Title: iOnly Lied A Little
Author: sundroptea
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Rating: M – seriously the mouths on the kids these days!
Note: The language in this one is slightly atrocious, because Freddie and Sam are slightly atrocious to each other. I'm ever so sorry that it took so long- the idea was to have this finished before Danwarp smashes my continuity all to hell. But whatever. I Mario jump on your canon and red shell you with my fanon. I hope you enjoy!
Last time on 'This Week's Episode of Bad Ideas and How to Follow Them':
He keeps her gaze, steadily, as he brings up his arm, but he has to break contact when he pivots and spikes her goddamn Pear Phone into traffic. Her jaw flaps open. He resumes his observation of her, coolly, and it's like he doesn't realize he's pretty much just signed his own death warrant.
"What the hell?" she explodes, shoving him savagely, and dimly notes that this might really be it, for both of them, because he doesn't so much as flinch but keeps flexing his fists like he's just as ready for violence as she is. He cocks his head.
"I guess now you have a moment." His voice is level. "To talk."
The Interim, with prejudice:
"So, how's unemployment treatin' ya?"
"Go away, Sam."
"Oh, c'mon. Don't be like that."
"Like what? Irritated that you've taken ruining my life to a new personal record? Actually getting me FIRED from a job I've always want-"
"Oh, cram the melodrama, Benson."
"Excuse me?"
"Don't sound so confused. I know you. You never wanted to work there."
"What the hell? How can you even say that?"
"Because it's true? I do know you. And also, who the fuck dreams of being a retail slave? That job has nothing to do with computers, and everything to do with being a salesman, which, hate to break it to you, you suck- like, super suck- at. You might want to work for Pear, but you want to work for the engineering side, which I doubt getting laid off from a Pear store will prevent you from doing. So, seriously... stop moping around. It's lame."
"Why are you even here? Shouldn't you be doing inventory right about now?"
"Right. 'Cause that sounds like me, totally. Wait- do they provide snacks for the inventory idiots?"
"No."
"Oh, yeah. Then I quit. Real people jobs are for suckers."
"But you were a manager!"
"And if I had to listen to Stephanie complain that Dillon was poaching her sales one more time, it was going to end in violence. Spectacular violence."
"I will never understand you."
"I am not for comprehension by nubs and the lowly. Someone is just going to get hurt if you try. Now get up. It doesn't bother me, but people are starting to wonder why there's a guy laying on the floor of the Smoothie Queen. I think they called security and if I get arrested again I'm going to miss the Girly Cow season finale tonight. They don't get CBN in juvie."
"But-"
"Whatever, then. Opportunity lost. I've done my good nub deed for the day. I'm done. Don't say I didn't warn you."
"But why-"
"Why is for losers, Benson. Oops! Mall cops. That's my cue!"
"But, Sam!"
"He's over there, officers! It's like he just collapsed or something! It was so scary. I think he needs to go to the hospital. You should probably call his mom!"
"Noooooo! You can't- She'll- Sam! Sam! It took me three months to get her to agree that I could have an afternoon job- She'll- Sam!"
"Annnnd, scene."
And our feature presentation:
Sam is ready to explode. She wants very badly to be on her way. She's so tired; she just wants to be home. She doesn't know how to get around all the shit in the way. She thinks about Derek, probably wondering what the hell is going on. She thinks about Freddie, and wonders what the hell is going on with him. She kind of wishes that Freddie is so angry because he's guessed what the worst part of her is planning.
But she doesn't allow herself to really think that, because in a weird way she feels like that would be getting her hopes up. It's not a great place in her head right now. She can't figure out the point of this little pow wow, and it's wearing on her.
"Alright. You want to talk? Talk. What's there to say? Except, 'I'll be getting your new phone to you ASAP.'"
He doesn't say anything. For a boy who seems intent on having some sort of confrontation with her, he's remarkably quiet.
"You should mail it."
He purses his lips.
"Do you think they'll still give you the employee discount?"
Still nothing.
"If this is what you wanted to talk about you suck at conversation."
"Are you finished?"
"With what?" Sam throws her hands in the air, then crosses her arms stiffly in front of her. They just brush the chest of his shirt. "I haven't done anything!" Yet, she worries. "You're the one having a goddamn hissy fit in the middle of the street! You're the one who broke my phone, after finding some way to be pissed off at me, even though you're the one who called both me and my mom sluts!"
His eyes tighten and for the first time she sees his angry facade crack a little. He opens his mouth, and it's shaped like an apology. She doesn't have room for it right now.
"So what, Benson? What, exactly, am I supposed to be finished with? You? Yes. I am absolutely done with you!"
