This'll complete season 3. It's from The Canterbury Crock, and was inspired by a silly, little moment of physical comedy.
That, right there, was the very definition of going from bad to worse: pinned in a doorway, groin to groin with Cletus. Bo wasn't much better off, didn't look like, as the third wheel in this unfortunate ménage a trois. Then again, something about Bo's position with regard to Cletus' hind end left Luke feeling a shade or two of green. Odd, he'd never had any call to envy Cletus in all his life…
Didn't matter how much it might hurt, he had to get them both free, and not because of some stupid vase either, even if it held the key to his and Bo's freedom. Balance swayed far enough and everything was in motion again, including their hands, in deference to Cletus' drawn gun and well-known poor marksmanship.
Fancy flowerpot or no, Luke had zero intentions of getting locked up, not in the mood he found himself in right now. Fighting with Bo seemed entirely appropriate to the moment, so he did.
"Bo, I hope you're proud of yourself."
"Whaddya mean?" Bo's intelligence had clearly gone the way of his diction.
Oh well, it made this next part easier to say; it was technically a lie, but the basic absurdity that was his cousin gave him liberties in how he interpreted truth. He was just calling a spade an idiot, or something along those lines.
"That was a heck of an idea." Ah, and there went the light dawning over Mount Stupid.
"Heck of a— Cletus, have you ever known me to have a heck of an idea?" Nope, no one had. And Luke might have pointed this little fact out, if he hadn't been so busy trying to escape the heck of an idea he'd had a few minutes ago, about how him plus Bo minus Cletus would have made for a perfect example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.
The minus Cletus part came quickly, when they shoved him in the cell and forgave each other their stupidity. At least Bo forgave the surface level stupidity. The stupidity brewing down deep inside Luke, that he didn't know anything about to have to forgive.
Chases and guns, moving fast and switching cars. Ought to be mad that for all intents and purposes the General was being raped by Boss and Rosco, but that was just a trifle, so long as when they got the car back they scrubbed him inside and out.
Negotiations followed by a couple of grand in his hands. Ought to have felt like something to hold that kind of money, but all he could think about was holding Bo.
Easy come, easy go – the money belonged to the widow Partridge. Long, genuinely scary, day over and time to go back home. Dinner first, guitars second, then Jesse and Daisy yawning their way off to bed. One more quiet song, too peaceful for the Duke boys, really, about taking it easy. Time to go in before the dew warped the cheap wood of their old instruments. Dropped the guitars off in the living room, made pit stops in the bathroom, and Luke waited in the hall for Bo to wash his pretty face. His cousin maybe wasn't expecting an escort to their room, but he didn't say anything, just fell in step next to Luke. Boy had no sense of timing, barely understood athletics beyond brute force.
Which made it easy: slow, slow, don't crowd him, stay back and… now! Into the door frame at exactly the same time as Bo, shoulders sticking, legs swinging. Quick, before Bo could think beyond the humor of it, turning to the side, spinning Bo to face him and…
Yep, definitely vastly superior without Cletus in there. Bo thought so, too, if the way his breath sucked in and eyelids drooped was any indication.