Chapter Text
Joe hated him.
He hated him from the moment he first laid eyes upon him in that saloon when he leaned over at the bar, casually sipping his drink and sticking out his backside like that, looking like a fucking guardian angel of the desert or something – if an angel could ever be a poor suntanned hard-boiled guy in his best years with dark hair on his forearms, large rough hands and a cigarette hanging from his lower lip.
He hated him a bit more for every time that he managed to outsmart Joe so easily, for every time he managed to put them back into prison, for every time he just smiled at Joe’s threats like he didn’t even fucking think Joe was capable of doing what he was saying, and for every time he showed up at Ma’s place like he belonged there too, like he was part of their family or something! Joe hated the thought above anything else, hated the feeling in his stomach, the way Luke was sitting back in the rocking chair like he was daring Joe to off him right there in front of Ma. He hated him when Luke saved his life, hated him when they were stuck in a collapsed mine and Luke was so calm about all of this when Joe could feel his heart so fast and high in throat. It just wasn’t fair!
And oh, did he hate him fiercely in that mine when he realized for the first time in his life that Luke was twice as tall as him and Joe’s head reached right up to Luke’s hips! He’d hated the heat in his cheeks, hated the small space they had, hated that there was nothing he could do to escape this torture.
Now, in the dark of night, with Luke laying in Joe’s bed, exhausted, half dead and bruised to hell and back, Joe sharing a bed with Jack for lack of anywhere else to sleep, he hated himself. Why had he done this? Why had he felt ice cold dread in his stomach when he’d seen Luke go down, why had he not been able to just leave him there? Every normal criminal would have done it, would have left his worst enemy to die in the dust of the road side!
But not Joe Dalton.
In the middle of the night, he crawled out of the shared bed, making sure that Jack wouldn’t wake, and tiptoed over to his own bed with Luke in it, the blanket pulled up to the collarbones and the arms lying on top of it. The cowboy was fast asleep, his breathing even, but laboured as if pumping air into his lungs, raising and moving that tortured arch of ribs was painful.
For a while Joe stood next to the bed without movement, just watching the rise and fall of the ribcage that he could just so make out in the darkness. How had he let his life run like this? How was it that after years upon years of fighting, Joe’s life seemed to revolve around this one poor, stupid bastard? Why had he let it go this far?
Only when Luke stirred did he realize that his hand was lying on top of Luke’s chest, feeling the steady thrum of the heart and the rise and fall of every breath. He pulled it back as if burned.
Luke blinked into the darkness with confusion. What had awoken him? But then, he turned his head to the side and noticed an all too familiar silhouette. The sight did not scare him, rather he felt a spark of joy upon seeing Joe; the oldest Dalton had refused to show himself for most of the day, only coming into the house when there was food, ignoring Luke’s existence and disappearing outside as soon as the meal was over. And frankly, Luke was dying to ask him why the hell he’d saved him. That just didn’t make any sense! They were enemies and Joe wanted to kill him, making sure to let him know at every opportunity how much he hated him. Now though, he was quiet, not saying a thing at all as he stood by the bed his heavy gaze upon Luke. He could feel it, even though he could not see it, for the darkness concealed everything but the silhouettes.
“Do you always stare at people when they’re asleep?”, Luke whispered conversationally.
“Just making sure you’re not getting any stupid ideas like dying in the middle of the night just for the heck of it”, Joe answered. He sounded as tired as Luke felt, but that did not stop either of them from going for a verbal spar instantly.
“Don’t you worry, I have no tendencies to die just like that, even when waking up to that face of yours.” The last part might have been a bit harsh, but Luke didn’t care. There must be a reason for Joe to be here!
“That’s unfortunate”, Joe answered “I would have loved to see you die of fright.”
“Maybe another time, I’ll see what I can do”, Luke said sarcastically, as he raked his brain for a good way to ask the real question. But no idea came to mind, and so: “What’s your plan now? You’ve decided to take me along, got Jack to stitch me back together and Averell to feed me. You wanna see me dead so badly, yet the moment you get an easy opportunity, you don’t? And that’s been the, what, third time you pulled this off?”
It was the night that clouded the minds and opened the hearts, for when Luke asked this question, Joe did not lash out in anger at the audacity. Instead, he was quiet for a moment.
“You’re alive only because I wanted it so, cowpoke, don’t push your luck. You’re our prisoner now, you’ll do as we tell you or I’ll put a bullet between your eyes. And my plans are none of your business”, he then grumbled.