He looks like he's taking his anger by both hands and doing all he can to wrestle it into submission. He has limited success.
"Look, Sam. I know things aren't the best between us right now-"
"No kidding? And here I thought you chased me down to hug it out." Freddie scowls. "Would you get to the point? Today? Christ." She fidgets, and wishes that she had run, taking the stairs two and three at a time, recklessly, instead of slowly and deliberately, trying to measure out her breathing. Then maybe she would be somewhere else by now, and that's really all she wants. She decides to become a statue- to pull all of her muscles together and make them granite and sandstone and become a blank slab impervious to all.
"What is this thing with Derek?" he just explodes, one moment stoic and the next out of control. She simply stands with her arms crossed and her expression irritated. They're switching personalities.
"For real? That's what this is about?" She's kind of surprised, not really having expected it to have anything to do with Derek, specifically. Sam doesn't know where, exactly, he's going with this.
Which isn't to say that she's not angry about it.
"I know you're probably-"
"You don't know anything at all, Benson. Never have, and for sure won't from here on out."
He deflates. "Goddamn. Why do you always have to be so difficult?"
She flings her arms up. "I'm not being difficult! I'm not being anything! I didn't ask you to follow me. And you don't have any right to ask me about Derek!"
"I don't have a right? I don't?" He's parroting her and she gets now what it means when someone says 'their hackles were raised.' Freddie looks like one big hackle.
"No? I'm not your business anymore. Too abnormal, remember? And difficult, apparently. And a skag, of course. I don't ask you about your-" she forces a snide laugh to bubble up her throat. She worries she's going to choke on it, because the conversation is getting a little bit close to turning down an avenue she really doesn't want it to. "I'm sorry. You'd have to have relationships for me to ask you about them."
"Sure. Be a bitch. That's what you always do when you're too chicken shit to deal with something, isn't it? Then you run away. That's your encore. Well, I'm not letting this go."
"Letting what go? Your obsession with my afternoon plans? Your bizarro fixation on my other friends?" She winces, because -bingo- she's managed to walk straight into the minefield she was trying to avoid. His involvement with her friends was exactly the last place she wants this to go. She knows that she's going to say things that she doesn't want to. Not because they'll hurt him- no, if it were that stopping her she would have let 'er rip three words into whatever this confrontation is supposed to be. She doesn't want to talk about him and her friends because she knows only too well that she's the one who would suffer if they got into it.
"I'm not obsessed with anything, let alone who you choose to spend your time with. Especially stupid jerk losers who wear leather jackets and have friggin' emo hair. I don't care! But you're making a mistake, and it's just because you're mad at me and I'm not having that on my conscience."
"You arrogant son of a..." she breathes, almost impressed. "To think that you would assume my extracurriculars have anything to do with you... God, what a pair on the supernub. If that's all, feel free to hop along, Cassidy, with a clear guilt meter." She pulls her hair back and up into a bun as she turns to walk away. Her with her hair up always drove him crazy, and she thinks that he deserves whatever she can throw at him, after the many, many, many ways he's managed to kick her while she's foetal today. "What I'm about to do with Derek has nothing whatsoever to do with how much I hate you right now." Even though it really did, which was a sobering and not altogether pleasant thought. She decides to reconsider the details of her afternoon, somewhat, but he doesn't need to know that.
Or maybe he does, because she hasn't gone three steps before he's pulling her back again.
"Bullshit, Sam." She panics- can he read minds now? "You're doing this because it'll- you think it'll hurt me. And that's a crap excuse to make a such a stupid decision." His tone is so self-righteous it makes her molars throb. She is abruptly furious, and her vision goes hazy with it. Bad Decision Train had been losing steam, chugging more slowly along, almost stalling, but never fear! The conductor found more coal and, manoman, are we ever racing now! Freddie must be able to read it in her face, somewhere, because he looks wary suddenly and he steps back.
Well, Sam thinks. In for a jerky strip, in for a pound.
"Oh," her voice is almost a snarl. "Because you would never do anything just because it would make me miserable? You're so above all of that!"
"I wouldn't! I'm not saying I'm above it, but, Jesus, I'm not about-" He is silenced by the malice in her glare.
"Sure. Do you really want to try that? The whole lying thing? Because the next word out of my mouth is going to be 'Carly' and I think we can both agree that you're going to look mighty stupid."
Another set of eyes:
"So..."
"No."
"But-"
"Just get the counter wiped so that we can mop and get out of here."
"But, Sam-"
"Gibby, so help me FatCakes, shut yer face."
