew all too well. Peeled down, she was a relatively simple girl with pretty simple expectations.
Two Christmases ago, he got her Fat Cakes. It didn't take him that long to think of what to get her and it was obvious by her gift—a thing of baby powder, ha ha—she didn't take that long on him either. It was fine, though; just one of their little silent agreements. Let's keep ourselves as uncomplicated as possible: I hate you, you hate me, end of story. That was how they managed to coexist in their trio. He watched with mild amusement as she untied the haphazard bow in one pull and inhaled the pink confections. "Mm..." she'd said, wiping the sugar ring from around her mouth, "Okay, who's next? Cough it up."
Last year, however, it got a little harder. Last year, he had grown, she had grown, they'd all grown and matured in ways he was unable to ignore. Freddie, like her, was never one for change. He thinks he got it from his mother, who could never accept that he wasn't her baby boy any more (heck, he even expects that when he's old and needs Depends, his mom would only be too happy to see her baby in diapers again). Anyway, things also happened that year that came with growing up.
Namely, they kissed. He kissed her, she asked for it. They broke their agreement and both of them were to blame. The following moments followed them stumbling to regain that agreement they knew was far beyond repair. A feeble "I hate you" was said by him, and confusingly, she looked somewhat startled at that familiar statement. She repeated it, but something definitely changed.
He actually struggled to think of a gift. What do you get your enemy-slash-first kiss for Christmas? His first thought was to get her a gag gift, a tube of cheap chapstick. But that would be admitting something, and that would've broken their other agreement to keep silent. And he shuddered at the consequences of doing that. First kiss or not, changes and all, she was still Sam Puckett and she could still kick his butt from now until Tuesday (whatever that meant).
Two days before Christmas, he and Carly were walking around the mall after school. He had asked Carly to come help him shop for Sam after he spent the other 22 days of December thinking and coming up short. Carly was Sam's best friend and if she didn't know what to get her, well, he guessed he would probably go for the Fat Cakes again. But he couldn't help feeling somewhat...guilty about it? These new expectations were strange to him, but he wasn't going to question them. Stupid hormones.
"We could always go to Build-A-Bra..." Carly spoke as they passed the lingerie store with the posters his mom always shielded his eyes from.
He woke up from his reverie, "What? No! I—what—you—my mom—!"
She slapped him lightly, laughing. "Geez, calm down! I was only kidding."
He looked at her, still slightly confused. Carly just rolled her eyes and they kept walking, her marveling about all the Christmas decorations at the mall and him still trying to gather himself.
Freddie was still a little shaken at how much he was...shook up by that "joke." He tried to trace back why and...his brain fritzed again. It came back to the image of Sam in a bra.
"Uh...hellooo? Captain McSpacey? Earth to Freddie!" Freddie snapped back to reality to see a very annoyed looking Carly and annoyed Carly was never any good. "What's the matter with you today? You seem kinda, I don't know, gone. Are you okay? Do I need to take your temperature?" She put her pale hand on his forehead and he shook it off.
"I'm fine, I'm fine. I was just thinking...about things." He moved to resume walking and Carly fell into step with him. She gave him a sly glance, "About...bras?"
"What—no—bras—what—who—not those...things you...bras...ha ha ha, hey how about them Mariners—"
Carly laughed again, "It was another joke, c'mon!" She looked at her watch and tugged him along. "Look, Sam's almost out of detention and if you want to get her a gift, we gotta move. No more doing that weird spacing-out-thing or you're just gonna have to buy her Fat Cakes again."
He was determined not to do that again that year.
He ended up getting her Fat Cakes again and she ate them again. While she sat there satisfied and lost in a lard-filled bliss, he felt strangely empty. Well, empty was not the word he would use as he felt a strange attraction to the way she wiped the sugar from her rosy, pink mouth and licked the frosting from her fingers...
He shook himself out and abruptly got up from the circle; he was good at catching himself doing that weird-spacing-out-thing now. "I gotta go get some air."
"Don't you have enough in that fat head of yours, dork?" came the lazy response from the sugar-disabled body in the corner.
Smirking and feeling the strange tingle of her address, he threw back, "That was pretty lame, even for you."
Sam just gave a half-hearted shrug. "Eh, I was going easy on you. Spirit of Christmas and all that jazz."
Upstairs in the iCarly studio, he breathed in the cold night air. Yes, clear the mind. Clear the mind of thoughts. Clearing the mind of thoughts of—that image would just not go away. He slumped to the floor. Avoiding thoughts of Sam was as exhausting as avoiding her attacks in real life.
