#danvarias

Prompt: Ring

A/N: This accidentally turned into a 'sisters bonding over Alex/Sam with very minor Supercorp if you squint' fic.

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Alex's apartment is cosy. Kara likes it, even though they hardly ever spend any time here. Alex says that's because Kara's place is brighter, warmer, and when Kara had offered to help redecorate and check the thermostat, Alex had explained she meant in the psychological sense.  Sometimes enjoys having a cave she can crawl back into. 

"I get a lollipop?"

"You get a lollipop." And a little extra.

Because this is what really happened.

Sam Arias Appreciation Week 2021 - Day 2: Favourite Dynamic(s)

Alex & Sam & Ruby

In a different, kinder life, Sam and Alex might have gotten to be together. In this one, Sam got taken over by a Worldkiller and her life got wrecked beyond recognition and there was no room, really, for the two of them. Now she's living in Metropolis, and all that is left of her is a vague might-have-been and that feeling in Alex's chest that refuses to go away. Alex is desperately trying to move on like Sam so clearly has, but when Sam calls her to the rescue, how can she not come ?

When they begin again, after Reign, after everything, it goes like this : it's very late, or very early depending on how she looks at it and Alex is scrolling through her old conversation with Sam, the one she hasn't really brought herself to delete yet even though it's been three months since they last saw each other, three months since they last had any form of contact at all, three months since she gave explicit blanket permission to Sam to reach out for any reason at all, and in all of that time all Alex has seen of her is her silhouette in the background of video-call from Lena to Kara when she was in Metropolis, and by now she knows she should have moved on, especially because all there is to move on is a vague might-have-been, but she hasn't ; and now, three little dots at the bottom of her screen.

For the next three or four minutes, they pop on and off, on and off, as Sam seems to agonise over what to say ; and Alex remains glued to her screen, her eyes forced open until they burn and she has to blink. When she opens them again, she has a message from Sam. It quite simply reads, are you awake ?

In her hast to answer, Alex drops the phone on her face. It hits her square in the chin and a faint taste of blood immediately fills her mouth. She rubs at it with one hand, with the other clumsily grabs the reading glasses she has to wear now, and though no more than fifteen seconds have passed when she picks up her phone again, Sam has already texted her again, three messages in such a sort span of time she must have used super speed to type them.

Sorry.

It's just I can't sleep.

And I didn't know who else to talk to.

Alex sighs, adjusts the pillows behind her and sits up. The last text Sam sent her, before it all went down, when they all still thought she was dying of a mysterious and undiagnosed illness, was also in the middle of the night when she couldn't sleep. She'd texted, will you take care of Ruby for me after I'm gone ? And Alex had answered without even thinking about it, of course I will. But you're not gone yet, and I'm not giving up on you. Sam had written, promise me, and so Alex had replied, I promise, with a sinking feeling in her chest.

She gets that same feeling again now as she tries to think of what to say and what not to say. You can always talk to me, feels like too much at 1am on a weekday, like a confession almost ; and so in the end she filters her thoughts and only types back, it's alright, I can't sleep either. And then, as a buffer, did you run out of sleeping pills ?

Sam types and deletes, types and deletes, types and deletes, for another handful of long minutes, and Alex waits for her next message with bated breath. She was feeling tired before, hopeful that she might be on the verge of finally falling asleep, but now, she's wide awake, clinging to her phone like a schoolgirl with a crush which, given the circumstances, feels deeply inappropriate.

Eventually, Sam says, yeah, and Alex types back immediately, I'll send you more. You should have said, which written down sounds far more accusatory than she would like ; like she's implying Sam failed somehow by not asking for help which she isn't.

Another handful of minutes passes, and after a while, Sam types, I ran out last week. I thought I could do without. I should do without. But when I close my eyes, I just see her.

It's such a trivial way of saying it that Alex almost laughs, and when she bites back the nervous chuckle, she looks around as if Sam can see her. She's talking about this like it's an ex and not the murderous alter ego who took over her life, like what she got is her heart broken and not her entire DNA rewritten, like it's nothing ; and Alex's own heart breaks for her.

What she wants to tell her then is that she sees Reign too when she closes her eyes, that sometimes she struggles to breathe and she remembers the Worldkiller that wore the face of her friend standing over her, pressing her foot into her chest. She wants to tell her too that she dreams about Reign all the time but that most often she dreams of her, Sam, and that sometimes this feels worse but that wouldn’t be appropriate either and so what she types instead is, it's okay to need help. There's no shame in that.

