Chapter Text
Shaw wakes from her dream, slightly sweaty and entirely too wet, with a blink and a curse.
Images of pale flesh both remembered and imagined taunt her as she flings the sheet away from her body with a huff and stalks through her apartment to the battered coffee pot in the corner of the kitchen, grumbling when she realizes she’d forgotten to clean it out again. She glares at the situation for a moment before seizing the handle, and liquid sloshes over the sides as she pours the leftover coffee into a mug and slams the door of the microwave behind it. The bottle of bourbon sitting next to her knife rack catches her eye, gleaming in the early morning sun, and she relishes the burn of it down her throat as she watches the microwave timer count down.
Stupid sexy Root.
Last time Shaw had checked, she had been the one who’d spent a decade working out of operating bases with no time for luxuries like privacy, who’d seen more well-toned naked human bodies than most people would see in a lifetime of porn consumption and ignored every last one of them. And last time Shaw checked, Root was the one with a complete lack of chill around Shaw, who never could resist an opportunity for an innuendo or a lewd stare, who had no context for seeing the subway station as just another base of operations subject to locker room rules at all times of the day.
The beep of the microwave goes unheeded as Shaw’s traitorous mind dwells on her downfall yet again. Root barging into the subway car while Shaw was there eating a late lunch alone, talking about how the Machine needed her on Staten Island in thirty minutes. Gathering computer equipment into a bag while kicking heels off her feet, turning her back to Shaw and gesturing at the zipper of her dress, wondering aloud whether the Machine realized how impossible it was to get out of Manhattan that quickly. Shaw absently tugging Root’s zipper down and taking another bite of her sandwich. Root letting her dress fall to the floor and Shaw forgetting to chew as she realizes Root hadn’t been wearing a bra and plans to gather the rest of her supplies wearing nothing but a pair of low-cut lacy underwear. The polished black metal of her chosen guns contrasting against the pale skin of Root’s breasts as she gave them a quick inspection before adding them to her bag.
Shaw had felt a sudden appreciation for chiaroscuro, and kept her eyes trained on Root as she moved about the car in a whirlwind of chaos, never seeming to notice Shaw’s gaze. She tugged on a pair of jeans and a beaten up pair of sneakers that Shaw had never seen before, kicking her bags out of the subway car as she buttoned up a blouse that she never had bothered to put anything on under. Root bounded up the stairs as quickly as she had come, barely a word having been said directly to Shaw. The only evidence she had been there at all was the crumpled dress lying on the floor by Shaw’s feet.
And now here Shaw is, glaring at stale coffee on her day off, images of naked and sweaty Root still fresh and filling her mind from her dream, and utterly annoyed at how little she’s annoyed about it all.
Annoyance is annoyance though, and it escalates into irritation bordering on pissed off when she takes a sip of her microwaved coffee and realizes it’s gone cold again. Shaw abandons the mug in the sink and takes the bourbon with her to the couch, flopping down onto it and cursing Root’s blasé prophet bullshit. It’s going to get her killed one day, she knows, although whether it’ll be at the hands of Samaritan or Shaw herself remains to be seen.
Her phone buzzes on the table above her head, and she blindly reaches her hand back to grab it with a sigh. It’s a message from Root, saying she and Finch will need her at the subway in three hours, and Shaw lets the phone drop onto her stomach and flings her elbow over her eyes at the renewed flashes of skin and guns. Her hips shift on the couch and she’s reminded that her dream never did come to any sort of satisfying conclusion. She briefly ponders the merits of giving in versus taking a cold shower, before her phone buzzes again against her abdomen.
I got to shoot three bad guys last night, in case you were wondering. Thanks for the help, sweetie ;)
Shaw drops her phone and contemplates revenge.
It buzzes again. You could have at least folded my dress, though.
