Notes: I feel like I'm kind of out of my element here, but I was in the mood for some unadulterated Cam angst, only I was too lazy to go and look for any, so I wrote my own. Any recs? xD

Carly and Sam are juniors in high school here. Rip-Off Rodney would be a senior.

I tried to keep this oneshotish and under 1,000 words, but it came out at nearly 9,000, so the last section will definitely be up within a couple of days. :)

Disclaimer: I disclaim all claims to iCarly. The name 'BF Wangs' was taken from Drake & Josh.

Hard Candy

i.

"Let's not say anything about this," Sam says in a cool, casual voice – like a flick of the wrist, one designed to brush away the past ten minutes. The weightlessness of her words isn't what Carly expects, and Sam glances questioningly up at Carly as she straightens out her shirt collar. "Especially not to our dork."

"Well," Carly chuckles. "I kinda thought -"

Sam's hands suddenly go very still at her neck, and Carly realizes that Sam's posture doesn't exactly suggest she wants to start getting cozy on Carly's throw pillows.

Something hits the other side of the bedroom door before Spencer's voice drifts through, sounding too close for comfort, even though Carly knows he wouldn't just barge inside.

"You guys!" he screams. "Are you gonna be a long time, whatever you're doing? No hurry, but - my leg – my leg is stuck in the wall, and I – Freddo, thank god you're here!"

Sam turns back from the door with a look that's all careless lines and raised eyebrows, and it's just like her, but at the same time, Sam's hands and the way she's clumsily fiddling with her shirt cuffs give her away entirely.

"What?" Sam asks, forcing a light laugh. The slight reprieve Spencer may have provided is gone, and they're facing each other with nothing but the past ten minutes writhing uncomfortably between them. "It was just a onetime deal. Right, Carls? We were just playing around."

Technically, and Carly thinks about it carefully as Sam shoves her hands into her pockets, it was kind of playing around. Though the part where the crème-colored carpet her dad helped her pick out gave her a rug burn where her blouse rode up at the small of her back - rode up because someone had a hand on her thigh and might have been trying to get the other one up her blouse (Carly couldn't really tell; there was a lot of fumbling and general mind-numbness.) - kind of threw her off.

It's not that Carly expects anything, especially since – well, it started with a messy fight over a scented marker that would usually end with her and Sam inking up Carly's good bedsheets while they scarfed down buttered popcorn and fruit kabobs. But it didn't turn out that way this time, so they should at least talk about it.

Right now.

But then there's that look on Sam's face, like she might hit something if anything goes a bit off course and veers into uncomfortable or emotionally confusing, and it's not like Carly thinks Sam will hit her, but she thinks maybe this isn't the time to be bold. Maybe they could talk about it if Sam had just punched Carly in the face, but not when it's this. Not now, with Spencer trapped inside a wall just outside her door.

"Right," Carly intones brightly, smiling like her face muscles just went haywire, thinking maybe this is all just her cowardice thinly disguised as rational thinking. She makes her way past Sam quickly, brushing shoulders with her as she goes.

Carly doesn't quite understand her motives for why, but even the tiniest motions streaming through her body make sure to guarantee some shoulder-brushing, like it's reassurance. Though if it's Carly reassuring herself that Sam won't flinch away at the slightest touch or Carly reassuring Sam that she's not going to be the one to freak out and be weird, Carly doesn't know. Perhaps it's both. In all probability, it's more.

There's a ruckus on the other side of the door, boyish grunts and what is possibly the sound of a wall caving in slowly, and Carly's hand is positioned around the doorknob in a distinct opening fashion when Sam's hand is curling around her upper arm.

"What?" Carly breaths, and the tone conveys nothing but scattered nerves, which wasn't part of the whole reassurance thing. Only Carly can't help it: something - anticipation maybe - bubbles over in her belly like hot soup, because when she turns, Sam's face has softened, and there is definite leaning.

A fair amount of the blue in Sam's eyes has been washed away by the gaping black of her pupils, and she rolls her eyes playfully, moving forward. Awareness suddenly becomes even more stingily selective as Carly's thoughts are pushed out by the rush of blood to her head, because really, for that moment an odd feeling passes through her, and it's that maybe this all makes so much sense.

