"Can I be a-"

"No, Sam. Absolutely not. We're going to be broadcasting to over a million people on Halloween night. There is no way I'm letting you get in front of that camera dressed up as a Dirty Devil." Carly said, an unusually stern expression on her face.

Sam sighed. Carly was right. Although the costume was great, and would undoubtedly look wonderful on her, parents would ban their children from watching iCarly if Sam got on camera looking like this.

Carly noticed the dejected expression on Sam's face. "You know, just because you can't wear it on the show doesn't mean you can't wear it to Gibby's Halloween party. If Freddie saw you in that, his pants would probably explode."

"In the good way or in the unfortunate Spencer way?" Sam smirked.

"The good way. At least, I hope his pants wouldn't spontaneously combust."

"Well I'm getting it. I can always get another one for the show. How about a superhero? OH MY GOD, I know! I know what I'm going to be!" Sam shouted, already running across the costume store to look at the superhero costumes.

"Nothing too inappropriate, Sam!" Carly yelled, trailing after her friend with her own selected '50s poodle skirt and button-up shirt combo. She didn't get the chance to see what Sam grabbed before the blonde scampered into the dressing room. Carly patiently waited on the little bench outside the stalls.

"Ta daaaaaaaaaaah!" Sam sung when she finally emerged. Carly dropped her phone (she had been texting Gibby) on the ground and burst into laughter.

Thor.

Sam was dressed up as Thor.

"Only you, Sam." Carly said as soon as she reined in her laughter. "Only you would choose a male superhero and still weirdly pull it off."

"It's the hair. Now if I could get Freddie to dress up as Loki..." Sam's voice trailed off as she succumbed to her thoughts. "Carly, hand me my phone. I need it. Now."

Carly walked back to the main part of the store as Sam simultaneously tried to convince Freddie to wear a Loki costume and get back in her regular clothes. By the time Sam made her way out of the dressing rooms, Carly had paid for her costume. "What did Freddie say?"

"He actually kinda digs the fact that we're going as superheroes. He said yeah, and to get the costume now and he'll just pay Spencer back the next time he runs to the bank. Ugh, can you believe it? I'm doing one of those sickeningly adorable couple costume match deals. The things I do for the nub..." Sam sighed, grabbing a Loki costume and the needed accessories in Freddie's size.

000

"Alright, group photo!" Mrs. Benson called. Sam, Carly and Freddie had caved and agreed to let Spencer be a part of that night's iCarly in full, not just for the baby sketch. They were assembled in the Shays' living room, and Mrs. Benson had decreed that the sight of everyone in their Halloween getups was too good of an opportunity to let pass without photographic evidence.

Sam was Thor.

Freddie was Loki.

Carly was the Black Widow (the group had decided to go for all superhero costumes as a group theme, so Carly had given her fifties pinup girl outfit to Wendy).

Spencer was Iron Man.

Gibby, in true Gibby form, was the Hulk. It had been remarkable difficult to persuade him that green body paint was not needed over the parts of him that would be covered by his purple cutoff shorts.

Three hours later, iCarly webisode done and Gibby's Halloween party in full swing, Sam was amusedly looking on at a very inebriated Carly. Even though they could easily call a cab from Gibby's place back to Bushwell, Sam still made it clear that she was going to stay sober. In a show of solidarity, Freddie promised the same.

Apparently Carly did not share the same views.

They had only been at the party for a little over an hour when Carly came teetering up to Sam on her dangerously tall stiletto heels, rambling drunkenly about some body part of Gibby's that Carly believed looked good surrounded by green body paint. Sam had initially tuned her best friend out, but when Carly started waxing on poetically about Gibby Gibson is when it was time to pay attention.

Carly mumbled nonsensically for a few more moments before walking away. Sam almost ran up to her and told her to relinquish her shoes that way she wouldn't fall and embarrass herself.

Almost.

But what would a party be without some drunk-off-her-ass girl falling flat on her face because she was an idiot and wore stilettos to a party?

