Wake

"Everything hurts," Carly moaned as she threw herself down on the sofa. "I'm never getting up from this spot."
"Hey, going to the gym was your idea," Sam said, rolling her eyes as she sat down next to her best friend. "You're the one who got this stupid health initiative idea in her head."
"Well I didn't know it would be so exhausting," Carly mumbled. "Now I know why Spencer hates that place."

Just then the Shay's door opened again and Freddie walked in holding his camera.

"Hey, hey," he said brightly. "Who's ready for a little iCarly filming?"

"If it doesn't involve moving from this couch, sure," Carly said. "Otherwise you can-you can-you can…Sam will think of something creative you can go do with you camera instead."

"Whoa, what's with her?" Freddie frowned.

"Apparently she gets cranky after she exercises," Sam smirked. "She just made us go to the gym."

"Uh-huh…" Freddie nodded slowly. "Er, why?"

"Because fitness is important, okay?" Carly snapped. "It promotes a healthy lifestyle, improves you life expectancy, makes you feel good about yourself-"

"Cute guys?" Freddie asked, looking over at Sam.

"The Ridgeway High swim team works out there," Sam chuckled. "Without shirts."
"Ah," Freddie smiled. "Now it makes sense. Well…I guess we can hold off on filming those iCarly bits until tomorrow night. What do you want to do in the meantime?"

"Who invited you to hang out with us?" Sam demanded.

"Sam," Carly sighed. "I'm too exhausted to deal with your guys' fighting. Just let him chill with us tonight. We can watch T.V. or something. That's nice and relaxing and stationary."

"Fine, but I control the remote," Sam said, reaching for the controller on the coffee table.

"Oh come on!" Freddie groaned. "All you ever want to watch is fighting and surgery!"

"Well all you ever want to watch is documentaries and lame sci-fi flicks!"

"Excuse me for trying to bring a little culture into this group!" Freddie retorted.

"Fighting is cultural!" Sam countered. "There's fighters that compete from all over the world."

"Well that doesn't mean-"

"Enough!" Carly barked. "I may be too tired to lift a limb right now, but I will find a way to find that squirt bottle again! Just find a show everybody likes and we'll watch that! You guys are seventeen years old! We graduate high school in six months! You should know how to act like people by now."

"Wow, guess she really is crotchety," Sam smirked, looking over at Freddie.

"Yeah, we haven't been threatened with the squirt bottle in years," Freddie grinned.

"Just find a dang show," Carly mumbled.

"Alright, let's see what the options are," Sam said as she began to flip through the channels. "We've got the News…stupid. Big Sister…stupid. The movie about the dog who starts his own pet food delivery service…Nope!"

"That one sounded kind of cute," Carly said.

"It's a movie about a dog," Sam said. "You think it's gonna be a happy ending?"

"Yeah…let's pass on that," Freddie nodded.

"Game show…lame," Sam continued. "The Dingo Channel…ha! Some show about-hey…what is this?"

"I dunno," Freddie shrugged. "I don't think I've ever seen it."
"Well of course you haven't, seeing as your mom blocks everything," Sam said. "I was talking to Carly."

"I haven't seen this either," Carly said. "It looks like some sort of reality show, though."
"Gross," Sam cringed. "Well there's no way Mama's watching that, so-hey! What are they doing?"

The three watched as a group of teenagers stepped up to a sleeping man on the beach and dumped a vat of what looked like yellow mustard all over him, causing him to wake up, sputtering and utterly confused.

"Oh my God! That was hilarious!" Sam laughed. "Did you guys see that?"

"Shoosh yeah we did," Freddie smiled. "He was just laying there, not suspecting a thing, and then boom! He's covered with more mustard than Sam uses on the Fourth of July."
"Isn't that kind of mean, though?" Carly said. "The guy's going to smell like a hot dog stand for the next two weeks!"

"Oh, and that's a bad thing?" Sam said, shaking her head.

"You know, this show seems kind of funny," Freddie said. "What's it called?"

"Um…" Sam said, pressing a few buttons on the remote. "Hilarious Wake-Up Scams. The description says this show travels all over the country trying to find out who can come up with the funniest, most creative way to wake someone up."

"Wow, I guess reality T.V. really is going down hill," Carly said. "Come on, let's find something watchable."

"What? You don't want to keep this on?" Freddie frowned.

"Yeah, it seems interesting," Sam nodded.

"A show about finding rude, weird ways to wake up poor, unsuspecting people is interesting to you guys?" Carly said. "I mean I can understand that from Sam, but you Freddie?"

