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carlybenson69 · 1 year

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iHave To Ask First - Chapter 4 of iWant To Be With You Forever

“…And I know you think I’m lame but on the bright side, if I join your family, that’ll just solidify your spot as the coolest one in it! So what do you say? Do I have your blessing?”

Millicent was seated on the couch of Spencer’s apartment drinking a can of soda, enjoying listening to Carly grovel for her approval. “I don’t know Carly. What’s in it for me? What does your lifetime of happiness with my father get me?”

“Um… His happiness, I guess?”

“Still doesn’t answer my question. I want to be the officiant-slash-dj at the wedding.”

“Oh, uh, okay. I actually haven’t thought about—”

“And a dog.”

“I don’t think dogs are allowed in the Bushw—”

“And any names for children you might have are subject to my approval.”

“Is that…Is that it?”

“Mmm, give me until the wedding to finalize my demands. But for now, yeah.” Millicent leaned back and continued to eat the chips she had in her hand while Carly visibly relaxed.

“So you approve?”

“Yup.” The teenager said nonchalantly. Carly then immediately embraced her, “Oh yay! I’m so excited! This means so much to me! You’re going to love what I’ve planned out so far for the proposal. Three words: Power…point presentation”

“That’s two words.”

“Freddie’s going to freak out.”

“He already is.”

“Huh?”

“And you’re about to, too.”

“Again, huh?”

“Get up to speed, Carly. Do you really think you would’ve been able to hide this big of a secret from me?”

“You knew? How?”

“Don’t worry about it. What you might want to worry about though is my dad wanting to beat you to the punch. He somehow, and very randomly, got the bright idea of wanting to propose to you so unless you want to have all your plans be for nothing, I suggest you figure something out and fast. I convinced him not to do anything big and elaborate but all that means is that the next time he sees you—Proposal City, population: you.”

Carly’s heart skipped a beat. Freddie wanted to propose to her! She smiled knowing that the only thing keeping her from being his wife were the words, “Do you want to marry me?”.

Wait.

Those words. Those words should be coming out from her mouth, not Freddie’s perfect one!

If he proposed to her first, all the work she’s done for him were ruined. And without anything big? No, that absolutely cannot happen. Freddie deserved epic! She loved him so much that there was no force on Earth that was going to stop her from giving him the proposal he deserved. Not even him.

“I can’t let him do that!”

“I know you can’t. You’re too much of a simp. It’s lame, really.”

“Wait. If you think it’s so lame, why tell me?”

Millicent smiled deviously.

“To see you squirm.”

******

“We’ve got a major problem!”

Carly called Harper and Spencer to reconvene at their apartment to catch them up to speed on the Freddie situation. They were back in a similar position that they were in back when Carly first asked them for their help with the proposal. Carly was pacing around the living room, grabbing every object not attached to the wall, unable to speak in a tone that other people couldn’t describe as anything but shrill.

“Did Freddie bring back the fedoras?”

“No! And they’re growing on me!”

“Did the cinema catch on fire? I knew I should have just given you guys the money!”

“No! Worse! Freddie’s going to propose!” Carly stopped and plopped down on the sofa unaware of the box of tampons she was clinging onto as if it were a childhood safety blanket.

At first, Spencer’s tone is delighted, “Freddie’s going to propose!” knowing that the two crazy kids want to marry each other but then when the reality hit and he remembered that she wanted to be the one doing the asking, he repeated his words uneasy, “Oh. Freddie’s going to propose.”

“What am I gonna do?”

Harper sat down next to Carly slowly as if she were a cat on a tree ready to scratch anybody that tries to help it, “Okay, well first, I think I’m gonna need to take this—” she grabbed the tampons from Carly who’d been embracing it close to her chest, “—away from you. It’s the last box we have. Second of all, this isn’t the end of the world. You just have to propose first.”

Carly took some deep breaths, looking into Harper’s eyes as if she were her last line to common sense. “Okay. I just have to propose first. But the movie theater—!”

“Spencer will have the reservation moved to tomorrow night. And if they refuse, he’ll just throw more money at them, right, Spencer?” Harper turned to look at Spencer who had gotten distracted and started playing with a tampon in the middle of Harper’s reality check.

“Huh, what now?”

Harper rolled her eyes, “Just say yes.”

Spencer nodded at the command, put a comforting hand on Carly’s shoulder and with all well-intentioned, albeit unaware, sincerity, he uttered, “Yes.”

