Chapter Four: iCan't Sleep

"Stop kicking me!" Freddie complained as Sam jabbed with her foot. "Ow! Sam!"

"It's Karma," Sam replied, keeping her eyes closed as she elbowed Freddie hard in the ribs beneath the covers. "This is all your fault. Sleeping in the same room with you is bad enough, but sleeping in the same bed…I'm seriously considering suicide."

"Good. Then at least I can get some sleep. Your dead corpse wouldn't kick me."

Sam sighed and rolled over onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. "Or maybe I'll just shove a pillow over your face until you stop kicking. Why should I be the one to die?"

"Because I'm the only one who knows how to hide a body."

Sam raised her eyebrows. "What do you know about hiding a boy, Freddork? You'll never need to know how. Girls hide from you anyway."

Freddie pretended to laugh. "Very funny, Puckett. But I have plenty of time to think about it while my mom gives me tick baths."

Sam smirked at the image in her head. "She still does that?"

Freddie grimaced and nodded. "Now she only does it twice a year. It's progress."

"If you say so. But you're not the only one who can hide a body."

Freddie rolled onto his side and stared at Sam. "Oh, yeah? How would you get rid of me? What, would you just eat me? Room service can send up a side of fries."

Sam licked her lips at the thought of food. "Tempting…"

"You want me to order something to eat, don't you?" he asked, knowing the answer was yes. He turned the lamp on the nightstand on and reached for a room service menu. Fifteen minutes later they were sitting up in bed eating fried chicken and hot fudge sundaes.

"Too bad Carly isn't here," Sam said as she licked grease off her fingers happily. "This is way better than sleeping in a car with a pervert cat."

"Yeah. I hope she's not lonely out there alone. Frothy isn't the best company."

"Don't insult my cat," Sam warned as she grabbed the last drumstick and bit into it. "And neither are you. She doesn't need you around. You're just wasting your time." She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye to see his reaction. He almost looked…upset?

"I got over Carly a long time ago, Sam," he said, frowning at her. "I don't love her. I never loved her. It was just a stupid crush. She's not my type."

Sam scoffed. "Oh, and who is your time? Jennifer Lopez?"

Freddie yawned tiredly and shrugged. "I wouldn't say no if J-Lo asked me out."

Sam rolled her eyes. He was making jokes, but she knew he was lying. How could he be over Carly? He'd begged her to be his girlfriend since the sixth grade! And if she wasn't his type…who was?

"So, why does it bother you so much anyway?" Freddie asked. He scraped the bottom of the plastic cup for the last spoonful of ice cream. "Why do you care who I like? Even if it was Carly…why does it matter to you?"

Sam didn't answer. She just rolled over she was facing away from Freddie. "I think I'm gonna sleep now. Don't wake me until you've ordered breakfast."

"What did I say?"

"The mere sound of your voice is enough to make me want to cut my ears off like that dead artist," she snapped.

"Well," Freddie sighed, "you're stuck with me and my voice for the next seven hours." The digital clock on the nightstand flashed 2:00 a.m.

Sam responded by throwing a pillow at his head.

X

Three hours later, Freddie was woken up by Sam shaking his shoulder. "Wha?" he mumbled, still half asleep.

"You awake, Frednub?"

"Unfortunately, yes. The question is why."

Sam shrugged and stopped shaking him. "I can't sleep. I got bored, so I need someone to talk to. You're not my first choice…actually, you're my last choice…but you're still the only other breathing person in this room."

"Um…is there someone not breathing in this room?" Freddie managed to open his eyes and stare at the blonde girl beside him.

Sam nodded and pointed at the small bathroom across the room. "He's in the tub. I got up a few minutes ago and found him there, so I poked him with your shoe to make sure he was dead."

Freddie moaned and rolled his eyes. "Of course. Poking a dead man in a bathtub with my shoe is the logical thing to do." He sat up and leaned his head back against the headboard of the bed they shared. "But why did you have to me? I need beauty sleep too!"

Sam snickered. "No amount of sleep is going to help, Frederly. You're a lost cause."

"You're still more than a beast than me," Freddie remarked. "Why don't you just count sheep?"

"I already tried that! I counted sheep forward, backward, sideways, and in Spanish. I counted so long the sheep started baaing in a foreign language I don't understand!"

"You have the weirdest dreams."

"I bet they're cooler than the lame dreams you have. Were you dreaming about a shiny new laptop?"

"No…" Freddie shook his head. "I dreamt I had a pickle jar I really needed to open for some reason, but I couldn't get the lid off."

"I don't know why I didn't wake you sooner. This conversation is going to do more than make me fall asleep…it's going to kill me."

"Hey, you asked what I was dreaming about before you rudely interrupted me," he reminded her. "Anyway, I couldn't get the stupid lid off the incredibly important jar, so I asked you to help."

Sam grinned, suddenly interested. "I made a cameo in your dream?"

"Yeah. I guess it's because you're freakishly strong." Freddie shrugged his shoulders. He didn't control his dreams. Sam appearing in his didn't mean anything…right? "But you couldn't get the lid off."

"What?" There wasn't a pickle jar in existence that Sam Puckett couldn't open! "What kind of pickles are they? What brand was it? Give me my cell phone, we'll call the 1-800 number and-"

"Sam, you can't call the company at four a.m. to complain about a dream! And we got the pickles."

"We did? How? A blowtorch?"

He shook his head. "No, you just threw the jar on the ground and it broke. But I never found out why they were so special because you ate them."

"Ooh, surprising," Sam joked. "But that story didn't make me tired."

"Well, I'm going back to sleep now. You can count more Hispanic sheep or whatever." He flopped back down on the bed and closed his eyes.

Sam frowned. "You can't just leave me all alone! Stay up with me. Wanna watch a movie?"

Freddie murmured, "The only thing I want to see is the inside of my eyelids."

Sam turned on the TV and flipped through the channels. "Ooh! What about Get Smart?"

"No."

"Oh, come on, Freddie," Sam begged. She pointed to the bathroom again. "If you don't watch the movie with me, you'll be sleeping in the tub with the dead guy." When Freddie didn't open his eyes, she shoved him so hard he fell out of bed! "I suggest you watch the movie with me unless you want to wake up with a concussion."

Freddie stared back at her while he rubbed his head, which had broken his fall. "How do you wake up in a coma? That doesn't even make sense! Oh, just forget it. I'll watch the movie with you. I'm just gonna use the bathroom first."

"What about the dead guy?"

Freddie headed toward the bathroom. "There's no dead guy in the tub." Sam was just messing with him. He chuckled to himself as he opened the door. He was too smart to fall for her mind games. He stopped in the doorway when his eyes landed on the tub.

"I told you he was real!" Sam called out as she turned up the volume. Several minutes went by and Freddie didn't return. He was still standing frozen by the tub. "Hey, what's taking so long?"

"The dead guy is waking up."

A/N: It's been a while, so I made this one longer. I know it's a filler chapter. Just think of it as the calm before the storm ;)

Some of ya'll have requested tourist spots (it IS a road trip) so that will come soon! I just got back from a trip to Canada myself and visited Niagara Falls, so I've got some ideas for that…

Since you took the time to read this chapter, you can review. It's not like you're busy, or you wouldn't be here (: I find death threats motivate me to update faster, even if I'm constantly looking over my shoulder at every little sound I hear.