A/N: Hey2x, here's another update. hope I didn't take too long. Now, I apologize in advance if the fight scene is too short, and I don't wanna give anything away so on with the chapter. :)
Jade, led Carly, Sam and Brad to where she and Tori had left Steven with their Hollywood Arts friends; after getting over the shock at meeting another Tori, which she would have loathed until the singer's look alike spoke in a dignified, seeming laid back, and in Jade's opinion not the usual nasally tone.
Carly and Tori walked side by side in silence since Sam had fallen back to ask Brad a few questions.
"So, is Goth girl your contact?" Sam asked with a barely held off interest etching in the surface.
Brad furrowed his brows trying to catch Sam's meaning, "Hmmm?... No, her boyfriend is, we go way back." He answered, thinking nothing more of it.
"Oh, that's right; I forgot you weren't at Ridgeway during middle school." Sam said as she nodded and smirk as she caught up with Carly.
When they got to the room where the main party seemed to be at, Carly, Sam and Brad spots their fighter friend Shelby having an animated conversation with an African-American descent holding a baseball bat, a petite flaming red head with a weird head gear that's being pat on the head like a pet by a long haired good-looking teen.
Jade made her way towards the long-haired guy beside the red head and said something close to his ear as the music was quite loud. The long haired teen nodded and looked up from his girlfriend and spots his Seattleite friend and waves.
Brad took that as an invitation to come and walk up to them, so he leads Carly and Sam through the mass of slightly tipsy teens on the make shift dance floor, "Carly, Sam. This is Beck, the friend I was telling you about." He introduced. "Beck, meet two-thirds of iCarly."
Carly and Sam waves in a sort of salute fashion as did Beck. Carly then turns to Shelby who was amused at flicking the forehead of a puppet perched on its puppeteer's arms.
"Shelby! Where's Freddie? I thought he was w…" Carly asked but didn't quite finish when they heard breaking of glass, probably beer bottles, followed by an all too familiar voice though shouted.
"SAY THAT AGAIN BENSON!" Steven shouted as he had apparently shoved Freddie to the dancing crowd still holding up their beer bottles. The ones impacted with Freddie dropped their bottles and stumbled as they lost their balanced while the tech producer easily regained his own.
The crowd cleared and the music volume lowered, leaving the two teenagers about five feet from each other. Steven appeared to be seething over something with an insulted look on his face; whereas Freddie seemed to be grimly chuckling at a sick joke.
"Aw. C'mon Carson. I was just saying that usually 'an apple doesn't fall far from the tree' and you obviously took after your father seeing as you have a girlfriend in both states that you live in." Freddie stated with arms held up to his sides and shrugs his shoulders. Unable to respond he continued on, "Now, I was curious. Keeping a steady girlfriend on each state, was it because you truly have feelings for them? Or was it just so you could satisfy and relieve your blue balls?" He asked in a taunting tone but with a very convincing innocent expression on his face.
At that point, Steven had visibly swept the room looking to see the magnitude of his humiliation; he saw Carly and Tori standing together with their friends, both girls were giving him blank stares while their friends either were wearing a look of disgust, anger, and even a sneer.
"Carly… Tori… I… this is…" Steven stuttered but couldn't go on when his attention is forced back to the iCarly tech producer.
Freddie snorted out a short chuckle, "Nah, save it… those two won't be having anymore of your bull anyway…"
That was it for Steven when he reached the end of his fuse. He closed the distance between him and Freddie in a stride and threw his right fist right at the tech producer's face.
Freddie saw it coming even before the last word of his taunt exited his mouth; side stepping Steven's right fist, he grabs the lankier teenager's wrist and proceeds into a take-down flatly slamming Steven's back into the floor. Still holding Steven's wrist, Freddie turns him to his stomach as he twisted the other's arm, earning a cry of pain, Freddie whispers "You just wasted your free shot." He then gets off of Steven and paced away with another taunt, this time for everyone's benefit, "Get up! I'm not through with you."
The party goers either too intoxicated or simply didn't want to be next of being slammed hard into the floor, just stood by and if it was even possible, gave the two a wider berth.
An anger driven Steven forced himself up on fours, ignoring the pain from his right shoulder from being twisted just a second ago. With a huff of breath, he charges and spears Freddie with his left shoulder.