No, Sam was perfectly fine where she was at, thank you very much.

A pair of arms esconced in a gold and green jacket wrapped around her waist, and from the combination of the costume and the cologne that he wears, Sam knew that it was Freddie. That, and the fact that there were very large curved golden horns from Freddie's Loki hat poking the back of her head.

"Hey there, princess. Enjoying the show?" Freddie murmured in her ear. Sam instantly decided that her boyfriend was evil, although that's really something she knew the day he handcuffed her to Gibby. He knew exactly what it did to her when he whispers in her ear and he also knew that she was wearing a multilayered costume that took several minutes to put on (and take off).

"There's a drunk Carly, not to mention several other idiots drinking their weight in alcohol. Of course I'm enjoying the show. Plus, if Carly's intoxicated adoration of Gibby is anything to go on, we could possibly have blackmail material for the rest of their lives."

"But what if they actually get together? You can't hold it against them if they get together. You can only do it if they don't remember it the next morning."

"Yeah, but how awesome would it be if they got married and had kids and tried to feed those sickeningly adorable children some cheesy lie about how Mommy and Daddy got together? I will always be there with proof to show that their parents became romantically involved because of one too many beers."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure Gibby's drinking a Shirley Temple." Freddie said, snorting with laughter.

Sam doubled over with laughter, an impressive feat considering the amount of chain mail she was wearing. The image of Carly drinking a beer while Gibby downed a very girly drink was just too funny to bear. She laughed for a solind three minutes until a song that she recognized and loved from her dance classes came blaring through Gibby's speakers.

"Oh my god, I had no idea that Gibby even listened to 80's pop! Come on, nub, dance with me. But ditch the horns first, they get in the way." Sam hopped-literally-toward the dance floor while the opening strains of "I Can't Wait" by Nu Shooz began. Her dance teacher always played either this or "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen in the beginning of their Advanced class as a way for the girls (and Carlos, who had joined a few months before) to loosen up before beginning their actual routines for the day. She saw Freddie place his Loki horns protectively on Gibby's coffee table before joining her on the floor, trying valiantly to keep up with her before resignedly resorting to doing the white man shuffle while Sam danced circles around him. Literally. After a few seconds or so, however, a girl that Sam knew from her dance classes found her and they did what was obviously a well-practiced routine that involved a lot of hip shaking and hair twirling and leg kicking.

Freddie couldn't help but be slightly jealous. Yeah, he was a dude, but he could appreciate grace and fluidity in motion when he saw it. The sight of Sam writhing on the dance floor brought back memories of the time she completely kicked his ass in that Dance Central video game, which in turn brought back memories of his first kiss with Sam, which made him think of every kiss he'd ever had with Sam since that day.

He could not have been happier when the iPod playlist switched to a slower song, Green Day's "21 Guns". He now had a full excuse to grab his girlfriend (chain mail and male costume and all) and hold her close and sway on the dance floor.

"I love you, you know that?" Freddie said, just loud enough for Sam to hear over the music but not loud enough for everyone else to hear. It's not that he was ashamed to be with Sam. God, no. He would shout from the Space Needle that he loved her if she wanted him too. He just wasn't privy to voyeurism.

"Yeah. I know." He didn't expect her to be as mushy and open with her feelings as he was. She never had been and she never would be. Freddie knew that Sam loved him, and that was good enough. She would never be one of those girls to wear her heart on her sleeve. But she did pull him closer to him and placed her head on his shoulder, nuzzling into his neck, her own personal way of saying "I love you" back.

They just stood there and swayed in place, enjoying the closeness the song brought them. Freddie and Sam were able to revel in their alone time before the song switched again, some Hot Chelle Rae song that Freddie knew Sam loved because she constantly danced to it in the morning while she made breakfast, a routine that he and Spencer had secretly dubbed the Boxer Breakfast Breakdance.

With the song change came the reappearance of Carly, still drunk but sans stilletos. Sam hoped that she stashed them somewhere she would remember in the morning, because the alternative was Carly dragging Sam out shoe shopping and Sam truly hated that.

