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TRIGGER WARNING: TALK OF CHILD ABUSE

Mason is considered the black sheep of the Alister family. Some might have seen it as a negative thing, including his own brother, Drew, but for Mason it’s always been a role he’s been happy to take on. Responsibility isn’t his thing, sticking around Lethford with the pressure of his family name around his neck never his plan. It might have looked feckless to his brother and to the responsible descendants of the other families who’d grown rich off of the city’s prosperity but Mason was always determined to be a free spirit. Unlike his brother he was happy to drift and spend the family inheritance, resting on laurels that some might’ve said he most certainly didn’t deserve. In his mind surfing his way around the world and back was a far better use of his time than joining the family firm in Lethford or buying into the hypocrisy of government office. There wasn’t much room to get up the ladder in Drew’s shadow and so the only role that seemed open to him was the cliched rebellious little brother.

Naïve and more than a little charming Mason believed that once he was away from Lethford he could leave that past behind but he walked right into the trap when his supposed best friend and girlfriend set it in front of him. These days Mason sees himself as being a little more worldly, a little less gullible but truth is, he’s still a little too naïve for his own good, that side of him never entirely erased by his family. Without the pressure his family could put on him, Mason was free to be laid back when he was out there in the big wide world. Bearing an easy charm, he’s always had a tendency to make friends easily and to draw women to him. Family might not have seemed as though they meant much to him given the way he couldn’t wait to get out of town as a teenager but that’s not entirely the truth. When they needed him he came back, he might’ve been with his tail between his legs but it was still for the sake of his family.

Unsurprisingly Mason has always had a few issues with his temper. Feeling the sting of his dad’s hand or worse, the cutting edge of his tongue, Mason learned to solved problems with his fists when his brain couldn’t keep up enough for him to hold control. Little scraps in high school, a couple of bar fights that rarely got violent enough for the cops to get involved. In comparison to his dad or Drew Mason’s not a bad guy but his control could certainly have done with a little work before he managed to put his best friend in the hospital. Since then Mason has done all that’s possible to hold onto the thin shreds of control he possesses. It’s not always easy, especially in a job where stress is an everyday occurrence and the world is falling apart under the pressure of the virus but using the sharp mind most don’t think he has, he’s found ways to hold himself in check when he needs to. Occasionally he can see the writing on the wall and that’s now left him a little less trusting of people than he might once have been.


To some growing up in the Alister House might’ve looked like a pretty idyllic sort of childhood. A family that had helped found Lethford, a house on the most expensive street in the city, bank accounts that had been growing fat for the last century as Lethford had prospered. Things weren’t all they appeared to be though. From the moment Mason was born it was almost as though he was second best. Secrets were kept in the house, the sort whose divulgence would blow the lid off of the entire family and his dad’s glorious epoch as mayor of Lethford. Golden boy Drew was going to inherit the lot, despite the fact that privilege and their father’s temper had turned him into a bully and an all-round asshole. The spot in the City Council was pretty much reserved for him, his future guaranteed bright and shiny by the family name.

In comparison nothing Mason ever did seemed to be enough – high school football, track records, report cards that other families would’ve been proud to stick up on the fridge. One slip was all it took to feel the crack of his dad’s hand across his face, surprisingly tough given that the man had never done an ounce of physical labour in his life. The raging lectures about what a failure he was and how he was only going to drag their name down. Drew wasn’t entirely free of it but in comparison he lived a blissful life while Mason was the constant disappointment. In high school he got close to Bree and it was like another nail in the coffin. She was a kid from the wrong side of tracks, with a dad in trouble with the law for what he did to his wife and kids. The two of them got close but it was something that always had to be hidden like it was shameful to actually trust someone with what was going on. In the end it was almost easy to stop trying to please people who seemed incapable of it. Drew was the one getting married as soon as he was out of college, the first to give their parents the grandchild they’d want to fuss over and Mason, he was the one getting drunk at prom on spiked punch, the one receiving the roasting from their parents afterwards about how foolish he’d been.

Torn but still half wanting to do the right thing Mason applied for colleges. The Alisters had traditionally gone to Yale to study law. He applied there, knowing it was expected of him but he also applied for other colleges, the furthest he could get from his family and still stay on the continent. Bree did too, they were that close to both getting out of the city but when the time came she turned down the offer to go out of state to stay and take care of her mom instead. He couldn’t stay though and she understood, helping him back, being the one person he regretted leaving behind. Mason headed off to Harvard in his old truck instead of the Porsche that had been bought for him for appearances only. When the end of his first year rolled around and he’d failed to build himself back up it was obvious to all involved that Mason was never going to have the chops to get through law school, let alone join a prestigious firm in Lethford. Drew was definitely on course for the mayor’s office and his screw up little brother would be lucky to scrape through his senior year at the school. The thought of graduate school actually had his father laughing down the phone. It was agreed by mutual benefit that Mason make his own way in the world, money would be provided to him of course, but there would be no cushy corner office waiting for him at home. They were washing their hands of him.

