A little fluffy pre-relationship agentreign for @roarsaidthedinosaur ! happy birthday!
There’s a quiet knock on the office door that startles Sam out of her late night reverie. Admittedly, she should be focusing on spreadsheets and fine-tuning these numbers, but she’s too busy yawning and getting distracted by literally any and everything else.
Or maybe just one very specific distraction. A persistent, but very pleasant distraction that Sam can’t seem to shake no matter how hard she tries.
It’s Saturday night. It’s Saturday night, and Alex is out, at dinner, with Sam once again. It’s happened every other Saturday since they separated Sam from Reign, since Sam was ready to go home to Ruby, since the Arias family’s life had returned to something resembling normal. First because Sam felt she owed Alex her thanks, then because she owed her guilt, and this time because she owed Alex whiskey and a stressless night.
The fact that Alex hasn’t gotten laid in ten months, three weeks, and four days is not on the radar at all. Just like the fact that Sam has the lean muscular build of an Olympic pole vaulter, the smile of a makeup model, and the brain of a Rhodes’ Scholar is not on the radar at all. Neither is the way her long fingers wrap around her wine glass, not the teeth that close around her bottom lip, nor the enormous kindness in her heart Alex has seen time and again since Ruby stumbled into her at the waterfront.
None of that is important. Not at all. Because this is not a date, and Sam is not into women, and Sam has been through massive trauma and needs nothing but stability and support and a happy and healthy daughter.
Dinner ends late, as it always does, and Sam steals the check, as she always does.
“Lena pays me an outrageous amount and you know it,” she says, nimble fingers yanking the folder out of Alex’s grip, and Alex coughs past her suddenly dry mouth. “Besides, I’m the one who asked you to dinner. It’s only fair.”
“Yeah, but–”
“Nuh uh.” Sam whips her credit card out and levels a look across the table, accompanied by a pointed finger, and Alex shrinks back into her seat with her hands up.
“Can’t argue with that,” she says, toasting with her mostly-empty glass and draining what’s left of it.
The restaurant is fancy, the building dark and quiet and the waiters carefully absent almost the entire meal, and the valet appears the moment they step outside. He whisks the ticket out of Sam’s hand and disappears, leaving them to wait in the cooling air that draws a shiver out of Sam.
“Hold on, here,” Alex says, shrugging out of her jacket automatically and wrapping it around Sam’s shoulders. “I’m suddenly glad you insisted on driving. This would have been terrible on a motorcycle.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sam says. She burrows into Alex jacket, tugging it tightly around her shoulders, and leans closer to Alex. “I know you have an actual car. The bike is just for show.”
“What can I say? I like to act like I’m cool.” Alex shoves her hands into her pockets and crooks her elbow out for Sam to wrap a hand around. “Your kid thinks I’m awesome.”
“You are,” Sam says softly, hand tight around Alex’s elbow. There’s a weight to her grip, pulling Alex around to face her, and in the next moment Sam’s lips are on hers, warm and soft and confident, Alex’s mouth moving easily against hers in a way that is hasn’t since Maggie, since an engagement, since saying goodbye.
Alex wrenches back, an exaggerated step pulling her out of Sam’s orbit and nearly dislodging the jacket draped over her shoulders. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have–”
“What?” Sam stares dumbly at her, shrinking into the jacket, cheeks too red even for the cool fall air. “Why are you– I’m the one that– I kissed you.”
“I shouldn’t have– you’re not interested in me– I didn’t meant to presume,” Alex rushes out, hands shoving further into her pockets. “I’m so sorry.”
“Alex,” Sam says slowly. “Did you think I wasn’t going to kiss you eventually?”
“What?” Alex blinks back at her, the chilled air on her arms forgotten.
“This is the third date, I thought– I’m sorry if it’s too fast, I know that after Maggie–”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Alex says hurriedly. “The what now?”
“Third date,” Sam draws out after a long moment. “We went to the burger place on the water, and then the Italian place last weekend, and then this.”
“Those were dates?”
Sam stares at her, eyes widening slowly and jaw going slack. Her cheeks go dark and she slaps a hand over her mouth. “I thought– I asked you out, you said yes, I thought that you knew I was– you didn’t know?”
“This was a date?” Alex squeaks out, the tips of her ears going hot, and she wishes briefly for an alien to attack the whole block right that moment to give her a reason to disappear for maybe forever. “You were– those were dates?”
Sam sucks in a deep breath, and then another, and pushes her way up to standing more straight, shoulders more sharp, pulling her way up to her full height. “I asked if you wanted to go out to dinner sometime. And you said yes.”
“I thought you meant as friends! I didn’t even know that you were gay!”
“I mean, I’m not, for whatever that matters,” Sam says with a wave of one hand. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not into women, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean I’m not into you.”
“Oh, God,” Alex mutters, hands pushed against her cheeks and stomach twisting around itself. A black hole opening up under her would be so convenient right now. “I thought that you were just–friendly, and scared of being back in the world.”
“I like you,” Sam says slowly. “Romantically. And this is the third date we’ve gone on. At least by my count. Not counting every time you came to my house to hang out with my kid and crashed on our couch after drinking with me until two in the morning.”
““Oh, God,” Alex mumbles again. “I can’t believe– I just assumed you weren’t into me, I thought you were just being nice because Maggie and I broke up–”
“A year and a half ago,” Sam says drily. “I like you. And want to date you. So can I kiss you again?”
