Shake Your Tree

The thing about Jack that really disturbed Brantley\'s balance was that he had to have everything on his own schedule and his schedule read, \"a week ago Thursday.\" Jack couldn\'t let the world give him things- he had to go and take them- run for the new thing all the time- it didn\'t matter what he left behind.

When they met was typical of that. The very day that Celeste\'s letter to him was delivered, Jack came flying up to Montreal. He came unannounced to the funeral- never mind that Brantley\'s dad- Celeste\'s husband, Shannon Connor, was morning his wife and didn\'t need to feel like he was maybe losing his son, too. Jack had practically demanded Brantley take off with him- go to Paris with him- because Jack was working on an important business deal, but he still wanted his new son with him. Of course, B refused, not wanting to leave Shannon. Jack got more aggressive- offering B a job, buying him a whole slew of expensive suits for the trip. The only way B was able to get Jack to back the fuck off was to promise to visit him in Nebraska.

Six months later, when Brantley drove down to spend a long visit with Jack, Jack had another killer deal he was about to close and \"It\'ll just be a few days\' delay\" became \"just a few more days\". Then it became a week, then months on end. B really only waited on Jack in Possumville to justify continuing to flirt with Fitzy. In fact, it was Jack standing Brantley up again that led to B\'s first kiss with Fitz-

Jack bought Brantley a plane ticket to Chicago so they could meet up. After B had spent three days waiting in the hotel for Jack to show up or call, then he spent two hours waiting in the restaurant for Jack, then he gave up and flew back to Nebraska, still in one of those damn suits. Feeling pissed-off and rejected, he\'d spied Fitzy in the canned food aisle looking edible. So B decided it was an omen and took Fitzy up on the tentative offer that had always been there in his eyes.

Which brings things around to how ridiculously worried B always was that somehow, someway, Jack and his serious type A-ness were going to hurt Fitzy. And, it was probably more than a little Freudian that Fitz reminded Brantley of his mother- Jack being the prime negative in Celeste\'s life. B just feared Jack hurting Fitzy, irrational or not, and no amount of meditation or Zen photography or any other fear-anger release technique was working to make it right.

Out of deference for his promise to Fitz not to stress Mariah- and really, B didn\'t want to hurt Mariah either- she\'d been too good to Fitzy for Brantley not to love her- out of deference to Fitzy, B started his search in North Platte. A few calls got him in touch with the right person at The North Platte Gazette, but she couldn\'t give him answers over the phone because the computerized records they kept on hand didn\'t go back that far. So B made an appointment to sift through the paper\'s back issues that were stored offsite somewhere in downtown North Platte.

It surely would be easier if Brantley had Fitz to help him search, but broaching that subject was gonna take some finesse, gonna take some time to get Fitzy to accept that knowing was better than not, even if the truth wasn\'t pleasant. B didn\'t want to put in that time- he didn\'t think he had that patience about this. Still, Brantley would never hide something like this from Fitzy- he couldn\'t do it without Fitzy agreeing- that was just something B couldn\'t do, even to protect Fitz. So, he\'d spend the time to convince Fitz, coax him into pursuing it, sooth Fitzy to the truth for his own good.


***

Brantley knew he wasn\'t covering well. He was still working out how to break down Fitz\'s resolve without breaking down Fitzy himself or going into the realm of betrayal. The pressure of not screaming his questions at Mariah, at Jack, at everyone in the damn town made Brantley feel like his anziety was leaking out of his pores, like it was a fine powder he\'d been trying to wash off but could never quite manage to get the last bits of, like this thing was dirty. It felt like Brantley was dirty for wanting to push this when Fitzy wanted to leave it lie. It felt like Jack was dirty with this- covered in it. It felt like something about the deaths of Frank and Nola Fitzgerald was the dirtiest of all.
He\'d resolved to bring it up with Fitzy about a dozen times over the last few days, but once he was looking his lover in the face, he just couldn\'t make the words come, couldn\'t form the right sentences to persuade without hurting. So mostly he got to that place, that tipping point, and instead of saying it all out loud, he diverted, using plan B. For Brantley, plan B was all but always sex (unless sex was plan A, then plan B was baking or sailing- mostly baking). Today he went with all three. He made Fitzy a cobbler, just for variety\'s sake, and they went on a meandering journey on Bell Lake without ever leaving the dock.