That was fine by him. Soon as his last semester was over Mason was packing up the pick-up that was far more capable of carrying a couple of long boards than the Porsche ever was and heading out for parts unknown. For the next couple of years he stayed on the road, going from Hawaii to Bali, from the Gulf Coast to Florida. There were a couple of short term jobs, a stint at a bar in Maui, a couple of months lifeguarding in San Francisco, but most of the time it was the seemingly bottomless pit of his trust fund that he relied upon. Trips home were few and far between, the last made on his way from San Francisco, where he’d spent a month helping a college buddy refurbish a house, to Florida’s Emerald Coast, where he’d end up settling for a couple of years. By then Drew had married and produced the next generation of Alister automatons. His nephew was already 7 and seemingly bowing to his father’s whim the same way he’d done when he’d been Luke’s age. A quiet word in Drew’s ear only ended up with them having another argument. His brother’s disappointment was palpable in his office, the temper that always seemed far nearer the surface for Drew bubbling over when one comment about giving the boy a break had his big brother swinging for him. Blood still on his lip Mason lit of town again vowing never to head back. He felt sorry for the kid, he honestly did, but him sticking around Lethford wasn’t going to help Luke or convince Beth to divorce the jerk.

Glad that it was money that wouldn’t be slipping into Drew’s already abyssal pockets Mason settled in Pensacola. During the day he spent as much time as possible out on the water, on a board, chartering boats to take him out to deeper water to fish, at night he was in and out of the bars that always seemed to be open late, in and out of just as many beds. It wasn’t until Thea crossed his path that his wandering days seemed to be over. She was the sort of girl his parents might just have approved of if they were still around to offer up their approval on anything he did. Brunette, a body to die for, a soft spot for his cheesy chat-up lines. Smart as a whip, working as an interior designer. It all seemed perfect, perhaps a little too perfect, although he didn’t realise that until the night a meaningless argument boiled over into something life changing. A petty squabble with one of his closest friends there, Leo, spilling out into the street, but what should’ve been the end of it wasn’t. Leo was bragging about having slept with Thea, how her plans to take him for all of daddy’s money had been their pillow talk. His friend threw the first punch, coming at him as soon as Mason started blaming him for it. Turning away didn’t stop him, swinging for him didn’t stop him, aiming to just knock him on his ass and knock the fight out of his friend, Mason tackled him. Only Jimmy didn’t get back up, he just lay there in the road, bleeding and unconscious.

That one mistake would change Mason’s life. The cops were called and it was only the fact that there were witnesses to what had happened that stopped assault charges being pressed. Leo was unconscious for two days, Mason sitting by his bed side the entire time while Thea was conspicuously missing. She phoned a week later, supposedly from Fort Lauderdale. She was sorry, what Leo had said wasn’t true, she had her own money, what did she need more for but she had slept with him. Mason didn’t want to hear it. It’d been a double betrayal, the apologies that slurred from Leo’s lips and dripped from Thea’s like honey fell on deaf ears.

Seven years after he last left town Mason headed back for Lethford. He couldn’t be in Florida anymore, couldn’t stand seeing Leo struggle through physical therapy as he tried to shrug off the effects of the head injury he’d suffered, didn’t want to see Thea draping herself over the next guy. Drew threw it all back at him of course, his returning with his tail between his legs. There was an offer of finding something at the office for him, or you know, when he made it in to the Mayoral race the next year. Mason turned it all down, going to work at a bar while he applied for a spot in the firefighting academy. He was done living out of his family’s coffers. Less than a year later Drew himself was dead. A brain aneurysm at 33, some congenital anomaly that none of them could’ve known about but Mason’s mind automatically went to the hits both of them had taken from their father, who had been gone six years at this point, his own life cut short by a bum ticker.

It was Bree who stood with him at the funeral, her fingers laced with his. As he grieved for a brother who probably didn’t deserve it and tried to help out with Luke where he could, he and Bree got closer. Having gone through the academy and been assigned to her station he probably shouldn’t have gotten involved with her but it happened anyway and for almost a year it was good. Really good. A few months before the virus hit and the entire world stopped making sense, he got down on one knee in the middle of the station, a ring-box in his hands and proposed. Not the most romantic setting but it didn’t matter. She was the one he wanted to spend his life with. Then it became apparent that their lives might not even be as long as his dad’s or Drew’s. People were sick, it was spreading and suddenly they were practically locked down in Lethford. The one bright spark and his worst nightmare emerging in the middle of it. Bree was pregnant. They were going to become parents in what was possibly the world circumstances possible. The one blessing was that they were gonna do it together.