Title: Bacon, because I'm unimaginative like that.
Author: InvisibleMeatball.
Rating: T, for Freddie getting hit, a mention of condoms, and one f-bomb. Really, though, if the f word bugs you so much, just cover it up with your thumb or something. Geez.
Pairings: Sam/Freddie, but not blatantly. Also some Carly/Freddie, because, well, it's iSYL.
Length: I don't know! About 3,000 words?
Disclaimer: No. Just.. just, no.
Summary: 'And suddenly eight seconds seems a lot shorter than it used to.' iSaved Your Life from Sam's POV, so, yes, there will be some Seddie. Includes some unofficial missing scenes, because, really, it seemed rushed.
"HEY YOU! WHAT DO YOU HAVE AGAINST BUNNIES WITH TOOTHBRUSHES?"
You're yelling across the street at a forty-something businessman that was ignoring Carly when it happens. Freddie's hitting your shoulder, hard, and thrusting the camera into your hands, and too late you see Carly in the middle of the street as a huge taco truck's heading straight for her. And then, as your eyes are darting around in the confusion and your mouth is still saying, "Hey, what the heck, Fredward?", you see Freddie running towards the girl in the bunny suit, yelling at the top of his lungs.
Carly turns, annoyed, but Freddie's reaching out with both arms, shoving her so hard she flies five feet, just enough to get out of harm's way. You, however, are staring, open-mouthed, as the truck hits Freddie with a sickening crunch. Carly's still on the ground, blinking in confusion, so it's your voice alone that screams his name, no insult added on this time, as you race forward, dropping the camera and pulling out your cell at the same time.
The truck swerves to a stop five seconds too late. You finally get to the scene of the accident, but you find yourself skidding to a stop three feet in front of Freddie as he cries out so loudly you're almost feeling the pain yourself. You stare, horrified, at his leg, which is bent at an unnatural angle, and his forehead, which is gushing blood hard (You remember something about making fun of him for being prone to excessive bleeding). He glances at you with his eyes glazed over in pain, then looks away, as if ashamed you're seeing him like this. Carly comes up beside you, crying loudly with the occasional whimpered "Oh my God" or "Freddie."
The stupid nerd tries to get up with one hand while cradling the other, but you kneel and push him back down. A noise at your ear startles you, and you realize that sometime in the last minute you've called 911 and had a somewhat calm conversation with the dispatcher. Carly kneels down beside you and demands she talk with the operator, and you let her, staring at the broken idiot in front of you.
The driver of the truck is babbling wildly to anyone who'll listen that it's not his fault, he's a nice person, in fact, who wants a free taco. You grab one just to shut him up.
He's crying now, trying to hide it, but you let it slide, knowing even you've cried under a lot less pain. He keeps staring at Carly, who's staring back as if in awe as she mumbles the location into the phone.
You wince and try your best with the comforting business, telling him that, hey, who knew, he's not a complete wuss, and that he shouldn't be worrying, I've caused him worse pain that he's lived through. He shakes his head, or maybe it's just trembling, you can tell, and he spits out in between the 'fucks' that this is worse, Sam, way worse.
He screams again, but it's not girly so you can't hold it against him later. It's just.. pure agony. You start to notice a dark stain growing on his t-shirt, and for the first time you wonder if he's going to die.
You keep going with your pitiful version of comfort as Carly cries, cradling his head in her lap, still staring at him with that expression of awe. "Hey, you'll be alright," you say, feeling like you're comforting a little kid about to get a shot at the doctor's. "Seriously. We called 911, they'll be here any second.. And then you'll be up and saying five, four, three, two, without the one, and we'll even do a short Tech Time With Freddie segment, just cuz we feel sorry for you. And then you'll say something dorky and I'll pour hot coffee on you, and Carly will defend you and you'll say something stalkerish.." You're rambling now, but you keep going because he's looking at you like if you stop he'll pass out. "And she'll shoot you down and Spencer'll set something on fire.. Oh, and then I'll beat him at Assassin and your mom will freak out because you played a game called Assassin, and Gibby'll run in and take his shirt off." You hear sirens in the distance and feel like it's time to stop. "And it's gonna be fine." Some lettuce from your taco falls onto his forehead.
He blinks and you notice his blood is starting to drip (gush?) on to the street. His whole body is trembling by now.
"Fine," you repeat, squeezing his arm. Two seconds pass and then he's suddenly being lifted into those stretcher things as they drag Carly away to get the story or check for brain damage or whatever. When Freddie realizes she's gone he blinks hard.
