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It begins with the Mason’s annual check up at Shady Cove. Dr Shoji didn’t make it this time, but Danika stops by, and Dr Abbey happily explains the situation to half a dozen of her newest hires, while syphoning yet another vial of blood. Shaun never leaves Georgia's side in those moments, but between the triggering medical sessions they socialize. Kade Kwong-Garcia is old enough to follow safety protocols and simple rules accurately enough to attend, not be left with the nanny like last year. Foxy is noticeably absent the whole week, even Tom’s best mix of drugs not enough to pad the existence of a cute kindergartener. Maggie and Alaric love their child, and Shaun and Georgia are happy to play with the closest thing they’ll ever get to their own offspring, but in the evenings, once Kade’s in bed, they can drink, and talk, and remember things you don’t talk about in front of children. Every year since their original emergency meeting, it’s gotten a little less fraught, undertone a little less tense. Maybe twenty years from now they’ll all have forgotten entirely how the Masons abandoned them.
Danika leaves first, other long-term projects calling her back to her office. No one protests. Everyone here knows how a career can claw its way inside you. Maggie and Alaric and Kade are next, Kade has a best friend’s birthday party. Rick has more time to himself now that his term is over, but only wants to leave his wife for so long.
Dr Abbey’s not so subtle hints of them overstaying their welcome should have Mahir on a plane back to London. Like Rick, he loves and misses Nan, and of course Sanjukta. But there’s something in him, something razor sharp and usually hidden, that has Mahir climbing into his rented car and following the Mason’s van back to Alberta. He’s accused Shaun and Georgia more than once of being codependent, and he’s not wrong. It’s undeniable, watching them for more than thirty seconds. But what does it say about him that he thought about them every day for the three years they were basically incommunicado? That it hurts when he thinks Georgia hasn’t read an article he’s posted?
Ostensibly, his prolonged absence is for an article. His Australian articles blew up enough to start a loose series about communities with unique approaches to safety. It’s not entirely false. He does meet with the First Nations group in the area to interview them about reclaiming the land. It just takes a single afternoon, not the week he’s going to make it seem like. Drive time and deadlines considered, that gives Mahir approximately seventy two hours at the Mason’s.
Mahir pulls to a final stop on the gravel driveway, parking just behind their van. Both of the Masons are already making their way to their porch. Mahir takes a moment to commit to what’s about to happen if he enters their home, just as he has before getting on the plane the last four years. He doesn’t need this often, but he needs this, potential consequences be damned. He gets out of the car.
Shaun explained their precautions on the long drive, so Mahir knows to look out for yellow painted spikes signifying pit traps, and the orange spikes that mean land mines. Leave it to an Irwin like Shaun to militarize their lawn. Thankfully Mahir manages to get to their doorway without killing himself. Unlike practically everywhere else in the world -Australia, oh, Australia, he still yearns to live there- there’s no mandatory blood test before crossing the threshold. There’s boxes throughout the house, Mahir’s sure, right beside a gun so Shaun can eat a bullet if Georgia ever tests positive again, but this is outlaw Canada. No one can make anyone do anything here.
The kitchen is cute, at first glance. They’ve hung red and white checkered curtains. It’s the only thing Mahir really gets to notice, because Shaun is pressing him into the fridge, licking across his Adam’s apple and kissing up his jawline. It’s only been six hours since the last time Shaun kissed him, both Masons getting their peice while stopping for gas. It feels like much longer than that. Unlike past years, rushing to find an empty office at Shady Cove, fucking and getting fucked as soon as possible, this year the Masons have been teasing. Since the moment Georgia offered Mahir the rare opportunity to visit them, and Mahir could only leap on the chance, the Masons have been teasing. Keeping it to kisses, keeping it a kind of pg13 that’s actually filthier than just sex would have been. They’ve been edging him for this final outcome, and Mahir is ready.
Well, almost ready.
“Where’s Georgia?” Mahir asks. Normally he doesn’t do this with only one of them. Whenever they find each other in Shady Cove, it’s always both of the masons. To love one is to love the other.
“Having a shower. She’ll be busy for a while.”
Mahir’s a bit surprised to hear that. Taking too many decontamination showers is another false security measure, one he thought Shaun and Georgia were both against. And while Mahir certainly isn’t against making out with Shaun for the six minute cycle, he doesn’t think that counts as a while.
“She’ll have to dye her hair again soon,” Mahir comments. The first time Dr Abbey called them, it was an emergency. A ‘drop everything and fly’ scenario. Once it became a tradition, presents got involved. Primarily from Maggie and Alaric to the rest of them, being millionaires and all, though Mahir does what he can to bring Cadbury. Anything gifted is something Shaun and Georgia don’t have to barter precious resources for. L’Oréal hair dye included.
“What? Oh, no. Not a bleach shower.”
“What other kind is there?”
Shaun grins. “When we built on the addition, we installed a vintage, pre-Rising dumb shower. No bleach, no formalin, no citrus rinse. Just water. I love it, but George loves it.”
Mahir can’t fucking blame them. It’s bafflingly old fashioned, like watching a DVD or eating a donut with trans fats. But with those things, there’s a weird satisfaction from enjoying something objectively worse. He can only imagine a water shower feels the same.
“I want to see,” Mahir says.
“Yeah, alright,” Shaun shrugs. “Who doesn’t want to see a naked dripping Georgia?”
A year ago Shaun would have responded to that by looking off into the distance and muttering a comment. Dr Abbey’s facilitated a switch in antipsychotics since last summer, and he’s doing as good as he was two years ago. No dead Georgia telling Shaun just how weak he is for his attraction to a substandard copy. Mahir’s happy for him. A little jealous, maybe, that his mental illness can be so easily assisted, while Mahir's own PTSD is only relieved in ways society would shame him for.
