Chapter 7: Hold
Disclaimer: Once upon a time, in a land far away, just past the McDonald's on Rogers...no, Avenue, not Street...anyway, just past that, in that abandoned falafel stand...no, the food with chickpeas...you're thinking of a loofah. Oh, never mind, Dan owns iCarly.
It had been two weeks since Freddie had been over to Sam's house, and Freddie was frustrated. He and Sam had tagged during the period, but upping the ante during each tag was barely incremental. He knew why; he had been just as much a part of it as Sam was. They both knew the next real step involved going under the pants or boxer shorts, and neither of them was quite brave enough to make that step.
One night a few years before when he had been unable to sleep Freddie had watched a movie on TV about Michelangelo. It was called The Agony and the Ecstasy. That was how Freddie felt. His hormones were pinging all over the place, and he felt his penis was controlled by a sadistic puppet master, who would pull it up throughout the day, often at the most inappropriate times. Freddie, who had long been a boxer man, switched to briefs, because it was easier to tuck up in them, so that if he did get an erection people would not notice. He also wore his shirts untucked. He was envious of girls. What happened when they got sexually excited? Did their nipples just get hard? All they had to do was say they got a cold chill, and then slap the guy who had looked at their breasts and pointed it out.
But Freddie was also extremely happy, despite cries of protests coming from his groin. He was spending time with Sam, not only during their game, but also overall. Both of them ensured they asked Carly if she wanted to be involved in everything, but either she was with Matt, although, as they predicted, the heat of that relationship had dissipated somewhat, or they were doing something she had no interest in.
Two days after he was at her house, Sam told Freddie he was going to take her to a paintball field. He remembered when they had their Assassin game, in which she had quickly eliminated him, and he had insisted that for every game in which they were on opposite sides, they would have be on a team together the next game. She had agreed, which Freddie was thankful for. After they were done, Freddie was sore from all the times Sam had hit him. No other person had shot him that night, just Sam. Whatever team Sam was on won every time.
"What's wrong, Freddie?" she asked. He had put the key in the ignition and felt the twinge in his arm. He windmilled his arm and winced.
"You shot me in the shoulder, Sam. Those chest guards suck."
"Geez, sorry, it wasn't like I was aiming at you."
"Yes, you were, Sam. You always aim at me." He caught her smile. "See, you did it on purpose."
"I had to mark you."
"Wasn't there something else you could do?"
"Well, I could tattoo 'Property of Sam' on you," she said.
"Thanks, I've had enough of your tattoos."
"You big baby. Let me see."
He pulled the collar of his shirt down, but it didn't reach down far enough.
"Take your shirt off, Freddie."
"Sam, we're in the middle of a parking lot."
"And everybody's pretty much gone, and it's dark. Don't be a wuss."
He rolled his eyes, and pulled his shirt up. Sam whistled.
"Wow, I really did tag you," she said. The bruise was already starting to blossom. She reached out and touched it, making him wince. "Sorry, nub."
"Yeah, that helps," he said.
"Oh, just let me kiss and make it better," she said, and she leaned over and placed a soft, gentle kiss on his bruise. Then she looked up with a mischievous grin.
"Sam."
She reached past him and flipped the control on his seat, causing him to fall back. She crawled on top of him and bent down, her lips lightly brushing his.
"Tag, you're it."
"Sam." She shook her head. He knew he could do nothing. Doing this in a public place, even if it was dark and mostly abandoned, certainly fell within the rules, as far as upping the ante went. She crooked her eye at him, and he nodded. She smiled, and took his hands and put them on her breasts. He squeezed and then reached down and pulled her shirt over her head. If he had to be shirtless, then so did she. After a moment's struggle, he unlatched her bra and let it fall to the side.
Sam nibbled at his chest, making sure when she came to his bruise she did no more than lightly brush it with her lips. Since it was her turn and she controlled it, Freddie took the time to explore her breasts, rubbing her nipples with the tips of his fingers. He liked the way they seemed to harden immediately when he did that and the way she moaned.
She kissed the entirety of his face, his lips, his cheeks, his eyelids, and the entire time, he could feel her slow, maddening grind against his crotch.
He thought perhaps she might take it a step further, when she sat up in his lap for a second and glanced around. Then she looked again. "Freddie?"
"What?"
"Was that tree there before?"
He scooted up, and saw that the car was about a foot from a tree. They had not been near a tree before. He looked to the gear shift and saw that at some point one or both of them had knocked it into neutral.