The phone gets stuffed under a cushion. Shaw considers the problem caused by her dream, and she considers revenge. She considers the fact that Root tends to worry if her messages to Shaw go unanswered ever since Shaw’s cover got blown, to the point that she knows there are cameras in the entryway and living room of her apartment that she’s not supposed to be aware of. She knows Root will check them for foul play if Shaw ignores her for much longer.
Her hips shift again and her eyes fall on the spot in the wall that hides the camera pointed at the couch.
Her eyebrow twitches.
An idea forms.
Well, she does value efficiency.
Shaw ignores the muffled vibration of her phone and stretches along the length of the couch, her tank top riding up and exposing her stomach as her hands reach back behind her head, loosening her muscles. A foot falls to the floor and she spreads her knees apart with a sigh, letting her right hand slip beneath her shorts with little preamble and she idly wonders how long it’s going to take Root to give in and check her security feeds before she pushes the thought aside and lets her fingers trail through the wetness left behind from her dream.
Root had been naked and spread out at the table in the subway car, neatly taking the place of Shaw’s lunchtime sandwich and being devoured just as ravenously. Shaw recalls a flash of an image of shoving something in Root’s mouth to make her stop talking, but can just as clearly hear the ridiculously wanton sounds Root made as her body writhed against the tabletop and her hands sought purchase on anything that could ground her to the moment through the rush of pleasure. Heels had dug into Shaw’s back when she thrust three fingers inside, as easily as they slip inside herself now at the thought of the way Root’s back had arched at the touch and her chest had seized in one gasping breath.
Shaw’s pace matches that in the memory of her dream, a steady and firm curl of her fingertips inside and her free hand pushes her tank top aside to palm a breast in place of the way her tongue had drawn circles around Root’s clit. She knows Root will have checked on her cameras by now, that she’s watching every hidden movement of her hands as they bring her closer to orgasm, and her head tips back and she bites back a moan at the sudden image of Root sitting at her computer, squirming and desperate to touch and utterly unable to do a damn thing about it since Finch is doubtless at the station with her.
She’d probably already be as wet as she had been in Shaw’s dream, as wet as Shaw is now. She’d probably beg Shaw for it if she showed up, with no thought for teasing or her usual games or Finch’s presence as Shaw stared her down and made her sweat. Shaw would take her to task for the cameras even as she hauled her to her feet and bent her over the table - she’d be wearing another dress today, and Shaw would push it over her hips and pull her underwear to the side and revel in her heat as her fingers thrust inside, and Root would beg and plead and moan and want more more more and Shaw -
Her muscles clench against her fingers and Shaw lets out a shout as she comes, her throat bared to the ceiling and her hips riding out the waves against her hand as the two versions of Root in her mind tumble over the edge with her. She’d be so fucking loud when she comes, and Shaw wouldn’t know whether to gag her or coax more sounds out of her. Shaw dwells on the various ways she could shut Root up as she slows the movement of her fingers, her body twitching when she finally withdraws and brushes against her clit as she haphazardly wipes her fingers off on her abdomen.
Her arm dangles over the side of the couch for a moment before she remembers the phone stuck under a cushion and fishes it out.
Several unread messages from Root are waiting for her, and Shaw feels a smirk play about her lips as she reads through them. Root had been watching, all right, not wanting to tip her hand about the cameras but increasingly desperate to know if Shaw knew exactly what she was doing to her.
Busy this early already, sweetie? You know how I worry.
You’re not getting any action without me, I hope.
She tells me you’re home safe and sound. Anything you need a hand with?
I’ve got something for you if you’re hungry when you get here.
Shaw rolls her eyes and taps out a terse reply. Subway at 11, got it. She tucks the phone under her thigh and takes a swig from the forgotten bottle of bourbon, weighing the relative benefits of a shower or breakfast. The phone soon vibrates again and Shaw snorts when she reads the message.
I have to take care of something downtown before then. Wanna come?
“Please, Shaw,” she mutters, making a face at her phone as she answers back, “come fingerblast me into next week. Christ.”
Handle it yourself. This is my fuck off time.
Root never replies, and Shaw marks herself down as the winner.