This is what happens when I get stressed and angry. If you can get past all the cheerleading terminology, I think you might find my pain enjoyable.

Freddie-centric /iCarly based but also mentions of characters from Victorious and Drake and Josh . Bonus points if you can figure out which other non-Nickelodeon shows are crossed in as well.

Disclaimer: Alternate Universe – AU warning

Dedication: For Kayla 'cause I know you will read between the lines...

Chapter One

i paper chase then vanish

Freddie Benson walked the campus of the California Institute of Technology, a place better known as Caltech. Today marked the beginning of the third week of his freshman year and Freddie was already starting to feel the pressure of college weighing down on him. It didn't help that his GPA directly affected his scholarship.

"Hey Freddie!" A lone girl waved at him as she past.

"Shaaa-nnnnon!" he called back giving her a wide grin.

"Don't forget about lunch," she reminded him.

"Pizza is my favorite," he replied keeping eye contact with her for an extra second before glancing down at an incoming text message. It was from Maddie, one of his new study-buddies, about meeting her at her dorm instead of the library - which was perfectly fine by him.

You see Freddie had several goals this year. Most of which were directly related to academics and his future career but there was one additional thing he added to the list. It was more of a fantasy, not something that would ever happen to a guy like him, but there was always hope. And this was college, so perhaps the possibility of FINALLY being popular wasn't as low as he calculated it to be.

It was a shallow thing to want – and Freddie knew that. But for once in his life he just wanted a taste of the other side of the social spectrum, the side with killer parties and hot girls. The side where his phone buzzed constantly with texts and posts he made on social media got thousands of 'likes' instantly.

Was it too much to ask to leave his dork side back in Seattle and start fresh here in California?

He'd been working out, got a new haircut and new clothes. He given up those parts of himself that could possibly be considered 'nerdy' – which was pretty much everything he loved. But sacrifices had to be made. Here at Caltech he was no longer "the guy behind the camera on that web show". Here he was going to stand on his own and not rely on his association with the two attractive girls who starred in said series to score dates and event invites.

Yeah. It was a pretty unlikely pinnacle to ever achieve.

Even so, Freddie decided to follow the advice bestowed upon him by a certain individual whom he looked up to tremendously. Her advice was simple:

Don't be afraid to introduce yourself. Talk to everyone and remember their names – it means more than you think.

This had been easier than he expected. As freshmen everyone was eager to meet new people and the campus atmosphere provided plenty of opportunity for recreation. Which is the most likely reason his phone was buzzing again with another text about movie night hosted by someone he hadn't met yet (but somehow he'd gotten included on a group text) which is probably because he handed out his phone number like free coffee during orientation.

Holding the door open for a few other students while adding the date and time of that event to his calendar, Freddie prepared himself for his next class. It was the only elective he had this semester and while a part of him wanted to stack on the tough classes to prove he could handle the technical course load of being a computer science major, when he saw Viral Advertising listed he knew he had to enroll. When his mother saw his schedule, she assumed he did it for the easy A that he would obviously earn to help his grade point average. Freddie wouldn't argue that point since he spent most of high school as the tech guy on a web show but he honestly just wanted to be a part of something involving creativity and use other side of his brain.

The class hadn't been too difficult. It did require a good deal of research using the latest social media trends but that was actually pretty fun. As he took his seat in class beside his roommate, Ethan – who had already developed a serious crush on the girl who usually sat right in front of them – he checked his phone one last time before shutting it off for class.

Their professor entered the room and Freddie booted up his iPad ready to bookmark trending websites.

"Good morning everyone," Dr. Franklin greeted the class. "It's time to assign the class project. This project will be worth half your grade. Consider it your mid-term exam."

Whoa. Freddie inhaled sharply. A project worth half your grade? This was serious stuff.

"The instructions are being e-mailed to you right now," he tapped the screen of his laptop. "And your topics are right here." He removed a handful of envelopes from his satchel. "If you have any questions, you know how to reach me." With that he came through the rows, holding the envelopes out like a deck of cards, allowing the students to select.

Freddie opened the e-mailed assignment and began scanning down the criteria. From what he could tell it didn't look too bad, a one minute thirty second video of one of the school's athletic teams.

Beside him, Ethan was still playing Minecraft and didn't even bother to look up as he reached for an envelope. While Freddie eyed the remaining envelope with a long sigh. Please don't let it be football. He wasn't a sports guy – in fact the only sport he really knew anything about was fencing – and Caltech did not have team.

"Okay, that does it for today," the professor concluded. "Contact information for the coaches is inside. Please get this done as timely as possible. I will make myself available to review first and second edits but after that you are on your own."

"Men's Diving Team," Ethan read from his card. "Ugh. What did you get?"

"Hold on a sec," Freddie said as he tried to open the sealed envelope, only to give himself a nice paper cut in the process. Sucking on his finger, he finished opening the card one handed.

