Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When a voice shouts to stop the wedding, Branch is not the only one startled to stillness. When the owner of the voice comes into view, something in him goes hot and cold and ragingly terrified, and he freezes. (He doesn't notice the brighter blues from singing with Poppy dull down towards the muted shades of his worse days.)

He can't- he can't do this! John Dory doesn't get to do this!

"Is this a bad time?"

He feels his ears fold down and Poppy's focus on the stranger switches over to him in a heartbeat, "Branch?"

"I can't-" he wants to turn on anger and denial, but it's not easy with her looking at him with such concern, "Please, I- not here, I can't deal with him here."

The intrigue that had been directed at the advancing... stranger... is hit by her concern and instantly subverted into protective rage. Poppy thankfully is well aware of his opinion on certain types of attention being directed towards him, and she steps forward, pressing Branch back and shifting to block John Dory's path.

"Yes," Poppy bites out, practically clipping the word with her teeth, "It is a bad time. You're interrupting a royal wedding with our new allies. If you don't have a legitimate reason to protest, anything you have to say can wait outside this town."

Branch loves Poppy more than anything. She can be oblivious and meddlesome and naive and sometimes even hurtful in her meddling, but she always does it with the genuine intent to help. And the instant she feels one of hers is in danger, this is the result.

John Dory clears his throat, suddenly awkward, "Uh, but this is really kind of important-"

"Allow me to rephrase," Poppy steps up, her hair bushing out to further block Branch from view, "Anything you have to say either will wait until this is over, or will not be heard at all."

The other trolls may not have any idea what's going on and all Poppy knows about it is that the sight of this teal wacko had nearly sent Branch spiraling, but every one of them knows their Queen doesn't get angry. She's the brightest, kindest, most forgiving troll of them all, so if she's being curt and hostile with this stranger, then that's all the reason they need to take it seriously.

The trolls starting to gather into an aggressive crescent between John Dory and the small platform tips off the Bergans that something isn't right, and Gristle glances first at Bridget, then at Branch and Poppy, "Guards," he says, "Please escort this gentleman and his..." he squints at the creature doing an odd, bounding scuttle up to John Dory's side... "...companion," he settles on after a moment, "to the Troll Tree."

"I'm going!" JD says, holding up his hands and actually looking cowed, "I'm going. Don't hurt Rhonda!"

"You're not being hurt, you're being evicted," Poppy says firmly, and both the guards nod.

"Whatever you did, Queen Poppy's not happy with you," one of the Bergans confides, reaching down and scooping up the suddenly terrified troll in a inescapable - but gentle - grip while the other leans his spear against the wall and scoops up the odd creature, holding it so it can't bite and carrying both off down the lane.

The Troll Tree is in direct line-of-sight, and even though Branch knows that nothing bad is going to happen, he can't help but be a little relieved when John Dory and his pet are deposited on the small patch of green and left there unharmed.

The wedding resumes, a little less cheerful, but the dampened mood doesn't hold because Bridget and Gristle are both just so happy.

Branch can't shake the hot-cold tangle from his chest, and he wants to go home.

Poppy shifts a little closer and takes hold of his paw, and some of the clawing edge of everything eases. "...we're gonna have to talk about this," she says quietly. "He's a Pop Troll, so I have the duty to hear him out."

She's right, and she's wrong, "I think he's here for me," Branch admits, low and scratchy like he's been screaming or crying or both, even though he hasn't been able to do much more than breathe.

She glances at him, and he looks around, but the wedding is coming to a close and what's likely to be a truly spectacular party is winding up, and no one's paying them any mind or even close enough to hear them.

"He'll tell you he's my brother," Branch says, slowly, and Poppy jolts and opens her mouth and then claps her paws over it, clearly biting back an excited something. "It doesn't feel like it, though. I have four of them - we were more a band than a family. I was pretty young, so I don't remember all that much, but the day of my first stage performance... it went bad. John Dory walked out, and by the end of the night the other three had, too. Only one of them even bothered to say goodbye. I had Grandma for two years before... you know, but I never heard from any of them after they left."

Poppy lowers her paws, "Maybe he wants to reconnect?"

"He crashed a wedding, Poppy." Bless her eternally optimistic heart, he knows from her tone she doesn't really believe it. "A Bergan Royal Wedding, even. He wanted all attention on him, and he came back because he wants something."

Poppy droops in concession, "Well, maybe at least he has a good reason," she offers, "but we'll never know if we don't at least hear him out."

Branch does not want to face his oldest brother. Just the sight of him has dozens of ugly feelings rearing up, and Poppy's paw twining fingers into his tells him she sees it. "Hey. If you want, I can talk to him alone and then tell you what he says?"

Branch desperately wants to take that out, but with how he's feeling, he doesn't think he can hold together without Poppy right next to him unless he's safe in his bunker, which this very much is not.

Poppy watches him for a few more moments, "Would you be okay in the escape tunnels? Or, I don't know, Bridget's room?"

The escape tunnels are more like his bunker, but they're in varying states of collapse and that's not safe, and they have so many entrances and not enough exits- but Bridget's room has dozens of hiding places and carefully cleared troll-sized exits, and he knows it well enough that... yeah. Okay. "Bridget," he chokes out, throat tight and hot and aching.

Poppy takes his paw and leads him away, pulling him up with her to Bridget's shoulder - where she first congratulates her friend, and then asks if it's all right to hide Branch in her room for a while.

"Of course!" the gentlest Bergan says. "Anything that might help."

"Great, thanks!"

Branch doesn't lose track, exactly, but he gets so focused on each individual moment that he can't string the memories into a cohesive whole. The next thing he knows, he and Poppy are settled under Bridget's bed, where there's a metal box with two troll-sized doors - one facing the wall and the other facing the bedroom door - bolted the floor, doors that bar from the inside but don't have key locks at all.

...had Poppy arranged for this? Maybe Bridget had done it herself. Either way, he's thankful.

It's not his bunker, but there's a bed and a candle and a table, and little windows for aeration that also bar from within, and stored water and food enough for two or three days.

Branch blinks, and something wet slides down his nose.

Poppy inhales, "Can I hug you?" she asks, and she always asks now that she understands, and never just hugs without warning.

Oh. He's crying. He also really, really wants a hug, so he nods.

It helps, a little, and Poppy lingers until he's caught his breath and his vision clears, and lets him settle into the little mini-bunker beneath Bridget's bed. "Okay. I'll be back as soon as I can, okay?"

Branch nods, and is wretchedly grateful to not have to try and face his brother's demands head-on with so little warning.

"Whatever it is, we'll deal with it," Poppy tells him. "Together."

Branch nods again, but he doesn't trust his voice, so he makes a gentle shooing gesture instead.

