Work Text:
It starts like this:
They’re on the streets, traffic roaring past the three of them (John’s there, too, but when the words slip past Root’s lips, Shaw swears they’re the only two people existing), and the gun in Shaw’s hand is hot, burning even. The blood in her veins is pumping, adrenaline spurring her to her feet and keeping her moving after their number.
Shaw’s in the lead. Reese takes a sidestreet to cut the number off, and Shaw can hear Root’s ragged breathing a few steps behind her.
Root’s not built for this, the running, but Shaw was made for it. She works for this kind of thing regularly, and she waits for a number to run from them because the chase is the best part.
Besides shooting someone.
They come up on an alley and Shaw watches everything happen in slow motion. Reese comes out of nowhere - his suit jacket is missing and he’s almost sailing through the air - body colliding with the number’s as they body tumble to the ground. Shaw shakes her head, coming to a slow stop in the middle of the road. She’d wanted that one.
Root trails up behind her. She leans into Shaw like it’s something she’s always done, like they’re meant to be molded together, not separate, and Shaw resists the urge to shrug her off.
“Better luck next time,” she says, right into Shaw’s ear, and Shaw would be lying if she said it didn’t do something for her. What, exactly, she’s not sure. Just, something. Root adds, “Now be a good girl and help Reese cuff him.”
Shaw shakes herself out of her haze enough to notice Reese struggling to hold the man down. The man bit him, and she notices the wound seeping blood through Reese’s white shirt.
As Shaw slams the number’s head into the pavement, Root disappears like steam from a manhole; into thin air.
Her voice chases goosebumps along Shaw’s skin, and Shaw misses it just moments after hearing it.
Shaw ends up slamming the number’s head into the pavement one too many times, knocking him out cold. Eyes traversing her skin, Reese’s gaze worries her, like he knows what’s got her affected, but she shrugs it off as he drags the man to the car.
“You’re gonna want to get that looked at.” She points at the crescent moon on his forearm, teeth jagged in his skin.
“Probably,” he agrees, and they part ways for the night.
.
It’s another week before Shaw sees Root again. The overhanging pressure of a number is absent when Root strolls into the subway, and Shaw leans back into Finch’s chair, casual as ever, and lets her eyes roll over Root’s latest disguise. It’s a game they’ve played many times, a moment of reprisal and clarity, and Root practically preens underneath Shaw’s gaze.
“What do you think?” Root keeps her distance, fingers balancing precariously on the corner of her glasses. “Take a guess.”
Shaw twirls in the chair. Rocking dangerously, creaking backwards (it’s what Finch would tell her not to do), she assesses the details attributed to Root’s alias.
This time, it’s a pencil skirt, heels, collared blouse, and the famous glasses Shaw’s heard so much about. Lionel won’t shut up about them, calling Root ‘Glasses 2.0’; Shaw’s just grateful to see them perched on the bridge of Root’s nose now, inches above the teeth plunged into her lower lip as she bites it.
The seam of the fabric traces the soft curve of Root’s thigh, tight on skin until the silk of her blouse tucks itself underneath.
“What’s underneath?” Shaw asks. Her voice, thick with what’s almost embarrassment as Root grins in the dimly lit subway, is soft and probing. Her nails dig into the armrests of the chair.
Mirroring the rise of her cheeks, a finely manicured eyebrow bounces when Root takes a step toward her, hands drifting toward her collar. Her fingers play with the buttons, testing them idly, and Shaw stares back, collected. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Shaw’s quick, reaching out and pulling an arm around Root’s waist. Root stumbles forward on those heels, curls bouncing on her shoulders, and she falls into Shaw, falls into sturdy hands holding onto her hips. Shaw breathes her in, the thick scent of unfamiliar perfume and underneath it, almost completely hidden, the heady scent of something so justifiably Root. Shaw breathes her in, pressing her face into the silk of her shirt just above her navel.
Teeth scrape through the thin layer separating her from Root’s skin. Root’s hands are already weaving through her hair, and when she pulls on Shaw’s scalp, Shaw’s hands go elsewhere, wavering from their stations on Root’s hips, roaming along the slide of Root’s ass and down the backs of her thighs.
She tears blunt nails along the insides of Root’s thighs, pulling her skirt up and up, and soon Root’s falling after it, right into her lap.
When Root’s hands bracket Shaw’s cheeks, when she kisses Shaw, she lingers, sucks on Shaw’s lower lip, as if savoring the taste of her. Hovering atop her, Root lets herself be touched and Shaw lets herself be devoured, lets herself be tasted, lets herself belong to Root.
“Mm,” Root hums against her lips, “I missed you, too.”