"Sam, I'm just concern-"
"Does anything that's about to shoot out your word hole have to do with the restaurant, or with iCarly?"
"Well, you could say-"
"Gibby."
"No."
"Then leave it alone."
"I just want to know how you're dealing with this- where you're at."
"Where I'm 'at' is one more word about this away from staging 'Gibby versus The Butter Sock Fight Night- One Time Only- Live at 'The Gibby's Place.'' It will get butts in the chairs, and I get sole ownership of this place if you die. Gotta worry about keeping it fresh for the customers."
"I'm sorry. Ok? You're my friend, Sam. I care about you."
"Freddie and Carly are your friends, Gib. I'm just some girl who wandered in to sling hot meat. There is no reason why you should be more concerned with-"
"Oh, come off it, Puckett. Grow up."
"...Exsqueeze?"
"Just because Freddie is acting like an idiot, and possibly crushing after Carly again, it doesn't mean that we all have to turn into our eleven year old selves."
"Hot damn, Gibster, you're on fire tonight! Now take a swipe at Carly, or Principal Franklin!"
"I would never. That man is a saint."
"Be that as it may-"
"Sam!"
"Shut up! Okay? I don't want to talk about Freddie and his stupid feelings. They don't have anything to do with me. And even if I did want to talk, they don't have anything to do with you, so why would we be chatting about it?"
"Why wouldn't we?"
"Because I have been over that nub since about three minutes after I started dating him, and you and I have never been braid-your-hair-talk-about-your-feelings-glitter-buddies.
"You're my partner. If we can trust each other with our just.. crazy successful business than I don't see why you can't trust me enough to talk to me."
"It is crazy successful, isn't it?"
"Shoosh yeah!"
"So... It's official then?"
"Our complete domination of this school's tastebuds and spending money? Survey says jeah."
"No, stump. I mean... have you talked to him about... Carly?"
"I haven't been able to get a lot of out him lately. He's been in a funk for a few weeks, now. To be honest, I've kind of been avoiding him."
"What?"
"Look, Sam. Before you and he... you know... scarred the rest of us with a freakin' enormous amount of public tongue exchange- ow!"
"Gibby!"
"Ok, ok. Kidding! Before you two got together, he came to me for advice. Or, well, I tripped over him and offered. One of the two."
"So this unsolicited interfering is like your thing now? This is your new 'random stripping?'"
"Firstly, it was never random. There was always a reason. Secondly, my advice is good. My advice is right."
"Right? You mean you told him that us dating would be a bad idea? Nice."
"No, gun jumper. I told him that he'd better be sure, because he was an idiot if he went for it and fudged it to Topeka. I told him that if he tried to come between you and Carly-"
"Never happen."
"Ok, I am totes all about giving you the benefit of the doubt here, Puckett, because I'm sure you learned something from Shane and that idiot intern... Steve? Tom? Poop? Whatever. De-regardless. But he has no place getting in the middle. Because it wasn't going to be either of you girls that ended up alone. He seemed to get it at the time, so I kind of wonder what his end game is here. Because he seemed pretty damn sure that it wasn't Carly he wanted to take that risk for."
"I-"
"No, think about it! The only reason I can see him even trying this is to piss you off. And he's not stupid, and he would probably tell me if he was thinking about suicide. We all signed that anti-bullying pact. And as far as I know, the breakup was mutual?"
"Oh, yeah. Completely. No hard feelings here. Right on, with the mutualism... yeah."
"...K? But did anything happen recently? Are you fighting again? Mostly I've just seen you ignore each other."
And this conversation is perhaps the root of what happens outside Bushwell Plaza- because the only thing that had happened recently, since the restaurant, was Derek and her in the hallway, with Freddie looking on from the side.
And now:
His face shuts down. "That's not the same thing."
"Oh, I believe you! And I agree! My meeting a nice guy who has nothing to do with you is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from you trying to weasel your junk into my best friend's closet. Only I don't think I'm the one making the mistake, Benson." She feels her epiglottis swelling and is beyond humiliated to realize that unless she can get ahold of herself, tears will be on their way. She coughs savagely to cover it and uses the cough to explain why she suddenly can't look him.
They're at the crux of it now, she thinks. This is the big thing that'd been swelling up like an inflatable wall between them. Had it started growing been since they've been broken up? Before that? Sam ached to know. When, exactly, did he realize that he'd gotten bouncy and blonde instead of serene and brunette? It hardly mattered, because either way, he'd clearly figured out his glitch.
"Weasel my juh- Are you serious?" He looks stunned, and she itches to slap the stun right out of him.
