Wow, it's been WAYYY too long since my last chapter. Thank you to those of you who are still reading! :)

The reason for the delay was the chapter itself. I ran into major troubles with this one. I had the general idea in my head, but I didn't actually know what I wanted to happen, so it took me a really long time to figure out each part. It's not amazing, but I like how it turned out.

I hope all of you like it too!

Chapter 16: My First Piece of Art

"I went to law school!"

"Yeah, for two days. Why don't you understand? You have to do something with your life."

"But I am doing something with my life, I'm an artist."

"An unemployed artist!" She looked at him furiously and he shrank back, attempting to calm her down without success.

"I didn't think the whole 'you're not going anywhere if you don't succeed by the time you're thirty' lecture today was going to have this much of an affect on her."

"Me neither. I mean, I know she's always hyped up about the future, but I didn't think she was going to take it out on her brother like this."

After staying in one place for so long, I was starting to get sore and hungry. Well, I'm always hungry, but that's beside the point. Freddie and I were huddled next to each other behind the half-wall on the kitchen side of the Shay apartment. On the other side, Cary was in full attack mode, pretty much blaming Spencer for all of his wrongs and crushing his confidence about his job as an artist. Our teacher had given us a pessimistic talk about the future, and Carly had apparently taken it as her cue to turn Spencer's life around.

Turning my attention back to the fight, I heard Spencer giving into his little sister, but not giving up on his dream. "I will find a job. Someone will want to display my artwork, and then you will see that Spencer Shay is not a quitter. Maybe I quit law school, but I won't give up on my dream to become an artist. I am an artist, and if you insist that I need a paying job to prove it, then that's what I'll do."

Footsteps approached and I realized too late that Spencer was entering the kitchen. Freddie and I sprang apart, suddenly aware of how closely we were situated.

"Hey there you two," Spencer said, breezing by us with a determined look on his face.

"Uh, hey…" I trailed off, Freddie at an equal loss for words. Finally we shook off most of the awkwardness.

"I'm going to go see how Carly's doing," I mumbled, making a quick exit from the kitchen. When I entered the living room, I spotted Carly sitting on the couch, her head in the hands, worrying about something.

"What's up Carls?" She jumped a little, apparently just remembering that I was here.

"Oh, nothing. It's just that I'm worried about Spencer. He loves being an artist, but I fear he'll never have a real job."

"You mean like a cubicle job?"

"No, even as an artist. He just gets paid for work here and there, I really wish he had a more substantial job."

"Are you going to help him find one?"

"I was just going to let him find one on his own, but you know what? That sounds like an even better idea. Thanks, Sam!" Before she even finished her sentence she had hopped off the couch and was scrambling upstairs.

Sighing, Freddie plopped onto the couch next to me. "Looks like we won't be seeing her for a little bit."

"When Carly sets her mind to do something, she'll get it done no matter what. Luckily, this gives me more time to go through her fridge."

I bounced off the couch, wanting food and not wanting to sit on the couch next to Freddie any longer, it was starting to make me feel uncomfortable.

Freddie chuckled behind me, "you always find an excuse for food."

"Got a problem with that, Benson?" Turning around, I flashed him a half-jokingly threatening grin.

He shook his head, looking down, trying to hide the remains of his smile. "Nope, no problem at all."

I continued on to the fridge, rummaging through until I discovered a container of leftover chicken. Extracting it from the fridge, I put it on the counter, searching for a fork. When I returned to the living room, I purposely sat myself on the floor, using the fact that it made me closer to the table as my obvious reasoning despite the fact that I had other motives for sitting where I did.

"Okay you children, sit over here," Spencer motioned to the couch, his joy practically consuming him. The three of us sat where he directed us, confusedly awaiting further news. Carly asked us to come over because Spencer told her he had an announcement for all of us.

"Please tell me you aren't becoming a vegetarian family," I pleaded, unable to wrap my head around the idea of no longer finding meat in the Shay fridge.

"Ew no, I don't want to end up like our crazy relatives eating mushy food on Thanksgiving." Spencer stepped backward, acting much jumpier than usual.

"So what's up, Spence?" Freddie's confused face reflected all of our thoughts.

"I got a job!" He leaped in the air, a huge smile on his face, looking triumphantly at his sister.

"Spencer that's great!" Carly was just as excited as he was. "What kind of job?"

