Fandom:	Houston Knights
Series:	Other Authors
Rating:	NC-17
Pairing:	Joe/Levon
Archive:	Starwinder's
Title:	Sunrise At Sorona
Author:	Glo
e-mail:	Goglow@mailcity.com
Standard Disclaimer: Houston Knights belongs to Jay Bernstein and Michael Butler and Columbia Pictures. No copyright infringement is intended. This is fan fiction, written out of love for the shows. I am making no money off this. I have no money so please don't sue me. Any original characters who may appear in these stories are the property of the author.

Sunrise At Sonora
By Glo

Joe studied the crooked profile of his partner in the faint dawn's light. Lundy was concentrating on the road in front of them. They'd been driving since yesterday, switching off behind the wheel and napping. Stopping only for gas and toilet. Levon looked tired, Joe knew he probably looked the same.

The convicted felon they'd been sent to pick up at Sonora was a mystery to them. It would've been easier to take him to the nearest airport and fly him into Houston. Somehow his lawyer had convinced a judge that the man had a fear of flying. Crazy world. Sonora was too small to have much of a police force, certainly insufficient to detail two officers to escort a prisoner all the way to Houston. So here they were, all the way from Houston, to pick up this loser, turn around and head back to Houston. Seeing a lot of empty country in the meantime.

The radio was silent at the moment. They had the windows open in the red Jimmy, the still cool night air streamed in and through the double cab. Not like yesterday afternoon's heat. Heat that stole your breath and flattened your feet. Made your head ache and lungs burn. The air conditioning in the truck had had a real battle to keep the interior livable.

So, now, Joe was awake, he'd slept for about an hour. He hadn't moved since he woke, tired still but not sleepy. He found the creeping dawn light that back lit their cab to be almost mystical. Levon, his partner, Levon Lundy, was revealed in this light. A quiet, worn man. Hewn thin and bare of all pretense in this brazening light. The crow's feet at the corners of his eyes cut sharply, the occasional gray hair shimmered among the blonde locks that curled and tangled at the nape of his neck. His long neck. The lips were dry and pressed close with his task, driving steadily down a straight empty highway, through a barren landscape.

Joe LaFiamma let his eyes trace the pattern of sunburn and pale skin across Lundy's forehead, the divide from the Stetson he habitually wore. It sat in a rack above them now. His cotton western shirt, a small check pattern in white and gray, seemed to blur into the landscape beyond him out the side window, leaving the vibrant face floating there in space. Joe had to fight a sudden urge to reach out and trace the profile with his fingertip. He knew, too, that once Levon realized he was awake, he'd get some cryptic remark or down home attempt at humor or some demand to announce his wakened state so as Levon could get a break.

That last thought triggered guilt in the former Chicago policeman. Levon did look tired. He could take over now, give him a break. From what he could see of the odometer, they were close to Sonora now. Joe shifted slightly, a quiet signal that he was no longer sleeping. Then, he waited.

The Texan, who'd shared his life as a partner for more than a year now, flicked a quick, assessing glance at the darkly handsome Italian slumped beside him. He's been awful quiet. [See he's awake now, wonder why he ain't said something.] There were times when the brunette didn't ever stop talking, it seemed to Levon, but other times when you couldn't pry a word out edgewise. They'd had a peaceable enough ride so far, so was there a problem now? He gazed straight ahead, puzzling out his partner. The horizon was clearer now, the sun, rising behind them cast the Jimmy's shadow long to race ahead of them down the highway. Faint still but growing stronger. He was starting to see hills to the sides again now, low brush, fencing now and agin. Big sky, empty, but no longer dark. The stars had faded.

With an internal sigh, Lundy finally spoke. "Want to talk about it?"

Joe was startled out of his dreamy contemplation of Levon's high cheekbones. "Ah, about what?"

"About whatever it is that's got you playing possum over there."

"Oh. Nothing really, just watching the dawn, don't do that too often."

"Thought you wuz up early for your run and workout afore work every day?"

"Yeah, but that's not the same as sitting here just watching it. When I'm running, I got to watch where I'm going to."

"Umm."

"You need a break now? I can take over."

"Naw. Almost there. In fact," Lundy paused as they crested the long slow hill they'd been climbing for sometime, "looks like we are there." A small route sign on the side of the road, showed they were on the state highway. Just past it was another small sign, announcing their arrival in Sonora, Texas.

Joe straightened and looked ahead in the early dawn light. It was a small town, not even a city really. He had the directions for the police center and read them off as Lundy slowed their vehicle to look for street signs. They were already well down the main street. Turned out that the station was only one block over, easy to find.

