Title: "Sarsaparilla Blues"
Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: R
Summary: Lonely tears in a sarsaparilla bottle. Slash.
Disclaimer: Cowlorado Kid, Moo Montana, Dakota Dude, Cowlamity Kate, Lily, all other recognizable characters, and the COWboys of Moo Mesa are © & TM their respective owners, not the author. The author makes absolutely no monetary profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.

He clutched his mug to him as though it was a lifeline, drowning in one sarsaparilla after another and feeling eyes upon him. He could hear the whispers of the townsfolk as they wondered what had possessed their usually-friendly and flirtatious young deputy to be chugging them away as he was, oblivious to every one else around them and what his drinking would make them think of him.

He could feel Lily's constant presence and had to fight down the urge to yell at her as he had a couple of her girls earlier. Every time she refilled his mug, she'd make a comment or a soft noise that told him she disapproved of his drinking so much and wanted to offer him a gentle ear, but her eyes bespoke the truth -- that all she really wanted was to ask him where Moo was -- and so he ignored her.

He heard the occasional squawk from Boot Hill as he and his partner waited for him to get too soddened to be able to fight off their advances. He knew he shouldn't be drinking this much and realized that he was making himself into weaker prey, but he couldn't find it in himself to care even the littlest bit. He didn't care what happened to him or what others thought of him as long as the sarsaparilla eventually caused his pain to go away.

"Kid?" Lily called as she refilled his mug yet again. He ignored her and only lifted his eyes to the back of her curly head after she sashayed away to fulfill another customer's self-pitying request.

He couldn't talk to her, couldn't even find it in him to acknowledge her, not now, not when she only had one thing on her mind, one bull whose handsome form haunted both their every moment. He didn't have the heart to tell her where he was tonight for he knew it would make the fair cow cry.

NO!, he bellowed inwardly at himself, his head and horns shaking in the first movement he'd made in hours except to raise his mug to his mouth and a hot, angry breath assailing from his nostrils. No, that wasn't it at all! It was instead that he feared that her tears would bring his own to the front and that if he ever started, he might not be able to stop for it wasn't that he cared that Moo would upset his exgirlfriend, that he was out on the prairie with a heifer who should have belonged to their best friend, or even that he feared what Dude would do when he found out.

The agony that gripped his heart stemmed instead from the simple fact that the bull of his dreams was out with another cow, bringing home all strongly the fact that Moo would never look at him as anything more than a friend and he was doomed to spend his life chasing skirts who wanted him no more than he truthfully wanted them to hide the truth of his feelings for the bull who he loved but who would never love him. Cowlorado drowned his sigh of a broken heart with another slug of sarsaparilla.

The End