Author's Note: Me again!

I'd warn you that this one's different, but it'd just sound like a broken record. So I'll give you a 'just the facts, ma'am' lowdown. This started as a what-if: what if the boys never got caught on that fateful moonshine run? And the more I pecked at that idea, the more it mutated -- into this.

Which turns out to be an AU story which borrows heavily from canon. It's rough and dirty, might burn if you swallow it too quick. And not for everyone, just like moonshine.

Bottoms up!

Chapter One - Letting Things Fly

February 1985

It's the scar that tips him over the edge. Could be it actually starts with the way Daisy's fluttering around the house, kitchen to bathroom and back, occasionally lighting in other rooms to tidy away nonexistent dust motes.

"Feet," she's been reminding them, punctuated by the occasional swat, belong on the floor, not on tables. She's even got the audacity to swipe a cookie right out of Bo's hand. "You're getting crumbs everywhere." Which is a physical impossibility, what with the way he never got a chance to bite into the thing. "Besides, they're for the guests." Guests. Fancy name for Enos and his stand-in parents, Rosco and Lulu. What with Enos' folks being gone now, and Lulu's ripe-on-the-vine maternal instincts, it's the perfect arrangement.

Except there aren't enough cookies in all of Hazzard for that bunch, and no one would ever notice if Bo managed to scarf one of Daisy's down. Besides, it seems to his memory like Miss Lulu's liable to bring her own bonbons, and probably couldn't care less about homemade chocolate chip cookies. Certainly she won't appreciate them half as much as Bo does. Of course, she'll probably love the silly, purple-flower-covered mugs that decorate the top of the old coffee table – their handles are too tiny to accommodate four fingers and a thumb, and they don't hold enough liquid to quench even part of a thirst. Which is fine, Daisy's going to put tea in them anyway, and Bo's got no use for the hot, brown water that only has any flavor when it's full of sugar.

Luke's across the room rolling his eyes, most likely at Daisy. They've tried to help her prepare the old farmhouse, but she's shooed them in here and sat them down like little boys with muddy feet and an itching desire to make a mess of her floors. And that's just foolishness; it's been dry in the Southeast this whole winter, and even if it had been raining outside, he and Luke have been stuck inside here with Daisy all day. No chores to be done anymore, no livestock to feed, no crops to check. Banished to a small square of the house as punishment for past offenses, apparently. Not like the Duke boys of old. "Sit up straight," comes the reminder from where their shapely cousin is scrubbing the shine right off the kitchen sink.

For all that Daisy's teenaged-girl-on-her-first-date energy starts it, it's the scar that makes it impossible to ignore. Not a particularly big thing, it doesn't even cross the full span of Luke's wrist. Just sits there on top of his skin, puffy and white. It's got to be a few years old by now, the way it's so well healed over. Probably prone to sunburn, and Luke had better be careful down here. Not that February is a time when Hazzard folks tend to get a lot of sunburn, but Luke there has been in the frozen north for a dang long time. He'd probably be in shorts right now, complaining of heat exhaustion and spending time with his own long shadows out there on the porch, if Daisy would let him. But no, she's got them caged here in their best jeans and button down shirts (country boy clothes he's gotten out of the habit of wearing), told to sit and stay and forget the rest of their tricks. At least until the guests of honor arrive, then those well-trained Duke boys will be allowed to shake hands.

All the same, Georgia's sweaty enough for the Montana boy that Luke's become. He's rolled up his sleeves, leaving that white pucker to peek out from underneath, providing an ugly reminder of a time when they shared everything, when he knew each part of Luke. Bo can probably still list off the cause of all the marks on Luke from their younger years, but that thing on his arm—

"Where'd you get that?" Bo asks, pointing to his own wrist. Luke's too far away, sitting across from him on that old piano bench, for Bo to touch the offending blotch.

"It ain't nothing," is just Luke being Luke. Nothing can hurt him, not enough to matter. Bo watches his cousin play with the folded fabric of his shirt, likely considering rolling that sleeve right back down and buttoning it. Which would make sense, it's too cold for a normal man to be dripping with sweat like Luke is right now, and no one else would be acting like it's a perfectly hot June day, instead of mid-winter. But fixing his shirt would only be hiding what Bo's already seen. "Just a burn."