She hears him bar the door behind her and says one more thing to the unforgiving metal, and Branch is so, so grateful for her. "I'll be back."

Branch hunkers down in the quiet dark and tries to sort through his feelings without breaking down.

(It doesn't work.)

Chapter Text

Poppy hasn't seen Branch like this before.

She thinks she hates it.

Sure, Branch had been standoffish and skittish and angry so long, but this - this isn't a kinda-bad-day Branch, where he snaps and snarls and hides away and doesn't want to be touched, skittish and scared - this is a wrenching, awful, desperate sort of pain, the kind she knows only people you care about can inflict.

She can't imagine walking away and leaving someone as important as Branch behind.

She stops, "Oh," she says, out loud because she has to let it out somehow. It had been twenty-three years, then. Branch is only twenty-five.

This troll had left Branch, wonderful, kind, amazing Branch... and never looked back. Branch hadn't just been his brother, even though Poppy wouldn't ever leave Cooper or Smidge or Biggie or... actually, listing out all the people she wouldn't leave will definitely distract her too much. But that's the problem, Branch hadn't just been his brother, he had been a baby. Sure, she knows a lot of troll babies are pretty competent on hatching, but they're small and have no real endurance and are so very easy to hurt, even by accident. (And even if they can talk like adults, that doesn't mean they understand the same things. They haven't had the time to learn.)

Four big parts of Branch's family had left him behind. Not because they'd been separated somehow during the escape, or caught by the Bergans, or anything like that. They'd done it on purpose.

She stops wracking her brain for which band Branch's... relatives... had been, and starts focusing on that instead.

They'd abandoned Branch.

They hadn't even written.

Poppy had tried, after she'd met Branch out in the woods, to make him at least feel welcome even if a lot of people were kind of like Creek about it (and Creek had been awful to Branch, now that Poppy knows what that kind of thing looks like), but she'd been a kid, too. She couldn't take care of him, really, and she hadn't even known he'd been on his own in his lonely underground bunker until they were nearly grown. She'd only known him for less than seven whole years.

Branch had gone Grey when his grandma had died, and no matter what Poppy says he still thinks that was his fault. Twenty years he'd spent like that, and Poppy's experience had been a few minutes long before Branch had snapped her out of it, but it had been a hint. A taste. Something awful and painful and pressing down from all sides until the world was just so heavy she couldn't stand on her own, and somehow...

...Branch had. Every day, for twenty years, he'd gotten up and faced that awful hopeless bleak existence without anything but Poppy's occasional pester-sessions to keep him going.

She means that. Branch had told her, once, that had been what had kept him going in the later years. That he might just have walked out into Bergan Town one day if he hadn't known she'd notice, she'd worry, she'd look for and miss him, and he hadn't wanted to hurt anyone like that.

Which means his so-called brothers... wouldn't have.

The righteous rage blazes higher, and Poppy steps into green grass and glares into the eyes of one of the trolls that had crushed Branch's spirit to dust. "What do you want?"

"Hi, uh," he rubs the back of his head in a gesture she's seen from Branch a thousand times, and something cold settles in her lungs. "I'm John Dory, but you can call me JD. I'm, uh, I'm looking for my little brother, uh, Bitty B?"

Bitty B. Bitty B. Branch had been in BroZone!

It gets her hyped with excitement for half a heartbeat before Branch's words echo in her head.

The band had something to do with why his so-called brothers had abandoned him.

Well, that really sucks. She loves BroZone! Why did it have to be made up of her amazing Branch and a bunch of selfish... kids. They'd all been kids. JD, the leader, had been the oldest and she remembers someone saying he'd been sixteen.

Of course they fell apart under that kind of pressure, but why hadn't they just dropped the stage stuff and been a family?

Her anger fades back a little, but she refuses to let this guy near Branch until Branch is ready to face him.

"BroZone," she somehow manages to keep her voice even, mainly by connecting the fangirl mindset to the knowledge that that name is a deep, deep wound on Branch's scarred soul.

The troll droops a bit, "...not a fan, I guess?"

"Oh, no," Poppy clings to the scraps of anger and feeds them to her protectiveness for fuel, "Huge fan," she manages to curb her words, because this isn't how to find out what he wants, and he doesn't get to hear anything about Branch until Branch says so. "I'm just mad at you as a person. That's my best friend's wedding you almost ruined!"

"Oh. Right," he rubs the back of his head again, sheepish, "I didn't mean to, uh, upset anyone. I just needed to get your attention."

That wasn't an apology, and Poppy narrows her eyes, "Why are you here?"

"I'm looking for my little brother!"

"And you're not seeing him until I know why," Poppy holds her ground.

"It's personal!"

"No," Poppy scowls, "You don't get to pull that card, and even if it is a personal thing or a family matter, you tried to air whatever it is in the middle of the Royal Wedding of a formerly hostile people we have just made peace with. You could have caused a diplomatic incident, and the only reason you didn't is because both of the people getting married are personal friends of mine. If you're that careless with the safety of others, I need to know before you go getting one of my people hurt or killed!"

He pales a little, clearly not having put all that together. Poppy wouldn't have either, except that Branch is on top of planning around stuff like that before it has a chance to happen.

She stares at him, not blinking.

It takes a few seconds, but he droops a bit, "It's... I got this, a couple weeks ago," he passes her a card, and she turns it over in her hands and then reads it.

"If he's captured, how did he send this?" she asks, confused.

"I don't know, but I went to Mount Rageous, and it's definitely real. Floyd's trapped in a diamond perfume bottle with two Rageons using him as a talent source. We have to get the band back together if we're going to get him out!"

Poppy thinks about that. It doesn't make much sense to her?

"Okay, I don't get your reasoning."

"The Perfect Family Harmony is the only thing strong enough to break diamond!"

"...you can't just find the hatch and get him out that way?" Poppy tilts her head. "They got him in there somehow."

JD stops dead, arms dropping to his sides and jaw going a little slack. "...huh. Did not even think about that," he brings up a hand to rub his chin thoughtfully, "I climbed all over that bottle and I didn't see anything but the one little air hole?"

Poppy can help. She can! She can - send word to everyone that the Rageon duo Velvet and Veneer are frauds that have a troll hostage they're draining for music, and get a rescue party started.

But going through the diplomatic channels, as it were, will take a lot of time. And she's not sure what the Rageon laws are on troll rights, but giants don't often think much of trolls. Going the 'music fraud' angle will almost definitely get a response, but might end up with Floyd just changing hands to someone they think is allowed to have him or something.

"Right. I'll go talk to Branch," Poppy decides, because he's her Plan Man. "You stay here until I get back."

