Chapter Name: Sunburn

Notes: So much for being quicker. I have excuses though! Thanks for the readers, and to reviewers NewMoon02, iLive iBreathe iCarly, purpleheart10, KeyLimePie14, PerennialKillJoy, iicarlyy-Ness, Drag0nL0rd, Kolo14, StriderHiryu, and anyone who reviewed a previous chapter.


I took the bottle, squirted a tiny glob of the white substance onto my hands, and started smearing it over my face and arms. I rubbed it in, the white turning to a clear shine, then on my face and the back of my neck.

I cleaned the top of the bottle, and passed it over to Carly.

She refused, "You can't go swimming with your shirt on Freddie. Take it off."

I made an excuse, something about my mother not wanting me to risk burning my skin, but the reality was I was kinda embarrassed.

Carly just snickered at me, "You don't have to be embarrassed, it's not like anything I haven't seen before."

"Yeah, but you always drool over all those hot bad boys." I hate them, parading over school like they own the place, just because they play football or whatever. Half of them couldn't even spell football.

"Oh come on Freddie! You aren't that bad to look at."

"Huh? You really think so?"

"Of course. You aren't ripped or anything, but I hate guys like that anyway. Looks like they are on steroids. And we all know what happens to guys who take steroids."

I shrugged, and she filled me in, "You know, it makes their dick shrink." Carly's soft laughter washed over me, contagious, and I laughed out loud as well.

The joke relaxed me, and I swiftly reached over my head and took my shirt off. As my head popped out, I noticed Carly looking straight at me. Our eyes locked for a half second before her eyes dipped down. "It's okay Carls, you can tell me I look crap compared to Griffin or whatever."

"That pee-wee loving nub? You can't see his muscles when he's got his penguin suit on." Carly's joke didn't cheer me up.

"Geez, you don't have much self-confidence do you?" How could I, when I had to deal with one S Puckett putting me down every 5 minutes. It's funny, when someone tells you that you lack self-confidence, the next thing almost everyone will do is look straight down and get even less confident.

Carly noticed, and attempted to cheer me up, "Seriously Freddie, you're pretty hot, for a tech guy at least. You aren't as hot as Shane, but you are far better than the rest of your little AV Club."

Shane. Every since that little incident where Carly and Sam nearly fought to the death over him, and nearly killed him in the process, we've had a somewhat antagonistic relationship. I was annoyed at how he came between Carly and Sam, and he has a problem with me being the defacto leader of the club. It's never come to much more than occasional shouting, but still. He can annoy me.

"Yeah. Thanks. It's nice to know your best friend thinks you are hotter than the guy who can't stop sneezing. Or the guy who speaks in rhymes and riddles."

Carly pouted, "Don't take it that way Freddie."

"Can we talk about something other than how bad me and my nerd friends look compared to all those jerks and criminals you girls get hot over?"

"Well, maybe if you went a bit faster, you could finish with the lotion and we could go swimming." On that point, I agreed, and started rubbing it into my chest.

"Uh.. Carly, I could use some help." She just sat there staring blankly. I turned, and saw a lifeguard walking past on the other side of the pool.

"Jeez Carly, you'd think you could resist drooling over that lifeguard right after the conversation we just had."

Carly finally started to snap back to reality, although her puzzled response didn't show it as much, "Huh? Lifeguard?"

"Never mind." I sighed, "Could you help me, I can't do my back myself." Carly scooted over and behind me. She squirted out some lotion and started rubbing it over my back. God-gosh, it felt good.

"Don't get too excited Freddie. We don't have any pillows." Carly told me, and I blushed, glad I was facing away from her. Instead of speeding up to get it over with, Carly went slower, and her hands wandered all over my back, the slick lotion helping them glide effortlessly up to my shoulders. I don't know if it was intentional, or just what was needed to rub the lotion in, but she was massaging me, and it felt magical.

I was about to tell her just how good it was, when I heard a shriek of "Fredward!" Crap. Carly took her hands off me like they were burnt, and I turned to see Jennifer storming over.

"What the hell is going on here?"

"I was just putting some lotion on Freddie, so he wouldn't get burnt." Carly replied innocently.

"I wasn't talking to you whore." Jennifer spat with venom. If I didn't intervene this was going to get ugly.

"Excuse me?" Oh that's bad. That look of righteous indignation. Carly was about to get up, so I gently placed my hand on her shoulder, and got up myself, taking Jennifer by the hand and leader her away, and into the heated indoor pool, out of Carly's view.

"Don't talk about Carly like that."

"Why? I'm not the one who parades myself for thousands of creeps on the Internet.

"Are you jealous?"

"As if. Like I'd want to be known across my school as an Internet cam slut."

"What the fuck? Carly isn't like that! I don't understand what the hell your problem with my friends is. It's been going on since practically the day I met you, and you never let up on them." I was irate, girlfriend or not, she couldn't talk that way about Carly. And Sam. Who would soon be the next verbal target.

"I can't believe she'd do that when she knew I was here."

"Do what?"

"It's so obvious. You don't notice because you're a guy, but she's clearly flirting with you."

"We were just talking, nothing more. I needed her to help my cover my back. That's it. There is nothing going on between me and Carly."

"It's not your fault Fredward. I know you don't think about Carly like that anymore, but sometimes girls don't understand what they are missing out on until someone else comes along to give them the love they deserve." God, not this again.

"Do you really need to keep bringing this up? Carly isn't in love with me. Sam isn't in love with me. No-one is in love with me."