"It's just that," Sam says softly. She looks down for a moment, and instead of kissing Carly again, Sam reaches out, stupid plaid shirt cuffs brushing her knuckles as she quickly runs a hand four times through Carly's hair. She sounds much more herself when she speaks again. "There. You wouldn't wanna go out wearing your carpet for a hair piece."

Sam takes a rigid step back and presses the back of her hand to her mouth for no reason Carly can see, and Carly nearly gapes. Nearly; though it would probably be a more dignified reaction than her own mouth betraying her to yell out the words, "Synthetic fluff makes the worst hair!"

Sam just grins at her, looking fondly amused. "What're we waiting for then?" she asks, clasping her hands in front of her. "There's a man out there with his foot in the wall!"

Like it's easy, Sam flings herself cannon-like out into the hallaway where Freddie is huddled over by the wall across the way. He's with Spencer, who is slinking so far down he's all but dangling from Freddie's strained shoulder.

Both of them are making faces like they'd just gotten through punching each other in the solar plexus.

"Oh, thank god! I think I may have ankle damage," Spencer informs them, twisting around on the spot as she and Sam exit Carly's room. Carly might have laughed if this were all happening another time, but the shock of everything continuing on the way it was when just a moments ago, inside her room -

"Do you have to hold on so tight?" Freddie asks sharply. "I think –"

Freddie stops mid pained complaint, and his eyes light up as he shoots a quick glance over toward the sliver of Carly's room still exposed, like it's the last piece of birthday cake.

Even though she knows he just wants an illicit peek of her room since Spencer banned him when they were twelve, Carly slams the door like she's putting a hand over his eyes.

Carly straightens out her shirt and thinks – and it's stupid - that he can take one look at the crème-colored carpet and just know.

With Freddie's hands occupied in preventing Spencer from carelessly pulling Freddie's shoulder from the socket, Sam must think Freddie appears to all but have a red bull's-eye painted across his forehead. She strolls up to Freddie and punches him lightly in the gut: he flinches, and she asks, sounding supremely amused:

"So what's going on here?"

"Sam," Carly reprimands, getting back into that groove years of routine has carved out for them before going over to disentangle her brother from Freddie's withering form.

Sam moves forward with arms outstretched, and they both tug Spencer out of the vent he somehow got his entire leg jammed in ("That rat stole my teeny tiny top hat!" he hollers between the tugging.) and everything smooths over into normalcy, like waves washing out blemishes spread across the sand.

Only Carly can't let it go the way Sam seems to be able to, because her lips feel puffy and tingle numbly as if she was sucking on too much sour candy, and now her mouth feels red and raw from it. Because something fell away in those moments in her bedroom; she feels it, like getting into a too-hot shower or stepping on a nail with your bare feet.

And while she tells herself it's crazy, because it's just Sam, and neither of them meant to do it - she might be starting to understand something now. Maybe.

"We were just playing around."

The words run prickly, run like a monumental sting through her veins and into her skull, and vaguely she registers Sam taking another chance to physically debilitate Freddie, which should call for some pointed – though always soft – reprimanding.

Only Carly begins to wonder if she just got the bigger blow.

ii.

A week later, Sam's dating Rip-Off Rodney.

It's after he gets them some insanely awesome - albeit previously recalled – flyswatters for an iCarly bit, though it's possibly not unfair at all to mention that it's the day after Carly and Sam's "onetime deal" got an encore.

It was the weekend after the first time it happened, and it only took a party and both of them pretending to be drunk, or maybe drunker than they actually were in Sam's case.

The party was Melanie Cass', honoring her emergence from a four-year coma, and was set in the glowy innards of a glow-in-the-dark golf course. It was after the place had closed its doors to the public, since Gibby's uncle owned the place, and the courses were littered with people (except Melanie Cass, whose parents said she couldn't go because she'd just come out of a coma) doing everything but playing golf.

They didn't matter, though. None of it did. Not to Carly.

The music had cracked and ripped like a fabric, and the sharp smell of soft smoke covered them like a blanket, though all that mattered then was finding Sam through a thicket of sweaty limbs and disposable plastic cups.

Carly was making a dancing retreat from a shirtless Gibby, who had gotten nothing if not pinker, taller, and hairier over the years when someone had shoved Carly roughly from behind, and she was stabbed by a hipbone and felt other things that let her know it was a girl behind her.

She'd leaned back into her, knowing it had to be Sam as Sam grabbed her hips while colors, lights, and people danced before Carly's eyes.

