A/N This last chapter is extremely long! Over four thousand words! Maybe one day I will go back and redo the chapter breaks. Anyway, I hope that you enjoy. I think that I was influenced by Jannika's tweendom anon, but not in the way that you think. Thanks for reading.

It was hot on the dance floor, among the bodies of his classmates, and the alcohol was churning rapidly through Freddie's system. He wiggled his hips and tried to remember a few moves as he watched the pink puffball of Sam's dress sway rhythmically, a two foot radius naturally occurring around its bulk.

This was only the third time Freddie had ever drunk booze; his body wasn't used to it. The first time, Sam had made real piña coladas for a Hawaiian themed iCarly instead of the virgin kind. It had led to some unfortunate consequences when his mother had watched the broadcast, as well as some of the highest viewcounts in iCarly history. The second time involved Sam's mother and a beer and a mistaken identity, and was best not thought of. Especially not right now, Freddie ruminated dully, when Sam was so close by, rustling in her candy pink gown, covered in a thin sheen of sweat. It was like powdered sugar, only instead of being on a donut, it was on a prison cake with shards of glass and a file baked right in.

Damn, Freddie was a lightweight.

He worked his way through the crowd, abandoning Sam as she shook her head wildly to the beat of the latest blonde popstar's hit, to get a drink of water. Carly and Kevin were nearby, sipping something fizzy near the water coolers.

"I know she's my ex but we're still friends, and she wanted to dance!" Kevin had a pout to his mouth, his stance defensive, with arms crossed.

Carly seemed more annoyed than angry. "You don't just let her cut in like that, she was supposed to ask me if it was okay."

"What, is this the eighteenth century? Come on, Carly, we've only been out like, twice. You aren't my girlfriend, you're my date." He chugged down the rest of his gingerale, seemingly to avoid making eye contact with Carly, who was scoffing incredulously at him. She was distracted, however, by a chuckling snort from Freddie.

"Oh! Um, hey, Freddie." She turned to see Freddie cover up his laughter with a choking gulp of cool water. "What did you think was so damn funny?"

Freddie looked down at the cherries on his lapel. Thoughtfully, he plucked one off, and chewed the sweet flesh off the pit. "It's our prom, Carly. You're the one who wanted to go so badly. You're the one who wanted to have such a perfect time. If Kevin wants to have a dance with a friend, he can."

"Thank you! See, I knew this guy was cool." Kevin slapped Freddie on the shoulder jovially.

"Besides, Rebecca isn't nearly as hot as you." Freddie spat the cherry pit out neatly into a napkin.

Kevin pointed at him. "Hey, watch it, Fred. That's my date you're talking about. Even though you are totally right."

Carly's posture shifted from annoyed to angry to pleased all in one swift movement. "Aw, it's just some makeup."

"Well you don't even need it. Let's get back in there, okay?" Kevin guided Carly with a hand on the small of her back towards the dance floor. Right before they got there, Kevin ran back and leaned in, close to Freddie. "Thanks dude, I so owe you one."

Freddie rolled his eyes. "Just don't do anything I wouldn't do, okay?"

As Kevin gave Freddie the finger guns, bang bang, Freddie scoffed. Cherry preservation brigade, his ass. Speaking of, Sam appeared, parting the crowd with her unique mixture of grace and tactlessness.

"Scuse me pardon me move it!" she shouted. "Hey Fredarina, what's shakin'?"

He handed her a cup of ice. "Carly and Kevin are doomed."

Sam stood behind Freddie, away from the chaperone's sight. She hitched up her skirt, found a flask, and poured rum straight over the rocks. "Well yeah, I coulda told you that."

"Just now, they had a tiff, and Kevin called Carly specifically not his girlfriend."

"Ooh, harsh. But it's your fault. And also, never use the word 'tiff' again."

"My fault? I'll have you know, I just caused Carly's entire night to be salvaged!" Freddie shook his head no to Sam's offer of more alcohol.

She shrugged, took a swig, and explained. "Look, you spoiled her. Now she thinks that every boy who takes a liking to her should want to marry her. I know you've moved on and all that crap, but that sort of thing makes an impression on a girl."

"Hey, just because I am a romantic doesn't make it my fault that the rest of the male population isn't." Freddie drank another glass of water. "And stop drinking that. You'll embarrass yourself."

"Ooh, sounds like somebody needs some more rum. Carly, too, by the sound of it." Sam smiled, and swiftly shoved a rummy ice cube into Freddie's gaping mouth. Before he could respond with a sputtering remark, a high pitched squeal echoed through the room, stopping everyone in their tracks.

