Robot P. Coltrane is far from my favorite episode. However, it has cute moments, and one of them grew into this. (The early dialogue is taken straight from the episode.)
"I got me an idea," Bo announces. It's been another one of those endless days, and he and Luke have been tied up for an inordinate amount of time. Seems like they usually get free a lot faster than this.
"How does it feel?" Clever man, his cousin.
Could feel better, actually. They're back to back and head to head. Luke's right there, all warm and close, but Bo can't rightly touch him, what with his hands snagged up tight over his head.
Luke, and this shouldn't be news but somehow it is, is made entirely of hard parts. No give anyplace that they're touching, except the softness of the hair on the back of his head. Or maybe that's Bo's; either way, that part feels nice enough. Or would if he could relax, but of course there will be none of that. Robot-thieving, ransom holding Marv and Rance are still on the loose, and until that's no longer the case, the Duke boys simply must chase them down.
"Cute," Bo answers, instead of what he'd really like to say.
It feels like failure when his fine plan shatters like the glass that drops out from between his boots. He feels muscles pulling in his stomach when he and Luke push against each other for enough leverage to stand. Panting for breath, he still manages to feel victorious when they break the pipe free from its fittings. When they finally pull apart and untie themselves, there's no explaining how lonely the feeling is. Luke's right there, but Bo can't feel him anymore.
No time to get into that kind of a mood, anyway. He and Luke have a car chase ahead of them, a fight, the need to save their own necks and Rosco's to boot.
Like all the bank robberies before theirs, Marv and Rance's attempt is ill-fated. There really ought to be a sign at the county limits: Welcome to Hazzard – ignore the law, fear the Duke boys. Convenient how the state troopers always show up at the end to haul away the debris.
And so Bo finds himself in a quandary. Life is getting ready to resume whatever pattern it can, but it's the normal that's been wearing on him lately. Luke sitting a foot-plus away from him in the front seat of the General, that's the sort of thing that's just not doing it for him anymore. These bouts of normalcy don't have a habit of lasting very long, though this one's already dragging on, less than twenty-four hours in. He can bide his time, but only if time manages to move forward, and right now it's not keeping to its end of the bargain.
Then, prowling around the farmyard with nothing better to do, he gets struck by an idea. His second in as many days, and won't Luke be proud of him? (Probably not.) The General's trunk always has what he wants, and this time it's no different. Yeah, he's got almost everything he needs, except Luke (who will be annoyed, maybe – not proud). Finds Luke working – or doing a reasonably good imitation – on that fence bordering the southern reaches of their property, middle of nowhere kind of a place that his old-lady-driving cousin actually managed to crash through a couple of days ago. Bo shows him the rope. (Not even slightly proud.)
"What's that for?" This comes out after Luke tries to ignore the thing all together, and fails in the face of Bo trying to lasso him.
"I figured," and here Bo grins, because a smile solves most problems, including the disbelief of smug older cousins. "We need practice getting ourselves untied." It's almost funny, that face of Luke's, reminding him that Bo is definitely not the smart one. "We're losing our touch." This, he feels, cannot be disputed.
Except, of course, that it can. "Maybe you are. I ain't."
"You, uh," still grinning broader than the side of a barn. "You wanna take bets on that, Luke?" Yeah, that smile can disarm any woman and most men, but not Luke.
"Cousin," he gets reminded, "you ain't half able to tie a decent knot anyways." And Luke is the master of the immaterial. Sure, he learned all kinds of crazy ways to tie a rope back in the service, plus made up a few of his own. Bo doesn't stand a chance.
"All right." Bo slings the rope around in his hands, not quite whistling a happy tune, but close enough. "You first then." That there on Luke's face is the very definition of skepticism. "Show me how quick you can get free."
It's just that kind of irresistible challenge, the type of thing Luke Duke was born for. There's a moment, obvious to Bo (but no one else would see it, he's sure), when Luke's focus switches over from thinking Bo's an idiot to seizing the opportunity to prove it.
"Sit," he instructs Luke, pointing out an intact post just down the line. Mr. Cynical, of course, chooses a different one. Caring about disobedient cousins would cost him this opportunity, so Bo just shrugs and follows Luke to his chosen hunk of wood, waiting for him to sit.
He starts at Luke's ankles, three loops, figure-eighting his way up to those straight knees, square (or it could be a granny) knot there. There's a snort at that, but Bo ignores it. Now he's whistling for real, a jaunty little tune that he's making up as he goes along. He moves up from there, an almost pointless loop around Luke's hard thighs, just enough to keep them together. Straddling those temporarily immobilized legs, Bo moves up Luke's body to his waist, arms around him to pass the rope hand-to-hand as he winds it back and forth.
Luke's complaining already. "This ain't no way to tie someone up." Yeah, he's got a point; one Bo tries to care about. One of the loops actually makes it around the post, in deference to his cousin's very logical criticism. And on that last time around, Bo pops Luke's knife case off of his belt.
"No cheating," he explains. The way Luke's lips are pushed together indicates how little he's going to need a knife to get out of this silly mess of string. When he's right, he's right.
"Hands." Bo uses his chin to point to where he wants them, just over Luke's head. Oh, there's some headshaking about that part, but Luke's arms get raised, revealing the dark sweat stains underneath. Unattractive things, and Bo should have made him ditch the shirt first. Oh well.
He loops the rope through itself, just so it won't slip up Luke's chest, then pulls it to the back one more time to slip it behind that strong shoulder. There's a huff right into his ear; that feels good enough that he looks up at his cousin, still grinning sufficiently hard that it ought to pull all the muscles in his face. Time for the hands; he's sitting on his cousin's thighs by now, starting to breathe hard as he passes the rope three times around the post and Luke's wrists. Barely an end left to tie the knot – a boatswain, or at least that's what he's going for.
And then he's done.
"On your mark." He's still sitting in his cousin's lap.
"Bo," the obvious objection.
"Get set," he warns, ignoring silly protests. Then, just as Luke's about to explain to him how he needs to get off— "Go!"
And he's kissing Luke, torso snugged up against all that taut muscle. He's waiting for Luke's chest to bump him back; he left enough slack in the rope for that. But the shove never comes, there's nothing more than small, fidgety movements. More than that, Luke's lips are soft against his, not fighting him. All the same, he backs off, with the intention of taking whatever beating his cousin's getting ready to dole out, but Luke's chin tilts up to follow his lips that distance.
Well, all right. He tilts his head back into the thick of things, letting his hands get involved in the game, as they slip onto Luke's shoulders, then down the ridges of muscle in his chest, past ribs, to that point where his stomach sucks in under the brush of Bo's fingers.
More small twitches, and the temptation to tickle his cousin is strong. It would end the kiss, so the idea is dropped in favor of sliding his hands back up, with the intention of finding a face or neck, maybe some hair.
It's then his cousin moves faster than the solid mass of body under his fingertips seems capable of. Hands slapping down, they catch Bo's arms and track their way to his wrists, where it only takes one of Luke's giant hands to pin them together. Somewhere in all that movement, the kiss slips away and Bo slides back across his cousin's legs, but there's no hope. Luke's already made a few coils around Bo's wrists with the end of the rope. There it is, a proper boatswain's knot, and Luke's dirty grin above it.
"Some idea you had, cousin," he points out.
"I know." Excellent is a more accurate word, but he won't quibble. He nods in agreement with the sentiment instead, smiling about how they're tied together, or maybe at the way Luke's hands are exploring their way up his arms. "How does it feel?"