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The dream always started the same.
You were sprinting frantically through the woods, swatting at every branch that came too close to your face and hurdling over every log that was in your path. Panting heavily due to exertion, your lungs and chest burning as if they had caught on fire while the flaming feeling spread down to your legs. It was a blooming pain that started out mild but hurt much more with each and every step you took. You could feel the terror surging through you like adrenaline as you began realizing you would tire out soon. At this point in the dream, you would then start to wonder why you were even running.
Why waste all this energy and go through the torture of long-distance running?
But then you heard it.
The pounding footsteps behind you, a thud after every step that caused the ground to rumble with such intensity, you could have sworn you saw the trees next to you shake from the weight of whatever was behind you. Your pulse jumped, pounding in your ears now, when you took notice to this, picking up as much speed as you could muster out of yourself now that you knew something was following you. Chasing you. What made it all the more frightening was that if your little feet would trip up even just a little, the thing trailing you would notice this and take advantage of it.
Predator vs Prey.
You know the usual scenario that takes place. Predator chases prey for an extended period of time. Prey starts to tire out, makes a mistake and gets caught, then eaten. Maybe not eaten in your place, but most definitely killed. You shudder at the thought knowing you can’t be beaten that easily, and at the very least, you won’t be going down anytime soon without fighting for your life. You’re too stubborn. Too resilient.
At this final thought, you start scanning your surroundings, looking around for anything that may help increase your chances of survival, legs still pumping themselves as fast as they can carry you. While you take a few extra seconds to turn your head to the left, your eyes had temporarily been distracted, which led to seeing the looming tree branch in front of you far too late for your reflexes to catch up.
It happened in slow motion.
Both of your feet get caught under the branch, and you only have enough time to emit a quick yelp before you hit the ground with a hard thud. A feeling of horror sat in the pit of your stomach, gnawing at the edges, as you realized you dug your own grave by not being more observant. Shaking your head and letting out a breathy, exhausted sigh you knew you didn’t have time to kick yourself for not paying attention. It wouldn’t matter if you were dead. All that mattered was escaping.
But it was too late for you.
You felt the pursuer roughly grab your ankles, digging their nails in, and you let out a sharp cry as they flipped you over in a fluid motion. Your eyes widened, and still on the ground, you used your arms to swiftly scoot back as far as possible from them, until your back lightly bumped into a rock, gasping slightly when you knew there was nowhere else to run.
This was it. He’s got you right where he wants you. Backed up in a corner and absolutely petrified. Tears begin streaming down your face and you let out a sob as you come to terms with what your fate will be. Maybe he’ll finish you off quickly. Just one gunshot wound to the head and it’ll all be over within less than a second. You know you’re only thinking this to feel reassured, to give yourself a false sense of hope, but you know deep down this man is ruthless and will enjoy watching you suffer.
He’ll enjoy it because you’re a chink in someone’s armor. A weakness.
Sam Drake’s weakness to be exact.
“Please don’t do this!” You scream, pleading for your life, hell even begging for it.
The man chuckles cynically and slowly starts to walk towards you, taking his time because he knows dragging this out is driving you mad.
“Why are you doing this! I didn’t do anything!” At this point, you’re hysterical as sobs wrack your fragile body.
The man stopped dead in his tracks, only a few feet away from you, so close he could grab you at any moment he pleased. His eyes pierced into your own with such intensity, you broke eye contact and glanced down, nervously fumbling with your shaking hands.
“You have to know, Y/N,” You recoil with disgust at the way he says your name. “That I’m entirely aware you didn’t do anything. But for the sake of getting revenge on Sam Drake, I’m going to have to eliminate who he cares about most…”
Before you can even comprehend what’s happening, the stranger throws your whole body across the floor, slamming you to the ground and wraps his hands around your neck, beginning to choke the life out of you.
“And in your case, unfortunately, that person is you.”
As the man continues to tighten his grip around your neck, your limbs kick, claw, scratch; whatever they can in order to be able to breathe again. As your vision starts to get spotted, you flash back to your thoughts earlier and you recognize you have to fight as much as you can. You owe at least that to Sam.
Your hands fly up to his face, clawing at whatever they can reach, scratching until you see marks of red. The man is so taken aback by your newfound fierceness to fight, his restraint on your throat loosens up, giving you a couple of seconds to scream one name.