OK Benson, let's get some things straight. OK, so...you love Carly. Yes. You love Carly. The earth is round. The sky is blue. Sam is your enemy. You hate Sam and she hates you. Her kisses are pretty nice though. No they were more than nice. They were sweet. Tasted like meatballs. Tasted like Sam...OK This is not working. YOU LOVE CARLY. YOU HATE SAM. What's so hard to understand about that!
"Because I don't hate Sam..."
The words left his mouth before he could stop them and he bolted upright and looked excitedly from side to side to make sure no one heard that. Why that admission scared him so much and why he should care that anyone heard him was out of his grasp. Apparently he was not too good at this thinking thing anymore.
He got up and paced around in increasing frustration with himself. Usually, he was the one with the answers, with the sense of right and wrong, but now he didn't know what was up or down anymore. "Sam hurts me, Sam can out-eat a wrestler, Sam could outwrestle a wrestler, she's hard, she's mean...she hates me..." He scrounged around his computer station for a scrap of paper. "Gotta write this down." He scribbled fast and furiously all the reasons why he should hate Sam which only confused him more because each thing he wrote down, he found he actually liked about her.
No, but he was supposed to like Carly. Sweet, soft, pretty, nice, smart Carly. Not mean, gruff, gross, pretty, funny Sam that challenged him, met him tit-for-tat...
He stashed the note in his pocket and headed downstairs before anyone would wonder what was wrong. Oh nothing, nothing at all. I'm having an identity crisis, but let's open more presents, okay?
This year was a little different. Sam wasn't going to be there at the Shay household for the annual Christmas get-together. Her mom told her that they were going to spend Christmas this year at her latest catch-of-the-day's house (er...trailer). She had to leave on Christmas Eve.
"Are you sure you can't get out of it? You've gotten out of things like this before!" Carly pleaded, to which Sam grumbled, "New Guy's a big 'family man' so if I don't go, it'll look 'bad for her'." Carly tried using her puppy dog eyes on Sam, to which Sam replied, "If you've seen me mad, you don't want to see my mom mad. Besides, I'll catch you guys after Christmas. We can have a...Christmas Hangover party or something." She hugged Carly.
Freddie smirked, "You just don't wanna miss out on any Christmas presents, admit it."
She shrugged exaggeratedly. "Hey I'm not gonna lie, that part's nice too. Chill dudes, I'll probably be on my Pearphone the whole time anyway."
Sam gave Carly another goodbye hug and walked up to Freddie. They stood and looked at each other for a few seconds. He struggled with the silence. Do I hug her too? Shake her hand? She answered his silent question by nodding. "Benson." He nodded back and awkwardly put his hand on her shoulder, feeling something akin to static shock, but kept a straight face. "Puckett. Godspeed."
He hitched his breath, feeling that he should say more but watched as she walked to her mother's station wagon. But as he turned around to go back into the warmth of Bushwell Plaza, he recoiled from a sudden sharp punch to his arm. "Sam?"
Turning around he found the tiny blonde running to her car and giving him that signature look of hers, and she smiled that smile he knew only to be between them. She called out while jogging backwards, "One for the road." As he and Carly waved a final goodbye, her mom pushed the pedal to the metal and sped away.
Carly shuddered. "Eww...Yakima. I hope she comes back okay."
Back in his room, he tried his best to sleep. Shopping for her made him realize something—he really could not figure Sam out at all. He thought with the Fat Cakes and with bags of bacon, he was simply feeding the beast as it were. He thought that she was tough, but there had been many a time since that...time on the balcony...where he saw how vulnerable she really could be. When she had asked him for help with Carly's now ex-friend, he rejected her not because he didn't want to help her, but because he thought it was a trick. Everything seemed to be a trick with Sam...even the front she put up all the time.
Honestly, it was how he could stand to be around her for so long. Before, they were friends by proxy of Carly. The only reason he would even tolerate being around Sam for any given length of time was because Carly was there. Carly was a good shield too, by the way.
But then she started revealing little things about herself, things that seemed to be like accidental glimpses of her real self than anything. Like when she let on that she knew what MPEG stood for (not that he didn't, that day he just...forgot is all). Or how she could be your worst enemy and your most loyal friend at the same time. Or how well she could kiss...
He sighed and pulled the covers over his head. He was determined to fall asleep. The clock read 8:30 PM, late by his mother's standards but never ending night seemed stretched ahead of him. He rolled over onto his side and slipped his hand underneath his pillow and felt something crinkled under there.
