Heh. That's all I've got to say about this one.

What the hell—

"Bo!"

—on his bed. He has to whisper, even if he'd rather yell and maybe throw his cousin to the floor. Daisy and Jesse are asleep, and with all he's done to make a mess of their lives already, he'd better not risk waking them up now.

"Shh, Luke," comes at him louder than the single syllable he's just uttered.

It can't be that late, he couldn't have more than just drifted off. Floating along in that nice little place where dreams start but have no time to get complicated, gently coasting until the biggest complication Luke has known in all his life crawls up into bed with him.

"What are you—"

"Shh," the pest admonishes him again. Then invites himself under the sheet with Luke.

Bo never understood the invisible divider that stretched the length of their room, even after that time when Luke ran a line of masking tape down the middle to show him. You stay there and I'll stay here. It hadn't been his fault that he wound up with the door and the closet. Bo got the window, so it was pretty even when you really stopped to think about it. But his cousin rarely stopped and never thought, just went crying to their uncle and got Luke reprimanded. The tape was ripped up within hours of having been painstakingly laid down, and Bo learned nothing from the exercise.

"I was thinking," Bo says from the inches away that he is right now. "About shop class."

Well now. Might be the first time Bo Duke's thought about any of the schooling he got, and Luke would be impressed, if only he was learning this information from across the room instead of the other side of his own pillow. Which Bo adopts as his own just as casually as he lays himself down mere inches from Luke's face.

"And Mr. Grainge," Bo reminds him. Of course, the class is four years further back in Luke's memory, but Grainge stands out. Skinny little guy, not half as tough as the job description might have called for. Also given to verbose rambling as he wandered from project to project, looking over his students' shoulders. "He got divorced, you know." No, Luke doesn't know, and doesn't care. "Or she left him, anyways. You was already gone by then." Right, and the end of the Grainge marriage is so important that Bo has waited another four years to tell him about it. "Anyways," Bo's still talking, and now his right hand is finding Luke's arm. Innocent touch, or at least as innocent as two grown men in a twin bed are capable of being. "He reckoned he deserved to be left."

"Bo." Get to the point or get to your own bed.

"Shh, Luke," and that gets accompanied by Bo's fingers running lightly up and back down his arm. Just the right kind of pressure to give him a chill. Like he's figured that out, Bo's next pass is a little more firm. "I'm talking." And hogging the better part of Luke's bed, but surely Bo is the one who has a right to be annoyed by Luke's misbehavior. "Old Mr. Grainge, he gave us all some advice. So we could learn from his experience, he said." Oh wonderful, the weird old shop teacher went around giving underaged kids the benefit of his adult knowledge. "He said, always appreciate your wife for the work she does. She don't like cooking and cleaning, she just does it because someone has to. Don't take her for granted."

Well, that's nice, if useless, counsel. Even the Uncle Jesse's given up hope that that Bo will ever settle down well enough to find a wife.

"So," Bo says, sliding all that much closer. "You done a fine job," there's a hand sliding up and around Luke's shoulder, funny how the grip gets suddenly firm. "Cooking the duck and cleaning the dishes." And that-there is a hug, was what that is. "And for taking down the laundry and folding it." That-there is a kiss, right on Luke's lips, wet and slobbery as a dog's lick.

"Bo!" It no longer seems terribly important to keep Jesse sleeping. Might be the best for all concerned if he got up and yelled at them now.

Giggles and wrestling. Body over body, warm and hard, one more kiss. "You make a nice wife, Luke." Oh yeah, Bo is bucking to wake up dead come chore-time. More wresting, bodies twisting, the breath-stealing thunk of floor under his back.

"Boys!" coming up the hallway at them.

One more stolen kiss. "Just don't say I never appreciated you, Luke." And his cousin's up on his feet and crossing back over that invisible line, like he was never on this side to begin with.