Beating Around the Bush II

Beating Around the Bush II

“Bro, did you piss in your pants or something? That shirt looks like a dress?”

“Sheldon, no. Be serious.” 

Sheldon heard the tone, quiet and professorial, totally incongruous with the shirtless man in front of him. This wasn’t Milton the top who would have swatted Sheldon for that cheap shot. This was leading somewhere else. Sheldon looked hard at Milton, studying the dark eyes, somber behind the gold rimmed glass. 

“Blade, go change, and I’d like my shirt back, please.”

Blade started to pull the oversized shirt over his head.

“Upstairs. I’ve seen enough for the day.”

Blade glanced at his brother, his expression both confused and hurt. Sheldon nodded toward the stairs. He didn’t have an easy answer. Blade had clearly been bratting. How else could the crazy outfit be explained? But Milton was off. He should have smiled and swatted Blade; a half-naked bundle of red-haired cheek always brought a brightness to Milton’s face.

“What’s up?” Sheldon tried for a light hearted tone and a winning smile. It rang false to his own ears, and Milton always knew, always reacted.

“Will you come into the kitchen, please? We need to talk.”

Sheldon nodded, biting back the automatic urge to deny a nonexistent wrong doing. There wasn’t anything, was there? Definitely nothing that would have Milton sounding this serious. Hiding Tilden’s dreadful balalaika music didn’t count. Everyone had been grateful, and that didn’t qualify as a major disaster anyway. “Is your grandfather OK?” Grandfather Andrew had suffered some minor health setbacks, but nothing that Sheldon thought was life threatening. Gripe worthy, but not life threatening. Grandfather Andrew--Sheldon had never gotten comfortable calling him Andrew; the man was too damn intimidating by half--hadn’t taken easily to using a cane. Milton had both wheedled and bullied his grandfather into obeying the doctor’s instructions, a long distance reminder that Milton was still the dutiful grandson but also a top to be reckoned with.

“As well as always, terrorizing every doctor in the state. We need to talk,” Milton repeated in that same flat, awful tone.

“I haven’t done anything.” Sheldon couldn’t stop himself from blurting out the automatic denial.

“Not that way. I’m not topping right now.”

“You’re always my top,” Sheldon said, hearing the franticness in his own voice. He didn’t want to do this; he hadn’t planned for this. They did it every year at New Year’s, and it was a day with a great black circle around it for a reason. He hated New Year’s Day and not because he had a hangover but because he was sitting stone cold sober across the kitchen table from Milton, negotiating. As Milton’s boy, he could tell his partner anything or at least anything with a little judicious prodding; as Sheldon, he turned into a tongue tied, babbling mess. He always broke something on black New Year’s, and worse Milton didn’t spank. He silently swept the shattered cup, plate, or doohickey into the dustpan and continued with their supposed adult conversation. They had real conversations everyday; they just employed a little theatrics. Sheldon did plain and vanilla at work; he didn’t want to do it at home. He didn’t need to do it at home.

“I know you detest this, but it’s your brother, and I need your opinion without a whiff of coercion. I need you to do this for me. Please.”

There was never coercion or at least not the kind that worried Milton. If Sheldon was coerced, it was because in some fashion he wanted to be coerced. It had taken him years to realize this, and it had been Milton who insisted that Sheldon learn it, but Milton still insisted on these awful conversations.

“Yes, Milton.” Sheldon laced his fingers around Milton’s much larger hand and stared into those eyes that had seen Sheldon through so much trouble. Sheldon could help his partner here. It was his duty and his pleasure. Sheldon tugged Milton toward the kitchen. “I’m yours, always. There’s nothing we can’t do together.”