"Are you? I mean, what is this? Why would you even- Do you love her? Is that it? Has that always been it? Have you loved her all along and I was just a distraction? Someone to make her jealous?" She shoves at his shoulders. His hands come up defensively, but she just wraps her arms around herself, as if finally noticing the chill that had settled with dusk falling. "At least with Derek when I realized he had feelings for me I broke up with him. God. Did you even like me?"
Freddie breathes in like he's been sucker punched in the spine with something much denser than an orange. "Sam!" He tries to take her hand, but she dodges him, and she feels like all the words she hasn't said for months are exploding like verbal C-4 out of her mouth. She presses her palm to her lips in an effort to shut her friggin' piehole, but the words keep coming.
"Did you? I mean, even as a friend? Because... because you didn't have to say it. You didn't have to tell me you loved me, if it wasn't true. I got it- we weren't gonna work. I'm not what you want. I GET it. You didn't have to lie."
Her throat is now closed because of how tight it is, and she is embarrassed that her voice cracks. She refuses to let what's about to happen happen in front of him. She is determined to stave off the inevitable until she's not in his presence. She wishes she wasn't as surprised as she is by just how much worse she feels now that it's out in the open. Isn't the truth supposed to set you free? She's never felt more trapped in her life.
It doesn't help that he grabs her; takes her by the arms, dragging her against him, and it feels so much like when they were together, so much like when he would pull her in to hold her close, that she chokes. Something this painful should not feel like getting home after a long day, like waking up to bacon pancakes, like an 'I love you' when it's just a misplaced 'I'm sorry."
Her body can't tell the difference and it feels like her muscles have relaxed after an age of being tensed to strike and she knows it's going to hurt like a sonuvabitch in a minute. Despite all her effort, she starts to cry, and her humiliation is complete.
This? This right here is why she avoids any and all discussions about 'feelings'. Nothing good ever comes of it. She was right the first time; it's insanity to ever let anyone in, nuts to think it would work out for her. She should never have started any of this and she has learned her fuckin' lesson, she swears. No men, no love, no relationships for Sam Puckett. Bad news, is all that is. She hopes Troubled Waters still has 'Crazy for Quesadillas' Tuesdays.
Her forehead drops to his shoulder, more out of a sudden sweep of tiredness than any tender feelings that might be lingering. She tries to soak up the sensation of his arms around her, his skin and sweat and weight against her, because after this she isn't going to let him get within twelve feet of her body, and she's going to take one last hit before she goes cold turkey. Her tears are hot and leave marks on his shirt. She tries to pull back, but he clutches at her, and it feels like he's taken a crowbar to her chest where her heart is pounding.
"I didn't lie, Sam! I-"
"Save it, ok? You're the one who wanted this little heart to heart, right? I didn't. The whole point is, you don't have any say in what I do, just like I don't have any say in yours. Whatever I do is my own damn business, so mind your own!"
"Sam, please, I didn't mean it like-" He's too close- it's too much- he needs to just stop- she needs space!
"For fuck's sake, let me go!" She breaks his grip, and it's a good thing too because they're starting to attract attention- generally boys and girls screaming at each other on street corners do, even in Seattle. She lowers her voice, because the last thing in the world she needs right now is another mark on her record or a night with Seattle's finest. It comes out tired. Her eyes drop to her Chucks. "It's all over! Done! You can stop now. Really. I'm not going to try to get between you and Carly- seriously, have at her, cowboy. But from now on, stay out of my business because I don't need your pity and I really don't need you judging me."
She sighs. The exhaustion creeping up on her is ample and vicious. "Just- just leave me alone, Freddie."
She thinks maybe all her problems stem from the fact that she needs to pay more attention to what's going on around her. If she had just picked up on a lot of things sooner, she probably wouldn't feel like she was about to vomit her heart out of her chest. She also might have been able to avoid what happened next- turned or knocked Freddie unconscious or jumped bodily into traffic. Instead she just keeps her head down and studies her toes, hoping that Freddie will walk away soon, because she really needs a minute here. The world could explode, the moon could fall out of its orbit, every Fatcake in the world could go stale at all at once- she doesn't care- nothing could make her day any worse.
She thinks this, sagging bodily against the wall, trying to will her feet to move, until she notices Freddie stiffen in front of her. What now? she thinks. I couldn't possibly have found some way to offend his delicate sensibilities by staring at the ground. She doesn't look up at first, because she is sure that it has nothing to do with her, whatever's buggering him now. She's positive. Confident.
At least, she is until someone- someone who isn't Freddie- says her name. "Sam?"
Her head jerks up. Derek is standing right in front of her.