A/N: Hopefully the last chapter didn't bore you to sleep. Still no real lemons yet, but it'll happen some time or another.
Thanks for the reviews so far, glad you guys like it so far! Eh, I'll try to update as often as possible, but don't hold me to that because I start school again soon.
Disclaimer: Sadly, I still don't own iCarly. But whatever. SEDDIE IS CANON, THEREFORE I'M OKAY WITH DAN OWNING IT. :D
"Let's uh…let's get out of here, shall we?" he whispers. I nod quickly, and we hurriedly make our way out of the theatre, appreciating the blaring bright light and light-hearted atmosphere of children running down the street.
"So…what now?" he rubs the back of his neck. I shrug absent mindedly.
"I don't know. What do geeks like you do in their spare time?"
He starts to speak, but I cut him off abruptly. "Actually, never mind. Don't answer that."
He rolls his eyes, but starts to cross the relatively empty road.
"We could go to my place and just hang out."
"Your mom hates me, remember?"
"She doesn't hate you, Sam. She just thinks you could do with a little…brushing up on your table manners."
I laugh at the memory of the time I had to stay at the Benson household for Thanksgiving three years ago, and I had picked up my steak with my bare hands while she and the nub daintily cut theirs into tiny pieces with their silverware. The look on her face was something I would have paid to see again.
"Anyway, she isn't home. She won't be back until tomorrow…something about getting a completely hormone-free, skin-free and fat-free turkey for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow night." He shrugs, and shoves his hands in his pockets.
"Of course. Wouldn't expect anything less of Crazy."
He chuckles slightly, and I notice that his ears are a little pink from the cold, as is his nose…right above his slightly chapped lips. Those lips that had so often invaded my thoughts for a while now.
That's not to say that I was in love with him or something (gross, this is Fredweird we're talking about here), but I'm not going to sit here and pretend that he's not an incredibly amazing kisser. He's so…gentle about it (as you would expect from a sweet nerdy boy), yet in no way timid or awkward. As for how I know that…well, let's just say that a game of Seven Minutes in Heaven landed us in a dark hallway closet where absolutely no talking was done and no identities were revealed…until an unmistakable "Ow!" escaped his lips when I accidentally trod on his foot. I never told him about that incident. There wasn't a necessity to create an awkward turtle between us.
The rest of the walk to his apartment is fairly silent, thoughts of the movie still hanging above us. He unlocks the door to the suffocating smell of lemon-scented cleaning detergent and leather polish. Not exactly pleasant, but it was a change from my place, which usually just smells like cat pee and beer. I'd been here enough times to know where his room was, and made a beeline for the door.
"Hey…it's different." I say, slowly observing the unfamiliar room.
"What's different?" he's leaning against the doorframe, an eyebrow raised.
"Your room. It's not as…dorky anymore."
"Uh, thanks…I think?"
Where there used to be action figures along the wall shelf, there were now photo frames, filled with pictures of us (him, myself and Carly), as well as several trophies; some from being a nerd at school and two from the iWeb Awards from past years. The previously bright orange bedframe was now one of plain oak, and the giant creepy poster of Carly had been taken down from the inside of his closet door. I silently wonder when he had gotten rid of it.
The only things that were still the same were his 30 computers at a desk in the corner, and his Galaxy Wars bedsheets.
"Still got a fetish for Nug-Nug though, I see." I tease. He rolls his eyes and sits on the bed, gesturing for me to do the same. I lie back onto it, my hair splayed out on the bedspread. He laughs and lies back as well.
"So…"
"So…."
"Wow, great conversation starter, Fredalupe."
"I don't see you trying, either."
"You're supposed to be the intelligent one."
Another silence falls upon us as we scramble for something to say.
"That movie was pretty intense, huh?"
Oh yeah, the movie. Where a guy raped and killed his girlfriend for cheating on him.
"Yeah…that was cruel. You know, how he raped her before killing her."
