So I just finished The Assassin's blade, and no matter if you're team Chaol or team Dorian, I think we can all appreciate how amazing Sam is. I just couldn't get enough of him, so I wrote this piece of fluff. They're at that phase where they're both realizing that they're more than friends, but don't yet realize what that means...
This would be in the middle of The Assassin and the Underwold, right at that scene when Celaena and Sam finish training together, and his chest is gleaming with sweat (yum), and Lysandra comes rushing after him, so Celaena turns away and leaves the pair together.
Celaena was pacing her room. She should be stalking the man Arobynn had assigned to her as her mission. But she couldn't focus on that, not Sam's face kept popping up into her mind.
"Stop it!" She growled at herself, throwing herself on the luxurious bed and covering her eyes with her arm, in the hopes that Sam's face would vanish from her mind. But the darkness only made him feel closer.
She jumped to her feet and headed to her dresser. There was something about Lysandra that made her want to look better, if only to feel less ugly beside the gorgeous and luscious courtesan. She brushed her hair angrily, until the her golden hair framed her faced in silky strands.
"Why would you want to have lunch with her?" She mimicked Lysandra's voice irritably. "Because I'm Adarlan's Assassin's, that's why." She told her reflection in the mirror as she brushed on her cosmetics. She lined her eyes with bronze eyeshadow and black liner, lengthening her lashes.
She leaned away from the mirror, looking at her image in satisfaction. "There! Bet your eyes aren't as blue as mine, Lysandra." Then she sighed. The courtesan's eyes were truly much prettier.
Still, she was pretty good at cleaning herself up, Celaena observed, tilting her head. A little voice in her head whispered about why she cared so much about what Sam thought.
"I don't care." She said aloud. "I don't care about you, Sam Cortland."
At that instant, her door swung open. She barely had the time to fall into a defensive stance before Sam Cortland broke into her room, his jaw set in determination.
"Tell me about your summer." He said, as he sat on the bed, instinctively glancing around her room to look for potential threats. It was something they had all been trained to do.
She was also analyzing the situation, but not in the same way. She analyzed that he was no longer shirtless, and that his think black shirt that clung to his chest because of the heat, showing the outline of his muscles.
Celaena's mouth fell open. "How dare you come into here like—"
"Don't change the subject." Sam had finished inspecting the room. He turned his attention towards her. Her cheeks felt warm as his gaze lingered curiously on her face, but stuck her chin up defiantly. "Aren't you a little overdressed for a mission?"
She could feel the wheels in her brain spinning furiously as she tried to come up with a response. She was usually much better at finding a repartie.
"So what?" She challenged. "I was just trying out my new cosmetics."
Her cheeks were still burning as Sam Cortland watched his with his unwavering attention. "I see," he said, his mouth softening into that half-grin of his. He stood up, and she realized with surprise that he really was much taller than her.
Her breath caught in her chest as his thumb brushed her skin, right above her cheekbone. Her eyelashes fluttered.
Sam took a step back, cocking his head. "You had an eyelash on your cheek." He explained, as she watched, dumbfounded.
"I could have killed you for coming that close." Celaena retorted, crossing her arms over her chest. Her skin burned where he had touched her. What was happening to her.
"Always so sweet." Sam grinned, leaning back onto the bed, propping himself on his hands. His biceps bulged when he did that. "So, tell me about your summer?"
Celaena watched him through narrowed eyes. "Why do you care so much?"
Sam shrugged. "I thought we were friends now. Friends tell each other stuff."
"What, did you get fed up with your new friend Lysandra? Besides, weren't you supposed to go with her to lunch?"
He shrugged again, that half-grin feeling so familiar to her, she could have melted into it. "She asked, but I never said yes." He said slyly. "In fact, I remember inviting you to lunch, not her."
Celaena turned around to glance at herself in the mirror, running her fingers through her long hair, the perfect appearance of calm and detachment.
"I thought I told you I was busy." She said sharply.
"Trying on makeup?" Sam retorted.
"Yes." She snapped. "You know how important looks are in our job. It's easy for you to make woman swoon with your gorgeous smile, but some of us have to work at it, you know."
When Sam didn't respond, she glanced at him over her shoulder. He was watching her, a look of surprise on his face. It quickly melted into gleeful amusement.
"What?" Celaena rolled her eyes.
"You think I have a gorgeous smile." Sam grinned. He leaned down completely on the bed, head propped up on the pillows, arms folded under it.
She rolled her eyes again, and plopped down sideways in her comfortable armchair. "Do you actually have a reason for being here?"