So that was the plan. Harper and Spencer took the lead this time on all the logistical stuff, not knowing how many more surprises Carly could take at this point, so that all future Mrs. Freddie Benson had to do was avoid the love of her life for one day. That should be simple enough.

If only future Mr. Carly Shay wasn’t doing everything in his power to do the exact opposite.

Carly had already tried hiding twice today, on the roof of the Bushwell and in the iCarly studio. Freddie still managed to find her, completely oblivious to the fact that she was avoiding him. He was all smiles and all charms, barely able to hide the fact that he was about to propose.

“Carly, there you are! Doing a bit of cloud-watching? Hey, doesn’t that one look like a ring? Crazy!”

“Hi babe! Practicing a sketch? How about you take five because look! Muffins with nothing hidden in them!”

And both times Carly would be panic-stricken while Spencer and Harper would intercept the situation right on time, whisking her away with some excuse of—

“Carly! You need to get out of there! You forgot to put on cloudblock! Move, Freddie!” Harper smacked the man aside with a big umbrella and dragged Carly back into the building.

“Carly! The doctors just called and they said you developed a severe allergy to muffins! Fredward how dare you!” Spencer promptly karate chopped the box out of the man’s hands then carried his sister right out.

Suddenly, it was four in the afternoon and she was already exhausted. But worse, she found herself alone. With Harper and Spencer having to take some time to prep, Carly needed something to focus all her anxious energy on so she took a risk and quickly went to her apartment to get some yarn and a crochet needle. Who else to be right there waiting for her but the one person she didn’t want to see?

“Hey there’s my favorite lady! I feel like I haven’t seen you all day. I know you’re a real busy gal so I was thinking: dinner date tonight? A spontaneous fancy night out for no other reason than I’m a spontaneous guy and this is completely in line with my personality?”

Carly put on an overcompensating smile, “Hey there…you. Dinner? Oh I can’t meet for dinner today babe, sorry, I, uh, already made plans with Harper and Tinsley for dinner.”

“Oh! How about I join you guys and we can have dessert after, just the two of us?”

“No, no, they wanted it to be a girls dinner. No cute-but-at-the-same-time-smoking-hot boyfriends allowed.”

“Oh okay, got it. I can just drive you to the restaurant. We can have dessert—”

“I hate dessert!”

No she doesn’t.

“…What?”

She does now.

“I… I’ve been trying to keep it a secret for a long time but I can’t hide it any longer. I hate dessert. I’m sorry I’ve lied to you for so long?”

“What? You—?”

“I have to go! I need to think long and hard—all by myself—about what I’ve done. Goodbye!”

Carly practically ran down the hallway to get to Spencer’s apartment where he and Harper had been making phone calls and preparing the slides.

“Code red! Code Fred! He’s right behind me!” She whisper-yelled to them as she leaned all her weight on the front door. From the hallway, Freddie’s voice could be heard, “Uh? Babe? Something seems to be blocking the door?” He was constantly pushing, unaware of the fact that on the other side was his girlfriend getting repeatedly thrown by the motion, desperately trying to get her hand on the knob.

She yelled back, “Oh yes, babe! Don’t worry, I’ll get it! Just stop pushing.”

And he did. He stopped. She shut the door with a bit of force, promptly turning the latch with a big sigh of relief.

From the hallway again, “Uh, Carly…? Did you just lock the door?”

Millicent came out of their apartment then, “Why are you people being so loud? You’re disrupting my 8 hours of screen time on TikTok.”

“Millicent! Hello! The door got freakishly stuck but it’s all good! I’m about to leave the building anyway to go to a restaurant whose name I can’t remember until I get there where I’ll be too busy to reply to any incoming texts!”

Carly turned to Harper and Spencer to give them a thumbs up, proud of the lie she convinced herself was believable. It was then that they all heard the sound of a key entering a lock and the three of them looked at each other with fear. “Elevator!” Spencer spat, while Freddie and Millicent entered into the loft. Before she could even make a step, Freddie had grabbed her hand.

“Hey. Can I talk to you for a second?”

“The door’s fixed! Yay! Just one of those crazy door moments I guess!”

“Yeah, look, I—”

“It’s 4pm? Oh no, I have to go if I’m gonna make it to this totally real dinner at this totally real restaurant.”

Carly managed to pull herself free, even making it halfway to the elevator before Freddie hurriedly yelled, “Just wait! I’ll drive you—Will you marry me!”