The surprise was that the prisoner had been shifted out of his cell yesterday in anticipation of the pickup, and promptly fell down a flight of stairs at the courthouse. He was now under guard at the local clinic, awaiting ambulance evacuation to the hospital at San Angelo. He would not be going back with the Houston detectives.

Lundy and LaFiamma listened to the apologies of the police chief. He explained that in the rush to get help for the prisoner and to arrange the new transportation, no one remembered to notify Houston and so the two detectives had continued all the way out to Sonora without warning that the trip was wasted. Neither man's face revealed anything they simply listened. Then Lundy asked to use the telephone and reported in to HPD. The night staff, still on duty, recorded his report and told him that they might as well turn around and start back.

Flames of pink, scarlet and orange were dragging across the sky now, building brighter and higher as the top rim of the sun's disk cracked the sky. Lundy got back behind the wheel and started up the motor. LaFiamma had offered to start the drive back but Lundy's look froze further comments on Joe's lips. Lundy was in a dangerous temper, the fiery Texan looked ready to do serious damage to something or someone. To Joe, this was just another example of how frustrating life was in Texas. But to his partner, it was obviously a mortal wound, a deep insult. He almost laughed, then suppressed it, figuring Lundy just wouldn't understand.

He settled back to Lundy-watching. It really wasn't such a bad pastime. The fine features were tense with anger at the moment, but this was not an unknown emotion for the brunette to see there. Fact was, Lundy was almost always angry at something, often at Joe. LaFiamma quietly dug out their sunglasses from the glove compartment. With the sun directly in his eyes now as they headed back east toward Houston, he decided Levon would need his too.

The silently proffered sunglasses were accepted and now masked those wonderful and surprisingly brown eyes. A brown-eyed blonde. If he was a woman, Joe would have been all over him, ah, her, by now. There was a twitch down south. Uh-huh. Looks like it didn't matter too much that this brown-eyed blonde was male, his body was interested. Joe crossed his legs and let his hands rest in his lap.

Now that his eyes were shaded, he could enjoy studying Levon even more intensely without the other knowing it. Joe's eyes traveled down the cowboy's lean frame. Settled on the other's belt buckle and the tight jeans bulging beneath. Oh, yes, that was a bulge, not just a small mound, that was a definite rise.

Joe looked ahead, out the windshield. The sun was one quarter of the way up now. It was fiercely bright, scattering the colors outward, those closest to it now washing out, while the ones further away still deep and blush in the new day's light. The air seemed to glow. Joe decided it was the dust in the air, catching the probing morning light. He looked back at his partner, now bathed in that golden light. The man seemed cast in gold, from his glorious pale yellow hair to his warm complexion, to his aura. Joe believed in auras. Was pleased to see Levon's aura flare rose and peach, for the first time, in this magical light, this wonderful transforming sunrise.

Without hesitation, he shifted until his body was right next to the Texan's. He let one hand move comfortably down on to Levon's right thigh. He felt the body beneath it tense then relax. His hand moved on its own now, brushing the denim as it headed toward Levon's knee. Then back, stroking the inside of the thigh now. The man beside him had begun to breathe rapidly, to tremble. Joe turned his head and put his lips to the nearby ear. "How 'bout we get off this road and watch the sun come up the rest of the way? Be easier to drive once it's higher."

Levon nodded, but the action was jerky, a poor imitation of his usual crisp moves. He pulled them off on to the wide shoulder of the road and stopped the truck, turning off the motor. He had not spoken since before the hand had begun its journey of exploration.

Carefully now he placed his hand on top of the intruder, not to discourage it, but rather to show he knew what was happening and, mebbe, welcomed it. He leaned back in his seat, let his head rest on the back of it. Tipping his face up, he exposed his neck, the pulse strong and visible. Yep, it was time for this to finally happen. He'd been patient, waitin' fer nearly a year now for the brunette to wake up to the possible 'them'. Yep. It was time.

Joe let his head fall onto the strong hard shoulder there beside him. This was the way love should bloom, with the birth of a new day. He let himself feel the warmth of the new sun on his face, even as the last of the cooling night breeze whispered across his skin. His hand was covering Levon's heavy cloth-covered erection now. He felt Levon slide an arm up the seat back and then on over Joe's shoulder, to grip it and hug the brunette closer. Lundy still faced the rising sun, though his head tipped now to rest against Joe's. Levon's hand strayed up Joe's neck and began to play, then, with Joey's thick, dark hair, slowly, carefully brushing it back from his forehead. The loving touch said that Levon was just fine with this gentle metamorphosis of their partnership. They'd never done too well with words, so Joe said nothing now. Just touched and felt, and let the sun come up.

The End