"Well, you said if I wanted to be a serious artist I had to be employed, so I searched he area, and couldn't find anything, but I found a job a couple towns over, only about a half an hour from here. It's this artsy place that's always looking for new artists to feature. I told them I was looking for a job, not just a display, and they told me they wanted me to be on their permanent team! They already had painters and people who use that fancy chalk stuff on canvas, but they needed a sculptor since their last one moved to Uruguay or something, so they hired me!"

"I'm so proud of you," Carly got up and hugged her brother. As we looked on, Freddie and I saw that Spencer started to tear up. Carly must have heard him sniffle or something because she drew away, ""Spencer, are you crying?"

"No," he looked away. "Okay, fine. I'm just so happy that you're proud of me, and that you don't care if I never finished law school."

"If anyone should care about that, it would be me, I'm going to need some good representation if I ever get into more legal trouble." Despite my admittance that I may break the law, Carly was too happy to care.

That night, we celebrated Spencer's success with a feast of spaghetti tacos that Carly, Freddie, and I prepared (Carly wouldn't let Spencer do any of the work for his celebration) and a cake made out of whatever we found fitting in the cupboards and fridge.

"What's up with him?" I asked Carly, unable to take my eyes off of Spencer, who was rushing around the apartment, flinging things and muttering to himself.

"He's been like this since yesterday," she stared at him too, her expression filled with worry. "I don't quite know – he hasn't stopped to answer my questions – but I think it has something to do with his job."

There was a huge crash and I whipped my head around to see what caused the noise. In all of his rushing, Spencer had thrown the contents of an entire supply bin on the ground.

"That's it," Carly said, mostly to herself. "Spencer! Spencer Shay!" He didn't stop what he was doing. "Spencer Shay you stop right now and listen to me or I'm going to move to Yakama and throw all of your art supplies away." That got his attention. Nice one, Carls.

"What?"

"You heard me. Now tell me what's wrong." She stood impatiently in front of him, arms crossed and eyes narrowed.

"I- I- It's my job." Suddenly, Spencer collapsed on the floor, a look of despair in his eyes as he curled helplessly into a little ball.

"What about your job?" Carly was calmer now, and bent down to pat him on the back.

"They want me to sculpt things."

"Isn't that why you took the job?"

"Yeah. But they want me to sculpt lots of things." When Spencer was intimidated by Carly or when he suddenly broke down, he acted like a baby, and that's exactly what he was doing now. It was a little bit strange, but that's Spencer for you.

Carly continued to look confused.

"Too many sculptures. They want four sculptures in two days. I don't even have ideas yet, which will probably only leave me with tomorrow to build something. There's no way I can build four sculptures in one day on my own." He was whining now, and going limp out of helplessness.

"Well then find someone to help you."

"I don't know any sculptors who would have the time to help."

"Socko?"

"The only thing he's good at is wearing cool socks. The one time I asked him to help me, he just put a light-up Christmas sock on top of a popsicle stick."

"Oh. Well… Maybe we could help you."

"What?" Me? Make a sculpture? Yeah, right.

"Oh, c'mon Sam, it won't be that bad. Between the four of us, we can do it."

"Oddly, I'm with Sam on this one. My art skills are pretty limited." Freddie hung his head a bit. I'd seen him draw before and he was okay, but you don't need to draw to make a sculpture.

"That doesn't matter. We can help Spencer come up with an idea, and then he'll instruct us. All we have to do is work." I hate working.

"Please?" Spencer was now on his knees in front of us, literally begging for our help.

"Fine," I waved my hand in indifference. "As long as I get fed on the job."

"We'll make sure our fridge is constantly stocked," I was reassured, Spencer grabbing the three of us and pulling us into a tight hug.

By the end of the day, we had helped Spencer to plan all of his sculptures and had even gone on several trips to the hardware and craft stores to pick up some necessary items.

The plan was for Spencer to create the base for each sculpture, and for him to direct us on whatever he wanted us to do after that.

By the time Spencer had finished his scurry of anxious molding and gluing, Carly had her nose buried in a book, Freddie had bounced a ball off of pretty much all of the available surfaces, and I had finished a whole rack of lamb. He looked at us disappointedly, "c'mon guys, it's time to get started!" Spencer yanked the book away from Carly, which met him with a look of annoyance. "You said you'd help me with my sculptures, so get off your rears, pick up some objects, and start sculpting!" Wandering away from the living area, Spencer started inspecting what he had built so far.