Not 'we'. It might end up being - she hopes Branch will want to come back with her, because if he doesn't then his family is already broken beyond repair, but she's not going to promise that because Branch has been hurt enough.

She'll help them either way - get help for them, if nothing else - but how will always be Branch's choice.

Chapter Text

Branch blinks out of his - it's not panic, but it's something - at the gentle knock that makes the whole tiny metal bunker ring like a bell.

"Branch?"

Poppy. He can handle Poppy.

He takes a deep breath and then goes over and lifts the bar to open the door and let her in, and it's a relief to see her particular shades of pink in front of him. It's less of one to see how anxious she looks.

"Poppy?" he's not sure whether to be concerned or wary.

"...so, I found out why he's here," she offers, hesitant in a way she rarely is. "Uh, your other brother, um, Floyd? He's been kidnapped, and he's being held at Mount Rageous in a diamond bottle and his music is being used to fuel those two new Rageon pop stars, uh, Velvet and Veneer."

Branch takes three seconds to parse that into something that makes sense to him and is hit by a new tangle of feelings that roll into the old ones and - Floyd. Who'd promised to come back but never had. Who might still have tried, except he'd been kidnapped. And John Dory had shown up... Branch barely remembers him, past listening to shouting between his brothers and Floyd being the one who'd always carried him away from it, tried to shelter him.

He knows, rationally, that they'd all been kids. He's run the numbers over and over and over, trying to rationalize why they'd done it, why they'd left him. Why they'd never come back, never even sent a letter or a postcard or... but in the end it doesn't matter. Floyd's in trouble.

Even if it had been John Dory or Clay or Spruce, one of them's in trouble, and Branch may have waited for them, may even still be waiting for them in some awful, crushing way, but none of that matters. He can be as mad as he wants later. First he needs them safe.

"Branch?" Poppy asks, gentle, and that's right when their Hug Time bracelets go off.

Which is honestly a relief, because he really wants a hug. He knows he could just ask because Poppy is always happy to hand out hugs, but the excuse still helps.

A few minutes pass as Branch sorts through his thoughts. "John Dory thinks we need the Harmony, doesn't he?" he asks, because that was - that was the big focus, and Floyd had said it can break diamond.

"Yeah," Poppy agrees. "I mean, I guess he could be right? But as long as we get your brother away from those people, it'll give us enough time to figure out how to get him out of the bottle."

"Right, so John's plan is to get the band back together, probably," Branch frowns, "That's - I mean, it might be quickest, but it's probably not going to work, so we need a few backups."

"I'm setting the Snack Pack on rounding up reinforcements to send to that concert that's coming up. If we haven't gotten Floyd out by then, the subtle approach isn't going to work."

"Oh, good plan," Branch leans back to look at her, proud that she's starting to think like that while still maintaining her upbeat self. "Are we sticking to the Pop Tribe or reaching out?"

"We need to start arranging some kind of treaties with the giant tribes," Poppy makes a face, "We don't really... they don't think about us, if they even know we exist, so I'm going to try and bring in everybody."

That's going to be... interesting. But she's right, they do need to do that.

"Right, right. So... I'll go with John Dory," he grimaces, not liking the idea, but liking the alternatives even less. "...and you're getting everyone else together?"

"Nope!" Poppy pulls away from him and bounces over to the table, where she whips out an incongruously large piece of paper. "First I need some lists and outlines from my Plan Man! Which I'll then give to the Snack Pack, so they can get started on recruiting help. Obviously I'm going with you!"

In retrospect... that sounds more like Poppy. "Obviously," Branch echoes, and despite all the reasons that it's a terrible idea, he can't bring himself to really protest.

Somehow feeling better, he gets to work.

Chapter Text

John Dory usually doesn't mind waiting, not after so long living basically alone in the wilds. Time passes slow, without any pressing needs to hand, and entirely too fast when something's happening. He's learned to appreciate the slow moments.

He does not appreciate them now. Floyd's in trouble, big trouble, and John wants nothing more than to get him out of it. He's the big brother. He's supposed to be the strong one, the one who protects the rest of them.

Except he hadn't, had he? He'd pressed and pressed until the pressure had broken them, and then he'd walked out. Half looking to just get away and half hoping that without the pressure, the pieces might still be put back together.

Finding the Troll Tree a withered husk eighteen years ago had him praying that they'd gotten out before whatever had gone down had happened, but believing he was the only one left.

There hadn't been any Hug Time bracelets in Grandma's abandoned pod, but Branch's stage glasses had been cracked on the floor.

John Dory had walked away and spent the next few years pretending he believed his brothers were living somewhere, safe and happy without him.

Then the whole Rockpocalypse thing had gone down, and afterwards John had heard about 'that blue Pop Troll Branch' over and over. Which had meant Bitty B, his Branch, might still be alive.

He hadn't checked. Branch isn't that rare of a name, and a lot of Pop Trolls are blue or colors that could be called blue. He'd been too much of a chicken to actually try, afraid he'd get there and have his fragile new hopes dashed.

And then that letter from Floyd, and... it sounds very much like Branch really is alive, and here, and...

And it's been twenty years. The last thing John remembers about his littlest brother is big, hurt eyes and little cyan ears drooping and that sapphire bush on top of his head folding smaller in something that might have been - unwarranted - shame.

The last thing John had heard was that the blue Pop Troll named Branch had a significant part to play in the quelling of the Rockpocalypse, and has some kind of connection to the Pop Queen.

So why hadn't he seen Branch at the wedding? The troll next to her had been more grey than blue, and the hair had been nearly charcoal - nothing like the vibrant cyan and sapphire of his littlest brother. He'd looked older than Branch would be, too, from the brief glimpse John had gotten before the Queen's hair had puffed out and blocked the sight in her fury.

(What if it's really not the same Branch? What if his baby brother died back at the Tree?)

No, John had probably just missed him. There are plenty of things to be done for and at a wedding, and he might not even have gone if he hadn't had some kind of political reason to. Even if it had looked like the entire village had shown up... well, in that kind of chaos, it'd be easy to miss someone, right?

He's worked himself up to pacing between the grass blades in front of where Rhonda is lounging, sprawled happily on her side in a way she can't do with passengers, by the time a Bergan walks up to the mostly revived - but also mostly uninhabited - tree.

Being carried by a Bergan while Rhonda was carted along by another had been one of the most terrifying experiences of his life, despite knowing about the current... truce? Peace? Alliance? He's not sure what it is, but he does know troll-eating is illegal, now. Still, seeing one walking towards him with two trolls on its hand like they're not worried at all is kind of unsettling.

It's Queen Poppy and the oddly muted troll.

