Impossible

The thing of it is, Luke's impossible. Sorting through clothes with a single-minded attention to detail that would make Daisy's head spin, stacking food into his pantry in something close to alphabetical order, unpacking what Bo hasn't gotten to yet with frightening efficiency. And all but tucking Bo away into a closet with his clothes. This is how you will fit into my life, cousin; you will fold down to tidy squares and stay tucked away until I have a use for you.

It's not that bad, actually. It's just Luke being Luke, controlling what he can and hoping that those things that cannot be carefully ordered will not derail him in the end. It's nothing personal, and Bo knows that. Then again, that might just be the biggest problem. Seems like, whether it's a fight or a kiss, something between the two of them ought to be personal right now.

But Luke is the same annoying paradox he's always been; those times when Bo most wants to touch him, when Luke could most use a friendly hand, are the times it's most dangerous to be close. Once, when he was younger and Uncle Jesse – with his insistence on civility as enforced by the threat of whippings – was never far away, he would have asked his cousin what was eating at him. Today he reckons he'd do better to wait it out, to let whatever this mood of Luke's is reveal itself before he tries to deal with it.

In the meanwhile, he sets to making lunch. Oh, it means disordering Luke's fine pantry, but it'll be worth it. Haven't either of them had a reasonable meal in days, aside from the food all but forced on them by Mindy Collins, and he's perfectly glad to forget all about that.

"What're you after?" gets groused behind him as he rifles through the wood panel cabinets in Luke's kitchen. It's a beautiful room, and Bo can understand the urge to keep it that way.

But a pristine kitchen would yield only more peanut butter and jelly, and Bo is not willing to face that particularly bleak option.

"You hungry?" he asks instead of bothering to answer his cousin. Daisy would have hummed those words, might have playfully swatted a spatula at Luke's head and kissed his cheek before sending him away. Bo lacks her feminine charms. He stands there, hands on hips and waits for an answer.

"I could eat," Luke allows, and that's enough for Bo.

"Then you just go back to your laundry or cleaning up, or whatever it was you was doing, and leave me to it. If you want a decent meal, that is."

Luke's right eyebrow raises at that, followed by the corner of his mouth. It's the best damn job of calling him a temperamental girl that Luke could have done, and he didn't even bother to open his mouth.

And in truth, it might have been wiser to just ask Luke if he even owns spices, and if so, where he keeps them. Bo's kitchen's not half this spacious, and he's always kept it pretty similar to the way they all lived in the old farmhouse. But this cabin's got an honest-to-goodness pantry, and Lord knows where, in all that space, Luke would think to put the garlic powder. Shoot, knowing Luke, he grows his own garlic somewhere out in the rocky hills here, and wouldn't be caught dead with the pre-dried and ground version of the stuff in his house.

He's about to have to give in and chase his cousin down to the bedroom – or the bath, whatever it might be that the man is reordering now – when he finally finds the line of tiny bags. Oregano, marjoram, cinnamon, tarragon, garlic. Should have figured Luke would be subtle, even in his seasonings. Bo's spice rack is out in the open, with large plastic and glass jars of the powders and grains, and if Luke showed up in his kitchen tomorrow, there'd be no searching for anything. Everything here is just as hidden as whatever's put Luke into this quiet little mood.

Eventually, after he's found all the ingredients he needs, then measured, mixed and prepared them, somewhere around the time that the frying chicken is in the oven smelling every bit as good as anything their female cousin has ever made, Luke reemerges from wherever he's been hiding. All but sniffing the air and drooling, which just goes to show that if Bo makes a good woman, Luke is every bit the southern man of their youth, arriving just in time for the eating.

"Oh sure," Bo announces. "Now I get some respect."

Luke shakes his head. "It ain't respect, Bo. It's me wondering where Daisy's hiding, because I know you ain't made something that smells that good."

"You just be careful," he warns, but there's that same little half-smile on Luke's face, a relaxed look like he hasn't seen a lot of since they last shared a bedroom, some fifteen years ago. "Or you might never find out if it tastes as good as it smells."

Luke's not concerned in the least; he just starts digging out some dishes to set the table. Funny how they went through most of their lives with barely enough to share amongst four of them, whether it was meals or plates to put them on, but now, living in three different houses, the Duke cousins have more than enough for families of their own. If any of them had ever gotten around to having any.

"Put one of them hot pad things down on the table," or whatever Luke uses to protect the wood against getting burned by pots coming straight out of the oven. "Because the chicken's ready."