"Tell Carls I love her," he slurs, and you notice even more blood spurting out of his mouth.
"Okay, no need to get sappy," you bark, letting go of his arm but still walking with the paramedics as they roll his stretcher to the ambulance.
"Please," he says.
You nod grudgingly and try to wrap your mind around the fact that he just saved Carly's life.
He closes his eyes and stops twitching in pain, and you realize he's passed out, succumbing to the pain.
Carly begs to be the one to ride in the ambulance and you feel like fighting for some reason but let her, waiting until the last moment to shout over the noise, "He says he loves you!"
Her eyes widen, like she's just realized it now. "He does, doesn't he?" she murmurs, crawling into the ambulance, and you wonder why it suddenly means so much to her. You have the urge to push the nurse out and jump in next to Carly, but instead she's yelling to go tell Spencer, and she still has your phone, so you run the whole way, even the stairs.
As you're screaming at Spencer what happened and he asks if Carly's okay, you can't help but feel uncontrollable anger directed at the girl. She's fine, of course, maybe her bunny suit (she still probably had it on) a bit torn, nothing compared to Freddie. For the first time EVER, you start to wonder if maybe Carly's the one who doesn't deserve Freddie, after all, he had just literally risked his life to save her from a few broken bones.
You visit Freddie with Carly and Spencer a week later, the day he comes home. When you bound into the room, he's smiling, drinking something that looks like a lumpy smoothie, as Spencer plays with his toes and sings a little song about a pig that technically produced a show called iPorky. Carly's sitting on the bed next to him, going over homework with him.
Spencer's head snaps up when you walk in and he reaches for his blow tube, but you yell at him your mom borrowed your tubes for her hot date tonight and he nods, honoring the temporary truce.
You grimace for a second as your eyes land back on Freddie, regretting how you lost your cool and freaked out while he was hurt. Determined to act as rude as possible to make up for last week, you jump on the bed, jostling his leg off the pillow. He gasps, glaring, and you smile sweetly.
"I still can't get over how dorky your room is," you say after a second, even though you've been here before.
"Yeah, well, I'm not the one with a secret marshmallow stash in my lampshade," he smirks, thanking Carly as she readjusts his pillow.
"Hey, don't go there, Mr. Jewelry Box," you point across the room to a pinkish flowered box on his dresser.
"I'll have you know it's very handy for keeping things out of my mother's eyes," he says, but he's smiling, so you know he meant it to be all dorky. Really, it's harder to tease him when he knows he's acting like a freak.
"Like, what, condoms?" you snort. Carly blushes and stammers something while Spencer laughs at the idea of Freddie owning condoms. "Speaking of Madam Neurotic, where is she?"
There's an awkward pause. "I blew spherical paint at her," Spencer mumbles.
"She's using a fourteen-step disinfectant process to rid herself of the chemicals," Freddie adds.
Carly speaks up. "I've been telling Freddie about the Social Studies project," she says pointedly. "The one you haven't even picked a topic on."
"So, what?" you scoff. "It's not due for..-"
"For fifteen hours," Freddie supplies.
You smile. "Exactly."
"Your talk of work and responsibility is freaking me out," Spence says, walking away. "Next time I see you, Sam, the truce is ovahhh." He does some weird hand gesture, turns around, and walks out.
You grin, pulling out your mini-blow tube and aiming purposely at the wall in front of him. He screams and stumbles out, slurring out, "You're a devious one!"
"Why didn't you just get him while he was here?" Freddie asks, confused.
"Because.." you explain your intricate plan to the brunettes, involving a lollipop, a somewhat cheesy pun, and your awesome ninja skills.
You stay for a whole hour, insulting Freddie and eating the candy Spencer snuck in for him. Carly eventually snaps.
"Sam, can't you quit?" she yells, and you're almost intimidated. "Freddie just got hit by a TRUCK and all you can do is make fun of him!"
You glance at Freddie, almost like he could give you backup. "It's not anything horrible-"
"Can't you lay off until he gets better?" she shouts. "If I were him I would've punched you in the face by now!"
"I… But…" you set your jaw and huff. "I'm not being any worse than usual!"
"Carly," Freddie says, and he's struggling to sit up. She immediately runs over and props up his pillow. You exhale. "Carly, it's fine. I'm actually kind of sick of everyone fussing over me. I need a good insult now and then. Besides, it'd be too weird if she wasn't picking on me all the time."
