The Loud One

He doesn't want to sleep exactly. Not really, more like rest. Let his body recuperate, and if a few minutes pass that he's unaware of, that would be all the better.

If Bo would shut up.

"Hey Luke?" he says again, might be the second or third go-round, always timed exactly to match the moment that he's just getting peaceful.

"Mmm?" he answers, because he's awake, because he's heard his name spoken. Same stupid mistake he's made all his life of sharing space with Bo Duke. One fine day he'll learn to ignore the man.

"I want to ski." Of course he does. Right now, most likely, he reckons he wants to bounce up and resume exerting himself. After all, it must have been a good three minutes since he was gulping down air like he'd run a marathon. (And maybe what they'd done came close to a marathon after all. It's not like they're exactly kids anymore.)

The previous request was to stay up here a little longer so they can hike more of the land. Clearly blisters from a couple of days ago have already healed over and old iron foot over there thinks he's up to walking all the way back to Hazzard. Or maybe skiing there.

"No snow," Luke points out.

"You said we could go north."

He'd said no such thing. "I said we'd have to go north." If they wanted to find any snow at all, and he couldn't attest to its condition when they got there. Could be that man-made stuff that doesn't do much more than slush around under skis and isn't anything to go learning on.

White expanse of nothingness – powder, they call it here where they get enough frozen precipitation to give it multiple names based on texture – in front of him, no sign of human interference in the pristine landscape. Weightless flight, but he feels the side-to-side sway as he slaloms his way down—

"Hey Luke?"

"Yeah?" If it comes out a little grumpy, he can hardly be blamed. One more hey Luke while he's resting his eyes and letting his mind drift (but not sleeping) and he's going to be forced to find one of their haplessly discarded socks just so he can ram it down Bo's throat.

The man could learn a lesson from the fire, crackling quietly now as it burns down. Providing heat without asking to be entertained or conversed with in any way. Soon enough their sweat is going to dry, and the chill of the hardwood floor will seep its way through their skin, but for now the flames are keeping them quiet company.

"We need to stay here through Friday. We can leave Saturday if you want."

He yawns his lack of concern over the subject, and considers how much effort it would take to unstick his hand from Bo's belly skin, where it's currently resting, and lift it up to cover the man's mouth. Might get himself bitten for his efforts, but then again, maybe the loud man whose shoulder his head is resting on would finally get the hint.

"And we have to go out Friday night." Fingers start to move around then, form where they've been resting on his back. Up into his hair and threading their way through in a way that's as distracting as it is relaxing. "All right?"

"Fine," he mumbles, because Friday has no particular meaning to him other than he knows it's not right now, and has nothing to do with anything important. Like letting his body tick down, and his eyes rest (but definitely not sleeping).

He gets kissed for that, just a quiet press of lips against his forehead, reward for being an agreeable boy. Reminds him of Aunt Lavinia, how she'd take him aside after some kind of altercation or other – with cousins or at school – followed by the wrath of Jesse. There were words then, about how he was loved so very much, and that was why she and Jesse worked so hard at bringing him up right. Because they wanted him to be the best Luke he could be. You understand, don't you sweetheart? she'd ask, and even if she hadn't made a lick of sense, he'd nod his head, just to see her smile. She'd bend then, kiss his forehead and say—

"I love you, Luke," comes through the fog of half-sleep, and whether he actually manages to echo it, or whether that part's a dream, he can't be sure.

He shifts, gets constricted. Pushes against the resistance to unstick his face from the skin below it.

"Sorry," gets mumbled at him as he frees a hand to rub at his eyes. "I just wasn't ready for you to move yet."

Yet. The fire's down to embers, the skin on the back of his arms has begun to prick up into goose bumps, and his stomach seems to think it's well into afternoon without any solid food having been offered to it.

"Bo," he complains, because even if they've loosened enough to let him get an elbow under him, those long arms still hold him in a remarkably snug grip.

"What?" Such a sullen sound to it, a little boy halfway to a sulk already about the toy that's going to be taken from him, and Luke hasn't gone anywhere yet.

Palms on the floor now, shoving himself up, and Bo's grip finally loosens with a huff. On his knees, and he offers a hand, but the four-year-old that his cousin's channeling is too busy sulking to care.

"Do you think," Luke asks him, as he gets his feet under him. Sore thigh muscles, and he wonders how much of a limp Bo will have picked up in that left leg that never did seem to be able to keep pace with his right. He offers a hand again, as soon as he's stable on his feet. "You could behave if we took a shower together?"