Luke couldn’t help but smile, not because he did not trust Joe to make good on his threat, but because of the way he spoke. It was one of those moments when his voice was dark and grumbling, the way that told Luke he was thinking hard. Not that either of the two of them were thinking overly hard at the moment, they were both gloriously sleep deprived and tired enough to fall asleep at any second.
Luke opened his mouth to make another sharp, cocky comment, but then, reason caught up with him and he thought that he should probably stop teasing Joe, seeing as he had no way of defending himself at the moment. He could barely move with the injury on his right leg and his ribcage feeling frail like an old building with stone arches still holding, but crumbling and wooden beams threatening to break at any moment. Not that Luke was worried that he’d die of the injury, he was lucky, after all.
But oh, was it fun to rile Joe up, to see how his face turned red in anger or embarrassment, to see his fingers balling up to fits and unfolding again, wishing for a gun or to punch something, yet barely ever making to hurt Luke. It wasn’t like Joe was not strong enough, he was a Hercules for a man of his stature, easily able to subdue a man twice as tall and broad as him. And a good shot on top of that, showing off his skill to shoot a perfect hole into a coin or two thrown up into the air. Yet, when offered with the opportunity to shoot Luke, he didn’t. But why?
“If I’m your prisoner, why don’t you tie me up? I could just leave, you know”, Luke asked, relishing in the feeling of a pointed look thrown at him in the darkness. Surely, Joe was also raising his eyebrow at him in that devilish way that only ever meant trouble.
To his surprise, Joe shot right back: “Why, can you get up or something?”
And of course Luke had to prove it now. That was exactly what Joe had wanted and he watched with satisfaction as the cowboy struggled for a while, his breathing laboured and bitten-off grunts of pain leaving his mouth, but not managing to sit up or get out of bed. When Joe had had enough, he pressed a hand to Luke’s chest to push him back into the pillows. Finally, the cowboy gave up, Joe feeling the burning gaze upon himself as if daring him to make fun of such weakness.
Joe couldn’t help but grin broadly even though he knew that the darkness concealed it. “Don’t mean to be rude, cowpoke, but I don’t gotta tie you up if you can’t even get out of bed on your own. You ain’t going nowhere any time soon.”
But verbally, Luke was anything but injured, quickly firing back, “Then kill me already, like you’ve always wanted to. Or do you not have the guts?”
“Of course I got the guts!”, Joe hissed angrily. “You’re just… more useful to me as a hostage for now. Afterwards, will still kill you!”
Silence settled over them and once again, the night worked her magic, for Luke felt the hand still pressed against his chest, right over his heart. It hurt to breathe against its weight and its warmth was almost searing. Luke suddenly remembered Jack’s shoulder pressing against him and finally, he had an answer; yes, Joe Dalton seemed to be warmer than his brothers, downright hot to the touch. Or was this just this weird thing where some half of humanity seemed to cool down in the night, while the other half fired up as if they had to keep not only themselves but three other bodies warm as well?
When Luke looked down at the hand on his chest, trying hard not to seem all too interested, Joe pulled it away.
And Joe too, felt the mood of the darkness. “I still hate you, you know. Just cause I saved your life doesn’t mean shit changed about that”, he said, his voice low, almost soft and Luke was glad that the hand was no longer lying over his heart. “I will kill you, in time. But we’re gonna do it right, not when you’re down there in the dust of a random road, barely conscious. You’re gonna heal, and then we’ll meet man against man.”
In the dark of night, these words were not a threat, but a promise; a truce.
With a suddenly dry mouth, Lucky Luke answered: “Deal”
***
As soon as Jack had walked around the corner of the house, he turned to face Joe, his arms crossed in front of him and his eyes scrutinizing. Joe raised an eyebrow at him, silently demanding to know what was going on. It was never a good thing when Jack wanted to speak to him in private, but he could not think of anything in particular that his brother wanted to talk about. If he was about to explain that having saved Lucky Luke and having brought him to their hiding place was a bad idea, he would have done so in front of their two younger brothers. So what did he want to talk about?
“I’m not stupid”, Jack declared suddenly.
Joe’s second eyebrow rose. “Glad you noticed that. Anything else you want a well-done-stamp for?”
