Shoot + snowboarding (chaos au would be 👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼But no pressure)
I know nothing about snowboarding, so this turned into a team machine winter vacation that includes some snowboarding. Definitely set in chaos au a few weeks after the ending, though context isn’t really needed. This is mostly silly, but hopefully enjoyably so.
“This is aterrible idea.”
“No, letting Johnplan social events is a terrible idea. This is only a slightly riskyidea.”
Shaw sighed. Zoewasn’t wrong, but Shaw was still reserving the right to say ‘Itold you so’ when this all went to hell.
“There’s onlythree bedrooms.” Reese looked slightly uncomfortable.
Root regarded himcuriously from the couch in the lodge that Zoe had rented out fortheir weekend getaway. Was he worried he’d have to sleep on thecouch? Obviously she and Shaw would be sharing a room.
Shaw wandered intothe main room causally toting a shotgun under one arm.
“I took thebiggest room,” she said in a tone that dared someone to challengeher.
“No complaintshere.” John eyed the shotgun. “You expecting trouble?”
“Oh, this? Nah.Security precaution. And don’t think I didn’t see you stuff your bagof guns in the trunk earlier.”
“Always good tohave a plan B,” John muttered.
“Guess I shouldgo get my bags out of the car.” Root stood up slowly, only wincinga tiny bit. The bullet wound in her side was almost completely healednow, but it still ached sometimes, especially in the cold, and thesnow-covered mountain Zoe had brought them to wasn’t the best climatefor it.
“Already broughtthem in.” Shaw lightly pushed her back down onto the couch with onehand. “They’re in our room.”
Even though theylived together, Root still couldn’t avoid the delighted little smilefrom hearing Shaw call it ‘our room’.
Shaw took in herexpression and her eyes narrowed a little. She turned her suspiciousgaze on Reese, as if she thought he’d somehow made Root doubt thesleeping arrangements.
“I hope you’re asound sleeper, Reese, because Root…”
John fled.
“That was mean,”Root said, delighted. She didn’t think John had been implying anything (more likely he’d been concerned about his own sleepingoptions and brooding out loud), but it was still entertaining towatch Shaw mess with him.
“He’ll live.”Shaw placed the shotgun on the polished wood coffee table between thecouch and the huge fireplace and then sat down next to Root. “Longdrive.” There was almost a question in her words.
“Was it? I didn’treally notice.” Her whole side was stiff and achy and she sort ofwanted some painkillers and a nap, but she wasn’t going to admit thatwith Shaw already hovering over her constantly. She wanted her to beable to stop worrying, no matter how endearing it was.
“Yeah, well I’mtired. We’ve got a few hours before Zoe drags us out to whatever thisfancy restaurant is. Gonna go take a nap.” She got up of the couch,but lingered there until Root stirred as well.
Root hid a smile asshe let Shaw give her a hand up. Shaw could be very bad at subtletysometimes, but it was sweet that she was trying.
“And take agoddamn painkiller. No one’s impressed by how tough you aren’t.”
So much forsubtlety.
“Why did I lether talk us into this?” Shaw blew on her hands, trying to get somefeeling back into them after being out in the cold. It was warminside the lodge, but she was frozen solid from shoveling the frontwalk (which had gotten covered in snow while they’d been at dinner).This had clearly been a terrible idea. Her only consolation was thatReese had looked equally frozen.
“Becausesometimes a weekend away is nice, especially now that we don’t haveto watch our backs constantly.” Root stuffed her spare cables backinto her bag. She’d been busy setting up cameras for the Machinewhile Shaw suffered outside.
“Hope you didn’tput any of those in Zoe or Reese’s rooms. You know, just in case.The Machine doesn’t need to see that.”
Root snorted.“She’s seen much worse, I promise you. But no, I didn’t.” Shecame over to where Shaw was sitting on the edge of the bed andreached down to take her hands between her own and rub them.
In the past, Shawwould have scowled, even if it was just for show, but lately she’dstopped bothering to act annoyed by the little gestures like this. Itwasn’t like she could give Root the wrong message when she’d alreadygiven her the right one. And Root’s hands were really warm.
“Regretting ourromantic winter getaway already?” Root asked, releasing her andgoing back to rummage around in her bag.
“Nothing romanticabout Reese snoring in the next room.” There was nothing romanticabout it at all, in her opinion (and Root’s tone had suggested shewasn’t being serious in the slightest about that part). Zoe hadsuggested they all get away from the city for a weekend, and whenShaw had waved the idea off (after all, she and Root had spentseveral months away from the city recently), Zoe had reasoned thatthis trip was an actual vacation rather than a recovery vacation.