"Um, hi. Sorry about that." Principal Franklin stood on a small stage, next to a large shimmery paper moon, holding a microphone. "Good evening, students of Ridgeway High!" A dull cheer rose from the crowd. "We've got a lot of partying to do tonight, right?" Another dull cheer. Principal Franklin coughed, and pulled an envelope out of his jacket pocket. "Well, okay then. Without further ado, I'd like to announce your prom queen and king for this year's graduating class!"

The kids formed up, then, realizing what was going on. Most of them clustered near the stage, leaving room in the middle for the prom royalty to gather. The DJ put on a drum roll. "Your Ridgeway High prom queen is…Tricia Zerwicky!"

A scream rose from the crowd, and a yellow dress flew up the short stairs to the stage. Tricia glittered all over, from her dress to her teeth and now, her crown. "Oh, thank you, thanks everybody!" She gushed into the microphone, amidst a genial level of applause.

Freddie was glad. He liked Tricia. Everybody liked Tricia! That was why she had won, he supposed. Sam nudged him in the ribs. "She looks like Big Bird on Ice, am I right?"

"Shut up, Sam." He smiled back at her, and she pulled a sullen look.

Principal Franklin battled briefly with Tricia and got his microphone back. "And now, your Ridgeway High prom king is…wait a minute." He looked studiously at the inside of his envelope. "Hrm. I guess if they double checked… Apparently, folks, the majority of the votes were a write in for a student not in this graduating class. But it says they checked the rules and it is okay, so, your new prom king is Gibby! Mister Gibstein, are you here tonight?"

Rousing cheers erupted from the student body. Gibby ran up the steps and slung an arm around Tricia's waist. "You bet your boxers I'm here!" He had grown, but not out of his shirtlessness. The tails of his tux jacket flapped as he grabbed the mic. "Hey party people!"

Everyone screamed. Freddie covered his ears.

"I gotta dance with my lady right now. But after this, I promise to dance with each and every one of you!" More screaming, and a few roses flew up onto the stage around Gibby and Tricia's feet. He handed the mic back to Principal Franklin and threw up the horns to the crowd.

In an abrupt change of tone, Fly Me to the Moon by Sinatra started to play. Everyone made room for Tricia and Gibby to dance in the middle of the floor, a spotlight illuminating their sparkling crowns. After the first few steps, everyone else started to pair off. Carly and Kevin had apparently made up just fine, since they were slow dancing in each other's arms nearby. Sam and Freddie shared meaningful glances at one another.

"Do you, um, what do you think?" Freddie asked vaguely, a hand in his pocket.

"Want a cherry?" Sam pulled one off of her corsage and dipped it in her rum.

"God, yes." Freddie snatched the cherry out of her fingers, which, he noticed, sported matching pink nail polish. "And some more of that Andromeda punch, while you're at it." They rustled over to the punch bowl, waving hello to the smattering of other single prom goers chilling near the bleachers, who were watching the couples hold each other with an adolescent mixture of envy and pity.

***

The rest of the dance went by like a blur. Gibby stayed true to his promise, dancing passionately and half naked with each and every person at the prom, including a dismayed Miss Briggs, and all of the lonely prom attendees by the bleachers. Sam spent her time split between dancing, eating cookies, and spiking her and Carly's drinks.

After Freddie tasted rum in his third cup of punch, he'd told her no more if she ever wanted a ride from him again. It managed to work, somehow. Maybe she was just in a good mood. She seemed like it, dancing back to back with Carly in the middle of the crowd. Freddie could see her quite well from his vantage point behind the DJ booth.

"She's like a lighthouse, Freddie." Quentin, Freddie's friend from AV and the prom DJ, tweaked the bass a smidge.

"Yeah, she is kind of a sign of impending doom." He plugged in a line of twinkling lights that had been badly wired.

Quentin grinned widely. "Man, I just meant you can see her from far away. You always talk smack about her."

"At any opportunity."

"You must like impending doom a lot."

Freddie put Quentin's headphones back on Quentin's head, and plunged back into the crowd.

There were fast songs and slow songs, awful ballads and Quentin's attempt at disco selections, cookie breaks and foot rest breaks and bathroom breaks, and suddenly, the prom started to wind down. Freddie was breathless. Sam was drunk. They were out on the front lawn, breathing some cool air.