“Oh,” Alex says, voice weak and faint, just like her ankles and knees and entire spine, to be honest, because Sam is within arm’s length again, being tall and beautiful and composed like she always is, being smart and eloquent and Sam and talking about how she wants to kiss Alex again. “Yeah. Let’s try that again.”
“Great,” Sam says softly. Her hands curl around Alex’s hips, palms warm against her chilled skin, and her chin drops when Alex’s arms wind around her neck and then they’re kissing, again, for real, lips moving warm and easy against each other, soft and calm and weightless against the history of everything they’ve fought through. It’s easy and real, kissing Sam, and Alex pushes closer and holds tighter, not ready to let go yet.
Your being sick isn’t a burden to anyone. Lena might be your boss, but she’s also your friend. So, maybe you should try letting her in. Alex, I’ve handled everything on my own since I was 16. Ruby, college, work, everything. Been white-knuckling my whole life. It’s bad enough I included you in all these problems. So, I’m… It’s bad enough I included you in all these problems. So, I’m… I’ll be fine.
So, the next time Sam has to go out of town for work, and she can’t take Ruby because Ruby can’t miss school, she doesn’t call Lena. She would, she has in the past, but let’s face it, she’d rather have someone with better impulse control than her teenager in charge, and Lena once spent 750 million dollars because a pretty girl smiled at her, and Sam’s pretty sure Ruby could talk Lena into building her a robot army to conquer the school.
No, Sam now has more than one friend in National City, and she knows why Alex and Maggie broke up, so she calls Alex. She’s a government agent, she seems more responsible than her sister, and she clearly likes kids, so Sam’s willing to take a chance and asks Alex to watch Ruby until she gets back. It won’t be hard, Ruby’s a good kid who mostly knows how to take care of herself, but Sam still wants an adult around in case of an emergency.
Alex is hesitant at first, for all her talk about being the cool aunt, it’s the first time Sam’s asked her anything like this, but Kara tells her not to be nervous, it’s not like she’ll lose her on a runaway train or anything, and if she does, that’s why Supergirl is number two on her speed dial.
Sam drops Ruby off after school, and it’s awkward. It’s that kind of awkward where the person you both know leaves and neither of you know what to say in their absence, so you just uncomfortably stare at the floor, and the walls, and the ceiling, until Alex offers Ruby a drink, and only takes two steps towards the alcohol before she remembers that Ruby is a minor and plays it off like she’s just taking the long way to the fridge.
Ruby picks out something to watch on Netflix while she does her homework, and Alex gets a kick out of explaining her biology assignment in a way that makes way more sense than anything her teacher has ever said.
Kara drops by the next night, bringing pizza and soda to share, and all three of them bundle up on the couch until Ruby asks why Kara didn’t bring Lena, because aren’t they dating? Kara sputters denials, Alex laughs, and Ruby is genuinely confused, because Lena totally likes Kara like that, so why aren’t they together? Kara leaves without even finishing the second pizza she brought for herself, and Alex gives Ruby a high five.
Sam laughs her ass off when she calls to check in and they tell her what happened, though she’s not laughing when Lena calls her at one in the morning to talk about how Kara showed up at her apartment (because Lena is not a homeless billionaire, where would you ever get that idea, she absolutely does not sleep under her desk at the office, that was only one time!) all flustered and blushing and then there was kissing and touching and now Kara’s asleep in Lena’s bed, NAKED, and that’s too much for Lena to handle at the moment, so Sam tells her to march back in there, lay down with Kara, and accept that something good has happened for once.
By the time Sam gets back to National City, Alex and Ruby have bonded and already made plans for next weekend (science museum followed by a visit to the driving range, because kids should do educational things, but sometimes it’s just fun to whack things with a club for a while, and the driving range has a lower chance of injury than the batting cages), and Alex realizes she hasn’t had a drink since Ruby was dropped off. Sam tries to pay Alex, who refuses, and they settle on Sam taking Alex out for dinner somewhere fancy.
Maybe it’s the wine, maybe it’s the food, maybe it’s the fact that they’re both turning heads in the dresses they’re wearing, but the thank you dinner doesn’t feel like a thank you dinner, it feels like a date. Alex has a few moments of panic in the bathroom once she realizes that, but she calls Kara and she talks her down. It’s not the end of the world if it is a date, and Alex realizes she’s not panicking because it doesn’t feel right, she’s panicking because she’s not panicking, and that means she’s moving on, and when did that happen?
Sam smiles at her when she comes back to the table, and Alex makes the decision to enjoy herself. Beating herself isn’t going to fix things, and sometimes the only way to move on is to make the effort. She’s not going to let herself end up like Kara, wallowing for months on end, alienating the people around her. So she sips her wine, smiles at Sam, and asks her how Ruby did on her biology test.
They don’t kiss at the end of the night, but Alex wishes they had. Sam tags along on their trip to the museum, and they get a little competitive at the driving range. Ruby just has fun laughing at their antics. They don’t kiss then, either, but Alex manages to ask Sam out on an actual date, even if she stumbles over her words.
They finally end up kissing partway through that date, and Alex can’t stop herself from sending Kara a text confirming that she is very, very gay indeed, and at the end of the night, Ruby has to flash the front light on and off to get them to break it up.
@queercapwriting, if they’re going to make Alex want to be a mom, they better not ignore the most obvious set up possible.
Question of Smoke 