And then she’d gonearound Shaw and suggested it to Root and Reese, both of whom had beenall for it, and Shaw had found herself outvoted.
But it had beenhard to be annoyed when Root had been so excited. Even now that theyofficially lived together, there was still a small but constant airof worry around Root, like she expected to wake up one day and findthat everything that mattered to her had been stolen away.
And she definitelydid seem to be enjoying herself, if their overly exciting dinner wasanything to go by. Some waiter at the restaurant had made the veryunfortunate decision to leer at them, and Root had somehow managed to‘accidentally’ light one leg of his pants on fire. The fire hadbeen put out fairly quickly (and the water jug Shaw had smashed overhim had probably done more damage overall), but Root had looked verypleased with herself.
“She says it’sgoing to keep snowing all night.” Root had finished fussing withher bag and was looking out the window at the winter landscape.
“Just great. Zoecan shovel this time. This was her damn idea.” It wasn’t like shecould make Root shovel snow while she was still recovering. Dishesand other small cleaning chores, yes. Shoveling, no. (Though Shaw hadfound that it was more efficient to not let Root attempt toclean. She often just made it worse).
She got up to joinRoot at the window and look out at the woods outside, wrapped in thehush of the falling snow.
“How’s Beardoing?” she asked after a few quiet minutes of watching in silence.
“Sleeping. Leewore him out in the park earlier.”
Having the Machineable to keep an eye on her dog was all the proof Shaw needed of howAI could benefit humanity.
“We should go tobed,” Root suggested at last. “Exciting day tomorrow.”
“Going to be solame.”
“We’ll see.”
“You just saythat because you got out of it on a technicality.” Though beingshot wasn’t really a technicality.
“Maybe you’lleven have fun.”
“I highly doubtit.”
“She looks likeshe’s enjoying herself.”
“I figured shewould, once she got out here.” Root held back a shiver. It wasfreezing out here, especially since she and Zoe were remaining on thesidelines and not running around like the other two.
Though Reese andShaw weren’t exactly running. The big hill next to the lodge hadturned into their own private winter sports arena at Zoe’sinsistence. Shaw had begrudgingly decided that a snowboard might becool enough to not tarnish her reputation as a badass, while Reesehad opted for skis in some misguided attempt to preserve his dignity.
Shaw had spent thefirst few attempts falling over a bunch and slipping around, but sheseemed to have gotten the hang of things now, her uncanny balanceassisting her greatly. Root knew even less about snowboarding thanShaw (who had attempted to learn from a few videos the Machine hadsupplied her with), but she could see the moments when things justclicked for Shaw and she figured out how to control her movements,shifting her weight to control her turn and then leaning into thehill to come to an almost-graceful stop.
Root smiled whenshe saw the little smirk on Shaw’s face; she looked quite pleasedwith herself (and also absolutely adorable all bundled up for thesnow).
Reese on the otherhand stood absolutely ramrod straight and didn’t seem to understandwhat the ski poles were for. His technique appeared to be to pointthe skis downhill and hope for the best. Root thought he might haveshut his eyes at least once.
“He’s trying sohard,” Root said. She wished she’d brought her phone to takepictures, but she did have a wireless camera planted in a tree nearbyso hopefully She was recording all this.
“I think he’sgetting a little better,” Zoe said, charitably.
“I thinkhe’s getting worse.” Root almost laughed when the Machine chimed into agree with her. Reese had been too cool for Her youtube tutorials.
Shaw kept pausingto watch Reese’s suffering with a nasty, satisfied grin. She evenlooked over to the little spot on the side of the hill where Root andZoe had taken up their post to include them in her enjoyment ofReese’s dilemma.
“I think theyboth needed this,” Zoe said. “After all the drama with Samaritanit wasn’t going to be an easy transition back to saving numbers oneby one. Sometimes you need to have uncomplicated fun.”
Root wouldn’t havecalled the look of terror on Reese’s face ‘having fun’, but ingeneral she agreed with Zoe. She was almost disappointed she couldn’tjoin in. Almost. The last thing she needed was for Shaw to talk theMachine into getting her a picture of Root falling on her face. Itwould have haunted her forever.
“What’s she upto?”
Root looked up tosee Shaw cutting a path across the slope that made it seem like shewas going to collide with Reese. At the last second she shifted herweight and avoided him (a mischievous smirk on her face), but Reese had already panicked and veeredwildly away in a desperate attempt to save himself.