"Bo!" he gets admonished, "just put it on the stove for a minute, would you?" And Luke's at his side in a beat or two, fishing the chicken pieces out with a fork and putting them on some kind of a serving plate. Bo reckons he could have done that himself, if he'd thought of it. Used to be that Daisy served her fried chicken in a bowl that they passed around the table, but that was years ago when they all lived together. Now it's come to the point that sometimes Bo doesn't bother with a plate to eat off of, just stands over the sink and lets errant bits of food fall where they may. Leave it to Luke to even have a serving plate after all these years of living alone.

The meal, however little Luke might approve of Bo's serving methods, is apparently acceptable. Maybe even good, if the way his cousin's devouring it is any indication. So much for all that careful attention to manners and proper dining etiquette.

"Where," Luke manages, somewhere between a drumstick and a breast. "Did you learn to cook like that? I know you ain't never let Daisy teach you a dang thing about the kitchen."

True enough, but then again, that girl was always ridiculously possessive of her utensils anyway, and only ever let Jesse touch them because they'd been his for a whole generation before she took them over.

"This right here I learned from Heather. She was…" but Luke already knows this. "I dated her sometime back." Luke already knows and still it's awkward in the telling. He doesn't want to talk about old lovers with Luke anymore. All those girls were just bookmarks, holding his place here or there until he could find what he really wanted. Thin little slips of things that left him feeling lonelier when they were there than after they left him.

"Must've been quite the woman to teach you how to cook." It's strained, Luke trying to keep light those heavy, white elephants between them.

"She wasn't nothing so special," Bo answers, and tacitly agrees to drop it. Duke men hardly need words between them anyway.

Afterward, Bo sticks close as Luke washes their dishes.

"Ain't you got nothing better to do?" he gets asked, but it's hard to take a man that's elbow deep in bubbles seriously.

Besides, "Nope," is only the truth.

Big sigh, then his cousin opens the knee-high cabinet under the sink.

"Grab that towel there and start drying, then."

It's like childhood all over again, working elbow to elbow, mostly watching the way Luke scrubs at each and every corner of each and every dish while Bo just runs his cloth lightly over the surface. Used to be he had a theory about how drying them thoroughly left streaks, whereas a light touch left them spot-free, but that was never anything more than an answer back to Luke's grousing about how he wasn't hardly doing nothing at all. If his cousin has any complaints about Bo's drying skills now, he just keeps them to himself.

When the dishes are done, they're two Duke boys at a loss. Luke's there in his own kitchen, hands on hips and just calculating what very important tidying task they have yet to get up to when Bo suggests a walk.

"We got clothes in the washer, Bo," is Luke's grumbling attempt at dismissal. Second load of the day; first one went through without any signs of rust stains, and if Luke mentioned his shorts turning a light blue for having been washed with so many pairs of jeans, the words lacked the conviction of a real complaint.

"And if they finish before we get back, they can sit in there for a few minutes. I ain't suggesting a hike, I just want to see the land. With you," he adds, in case the clever man to his left gets it into his head to tell Bo to just go on his own. "So's you can keep me from getting shot by your neighbors." Luke's snort at that isn't easily translated. Could mean that Bo's a fool for the suggestion that accidental trespass could be risky in these parts, or it might just be that Luke thinks Bo getting shot is genuinely amusing. "Come on," he finishes, wishes that for once his cousin wouldn't be so distant when he's chewing something over, wishes he could get up close, nose-to-nose, and charm himself a smile out of the man.

"Not until you get dressed in decent clothes. I'd shoot you myself for walking out there looking like that, if I had a gun."

"They're your clothes," he reminds his cousin, but he's just as glad to get into jeans that make all the way down to his ankles. He's not as happy about getting out of Luke's sweatshirt, which was warmer then his own button down shirt that it gets traded for, but with Luke's big old flannel shirt overtop of it all, he's still reasonably warm. He comes back to the front of the house dressed that way and gets another head-shaking smirk from Luke.

"It smells like you." The top shirt does. "I like it." Honesty. For all that Dukes are compelled to it, Luke never has figured out how to deal with it in quiet moments like this. For his cousin, the truth has most often been shouted in the middle of an argument, whether it was with Uncle Jesse over nights he never made it home, or the time he told Bo exactly what he thought of Diane. Honest words now, when they're not yelling at each other, make Luke turn away in embarrassment.

It marks the first time of this quiet hour that they spend together that Bo wants to take hold of his cousin's hand, or maybe throw an arm across his shoulders and keep him close like he did when they were little more than kids. But it's not the last; the urge strikes him again when his cousin tells him to watch himself after the dirt under his boot gives way while he's climbing the ridge. Oh, it's nothing serious, he doesn't even lose his balance and Luke doesn't have to reach out a hand to steady him, but that same quiet watch yourself that he's heard all his life makes him want to reciprocate somehow, to be a comforting presence to his cousin, if only Luke would let him. And that desire stays with him through the rocky descent down to the patch of green Bo has pointed out wanting to explore.