"Well, yeah," Bo finds himself agreeing to the obvious; it was his own foolishness that allowed Luke to be intentionally dense. Out of practice for getting worthwhile information from Luke Duke. "But where'd you get it?"

"Not where you think," Luke says, still above any notion that it was ever painful. "Over the grill, cooking for a staff picnic." Makes a face about that, the embarrassment or the foolishness, or maybe Bo for asking in the first place.

He ought to laugh at the absurdity. His big, tough cousin, facing down death in the form of wildfires every day, never seems to get a scratch. Just like their younger days when Luke used to take to the outside of the car as often as the inside, tossing an M-80 or three at revenuer's tires, reminding the law of Hazzard why it was that Dukes never got caught on a 'shine run. Never held on with more than a couple of fingertips around the doorframe, offering danger a laugh for its efforts to get at him. Hold her steady, Bo, he'd say, then be gone. Banging, popping, and crashing would follow, then Luke would be back at his side with a dirty chuckle in his ear about how Harvey really fell for it this time, and Rosco ought to know better than to help a revenuer. He never congratulated Bo on his driving (held the car so smooth over ruts and bumps that Luke never even had to stumble out there) and Bo never said a word about Luke's bravery. Didn't have to, they could read each other's minds.

Which is how what ought to be laughter at Luke getting burned by something as mundane as a staff picnic turns to melancholy, reminds him how years of routine, driving laps for no other reason than to get to the end first, haven't been fulfilling. Makes him consider all over again what Jesse would have wanted for them, what he was trying to tell them all those years ago about family.

"Luke," comes out without him even meaning for it to. It's not a complaint, not asking for anything. Maybe just regret popping out from every pore of him, like the acne he suffered from back in high school.

"Bo—just don't," is his charming cousin's response.

June 1974

"Hold her steady, Bo," was the command. "Left at the fork."

He's young yet, his Uncle Jesse had reminded him before they set out into the dark, fog thick as honey, dripping-hot night. Navigating by fuzzy starlight, a skill he hardly remembered being taught, it was so long ago, since honed by a couple of years spent figuring out those same stars from the other side of the planet. No moon, perfect night. Too bad for old Harvey Essex that he chose tonight to get lucky on the old moonshine trails of Hazzard. Silly revenuer didn't stand a chance.

Bo might have been young, but he had as many years on him as other men Luke had trusted his life to, men with less skill at their specialties. For all that the kid was fresh out of school, he'd gained more feel for a car than most men twice his age ever got. Luke would be as safe on the roof of old Tilly, when he got all the way out there, as he would be in his mother's arms. If he had a mother he could remember as more than the scent of lilacs.

"What're you gonna do, Luke?" came the question from inside the car, and maybe it was more of a complaint. Bo always missed the best parts of these things, what with the way he had to keep his eyes peeled for danger out in front.

All the same, Luke had no time for explaining, and Bo sure as heck wouldn't benefit from distractions. "Never you mind," Luke called back into the window before pulling his right knee up to get his boot solidly settled on the window frame. Out in the wind the air wasn't so stifling as down there in the car. Maybe his cousin had a legitimate gripe with all the freedom and fresh air he wasn't getting behind the wheel. Luke reached across Tilly's roof, looking for a handhold on the other side. Found his grip, wrapped his fingertips wrapped around the driver's doorframe to hoist himself up, hair blowing into his eyes. Not sure how he felt about that part, having so much hair seemed a nuisance after the easy days of quarter-inch length limits. Still, it fit in with the life he left behind for those two obligatory years, the life he came back to back in the chill of early March. Stateside farmboys with exciting night lives still wore their hair collar long, at the least. Like Bo's luminous yellow, right there glowing even in the lack of light around them. So much of that fluff around his ears that Luke was surprised Bo could hear his words as he dropped his head down over the driver's side window, yelling, "You'll hear it when it comes by. Just keep one eye on your mirror." Because Bo could manage that without missing a beat so far as keeping the car steady went.