Eventually, we pried ourselves from our seats and made our way to the various buckets of stuff. It really was 'stuff.' I don't think I could find a more random combination of objects if I emptied the belongings of one of those junky and dusty collector stores and the products in a supermarket into a bowl and mixed them together. Before we could take anything out, Spencer explained what he wanted us to do. There were two complicated statues and two easier ones. We would work in pairs to make the complicated ones, and Spencer would build the easier ones by himself, having us pitch in every now and then.

"So, I thought we would start with the hard ones to get those out of the way first." I made my way over to Carly so we could start on our sculpture, but Spencer, who extended his arm in order to block my path, stopped me. "Not so fast there, young lady," he chastised, quickly removing his arm in fear of injury.

I looked at him quizzically. "But you said to work in pairs."

"That I did," Spencer started with his goofy adult impersonation face. "But, young Carly here cannot be your partner." Helplessly, Carly was dragged into a half-hug half-headlock by her older brother.

"Why not?"

"You see, as her older brother, I know many things about Carly. I also get to forbid her from doing certain things since I'm her guardian."

Carly looked at me with raised eyebrows at Spencer's attempt to lecture.

"There is no way I'm letting Carly use any dangerous equipment, especially not a blow torch, and since sculpting is a team effort, I will be the one blowtorching. Sorry, Sam, but you're going to have to work with Freddie on this one."

"I can use the blow torch for Carly."

"No no no," fear crept into Spencer's eyes. "I won't let Carly use a blow torch because I don't want anything to happen to her. You need to be supervised so you don't blow up the entire apartment building." I put on a hurt face, but little did Spencer know, it was more about being paired with Freddie than his critique of my handling of dangerous equipment.

I sighed, moving toward Freddie, knowing it would be no use to argue with Spencer over something he was doing to protect his little sister.

Spencer doled out our assignments, describing what material we could use, and what his general requests were for each sculpture. Freddie and I were to build a giant fish, but it was supposed to be made of all different materials, and to look like one of those grand and colorful fish, not just a goldfish or something. Carly and Spencer were going to build a giant upside down throne made from really small objects.

Freddie and I discussed what we wanted it to look like. Whenever I had an idea, he would tell me if it would or wouldn't be possible, using his knowledge of engineering and mechanics and other nerdy stuff. Finally, we set out to build.

"Sam, I think you should put that up a little higher."

"Why, Benson, do you think my idea's ugly?" I provoked him.

"No, I just don't think it will stay in place because of the surrounding shapes."

I grumbled something unintelligible but reached up anyway, knowing that he would be right in the end.

"Here, let me put it up for you," Freddie approached me, noticing that, despite my best efforts, I wasn't tall enough to reach the spot where it would fit.

I lowered myself back down and we awkwardly fumbled with the piece. Once it was securely in his grasp, Freddie reached up to the tree and tucked it into its proper spot.

"Nice teamwork, you two," Spencer smiled at us, revealing he watched our efforts to place the piece. Immediately my face swelled with heat and I snuck a look at Freddie whose cheeks were also getting darker by the second. He looked at me and we quickly looked away from each other, the silence growing longer and more awkward.

"Um, thanks Spence," Freddie muttered, finally ending the quiet.

What's up with Freddie? He's acting so weird today. My awkwardness is understandable, seeing as I'm trying to balance my hatred and unfortunate crush on Freddie. Even though he can be helpful once in a while, there's no reason he should be acting this strange. What's going on with him?

Casually, Spencer returned to his sculpture. Avoiding any eye contact with each other, Freddie and I turned back to our fish, which was starting to take shape, and continued working.

We finished shortly after our dinner break and assisted Spencer with the two easier sculptures. The entire time, Freddie was acting strange. I don't know if Carly or Spencer noticed, and I didn't want to bring it up, but it was starting to make me curious.

"Okay, just wheel this one over there, and you'll be all set." The man shook hands with Spencer, his thin tie hanging loosely around his neck. He was the gallery owner, and he loved every piece that Spencer made (with our help, of course). In fact, the owner loved them so much that he was putting them up as the front display.

"Now that you're part of our permanent team, I'll be issuing you regular orders for sculptures in various displays. Don't get used to being in the front, there are other great artists that need their work featured too."

"Not a problem, sir!" As the man walked away, Spencer jumped around like the little kid he was inside.