Sam’s name.
Sam, Nate, and Sully had just returned from the bar to the motel all four of you were staying at for the night. Nate was quite tipsy and needed a bit of guidance, so Sam and Sully paired up to help drag him to his room. Sam was walking as fast as he could with Nathan on his arm because frankly, he was anxious to see you again. All three of them had spotted Shoreline soldiers spread out among the city, and although they managed to blend in with the crowd for the night, he was still paranoid they wandered their way in your direction.
Earlier that evening, he was reluctant to leave you alone in the motel unprotected, scared a pack of Nadine’s men would find you, but you had assured him that you could protect yourself. You could tell he was getting restless and antsy from not constantly looking for Avery’s treasure, so you were the one who suggested to go out and let loose a little. Normally, you would have jumped at the opportunity to join them, but the truth is you needed the extra sleep from all the treasure hunting.
After making sure Nathan could handle getting to his own bed without falling flat on his face, and splitting ways with Sully, Sam began walking back to your room. He wanted to make sure you were secure for the night before crashing in his room, and although he was afraid it may seem creepy of him to do this, his mind wouldn’t be at ease if he wasn’t 100 percent sure you were free from danger.
He wouldn’t ever admit it out loud, but he cared about you a lot. Even more than Nathan at times, because his little brother wasn’t new to the looming dangers that come with being a treasure hunter. You, however, were less experienced with this, which made Sam much more cautious while fighting enemies, always making sure you weren’t directly in harm’s way. If he was going to be completely truthful with himself, he knew he would take a bullet for you. This slightly startled him because he’s never felt this way about a person other than Nathan. Okay, scratch that. It absolutely terrified him.
Throughout his whole life, Nate was his only responsibility. Sure, he also had the responsibility of carrying a job and not getting into too much trouble with the authorities, but that all lead back to his little brother. He had the job to pay for Nathan’s clothes and books. He was careful around the police because if he was in jail, what would Nate do? He would have no one.
Growing up with having only one person to look after, Sam was used to this lifestyle, but then he met you. This feeling of attachment towards you slowly crept up on him and without him realizing it at first, he felt like he was responsible for your safety. Maybe it’s because of the way you look at him, waiting for him to nod, before you take out one of Nadine’s men, still new and unsure to this whole world of treasure hunting. Or when your wide, doe-like eyes search his gaze whenever the whole gang is forming a plan of attack. Without even knowing it, you latched onto Sam in a way he didn’t even think was possible.
Sam’s own thoughts were interrupted as he heard your unmistakable scream, followed by his name being called by you. Fear surged throughout his entire body as he imagined what could have happened to you. Who could be hurting you at this point in time? He treasured you too much to lose you.
“SAM!” You screamed in a terror-stricken voice, as you bolted upright in bed. Your whole body had broken out in a cold sweat while sleeping, which resulted in the sheets clinging to you in a way that felt all too similar to the man in the dream pinning you down. With this thought, you let out a sob and violently began kicking them from you, wanting to erase the feeling of the nightmare altogether. It was pitch-black in the room and you’ve never wanted to see light this bad in your life as you did now, because every time you closed your eyes, you could see his face and his repulsive smile as he choked the life out of you.
Crying heavily now while stumbling blindly throughout the hotel room, you swung your arms out, trying to find the lamp. Unfortunately, you hit your hand against it a bit too hard and you heard it roll off the nightstand with a deafening crash.
Tears streamed down your face as you fell to the floor in defeat, curling up into a little ball. You haven’t felt this hopeless in a very long time as if this nightmare has some sort of power held over you. Why this dream bothers you so much is beyond you, since you know if it happened in real life, you could most likely handle yourself. It all started ever since you joined the Drake brothers on this mission and you haven’t had a peaceful sleep since. The same horrid nightmare would make its reappearance every night.
Without warning, you felt a pair of warm hands grab your arms, and you let out a scream, so shrill and high-pitched you didn’t even recognize your own voice. Suddenly, you couldn’t quite shake the paranoia that maybe this was still part of the dream. Maybe the man was coming back to finish you once and for all.
At this thought, you tried wrestling yourself out of the person’s grip, but their strong arms wouldn’t give. “Let go of me you bastard!” You spat, flailing around hoping the captor would let go.
