Summary: A serious Seddie (friendship) one-shot. …You'll see. Inspired by the work, "On Fire" by kiden, on deviantart.
Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly, that right goes to Dan Schneider.
iSee the World in Crimson, Orange, and Gold
It was a fire.
That's what had done it.
That's what had left Freddie Benson on the balcony outside the hallway on the eighth floor.
That's what left Sam Puckett staggering around without an ally, without a mother.
She came to a window and knocked on it.
He looked up, not surprised by the company in the slightest, and motioned her outside with him.
She walked out, and then, for a few moments, silence. Finally, "So, this is what you've been doing?"
"Huh?" he asked with the confusion that didn't show on his face. His face was numb right now. It wouldn't move and it wouldn't change.
"You've just been sitting up here?" she asked, her voice a bit more emotive. It seemed that she might've been on the other side of the spectrum from him. Now and always.
"What else is there to do?" he asked with a shrug.
"What else is there to do?" she repeated, her voice picking up into anger. And her face contorted in that anger, contorted in a way that looked painful. She was most definitely on the opposite side of the spectrum. "Something!" she shrieked. "Anything! Carly is dead, Freddie, and Spencer is in the hospital and you're just sitting here doing nothing?!" She angrily grabbed the baseball that he was rolling in his hands and, with a growl, chucked it off the fire escape.
"Well, what are you doing about it?" he questioned, unaffected, still sounding just as numb as before. The only thing that was different about him was that he no longer had a ball to toy with.
For once, she seemed extremely human. The orange glow from the sunset shined off the tears that ran down her cheeks. "What can I do about it?" she asked, almost unsure of what word she should be emphasizing as her voice cracked.
Freddie shrugged limply. "Something? Anything?"
The tears stopped. It was evidenced by the makeup that smudged and dried all over her face that she'd already used all her tears for the day before making her way to the fire escape. She collapsed, still conscious, in the lawn chair positioned near the ledge. Slumping over the rim of the terrace, she laid her head on her arms.
He watched her, his face only altering now, unbeknownst to her. He wore a frown. She would never be the same. Spencer would never be the same. He would never be the same. He didn't lose one friend, he didn't lose three friends. He lost his whole world on that day. And he contemplated this as he sat hunched on the fire escape steps, perched on them in the scene of the dusk as if he were sitting in a glorious armchair. But that was Freddie's power, to make the mundane seem grandiose.
"Kind of ironic, isn't it?" Sam asked as she sucked in a heavy breath, her mouth barely able to open with the force she used to press her head into her arm.
"What is?" he asked the blonde's back.
She stared into the crimson, orange, and amber air, her eyes searching the sky for something—not even she knew what. "How it seems like everything's on fire now."