You suddenly realize he's quoting that night last January, but before you can reply you're phone's buzzing and your mom needs a refill of paint balls and Carly's busy apologizing to Freddie and you were thinking of leaving soon anyway. So you say later, climb out his window, and run down the fire escape, only barely pausing at the one where his lawn chair is still set up. But only to steal the only slightly moldy bucket of fried chicken Freddie had probably left out last week. It was going to get soggy by the approaching rain anyway, you think as you jump the last ten feet into the busy street.
Three days later you're having a horrible day. Gibby's gotten you triple detention, you splattered your aunt's rabbi with paint, and you come home to Bushwell to find Carly freaking out because she's kissed Freddie. For thirty minutes. Straight.
She wants to talk about it and you want to talk about it, but you're not sure why you want so many details on why she was swapping spit with.. him.
She started the story, "It all started when I helped him out of the shower," and it kinda went downhill from there. You try to nod at all the right places but wince when she asks why you didn't tell her he was such a great kisser. You scoff, "Because he isn't?" and leave out that he was a great kisser, you were the one too terrified to kiss back when it happened.
Suddenly eight seconds seems a lot shorter than it used to.
You make up a reason for leaving, and once you're in the hallway you almost open Freddie's door but decide against it, as Mrs. Crazy would probably beat you with his underwear, and you're not sure you want to get that personal with his undergarments.
Four days of avoiding Carly and Freddie later you wake up to a cop (with a warrant) and a shipment of bacon from Mozambique at your door. As you chew on the foreign pork and walk to school, you choke suddenly as it all becomes clear.
Freddie is bacon.
You don't even blink as Carly kisses Freddie as she leaves for class, hardly waiting to tell Freddie your revelation. You use that fancy reverse psychology stuff on him until he's willing to listen, and then you're explaining your Noseby Moseby plan as he wobbles on his crutches. He says he doesn't believe you, but you've seen that look of uncertainty before, and you're such a mix of pleased with yourself for being so insightful and anxious to see what'll happen that you don't even 'assassin' Spencer when you could've.
You watch Carly and Freddie closely during lunch, but they seem as cuddly as ever. Then you see it, the flicker of doubt in his eye as Carly gushes about his heroism (and nothing about his personality itself) to Wendy, and you feel satisfied enough to skip the rest of school and completely annihilate Spencer by hanging upside down from the rafters of the eighth floor hallway.
You hang out with Spencer for the rest of the day after paying the delivery dude, your rivalry forgotten. Carly and Freddie come home and you watch as they kiss again when Spencer's taking a bubble bath. Then Freddie has to go swallow some painkillers, and you and Carly are left alone, watching Girly Cow while she glances at the door every now and then, like she's waiting for Freddie to come back. You think about telling her your Bacon Theory, but you kinda want to see if Freddie'll be a big boy and do this himself. So you let it go and walk home, thankful that, since it's Friday, there'll be no school tomorrow.
Saturday you're over at Carly's by eleven in the morning, and you're surprised and a little disappointed to see that the new couple is sitting together on the couch, watching Boogie Bear III: The Return of Boogie Bear.
"Gee," you say as loud as you can. "I sure am hungry. You got any BACON, Carly?"
Freddie hides a laugh, stands up, grabs his crutches, and follows you into the kitchen. He pulls a baggy out of his pocket and throws it at you, and you catch it, puzzled. "Here. Swiss bacon," he explains.
"For…?" you say, opening it slowly.
"I dunno," he shrugs. "Thanks, I guess?"
"For…?" you repeat, sniffing it warily.
"For… y'know… telling me about Noseby Moseby.." he says like it damages his nonexistent masculinity to admit I was right.
"Are you telling her what happened?" Carls asks from the couch. He nods, and she joins the two of you.
"Yeah, we broke up." she says, getting out some juice. "Freddie and I talked about it, and he thinks that I wasn't actually in love with him, but what he did."
You bite into the Swiss bacon, smiling. "Really now?"
"Mmhm," she says and pours three glasses. "Kinda like you and Noseby Moseby."
"That sure is a wise and insightful theory, Freddo." You grin cockily in Freddie's direction. He seems to sense how much you're enjoying this, and hastily adds, "We decided to give it another try some other time, when I'm out of this cast."
You smile to yourself again, because you know the Carly love with be dead the minute the scab on his forehead falls off.
The bacon crunches perfectly between your teeth, and your eyes close in bliss. "Glad you got over your temporary insanity, Carls," you say, cracking one eye open, but she just smiles, slightly shaking her head.
Freddie asks for a bite of bacon, and you give up a sliver. You watch him chew it as Carly sips her juice, and you wonder if maybe things are back to normal.