"Huh-ha!" was the extent of acknowledgement he got from his kid cousin, just enough to let him hear Bo's appreciation for the warning.

His right hand stayed clenched to Bo's doorframe, providing stability while he pivoted around to sitting. Kept his head ducked even though he knew there were no low lying branches on this part of the trail. Gunner's instincts kept him from having a high enough profile for Harvey's old eyes to see through the windshield of that dinged up Chevy he prowled around in, hoping to nail a moonshiner's nephews in the honest delivery of their goods.

Cowboy boots lacked the traction of good, Marine-regulation footwear, but with the right, solid set of his feet, Luke was ready to let go and trust the steadiness of Bo's hold on the wheel to keep him safe. Two hands were needed for this simple, but entertaining little trick. Match out of one front pocket, quarter stick of dynamite came out of the other. Slingshot got dug out of the back and he was set. Lit match, shielded against the wind just long enough to set the wick sparkling, explosive settled into the pouch of the slingshot. From there it was simple math to pick the exact moment for letting things fly—waiting just long enough to keep his fingers attached to his hand.

The first shot rang out late, after it hit Harvey's grill and dropped to the ground. Just the slightest pitch change to that revved up engine back there, and Luke knew the revenuer had backed off. Probably trying to figure out whether the Duke boys had gone mountain-man crazy and taken to disobeying family rules and shooting at revenuers. Because Harvey knew Jesse as well as anyone in Hazzard did, and while their uncle wasn't exactly a saint, he was as close to it as an illegal whiskey-making, cantankerous law-breaker could be. Dukes revenged on property, not people, and never shot first or with the intention of doing any real harm.

Second quarter-stick was lit and waiting in Luke's hand. Precision was more important than fear, a simple lesson he thought he'd learned over there in the rice paddies and bamboo stands, weapon at the tip of his right index finger. Maybe he was getting soft out here in these nights with Bo, where he knew the enemy wasn't half as smart or sneaky as he'd grown used to. Fortunately with the likes of revenuers and Hazzard lawmen, there was ample opportunity for second chances, even third, if need be.

But the second quarter stick found its mark, blowing right in front of the Chevy's windshield. Hot white explosion, punctuating echo, and Harvey was gone. Off the side of the moonshine trail and into the ditch. Skidding crunch and bang and—

"Yee haw!" penetrated the fog hanging in the air like sweat. Bo hadn't missed the fun tonight.

Luke was still laughing by the time he slid back into the passenger window to hear Bo's high pitched giggles. He's young yet, yeah, Jesse wasn't wrong about that part. Young and fearless and more fun than a whole mess of recruits that reckoned sitting around a campfire and telling tall tales about the girls they'd left behind was a good way to kill a few hours in the dark. Not that Luke hadn't told tales of his own, but his were truer than most. Girls he'd had, and the ones that'd be waiting for him to get home. Still, none of that was half as worthwhile as careening through the dark, outsmarting men who ought to know better by now. With Bo.

July 1974

Lazy, cool float, eyes squinted down against the hot sun. Crazy way to lay, probably, exposing all his most sensitive parts to potential sunburn. Luke over there was a lot smarter than him, but then he always had been. Standing chest-deep, letting the sun have his shoulders and face if it was looking for someplace to leave its mark.

Skinny-dipping interrupted by chores, must be summer. Could be summer for the rest of his life, now. School was out forever this time, and Luke was home. Everything Bo had been wanting since that terrible fall when Luke got that notice from Uncle Sam, ordering him to report for a physical exam. Wasn't but three months later his cousin got that next order, telling him to report for induction. Scheming as ever, Luke was just too smart for the military, reckoned that taking two years of active duty in a combat zone would get him out of the rest of his six-year obligation. Worked, too, but it meant Bo's final years of high school spent worrying about a war half a world away, with only girls and moonshine runs as a distraction. The girls worked as long as they were right there, warm and soft under the tips of his fingers. Once they went back to their daddies' roofs, and the stories filtered back to Jesse about how another one of them Duke boys was up to no good, there was nothing to keep him from missing Luke. Seemed like, if he was going to deal with the wrath of an overwrought uncle, it was always more manageable with Luke at his side.