Freddie pointed, and Sam laughed, which made Freddie laugh, too. Soon, Sam was laughing so hard that she flung her arms around his neck and her body was hitching from her laughter. Her boobs bounced against his stomach, and he wanted to take advantage of it, but he could not stop laughing himself.
Sam looked at him. The moment was over, they both knew. For all they knew, somebody had been watching the vehicle slowly drifting across the parking lot. Freddie nodded at her and handed her bra and shirt. She put them on, and gave him his shirt. Before he put it on, she gave his bruise another light kiss.
Three days later Freddie had surprised Sam on the roof of the school. He had her shirt off and had been squeezing her ass, when they heard the door open. They both shut up and were as still as they could be. They heard the wheeze of the janitor, Mr. Freslen, and then they heard him let out a loud, juicy fart. Sam pressed her face against Freddie's chest, suppressing her laughter. They stood there for ten minutes, both laughing silently the entire time before Mr. Freslen finished whatever he was doing and left. Although they were hidden, he never even looked over to where they were. Freddie only thought later about the fact that Sam could have just made a noise alerting the janitor, and she would have won the game.
They had other encounters where they both were willing to explore below the belt as long as it wasn't near the groin. At one point, during Freddie's next tag, he had Sam on top of him and was kissing her neck and her breasts, and he had her shorts pulled down in the back and he squeezed her buttocks.
Was there anything they could do to progress the game without having to touch genitalia? Freddie didn't think so, and he wasn't necessarily surprised that after his tag when he had her shorts pulled down, that she had not made an effort to make her next move. Not surprised, but disappointed. And a little relieved. Because when she did, that would mean his tag was next, and he really had no idea what he was supposed to do.
That their game of tag was not to be spoken about during this time was another thing they had silently agreed upon. Luckily for Sam and Freddie, although perhaps not so much for their friend, Carly had finally broken up with Matt, which meant that Sam had to be by her side as she went through her stages of grief.
Meet me in the hall, Freddie texted Sam after Carly's second day post-breakup. The second day was the worst day, Freddie knew, and he was once again glad he was male, so he didn't have to put up with what Sam did. Of course, being male around Carly was also not great, because during times like that Carly seemed to believe it was an entire gender's fault. Which is why he texted Sam instead of going into the apartment.
Sam came out. "What is it, Freddie? I'm missing..." She turned to the closed door. "Never mind, do you want to talk about calculus or something?"
"That bad, huh?"
"We've already watched The Notebook and Titanic three times each. She got mad at me because I yelled at the screen that Rose was gonna drop him like a brick."
Freddie chuckled sympathetically.
"What did you want, Freddie?"
"I figured you were suffering, so I got you something to help." He held out the items in his hands. Her eyes went immediately to the bag.
"Barbecue?"
"Five kinds of meat. I figured you probably went through your fill of ice cream."
"Awesome! What's this?" she asked, holding up the other item, which was a disc.
"MMA's Deadliest Knockouts Volume 10," he said. Her eyes sparkled. "I figured you needed something to rinse out the Titanic."
"Thanks, Freddie," she said, and she came forward and hugged him. They stood like that for about a minute, and then Sam slowly pulled away, still smiling, but not looking at him.
"No problem, Sam. Good luck." She nodded, and they went into their separate apartments.
He couldn't sleep that night, so he went out on the fire escape. The reason he couldn't sleep was because of Sam, and not the normal reason Sam wouldn't let him sleep. As much as the sexual thoughts of Sam filled his mind, they were for the moment overshadowed by his thoughts about what would happen when the game ended. He didn't want it to end. He wanted to be with Sam, not just sexually, but as somebody she wanted, a boyfriend, a soulmate, or whatever other sappy shit was in the movies Carly was making Sam watch. And though he knew, if questioned directly, she would deny that such a thought had ever crossed her mind, he thought she felt the same way.
Although she had been standing by him for five minutes, he was so deep in thought he didn't notice until she put her hand on his crotch. He jumped.
"Sam!"
"Shut up, Freddie." He stroked him, and his dick hardened immediately. He looked at her face and tried to will it to shrink, but he had no control over it.
"Sam, you don't have to do this."
"I said to shut up. And tag, you're it." She squeezed him, released, squeezed again. He moaned despite himself.
"Sam...stop." Not knowing why, he took her hand off him.
She nodded. "Still counts." And she left.
Freddie sat there, confused. What had happened? Sam was angry, he understood that, but why? What did he do?