Before thinking about it, Carly'd taken Sam by the wrist and dragged her off, the pulse of the music pushing them away from the crowd like waves. There was an urgent, desperate feeling as they went deeper into something that was much more quiet - private.

When they came to a house-shaped structure, one that had fake, glow-in-the-dark windows and a small golf ball-sized hole in the front, Carly crawled into the tiny interior through a trap door in the back, pushing Sam, who was already breathing heavily, in front of her. Inside, the boards of the structure were exposed, the walls raw and unpainted, and Carly didn't know what she had expected. A playhouse with a tiny stove perhaps: something pink, incongruous, and child-like - but it wasn't that.

Though it didn't stop Carly from lunging at Sam, and god, neither did Spencer's words on remaining ladylike. They tumbled gracelessly to the ground, knocking elbows, knees, and heads against the unpainted walls. Constantly.

But she couldn't stop kissing Sam, not ever, because Sam made these small noises in the back of her throat that made Carly's breath catch and her mind go numb, so all Carly could think about was pressing herself into Sam, hungry for her to make those sounds again and again and then wanting to cry when Sam finally did.

They laid there for the rest of the party, uncomfortably folded up (but together, which was the important part). Breathing heavily over a dry, dirty ground, and looking up the curved ceiling - nails and caulking still exposed even - Carly thought it was almost like she and Sam belonged together then. That way.

That is, until it was time to go home, and a couple of the younger kids pushed the trap door open so they had to make up some lame story about Sam's rage not mixing with booze.

Not that it meant anything. They'd actually discussed it, skirting the edges and mentioning the words 'fooling around' and 'bored' and 'brushing up,' though on skills for guys and not the distinct brushing up that had gone on, which thinking about caused Carly to half-shout 'just a insane fest of lip-locking madness. Between friends!'

But still. There Rodney stands in all of his puffy-haired, illicit-flyswatter-getting glory with his grimy hands stuffed into the tight back pocket of Sam's bright jean skirt when Carly turns the corner to go to her locker after school.

Carly's dragging Sam away from the pocket-grabber the first chance she gets, and Sam doesn't even protest the way their sneakers do, squeaking all the way to the new location like an alarm.

Carly pulls Sam through the first door she sees, though unsurprisingly, that isn't really the best choice, since it's a janitor's closet, and the smell of some recently-spilt cleanser stings her nose and makes her sneeze.

Though nasal pain or not, Carly decides to ask Sam about Rodney subtly.

"You're dating him?" Carly shrieks.

"What?" Sam asks, looking incredulous.

'What' is that Carly remembers Sam grabbing for her hand that morning in US Government, during the schools "shameful execution" of a mock-Code Red, to draw tiny curved things on her hands and arms in lavender ink and how that made Carly's stomach feel like it had made a daring leap from tip of the Space Needle.

"And ow, your nails are digging into my arms."

Carly drops her hands from where she was unaware that she was clutching Sam.

"He's icky," Carly suggests, rubbing her wrist where there's a purple pig head with wings and an antennae. "And he cleans his fingernails with the metal part of his eraser, which he chews. He chews the eraser part right off!"

Sam shrugs and tries not to look uncomfortable, but she just ends up smiling stupidly.

"Think the show! Of all the insane stuff Rodney'll -"

"Insanely illegal stuff."

"That too," Sam concedes. "But think about all the insane stuff we're gonna get for iCarly. This'll blow Hippos On Steroids Dot Com right out of the water."

"We've already blown Hippos On Steroids Dot Com out of the water," Carly huffs.

"I know," Sam says, gesturing lazily. "That site's bordering on desperate, and they've got some super discounted merchandise now to try and keep up."

Carly rolls her eyes. "Okay. I know an attempt to veer from the path of an uncomfortable conversation when I see one."

"I'm shocked you would think that of me, Shay," Sam gasps, feigning indignation.

"It's true," Carly deadpans.

"Yeah," Sam says and throws her arm around Carly's neck, around Carly's feeble grunt in protest. "But I'm still shocked. Anyway. You and me? That'd be nuttier than Spencer's – whatever-it-was that he made out of chunky peanut butter."

With that, Sam leads Carly out of the janitor's closet like they'd just gone for a stroll along the shelves. They leave the conversation there, a derelict among the cleaning things.