"The fact that he raped her at all was bad enough, let alone the killing. Sex shouldn't be used as a form of assault. I mean, whether or not she was cheating on him…nobody deserves that."
"Sometimes we hurt the ones we love because we don't want to lose them to someone else."
He pauses in thought for a moment before turning his head slightly.
"That was deep, Sam."
"Yeah, don't get used to it."
"Wouldn't expect anything less."
I think back to the movie- at how the guy had so smoothly pushed her underwear down along with her dress. It was something that I could imagine happening to myself (though I would never wear something like that on a regular basis). He made it look so easy, despite his large, bulky hands. They weren't like Freddie's hands; his were slim and bony, but still large, nonetheless.
A pulsating thought runs through my head…Has he ever…it's not impossible. He's dated around, hasn't he?
"Have you ever done it?"
His head turns sharply towards me, an eyebrow raised in question.
"Have I ever done what?"
"You know…it." I pursed my lips, not looking at him. Talking about sex is not exactly my idea of casual conversation, so it wasn't really my intention to make things more awkward than they already were.
"What are you…oh right…uh, no. I haven't." he said awkwardly. "Why, have you? Don't hit me." He put an arm up to his face to protect himself.
"Chill the fuck out, I'm not going to hit you. And no, I haven't, either."
"Oh….why do you want to know anyway?"
"Is it so weird that I would ask? We're both seventeen and have…you know, needs. I was just wondering if it ever happened when you dated Jenna."
"No, she wanted to wait until marriage. She wouldn't even let me kiss her or hold her hand in public, let alone…do that."
"Oh yeah, I forgot how much of a prude she was."
Last year, Freddie had dated this mousy girl in our year called Jenna, who admittedly, was an absolute sweetheart, but a total prude who considered any sort of physical contact as 'scandalous'. They broke up after four months, neither of them seemed fazed by it.
"Why'd she dump you anyway?
"For your information, Puckett, I broke up with her. And it was because it just wasn't working out at all. I figured that if she wasn't going to allow any sort of physical contact, then we could at least compensate with conversation. But she never had time for me, so all in all, it was pretty pointless."
"Oh. Well…if she hadn't been a prude, would you have done it with her?"
"Why all the questions, Sam?"
"I'm just curious, jeez."
"No, I wouldn't. And enough about me. Why haven't you done it?"
And there it was. What was I supposed to tell him? Oh, I haven't done it because the very thought of you in anything less than a T-shirt and jeans makes my ovaries explode.
"It just hasn't. I haven't exactly been in a stable enough relationship to get anywhere near that stage."
"Well, technically, you don't have to be in a relationship for that sort of thing to happe—"
"What are you suggesting, that I would randomly hook up with some dude for no apparent reason?"
"You know I don't mean that, Sam. I'm just saying that sometimes stuff happens the way we don't expect it to."
I was starting to get the feeling that silence would burst my eardrums and cause my brain to implode. I shift onto my front, looking at the boyishly handsome but nubbishly irritating figure next to me with his hands behind his head and staring up at the ceiling.
"Do you think Carly's done it?"
He scrunches up his nose in exasperation.
"What the hell, Sam?"
"What? It's not a total impossibility. Remember that weekend about half a year ago when she and Griffin went camping? Who knows, maybe she—"
"Sam, I am not discussing our best friend's sex life or lack thereof."
"Oh, but you're okay discussing mine?"
"You started it!"
"You didn't have to answer me!"
"You would have beat it out of me if I didn't. And why do you want to know in the first place, anyway? Been having some...interesting dreams?"
"I—" Damn, the boy was good. He smirks knowingly at me, a glint of victory in his eyes. I feel a rush of blood run to my face, and suddenly the room feels like a sauna.
"Cat got your tongue, Sam? Or are you just not telling me about those sexual fantasies you have about me?"
Okay, now he was just being cocky.
I will follow that up, I promise. He doesn't just say that out of the blue. Review if you so please :D