He stayed on the fire escape for two more hours, mulling it in his head. He thought maybe he understood; he had known Sam long enough to understand sometimes why she did something, although he had never been in a situation like this with her. The best thing to do, damn the consequences, was to confront her directly.
The next day at school, he hid out of view until he saw Carly leave Sam at her locker. He grabbed her by the hand and had her halfway down the hall before she seemed cognizant of it. She started to pull away, but he had already had her in the janitor's closet by then.
"What the hell, Freddie? Just couldn't wait, could you?"
"Sam, we need to talk."
"You don't want to talk." She took his hand and put it on her breast. "Or do you want this?" She put his hand between her thighs and held it there.
He pulled away. "I quit."
"What?"
"You heard me, Sam. I quit. You win. I'm not doing this anymore." He turned away.
"Freddie?"
"Look, Sam, I know you're afraid-"
"I'm not afraid of anything!"
"Yes, you are, Sam. You're afraid of the next step for us. I am, too. But I'm not going to lose you as a friend because of it. I'm sorry I even started this." He grasped the door handle.
"Freddie, please." He stopped. When was the last time Sam had used "please" with him? Could he count the number of times on his hands? He turned around. "I'm sorry." She wasn't looking at him; her head was lowered.
"What?"
"I said I'm sorry." She raised her head, and he saw a solitary tear on her cheek. More surprising than Sam saying "please" was Sam crying. Immediately, Freddie forgot about storming out and moved to her. He wiped the tear from her cheek.
"Sam, don't cry."
"I'm not crying," she said, blinking, as another tear trailed after the first. He wiped it away, too. "I'm sorry. I know I'm being a bitch."
"Of course you're not."
"Never a good liar, Freddie." She smirked. "You're right, okay? I got scared."
"It's okay, Sam. We don't have to do this."
"I didn't want to stop! I just...Freddie, can you turn around? I can't talk to you when you're looking at me." He stared at her. "Please." He turned around. She took a few deep breaths. "I was just thinking about it, and started thinking 'soon, we're gonna do this and then soon we'll do that', and just got scared, all right?"
"Sam." He held his hand back, and she took it in her hands. "I mean it. You don't have to do this."
"I want to do it, Freddie. And I want it to be you. I trust you. More than any other guy I've known. But...it's like-"
"You're not in control?" he asked.
"Yes! And I've always felt like I had to be the one in control, and I can't stand not being that way. And then we start this game..."
"What do you want to do, Sam?"
"I still want to play. But maybe we don't worry about a time limit on it? So if we go a few days without anything happening, or a week, then maybe that would still be okay? We don't have to do it all right away?" She sounded so hesitant, that Freddie finally turned around. He grasped both her hands in his.
"Sam, what's in this for you? This isn't just 'Mama plays to win' anymore. Believe me, I'd be more than happy to get rid of my virginity, but I don't want to hurt you. What's in it for you?"
"You'll stay play?"
"Yes, Sam, but-"
"Good, we're still playing. Just no time limits."
Freddie paused. He wanted to push, but he knew Sam too well. She had already exposed so much of herself, that to push for more would anger her. "Okay."
She went to the door. "Thank you, Freddie," she whispered and left.
For the next week they somewhat returned to the way they were before the game started. Not really, Freddie thought. It was actually like it was about two weeks after the games started. While they weren't making out, they were still hanging out together, although Carly was spending more time with them, now that she was over Matt.
"Freddie, wake up." He looked up to see Sam staring at him.
"What's going on?"
She held up water balloons. "Lewbert's getting off work."
That's how they ended up tossing water balloons onto Lewbert from the fifth floor fire escape at an hour to midnight. Sam wanted to do it from the roof, but Freddie was being a pain about the added acceleration and the possible damage it might cause. Sam said that was stupid, but Freddie wasn't taking any chances after they had already blown Lewbert up before.
Sam spent every day that week at Carly's, and Freddie either always found a reason to be over there, or Sam talked him into doing something.
Another unspoken agreement between them, or more accurately one that Sam deemed to be so and Freddie didn't protest, was that Sam's tag was the next one. He didn't know if Sam was approaching it as if she was counting the two encounters they had, despite the fact that she had forced him into his tag, or if she was acting as if they did not count. That was something he was unable to tell, and he was unwilling to ask.
But Sam did not retreat from him. In fact, he noted that she touched him more in front of other people than she did even when they were tagging. It was nothing as dramatic as Carly, who would lean against a boy or hug him from behind, or as bad as some of the other girls at school, who would practically dry-hump their boyfriends in the hall. Not that Freddie was judgmental about it-to be so would be hypocritical, he thought-but they could at least save it for times when they were alone.