And actually, Spencer's whatever-it-was was an edible squirrel nest, and Carly thought it was really thoughtful and sweet, if it weren't also for the extremely sticky quality that also made it a deathtrap for adorable, misty-eyes squirrel babies.

Though in the end, it didn't matter; Carly breaths a belated, confused 'yeah,' and that's the end of that.

Sam's happy with Rodney; there's no way to deny that.

Sam's not out of control like she was with Jonah. She's calm - well, as calm as Sam can be said to be - her face going soft and her hands going up to play with the edges of her hair when she talks about Rodney.

The last thing Carly wants is to mess up something that makes Sam happy. Because maybe those things that happened between them were just playing around for Sam, and Rodney is the real deal. Obviously, seeing how Sam is going out with Rodney and not Carly. Carly doesn't even know if that's what she would want from Sam, but all the same, she starts to understand what she might want a little more everyday, even though she tries to shut that part of her brain off.

Anyway, it's obviously not like that for Sam. Carly wishes she could operate on whatever impulse her nerves might fancy at any given moment and not think about things so much. Like Sam, who can just start going out with Rodney and not contemplate what might (or might not) be happening so much that she can't think straight.

It's worse that Rodney isn't the terrible boyfriend Carly had hoped he would be.

He's still sleazy, and Carly doesn't like him slinking around Sam like he's getting the upper hand in a drug trafficking scam, but he actually makes pretty good off-hand suggestions for the show (albeit they can't use most of his ideas because they're all highly dangerous and illegal in nature, and who knew Rip-Off Rodney had such a thing for anything that shined or exploded?) and sometimes whips discounted chimmichangas from his pockets when someone's hungry.

Not that he doesn't still charge them.

But still. Rodney makes Sam happy, and even though it should make Carly hate him that it's not her anymore – and Carly realizes that much through the confusion by now – Carly still doesn't. Not really.

iii.

"There're over fifty ways to refurbish a busted Pear Phone," Rodney says coolly, infusing about a hundred watts into Sam's smile. "One involves microwaving it on the popcorn setting alongside a chicken chimmichanga for five minutes."

"What's the chimmichanga for?" Freddie asks, face strained as he pulls on the collar of his striped shirt. It's hot.

"A guy can work up an appetite while listenin' to the microwave run for five minutes," he shrugs.

Sam agrees enthusiastically, and Freddie turns to Carly, his eyebrows raised. Ever since Sam started dating Rodney, Freddie'd tried to keep his distance from them both. Carly suspected that it was because Freddie worried his mom would find out and agonize over Freddie going fast and ready into the life of a delinquent, since Rodney'd been on the news that one time.

Only that was until Freddie had skulked into Carly's apartment that morning and started asking paranoid questions about what types of torture devices Rodney would supply to Sam, and if he'd do it for free.

The three of them had just wrapped up an episode of iCarly, and she, Sam, Freddie, and Rodney are now outdoors on one of Seattle's more unusually sweltering afternoons.

Which is unfair. And it's not the heat; she could live with that type of discomfort, but -

It's unfair that it's their day: her and Sam's friendship anniversary of eight years, and Sam hasn't said anything, not even a flash of eight fingers. Not that Sam usually says anything really, but eight is a sacred number in some cultures!

Now Carly is stuck walking behind Sam and her boyfriend because Freddie's mom, after inspecting Rodney's run-down station wagon, decided that Freddie isn't allowed to even go near the thing, lest a part break off and poke out one of his eyes. Against the protests of her and Freddie, Sam got Rodney to abandon the air conditioned Sleaze Mobile so they can all walk to BF Wangs together, talking loudly under the bright quiet of sky as they go.

And a part of Carly is grateful, despite the heat: she does not want to sit in a place that is possibly a hotbed for memories of Sam and Rodney's adventures in make-out land.

Just looking at them now, Carly thinks she wants to pull her own hair out (or his; she can't tell) just because he's got his hand on the small of Sam's back. Only she remembers that Rodney's good for Sam, and she really hasn't been in any more trouble than usual lately, and -

Why hadn't Carly noticed before? If she were feeling this way for her best friend, she really should have known.

It wasn't fair, all these thoughts suddenly pouncing, like they couldn't be considerate enough to at least start off tiny.

At least she would have known. Before it got to this, that is. She would have at least have had time to prepare.

iv.