Sam sighed. "I haven't seen you in three months." He said quietly. A muscle feathered in his jaw. "Last time I saw you, you were lying unconscious in a pool of your own blood. Sorry if I want to make sure you're okay."
Celaena didn't say anything. When the silence lengthened, Sam jumped off the bed, landing noiselessly on the carpet, making towards the door. "You know," he said to Celaena, who was still immobile, his hand on the doorknob, "for a second there, I thought I had actually missed you this summer." He laughed humorlessly. "But I'm glad to see nothing has changed", he said, sounding anything but.
She had just spent a month learning to strike quick as the asp, and yet she felt frozen in front of Sam. But there was one thing she knew.
She didn't want him to go.
"Sam, wait." She said, spinning around on the sofa so she was facing him. "Yes."
"Yes?" He blinked, sounding confused and irritated at the same time.
"Yes," She nodded. "I would love to have lunch with you."
Celaena sent for the food to be brought up to her room, and they both sat on either side of her bed, chewing on the chicken and chocolate cake. She told him everything, about Ansel and the Mute Master and the impossible three-mile run in the desert.
He laughed quietly while she told him about that last part, and when she came around to Ansel's betrayal and murderous intentions, he placed his warm hand on her thigh. She was surprised by how comforting that simple touch was.
"Sounds like you had quite a month" Sam said.
Celaena shrugged. "The ordinary." She smirked. "Stealing Asterion mares and finding spidersilk… Yep, the ordinary."
He rolled his eyes and shoved her playfully. She shoved him back, and suddenly they were rolling all over the bed. Celaena was distracted by the sound of the dishes crashing down onto the floor, and Sam seized his advantage, pinning her under him, holding her wrists on either side of her head.
"I could kick you off," Celaena crowed, just to let him know that she wasn't completely defenceless.
"You could," Sam agreed, but his voice had lost its playfullness. His face was inches from hers, and his eyes had a burning intensity to them.
"You have really pretty eyes," Celaena said. It was true. It was the first time she saw them in such detail. She could count the emerald flecks in the golden immensity.
Her breath hitched in her chest. She suddenly realized how close they were.
On her bed.
Alone.
While Sam seemed completely okay with this, except for the strange urgency in his eyes, Celaena was realizing what it was like to be this close to a boy. An attractive boy. A boy that smelled delicious, a mix of sweat and sun and dust and something uniquely Sam.
She inhaled that smell, her cheeks burning. "Sam, are you going to move, or am I going to have to shove you off?" She tried to sound fierce, but her her eyes kept flickering to his lips. They looked so soft. She wondered what it would be like to kiss those lips. To kiss —
With a suddenness that startled them both, she slid out of Sam's relaxed grip and flipped him over on his back. It the space of half a second, she was standing next to the door, her feet firmly planted on the ground. Away from him.
"I think you should go," Celaena said, keeping her voice light. "I actually do have a lot of work to do."
Sam didn't look overly surprised how quickly she had distanced herself from him. Instead, he laughed, loudly. And rolled off the bed as well.
He straightened his T-shirt and tucked his hands into his pocket.
"Well, that was some lunch," he grinned, eyes gleaming. "Don't mind if I come back some time."
"Yeah, right." Celaena said, just relieved that she was leaving. She needed to be alone to think. There was definitely something wrong with her brain. If she was thinking about kissing Sam…
She held the door open for him as he walked out, if only to be able to shut in in his face. But he hesitated on the threshold, and whirled around before she had time to blink. And there he was again, inches away from her, so close that she could feel the heat rolling off our her body in waves.
She couldn't help it. Her eyes flickered to his lips again as her heart pounded in her chest, so loud she was certain he could hear it. "What now?" She asked, meaning to sound annoyed, but her voice just coming out as breathless.
That made him smile, made his lips curl into that wonderful half-smile, taunting her and pulling her in deeper at the same time.
He brushed his thumb across her cheek. If she didn't breathe soon, she was going to faint. In that second in which he was touching her, she had forgotten how to breathe.
"Just so you know…" Sam said, his voice strangely husky. "I like the girl without the makeup. You're a thousand times prettier than Lysandra can ever hope to be."
A strange feeling filled her as she watched him walk away. It was as if, in the month where she had been gone, she had left a part of her heart here, without even realizing it. But when Sam had pinned her down like that, and she had lost her eyes in his smile and in his eyes… she had found it. She had found the missing piece.
And she was home.
Hope you liked it :) I always love to hear what you think! :)