"Why don't these stupid dresses ever have sleeves?" Sam asked the air in front of her. She plucked at the cluster of stems pinned to her chest. They were all that was left of the magnificent corsage. Freddie sighed. They had seemed like such a clever idea, but such things never last. She had spent her free moments of the night spitting cherry pits at people she didn't like. He shrugged off his jacket and slung it around Sam's shoulders.

"You shouldn't feel cold, you're drunk." He rubbed her arms in the oversized sleeves of his clashing pink jacket.

"You are such a gentleman!" Sam leaned into him. "But now your outfit isn't complete."

"Good. I look like a clown in this thing." Freddie stood Sam up, away from his chest.

"Nah." Sam shook what was left of her flask of rum, and brazenly took a swig of it. "I think you look like a tall, cool glass of pink lemonade." Then she gasped, and covered her mouth with her hand. "Shut up, Sam," she mumbled out from her hand.

He blushed, wondering how much alcohol was still swimming around his blood stream, too. "Well you look, um, remarkable, you know."

Sam pulled his jacket closer around her shoulders and peered blearily up at him. "Freddie, you should probably know, I -- "

"Samantha Puckett! What do you think you're doing?" Miss Briggs stamped up to them, utterly breaking the mood. "Was that a flask I just saw in your hand?" She gasped, horrified. "You reek of liquor!"

"Aw, shut yer trap, Briggsy. I drank it all already." Sam stuck her hands on her hips as best she could, inside the sleeves of Freddie's jacket.

"Miss Briggs, we were just leaving. I am going to take her home." Freddie pulled on Sam's elbow.

"Wait! Fred!" Kevin's voice shot out over the lawn, past a few other overheated prom goers. He staggered his way over to Sam, Freddie, and Miss Briggs, Carly leaning heavily on his arm. Upon closer inspection, Kevin was half carrying her.

"Come on… Kevin, don't you want to? Gibs an' Zerwicky invited us, and we could do it and be girlfren an boyfren after right?" Carly looked trashed, there was no other word for it.

Freddie shot Sam an accusatory look. Sam shrunk back, looking between Miss Briggs, her best friend, and her best friend's put upon date. "What! She must've had something else, too. Look, I can form complete sentences still. I just say stuff I'm not supposed to."

Freddie hoisted Carly's other side up. "Sam, you have muscle mass."

"Oh, hey Fredward! Want to have sex with me and Kevin?" Carly slapped his face lightly, and then passed out, slack in a matter of seconds onto the grass.

"You gotta help me, Fred." Kevin looked terrified.

"All of you, get out of my prom! Out! Right now!" Miss Briggs grabbed Sam's empty flask, and clomped her way back into the gym.

Kevin carried her shoulders. Freddie got the ankles. And Sam got Carly's midsection. She took the opportunity to say something that had obviously been bugging her. "Kevin, if you're gonna be our friend, you gotta know. It's Freddie, with an I E. If you call him Fred one more time, I'll punch your face in."

Across Carly's prone body, Kevin raised an eyebrow at Freddie. Freddie just shrugged and nodded. They stowed Carly across Kevin's lap in the backseat and Freddie gunned it back to the Bushwell.

***

"Spence was gonna kill Kevin!" Sam and Freddie were sitting on Sam's stoop about twenty minutes later.

"Well it was your fault. He should kill you." He leaned back on his elbows.

"I, Sam, am beloved by Spencer Shay, and he would never lay a hand on me." Sam placed a hand to her chest. "Even if I did get his baby sister schlitzed and tell her to give it up to get it over with."

Freddie gaped. "You didn't. Did you?"

Sam gave him a sly look. Then she slapped him on the knee. "Come on, come inside. My butt hurts." She stood up with an uncharacteristic groan. Then she patted her sides. "Fudge buckets!"

"What?"

"My purse is back at the prom. If Briggs sees us back there, I'll get expelled. We're locked out."

Five minutes later, all Freddie could see was layers of pink chiffon. "Harder! Push harder!" Sam shouted at him.

"Maybe you shouldn't have eaten those cookies! Or, ungh! Anything, ever!" Freddie shoved hard on Sam's butt, grunting and straining, her bare, dirty feet in his face.

They had managed to wedge open the window to Sam's room by climbing a tree. Their shoes were abandoned at its roots. But the window had stuck only partially open, and now Sam was having trouble getting even her petite frame through. It was quite a view, her giant fatcake of a dress, hanging out the window.

With a final shove, Sam popped through into her bedroom. "Woah!" Freddie lost his balance in the tree, and nearly fell out of it, except Sam's hand shot out and caught him at the last second. Rebalanced, she disappeared for a second and came back with a crowbar, with which she got the window the rest of the way open.