John starts forward, opening his mouth to ask, when something strikes him about the troll at the Queen's side.

His colors are dull, but his face-shape is similar to John's own. He's got Clay's nose and Spruce's eyebrows and ears that are just like their mother's. More than that, he's wearing a gleaming vest made in the same style that Floyd's old favorite had been, though this troll's is clearly tailored to fit in with celebrations.

Something in his chest tightens.

He doesn't want to be right. If he's right...

"...Branch?" he asks, slow and hesitant, because if this is his little Bitty B, then - then something happened. Something bad happened. And whatever it was had lasted, because Branch has wrinkles spreading from the corners of his eyes, old stress-lines and frown lines and little hints of lines that make it look like he's got his brows crinkled together more often than not.

"John Dory," the troll replies, cool and detached and... not angry. No, whatever that is, it's not anger. It's something worse.

Any excitement he might have had at seeing Bitty B again is crushed under the weight of not having been able to recognize his brother on sight, on seeing ashen skin and charcoal hair, on seeing the roused hurt glinting out of his baby brother's stormcloud eyes.

This isn't Bitty B. This might be Branch, but he's also a stranger.

He casts about for something, anything to say, and all he finds is... "...you grew up."

It's not what he wants to say. It doesn't come close to anything running through his head, but he can't think of anything else that isn't worse.

Branch scoffs, "What did you expect? It's been twenty-three years."

John's ears fold down, shame swelling in his chest, but he shoves it aside. "Did, did the, uh, Queen fill you in?"

Branch nods once, curt. "We're in."

"Thank the-" he starts, relieved to have at least one hurdle behind him, and then he registers the actual words. "Wait, 'we'?"

Branch nods to the vibrantly pink literal Queen standing beside him, "We're a package deal."

"Uh," John looks between them, but all he gets is a slightly manic smile from Queen Poppy. "Is that, uh, wise?"

"Well, unless you want me to snap and kill someone halfway through the trip," Branch drawls, sardonic.

"Don't worry, it just means that there will be backup for when the first plan inevitably goes horribly awry and we need to make a new one on the fly!" the Queen chirps, way too cheerful about that sentence.

John drops the protest. One, she's technically his Queen, which means he should probably listen to her. Two, as much as he wants to keep it in the family... if something does go wrong, backup... might not be a bad idea.

It does beg the question as to what exactly is going on between those two, but John's on edge and Branch is clearly worse. He's not sure how safe it is to broach that topic just yet. Branch is... well, he looks... dull. Shadowed. His colors are muted enough that if John Dory didn't know what color he's supposed to be, he's not sure he'd be able to guess.

He's Grey.

By Music, what had he missed?

But Branch is moving. He's talking. He's - functional, which is more than John's heard of for other Grey trolls. He doesn't remember much about it, but he definitely remembers the ones that had gone Grey at the Tree... The Bergans called them 'rotten', because they didn't taste like happiness. If anything, eating them made the Bergans feel worse than usual.

He faintly remembers one of Grandma's friends going Grey, and she'd spent two days not moving or talking or eating or sleeping or anything, and then she'd just... died. He doesn't know if it had been the Greyness itself or if she'd... well, either way it had happened fast.

Branch is definitely Grey, but he's not like that. And given that the Queen isn't batting an eye at his color, and doesn't seem in the least concerned despite being very obviously protective of John's little brother, he's probably been that way for a while.

He's not dying. (He can't be.)

John shoves the clutter of feelings aside and stuffs all his questions down into a box that he pushes to the back of his mind. They need to save Floyd. He can try and talk to Branch on the way, but there's no time to waste.

"So," he tries to force some cheer into his voice, "This is Rhonda. She's an armadillo-bus subspecies that presents as a camper inside, and a whole lot faster than trying this on foot."

Rhonda takes an immediate liking to the Queen, licking her with an enthusiastic helping of quick-drying glitter-slime that turns into easily shaken off sparkles in moments. He considers making a joke about how she might also be marking said Queen as prey, but a glance at Branch stops him.

He doesn't know much of anything about what losing color actually means. He knows it's bad, he also knows the brief stint of Grey he'd sported himself had been terrifying but settled in minutes and due entirely to the Rockpocalypse debacle, and once everyone at the amphitheater where it had gone down had started singing together, color had returned to everyone everywhere.

So that hadn't been the same thing.

Which means he knows nothing. All he knows is that trolls at the Troll Tree who went Grey died in very short order, but he's pretty sure that was at least partly due to Bergans. (He hopes it was because of the Bergans.)

He knows it's bad. He knows it's very, very bad - but he doesn't know what it is or what it means, and when Branch had made that crack about killing someone, he hadn't really sounded like he'd been joking.

So. If his hard line is him and the Queen as a package deal, then no threats to the Queen, not even in semi-implied jokes.

They hit the road, and John doesn't know what to do when Branch pulls the Queen to the back of Rhonda's interior and they spend a few minutes talking in voices low enough that John can't make anything out. By the end of it, some of Branch's visible tension has eased, and when he looks up, his eyes are a brilliant ocean blue instead of the muted stormclouds they'd been before, and...

...John doesn't know what that means, exactly, but it's definitely something to take note of.

The Queen says something else, and Branch nods.

The pink troll rocks back on her heels, then forwards, then bounces on her toes twice and does a brief, full-body shake like Rhonda shedding water. "Alright!" she cheers, and John startles, fumbling the postcard he'd been turning over in his hands without really realizing it.

"Where to first, Plan Man?" she looks to Branch with absolute faith.

Branch turns towards the wall and yanks on a string hanging from Rhonda's interior ceiling, pulling down a roll-up covered in notes and clippings.

John stares, "Where did that come from?"

The Queen shushes him without looking, "Don't question the magic."

"This is what I have so far," Branch looks at the mess of everything that should be months of work all suddenly appearing in Rhonda like it's always been there. "John Dory, if you have anything to add, now is the time."

"Uh, right. So... I got this postcard?"

Branch looks at the picture, then flips it over. "...this is just a picture. It doesn't have a postmark. It's not even signed."

"Spruce is the only one I know who talks like that!"

Branch turns it back over, looks at the picture again, looks at the Queen - vibrating in place - and sighs. "Fine. Find that sunset."

"Yes!" the Queen jumps up, pumping a fist in the air.

"Lady and gentlemen, this is your driver speaking. Give me a heading and let's get to it!"

John whirls towards the front, expecting from the voice to find a full-grown troll somehow at Rhonda's wheel, but he doesn't see anything and the Queen calls, "Tiny?" in an incredulous tone.

Branch jogs up front and looks down into Rhonda's driver's seat, the Queen right behind him. "Tiny Diamond, what are you doing here?"