"Hey, guysh! What'sh up? Have-" Carly broke off from her slurring rant to hiccup and look around the immediate area vapidly, "-have you sheen Gibby? You knoooow, Gibby? He alwaysh takes hish shirt off around ush.." The brunette's voice trailed off as she attempted vainly to balance on her feet before tumbling to the ground.

Sam was disappointed. Not in Carly's drunken ways, no. Sam was disappointed that Carly hadn't still been in her heels.

Her fall would have been infinitely funnier than it already was had she been wearing those ridiculously tall high heels.

"Come on, Drunkzilla. We need to get you home before you and Gibson make the proverbial beast with two backs. Trust me, that is NOT a decision that you want to make sober, let alone drunk off your ass." Sam sighed, trying to lift Carly off the ground before turning and giving Freddie a pleading gaze.

With an equally exhausted sigh, Freddie leaned down and lifted Carly by one of her armpits while Sam grabbed the other half of their best friend's body. Carly had apparently passed the giggly-drunk stage and was now at the sleepy-drunk part of her night.

Sam had a feeling that she was going to be Nurse Sam that night and the majority of the next day.

000

It took almost two hours and several disappointed looks from Spencer at his younger sister's actions, but they eventually got Carly into a pair of pajamas and into bed, a glass of water and two Tylenol on her bedside table for when she woke up the next morning or sometime during the night to help combat her inevitable hangover.

After sufficiently tucking Carly in and getting her situated, Sam walked Freddie to the apartment door.

"Night, Freddie. Thanks for being my God of Mischief tonight." Sam said, wrapping Freddie in a hug and a quick kiss before gently nudging him toward his own apartment. Freddie knew that she wasn't being rude, and she probably didn't really want to get rid of him. She just wanted to spare him from Carly's surefire hangover the next day.

It was sweet in a very Sam kind of way.

"Goodnight, princess. I'll call you later, when Seattle's own Miss Lush 2012 isn't incapacitated."

Freddie had expected his mother to be asleep by the time he got home. She hadn't had to work that night, for once, so she had made plans to go to dinner with Gunsmoke. Usually on their date nights, she was home and in bed by around midnight.

Not that night.

No, when Freddie walked through his front door, he found his mother and Gunsmoke sitting on their couch at two in the morning, watching some rerun of Full House.

"Oh good, Freddie, you're home. There's something Gunsmoke and I need to ask you-well not ask, per se, but tell you." Mrs. Benson said, sitting up straight and smoothing her shirt before gesturing Freddie to sit in the chair across from the couch.

"Freddie, dear, you know I love you very much. But in two years you're going to be off to college, and I always thought that I would be alone in this apartment for the first time in eighteen years. The thing is, I won't be alone anymore. I'll have Gunsmoke."

"Yeah, Mom, I know. It was always a given that Gunsmoke would move in here. I mean, it doesn't bother me, you deserve to be happy."

"Gunsmoke proposed. We're getting married." Marissa Benson said in a rush. HSe held out her hand so Freddie could see the respectable ring there.

Freddie was floored. It wasn't that he wasn't happy for his mom and Gunsmoke. He was. Gunsmoke made his mom happy, and he filtered out some of her crazy. It was just sudden, and very unexpected after everything that had transpired that night with Carly.

"Congratulations, you two." Freddie stood and crossed the room, hugging his mother warmly and shaking Gunsmoke's hand. "When is the wedding?"

Gunsmoke piped up for the first time since Freddie arrived back in the apartment. "Soon. It's not the first wedding for either of us. Marissa was thinking somewhere around Christmas, if we could get it together by then."

Freddie nodded. If anyone could throw a wedding together in two months, it would be his mother.

After another round of congratulations and hugs, Freddie retired to his room. It had been quite an interesting night.

Sorry for the wait. On a happy note, I finally graduated high school. :)

If you want, you can follow me on Tumblr or Twitter. My name for both is elchoppo.

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