Half-prepared and half-surprised of Steven's resilience, Freddie braces himself as Steven impacted and pushed him back. Freddie slid back a few steps but eventually stops; he slams his right elbow into the back of Steven's left shoulder causing the other's grip to falter. Freddie knees Steven and straightens him up, grabs a handful of his collar and delivers a series of straight right jabs at Steven's face, then shoves him back to the floor.
Since Steven threw the first punch, Carly had stood frozen as she watched Freddie catch Steven's fist then flips him over and slams him to the ground. She has never seen this side of Freddie, she has never seen him wear this kind of expression, he wore a blank expression but his eyes flash with barely controlled anger. This wasn't the cute wagging his tail puppy love Freddie, this wasn't the Freddie who would sometimes get fed up of Sam's verbal abuse; this wasn't even the Freddie of the past week.
This Freddie scared her, scared her stiff and frozen in place. She couldn't bear to look at him but she can't tear her eyes away. "This isn't good; I don't think he's planning on holding back." Carly hears Shelby say from her left as her fighter friend slowly unzips and removes her leather jacket; indeed Shelby may be the only one qualified to actually fight him off unless the guys gang up on the tech producer which was highly unlikely since the only sober guys in the room are apparently Brad, his Hollywood arts friend and another one they momentarily neglected to introduce; and they seem reluctant to put a stop to Freddie at the moment since they seem to agree with his actions.
Carly watches as Freddie walks toward Steven's form on the floor, groaning in pain, blood trickling from his nose, cut lip and cheek. She can't let this go on, otherwise she might lose Freddie forever if he proceeds, judging from the murderous glint he has in his eyes.
Carly takes a step forward, Sam holds her by the elbow causing her to around, "Carls, don't." Sam said as her face is evident of fear for her best friend.
She smiles weakly at Sam as tears roll down her face; Carly shakes off Sam's hold and runs toward Freddie, locking him into her embrace. "Freddie, stop… please, for me…" She weakly said as she buried her face into his chest.
Freddie freezes on his tracks after hearing Carly's words. Three little words that he's never been able to resist when he was younger, but now they're like sledgehammers that proceeded to break down every wall he'd built around his heart. He takes a deep breath in and breathes out slowly as he holds Carly by the shoulders, leaning slightly into her embrace. He lets her sob as he waited for her to look up to him.
Carly can feel Freddie's intent stare as she savors the moment of having him in her arms. She looks up to meet his eyes, and she no longer sees the anger but what replaced it wasn't all too pleasing either. All the hurt that he's ever felt are radiated from his chocolate brown orbs, and it breaks her heart knowing that she's the cause of most of it, if not all.
As he looked down at Carly, him being a full head taller than his best friend, he's confused as to why she seems to be breaking even as she looks up to him and she tightens her grip on him. Then it dawns on Freddie when he glimpse Steven's lying form on the floor, face bloody and both shoulders possibly sprained if not broken, "Carly… I… I'm sorry," he lets out a deep sigh and gently forces Carly to remove her arms around him.
Carly reluctantly lets go of Freddie, he utters to her another apology but doesn't wait for her response as he slowly heads for the first door he saw. "Would somebody please remove this stain in the room, he's bleeding all over somebody else's floor, and it's probably best if someone calls an ambulance." Freddie announces as he passes Steven who's still lying on the floor.
She turns around only to find Freddie already quite a distance away and all the strength she found to run to him earlier seems to have gone. Carly stood rooted on spot. The party goers seem to have snapped out of it and seem to have taken it as their cue to either leave or have some sense to clean up after their mess.
Shelby approaches Carly, a look of concern etched on her face. As she stood in front of Carly, the web show host leans into her shoulder and sobs. Carly had her hands on Shelby's shoulders to hold herself up while the young fighter stroked her hair. "He… hates me, Shel… I… never seen him… that hurt…" Carly said in between sobs.
Shelby gently stroked Carly's back and hair, "Shhh. No Carly, Freddie doesn't hate you. Give him some time, c'mon, let's go sit down." She said when she spotted an empty clean couch and led them to it.
Meanwhile, Tori took charge of calling an ambulance whilst Jade, Beck and Brad checked up on Steven as they waited for Sam who opted to find something as a makeshift pillow since the guy looked like he got pummeled by a truck and allowed to live while choking on his own blood.
"Somebody lift his head up." Sam instructed as she comes back with a bunch of rolled up towels.