"Well, Uncle Branch, Aunt Poppy, I am a man now, no longer a baby! So I'm on a man-sized right of passage to learn lessons about life, family, and maybe even love~"

John catches up and looks at the itsy-bitsy glitter troll seated in a car seat with a mini-wheel somehow extended from Rhonda's usual steering wheel. That is definitely a baby-baby, even if he's one of the precocious ones. "...are we sure we want a baby driving?" he asks, wary.

"Don't worry!" the baby troll pulls out a visibly fake ID card, "I have my learner's permit!"

Branch takes the card and glances at it, "Tiny, this says 'Adulty McManface'. And a learner's permit is for driving with supervision."

"You are supervision!"

Branch gives the tiny troll a pointed look.

"Let him drive, Branch," the Queen interjects, "It's a critter vehicle, and we are here."

Branch sighs, but there's a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth when he hands the card back, and his skin looks less like ash, gaining faint hints of greenish blue.

John doesn't say anything, but Uncle Branch, Aunt Poppy and the shifting hue of his brother's skin tell him all he needs to know about what those two are to each other. Whatever had happened to break his brother, the Queen herself had been the one to piece him together again. She's why he still has a baby brother.

"What's my heading, fellow adults?"

Branch hands over the postcard.

"Right! We are on! Our! Way!"

John Dory's throat feels tight, and it takes everything he has not to let himself cry. He has so many questions, so many, and he can't ask any of them. Branch is looking at him with a cold kind of caution. Branch doesn't trust him. Branch doesn't know him.

John is the oldest, the leader. But - Branch is a leader, and if he's reading this right, he leads more than John ever had. The Queen herself is right there.

John... doesn't have to be the one in charge.

He shouldn't put this on Branch. He shouldn't. But... by Music he's so tired of being The Leader. He doesn't want to go back to that. He doesn't want to be that troll again. And, sugardrops, Branch is more put together than John had ever been, and had gone through enough that the shadows are there, impossible to hide and worn more like a badge of honor than a mark of shame. The Queen trusts him implicitly, at her side and planning her path.

He doesn't have to be in charge. He doesn't have to fake everything being fine. He can be weak, just for a little. He can let Branch take over, let his brother and the Queen handle this, just for now. Just until they get the others.

(It wouldn't be fair, to make his baby brother look out for all of them.)

It's a guilty relief, but one so strong he doesn't fight it.

Ding!

John startles at the sound, but immediately Branch shifts over and wraps his arms around the Queen while the mini glitter troll clambers up between them, and... John had forgotten about that. Hug Time.

Tiny Diamond clambers back down to the driver's seat as Branch pulls back, returning to his previous position. The Queen quirks an eyebrow and he sighs and glances over to John, holding out a half-spread arm more in question than invitation.

John waffles between avoiding it entirely and lunging in to play it off like a joke, but Branch makes a low scoff in his throat at whatever John's expression is and bulls in to drag him into a hug. A real hug.

It feels like support. It feels like protection. It feels like everything is going to be okay.

(It's everything he's never been able to give to anyone.)

This time, John Dory does cry, just a little.

(No one calls him on it.)

Chapter Text

"Okay, this is definitely a Branch Plan^TM,," Cooper looks over the giant mix between list, blueprint, and backup options in front of him. "Wow. I would never have thought of two thirds of this stuff."

DJ Suki slams her section down next to his, and the alarming part is how perfectly the edges of the blueprinty-bits line up. "If there are giants using trolls as music-boosting drugs, then he's right, too! Poppy just sorted out the Bergan mess, we don't need a new one. Me'n'Guy got Techno."

"I'll take this straight to Mom and Dad," Cooper agrees.

"Has anyone seen Tiny Diamond?" Guy asks nervously.

There a slight pause and a bunch of exchanged glances, "...no? He's probably still mad about being a flower boy."

Guy droops a little, but nods. "He's so convinced he's a man now, even though he's only a month old..."

"It's just a phase, Guy," Biggie assures, setting a comforting hand on the glitter troll's shoulder. "Isn't it, Mr. Dinkles?"

"Mew!"

"See?"

Guy sighs, "You're probably right," he agrees, and then shakes himself, leaving a faint dusting of glitter falling to the floor, "And this is important! We can't let this turn into Trollstice 2.0: Rageon Edition!"

Satin and Chenille exchange glances, "Right, we'll take Classical," they announce in unison, reaching for the next piece of Branch's very thorough plans.

"I've got Rock!" Smidge declares, and picks up her blueprint-and-list.

"Which means Fuzzbert and Mr. Dinkles and I can go see Delta Dawn!" Biggie agrees, and Fuzzbert tips forward and the last blueprint disappears into his hair.

"All right, guys, we've got this!"

"...I'm still worried about Tiny," Guy admits after a moment's silence.

"No one in the village will let anything happen to him, Guy, and he's the most precocious baby I've ever met. He'll be fine!"

Cooper's Funk-tech communicator beeps. (They really need to get more of those. Only the varying Royals have them so far.)

"Huh?" he pulls it out and looks at it. "...Tiny Diamond snuck into the armadillo-bus and is riding with us. Don't worry, we'll get him home safely, love Poppy," he reads out loud.

There's a pause as everyone thinks about that.

"So... he's with Branch and Poppy on one of their wild adventures," Cooper tips his whole neck to one side, head still upright. "...yeah, it'll be fine. They won't let anything happen to him."

Guy Diamond lets out a dramatic, crackly breath, "That's a relief! We'd better get going! The sooner we get this mess sorted out, the sooner I can see Tiny again!"

Chapter Text

Branch is incredibly uncomfortable with the whole thing, but John Dory isn't as bad as... he'd been kind of expecting? Branch had been all of two when they'd left, so he doesn't really remember all that much. He'd been pretty precocious himself, but nowhere near Tiny's level.

Maybe the bossiness and the fighting had been things that stood out, things that... what had Cooper called it? Confirmation bias? The instances that had stuck in his mind because they were more noticeable than the rest, even if 'the rest' outnumbered the ones he's remembering?

He still has bouts of forced cheer and dumb bravado, but Branch can see through it much more easily than his eldest brother probably believes. John Dory has nothing on Poppy when it comes to faking being fine.

In public, Branch will never call her on it. He knows why she does it, and he may not like it but she is the Queen, and Pop Trolls are... yeah, he doesn't have any other description than 'Pop Trolls'. He also knows her (and everyone else's) Grey stint had left a mark that there's no erasing.

It hadn't been a huge mark, all told. They hadn't been Grey very long, and Branch still has no idea how he'd managed to snap her out of it, but... When Poppy had lost hope, around her so had all her people, and she hadn't even been Queen yet. That's always there in the back of her mind when she's stressed, when she's upset but not angry, that her people look to her for their strength, their hope.