Freddie tumbled in, rolling on top of Sam with all the grace of a moose at a tea party. He ended up with his face by her breasts. God, he was tired. Maybe she wouldn't mind if he just had a bit of a nap at that very moment.

"I need another drink," Sam said. And she squirmed out from under him, leaving Freddie flushed and frustrated. "You do too. No excuses." Her voice came from down the hall. There was the clink of glasses.

"Don't you think your mom might notice?" he asked, once Sam came back with two glasses full of something very dark and a bottle of something very light.

"Notice what?" Sam shoved a space clear on her cluttered desk and set about finishing the drinks. "I don't know if you've noticed, but my mom is kind of a drunken slut."

Freddie laughed at her frank summation. "Oh, come on…"

"No, really, I mean, she's fine and she's my mom and all, but she isn't gonna be back tomorrow, and she isn't gonna notice the ingredients for a big batch of White Russians missing." Sam handed Freddie a glass. He sniffed it. It smelled like coffee and vodka. "It'll taste like coffee and vodka. You'll like it."

Freddie took a gulp. "I like it."

"Goody gumdrops. Drink up." Sam plopped down next to him on her bed, shedding his jacket.

Freddie untied his bowtie, leaving it around his neck. "Is she also not gonna notice me passed out on the couch? Because if you get me drunk, that is what's gonna happen."

Sam was staring at him.

"What?" Freddie took another sip. It was creamy and good, and burned a little in the back of his throat. He was going to learn what a hangover really felt like, tomorrow morning, he could tell already.

She was stock still, staring at Freddie, but the clink of melting ice in her glass shook her out of whatever it was. Sam chugged half her drink in one go. "You're a virgin, right?"

Freddie spluttered, coughing a little White Russian up his nose. "What?" he sniffled. "I mean, yeah, um, who would I have done it with and you wouldn't have known?"

"I don't know, I was just makin' sure." Sam got up and refilled her glass, even though it wasn't empty.

"Are you?" Freddie asked it quickly, like one would ask if somebody wanted seconds at dinner.

"What, unicorn friendly? Sure thing. Same as you. Why wouldn't you have known?" She slowed her drinking, finally, sipping regularly from her glass.

"Well, you do a lot of stuff without me, and I don't exactly demand intimate details about your dates like Carly always does. And you drink, I didn't really know how much till tonight." He toed his way out of his itchy socks.

"The drinking is just a show. This is pretty new for me. I learned by osmosis, from Mom."

"Osmosis? Big word there, Puckett."

"Shut up. Anyway I save all the big firsts for you." Sam pulled pins out of her hair, causing it to tumble down, sweaty and frizzy and gold, over her peach shoulders.

It was Freddie's turn to chug and refill his drink. When his back was turned, Sam started to talk again.

"First punch to the face, first passenger with my driver's license, first time sharing a ham…" Sam was rambling.

Freddie sat back down next to her. She was avoiding eye contact. "First kiss, Sam. And first secret that you've never spilled to anyone. Remarkably enough."

"Hey, I keep lots of secrets. Loads, even. Anyway it's just stupid, the sex thing."

"You're drunk, Sam. You want me to suggest it, well I'm not gonna. Not this time." He set his glass down on the floor at the foot of the bed, and when he sat back up, Sam grabbed the ends of his bowtie and pulled him forward into another kiss.

She wasn't letting him breathe. He pushed her away, gently, and gasped for air. He held up one finger to her, while he leaned down and drank the last drops of his drink. Meanwhile, Sam was pawing at her own dress. She zipped down the opening on the side, breathing heavily after having her waist constricted for so long. Freddie watched with wide eyes as the tops of her breasts peaked out above the beaded top.

Oh, he was in for it. But his inhibitions had officially been lowered far enough that he couldn't take it anymore. Sam grabbed his jaw and started fumbling with the buttons of his shirt with her other hand, kissing him along the cheekbone and making small sexy noises in the back of her throat. Freddie felt his eyebrows raising and his eyes rolling as his body gave in and he grasped her around the waist, pushing her down onto her own bed.

His hands slid beneath her bodice, feeling her curves and exploring the warm, soft skin that had been hidden behind that stupid dress all night long. The skirt pooled between his legs, and he gasped into her mouth as he felt her knee rubbing along the inside of his thigh, the ruffles doing absolutely nothing to lessen the sensation.

