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Sam and Amelia are always fighting.
"What are you doing here again?" she asks upon finding him hunched over the sink in her room.
"Antiquing," Sam grunts. "The hell's it look like I'm doing?"
Amelia drops her purse on the chair and slumps on the sofa opposite Sam so she can watch him. "I don't know, you're the fucking handyman," she shoots back.
"You know I find it rude when you demean my job, Amelia."
"You know I feel violated that you have a key to my room, Sam."
The muscles in his back flex as he shifts himself into a better position to get at the plumbing.
"I have a key to everyone's room, you're not that special, sweetheart."
"You keep telling yourself that but you always come here first on your rounds."
Sam shrugs. Amelia watches him work for a minute. She's had a long day and she's too tired to even change out of her uniform yet. "So do you want something to drink?" she asks.
"Yes, please," Sam replies, all gentlemanly manners.
Amelia made the rules after day three of knowing each other.
1. be honest about exactly what you're thinking, whatever it is.
2. don't treat me like I'm fragile and might break, Sam, don't you dare, not you.
3. you can check out my ass any time if I can check out yours.
Sam seemed to understand. Sam did that, understanding, very well.
He sure had been confused, that golden retriever puppy of a man, the first time he showed up after hours and she had handed him a drink, sat him down, insulted his clothing choice and commented that he was in need of a haircut, and offered him the first pick of which TV channel to watch, as he was the guest.
But he caught on fast. "Amelia, we both buy our clothes from the exact same thrift shop."
"Yes, but I wear it better."
"Whatever helps you sleep at night. And your hair is longer than mine, so you really don't get to talk."
"Fair enough," she admitted.
-
Sam's so sick of Amelia's goddamn fruit smoothies.
He used to be really into them, smoothies were everything they were advertised as, tasty but healthy. And Amelia with her fucking limes had blown the food disposal unit out three times. So the next time Sam shows up, he hides them.
Amelia's hanging her jacket on a hook behind the door, and Sam picks up another packet of those /goddam limes/, and that's it. He shoves them into his coat pocket, and proceeds to put away the rest of the groceries for her to make her less suspicious. She returns and grants him with a sunny smile of gratitude and Sam feels cripplingly guilty.
But then he thinks of picking green peel out of the pipe on his knees, and doesn't regret a thing.
Amelia assumes she's simply forgotten to buy them. Then she remembers who helped her put away the groceries.
She calls Sam at fucking 3 AM to demand, "Sam Winchester, what did you do with my limes?"
Having stretched to snatch the phone off the nightstand, Sam doesn't even have the energy to sit up. He lies back on the pillow and adjusts his elbow so the phone is at his ear. "I have hidden the goddamn limes, Amelia."
Sam winces at the response and holds the phone away from his ear, counting to thirty while she cusses him out creatively. "...lawnmower progeny, shellfish-souled, mangy catfish of a lime thief, that's my produce. They're gonna go rotten and stink up the place!"
"Yeah, well guess who's gonna have to clean them, just like if you shoved them down the sink again?"
"Who's gonna have to live with the smell for a week before your lazy ass gets here?"
"Rotten limes can't smell that bad." "The fuck do you know about limes?"
"More than you know about limes."
"Oh really?"
"I, for example, know the location of your limes."
"Where the hell did you put them anyway?"
"Amelia, please can I just tell you tomorrow?" he begs. "I only fell asleep an hour ago."
Amelia suddenly goes quiet. "Did I wake you?"
"Um, yeah, you kinda did. Hey, why are you still awake? Doesn't your job start at like five in the morning?" Sam questions.
"I can't sleep," Amelia says quietly.
Sam rolls over onto his side, and unconscious frown on his face.
"When do you usually sleep?" he asks, all concern now.
"I, uh, don't."
"Amelia, how on earth are you still conscious right now?"
"I don't know. I've had five beers. Usually that knocks me out long before the sun comes up."
"Right. Hold on a second." Sam considers.
He's tired, yeah, but he's only been up late recently. He has time now, days and weeks and months ahead of him in which to sleep. He isn't pressed for time, he probably won't be shaken from his bed in the middle of the night, and he has a future that involves eight hours of sleep out of 24. He's no longer a hunter. Which is why he can pull himself out of bed and tug on jeans and a worn, plaid, thrift store shirt. Amelia's voice repeats in his head, the gentle patterns of it printing onto the wall of his skull.
She hasn't said anything else. He hangs up. It's not like it's the first time. He can apologize in person anyway.
