no more yielding but a dream

[adaptiveimmunities]

Who: Shaun Mason and Mahir Gowda
What: Fissure aftermath
Where: Mahir's cabin
When: The morning after the Fissure (before Una's announcement)
Warnings: Profanity definitely. Viruses probably. Two people who are bad at emotions.

It's morning. Whatever else is going on--and Shaun sure as hell hopes it was some weird fucked up dream--he and Mahir have a standing morning appointment. They'd worked it out within the first day. With none of the modern technology to check someone's viral load and see without a doubt if they're about to amplify, they're resorting to old fashioned methods, which means a morning check-in, every day. Response time, pain perception, mental acuity.

If there was ever a morning he wanted to skip it, it would be this one, but that's not going to happen. He knocks at the door. "Good morning sunshine!"

God, he wants coffee.

Comments

[fishandclips]

Mahir jolts awake at the knock on his door and is confused for a moment. He's not home in London, he's not on a cruise ship, he's on the Terror and Shaun is knocking on the door being cheerfully obnoxious. He sits up, scrubbing at his face. That was one hell of a dream, and he's certainly not in a mood to unpack it at the moment.

"Come in."

[adaptiveimmunities]

Shaun opens the door and grins at him. "Sleep well?" If he keeps things as obnoxious as possible, Mahir won't know about the incredibly bizarre dream, because Shaun will be his normal irritating self, and they can get through this without things getting weird.

[fishandclips]

Mahir squints up at him, scowling, and reaches for his glasses. He grunts. "Must you be so bloody cheerful?"

[adaptiveimmunities]

"Mmhm," he says, unapologetically. "It's one of my charms. Come on. Rise and shine. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can declare ourselves safe for another day of living in the 1800's."

[fishandclips]

He frowns at him. "...What's going on, Shaun? You're acting strange. Stranger than usual."

[adaptiveimmunities]

He gives him a tight smile. "Just eager to get back to trying not to get everyone else killed. Why?"

[fishandclips]

"Because you're acting fucking manic, that's why," Mahir tells him flatly, eyeing him suspiciously. "What is wrong with you."

[adaptiveimmunities]

"Nothing." He rolls his eyes. "God, what is the big deal? I thought you'd be happy to see me in a good mood for once."

[fishandclips]

Mahir rolls his eyes right back, grunting again. He shoves away strange dream memories of Shaun actually being happy--why would he dream something like that?

"I don't know, Shaun, it's almost like we're stuck here with only each other, and--" He cuts himself off, waving a hand. "Forget it. Good morning. You aren't amplifying, are you?"

[adaptiveimmunities]

"Not that I'm aware of." It's weirdly stressful to be here with Mahir after that crazy dream, but all he has to do is get through their morning check-in and then he can go hide in his cabin until he stops feeling... Whatever it is he's feeling. Even George doesn't have much to say about it. "What about you? Feeling like taking a bite out of anyone this morning?"

[fishandclips]

"No," he says, a bit peevishly. "I might feel like punching you, but that's relatively normal."

[adaptiveimmunities]

Shaun can't stop a little involuntary sigh of relief. This is normal. This is comfortable. This is who they are. Not that... whatever that was. He doesn't have dreams like that. "Yeah, that sounds about right, so I'll put a checkmark in the mental acuity column for you. Think fast." He throws a balled up shirt at Mahir's head.

[fishandclips]

Mahir catches it--sort of, in that he throws a hand up and the shirt hits his hand and covers his head. He sighs, and pulls the shirt on. "You're an ass, you know that?" He reaches over and pinches Shaun's shoulder, hard.

[adaptiveimmunities]

"Ow!" He rubs his shoulder. "I feel like I should have expected that." He reaches over and pinches the back of Mahir's hand. "Yeah, I know. I'm the worst."

[fishandclips]

"You are," Mahir agrees, wincing and shaking his hand. He sighs again and looks around the small room, shaking his head. "I had the strangest dream last night."

[adaptiveimmunities]

Shaun goes still.

That--he can't.

They definitely didn't have the same dream. That's stupid.

"Yeah?"

[fishandclips]

"Mm." He yawns and stretches. "This place was a cruise ship--are you okay?"

[adaptiveimmunities]

"Please don't tell me the ship was called Tranquility of the Seas." Because people don't share dreams. It doesn't happen. If it did happen...

No. It's not worth thinking about.

[fishandclips]

"...How would you know..." Well, now it's Mahir's turn to go still and look more closely at Shaun.

Well. Fuck.