He pulled it out and uncrumpled the piece of paper. It was torn and seemed pretty old, and when he unraveled it, he recognized his own writing. It read "10 Reasons Why You Should Hate Sam." It took him a long time for him to remember when he had written that, but he read on with great interest and smiled at each reason despite himself. He even laughed at some of them.
Looking at the clock told him that it was 12:30 A.M. And he was no closer to sleeping than if he had drank 15 cups of coffee in the past hour. There was only one thing he knew was keeping him from sleeping and that was the idea of a Sam-less Christmas.
There wasn't any reason why they should have to have a Christmas without Sam and why Sam would have to spend a Christmas without them and instead with Mr. Joe the Plumber. He had made up his mind.
He quickly packed a few necessities and went into his secret stash of money and put some in his wallet. Walking over to his closet, he picked out his warmest clothes and some of the pepper spray his mother had bought him when he was six-years-old. He hoped it still worked.
He tiptoed out his apartment and stole into the Shay's house, which was usually kept unlocked in case he and Sam were in the mood to Wake Up Spencer. No sign of anyone awake, which was good. There it was, on the counter, Carly's phone. He quickly swiped it and pulled up the familiar phone number.
"Hey, where are you right now? Give me your address so I can at least send a card or something, lol! -Carls"
He sent the text and only had to wait a few seconds before he got a reply. Boy, she wasn't kidding when she said she'd be on her Pearphone the whole time.
"114 Coldstream Rd. RR #1. Don't even bother though, I don't think this place even has a mailbox. P.S. IT SMELLS AND IT'S COLD GET ME OUT OF HERE."
"One step ahead of you," he said to himself.
"Freddie? Is that you? If it isn't, I've got a hammer in my hands!" Carly's voice whispered harshly.
He turned around, caught red-handed only to see Carly brandishing a huge inflatable hammer in her girly pajamas on the stairs. "Yeah, it's me."
"What are you doing here?" She asked, tossing away the hammer and climbing down the stairs skeptically. "And what are you doing with my phone in your hands?" She crept toward him.
"Uh...admiring it?" Oh no, here comes the Carly stare.
She stared hard at him.
"Okay, okay, I'm trying to rescue Sam from Yakima and I needed to know where she was."
Carly's stare loosened and finally gave way. Then she moved back towards the stairs.
"Wait, where are you going!" Freddie whispered.
"I'm coming with you, duh."
He ran up the stairs after her to stop her. "You can't, I need you to stay here in case my mom wonders where I am. I'm not exactly a pro at this sneaking around thing."
She grinned, "You want me to be your cover." Freddie gave her his patented pleading look and she finally relented. She rolled her eyes and pouted. "Fine. I'm going to give up the chance to go on an adventure so you won't get punished with tick baths till you're twenty."
Freddie hugged her. "There's a reason why I loved you. Thanks. I gotta go before my mom wakes up."
"Wait, what time does she wake up?"
Freddie shrugged as he walked out the door. "Eh...4:30, 5:30 if she's planning to sleep in."
As he shut the door, something niggled its way into Carly's mind. "Hold up...loved me?" Upon that realization, Carly did a little victory dance. "He's seen the light! Thank you Santa! Now uh...could you get me a date with—"
"I HOPE THAT HOOSEGOW IS TAPING THIS GOLF BALL!" Spencer's sleep-addled voice rang out loudly in the dark apartment. That was Carly's cue to go back to sleep.
The bus pulled up, with its eerie fluorescent light illuminating the two hobos and three other people on board. Shouldering his backpack uncomfortably and fingering the pepper spray in his pocket, he paid the bus toll and took a seat in the back where hopefully he'd draw the least attention.
The ride was long and strangely uncomfortable (he could feel that hobo eyeing his backpack), but he finally arrived at his stop. He practically flew out the door and jumped down to the ground, and as soon as his feet hit the floor the door closed behind him and the bus drove away.
He shivered a little and surveyed the unfamiliar surroundings. This was Yakima, eh? Not bad. A thought suddenly came into his head. He'd forgotten Sam's present! That wouldn't be right to come without a...he spotted a store open 24/7 and made his way there.
He'd finally located her...trailer and looked through the open window. There she was, lying on her stomach on the small mattress, playing games on her Pearphone. He felt that weird electric sensation again upon seeing her. "Sam!" She continued playing, and kicking her legs idly. Ah, he saw, headphones. He reached into his pocket and found a wad of paper in there.