Sam would just put her hand on his arm sometimes when she was talking. If they were sitting on the couch together, she would sit close to him, their legs touching, or, if she was feeling particularly tired, she would lay back on the couch and put her legs on tops of Freddie's. She did this once, and he looked up to see Spencer watching them. He looked down and saw that he had been stroking her leg without being really aware of it. She hadn't said anything about it. He looked away from Spencer and stopped.
It was two weeks later that she came up to Freddie in the hallway. He hadn't expected her; his mind was occupied elsewhere.
"Hey, Freddie."
He moved his locker door. "Oh, hey, Michelle. What's happening?" Michelle Kliner was in his computer programming class. She had also been in the audiovisual club, but some of the guys there creeped her out so much she left the club.
"Not much. I really wanted to thank you for your help with my program. I don't know what I would have done without you."
Freddie laughed. "Whatever. Your program was brilliant. I just made some small cosmetic changes."
She smiled. "Well, thank you, anyway."
"Not a problem." A silence fell between them, which Freddie didn't know how to fill. He had thought the thank-you had been the purpose of the conversation, but that was done, and yet she was still there. He wasn't comfortable with silence. Michelle smiled at him again. Michelle was a slim girl with long brunette hair that she often kept in a ponytail, although today it was loose. She had a light spray of freckles on her nose.
"Freddie, you like Galaxy Wars, don't you?"
Freddie laughed. "I guess you could say that. My best friends start to gag every time I start talking about it."
"Why? It's awesome, isn't it?" She laughed excitedly, and Freddie saw the flash of her teeth. She had a very pretty smile. She was a pretty girl; that was one of the reasons she had to quit AV. All the geeks, except for Freddie, kept asking her out. It was different a few months before, when she was dating one of the football players, but since she broke up with him, she was apparently free game.
"Yeah, it is. Why do you ask?"
She leaned in and whispered, "do you know the convention coming in next week, with the special VIP package, where you get to meet Nug-Nug?"
"Yeah," he said, enthused. "But that thing's been sold out for a month."
"Sort of," she said. She pulled out a pair of tickets from her purse. "Do you want to go?"
"Do you mean like a date?" Freddie asked.
"What's going on there?" Sam asked Carly, who was watching Freddie and Michelle from down the hall.
"I think she might be asking him out," Carly said, happily.
"What? Why would she do that?"
"Because she has this, like, big crush on him. I heard her talking with one of her friends about it. Wouldn't that be awesome? Freddie hasn't really dated anybody since, well, me."
"You two didn't date, Carls," Sam said, staring intently at the two down the hall.
"Yeah, I guess not. Still, it would be good. I mean, they have like so much in common. They're perfect for each other." Sam and Carly watched as Michelle hugged Freddie, and then the both of them walked away in different directions.
"It looks good," Carly said cheerily. "Isn't that great?"
"Yeah, great," Sam said.
A/N: Heh. Before the torches and pitchforks come out, just give me at least one more chapter, folks, and then if you want, burn away.
Thanks for reviews from: AlexaJohn185, lovesux93, Darsnider, TheRockAngel, S. Benson, sammiilizzie, kimmyAllen, adore202, KarmaLord, wazzabinho, StandardNostalgia, Vetiver, Daniyell37, Princess Starlight, axel100, Moviepal, Kechara7881, maxiefae, clarksonfan, popcorn1001, alaska-anime-girlie21, , xXSeddieXx, isinktohearts, and Cheruth.
adore202: Right now, I think 15 chapters, so eight more.
axel100: I'm sorry that I'm not really going to comment on Sam's mindset. I've made a deliberate choice to not let the audience see her thoughts, unlike how I've done with other characters. I can only say that by the end, you should probably know what Sam was thinking throughout (that she was hungry...well, maybe other stuff, too). As for the sexual rebel comment, I will just say I see the Sam character as pretty much equal parts bravado and insecurity, and that if she were in a "relationship" (or anything resembling one) with any other person, the events in this story would not have been in any way possible. We have to remember that Freddie has known Sam for a long time, and pretty much that entire time she has not put on a mask for him, as she did for other boys.
maxiefae: Yeah, I do!
Cheruth: I don't know if Carly is figuring out things just yet. And for those who think she should, just remember how she was surprised at both of Sam and Freddie's kisses (although, of course, in this story, that second one never happened).