[adaptiveimmunities]

"Fuck." Shaun shove his hands through his hair. "You--we can't have had the same dream, right? Because that's stupid and that doesn't happen in real life. It's something we read, right? We read the same thing?"

[fishandclips]

Mahir is feeling a bit ill, because... well. There are quite a few things he dreamed about that he does not want Shaun to ever know about.

"Fuck," is all he can manage, tiredly. "You know what else doesn't happen in real life, Shaun? Time travel and multiple universes, and yet here we bloody fucking are."

[adaptiveimmunities]

Shaun presses up lips together briefly. "Okay, so--what. Somehow we had the same dream about the same cruise ship. That's... not a big deal, right?" Please say it's not, Mahir, because then he can pretend that there's nothing to the rest of that dream just.. weird psychic baggage. That's it.

[fishandclips]

"I don't know," he says, not even trying to hide the frustration and exasperation in his tone. "I don't know what it means, I don't know how or why this is happening, I don't know how to make it stop, I don't know any more about any of this than you do!"

[adaptiveimmunities]

Shaun blinks at him. Mahir has yelled at him before. It's practically a cornerstone of their relationship, and he pretty much always deserves it. But that's usually getting yelled at for a purpose. This is different. "...Okay. Sorry. Let's just--talk it through, okay?"

[fishandclips]

"Fuck." Mahir puts his head in his hands and exhales. He doesn't uncover his face, but after a long moment, he says tiredly, "You know, there are reasons I'm not a Fictional. I don't think I have the imagination for this shit."

[adaptiveimmunities]

Shaun takes a deep breath. He's not a Fictional either, but he's not quite as married to logic as Mahir, so--he'll try. He owes him at least that. "Okay," he says again. "So--we're stuck in the past, and we both dreamed about the cruise ship. That's... not too crazy. To dream ourselves somewhere else. Even if it's not somewhere we've ever been. I mean, it makes sense to want to turn this into something that's slightly more familiar, right?"

[fishandclips]

Mahir takes a deep breath of his own, and then another, until he can let his shoulders relax minutely and let his hands drop. "...That does make sense. Surprisingly."

[adaptiveimmunities]

Shaun smiles a little at him. "I think this is the first time in my life that anyone's ever told me that, so I'm going to savor it for a minute." Mahir's looking a little less freaked out, so that's good. "So why don't you tell me the details of yours so we can thoroughly disprove the idea that we actually had the same dream." Because Shaun is sure as hell not going to tell about his.

[fishandclips]

Mahir stiffens again, and opens his mouth to answer. But all that comes out is a noise. “Ahh...”

[adaptiveimmunities]

Oh no.

nononononononono.

No.

Shaun is making a big deal out of nothing. It's probably just embarrassing. He shoves the panic down.

"What, shuffleboard champion of the boat?"

[fishandclips]

“...Something like that,” Mahir says slowly. “Actually, I believe I completely sucked at shuffleboard.”

He had. Largely because Shaun had made a game of distracting him every time his turn came up, aaaand right, not thinking of that, no. His complexion does a lot to hide a blush, but not enough.

[adaptiveimmunities]

Shaun is good at self delusion. Really good. He has a whole talking delusion with its own personality that he has regular conversations with as though it's not just another part of his own psyche. His delusion, though, is as married to the truth as the person it represents.

[Shaun...]

"Yeah, I know." He sighs. "I'm gonna hope I'm wrong about this, but let's see. You were terrible because A: it's really fucking boring, and B--" The fact that he manages to keep a straight face and not blush is based in years of being in front of a camera. "Someone was being really distracting."

[fishandclips]

Mahir did not have the upbringing Shaun and Georgia did, and he has never been fond of being in the spotlight. Even if he had, he would never have anything like Shaun's poker face.

Which really means that Mahir's face hides nothing as he looks back at Shaun wordlessly: confusion, disbelief, growing horror and embarrassment.

"Shaun."

[adaptiveimmunities]

And that reaction is pretty much all the confirmation he needs. He nods and steps back toward the door. "Neat. I'll catch you later, okay? Gonna work a bit on that seed project. Glad we're both not zombies yet."

He has no idea what else to say, so he just leaves. The ship isn't big enough to actually avoid Mahir, and he can't anyway, considering their situation, but he needs to think. The best way for him to do that right now is somewhere else.

[fishandclips]

Mahir watches Shaun go, feeling stunned more than anything else. Did that just happen? The door shuts behind Shaun, and--Yes. Yes, it did just happen.

It's a good thing Shaun left when he did, because if he hadn't, it would have been much more difficult for Mahir to hide in his cabin and never leave again.

He groans, drops back in bed and covers his face with his blanket.

"...Fuck."