Jade flashes a devious grin and proceeds to gently lift Steven's head up while Sam slid the rolls of towel under; Jade however drops Steven's head when she was certain Sam had arranged the rolls of towels properly, "Oops, my hand slipped; dude you're a heavy the bleeder." She said to the beat up teenager, earning a chuckle from Sam while the boys just stood carelessly by the bar.
Tori approached Jade and Sam as the two stood up after seeing to it that Steven's somewhat comfortable as he revels in pain of his aching body. "Hey, paramedics are on their w…" She didn't get to finish when the front door banged open as Kenan Thompson entered slightly out of breath holding the head of someone's panda suit in one hand and a gold club in the other.
"I finally got him!" Kenan exclaimed as he held up the panda head costume. He paused after realizing that there were relatively less people then when he chased out the guy in a panda suit earlier. "Ok… what did I miss? And why is that guy lying bleeding on the floor?"
Tori's eyes darted to each of her friends and sheepishly responds, "Uhhh… Long story…" she shrugs.
Kenan nodded and took his time to observe the room with a contemplative look, taking in the image of two other girls seated on a couch on the far end of the room, the pale straight-haired girl seemed to be sobbing quietly leaning on the shoulder of the other. Kenan draws conclusion on a hunch, "Hmmm, cheating boyfriend?"
Sam and Jade snorts out their own sounds of disgust and Tori grimaced but nodded, but the other African-American descent with the bat verbally confirmed, "Not quite, this beat up lump on the floor over here had two girlfriends, one for each state. At the same time."
Kenan did a mocking sharp intake of breath, "Oooh, well whoever did that must have been furious. I sure don't wanna be you right now." Kenan was about to let out another comment when the paramedics arrived, everyone promptly and politely refused to go with Steven to the hospital under false pretenses.
A short while after the paramedics had left with Steven; Brad was animatedly chatting with Beck, Jade, Kenan, Tori along with the other Hollywood arts students who were introduced as Andre, the one holding the baseball bat earlier, Cat the flaming red head, and Robbie with his puppet Rex.
Sam walked over towards Shelby and Carly seated on the couch, "Hey, uhhh… Carls, are you ok? Sorry, dumb question." She said, even if it wasn't her attempt at humor, Sam was glad when Carly chuckled.
"Sorry for being like this… Can guys help me clean up? I wanna go look for Freddie." Carly said after wiping off her remaining tears, she stood up as did Shelby. Their fighter friend proceeded to lead them to the bathroom after mouthing to Jade their destination when the raven haired teenager looked toward them when she noticed their movement from across the room.
Jade subtly nodded and turned back to the conversation, but not before catching Tori's bewildered look when she saw the exchange between Shelby and Jade.
Carly didn't take long cleaning up. Shelby suggested that she'd just remove her make-up entirely and if it's any consolation, the fighter herself doesn't even have make-up at the moment and she looks stunning for a slender girl in plain fitting garments.
When the three of them got out of the bathroom and walked back to main room, they spot Spencer and Gibby entering through the door that Freddie had exited earlier. "Spence, Gibbs, where were you?" Sam asked as they walked to them.
"Oh, we were looking out for these little guys over here." Spencer answered indicating the two kids who were shadowing them, walking close by their side.
"Yeah, do any of you guys know who these kids belong to?" Gibby addressed the question to everyone.
Tori groaned in frustration when she saw the little boy and girl, "TRINA!" she shouted knowing that her dunce of an older sister would hear and proceeded to explain to Spencer and Gibby about the kids while interjecting a 'thank you for keeping watch of them' every chance she gets.
Since the two kids were seemed to be fond of Gibby; he took it upon himself to keep them company at the moment while Spencer warily approaches a hesitant Carly.
"Hey little sis, I take it Freddie took care of Steven?" Spencer asked.
Carly nods as she looks to the floor and rubs her left elbow with her right hand. Spencer gives his little sister a loving embrace, "Thanks Spencer." she said as her brother released her from the hug. "Hey uhmm, did you happen to see Freddie?"
"Hmmm? Oh yeah, Freddie's back there. That leads to an open Jacuzzi, we didn't get to talk much; looks like he went out there to breathe some fresh air. You can keep him company if you want, Freddie didn't seem to mind me, Gibby and the kids earlier." Spencer said with an encouraging tone.
Carly looks up to her brother to give him a weak smile as gratitude for his encouragement, she then turns to Sam and Shelby who both gave her the same encouragement. She walks toward the door Freddie got out of earlier.
Review please. :) I'd like to have your input on how you want the story to flow as I slowly wrap it up.