Hands stilling on the hem of lacy lingerie, Shaw remembers the last time they were together. Root’s voice and Root’s presence and everything she’s ever wanted.
“Can you,” Shaw breathes, fingers pressing into the flesh of Root’s ass, “do it again?”
Root pulls away from her, sitting back on Shaw’s hands. Cheeks burning, Shaw avoids her gaze, attempts to avoid what the thought of Root’s voice is doing to her. Fingers trail from the tops of Shaw’s arms and find their way to her chin, pulling her face back, front and center. Root forces her to look at the way Root’s brow furrows, at the pure concentration on her lips.
“Can I do what?”
Shaw shakes her head, leans forward, and captures Root’s lips between her own. They almost fall out of the chair, with the pressure of the kiss, but Shaw catches them both with the combined help as Root threads her hands around Shaw’s shoulders to grasp the back of the chair.
Shaw decides to try again, but she tries with distractions. She presses an open-mouthed kiss on the edge of Root’s jaw, then noses lower. “Last week.” A kiss to Root’s jugular. “You said something.” And another, right on the crest of her collarbone. “Do you remember?”
Root shakes her head, too breathless to say a word, and that’s sort of what Shaw had been hoping for. Her lips continue their tirade, drawing poison from Root’s skin in ways that are sure to bruise, and Root’s rocking against her, breath more and more desperate by the second.
Freezing, Root pulls away altogether. “Sameen,” she says.
Shaw catches the look in her eye, catches the grin pulling at the corner of her lips, and wants to be burned alive.
“Really?” Root asks, and she’s laughing into the crook of Shaw’s neck. Shaw has half a mind to shove her off and onto the floor, but there’s a burning between her own thighs that will mostly be too unsatisfactory if solved alone.
She sighs, unsteady, and lets her hand drift to the warmth between Root’s legs. Root’s laugh cuts off right in the middle, transforming into a heady gasp, and then she’s sticking her teeth into the meat of Shaw’s shoulder.
“That’s a,” Root says, barely managing to get the words out when Shaw’s effectively shutting her up, “good girl, Sameen.”
Shaw pulls out of her, Root grins, and then slides off Shaw’s lap, standing a few paces away. Resisting the urge to cross her legs, Shaw stays right where she was left, watching as Root quickly rids herself of her clothes. The skirt slides off with a sigh, the blouse a moment after, and Shaw drinks her in, covered in lingerie that barely covers her ass and leaves nothing to the imagination.
“We can work with this,” Root promises. “Come here.”
Shaw’s up in a second. Torn open, torn apart, she watches Root with hungry eyes, absorbing every inch of her skin and resists her urge to touch. Root’s calling the shots in intoxicating lace, and she’s tugging Shaw by a string, towing her towards the bed with just a look. Her eyes, the ridges of her iris dipped in chocolate, take in every inch of Shaw, from head to toe.
Standing between Root and the bed, Root’s fingers fit nicely along the inside of her belt, and when she tugs, Shaw barely moves, just ricochets against her touch.
“Take these off,” Root murmurs, and Shaw hates looking up at her, hates when Root tilts her chin up and angles her jaw, but there’s no arguing when there’s a bed just a foot behind her and Root’s wearing hardly nothing.
The belt slips out of the loops and falls to the floor. The buttons are next, and Shaw takes her time with them, popping them off one by one like a firecracker. They shatter the silence around them, and the zipper crackles like the sputtering that follows the grand finale. The jeans slide off her thighs, sticking and snagging on her knees, and then they roll in a heap on the floor before she’s stepping out of them.
Standing in just her shirt and her underwear, Shaw catches fire underneath Root’s pointed magnifying glass.
“Very good,” Root tells her, considering. Shaw wants more, needs more, and more means touching, feeling, kissing, fucking. “Now go put on something more appropriate.”
It’s either the inflection, or the pause before the last word that comes rolling from her lips (lips Shaw so desperately wants to breathe in), but Shaw leaves the small room that hides the cot she’s spent many a night in search of Root’s request. Out of the spotlight, cool air washes over her skin.
She sheds her underwear, her shirt, and finds the strap on hidden in the subway car easily enough. The harness fits her like a glove, scraping it’s way up her thighs like an old lover. Like Root will.
When she stands back in the doorway, Root’s right where she left her. Her back turned, the lines of her muscles spread underneath her skin like ivy growing up a wall, with leaves twisting along shoulderblades and black lace. Shaw walks up right behind her, pressing herself against Root’s back, pressing her hips against Root’s ass, and feels Root sigh into her.
“What do you want me to do,” Shaw whispers, low enough for her voice to fall on the sinew of Root’s shoulder.
