Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly.
"Ugh! I should have just gotten everyone a gift certificates to MovieRama and just kept my mouth shut!" Carly emphasized her rant with a stomp of her foot and set the palette down on the studio's tech cart. She flounced on the nearest bean bag chair and gingerly rubbed her temples. Why did Freddie's gift have to be so damn hard?
She had been taking art lessons for about two years now and she's become quite good. So good, in fact, that she felt confident enough to paint everyone's Christmas gifts this year. When she ran the idea by her brother and two best friends, they all appeared to really like the idea. She already knew what Spencer's portrait would be. A couple weeks ago, he had been raving about this dream he had involving robots and a trip to Narnia. At some point in the dream, one of the robots fists bumps Aslan as a sign of friendship. It was such a cool visual in Carly's head that she decided to attempt to paint it. The piece actually came out pretty good and she thought it was a great representation of Spencer's over-active imagination.
Sam's picture was even easier than that, as she had a special request. She knew Carly was decent with still life portraits and asked her to paint something similar to the standard bowl of fruit. Instead of fruit, however, she wanted the bowl to be filled with steak, turkey legs, and sausage links. Carly complied and, as a surprise, added a Fat Cake laying seductively in front of the bowl. She couldn't wait to see Sam's face when she saw her gift, as she was betting that it would bring a tear to her eye. She pictured herself painting something a little more symbolic, but in the end, this turned out to be much more fitting for her abrasive friend. Sam liked to keep things simple and straight forward: she wanted her picture to say that she liked meat because…well…she liked meat. Easy as that.
Freddie, on the other hand, just had to be difficult. To be fair, Freddie wasn't the issue. He didn't care what Carly painted, but Carly kept asking him what he wanted. She didn't want to draw a computer or anything like that because she didn't want to reduce him to just some tech enthusiast. He was so much more than that. After asking him what he wanted for the 11th time, he finally just said, "I don't know, Carls. Paint a picture of us, or something. I'm sure it'll be great, whatever you decide."
Which brought her to this moment, staring at the blank canvas with utter perplexity. A picture of them. How many picture have they taken together? A hundred? Thousands, maybe? Why can't she just grab one of the many photos of them just laying around, paint a quasi-replica, and call it a day? Maybe because she can hear a distant, yet very distinct, voice in the recesses of her mind that insist that he deserve more. Though she knew that much, it didn't bring her any closer to knowing what to paint.
Who knew that a blank, beige canvas could be so daunting? Typically, a blank canvas would be so inviting to Carly; a challenge to assault the empty space with merciless creativity. This time, however, the beige just seemed to expand into a sea of absolutely nothing. Did that even make sense? Can you have a sea of nothing? Well, if you could, this would be it. She just wished that she could take a nap while the picture painted itself.
Then she remember her art instructor standing over the class while she advised, "Let your emotions paint the picture, not your hands. Once you give your emotions free reign, they will reward you with a piece of art you'll never forget." At the time, it seemed like the ramblings of your typical hipster art teacher, but now it seemed like genuinely good advice. Carly lifted herself from the chair, picked up the palette, and reclaimed her spot in front of the blank canvas.
"Freddie," she thought. "Freddie, Freddie, what do I think about when I think of Freddie?" She suddenly remembered the pink Converse high top sneakers she was wearing when she met Freddie for the first time at Bushwell Plaza. When she outgrew the shoes and prepared to toss them out, Freddie pointed out that those were the shoes she wore when they met and he admitted, ever so casually, that he would miss them. She didn't say it at the time, but she knew she would miss them, too.
She dipped the brush in the pink and drew two simple horizontal lines.
She thought of the photo that Freddie took of the sky when they were younger. It had started out as a joke during an 8-day streak of classic Seattle rainy weather. There was a day right before another week-long streak when the sky was absolutely clear and a perfect shade of light blue. Carly joked that they should take a picture of the sky while it was beautiful, since there was no telling when they would see good weather next. The next day, there was a Polaroid of a simple, clear blue sky taped to her door with a caption that said," 'Cuz you never know…" She still has that picture in her dresser drawer.
She painted a thick, curved line towards the top in a light blue.
One time he wore a yellow and black striped polo shirt. Sam said he looked like a sad bumble bee. Carly, on the other hand, kind of liked it.
So she painted three heavy black vertical lines and shaded the spaces between with a daffodil yellow.
He had broken his arm once and had to wear a green cast for weeks. When she had signed his cast, she wrote a message that said, "Green is kind of your color! You should act like a stupid boy and get yourself injured more often!" When he read the message, he tipped his head back and let out a gut-busting howl of laughter. Now the color green reminded her of his laugh.
The word "HA!" was painted repeatedly in a randomized pattern, green as grass.
They're the only two people that eat the grape Jolly Ranchers from Spencer's huge stash because they like how the candy turns their tongues such a dark purple. They can't explain why it 's so funny. It just is.
Dots of purple pepper the canvas as the space becomes limited.
He once told her that he thought Wendy of kind of cute.
Carly saturated the brush in red paint and flung the paint with a SPLAT! across the canvas, suddenly feeling a little perturbed.
And then there was that awful Valerie. More red.
SPLAT!
Tasha. Sabrina. Shelby Marx. That one slut at that one place they went to.
SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLATSPLATSPLAT!
Carly suddenly realized how wound up she had become and took a deep breath. She looked at the work in progress.
Suddenly, she was thinking of his eyes. She didn't know why, she just…could not stop thinking about his eyes. She started to draw two large, serene chocolate brown eyes in the middle of all the chaos. She marveled at how she could use the same shade of brown to draw her own eyes.
The last image came to her almost effortlessly. Around one eye, she drew a heart in orange, which was Freddie's favorite color. Around the other, she drew a heart of purple, her favorite. The hearts interlocked. "As they probably should be," she thought, as she set the palette back on the tech cart.
She took a step back and examined the work. It was pandemonium. No connecting lines or coherent order. Just pair of calm eyes and loving hearts in a world of confusion.
It was perfect.
She was so lost in her creation that she didn't hear the studio door open. Freddie took a soft step inside and watched Carly and the painting. He stood behind her and gently placed his hands on her shoulders. She let out a tiny gasp of surprise and turned around to face Freddie, who's eyes were still trained on the painting. He looked awestruck.
"A picture of us?" he asked simply, with a half smile and a look of wonderment. All she could do was nod in response.
His smile grew. "I love it. I really do," he said, taking a step closer.
She bit her bottom lip, then smiled. "It's the best I've done, honestly." She looked down at the ground, processing how much she has revealed to him today. Looking downward, she sees a pair of arms wrap around her waist. She looks up to find his eyes staring into hers, full of too many emotions to name. He removes a hand from her waist in order to tuck an unruly lock of her hair behind her ear, allowing his hand to linger on her cheek.
In seconds, their lips simply meet. He can understand how she gets her lips to be so incredibly soft. She wonders how long she was able to live life without feeling this safe. They cling to each other, though there is no need as long as neither of them plan to let go. There are no glittery declarations of love because words just get in the way of this breath-taking, Technicolor moment.
Just two hearts and chocolate eyes, shining within chaos.
And beige is long forgotten.
THE END
A/N: Thank you all SO MUCH for taking the time to read this! And the reviews have been just incredible. It's the one thing that makes all of this work worth it! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed creating it. Love you all!
Hollaatchyagirl,
Phunky