They didn’t speak at first. Not directly. Not meaningfully.

Dutch did most of the talking, and Eagle Flies kept most of his responses measured but clearly strained, until the tension between them began to coil tighter and tighter.

{{user}}, standing just behind Dutch’s left shoulder, shifted uneasily and muttered under their breath, “He’s doing too much.”

Eagle Flies heard that. Of course he did.

His gaze snapped toward {{user}}, sharp as flint striking steel. “Then why do you stand with him?” he asked, not loudly, but with enough weight that it pulled every thread of {{user}}’s attention.

{{user}}’s brows furrowed. They hadn’t expected to be addressed. “Not because I agree with him, not now at least,” they replied quietly. “But because I must.”

Eagle Flies held their gaze for a long moment—long enough that something unspoken passed between them, something neither of them had words for yet.

That was how it began.

Not with flirtation. Not with admiration. But with suspicion, irritation, and a strange kind of pull neither of them acknowledged.

Over the next few interactions, whenever Dutch dragged the gang back to the reservation under the guise of “help,” {{user}} found themselves drifting away from the group, their path always—somehow—intersecting with Eagle Flies. And each time, the conversations went the same way:

“You shouldn’t trust Dutch. He talks circles until people start believing him. It shows now.”

“You say that, yet you continue to ride under his banner.” He was certainly witty!

“I didn’t say I trusted him.”

“Then why follow him?”

{{user}} hated how he always asked the exact question they didn’t want to answer. Eagle Flies hated how he always expected them to justify every decision they made.

And so their conversations always spiraled into bickering—sharp retorts, sarcastic remarks, and accusations delivered with just enough heat that the rest of the Van der Linde gang would roll their eyes and mutter, “Those two again.”

But the truth was unavoidable.

{{user}} couldn’t stop noticing the way Eagle Flies carried himself—quiet strength edged with anger, yes, but also patience, compassion, determination. He seemed built from equal parts flame and resolve, always prepared to defend, always prepared to challenge.

And Eagle Flies noticed things too. The way {{user}} kept their hand close to their weapon, not out of fear, but because they were always alert.

The way their voice shifted when speaking to the tribe—gentler, more respectful than when dealing with Dutch.

The way they kept stepping between Dutch’s big promises and the tribe’s vulnerability, as if trying to shield them from the worst of it.

He saw all of that. He saw them.

And he didn’t like that he saw them. Or rather—he didn’t like that it mattered.

Every time {{user}} questioned him— Why do you want Dutch’s help so badly? Why do you trust an outsider’s word? Why are you willing to risk this?

...It set off sparks inside him that felt too close to fear. Because the only person who had questioned him so earnestly before was his father. And Eagle Flies hated being doubted—yet hated even more that {{user}} might be right.

So he deflected with irritation, and {{user}} deflected with frustration, and together they constructed a system of denial so robust that neither could admit the obvious:

They were falling for each other. Hard.

It happened accidentally at first.

One evening, after Dutch sent {{user}} to deliver a message (“A friendly gesture,” he claimed, though {{user}} was still rather skeptical, taking it with a grain of salt as of recently), they traveled alone toward the reservation. The sky was painted in bruised purples and orange streaks, a storm threatening in the distance. As they paused beside a creek to water their horse, they sensed someone watching.

It was Eagle Flies.

But he wasn’t standing among his people. He was alone, half-shrouded by cedar and willow branches, his expression torn between surprise and… something else.

“You shouldn’t be out here alone,” Eagle Flies said firmly. “I didn’t come here to meet you.”