Tag: headcanons

Root can speak Farsi. Shaw doesn’t know that.

starrynightshade:

I like to think that Shaw uses her Farsi very sparingly, like it’s some sort of secret. Harold and John have never heard her use it outside of the field, Root gets little whispers of it when Shaw thinks she’s sleeping though. After the first few times, Root resolves to learn the language because she’s dying to know what Shaw says to her when she’s laying awake in the middle of the night.

slayingbells:

a short selection of slightly angsty shaw-centric root & shaw headcanons:

  • bed sharing – actual, on purpose, literal sleeping together in the same bed in a manner apart from sex – does not happen quickly or easily. shaw needs personal space, doesn’t do relationships for a myriad of reasons. and she knows that letting root stay, asking her to, is saying so much more than that. is making them something more than that. something she isn’t ready for for a long time. so they go on missions, they have sex, they know each other’s crash pads, but no one stays the night. not like that.
  • this changes for no particular reason after a long mission, and post-mission sex. shaw’s lying in the bed, sweaty, tired, content; and root is getting up to get dressed again and leave. shaw tugs on her hand and tells her to stay, almost offhand. and that’s that, because all root ever needed was permission. it takes shaw longer to sleep that night, but she does, stretched out on her side of the bed with the crappier pillow out of two crappy pillows. root, happy on her side, feeling shaw’s warmth in the bed, falls asleep to the sound of shaw’s breathing.

  • neither of them are cuddlers. again, shaw likes and needs her personal space, she’s not into spooning at all. being the big spoon would just be awkward and being the little spoon impedes her and leaves her vulnerable in case something happens which is not something she is going to let happen. (pre-s4 she also had the safety of her crash pad violated by root who also tazed her when she woke up, giving another reason for her to be hyper alert and paranoid about not being alone.) root understands this and respects it – she’s not clingy anyway, just being near shaw is more than enough for her. 

  • shaw doesn’t react well to being touched in her sleep. root sometimes accidentally kicks or moves a lot and wakes up shaw – so she ends up with shaw’s gun in her face or with shaw holding her arm in a death grip. it’s an automatic reaction. more than once shaw has flashed back to root tazing her in that situation. they don’t really talk about it but root will quietly reassure shaw that it’s her, makes sure she can see her hands, and keep calm whilst shaw relaxes again. shaw never kicks root out of the bed but sometimes she’ll leave the bed herself, get a drink or just sit in the quiet with herself.