"What the ferret?" Sam irritably pulled the headphones out of her ear and looked for what hit her. She found the piece of paper and looked over at the window to see—
"Frednerd?" She exclaimed, to which he quickly made a shushing movement and gestured to let him in. She rolled her eyes and as slowly as possible got out of bed. He jumped up and down at the cold, urging her to go faster, the air condensing as it came out of his mouth to which she only smiled at. He watched her walk in slow motion to the door, with that huge stupid grin on her face, and slowly unlatched it.
He yanked the door open and leapt in. "Took you long enough!"
She nodded. "Good. Now uh...did you need something, Benson? Or did you just miss me?"
He scrambled for an answer. Really, why was he there? Honestly. Really. Why the heck was he there?
He spit out the first thing that came to his mind. "I'm here to rescue you."
Sam snorted, then chuckled, then burst out laughing. Rushing to her side he held her and covered her mouth with his hand. "Shhhhhh...do you want your mom to wake up? OW!"
She wiped her mouth. "Yeah, might not wanna do that next time. So um...you've rescued me. Yay." She waved her hands in sarcastic joy.
"Wait!" He said, "I gotta give you something first." He'd almost forgotten her present. Trembling, because of the cold he was sure, he pulled out some Fat Cakes.
But to his horror, he found her reading the note he had tossed to her and at the same time realized what it was.
"What is this? A love letter?" He did the first thing he thought of and chucked the Fat Cakes at her hand to make her drop it. He quickly snatched it up from the ground and tore it into pieces. "It's nothing!"
She looked up, like a provoked puma. "Did you just do what I think you did?"
"Hey, is that pie I hear?"
"What'd it say? I saw my name." She folded her arms and let him know that she meant business. And that she wasn't going to let this go. No sir, she was going to stand there all night if she had to. "Listen, Freddo, if I'm gonna go with you, I gotta know what's in that note."
He stared at her equally as hard. And then his face slackened and a smirk appeared. He shrugged his shoulders, slipped on his backpack, and said, "Fine. Stay here. Have a very merry Christmas, Sam."
"Wait, no!" She clung to his arm and an "oh yeah" look formed on his face, which quickly turned into an "OH NO" look when she managed to twist his arm around painfully behind his back. She whispered threateningly into his ear, the warm breath tickling the fine hairs on his neck, "Tell me, Benson. What. Did. That. Note. Say?"
"It said I HATE YOU." He squeezed out to which she automatically let him go. "It said I hate you because you're rude, I hate you because you're mean, I hate you because you hurt me..."
Her face fell a little. Not what he was expecting.
"I...I hate you because you're the weirdest person I know, even more than Gibby...I...hate you because you're funny and dangerous...and strangely smarter than me...and...can match me in ways no one else can and...because you're...beautiful...and because...I think I love..."
He trailed off into nothing. The world disappeared to him, leaving only Sam in his thoughts. Which is probably why he couldn't create coherent sentences anymore. Because in many ways, Sam took his breath away.
They both stood there for what seemed like years, confused what the next move would be, where they were, what things were. Sam looked like she wanted to say something, but for the first time in her life, was speechless.
He was the first to break the spell. He cleared his throat and picked up the Fat Cakes package from the floor and presented them to her, without daring to see what she looked like, what those blue eyes of her would do to him. He was gonna give her the present and run as fast as he could. "Here. Um. Sorry it's Fat Cakes again but..."
The next thing he knew, she tossed the Fat Cakes back to the floor and pulled him in for a bruising kiss, the kind only Sam could give. The kiss was everything the first was not, hard, passionate, and not confusing at all. It seemed they each emptied all their feelings toward each other—hate, love, indefinable—through their lips. Finally they broke apart, because they needed some stupid oxygen.
He wrapped his arms around her and they both stayed like that for minutes, their bodies creating the perfect warmth in the cold trailer. They didn't want to leave each other's sides.
Resting his chin on the top of her blonde head, he sighed, "Is this the part where you murder me now?"
She shook a 'no' into his chest. "Maybe later," was her muffled reply.
He didn't know what they were anymore, but right now, he didn't care. He didn't know what they were but maybe that was what they were—an enigma, organized chaos, something that just worked. All he knew for sure was that he loved Sam and, well, she liked him more than Fat Cakes. And that was saying something.
The end.
A/N: This was written for emilidean as part of the Groovy Smoothie LiveJournal Community Holiday Fic Exchange last year. The prompt was Nevershoutnever's "30 Days," Seddie, and Creddie friendship.