This one came out of what I felt to be a truly odd moment in Dear Diary. The bad guys have just run their car (and Rosco's diary) off the cliff. Bo starts after the bad guys on foot, and Luke grabs him back, saying mournfully, "They don't mean nothing to us now." Since when do Duke boys let bad guys go? Even petty ones get beaten up and held for the law. Not to mention, these particular bad guys manhandled Jesse. And it was the genuinely forlorn tone to Luke that caught my ear. It's a rare sound for the man to make.
To sum up: Aw, poor Luke. Bo to the rescue!
(Oh, and looking back, I had a fever when I wrote this one. No wonder it has the feeling of an altered state of consciousness.)
Somewhere between resignation and hope, there stands Bo. It's something that Luke loses track of a lot; then again it's hard to remember anything useful about a man who threw ten punches at him and didn't pull a one of them. Hardly apologized either – just that quick little 'sorry' when they rolled out of Boss's office. Makes it a challenge to think real hard about anything except how pointy elbows leave sore spots in places that get pulled on with every single breath.
Still, hours later, it comes nagging back – how they actually failed this time. Oh, they shredded the mysteriously appearing file of charges against them and saved their own necks. They even rescued Boss's copious fat from the fire, by indirectly doing away with Rosco's fool diary. But for the first time in years, must have been, they didn't bring anyone to justice.
Hadley and Avery don't rate as much more than opportunistic punks, probably. Still they were punks with guns, who manhandled the Duke boys' incapacitated uncle. Cheaters, too, the way Hadley couldn't beat Bo skin on skin so he resorted to throwing dirt in his face. Exactly the kind that should be on the other side of Rosco's bars, awaiting trial in Capitol City at the very least. Instead, they're gone, and it's Luke's fault that this episode in their lives ends without a lot of integrity.
Discipline and control are the keys to victory, and he lost both. For no reason, really, he let his despair about the lost diary get the better of him, and held Bo back from bothering to chase Hadley and Avery down. Wound up on the edge of a cliff with his cousin's arm around him, staring at flames and feeling—
And that was the problem, that he was feeling instead of thinking. Needed to think, so he had nudged Bo at the General, and they took off over the network of dirt roads he knew better than the lines on his own palms. Thoughts stumbled into his brain, first about what they couldn't do and then, finally, about what they could.
So he has saved the day again, and everyone's happy. Daisy made pork chops and potatoes in their honor, and Luke barely choked them down before coming out here, reckoning that the goats needed penning or chickens were starving or something. He winds up in the loft instead, legs dangling over the edge, because the goats are already penned, the chickens are dozing and Maudine doesn't need anything at all from Luke and isn't shy about making sure he knows that.
Staring at the dark corners and counting seconds, because it will take Bo two hundred seventeen to realize that Luke's not coming back, then another twenty-eight to make his excuses to Jesse, figure on twelve more in the kitchen, answering Daisy's pointless query with a simple 'out' because everyone ought to know exactly where he's going. From there it'll depend on how lazy Bo's feeling, but it could be anywhere from fifteen to—
Pretty darn close to fifteen.
He stays on the ground, one hand up and gripping Luke's calf, just above the boot. He's not pulling, though, just hanging on.
"You coming down?" he asks. Luke doesn't bother to answer, if he had any plans of being down there he would have jumped already. "Mind if I come up?"
"Suit yourself," he answers.
Bo climbs with all the glee of an overgrown kid crawling over monkey bars in a playground. He's there, warm, too close, arm hanging across Luke's shoulders, in another five point two seconds. Stays silent for all of another three.
"I hurt you earlier?" Thinking of kids in playgrounds. Luke just laughs at the absurdity of the notion.
"Nah. How about you?" Of course he already knows the answer. He pulled every punch, barely tapped the guy.
"A little."
Exactly the answer Luke expects, which is why he's already leaned over enough to his left to get a good look at Bo's poor, sad little face. Mocks it right back at him and asks, "When?"
"That last hit. I went down pretty hard you know." Yeah, that had been kind of a nice touch, really, the way Bo landed and looked all miffed and defeated. "I think I bruised my tail end." How cute that Bo still uses those baby words Aunt Lavinia taught them years ago.
"I ain't," because he knows what follows baby words. "Kissing it all better."
"Aww. Please, Luke?" Bo's chin is down, looking at him through those long lashes that do nothing to move Luke's spirit. "I'll feel so much better if you do."
Yeah, because Bo has spent his whole life looking for someone to kiss his ass, but it damn sure isn't going to be Luke.
"Keep dreaming," Luke suggests, sitting up straight and staring out into dark corners again.
"Aw please?" Bo begs. He never has had the good sense to let a bad joke die. Just keeps on resuscitating it until Luke walks away or tells him to shut up, dang it. "Just one."
"I ain't kissing you there, Bo." Just so the unfunny fool gets the idea of exactly how unfunny he's being right now.
His cousin's breathing directly into Luke's ear now. "Where would you kiss me, Luke?"
Nowhere south of the— the answer ought to be hairline. He's kissed Bo's head before, just not in a long time. Interestingly, Luke discovers that his real answer is the belt.
"Just one?" he asks. Best to get the rules straight first. Bo likes to find loopholes.
"One," Bo answers with a silly grin. Convenient how his lips are right there.
What the hell, it won't kill him. Luke leans forward just enough to meet his cousin a quarter of the way, because Bo doesn't understand the concept of middle, and he's well onto Luke's side of the invisible line between them anyway. Feels the softness of lips, the warm hand on his cheek, encouraging him closer, long fingers at the back of his neck. Feels the moment when one becomes two and reckons that counting is for fools.
Somewhere between resignation and hope, there stands Bo.