Calling her on it in public is a bad idea for at least two reasons, one being Poppy and the other being everyone else. John Dory, on the other hand, has apparently spent the bulk of the last twenty-odd years playing survivalist with a living camper and the fifteen prior to that being a stressed-out kid.

(Branch has already forgiven him for leaving. He thinks he kind of even forgives him for not coming back, since John Dory at least had said 'goodbye forever' to all of them and hadn't left him wondering, or waiting. He's not the same kind of angry at John Dory as Clay or Spruce or Floyd.)

So, yeah, it's easy enough to ignore it when John Dory's being stupid. Even with the times he cuts himself off from saying or doing something and looks at Branch with caution in his eyes, because even if it's irritating to be treated like a skittish caterbus, at least it means his idiot brother is trying.

(It doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. It doesn't mean that being left behind, even with the brutal honesty at the start, hadn't burned in his chest less like fire and more like liquid nitrogen every day, until he was too hollowed out and numb to feel it at all.)

Poppy's the reason he hasn't cracked, as usual. Her cheer and relentless optimism and sometimes weaponized upbeat smile takes the edges and smooths them out. Tiny helps too, even if he's a little drug dealer, pushing that stupid binky. Sure, Branch is mostly humoring the precocious one-month-old, but the littlest kids sometimes know exactly how to simplify even the most complicated of things.

Outside of Poppy playing distraction and asking questions about BroZone and Branch as a toddler - which is embarrassing, but it makes her so happy to see those stupid pictures that he can't do more than grumble - to keep John Dory off his back, the ride for the past day has been pretty quiet.

"Hey, it's getting pretty dark," Branch calls towards where the cooing over - oh, gumballs, John Dory had taken pictures of the perm. "Might be about time to set up camp for the night."

Poppy materializes by his side with that teleport-like speed she sports sometimes, "Yeah," she starts to agree, right as they crest a low ridge, and then she says, "Wait," in a tone that's almost disbelieving.

The sunset has faded to twilight, but that island silhouette is very familiar, and only made more so by the literal words hanging in the sky above it, lit in silvers and blues instead of the postcard's yellows, but unmistakable all the same.

"...okay, wow, did not expect that," Poppy informs.

"You've got to be kidding," Branch mutters, and then suddenly John Dory is plucking Tiny out of the driver's seat and shoving him into Branch's hands.

"Hey!" the baby glitter troll protests.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa-" Branch curls his arm around the kid, pulling him into a more secure hold and grabbing for the seat's armrest to steady himself as Rhonda jolts and speeds up, aiming for the water.

"Don't worry!" John Dory grins and presses the armadillo-bus faster, "Rhonda here is completely waterproof!"

And then they're over a cliff.

Branch shoves Tiny onto pink hair and grabs Poppy with his freed arm, pulling her and Tiny into his chest and curling his own hair around the three of them, a few strands anchoring to Rhonda's interior while the rest wraps into a protective ball.

They hit the water with a jarring splash that knocks them around, but Branch had acted in time, his hair cushioning the worst. Poppy still yelps at the dulled impact, though, and something in his chest constricts.

"Poppy?" he loosens his arms, but the rush of something that isn't exactly water suddenly pattering against his hair has him only tightening the ball around them.

"I'm okay," she says, "Tiny?"

There's a moment's pause that about gives Branch a heart attack, and then Tiny shifts enough for him to feel it, "Whoo! That was scary! I'm sorry, Aunt Poppy, I didn't mean to yank on your ear like that."

Branch lets out a breath because that answers why Poppy had yelped, too, and more of that stuff pelts at his hair. It moves like water but doesn't feel like it, and whatever it is there's more coming. Rhonda seems to be swimming, given the motion referred through her sides, and Branch isn't letting either of them go until it's safe.

But... "John Dory!"

"Whoo!" he hears, slightly muffled by the protective cocoon, "Oh, this stuff is weird. Is this water? It doesn't look like water."

Okay, he's fine. Branch can now be angry.

Thankfully, it doesn't take long for Rhonda to find land, trundling upwards at a slight angle that feels like something solid beneath her feet and then popping open her door.

The stuff washes out like, well, water, dragging at Branch's hair and sending what feels like John Dory spinning past, and he carefully lets them down once he's certain it's stopped.

There are odd, bead-like packets filled with some clear fluid everywhere, and Branch recognizes them from one of the books he'd borrowed from Cooper's mom, though Poppy's the one who points it out first as they make their way outside.

"Oh, wow, this is water. It's the Vacay bead water - is this Vacay Island?" 

Branch sends a cutting glare towards his brother but looks around, seeing pool-noodle-like plants all around. "It looks like it," he offers, and Tiny crawls out of Poppy's somewhat bedraggled ponytail.

"I did not like that, Johnny!" he shouts across the small intervening space between John Dory and the rest of them. "Aunt Poppy could have gotten hurt!"

"Thank you, Tiny," Branch agrees. The glitter troll has his priorities in order. "Even if Rhonda was waterproof, which she clearly isn't," Branch gives John Dory a dirty look, "Driving off a cliff?"

His brother's ears fold down and he looks away, rubbing the back of his head, "...yeah, I could have thought that through better."

Acutely aware of both Poppy and Tiny right there, Branch holds back the curses he wants to interject into his next sentence, "You should have. Don't do that again."

"I'm really okay, Branch," Poppy still lets him look her over, and Tiny holds out his arms and does a twirl on her head to prove his own uninjured state.

"Yeah, we're fine, Uncle Branch. You had it handled!"

A flicker of something warm heats his chest at that. He still doesn't have words for a lot of his feelings, but this one is good. They're fine. They're safe. He'd protected them.

...they still have to find Spruce, though, and being out on the beach at night at their size is just too dangerous. The jungle of odd plants might not be much better, but at least there's more shelter - and if this is Vacay Island, there aren't a lot of predators. A few types of spider and sand lizards, if he remembers right.

"We need to get out of the open," Branch starts ushering them towards the jungle, "If this is Vacay, we're on the opposite side as the village. It would probably be quickest to cut through the jungle, but we should wait until morning. There aren't a lot of predators on Vacay, but most of the ones there are come out at night."

He ushers them all under the towering trees and finds a series of much smaller plants with broad leaves, testing the stems for moisture.

"Wow, these plants are nuts," John Dory prods at one.

Branch can't disagree, but he's mad enough that if he opens his mouth without something important to focus on, he's probably going to start yelling. Poppy hates it when people fight, even when she gets it, and Tiny shouldn't be exposed to that at his age no matter how capable he is - so he just grunts in acknowledgement and settles into something approximating his usual evening routine from pre-Bunker days.

