A/N: Hey there. This is my oh-so-scathing response to the various Romeo & Juliet fics out there. I've gotten a bit carried away with it. It will be told in five Acts (yes, like the play) and I hope that you get a kick out of it. Shakespeare nerds, please don't kill me. I am comfortable with the Bard, but I wouldn't count myself among his enormous fans. I hope that those of you who are nerdy about this sort of thing at least are amused. Please read and review! Let me know what you think so far, I really appreciate it.
Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly OR Romeo & Juliet, obviously, or I wouldn't be butchering both so badly.
Act I
"What do you mean this is my last chance? Last chance for what?" Sam slapped her paper down on her teacher's desk. Across the top of a too-short essay on Italian versus English sonnets was scrawled: "Come see me after class, this is your last chance."
Mrs. Prince peered up at Sam from her horn-rimmed glasses. "Your last chance to pass this class and not have to repeat it in summer school. This essay was," she tongued around her mouth for the right word, "lacking."
Freddie watched with an arched brow from the back row of the class. He had his five page essay in his hand, a nice big red A on top. Of course, he'd actually begun working on it before ten o'clock last night.
"Freddie, come on, let me borrow your notes," Sam had plead over the phone to him last night.
"No, I told you, I'm not going to help you slide by anymore. It's not worth it." He'd hung up, suspecting that Carly would come through for Sam, anyway. She'd have to learn her lesson, sometime, but it probably wouldn't be that night.
But it was! He smiled devilishly to himself. Carly must have gotten an early night, or come to the same conclusion he had, because there was Sam with half an essay, toeing one shoe with another, being calmly stared down by their slight English teacher.
After an uncomfortable pause as the last of the other students shuffled their way out of the class, Freddie heard Sam sigh. "What do I have to do?"
"Auditions are after school tomorrow. If you do well in the play, participate in the group, and actually learn your lines, we'll work out how much extra credit you need to pass. I'll be directing, of course. Signups are in the cafeteria." Mrs. Prince pointed with her yardstick to the handmade poster reading "Romeo & Juliet, a tragic romance" and looked at Sam pointedly.
"God, fine, whatever." Not even noticing that Freddie had waited for her, Sam stomped out of the room.
"Mr. Benson, what can I do for you?" Mrs. Prince folded her hands on the top of her desk.
"Oh, well, I was just waiting for Sam, but, um…"
Ridgeway High grading policy stated that there was no grade given above an A on any individual assignment. But if Freddie wanted to graduate with an above 4.0 GPA -- which he did, because that was how you got into the good schools, and the only way his mom would ever let him out of her sight would be if he was going to an Ivy League -- he would have to do more than take a bunch of AP classes next year. He'd have to game the system.
"If I do the play, can I get extra credit, too?" Freddie tucked his essay into his bag.
"I suppose it's only fair, but it isn't like you need it. I was going to offer it in classes on Friday, if auditions are sparse."
"I'll be there, Mrs. Prince." He headed out, rushing to his locker to make sure Sam hadn't gotten to his lunch before him.
***
In the cafeteria, Sam and Carly stood by a bigger version of the Romeo & Juliet poster. Sam held a clipboard in her hands. "Can you believe this junk? Ew. I don't want to be some wussy girl who dies for love. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." The board had a few different columns for characters. After pursing her lips and making whining noises for about a minute, Sam put her name down in only one of the columns. Then she handed it to Carly.
"You know I'm only trying out in solidarity, right?" Carly scribbled her name down in a few columns.
"Oh, come on, it'll be fun for you. Professional web comedian and all that, right?"
"Okay, but don't expect me to get a part." She put the clipboard down and turned around, to find Freddie hovering close behind her. "Hey! Sam made me sign up."
Freddie smirked and turned to Sam, who was busy stealing Carly's french fries off her lunch tray. "I bet Mrs. Prince will make you be a servant with a bit part so she doesn't have to put up with you much."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Frederatio." She flicked some milk from her straw at him. "What, you're signing up, too?"
"Sure. Extra credit anywhere I can get it." The paper was divided into male and female parts. Without looking, Freddie wrote his name on every male part's column. The three of them headed straight for their usual table.
"Nub."
"Slacker."
"Do you two mind? I'm trying to eat."
***
Auditions were tiring work. They'd read Romeo & Juliet last year in class, but Freddie didn't remember any of it, not really. During each role that he tried out for, he clutched his lines close to his chest, trying to pull off some semblance of comfort. Maybe he could get the same credit if he did lighting?
But as soon as he had the thought, he noticed the enclave of the drama club crew regulars, hanging out in the back row of the theater. They all wore black, they all carried duct tape wherever they went, and Freddie knew from experience in these matters that this turf was already claimed.
He would just have to try harder on the next part. He wrapped up his sad, tired version of Benvolio and exited, stage left, waiting for the two other guys to try out. Freddie studied Mercutio's soliloquy in the dim light of the theater.
Fifteen minutes later, it was time. Freddie climbed back on stage, trying his best to strike a rakish pose. He was Fred Benson, bad boy, jackass, all around prankster. If he got the part of Mercutio, he'd only have to be in half the play and get all the best lines. It would be easy! He swallowed a few times.
"O, then I see Queen Mab hath been w-with you." Freddie stuttered, clearing his throat. "She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes in shape no bigger than an agate stone on the forefinger of an alderman, drawn with a team of little --"
"Stop stop, Mr. Benson, hold on." Mrs. Prince made her way up to the stage, a handful of props in her hands. "You're obviously trying, but you just don't – here." She shoved a dull saber into his hand. Freddie stepped back, immediately uncomfortable being in such close proximity to a teacher with a weapon in his hand. Mrs. Prince laughed a bit and readjusted the shawl she had draped over her shoulder. "Go on, swish it around a bit. Mercutio has a sword, he should act with it."