Sam smelled and tasted like sweat, and booze, and salt, and bacony nitrates, and Freddie suddenly couldn't get enough of her. He knew it was the alcohol, but as he licked down the curve of her left breast, and languidly wound a hand into her hair, he was pretty sure that this was going to be the high point of his entire life.

She groaned a little, and suddenly Freddie's back was against the mattress and Sam was on top of him, her hand fumbling drunkenly at his crotch, trying to lift her own skirt at the same time. "I hate buttons!" she exclaimed, her voice cracking as Freddie found a particularly sensitive spot on her neck with his tongue.

He wasn't entirely sure what to do. Freddie had only ever gone as far as second base, and while he understood the basic mechanics, he wasn't exactly in a state to recall late night reading on the internet, six months prior. But then Sam's hand found its way into his pants, and she grasped his erection with brazen fingers, and all thought of illicit online research flew straight out of his head.

Freddie had an immediate urge to reciprocate, so he dug through the layers of Sam's skirt until he found there wasn't anymore, and captured her mouth with his, cutting her off mid sentence as she was telling him that he liked what she was doing. His hands explored her thighs and her panties and he felt just how wet she was. A mixture of sweat and arousal met his fingers and he touched something that made her grunt and bite down, hard, on his lower lip.

"Sam, wait, wait." They froze, mouths on each other's faces, hands on each other's bodies.

"Wait?" She rubbed slow circles with her free hand on his bare back.

Freddie shivered. "I should really wash my hands. We just climbed a tree."

Sam let out a breath. "Oh for cryin' out loud."

They untangled from each other, and Freddie tripped on their empty glasses on his way to the bathroom. "There's condoms in the linen closet!" Sam's voice carried down the hall. Freddie amazed himself by finding out there was enough blood left in his upper body to let him blush beet red. He surreptitiously smelled his fingers before washing his hands, and quickly the rest of his body. Sam might smell insanely delicious all the time, but he certainly didn't seem to.

Freddie took his time. He wanted to do this right. He didn't want to give Sam any opportunity to never let him live it down. And he was scared as hell. He was still fairly drunk, but as he rummaged through the mess of the Puckett's linen closet, he started to sober up a little, thinking about what had just happened.

They had been beating around it all evening. Hell, before that. Their whole deal was sexual tension. What if they got the tension out of their system? Would they even be friends anymore? Freddie finally found the condoms in an old bandaid box, right as his erection subsided.

He didn't like to think about it so directly, usually. But she had punched him in the stomach, made him go to prom with her, and gotten him drunk in her bedroom. She obviously wanted it just as bad as he did. Why had they waited so long? Why weren't they just honest with each other, all the time? What was the point to life, if not to have the most excellent sex possible at any given moment? And right now, Sam was waiting for him, willing, and horny, and totally drunk out of her mind, and probably worried about Carly, and lonely because her mom wouldn't be back for God knows how long.

Freddie was an idiot. He walked back, slowly, to Sam's room, clad just in his pink pants, with a box full of condoms in his hand. "Hey, um, Sam, I don't know if we should, I mean, you're probably kind of confused right now and I think maybe we should try taking it a little slow and…Sam?"

She was splayed out on her back, her dress entirely askew. Sam's mouth hung open and she was snoring like a foghorn. Freddie yawned in sympathy. He trudged over and poked her several times until she sat up.

"Arms up." Her arms shot up, limply, and Freddie lifted her dress over her head, chucking it onto the floor with as much force as he could muster. Almost immediately, Sam collapsed back onto the bed. Freddie pulled the blanket up over her nearly naked form, all the way to her chin. He wobbled back to the bathroom, filled a glass of water, left it by Sam's bed, and promptly fell asleep in a heap on the floor.

Five minutes later her woke up to a pillow being chucked at his head. He sat up, shivering. He was freezing! And still pretty inebriated. Sam stood over him, wobbling a bit, wearing a big grey sweatshirt and basically nothing else.

"Get into bed with me or I'll sucker punch you in the stomach again."

Freddie scrambled up off the floor. "No you won't."

"Don't make me prove myself." She climbed under the covers, and patted beside herself with a tired hand. Freddie got in, nervously holding the pillow in his lap. "Here. The last two, from your lapel." She held a cherry out in front of his face, by the stem.

Freddie yawned, and took it from her with his mouth, watching her chew her own. When she finished, he leaned in and kissed her as they held cherry pits in their palms. By the time the kiss was over, they had fallen asleep in a tangle of tired limbs.

The End!

Please review, I really appreciate and enjoy them! Especially the specific and thoughtful ones. Thanks for reading!