The plant stems really do look like pool noodles, and they feel kind of like them, too, but cutting one open proves the sap inside fills every 'bubble' to the brim. It's thin, closer to oil than water, and flicking some to the ground before striking some sparks on it with his flint proves it's at least not flammable.

He sniffs it and wrinkles his nose. If that stuff's edible, it's definitely not palatable.

Which knocks it down about six steps on the 'possibly useful' scale. Unless it's good for waterproofing? Then it's only five.

A glance around shows no immediately obvious dangers, but he's still not leaving Poppy and Tiny on their own. This is probably Vacay Island, and there aren't all that many threats listed, but 'not many' isn't 'none'.

"Here, Tiny," he hears Poppy say, and turns to head back over.

"Thanks, Aunt Poppy!" Tiny cheers, though he sounds like he's more tired than he wants to let on.

"Get some rest, Tiny," Branch rolls his eyes and studiously ignores the fact that he has a brother anywhere in the vicinity, the brief routine having calmed him somewhat but not quite enough, "You've been driving all day."

By which he means 'awake', since the armadillo-bus had done a lot of the steering herself.

"You need to eat something, too, Branch," Poppy pulls another wrapped bar out of her hair and passes it to him.

"Thanks," he takes it and sits down, shifting his shoulder and arm to show she's welcome if she wants to lean.

She gives a very quiet squeal and scoots closer, tucking into his side with Tiny on her lap.

The jagged coil of heat between his lungs smooths a bit, and Branch looks around and... John Dory is standing in Rhonda's doorway, watching them with a look that Branch knows from himself.

...Branch is angry, still. So angry. But. He doesn't... he doesn't want to do anything to disappoint Poppy, and he knows she just wants him to be happy. He knows she thinks that he should have a family, and where before she'd been determined to provide that all on her own, now she's starting to hope for more.

And... he doesn't know John Dory's story. He doesn't know why his brother had stayed away. He doesn't want to hear it, yet, either - if it's a reason that he can't make sense of, he's going to get the kind of angry that makes him feel sick and out-of-control all at once, and he can't... Floyd's in danger. He can't be angry like that until he's sure they're all safe.

So he sighs and waves his brother over to his other side, though he definitely doesn't invite the same closeness. He does take another bar to pass over when Poppy offers it, and sets about unwrapping his own.

They're not the ration bars he makes to store in the Bunker, but they're similar in shape and purpose - Poppy doesn't make them to last nearly as long, and the ones she makes are more berries than anything, but the sharp tang when he bites into it is comforting.

"Thanks," he murmurs, the tight coil in his chest loosening as the heat finally eases. It's not gone, but it's less, and it's easier to breathe.

Poppy smiles up at him and cuddles close, "Always."

Yeah, Branch thinks, tipping his head to rest against hers and smiling a little when Tiny finishes off his food and tucks down between them, already almost asleep. She really does mean always.

If there's one thing he doesn't have to doubt, it's that Poppy won't ever leave him by choice. Not like his brothers had.

(That doesn't mean she won't be taken away like Grandma.)

Chapter Text

The first few days after John Dory's unexpected appearance, Floyd had clung to the promise of help like a lifeline, desperately hoping for a way out.

Velvet had just shattered that hope and replaced it with welling, terrible dread.

John Dory hadn't shown up by coincidence, hadn't been checking out a couple new pop stars and spotted his brother while being a sneak or gotten lost in the vents and found him by sheer accident.

He'd been baited.

Floyd grits his teeth, "You leave my brothers out of this!"

"Aww," Velvet leans down over him, the purple diamond of the bottle distorting her features and coloring everything an eerie shade he's almost gotten used to. The light that filters through leaves even his own paws looking off. "Worried? At least with us, your talent won't go to waste anymore! BroZone really could have been something, you know? Instead, not one record got out until you'd already disbanded!"

Of course not. They'd been trapped. The biggest show they'd ever done was Bitty B's introduction, and that had maxed out seating at ninety trolls - almost a third of the Pop Troll population at the time. It had been a disaster, but - no records made it out because none of them had made it out, not until after they'd broken up.

...Bitty B. Stars, but the thought of his baby brother ending up in one of these bottles hurts. He won't. He can't. He probably doesn't even remember Floyd: he'd only been two.

He hopes B doesn't remember him. The last thing he'd ever said to his baby brother was a promise he hadn't kept, and Branch forgetting him is a much better outcome than him having waited.

It's a thick, heavy sort of feeling that clogs the air in his lungs, and Floyd almost wishes he could just... give up.

He can't, though. It's not that he doesn't want to - a huge part of him does, wants to just lie down and never wake up instead of spending every day locked in this tiny bottle with Velvet and Veneer slowly draining the life out of him spritz by agonizing spritz.

He just can't. Literally can't. John Dory's coming, whether Floyd likes it or not, and he can't stamp out the hope that comes with that knowledge.

Crimp is sympathetic, but she - he thinks the weird crinkled-paper-shred creature is a she, at least, and she hasn't corrected him - won't actually help him. He doesn't know if she's just scared or if it's something else, but part of him is starting to resent her.

Veneer isn't as bad as his sister, at least. Sometimes he doesn't use Floyd's 'talent', if that's really what they're taking from him, when it's just a rehearsal. Velvet doesn't care as long as no one's recording.

But Veneer won't stand up to her, either, even though he's got doubts.

"Veneer, please," Floyd tries, when Velvet leaves in a huff and the younger Rageon is still holding the bottle. "She wants to hurt my brothers."

"We're not hurting you," Veneer protests, "We're just taking a little talent, that's all! It's not like you were using it, right?"

"Every time you use this thing it feels like you're ripping me apart!" Floyd snaps, unable to help it. "It hurts so much, Veneer! You can't pretend you're not slowly killing me!"

His hands are a little transparent, catching the light in ways they shouldn't.

Veneer looks torn for a moment, but Velvet sticks her head back in the room, "Hurry up, Veneer! We've got fans waiting for autographs!"

"Right!" Veneer tosses Floyd's bottle towards the dressing table, and the impact sends him bouncing helplessly.

As soon as he's gone, Crimp creeps out of hiding and carefully tips the bottle upright. "...are you okay?"

Floyd doesn't really want to snap at her, she's so timid, but she could sneak him out so easily if she just tried. Mount Rageous has laws on troll-napping. The consequences aren't much worse than pet-napping, but the consequences for music fraud are pretty bad, and all Crimp would have to do is take the bottle and bring him to some kind of authorities. He's still a person, which means his word would be accepted in court and as long as she told the truth, those two would be behind bars and he'd be free in days at most!