Freddie is exasperated but smiling, unaware of the fact that everybody else in the room was frozen with terror, “Will you marry me?” he repeated gently this time, to a Carly whose back was still turned away from him.

Everybody in the room was frozen, unsure how to get out of this one when Millicent yelled, “Oh!”

Everybody was now looking at the teenage girl, waiting for her to do something. Anything.

“Dear father no! We have no dowry to offer as the last of our cattle has succumbed to the Black Death!”

“Millicent no, I’m—” But before her dad could explain that he wasn’t doing their little ‘Wanna marry me?’ joke, Harper slid in between Carly and Freddie, scrambling for any improv tips Tinsley may have mentioned at some point.

“Fair maiden! Fear not for your…your stock! I am, uh, a witch! Yes! And! And for a small price, I will bring your cow back to life!”

Both Millicent and Harper obstructed Freddie’s path with a “Nay!” and a “Curses!” as Carly sped-walk away from him.

“Guys, please, I’m being serio—”

“I am not one for dark magic, dear sir! I cannot accept thoust proposal!” She pressed the button but it was some floors away and Freddie was right there.

He spun Harper around and was now able to get closer. But not close enough, as Spencer, not knowing what else he could do, suddenly stood in front of Freddie with his arms and legs stretched out, surrounding the shorter man in a cage of limbs.

Freddie was now completely infuriated, having reached his limit of the day’s constant and ridiculous interruptions. “Spencer! What?! What is it? You’re the butcher? The baker? The freaking candlestick maker? Just get it over with!”

All eyes were on Spencer’s horrified expression.

He said nothing.

The elevator dinged.

As Freddie was about to turn to remove himself from Spencer’s cage of a body, the artist, out of sheer panic and adrenaline, bellowed out.

“MOOOOOOOOO!”

Right into Freddie’s ear. He instinctively shut his eyes and keeled over as Carly, with a breath of relief, finally slipped away.

Freddie was on the floor, Spencer was standing over him, Harper and Millicent were by the door and all you could hear was the hum of the elevator going down.

From his position on the ground, Freddie glared up at Spencer who had then opened his mouth as if to explain but then immediately ran away up to the studio. He then made eye contact with Harper, “What just happened?!”

But he’d still get no answer as the stylist roadrunner-ed the hell out of the apartment. Millicent turned towards the door but before she could follow she heard, “Now wait right there!”

She turned around slowly to face her father’s scowl then meekly uttered, “What’s up?”

“Millicent you knew that I wasn’t joking then. What’s going on? Did you change your mind about me and Carly?”

“What? No, I—”

“Why was she acting so weird?”

“She—”

“And Spencer and Harper hate when we joke around like that!”

“They—”

“And that dinner was supposed to be with Harper!”

“Can you stop!” Millicent sighed. It was funny to see Carly freak out. That didn’t mean she wanted to see her fail. “There’s something you don’t know. And I can’t tell you. Just… Don’t worry about it?”

“Don’t worry about it? Whatever this is about is causing her to avoid me. How can I propose if…oh.”

“Oh?”

Freddie’s demeanor suddenly turned sullen and disappointed. He sunk into the sofa, “This is about the proposal isn’t it? She found out?”

“She…well, yeah.”

“And she’s not ready.”

“That’s not it, I swear it isn’t.”

“Oh really? She looked terrified when I said the words just now.”

“Yeah but that’s only because…”

“Because what?”

“Okay, fine. I’m only going to say this because you’re making it actually impossible. She wants to propose to you.”

“She wants to ask me?” Freddie immediately warmed up at the thought of his girlfriend putting in so much effort just so she could be the one to ask him. But when he got acclimated to it, the events of the day replayed in his head.

“Hold up. Is that why Spencer karate chopped my muffins?”

“He did what?”

“And why Harper left me stuck on the roof for 3 hours?”

“She did what?”

“And why my eardrum is now shattered? All that because Carly wanted to ask me first? I got cloud burn up there!”

“So, now what?”

“Oh now? Now, Freddie’s in on the little game.” He deepened his voice and had a faraway look in his eye, “And guess what, love of my life, ya boy’s ready to play.”

#i did the thing #icarly #creddie #carly shay #freddie benson #icarly reboot #icarly revival #fanfiction #fanfic #fandom #fic rec #my fic #wewanticarlys4

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