"Varsity Cheerleading Squad," he read trying to contain his excitement.

"What!" Ethan tried to grab the card from him. "You have to trade with me."

"Hell No!" Freddie exclaimed. This was quite possibly the best thing that had ever happened to him.

Hit the Quan on her make her boyfriend panic

It was quarter of five in the morning when Freddie got to the track. Coach Shay had texted him that conditioning began at five am sharp and that he should be ready and waiting. Freddie removed his video camera from his bag and began setting up. It was still dark and without the proper lighting (he'd grown too accustomed to working in the studio) he wasn't sure what the footage would look like.

A tall, thin man with wearing a bright orange warm up suit approached him. Down one of the legs, Caltech, was written in bold black print. Across the front of the jacket the name Spencer was embroidered.

"Fred Benson?" he asked, approaching with an outstretched hand. The other contained a liter sized water bottle.

"Coach Shay?" Freddie asked, reaching out for handshake.

"Call me Spencer," the guy grinned. "The team is almost ready." He pointed down the track to a group of students, clearly not happy to be awake at this hour. "What I was thinking…," he began launching into a cinematic overview of how he expected Freddie to film the team.

"They're just going to be running laps?" Freddie asked glancing over at the girls who were wearing yoga pants, hoodies and running shoes.

"We start with five miles," Spencer nodded. "Then we up the cardio with cheer jacks and high kicks before we stretch."

"So they're not actually going to be cheerleading?"

"Conditioning is the MOST important part of cheerleading," Spencer informed him.

"Yeah, of course." Freddie wasn't about to get into an argument with the coach but he doubted he'd be able to use any footage from today in his project.

"Everyone up!" Spencer yelled to the moaning squad.

Freddie saw a bunch of guys dragging themselves over to the starting line as well.

"Twenty laps! Let's count them down!"

"One!" the group half-shouted as they began jogging.

Freddie waited until they were closer than began filming the pack as they ran past him. Taking a brief census, he happened to notice that there seemed to be a lot more guys than girls.

"Uh, Spencer," he asked. "Is that the whole team?"

"Except for the alternates," Spencer folded his arms and yelled, "Gibby! We're not taking a walk on the beach. Move!"

Freddie watched as the largest of the guys, tall and thick, proceeded to give Spencer the finger.

"I SAW THAT!" Spencer yelled back.

But Freddie noticed that Gibby did actually begin to speed up a little.

He kept the camera on filming them running. After the first mile the pack began to separate as most of the team fell behind the five fastest runners.

"Dark hair, with the blue streak, wearing the combat boots," Spencer pointed to the girl in the lead. "That's Jade West. This is her fourth year on the team. Great athlete. Mean as hell but a quality cheerleader."

Freddie took note of the "mean as hell" disclaimer.

"Guy next to her is Beck Oliver. She made him tryout two years ago. He says he hates it and threatens to quit every practice. But he never does," Spencer gave Freddie a knowing smile. "They're my captains."

"Blonde guy, with the pink shirt is Fred," Spencer continued. "He's a nationally ranked gymnast and until this year was my only double full."

Freddie didn't bother asking what a double full was.

"Until they came," the coach pointed to a pair of blonde haired girls wearing matching racer back tank tops and compression shorts. "The Puckett twins. Sam and Mel. They are practically cheerleading royalty."

Cheerleading Royalty? Did that really exist?

"Top flyers in Level Five U18 All-Stars," Spencer began to swoon. "They've won Nationals four times. Been to World's three times and won it twice. They're absolutely amazing. We are so incredibly lucky they decided to come here. Maybe we'll finally get a bid to NCAA Nationals."

Freddie sighed. This wasn't turning out exactly how he envisioned it. Where were the short skirts and midriffs? The eye candy with the eager smiles and perky attitudes? Because right now he was watching a bunch of very sweaty people in workout gear run around a track.

But Spencer continued his mini-biographies of the team members. "That's Tori Vega, she's a sophomore. Great Jumps. Great flexibility. Her sister, Trina tries out every year and she's not bad but she's a heavy," Spencer nodded as though Freddie was supposed to understand what that meant. "It's her senior year and Tori told me that she's been working hard to lose weight. When she stepped in the scale at try outs, she was down ten pounds…"

Wait a minute. Did he just say there was a scale at try outs?

"…but, there's no way any of these guys can lift her. Not even Gibby…..," Spencer paused and yelled at the big guy to keep going.

Gibby responded by stopping to moon Spencer before continuing around the track.

"I felt bad for her so I gave her a spot as an alternate," Spencer confided. "Now I'm praying that no one gets injured 'cause I really don't know what I'm gonna do if I have to put her in the routine."

A red-haired girl jogged by and waved to them. The Coach waved back.

"That's Cat Valentine," Spencer shook his head. "I honestly thought she was going to flunk out last year. She's not exactly the brightest bulb but she's back for her sophomore year so I guess I'm not giving her enough credit."