\"G-I-double L-I-G-A-N spells-\"

\"Shh,\" Fitzy pulled his mouth off B\'s happy, happy dick and hushed him before going back to his work, sliding his lips up and down over the ridge aroung B\'s cockhead and tonging the small dimple-slit at the tip.

\"Gilli-\"

\"You don\'t stop that, I\'ll mutiny. I swear- I\'m not even wearing red,\" Fitzy warned, sliding up Brantley\'s body to give his right earlobe some attention.

\"You\'re not wearing anything, Little Buddy,\" B teased, squeezing Fitz\'s ass and enjoying the resultant thrust of cock against cock.

\"Who you calling little? Oh, yeah- nice,\" Fitzy pushed against him harder, finding a rhythm- a really good rhythm- the right rhythm.

\"Just a nickname, Peaches,\" B answered. \"Just like that, yes.\"

***

\"Peaches? Peaches, you still awake?\" Brantley asked Fitzy in the lulled haziness after coming.

\"Shh- dreaming of bananas- don\'t want to stop,\" Fitzy answered, his eyes still closed, but a small grin at the corner of his lips.

\"Carman Miranda or the underwear guys?\" B played along.

\"Carman- the underwear guys?\" Fitz opened his eyes to look incredulously at B. \"Have you seen them? They wouldn\'t be dream-worthy even if they weren\'t dressed like fruit. They don\'t even have a banana, do they?\"

\"Don\'t think so. Should I be jealous- of Carman, I mean?\"

\"More like you should be working out how to get me a fruit-covered turban for my birthday.\"

\"Now there\'s an image,\" B winced.

\"I\'m cute in drag,\" Fitzy defended.

\"And you know this how?\"

\"I was in drama club in high school.\"

\"You acted?\" B asked, disbelieving.

\"I painted sets and flirted with the leading man, but I was the understudy for Lola in Damn Yankees.\"

\"You\'re kidding.\"

\"Okay, not exactly understudy, more like I was the same size as Becky Warren and she never showed up for her costume fittings.\"

\"What did Mariah think of that?\"

\"She was the seamstress- it was cool. She just wanted me happy.\"

\"Yeah, of course.\"

\"Brantley,\" Fitz sat up to ask, \"you going to tell me or what?\"

\"You already know.\"

\"The newspaper.\"

\"I just don\'t know how you can let it lie. I can\'t.\"

\"It\'s my parents, I should get to decide if we make a fuss. I don\'t want a fuss- it\'s probably nothing anyway. I mean, they were just regular folks- why would there be anything strange about their deaths? Who would want to hurt them? It\'s just my overactive imagination- it\'s just nothing, B.\"

\"It\'s not nothing. I told you what Jack said, how he warned me off.\"

\"And it still seems like he was trying to protect Mariah, to protect me, too. I\'m settled now. Things are good- I don\'t want-\"

\"Well I do. Fitz, you didn\'t see how Jack looked, how he sounded. He wasn\'t protecting you. He may have been protecting Mariah, but I think it\'s more likely he was protecting himself.\"

\"Brantley, I can\'t believe that.\"

\"Then prove me wrong, Fitzy.\"

\"I\'m not bringing this up with Mariah!\"

\"We don\'t have to- we can check other sorces, like The North Platte Gazette. I just need to call and let them know when we\'re coming.\"

\"You\'re joking!\" Fitz exclaimed in a harsh whisper. Then, after considering a moment, \"You really need this, don\'t you?\"

\"Yeah, well I think you need it, so I need it- either way it amounts to the same thing. So, are we gonna keep fighting about it or ignoring it or can we take a road trip?\"

\"One condition, B- if we don\'t find anything suspicious in the North Platte papers, you let this go.\"

\"As you wish, Peaches, as you wish.\"