“Shh, [Y/N], it’s me,” He murmured gently in your ear, “It’s okay, it’s me. I’ve got you, baby girl. You’re safe.”
You knew almost as soon as he started speaking it was Sam, and you immediately stopped resisting, letting him hold you in his arms while you began to weep.
It killed Sam to see you like this, broken down and exhausted, but the main thing he was feeling now was relief. He really thought when he had heard your blood-curdling scream that someone had gotten to you. He should have stayed back with you. He recognized his mistake of going out as soon as he felt your body shake with fear. Sam tried his best to comfort you, stroking your hair and rubbing circles into your back.
You found Sam’s heartbeat very soothing to you and just sat there listening to it thump gently in his chest for a few minutes until you gathered the courage to break the silence. “I really don’t let myself cry in front of anybody,” You said with a slight sniffle.“But here we are.” You began to nervously laugh, trying to ease the tension in the air.
Lifting your head from Sam’s chest to peer up at him, you could already picture his warm smile from your joke, even if it wasn’t a very good one. It surprised you when you didn’t see his usual grin, followed by his chuckle that you grew to love. Instead, there was a deep frown set on Sam’s face, his eyes flashing with concern, his forehead creased, brows raised in worry. “I heard your scream.” He said as he lightly brushed his fingertips on your cheeks, wiping away the remaining tears. “I thought I had lost you. Gave me a goddamn heart attack.” Sam added with such despair in his voice, it felt like a weight had dropped in your stomach.
“I’m okay Sam, really. Just a bad dream,” squeezing his arm for assurance, you continued. “I’ve actually been having them every night for a while now.” You admitted, while your eyes darted up to meet his. A look of sadness washed over his features.
“Wanna talk about it? It might make you feel better.”
Sam’s words echoed around in your mind as you debated with yourself whether or not to tell him your nightmare. What if he thinks you’re foolish when you tell him about the part where the man says you were his greatest weakness? He’ll laugh of course, and tell you how ridiculous that would be. Deep down though, you secretly hoped he wouldn’t laugh. In fact, you sort of hoped he would grow quiet as if to confirm you were indeed his weakness. It was selfish to wanna be someone’s weakness, which is why you wouldn’t dare to admit that out loud.
“As much as I would love to talk about it now with you Sam, I think this is going to have to wait until the morning,” You said, the fatigue clear in your voice, “I haven’t had a good nights sleep in weeks.”
Sam seemed content with your response, nodding slowly and placing his hands on your side as he helped you up. You felt his hand brush against the small of your back, leading you back to your bed. You smiled to yourself as you watched him peel back the blanket and ushered you in. This sweet, protective side of Sam Drake was so rare to see, you always found yourself wanting more of it. For some reason, it seemed like he would always try to hide this side to him and it usually left you wondering why.
Once he had draped the covers over you, your breath hitched as you saw his face was only centimeters from yours. You saw his eyes flit down towards your lips for a split second before making eye contact with you. This made your heart go crazy. You could feel it pounding wildly in your chest as your eyes slightly widened. Was Sam Drake thinking about kissing you?
You had no time to perceive this idea as his lips met yours. Your whole body stiffened from the initial shock. Sam was kissing you. Of course, after this had warned off you reciprocated the kiss, your hands automatically going to the back of his head, tugging on his hair. You loved the feeling of his warm lips pressed against yours, aware of his hands softly squeezing your hips. How long have you been dreaming about this? You would sometimes daydream about pulling him towards you and kissing him out of the blue, but you would never have worked up the courage to do that. You had a feeling if anything was going on between you two, and it wasn’t just your imagination, he would be the one to make the first move.
All too soon he straightened up, giving you a small smile, his eyes gleaming with some sort of emotion you couldn’t quite place. Was it… adoration?
“Goodnight [Y/N].” He whispered, turning around to leave.
As you saw him turn the knob to the door, you noticed you felt a sinking feeling in your stomach now that he was walking out. What if the nightmare returns? Will he hear your screams and come running next time, or will you be left alone to fend for yourself? The panic begins to reside in your chest, a horrible, empty pain that you didn’t want there. Just as you were about to watch Sam shut the door to your room, you sit up. “Wait… can you stay?”
“Anything for you.”