There it is, the grin that's brighter than the fire ever was, melting out of a pout that Bo's face has already forgotten. Hand fitting firmly into his, letting Luke bear the brunt of his weight, loose-limbed like he doesn't have any muscles to pull himself up. Stumble-step when he's about halfway there, and yeah, Bo can behave himself. It's right there in how he gets up like a camel, slow and careful, one leg at a time.

They really should go into the bedroom first to dig through the dresser and closet for clean clothes. Socks and boots because the floor is still plenty cold at this end of the cabin. But then there's the way Bo's stretching muscles and pretending not to. Acting like he's just walking, when it's perfectly clear that he's favoring that left leg like he does after a hard run or long walk from the law. Warm water seems more important than clothes for now.

It's funny how, following on the awkward way Bo climbs over the chipped edge of the old, porcelain tub, they both resist the urge to rub at what hurts him. Long, lean muscles that never did seem to catch up with the growth of bone underneath, prone to knotting up. Both of them pretending that Bo isn't hurting, both of them knowing full well that he is. Instead of breaking the tacit vow of silence on the subject, he nudges Bo to be directly under the warm spray, letting the residual splashes suffice for his own bathing needs.

"Luke," Bo says, somewhere around the time he's wearing a layer of soap on his chest, oddly reminiscent of a ruffled tuxedo shirt. The kind of thing only Bo Duke would manage to make look cute. "Your lease. Does it say it has to be you that lives here?"

Strange question. "What, you thinking of taking my place?" Which would only be entirely counter-productive really, Luke heading back to Georgia and leaving Bo behind with no real purpose for being in Montana, just shivering his way through the spring and well into summer. Then there's the fall right behind, and come late October, when his lease ends, there'll be plenty of snow. Which the man did say he wants to see, but that's only because he hasn't yet experienced the way it piles up in these parts.

"No," he answers, turning sideways to wash the silly bubble shirt off his chest. If this means that Luke gets splashed in the face, well, Bo doesn't even notice. He leans against the tile and out of the secondhand water spray until the rinse cycle completes and Bo settles into his next wash cycle. "I was just thinking, if the realtor isn't going to find another tenant, maybe you could."

Sure, why not? Hell, maybe whoever the Forest Service transfers into his team leader position will want to live here and then his replacement will be complete. Sounds like a hell of a lot of fun to him, making sure that Luke Duke gets entirely erased from this corner of the country where he's spent fourteen years imagining that he's done something of value.

But the suggestion is offered in good faith, with no malice intended. So he just nods his head to acknowledge what he's heard.

"You ain't getting clean over there in the corner, cousin."

Luke shrugs at that. "I'm getting half the water and plenty of leftover soap," he points out. "And I wasn't near as dirty as you to begin with."

Bo disagrees; it's all there in the way he looks down his nose. Too close, always to close, making Luke tip his head back. But then, it seems to work for Bo, this crowding nonsense. Gives him a chance to wrap on arm around Luke's neck and the other across his back to pull him directly into the shower's stream. Nice thought, poor execution, the way there's suddenly water blinding him.

"Bo," he complains, pulling back enough to rub at his eyes with thumb and forefinger.

"If you closed them, that wouldn't happen." Excellent advice, sounds just like something Aunt Lavinia probably taught him back in nineteen sixty-two or so. But before he can let loose his tongue with incisive commentary on how Bo's grown up to become a middle-aged woman, there are conciliatory fingers pushing his hair back from his face in some attempt to redirect the rivulets dripping from it away from his eyes. The hands linger there, weaving through wet strands, and it's interesting how fascinated with his hair Bo seems to become when it gets wet. He half wonders whether he ought to let his cousin scrub the shampoo through it for him, but dismisses the idea as foolishness.

"Bo," he asks as he reaches back for the bottle. "Why do we got to stay until Saturday?" Seems to him like his cousin ought to be standing on one foot and then the other, impatiently waiting for him to hurry up and get them out of this cold place where there's nothing to do but snipe at each other. Where Bo cooks and looks after him like a housewife, patting him on the head when he's had a lousy day (or holding onto him while all the world spins at his feet, too dizzyingly for him to want to put a foot down for fear of dropping into a ravine); this is no life for the action-lover in front of him. "And where are we going on Friday night?"

Those hands drop to his shoulders then, thumbs on his chin to keep him facing forward.

"Luke, I love you." There it is, a second chance to echo the words back at Bo, but it gets interrupted by a kiss. "Now shut up."

As if Luke is the loud one.