drops of jupiter

summary: In which Carly always wins and Freddie always pretends he does.
disclaimer: iCarly isn't mine, ain't that a shame~

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The day starts off with a good morning kiss and a cup of coffee.

Freddie is looking at the travel section in the newspaper and Carly is updating her Facebook status on her pink laptop when Carly says, "We need to paint the place."

Freddie glances up from his newspaper and studies her for a moment. How her dark hair cascades over her shoulders, the way she bites her lower lip when she's reading, how her eyes light up when she glances up from the screen and notices him staring. A goofy smile touches his lips.

"So, what do you think?" Carly asks slyly, pulling the screen down and shutting the laptop, propping her chin on her interlocked fingers, her elbows on the table.

"About what?" Freddie asks, setting down his newspaper. His ears go red when she giggles and rolls her eyes.

"Paint."

"Uh?"

"For our apartment," Carly clarifies with a small smile.

"Oh – yeah, that's a great idea," Freddie answers, nodding almost robotically. When it comes to Carly, he agrees with just about anything that comes out of her mouth. She could say that robbing a bank was a good idea and he'd end up at the wheel of the getaway car with the money in the back.

Carly raises a brow, hiding a smile that tugs at the corner of her mouth. Freddie catches it, though, and she probably knows, but she's stubborn, so her mouth stays in a thin line.

"Do you want to go today?" She asks, standing up from the table and tucking her laptop under her arm, "We have time."

Freddie stands up with her, walks over to her and kisses the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her cherry blossom perfume.

And of course, he agrees.

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"I like this one for our room," Carly says, pointing to a beautiful cerulean color, snatching the paper up with the color swatches on it and examining it, "It's breezy."

Freddie leans over her shoulder, then picks up a different color pallet, one is of greens, and points to one labeled forest frenzy, "Ignoring the cheesy name, I like this one," he says, picking up the bucket of paint without asking and setting it in the cart. Carly looks appalled – apparently appalled enough to grab two of the cerulean blue buckets and set them inside of their Home Depot cart, as well.

Freddie raises a brow at her determined look.

"What?" He asks, feigning innocence and failing when he smirks.

"You know what. I hate green," Carly says, turning her back to him so she can look through some of the other colors. She picks up a bucket of yellow paint, sets it into the cart.

"And I hate yellow," Freddie says with a raised brow. He grabs a deep red, mostly just to spite her, and sets it on top of forest frenzy. She lets out a frustrated breath.

"Freddie, we are not painting our room," she pauses, checks the name of the particular color and grimaces, "Tiger blood red. It's going to make it look like a murder happened in our bedroom."

"Yeah, the murder of your bad color choices," Freddie says with a wink. He mirrors her when she sticks out her tongue, and she selects another color – plum – and puts it into the cart. He raises his eyebrows, "Are you a teenage girl?"

"As a matter of fact, Freddie," Carly says, rolling her eyes, "I'm nineteen. Therefore, I guess that classifies me as a teenage girl." She picks up another color, a deeper shade of blue, and sets it on top of the cerulean.

She pauses, examines the colors in the cart, "We're not buying all of these."

"Alright, then take yours out," Freddie answers promptly, reaching for the bucket of blue paint. Carly slaps his hand away. "Ow!" He gives her a hurt look.

"We are not taking my colors out. Take yours out," she demands, crossing her arms over her chest and tapping her first. Freddie snorts.

"I'm not taking mine out," he informs her. He steps towards the cart, starts to push it away from the buckets of paint.

"What are you doing?" Carly asks, exasperated as she falls into step beside him.

"Looks like we're buying all of them," Freddie says with a shrug of his shoulders, "We can decide when we get home."

"Well, we both know that I always get my way anyways, Freddie," Carly says with a downright snooty shrug of her shoulders, "So why waste the money?"

