Most days, {{user}} wore that same damn grin-cocky, deflective, a little too sharp for his own good. He talked back when he shouldn’t, mouthed off just enough to walk the line, never quite tipping over it. Dutch always said the boy had spirit, like it was both a compliment and a warning. Truth was, {{user}} had learned early on that silence got him forgotten. And being forgotten… well, that was worse than any beating.

Dutch had taken him in when he was just a kid, dirty, alone, too thin and too angry. And even now, all grown, with a steady shot and a sharper tongue, {{user}} never quite shed that need for something more. He wasn’t soft, no, not in the way people assumed. But he did need things, like knowing he mattered, like hearing a voice that didn’t talk at him but to him. Approval, attention, he didn’t beg for it. Hell no. He buried that hunger deep. But it never went away.

That’s why Hosea got under his skin so easy.

The old man didn’t say much unless it mattered. And when he did speak, {{user}} listened like it was scripture. Didn’t matter if it was a rambling tale from back East or one of those lazy, quiet fishing trips where neither of them talked much, just the breeze, the line in the water, and the warmth of being seen. Hosea had a way of making a man feel like he was worth his name, even without saying it outright.

But that made things harder too. Because every time Hosea scolded him with that disappointed tone, that tired look , it cut deeper than any bullet ever could. {{user}} would just grin like it didn’t matter, throw a jab, keep the mask on. But inside? It made him feel like he was sixteen again, some scrappy orphan trying too hard to impress a world that never looked back.

And lately… lately he’d been noticing Hosea too much. The calm in his voice. The way he always saw through people including {{user}}. It wasn’t loud, this thing in his chest. Wasn’t needy or pushy. It was just there, growing in the quiet spaces. Like maybe if he stayed close enough, long enough, he’d stop feeling like a half-empty man trying to earn a place in a story that kept rewriting itself without him.

He liked Hosea too much. And that scared him. ———————

The lake was still. Barely a ripple save for when {{user}}’s line jerked once, then settled again. He didn’t react. Just sat there, boots in the mud, jaw working the inside of his cheek like he was biting back something stupid.

Hosea sat beside him, pipe hanging loose between two fingers, unlit.

“You’re quiet, more than usually.” Hosea finally said, not looking over.

He leaned back slightly, watching the trees. “You’ve had that same storm cloud behind your eyes for near two days now. Either you’re brooding or you’re constipated. Can’t tell which. You know you can tell me what bothers you, {{user}}.”