The four of us watched as the last sculpture was put in place. Spencer decided to analyze all of them for us, caught up in the excitement of the moment.

"These two that we all did together turned out well, but the throne and the fish are by far the best. Look at this, the throne: it's radiant. Someone could probably find some deeper meaning since it's upside down. That velvet piece you added really stands out, Carls." He hugged his little sister who looked up at him with a satisfied grin. "Great job, kid."

"And the fish," he moved slightly to the right. "Sam and Freddie, you two did a great job too!" The two of us stared at our sculpture, waiting for Spencer's critique. "It is so well done, I don't even know if I would have thought of putting some of these pieces together. You two worked really well together; I should pair you up every time I have an assignment like this!" Freddie and I were silent. Awkwardly, we glanced at each other, turning away as soon as our uncomfortable stares were exchanged.

One part of me actually agreed with Spencer. I wanted to work with Freddie; I wanted to spend time with him. But another part of me disagreed for two reasons. First, I still hated him. Secondly, if I was going to keep my intruding feelings a secret, I had to spend as little time alone with Freddie as possible.

Before the silence could continue, the owner came over. "Spencer, the gallery is about to open. You should go to your office and prepare for some visitors who may want to buy some of your artwork." She shuffled Spencer toward the other side of the room before turning to us. "You, children, do you have a way to get home?"

"Yeah, we could catch the bus. Are we not allowed to stay here with Spencer?" Carly didn't want to leave her brother on his big day.

"I'm sorry, but with the amount of customers that come in for the opening of a new show, you won't be able to spend much time with Spencer. Feel free to stay any other day," The man was honest and despite kicking us out, he was still being nice enough. Normally I'd fight back, but I could feel my stomach rumbling and I really wanted to be near the Shay fridge at the moment.

We were lounging around the living room, having spent the afternoon eating and amusing ourselves with stories of crazy people who could want to buy one of his pieces.

"Can you imagine that?" Freddie laughed as he continued his scenario. "Spencer would be so comfortable. He'd probably just stand there frozen. The poor man would never get his statue." Carly and I laughed along with him, the image filling our mind. Before we could bring up a new scenario, the door was flung open and Spencer stood in the doorway.

"Spencer!" We jumped up, pulling him into the room, waiting to hear how his first day went.

"So, how was your first day on the job?"

"Busy, very busy." He seemed dazed.

"Did anyone buy your statues?"

"Yes. All of them were purchased."

"Are you okay?" Carly inspected her brother curiously.

"All of them were purchased," he repeated.

Suddenly, he jumped up and started a non-stop ramble of explanation about everything that happened that day.

"And guess which one went for the most money?" Before we could guess, he answered his own question, "the fish! Everyone thought the throne was really cool, but your fish was by far the favorite! I told you two it was a brilliant piece. Next time I make a sculpture, we must work together. I would let you two make it all by yourselves, but that would be dangerous and not my work. I never thought my artwork would go for as much as those four pieces did!"

He continued on for quite a while, and it was not until he finished that we noticed the time. Spencer hadn't returned to the apartment until around 7:30, and by the time we ended our discussion of his day, it was around 9:30.

"I guess it's dinner time, huh?" Spencer suggested, finally calming down.

"Fine with me," I feigned indifference. "All I know is that we won't be having the turkey for dinner." I broke out into a mischievous grin, which I made no attempt to hide.

It was not until the next day when I returned to my house that I had a chance to write down the events.

February 23rd, 2010: My First Real Piece of Art (sculpted w/Freddie for Spencer – PURCHASED!)

I smiled to myself. Someone actually bought my artwork. I helped Spencer. I had spent time with Freddie. As much as I still tried to deny it, I was secretly glad that Freddie and I worked together on the sculpture. He would never know that, and I wouldn't let him. Despite all of the awkwardness, I actually liked sculpting. Why was he acting so weird, anyway?

What did you think? Please comment! :D

I'm not sure if my Spencer was up to par with my Spencer in other chapters, but he still seemed kind of crazy here.

Thank you so much for reading, and please comment!

Also, I found out that my friend has been promoting my new chapters on Twitter recently. I've already thanked her, but I would really appreciate it (and I'm sure she would too) if any of you with Twitters would follow her. She's WeShouldKiss on Twitter, and she's a huge iCarly and Seddie supporter! It would mean so much to me since she's been so kindly promoting my story! Thank you very much!