"Well, okay, sure, I guess so." Freddie looked down at his lines again. He stood up straight, his saber in line, and addressed the drama club in the back row. Suddenly, he felt far more confident. He posed humorously, leaning his weapon to his side, describing Queen Mab's coach and courtiers with great, sweeping gestures of his arm. He worked through the half of the speech he had been given with what he felt was great aplomb.
Mrs. Prince clapped lightly. "Much better, Freddie. Much better! But we've got one more person to audition."
Freddie smiled, relieved, and left the sword on an empty chair near the curtain for a seat in the audience. He was pretty sure the part was his. The confidence coursed through his blood. So when Sam walked silently onto stage, without a copy of the lines in her hand, Freddie laughed out loud.
Sam whipped around from grasping the saber. "What are you laughing at, mumbles?" she snapped at him.
Mrs. Prince coughed. "You understand that Mercutio is a male role, don't you, Miss Puckett?"
"Hey, when these things were first put on, all the girls were played by dudes. I don't think it matters if we switch it up a little, do you?" Sam gave the sword an experimental lunge. Freddie cringed at her horrible form.
"I'm just making sure you understand. Feel free to begin when you're comfortable."
Sam took a deep breath. Freddie wondered what she was going to say, since she didn't have any lines, not even any written on herself.
She launched completely into Mercutio's first soliloquy, flawless in her pacing and pronunciation. When she had pranced and thrusted her way through the first half, where Freddie had left off, she continued on. Mrs. Prince sat straight up in her chair. Sam licked her lips in a suggestive way. "This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, that presses them, and learns them first to bear, making women of good carriage." She stroked the tip of her saber in what could only be described a lascivious manner and made eyes at Mrs. Prince. Freddie smacked his own face. "This is she --" Sam continued, waiting to get cut off.
"Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace! Thou talk'st of nothing." Mrs. Prince filled in Romeo's line for her, and Sam just went right on through.
She relaxed, leaning on her hip in a drawn manner. "True, I talk of dreams; which are the children of an idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy," and here, Sam stared straight at Freddie, "which is as thin a substance as the air, and more inconstant than the wind --"
"Miss Puckett, you can stop. You've got the part."
Sam grinned, a bright, true grin, and Freddie moaned.
"Stay for a while, I need you to audition the Romeos." Mrs. Prince eyed a cluster of sullen boys to the side.
That was when Freddie remembered he'd signed up to try out for the main role, too.
***
"Now, remember, Freddie, you're in love with Rosaline, who doesn't love you back." Mrs. Prince smiled obligingly at him.
"Yeah, I think I got it." He shuffled his feet, holding another saber at his side, and slumped in a depressed hunch on the empty chair. He eyes Sam warily, standing across from him, picking her teeth with the end of her sword. He rolled his eyes effusively.
"Whenever you're ready."
"Give me a torch. I am not for this ambling. Being but heavy, I will bear the light." Freddie ran his hand through his hair, imagining the last time Carly told him he wouldn't have a chance with her. It had been yesterday afternoon.
"Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance!" Sam leaned in, and pushed him gently on the shoulder. Freddie felt affronted. What was the point, anyway?
"Not I, believe me. You have dancing shoes with nimble soles; I have a soul of lead so stakes me to the ground I cannot move." Quickly, he sat up in his chair, shocked to see the pointy end of Sam's saber waving in his face.
"You are a lover!" Sam pointed to his heart with her weapon. "Borrow Cupid's wings and soar with them above a common bound."
Freddie shook his head and laughed, sadly. "I am too sore enpierced with his shaft to soar with his light feather; and so bound, I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe. Under love's heavy burden do I sink."
They played the scene on until line thirty eight, Sam with her brash posturing, Freddie channeling every bit of unrequited love he'd ever felt. He finished with a heaving sigh. "The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done."
Mrs. Prince clapped them off. "Oh yes, I am done as well. I think we have our Romeo."
"What?" Freddie blinked, stumbling his way down the stairs on the left of the stage.
"You have the emotion down perfectly. I've never seen someone read him with such melancholy and yearning, it was," she reached around in her mouth for the right word, "what do you children say these days? So emo."
Sam laughed and laughed, slapping Freddie's back with the palm of her hand.
"You'll have to teach everyone how to hold a sword, too. I was going to do it, but you're obviously far more capable." Mrs. Prince left, shuffling her papers together and prancing out of the theater before Freddie could object.
***
"Are you serious? Wendy?" Freddie finally learned from Carly, the next day, that he would be playing opposite Wendy. Well, she was certainly attractive enough. And they got along alright. But he had hoped, somewhere along the way, that Carly would get the part.
"Oh don't give me that look. I didn't even audition for Juliet. Are you kidding me? I don't want that many lines! I have enough as it is."
"So you're going to take the part, then?" Sam handed Carly a bowl of popcorn. They were watching that week's user submitted videos for their show. The next two months were going to be so busy with rehearsals that they were going to put a lot more of them into the webshow than normal.
"Yeah, Juliet's nurse. I think I have more scenes with Wendy than Freddie does."
"Yeah, but you don't get to kiss her." Sam smirked.
Freddie nearly choked on his water. "What, you want to kiss Wendy?"
Sam thinks seriously for a moment. "Well she's got really pretty hair. I think our babies would be gorgeous, don't you think, Carls?"
Carly laughs and winks at Freddie, making him go a bit slackjawed. "Well, Shakespeare was all about the homoerotic subext."