Spencer continued to name the members of the team:

"That one is Shelby Marx, used to be a boxer – can you believe that? But after her eighth or ninth concussion the doctors forced her to retire. Certainly shocked the hell out of me when she came to tryouts. She is one strong woman – let me tell ya."

"Gray sweats with the purple unicorn hoodie is Megan Parker."

Freddie looked at the tiny girl who could pass for a sixth grader.

"She's never cheered before but she did pretty well in tryouts. Not to mention she's only seventy five pounds. I expect her brothers, Drake and Josh," Spencer pointed to two guys running side by side clearly arguing about something. "To throw her around like a beach ball. Actually, that reminds me. Drake is a deejay, he puts together our music. He has some ideas about the soundtrack for the project."

"Okay?" Freddie shook his head again. A ninety second clip didn't exactly need a 'soundtrack' but whatever.

A pack of three guys came running by, all with iPods strapped to their arms and earbuds shoved deep into their ears. They wore various Caltech tee shirts and jogging pants and were completely drenched in sweat.

"Three," they grunted as they went past.

"That's Socko, Tyler and Ryder," Spencer advised pointing to each of them. "They're definitely works in progress but I couldn't ask for more dedicated athletes," he nodded with approval.

Freddie bobbed his head in agreement. Clearly he was getting more information than he needed.

"There's Andre!" Spencer yelled at a dark skinned guy jogging past. His braids bounced with each step as he slowed down to sip from a water bottle. "C'mere," the coach waved him over and Freddie noticed he looked relieved to take a break.

"This is Fred Benson, our videographer for the season."

Uhhhhh, Freddie stretched his hand out, wanting to address the alleged duration of his project but Spencer kept talking and Andre was wiping his sweaty hands on his pants.

"This is Andre Harris. Can you believe this guy was the starting wide receiver for his high school football team?"

"You're a long way from the end zone," Freddie replied as the two shook hands, wondering why this guy wasn't running laps with the football team.

Andre laughed. "Nice to meet you, man. We'll catch up later for my post-workout interview."

As Andre was heading back out to his lane, another athlete came running off the track and toward Spencer. His cheeks were bright red and he was breathing heavily. Then he suddenly veered right and directly into the fence.

"Hey, are you…?" Spencer began but he never finished.

Freddie swung his camera around in time to get a shot of the sun rising in the distance and the dude vomiting onto the track.

"Ewwww!" A dark haired girl grimaced as she detoured around her puking teammate and kept going around the track until she got to Freddie. Spencer had made his way over to the guy and was using the liter of water in his hand to wash the vomit off the track.

"He does that EVERY time we run," the girl informed Freddie, who was now filming everyone's reaction to their sick teammate. It seemed that the consensus was to yell "Nevel" and his slap some part of his body as they ran past.

"I'm Carly," the girl beside him continued.

"Fred," he replied keeping his eyes on the scene ahead.

Instead of slapping him, Jade opted to stop and literally kick him in the ass. Then the guy in the pink shirt, the other Fred, actually jumped on his back.

Spencer yelled at everyone to get back on the track but it was clear that he really had no control over the team. They were all laughing and jumping on each other. A couple of the girls were now up on shoulders and there were the beginnings of some chicken fights.

Freddie kept watching as the scene turned into water being thrown and people chasing each other across the field. The chaos ensued for a good twenty minutes as Spencer tried desperately to maintain order. It wasn't until Jade screamed at everyone to "Line the fuck up," that anyone made a move to return to practice.

Once they were in lines it was easier to get good shots of everyone. Jade and Beck were out in front leading the second part of the workout. He brought the camera around for close up of Jade, who grunted an irritated, "Get that fucking camera out of my face."

She really is a bitch. How can she be a cheerleader?

Instead, he got shots of the rest of the team, focusing mainly on the girls. The Puckett twins were very responsive to the camera, giving him flirty smiles and coy winks. Tori made sure to show off her flexibility when he came by and Cat, gave him the same upbeat smile and wave that she had earlier. Megan was sitting with her brothers and the three of them were all fighting over something that had to do with money someone 'borrowed'. As amused as he was at the sibling rivalry, Freddie skipped over them knowing it wasn't relevant to his project. Next was Shelby Marx and her series of one-armed push-ups – which made him feel as though he really needed to start working out a little more. And last was Carly, who waved him away claiming she looked 'sweaty and gross'.

At the end of the workout, Freddie was packing up his equipment while Spencer had the team pulled into a huddle. It was as he was zipping up the bag that Drake came over asking for his cell number so they could talk music.

Exhausted and hungry, Freddie recited the digits without a second thought. He'd get this straightened out later and besides, maybe this guy Drake would have something cool to use for his project.

But for now, Freddie Benson was back to his original goal checklist. And he took out his phone to check for texts from his new female friends.

Thanks for checking out the first chapter. Be sure to share your thoughts.
-Gemma