“Such a brat,”Root said, fondly.
“He needs to slowdown.” Zoe sounded worried, and now that Root looked she noticedthat Reese was headed right towards them, distracted in his attemptsto get himself under control.
“Oh, shit.” Itwas all she had time to say before Reese fell over and tumbled acrossthe last few feet between them to crash straight into her.
Shaw sat down onthe couch next to the pile of blankets Root was ensconced under. Itwas slightly closer than she normally would have sat on her own, butshe hoped it would do for the apology Root had prevented her fromgiving earlier.
In the directaftermath of the ski incident, Root had stubbornly refused to befussed over, despite the fact she was obviously in pain and visiblyshivering from all the snow that had gotten under her clothes. Shawhad been left with no other choice than to grab her by her collar and dragher, complaining, up the hill to the lodge. Root had continued toprotest needing any special treatment the entire time Shaw ran a hotbath in the large tub. The protests had ended rather abruptly whenShaw had dumped her (still fully dressed except for her shoes andcoat) into the tub, brushed her hands off, and gone to find her somepainkillers.
When she came backinto the bathroom she found that in the five minutes it took for herto dig out the good painkillers from their bags, Root had not onlystripped out of her wet clothes, but somehow found a bottle of bubblebath and added a truly unnecessary amount to the tub. She’d alsoprocured an honest to god rubber duckie (which, upon inspection, shehad painted black with what smelled like a sharpie and put what wereprobably supposed to be blood stains around the beak), who wasapparently named Quack The Planet and who she was pushing through themaze of bubbles with one finger.
To Root’s credit,she managed to hold off on making a ‘fowl play’ joke for anentire minute.
Shaw had gone tosit on the edge of the tub, and attempted to figure out how to framean apology. Afterall, it had been her goofing around that had startedReese’s unfortunate trajectory into Root, and while Root had onlygotten a bruised shin, Shaw could tell that it had made thealmost-healed wound on her side hurt like hell.
Root had listenedattentively to a few seconds of Shaw awkwardly attempting to phrasean apology, before grabbing her and hauling her backwards into thetub. After she’d coughed up a lungful of bubble bath and restrainedherself from choking Root, Shaw had decided that negated her need foran apology.
She still couldn’thelp but hover a bit, even now with Root curled up on the couch withblankets and a mug of hot chocolate.
At the other end ofthe couch, Reese had his leg propped up on the coffee table, ankleswollen and several shades of red and blue (sprained, not broken,Shaw had determined). Shaw ignored all his dramatic groaning andpointed hints that she should be waiting on him since it wasapparently her fault he didn’t know how to ski.
“I should haveknown better than to assume any of you knew how to have a relaxingweekend,” Zoe commented from the armchair she was curled up in.
“I mean, no one’sdied.” Reese made it sound like this was an accomplishmentfor them, which, okay, maybe it was.
“You’re right,”Zoe reflected. “I should probably be grateful for small favors.”She was smiling, though.
Root (who had beenalmost nodding-off for the last few minutes) slowly slumped sidewaysonto Shaw (who quickly relieved her of her mug), already soundasleep.
“Did you drug heragain?” Reese asked, suspicious.
Zoe blinked.“Again?”
Shaw shook herhead. “Not this time.” The codeine probably was a factor, butmostly she suspected Root was just that exhausted.
Root didn’t wake upwhen Shaw carried her back to their bedroom (ignoring Reese and Zoe’ssmirks), and only stirred a little when Shaw put her down in bed. Shewas somewhat awake when Shaw came back from the bathroom, though,because she immediately shuffled over next to Shaw when she climbedunder the covers.
“You doing okay?”Shaw asked as she curled up around Root’s back. Root’s hair stillsmelled like that awful bubble bath.
“If I weren’t,you’d be the first to know.”
Shaw didn’t pressfurther; she didn’t like being fussed over either.
“I knew thiswhole trip was a terrible idea.”
Root laughedsoftly. “I don’t know, Sameen. Skiing mishaps aside, I think it’sgone quite well.”
“Yeah?”
“Mmm.”
“Well, I guessthat’s okay then.”
It meant shewouldn’t get to say ‘I told you so’ to Zoe, but, with Root curledup warm and content against her, it didn’t seem like a big losssomehow.
(if you don’t understand why Root’s rubber duckie is named Quack The Planet, then you probably haven’t seen the 1995 cinema masterpiece Hackers and should remedy this immediately).