“Me?” Root suggests, a grin tugging her cheeks.
Shaw’s hand snakes around her front, cupping between Root’s legs as Root’s head falls back against her shoulder. The featherlight touch of Root’s fingertips ghost their way along Shaw’s forearm as she puts a slight pressure against Root’s clit over her panties, and in just a few seconds, Root’s shivering in Shaw’s arms.
Straightening like she’s only just remembering the rules, Root pulls away, turns around, and wraps a hand around the toy dangling between Shaw’s legs. “Can you do something for me?” she wonders, pulling on the strap on, testing the tightness of the harness digging into Shaw’s ass.
Shaw doesn’t have to say anything aloud.
“On the bed,” Root murmurs, pushing her.
Shaw falls back willingly, pliable, and sits. The soft sounds of lace scratching skin fill the room, and Shaw stares at the ceiling, waiting, until the bed dimples underneath Root's weight. She swings a leg over Shaw’s hips, presses herself against the toy, and grins at her. Her hips rock, her spine curves forward, and Shaw’s hands fall into place at the tops of her thighs.
“No.” Root shakes her head, curls flooding around her head, and peels Shaw’s fingers off her skin one by one. Pinning Shaw’s arms above her head, Shaw barely has a moment to catch her breath before Root’s kissing her, taking all of her air anyway. Against her lips, into her mouth, Root whispers, “No touching.”
Root’s hands are replaced with the cool metal of the bedframe. Rust digs into the lines of Shaw’s palm as she holds herself in place, as Root hovers above her, as Root reaches between them and grabs the toy, positioning it so it slides almost effortlessly inside of her.
Shaw doesn’t touch. She doesn’t, although every inch of her being wants so desperately to pull Root into her as Root’s hips roll forward. The muscles in Shaw’s arms stretch taut and Root chuckles, reaching forward to run a finger along the sinews.
“You’re being,” Root breathes, her lips just an inch away from Shaw’s own, “so good for me, Sameen.”
She’s purring, crooning against Shaw’s lips and Shaw can’t breathe when Root’s like this, teasing her. The backside of the toy rubs almost uncomfortably against Shaw’s clit, but the spark of arousal, catching fire against the timbre of Root’s voice, that combined with the harness digging angry, red dimples into her hips, Shaw’s too far gone to complain.
Root’s hips steamroll against her too slowly, flattening new concrete on a new road like it’s her job, and Shaw wants to wrap her fingers around the lines of muscle poking out of her throat.
The wet sounds of the toy sliding in and out of Root, joined by the ragged chorus of Root’s breathing, are the only things to be heard in the reverberations.
“Root,” Shaw snaps. After a few moments, after it’s just not quite doing it for her, after Root’s eyes are almost rolling back in her head.
“Be a good girl,” Root murmurs, a sheen of sweat across her forehead, “and fuck me.”
Shaw’s response is the resonating sound of sweat soaked palms sliding off the metal bedframe, those same palms curling around Root’s hips, and then they’re both flipping in the small space. Root’s back hits the bed and the air leaves her lungs, but fills twice as fast when Shaw’s teeth sink into her throat.
The dildo slides into her with a thrust of Shaw’s hips. Root cries out at the force of it. Shaw keeps her hands on Root’s waist and lets Root’s leg wrap around her own, lets Root’s hand find a way to grip at the straps holding the harness into place, and she lets Root hold her at bay with a hand to her throat.
She fucks Root hard, fast, and leans into the choking pressure of the spot just between Root’s index and thumb, letting the air all fall away.
It’s the way Root sounds when she’s like this, when she’s just on the edge and when her hand falls away from Shaw’s throat and curls into the meager sheets - that’s what drives Shaw over the edge as she feels it become harder and harder to drive the toy between Root’s legs, as her muscles tighten with climax.
Root’s eyes close at the height of it, with Shaw in the crook of her neck, and she shudders, thighs tight around Shaw’s hips, when Shaw pulls out of her and is quick to pull the straps off and shove the strap on onto the floor.
“Good?” Shaw asks, mostly for the assent that Root’s finished. She’s not one for ego-stroking, but as she lies next to Root after what they just did, the word means almost something else entirely.
Root grins at the ceiling, slides her way over Shaw’s body, and slips out of the bed. She leans down close to Shaw’s ear, and hand pressed blatantly on Shaw’s stomach, and says, “We’ll work on it.”
She’s gone before Shaw can do anything, stumbling out the door of the small room with her clothes in her arms.
It ends with Shaw staring after her, chewing on her lower lip. “Fuck you, Root,” she calls out, and she thinks she hears the laughter that follows.