"What? I can't enjoy some pranking humor?" Freddie said. "Just give the show a chance, maybe you'll enjoy it."
"Doubt it, but you know what? This is finally something the two of you agree on, so go for it," Carly conceded.

"Sweet!" Sam beamed, turning up the volume just as two men emptied out a cage of hamsters on a sleeping security guard.

"Hey, you know what?" Freddie said. "We could probably get on this show, Sam."

"How?" Sam asked.

"With one of our Wake Up Spencer bits!"

"Oh yeah!" Sam exclaimed.

"I'm sorry, what?" Carly frowned.

"Er, yeah, it's a bit we do for iCarly," Sam said.

"That I didn't know about?"

"Well we knew you'd shut it down," Freddie said sheepishly. "So we upload them under a different name."

"Oh, you think I'd shut down a bit dedicated to inhumanely waking up my guardian? No, that's just crazy!" Carly snapped. "What do you even do in these secret web casts?"

"First of all, we don't inhumanely wake him up," Sam defended. "Well, except for maybe that time for the slugs. But that was an accident."

"We just mess with Spencer while he's sleeping," Freddie explained. "We don't hurt him. But you know how he's a deep sleeper and he'll have these insane conversations with you without knowing what he's doing."

"They're a huge hit," Sam added. "People love them."

"Oh, that makes it better!" Carly said, her voice dripping in sarcasm.

"See, this is the reaction we were trying to avoid," Sam said. "Now shush! I want to see what these chicks are gonna do with those stink bombs."

"Actually…I think I got just enough strength back to go upstairs to take a bubble bath," Carly said. "You two can have fun with your demented show on your own!"

"Wait, Carly," Sam sighed as her best friend made to get up.

"Yes?"
"Can you bring us some popcorn?"

"Okay, so on this episode, I heard some people actually got arrested for bringing in some illegal piranhas," Sam said a few days later as her and Freddie sat on the Shay's couch.

"Aren't all piranhas illegal?" Freddie frowned.

"I don't know, what am I, the fish police?" Sam said, rolling her eyes.

"Oh, so I looked up how to get on this show," Freddie said. "It's not as hard as I thought. You just need to send in a sample video of you waking up someone untraditionally."
"We have a ton of those!" Sam said excitedly. "Dude, we can totally get on T.V.! On the best show ever!"

"I know!" Freddie said, high-fiving her. "How cool is that?"

"Oh my God," Carly said as her and Spencer walked into the apartment, carrying bags of groceries. "Are you two still watching that stupid show?"

"It's a brilliant show!" Sam gasped indignantly.

"Hey, is that the show about waking people up with weird methods?" Spencer asked.

"Yeah, and the two of them have been obsessed with it all week," Carly said, rolling her eyes. "Honestly, they're spending more time together over this dumb show than they ever did when they were dating."

"Would you stop calling the show dumb?" Freddie said.

"Yeah, it's those negative vibes that are gonna stop us from being on the show," Sam said.

"You guys are gonna try and get on?" Spencer asked. "Neat! What kind of video are you gonna send in?"

"Um…we-we're still figuring that out," Freddie said as him and Sam exchanged mischievous smirks.

"If you two are going to insist on watching this garbage, do you have to do it here?" Carly asked.

"Well we can't watch at my place," Freddie said. "I have my mom there."

"Yeah, and my mom's parole officer won't let any violent programming on the T.V. at my place ever since her stunt with the hermit crabs," Sam replied.

"Fine," Carly sighed. "But I still don't understand what's so appealing about this show. Sometimes I think the two of you are just using it as an excuse to spend time together."

"What do you mean by that?" Sam frowned.

"Yeah," Freddie said. "We happen to like the same show. Big deal!"

"Alright, alright," Carly said quickly, knowing the two could carry out an argument about how they didn't like each other for hours. "Well, since this T.V. has been taken over, I'm going to go watch up in my room."

"You know," Spencer said as Carly disappeared up the stairs. "I kind of feel sorry for the people that get pranked in this show. But then again…I guess those are the consequences of being a heavy sleeper. Well, I'm gonna go wax my toes. Hey, let me know if you need any help coming up with ideas for your video to get on here, okay?"

"Okay," Freddie nodded.

"We'll let you know alright," Sam smirked. "I'm sure you'll be a big help."

Once Spencer left the two teens alone, Freddie glanced over at Sam.

It wasn't a big deal. So they watched a T.V. show together…tons of people did that! And last time he checked, liking the same show didn't mean you were into someone.

Still, though, as he continued to stare at Sam out of the corner of his eye, there was no one he'd rather be spending time with watching immature pranking television than Sam Puckett.