They walk for what seems like forever, and Sam is the loudest of them all (randomly shouting things at passersby and whooping when they happen to pass Crazy Fruit Dude) even though she only looks small next to Rodney, who is all long, sinewy limbs and big hair.

Sam's the smallest of them all, really, and Carly marvels that someone fit all those loud parts into her, which usually makes her seem taller and bigger than Carly. At the same time, it's like Sam knew how to look down at everyone else by the time Carly had met her. In a way.

In a way, she's also much bigger than anything else Carly has.

When they stop before a white-painted convenience store, Rodney slows and loosely throws his arm around Freddie in some semblance of male camaraderie, but it looks more like he's lassoing him in, because Freddie looks like he might want to cringe away into the cracks in the sidewalk.

While the two walk into the store, Carly and Sam stand close together under the awning, kicking too-dry cement, burning up in the first thing Carly thinks she can't ever tell Sam.

Sam looks bright and flushed and is swinging the sleeves of the two plaid shirts she has tied around her waist (one hers and one Rodney's), and her eyes going momentarily golden when she steps out from under the awning and into the sunlight to glance down the street. Her lips are red, and her shoulders are bare - and god, Carly's never thought of freckles before, but she wants to run her lips all along the ones dusted just over Sam's shoulders. It's the first time Carly really thinks of Sam as being beautiful, and they talk about something as mundane as their potential orders from BF Wangs, Carly becoming anxiously charged over the possibility of slipping and saying she wants Sam instead of Mu Shu Chicken.

Freddie comes out of the store first, but he's alone, and Carly has to squint to see him in the burnish pocket of setting sunset. He carries four Peppy Colas and is making a face like he wants to scratch under his collar but can't reach.

Rodney saunters out a few seconds later, looking around unnecessarily and has something small clutched in his hand, which he leans down to surreptitiously hand to Sam. Like he's making one of his deals.

Carly recognizes the hard plastic bubble container right away, knows what it is because of the time she and Sam sat on a wet sidewalk with forty quarters to shove into a vending machine. She knows by the boisterous reception the little plastic shell gets from Sam.

"No way!" Sam shouts as she furiously works her fingers like tiny crowbars at breaking it open, and her face lights up for Rodney where Carly's only seen it strained for Carly for days. "This is insane! How many quarters did you have to put in to get this one?"

Sam pulls the tiny item from the clear, plastic shell: it's one of those Boogie Bear danglers - the tiny, plastic Boogie Bear that wears a removable rubber costume. This one is in a ham costume.

"Ask no questions, and I'll tell you no lies," Rodney says, grinning like a fool, though he tries to tuck the edges of his countenance into the right places for still looking criminal-like.

Carly mimes his words grotesquely. Sam calls him cupcake.

Carly grabs for the water bottle in her purse – quite literally to wash away her expression - when Sam runs over to her with the dangler, and if she seriously wants Carly to squeal over this right now, she can forget it.

"Hold this for me?" Sam asks, looking windblown and scarlet.

Carly attempts to find words swimming in her momentary confusion (Sam has pockets.), possibly ones that are fitted to end in a question mark (you know, just to go with the theme) only the water bottle is at her mouth and Sam grasps for her waist – and god, for a moment Carly gets entirely the wrong idea.

Sam places her finger under Carly's belt loop and pulls so she moves toward Sam, mostly her hips and a few splashes of water, because Carly leans the rest of her body away as Sam loops the string around Carly's belt loop and beams at her innocently, but Sam's knee presses into Carly's leg, and god, Carly just breathes.

The sun sinks faster as they keep walking, and soon a cool tide carrying in the darkness starts to spread like a disease. The air becomes moist and hangs low around them like all Carly's enormous confusion, like this stupid thing she can't connect with, yet it's still all over her, clamming up her skin and frizzing her hair.

Still, when Sam links arms with hers and pulls her ahead of Freddie and Rodney, Carly is pleasantly surprised, because it's suddenly like they're very far away, and Carly loosens up as they stamp heavily over the pavement, arms still linked, shouting and laughing loudly to insult the quiet of the sky.

There was once a jealous Sophomore trying to spread rumors involving Carly and the words 'attention whore,' and Carly's loud notes now seem to plead for the attention of the entire universe, but only the soft, quiet city lights come down on her – on her and Sam - and Carly couldn't care less about any of it, because really, right now it's only them.

Feel free to leave your thoughts. Next section up shortly.