The three dots appear again. Then disappear. Then appear again. And disappear ; for good.

Alex waits for a minute, then another, and another after that one until the accumulation of them turns into a long five. Tiredness and restlessness pull at her chest in equal measure. She knows she needs to sleep or she'll be a wreck come morning and her own sleeping pills are just within reach on her bedside table right next to the one she keeps there for Kara ; DEO issued and tailor made for Kryptonians, the very one Sam ran out of. Sleeping pills always leave a bad taste in her mouth and in truth Alex despises them, but she's been needing them with increased frequency since Reign, since Kara fought her the first time and she found her broken body on the ground. She can't tell Sam about that either.

She glares at the little orange bottle and it seems to be glaring right back like it knows what she's about to do. She waits for another half of a second, and she calls Sam.

The phone rings for a long time, and just when Alex is thinking of hanging up, silently berating herself for even calling in the first place, Sam finally picks up ; and the sound of her voice makes Alex realise two simultaneous things. The first, that Sam is truly and horribly tired, the second, that Alex has missed her even more than she thought.

Sam says, "hey, Alex."

And all Alex can reply to that really is, "Sam," in a voice that is too soft for her own liking, that says things it shouldn't. She clears her throat. "You sound tired."

Sam sighs, says, "you have no idea," and punctuates this with something that sounds vaguely like a laugh, a garble that is halfway through a yawn.

"Have you been sleeping at all this week ?"

"I crash for a few hours at a time," Sam says, voice distant and not just because it’s coming through the phone. "Wake up in cold sweat. Screaming." She pauses. "Ruby's scared."

Sam's voice breaks on that last addition, and it's easy then to guess that this is why she reached out at all, that she wouldn't have done it if not for her daughter ; that even now she would do a lot for Ruby, and very little for herself.

Quietly, Alex asks, "and are you ?"

"Am I what ?"

Sam asks this in a way that suggests she knows exactly what Alex is talking about and this makes Alex hesitant to push her, hesitant to ask, "are you scared, Sam ?"

That sound again from Sam, like a laugh but not quite, and heavy with denial. "I'm not. I mean, not really ? I'm fine during the day, it's just at night it's…"

"It's what ?"

"It's like she's here in my shadow, in my reflection, in- I- I look at myself in the mirror and she- At night, Alex, I'm terrified. I'm afraid to go to sleep because- Because what if I'm not the one who wakes up ? What if I close my eyes and then I'm just gone again and she's here. In my house. With Ruby just next door ?"

"She's gone, Sam."

"Then why can I still feel her ?"

The tremor in her voice makes it all too easy to picture Sam curled on herself, and before she can fully think it through, or really think about it at all, Alex finds herself offering, "what if I came to see you ?"

"What ?"

"Well me or anyone from the DEO," Alex says quickly, the urge to put some distance between her words and herself making them tumble out of her mouth. "We could run some tests, check your dampeners. Do you think that would help ?"

There's no real need for that. They've run extensive tests already, before and after Sam was fitted with her power dampeners. Reign has truly and well been separated from her, she's gone and she won't come back. Sam is safe, they all are, and if anything is going on, it's in her own head ; but Alex doesn't even bother telling her this because there is a little voice at the back of her own head that tells her that, if nothing else, it's an excuse to see her.

A long pause on the other side of the phone, if she focuses, Alex can practically hear Sam breathe, and then, "I couldn't- I mean, Metropolis isn't exactly next door, I can't ask that of you."

"You're not asking," Alex says, "I'm offering."

Another long pause, to the point that Alex begins to wonder if Sam has somehow managed to asleep, and she's about to ask, the quiet words already on the tip of her tongue, when Sam speaks again, "you would do that ?"

"Yeah," Alex says on an exhale, which gives more weight to the word than she would have liked, "I would."

"Okay, then," Sam says on a breath of her own. "If it's not too much trouble. I don't- I don't want to be a burden."

"You're not a burden, Sam. I'll be on the next flight."

The next flight being Air Supergirl.

Sam Arias Appreciation Week 2021 ↵

Day 6: AU - Supervillain falls for Superhero

A quick reminder to FtF writers, synopses of your fics for artists are due on February 25th. They don't have to be detailed or set in stone, just a general roadmap of where you're going. We just ask that you keep your artists in the loop.