"Oh, but not this time, Carly," Freddie says, grinning at her as he pushes the cart to the checkout line, paint supplies and paint still in the cart, "I'm putting my foot down." He winks at her. "Good-natured competition won't hurt us."

"Well, it won't hurt me," Carly says, uncrossing her arms and pushing playfully on his shoulders, "Since I'm going to win."

Freddie snorts.

"So you think."

(But she always does.)

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"Freddie, your colors are hideous," Carly complains once Freddie's painted three lines of paint on the wall of the different colors.

"Carly, your colors are ugly, too," Freddie answers, turning to look at his girlfriend, who is dressed in a pair of her old skinny jeans and his oldest t-shirt, which hangs slightly off of her shoulder and has a hole somewhere at the bottom (it takes a moment to remember that he's supposed to be arguing with her, not staring her down like she's the most beautiful human being on the planet even if he thinks that she kind of is).

Carly puts her hands on her hips, and raises a brow, her paintbrush dangling loosely in her left hand, "They are not and you know it," she answers, confidence peaking when Freddie can't think of a comeback immediately and is reduced to scoffing and shaking his head.

"Whatever, Carly." He sticks his tongue out at her, "You know mine are awesome," Freddie says, a sly smile spreading across his face that makes Carly fidget a little, "Especially this one," he continues.

Carly raises a brow, then starts to say "Which one?" but only gets through "which" before Freddie swipes his paintbrush across her face, forest frenzy coating her cheek and part of her lip. Her mouth drops open into a silent "o", and Freddie makes the mistake of laughing because, hello, it's kind of funny seeing Carly look at him like he'd just kicked a puppy in front of her.

"Oh my God," she says, reaching up and attempting to wipe the paint off. It smears onto her fingers, and she gives him a look that would probably kill him if looks could do such a thing.

"Sorry?" Freddie offers with an awkward smile and a shrug of his shoulders.

"You better be," Carly says. She pauses a moment, then jumps, smearing blue over his neck before he has time to react. He jumps backwards then, with newfound energy, dips his hand into tiger blood red and wipes it across Carly's forehead.

"Freddie!" She cries, but she's laughing now, dipping her hand into plum and smearing it over his nose. Freddie arms himself with a paint brush dipped in sunshine yellow, smearing it over Carly's arms as she pushes her cerulean-covered fingers through his hair.

"Carly, that's disgusting!" He yells, chuckling as he steps backwards and flicks green onto her while she makes a plum handprint on his chest. He backs her up into the wall, taking the opportunity to smear more red on her exposed shoulder as she giggles and spreads yellow paint over his eyebrow.

She manages to flip them around and she reaches down and flings more purple onto him, some of it splattering against the wall. Freddie, with his hand newly covered in the dark blue, flings it at her and it lands in her hair, on her cheek; she squeals, closing her eyes, and he takes the opportunity to grab her shoulders (lightly, carefully, always) and smear more across her face.

Carly wiggles in his grip, playfully wipes more paint into his hair, down his cheek until, with a sudden pang of desire, she stands up on her tiptoes and kisses him square on the mouth, still covered with paint that she hopes isn't poisonous or something.

His grip on her shoulders goes lax, and his hands travel down her arms to lift her up; she wraps her legs around his waist and he carries her a couple of steps, pins her against the wall, using it for leverage as his tongue slips in between her lips.

Carly tightens her grip around his neck, her hands moving up to run through his hair, her lips moving in sync against his until they have to detach themselves for air. Freddie leans his forehead against hers, panting a little, eyes soft, loving. Carly looks at him the same way. A smile etches across her lips, and she touches the green color on Freddie's cheek, examining it.

"I still like the blue better," she says, her voice a whisper but her smile apparent. He rolls his eyes, leans in to kiss her again.

"If you kiss me like that again I'll let you paint it any color you want."

Carly leans up, connects their lips.

"Blue it is."

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a/n: Yay for cliche, plotless fluff! :D Thanks for reading! Please review with more than "so cute" or "I love it". Thanks!