He was really not in the mood for backhanded comments and hidden critique – something Jack liked to do when he feared Joe’s anger, which in turn only angered him more.
Jack ignored the comment and continued with a pointed look: “And I ain’t blind either.”
Oh. Oh shit. So that was what he wanted to talk about. Joe unconsciously took half a step to the side, broadening his stance as if he was about to start a brawl.
“I don’t know what you mean”, he tried anyways. What was he to expect? Would Jack judge him for it? Try to get rid of him, take over the family in his stead? This was Lucky Luke after all they were talking about. Only God knew how Ma would react should she ever catch wind of Joe so much as even liking men like that. How likely was it that she would set him out into the streets, disowned, shunned from the family and without a single penny to his name?
Jack sighed. “Come on, Joe, let’s not do that again. I saw the two of you in there earlier, when you were talking. I’d have to be blind not to see how much you were itching to take his hand!”
“I was not!”, Joe growled, starting to feel nervous. Jack had yet to make his own opinion on the matter known, but he feared that it was not going to be a good one. Shit, what was he supposed to do? They weren’t in prison anymore, haven’t been in months, he couldn’t just rationalize it away by saying something stupid like there were no women or something. “And if so, what do you care? You got a problem with that or something?!”
Jack shook his head. “If you want him, I ain’t gonna stop you”, he said, looking at the ground as if there was God knows what to see. And Joe almost believed him. Almost, except they were brothers and Joe knew that tone in his voice, well concealed but still there, one that he couldn’t quite place just yet.
“That’s not what I asked, you idio-”, he growled, but cut himself off midsentence. The thing with being brothers and doing literally everything together was that they also knew each other so well that sometimes they couldn’t even have a thought without the others knowing of it, be it by their eyes or the look on their face. The same was true right now. Of course Jack sounded a bit disappointed, a bit jealous, of course he would not look him in the eyes and say it! Joe pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fuck!”
Jack actually flinched at that and peered at him with big eyes as if he was worried that Joe would start with the brawling after all. But that was not on Joe’s mind right now.
Of course it had to be just their luck that they both liked the same person. That is was a guy did not surprise Joe, he knew of his own inclinations and had always suspected that Jack was at least in part the same.
And things could never be easy being a Dalton, apparently not even this. Joe’s first instinct was to make sure to claim what was his. But if Ma ever found out that he robbed one of his brothers of their (potential?) lover, she would fucking kill him. This was not one of their little disputes that they could resolve before Ma found out; she would get to hear about it at one point or another and she would rain hell on Joe for doing that to his baby brothers.
There was only one solution to the whole problem and though he knew that he was going to hate himself for it later, he swallowed thickly and said: “I’m not gonna have you play some hopeless romantic. Go ‘n’ tell him you got the hots for him.”
Now it was Jack’s turn to raise his eyebrow sceptically. “Right, like you’re not gonna explode the moment I try that. Thanks, but no. I can do without your jealousy.” He did not mention that he wasn’t even sure if he wanted to tell Luke about any of this. Everything was still fresh in his mind and he wanted to think on it for a while before he considered acting upon it. Shit, he didn’t even know if he really wanted more than a casual fling from time to time – no matter what his heart was whispering oh so treacherously, he was a Dalton and had a reputation to uphold.
“My jealousy?!”, Joe screamed, perfectly proving Jack’s point about him exploding. “You think, I can’t keep my word, or what?”
Jack was wise enough not to answer that question and just shrugged nonchalantly. “What’s the other option?”, he wanted to know. “Let him decide?”
The question calmed Joe considerably and as it was a habit of his, he started walking in circles, his thoughts a whirlwind.
“Does he even like guys?”, he mumbled. To his surprise, Jack nodded confidently. “How do you know that?”
Now, Jack pressed his lips together and gazed to the side, a look of that kind of embarrassment on his face people tended to get when they were talking about their sexual adventures and Joe felt his stomach drop.
“Jack”, he drawled warningly, “You tryna tell me the two of you-? When?!”
“The night after that one time I almost drowned”, his brother answered, adding defensively, “Just to repay my debt!”
“You’re a Dalton, and Daltons don’t repay something like that”, Joe grumbled. This was terrible news. He could already feel the jealousy crawling up, eating away at his guts and giving him heartburn.
“Bullshit”, Jack answered, crossing his arms in front of his chest, “you’ve done it before too. With Jesse.”
Joe paled. “You know about Jesse?!”