"I just don't trust them. It's my women's intuition With all the time and effort you spent on Carly, and her little webshow, the least she could have done is give you a shot. And now she's obviously regretting it and trying to steal you away from me."

"We're just friends. Nothing more."

"And that Sam. All the things she calls you. It's not ladylike."

"That's it. Seriously, I'm sick of this. If you don't like my friends, then leave, and we can hang out without them some other day. It's obvious you don't like them, and it's probably mutual by now.."

"Fine. I'll leave. Tell that bitch I'm watching her." And with that Jennifer strode away, indignant and muttering to herself. Standing there, I thought about running after her and trying to make it better, or worse, but I didn't bother.

"Fuck it." I said to no-one, before I walked back out to the green grass and sunshine of the outdoor poor.

Carly raced over to me, her faced filled with concern when she saw me without Jennifer, "What happened?" I sat back down, with Carly next to me.

"I told her to leave. It was supposed to be just us to begin with anyway. If I didn't I'd probably have said something stupid or drastic."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Uh.. not really. I'm just sick of hearing the same thing over and over. If she can't get over our friendship, and my friendship with Sam, I'm going to dump her." I sighed, but it was inevitable.

Carly leant over and hugged me, "It'll be okay Freddie, whatever you do. I'm here for you."

"I know." I smiled, then laughed when Carly scrunched her nose up, after realizing she got lotion all over her wrap thing.

"Doesn't matter, we're about to go swimming anyway!" Carly started to take off her wrap, and I looked away. "You might as well look now Freddie, you're going to see me anyway when we get in" Good point. I looked, and well the view was nice. The least crude way to put it, was that Carly didn't need the helping bra's anymore. Nothing like what Sam had developed. But still. Nice.

"So... what do you think?"

"You look great." Carly blushed and held her towel across her bashfully, removing my view of her cute pink bikini and the contents held within, "Hey, if you got to look at me, I get to look at you."

"That's fair.. now help me with my back." Except that Carly didn't turn her back to me.

"Ah Carls, I need for you to turn around."

Carly spoke again, but it was softer than usual, "You know, you don't have to put us ahead of Jennifer. We all want you to be happy. Me, Sam. Spencer."

"I know you do Carly, it's just that you mean way more to me than some probably temporary girlfriend who doesn't even like you."

"I do?" Even though she'd turned her back on me before I spoke, I could sense the hesitance and questioning tone in her voice.

I spluttered the cream out into my hand, and started rubbing it on her back. I started with her shoulders.

"Of course you do. You were my first real friend," I declined to add first crush, "and you are my best friend now. Why wouldn't you mean that much to me?"

"I just thought after what happened you might-"

I interrupted her, "Carly, first off, that was my fault, and secondly, those 2 weeks reminded me of just how much you meant to me."

"What do you mean?"

"It was so dull. Lifeless. I barely smiled. I spent those 2 weeks just drifting. I wouldn't let anything in the world come between me and you. And Sam, and even Spencer. I never want to go through that again. You keep my world bright and shining."

I wanted that friendship back. It took a while. I didn't pile on all my usual compliments, the platitudes, the repetitive affirmations of my crush, and I let that aspect of my relationship with Carly slide away. Was something of a relief, in a way. It helped us relax, talk without tension, or word-watching, without Carly or Sam being on guard to gently slap me away again, and it helped our friendship came back. Then Jennifer happened.

"Aww, thanks Freddie. I know we don't say it a lot, but you mean a lot to me and Sam," I continued working on her shoulders, and she moaned, "Wow, that's so good, where did you learn to do that?" She asked.

"Mother-Daughter massage class."

"Mother... Daughter?" Carly inquired, with emphasis on the 'Daughter' part.

"Yep. Mom argued for 20 minutes to let us in. When we finally got in, we had to pair up, and I got the cute red-headed girl next to me. So we're talking-"

"Wait, you were flirting with her?"

"Of course. You know, I'm a ladies man. I can't help it."

Carly snickered, "Hah! Ladies man. Good one."

I smiled and continued, "So, we were talking, and it comes time to massage each other. I went first."

"Time to put the moves on?"

"Well... I thought so. I'm rubbing, and pushing, and squeezing, the girl is getting into it, kinda like you were. The little pants and moans. Pretty hot. Then out of nowhere she says 'Freddie that's amazing, your boyfriend is going to be so happy'."

At this point Carly burst out laughing, "She thought you were-"

"Yep." When it first happened, I was kinda sad, but after a while you see the funny side of things. Most of the time.

"What other classes have you taken?"

"Well... Cooking. Dancing. Sewing. Candlemaking. Arts and Craft. Collage. Advanced Video Editing. Yeah, they have a class for that. That was my choice. Introduction to Feminisim."

"I'm not surprised she thought you were gay." Carly deadpanned.

I ignored that little jab, "All done." Carly turned around, and took the bottle. Finishing the front herself. All the while watching me watch her.

"All done." I was watching her, and saw her eyes. I knew exactly what was about to happen next, so I decided to get in first.

I bounded up, and yelled "Last one in's a rotten egg!" And ran for the pool. I heard her laugh, and Carly was still on the ground when I jumped in. I know you aren't supposed to run at a pool but damnit I want to take a risk. I hit the cool water with a splash. It was cold and sharp, with a hint of chlorine.

I turned around, to see Carly walking up, following the rules, before standing on the edge of the pool.

"Catch me!" She yelled before jumping in.


AN: Again, apologies for the stupid long time it took to write this. Please R&R :)