-
The porch light switches on automatically at the presence of a human being. Sam knocks gently. If she's fallen sleep already then coming here is going to be a waste of time and one of Sam's moments of chivalry embarrassing him.
She opens the door, sloe eyed and weightless curls. "Sam?"
Sam scratches the back of his neck shyly. "Um."
"Come in," she says, and pushes the door open wider, leaning against it heavily as if it tires her even to be standing up.
That's when he knows that he was right to come.
Inside, the whole room is lit up, the lights and the muted television are switched on, there are empty bottles on the coffee table and the awkward mustard yellow couch bears the imprint of a body. Amelia shuts the door behind him.
"So what are you doing here?"
"I came to tell you to sleep."
"In person?" She sits down at the table, which Sam knows is an invitation to sit too, so he pulls out a chair and settles himself in it. They look at each other across the table.
"To help you sleep," he clarifies.
"My very own insomnia therapist," Amelia says tiredly, but not without her trademark amusement.
"I know a thing or two about being unable to sleep," Sam says, looking her in the eyes. Amelia swings her gaze away. "Of course you do. Of course you understand. Just how you understood about Don. And me running, and being angry."
Sam opens his mouth to speak but she shushes him with a reprimanding finger. "I bet you didn't know that you're part of what's keeping me up. I bet you didn't know that, Sam Winchester."
Sam's surprise shows on his face. "Because you do," Amelia continues. "You do understand. You've been screwed over by fate, I can see it. Anyone can see it, Sam, how broke up you are inside. But you're still a good person." She laughs, without humor this time. "You're still a good person, and I'm not. I'm angry. I'm fucking angry at the world, at people, at Don even, for leaving me here while I still don't understand..."
She fists her hands in her pretty hair. "And you. I can make you angry too. You should know, Sam, you don't need to take everything you get without complaint. Get pissed. Be mad at people. Cuss 'em out, anything. Because anger, it doesn't matter. It's just something you feel. Love stays constant. Love is what you are."
Amelia drops a bottle Sam hadn't realized she was holding. "Shit."
"What?" She doesn't seem to mean the smashed bottle which is now leaking sticky liquid that Sam may end up cleaning in a day or two. She turns back and looks at him. "I'm a meaning-of-life type drunk." Sam can't help it. He snorts with laughter. "Everything you've just said, and that's what bothers you?"
"Shit, of course it does, Sam. I never got drunk half as much before as I do now, so it's important to know," she says wisely.
"Right."
-
Amelia opens her shoe cupboard and six limes roll out. It's not even been a week, so they're still fresh enough to make a smoothie with.
A few minutes later, she's blown out the food disposal unit.
-
Sam's little liberty with the limes evolves into a minor prank fest. Sam's pranks are lame. Dean has always said so himself, which Sam tells Amelia when she condemns him in the same manner.
He's glued her hand to her beer bottle six times. She's stopped drinking now. Wonders if that was his goal all along. Sam still thinks it's hilarious every time it happens, and his laughter always gets her smiling, and then she's laughing as hard as he is because for some reason it's the funniest thing in the world. She's stopped buying beer, on a health kick which she promises herself has nothing to do with her new best friend Sam, and starts drinking water compulsively. Sam glues her hand to her water bottle instead.
Amelia labels a drawer in her chest as 'Sex Toys'. She leaves the room, pretending she's going to the bathroom, and watches through the crack of the door. Sam paces around the room, waiting, looks at the drawer, then looks away, several times, obviously trying to resist temptation before finally finding his curiosity insatiable. Sam opens the drawer and it's full of limes.
Amelia tries to stifle her laughter, but then she's cackling hysterically, and Sam turns around. "Oh, God, your face," she gasps, and Sam has no choice but to start laughing too because for some reason it is the funniest goddamn joke anyone's ever played, those goddamn limes.
-
Sam buys Amelia tiny sea monkeys in a jar. "Thank you, I've been wondering what to cook for dinner," Amelia says with a perfectly straight face.
Sam looks at her and she feels her face bursting the seams and she says fuck it and starts laughing at her own joke because she can, and she knows Sam will start laughing too. He does.
"So do you want to stay for dinner?" Amelia asks.
"Not if you're cooking our pets," Sam replies.
"I'm on a diet, so, perhaps not."
"In that case I'll bring Riot."
"You do that. Now don't you have a creaky window to fix?"
"Amelia, I told you, it just needs oil."
"Yes, but it doesn't work when I do it." Sam rests his elbows on the table and leans in close. "I see now. You missed me."
Amelia's gaze doesn't even waver. Honesty, she said. Sam remembers.
"Don't flatter yourself," she says, but grins and looks away which means he's right.