But never mind that now. He’s here, and he’s committed to turning his back on his wife to fuck the two people he’s faced death for. He’s here, and Shaun is halfway down the hall, a hall lined with hooks and hanging body armour, and Georgia is somewhere beyond him.
The second bathroom is steamy with hot water, mirror completely fogged. The enclosure is a glass wall, something Mahir’s sure Shaun and Georgia have used for pretty visuals. Mahir’s seen Georgia naked almost two dozen times now, and it hasn’t gotten old yet.
“Hey, George. Sweetest Mahir popped a boner thinking about you smelling like soap, not tangerines, and who was I to deny him a smellgasm?”
“That’s not entirely-”
“Take your clothes off, and get in,” Georgia interrupts. “Shaun too.”
Mahir looks at Shaun, wondering what he thinks about the slippery close quarters Georgia’s idea entails. The male Mason is already stripping down, taking Georgia’s words as nothing less than an order. What else can Mahir do but join him?
It’s a surreal experience, stepping into a shower and not immediately screwing his eyes shut. There’s no chemicals to burn his eyes out, just pure water. His vision can be totally unobstructed. Georgia’s wearing sunglasses, retinal KA as much of a problem now as it was before everything, but Mahir knows that she sees him too. She must, because she’s rising on the balls of her feet to kiss him.
It continues to be completely surreal. Any other day and opening your mouth in a shower would be a ticket to disaster. Pre-Rising kids got shower wall crayons and animal print loofahs. Mahir remembers debating the risk of San’s shower pacifier making her purse her lips and not get full coverage of bleach vs her ability to remember to keep her lips shut tight. Now he’s kneeling on the tile floor with droplets a constant spatter on his face, tongue out and exposed lap up and down Shaun’s cock. Far above him Shaun and Georgia are kissing, faces even closer to the shower head than his, and still safe.
“Fuck, fuck,” Shaun swears. Talking, too, is something that cannot be risked in a regular shower. Mahir’s heard the dulcet tones of Shaun’s near orgasm voice, but he never thought he could possibly hear it in a bathroom. “Fuck, can I fuck your mouth?”
Mahir really doesn’t see why not. Nandini isn’t much for rough play. Meanwhile Shaun's an Irwin, one who used to get in fistfights with Dave and Alaric, his then closest friends, when he was more unstable. If Mahir didn’t want to experience Shaun Mason and his quirks, he wouldn’t be here.
The warm water is pooling around his shins. Georgia’s groaning in a way that means she and Shaun have fully engaged, he’s fingering her with wonderfully chemical free digits, and she’s dropped her washcloth over the drain. If Mahir was a little less focused he might do something stupid and immature, like kick his feet and splash. But he’s been edging for a week, and so he cares a little less for the miracle of kneeling in inches of water, and a little more about curling his hands around Shaun’s ass and pulling him in against his face.
Shaun returns the favour, of course. As soon as he comes, so deep in Mahir’s throat he barely tastes it, free hand around Mahir’s neck to hold him in place, Shaun joins Mahir on the tile. He makes the splash Mahir was thinking about. Lest it get too playful, too childlike, Shaun obscenely kisses him, licking his own come out of Mahir’s mouth.
“Stand up, finish off our girl,” Shaun instructs.
She’s not, not really. Georgia is Mahir’s best friend, but Georgia’s is Shaun, and nothing Mahir does can ever change that. That’s part of how he can justify this. He’d never leave Nandini for them, because they’d never take him long term. This cheating poses no risk, it’s just Mahir’s attempt to get even a portion of the Masons to himself.
Mahir licks up Georgia’s neck as he finishes the fingering job Shaun started, tasting the sweet nothingness of water. Her skin’s sensitive here, his tongue enough to make her shiver. He wonders just how many years Shaun’s already known that. Her pussy clenches tight around his knuckles as she orgasms, and for a moment the sensation easily eclipses Shaun’s lips working up and down his cock. Then Georgia is sliding herself off his hand, and all Mahir is left with is Shaun. He has skills, for someone who only experiences dick once a year. Maybe Georgia has a strap on. Mahir really wouldn’t put it past her.
Georgia’s hand is in Shaun’s hair when Mahir comes. He’s got the sandy shade of hair those not vain or edgy enough to dye it have. It’s darker now, stained a shade or five towards black with the overload of water. Mahir’s eyes go back and forth between Shaun’s stretched lips, too stuffed with dick for his usual banter, and Georgia’s lovely fingers, the digits that typed all the content that brought them together. She’s backed up a few steps, far enough that he can’t bury his face in her shoulder, so he jams a knuckle between his teeth and bites down. Anything to muffle the unrequited declaration of love that wants to burst out. Mahir’s not about to ruin this asking for things that are not and have never been on the table.
Never one to waste resources, Georgia quickly turns off the taps. There are only two towels hanging on the rack, so Shaun ducks into the hall to grab his from the linen cupboard. Their collarbones glisten with water droplets. Mahir makes a quick effort to dry off, much more efficiently than the Masons seem to care about, both looking in the mirror and tending to their hair. He refolds his damp towel over the rack. Surely he’ll get to have another water shower before he has to leave. Mahir’s got three days to be here. Maybe he’ll get fucked halfway through a dinner grown from their own greenhouse. Maybe Georgia will ride him on the couch, lazily misplaced armour pushed to the floor. Maybe a lot of positions, and specific actions. But he can’t imagine not having shower sex at least once more. It’s just one more thing that can only happen in this place, at this time, and Mahir is trying to soak up as much of this annual rarity as he can.