"Willow Creek," Luke introduces, when they get close enough. "Nothing like the one back home. That right there is about the heaviest it ever flows, during the spring snowmelt."

It's not as pointless a little stream as Luke seems to think. Bo sits in the soft grass at the bank and looks in to see all the tiny life there, from lichens on the stones to the little minnows that shiver their way through icy waters. It may not be deep or wide, but here in this land too rugged to support much, this here is the closest thing to home.

Luke squats next to him, restless, but tolerating this moment of quiet. "I like it here, too," he says.

Then he's on his feet again, and time's up. Yeah, the man's probably spent as many minutes as he can stand away from whatever organizing he feels needs to be done now. Bo starts pushing himself upright, too.

"You can stay a while if you want to," Luke offers. "Only takes one of us to do the laundry."

Oh, no, there will be none of that. Luke up there by himself working out how whatever's on his mind is the biggest and best reason Bo's got to go back east now and leave him behind. And then, to firmly root the notion into the gnarled old twists of logic that run through that overworked brain of Luke's, his cousin will make the tremendous sacrifice of doing all the laundry, just to prove that he's still taking care of Bo, even as he's cutting him free with a surgeon's precision.

"I'm coming with you."

He does his best to stick close to Luke for the rest of the day. Precarious line to walk between being near and crowding the man, especially when his cousin's idea of personal space is about twice the size of any regular human being's. But he manages to revolve around that flaming ball without ever quite getting burned, through those activities his cousin seems to perform in lieu of chores, then on through dinner. No television, and Luke seems antsy to get on his computer for a little while, so Bo leaves him to it. Heads out to sit on the porch for a while, because the stars are still his favorite thing to watch each night, and there appear to be more of them here than he has seen since they used to run moonshine by the light of those tiny points in the sky. Besides, if he's out here, it's not like his cousin can go sneaking off without him knowing.

Not that Luke would – if the man wanted to get away from Bo for the night, he'd just walk right on past him to the Jeep, get in it and go. Oh, there might be a fistfight somewhere about the halfway point of the driveway, but if Luke wanted to go, he'd be gone. No sneaking required.

Clearly he doesn't, and not only that, he apparently has no desire to let Bo go disappearing either. After a while, Luke's there, at the screen door and calling to him.

"Ain't you cold?"

Freezing.

"Yeah," he admits. "It's pretty out here, but dang cold."

Luke holds the door open for him. "Come on in then, and let's get to bed."

It's a good thing he's as tired as he is, from long days of driving and short nights of sleep, or he'd be giving his cousin what-for over declaring bedtime and lights-out. And odds are that fight'll still happen, but he pushes it off until tomorrow night. He follows Luke in and watches as his cousin closes and locks his door. Interesting; it's more desolate on this plot of land than it ever was in Hazzard, the antithesis of Bo's city apartment, and yet somehow the safe feeling of a small town has not followed Luke here. Doors never got locked back at home, regardless of the fact that the old Duke homestead got broken into many times. All right, so often enough it was the law of Hazzard doing the breaking, but Bo would bet this cabin's never been illegally entered, even by friendly enemies, and still Luke's locking up. Must be a habit learned by living alone.

Their bedtime routines are the same kind of staggered that they were last night, with Bo getting ready first. At least, if he winds up in his own sweatpants when he might have preferred Luke's, he gets the trade off of being able to use his own toothbrush.

And when they're both washed, changed and lying in the pitch black of the bedroom, there's that unrested quality to his cousin again. Not tossing and turning, that's not Luke's subtle style. Just a sort of motionless anxiety, translated across the telegraph wires or their minds.

"Luke," quit thinking so much, or tell me about it, maybe just settle down, could be what he plans to say. Never gets that far because the name alone brings his cousin to him, over him, on him. No hesitance tonight, no vulnerable breathing, just lips on his, preventing perfectly logical words from escaping.

And it shouldn't be surprising really, that the man would choose this method of escape from his thoughts; used to be he fought through nights that followed on days like this. Boar's Nest brawls and then the finishing touch of time spent with girls under the stars on the banks of Hazzard pond.

He should put a stop to this, protest against what's happening here. Should, but he's not going to, not with the way his body's already arching up against the one above his, not with the way his hands are exploring parts that firm body that he's never gotten around to touching before in all the years they lived together, not with the way Luke's kisses have already taken him away from rationality. Not with the way he wants this so much more than he wants a stupid conversation about how they shouldn't, not with how he wants this more than he's wanted anything, ever.

The thing of it is, Luke's impossible.