Moonshine deliveries, that was the kind of thing that worked to distract a man. Branches whipping at the side of the car, air throbbing in through open windows, bottles clanking against each other with every solid bump – it was like nothing else in the world. Even the revenuer disappeared after awhile, leaving it down to just Bo and the car - becoming one, slipping through the night with the kind of agility his long body never allowed for anywhere else. Made him wonder, sometimes, what Luke was running from over there in Vietnam, and whether it was half the challenge of a moonshine run. But he couldn't dwell on it, didn't get stuck imagining what could go wrong in some jungle on the other side of the world, not when he was racing through the swamps of Hazzard.

Running the family wares might just have been what Bo was born for; in any case there was no doubt in his mind that his primary purpose on this earth didn't have anything to do with growing corn. From seed to harvest, there wasn't much of anything he could stand about that stuff, didn't even think it was all that great for the eating. Which Dukes rarely did, what with the need to ferment it all, with sugar and yeast, then boil off the best parts. The end result was a fine swill, the kind of thing every family ought to keep in their pantry. Making it was like… well Jesse called it cooking, and Bo reckoned that was exactly what it was. The kind of thing Daisy might like doing, if the old man would let her near the stills. But Jesse had his reasons, and Bo couldn't put up a reasonable argument against them, for why Daisy shouldn't be standing guard in the woods, protecting two barrels and a copper worm against revenuers, the local law and their competition (and sometimes all three came in the same package) with nothing but a shotgun and her wits. That kind of thing was a man's work and not intended for the only one of them that Jesse figured might carry on the family line.

Which meant Bo spent a lot of time sitting on a stump, stoking the fire with ash logs, watching the works chug along, and occasionally getting sent to haul sugar up the hill or full jugs back down, an oddly welcome excuse to stretch his legs. Could have been a lab for chemistry class, for all the attention he paid the process. Seemed to his memory like he passed that class by the skin of his teeth, same way he always managed to keep from blowing up a vat or the still. Maybe Jesse got credit for keeping their livelihood in one piece; Bo was too busy remembering how Luke would scheme breaks into the process. Extra trips for sugar or meal, and on a good day, to get some copper tubing. Mash stuck and scorched while Bo wondered whether it would be any fun to make his excuses and escape for an hour or so, if it was just him alone, and Luke was still somewhere on the other side of the world.

Eventually Jesse reckoned out how little he needed Bo at the still, and left him to the delivery. Speed and danger substituted for Luke at night, and girls substituted during the days spent skinny-dipping at this same pond. And for all the things the girls had, they weren't Luke, standing over there and just letting the water cool him down while Bo glided across the surface.

"Luke," was just putting ripples in the silence between them, nothing so big as a splash.

"Mmm?" made it back to Bo, even through the water lapping up around his ears.

"Dirt track circuit starts back up in September." He had to stand up out of the water, couldn't concentrate on floating and talk at the same time. Besides, it was probably time to get some of those more tender parts of him out of the sun. "Ain't nobody we can't beat on it." Just the same old suspects from town mostly, Cooter, Enos, Dobro…

"Can't beat none of them without wheels," came the reminder from the smart one. Poking holes without offering solutions, when Luke knew damn well where this was going anyway.

"Which is why we better get to work on that." It was only their plan since back before Bo's voice began to change (seemed like Luke's never needed to – must have changed, every boy's voice changed at some point, but thinking back as far as his brain would let him, Bo always heard Luke's mature, graveled voice coming out of that smaller body his cousin used to have), building a car that could fly.

Luke laughed. Could have been mean, scolding Bo for holding him to childhood promises. Wasn't, it was the kind of laugh that mostly only got heard in the dark of night, coming from the roof of a fast-moving car. Guaranteed fun, warned of danger to anyone who dared to challenge the Duke boys. It was as good as a promise.