But she won't.

"No!" he laughs, because if he doesn't he's going to cry. He gestures with a paw that's slightly see-through towards his much more see-through feet, "I'm dying. They are killing me, Crimp, and they want to do the same thing to my brothers. What about this could possibly be okay?"

She curls in on herself a little, "Oh," she mutters, and jumps off the table to go hide somewhere, and Floyd tries not to hold it against her.

She's scared of everything, but mostly Velvet. Veneer is scared of his sister, too, so there's probably good reason for that. But... Velvet wouldn't be able to cause any real harm if they'd just stand up to her! Floyd may be three inches tall without counting the hair, but Velvet isn't some incredibly powerful, skilled fighter! Against someone her own size, she's nothing without everything she's stealing from him!

Frustration boils in his chest, and the only release he has for that is to scream or sing. Screaming never does anything but make his throat hurt, though, and even if it doesn't help, at least singing means his voice is still his.

"This is for all the lonely people..."

Chapter Text

Morning dawns bright and early, and - as is expected when Poppy actually sleeps like a normal troll - Branch is the first one up. By the time she's aware enough to really be called 'awake', he's already managed to make coffee (there's absolutely no way he'll give her any) and he twitches an ear towards her when she shakes her head and reaches up to find her hair tangled around a weird, spongy twig. Attempting to sit up properly proves the twig is still attached to the plant.

"Um." Usually, Poppy has great control over her hair. Not so much when she's sleeping, and she doesn't have fine enough control to move it an individual strand at a time. Yet. She's working on it, okay?

Branch sees her predicament and huffs a quiet laugh, "Here," he says, setting down his mug and padding over to help. "Let me."

"Thanks," she smiles in gratitude as Branch gently untangles the twig and gives her a hand up, then glances around. John Dory is still leaned up against Rhonda's side, completely asleep, but aside from a few flecks of silver glitter, there's no immediate sign of Tiny. "Where's..."

Branch lifts a hand to part his hair just a little, and there's Tiny Diamond, curled up all nestled in dark strands.

"Aww," Poppy covers her mouth to muffle a squeal. "So cute!"

Branch rolls his eyes and lets his hair close around the baby glitter troll, but he's still smiling. "Come on. I'll get you something to eat."

Branch is the best cook she knows. He's only kinda decent at baking, but regular cooking? He's great when he puts in the effort to try.

He proves it again in ten minutes, "Oh my gumdrops, this is so good," she half-closes her eyes, savoring the first bite.

Branch's ears flush a deeper blue, and she takes the moment that he turns away in pleased embarrassment to look him over. He looks... better. Not great, not nearly as good as the previous morning after they'd first gotten to the wedding before his brother had shown up, but better.

She watches as Branch grabs another plate and pours a fresh mug of coffee and goes to shake his brother awake, pushing the mug into JD's hands and waiting until he's taken several sips before even making the attempt to hand off the plate.

JD blinks several times and lowers the mug, looking around with a startled kind of frenzy before relaxing again, "...morning?" he asks, voice lilting into a question.

"Uh-huh," Poppy agrees, keeping a bit quiet so as not to wake Tiny.

"Right," the older troll scrubs a fist across his eyes and then gulps down the rest of his coffee fast enough to make Poppy wince. After a moment, he looks back up to notice the plate being held in front of his nose.

"Oh," he adds, and takes it, "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," Branch says, and Poppy knows that tone. She eats the last bite of her food and gets up, setting the plate down, and goes to stand next to him. That's the tone he uses when it's not a 'you're welcome', it's an 'I don't want to talk about it', and those are two very different things.

Because Branch cares. She knows he does. And she wants this to work out for him. And also their Hug Time bracelets are going to go off in less than a minute, so if he wants a hug he'll take the excuse.

He does, and she hugs him a bit harder than usual, "I'm here for you," she tells him, quiet and just for him to hear.

His grip tightens for a moment before he kind of sags a little, leaning into her hold, "Thanks, Poppy."

And then he straightens back up and shakes it off, moving about to gather up the empty dishes and give them a quick wash, poking through Rhonda's sparse cupboards until he finds something to wrap a more portable meal for Tiny whenever he wakes up, leaving JD mostly to his own devices.

Poppy pads over to dry the dishes and put them away, washing the newly empty cooking pan while she's at it, and then JD's plate. He hovers a bit awkwardly, "So, uh... we should probably get going?"

"Aaand- done!" Poppy closes the cupboard and flicks the latch shut, "Everything battened down?" she calls over to Branch, pitching her voice to carry without being too loud.

"Yeah," Branch agrees, and Rhonda churrs and starts trotting down the beach.

"You're being pretty quiet," JD cocks his head, folding his arms in a way that probably isn't actually meant to be confrontational but sure looks it. "There a reason for that?"

"Tiny's still asleep," Branch informs, "I'd like it to stay that way as long as possible."

Branch's older brother winces, losing the aggressive stance, "Right. Sorry," he lowers his voice. "Rhonda can get us around to those buildings right quick, at least."

Branch nods and Poppy contains her excitement. This is for Branch, and he isn't even sure about it yet, and BroZone or not, every brother in that band had abandoned him.

That douses the worst of the glee. It's like Creek. Creek had been her best friend. She'd loved him a lot. She'd thought maybe one day they'd be more than friends, in that distant 'Dad would approve' sort of way more than anything immediate. He'd always been calm and supportive and known just what to say.

In hindsight, that was part of the problem. It's how he'd managed to get Branch so upset in just a few words, even when what he was saying didn't sound too bad to the rest of them. Because he knew just what to say to either comfort or upset exactly the person he was aiming for, and no one else.

So it's kind of like Creek, because even if they hadn't done anything quite as bad as trying to get everyone eaten, they'd still done something really bad. To Branch, who is the absolute best, and shouldn't ever feel like he's worth less than everything, but instead he always thinks he's not worth anything, and Poppy hates that.

And now she knows part of why. Siblings are supposed to be friends that never leave you behind. Family is supposed to be forever, and instead Branch's brothers had all left and not come back and Poppy has the unhappy suspicion that if not for the thing with Floyd getting kidnapped...

Well, she doesn't think that John Dory would have come back at all.

Branch definitely sees it, too, which is worse. She'd wanted him to get more hope, not make him lose some of what he'd already had. But, even if JD had shown up just to get to know Branch again, he's not a cute little toddler with bright colors and starry eyes. Branch is an adult troll who'd spent twenty years all alone and almost his whole life waiting for people who hadn't ever come home.

All right, the excitement is definitely gone.

In its place rises determination. If this is going to have even a chance to work out, then she needs to make sure all five brothers get out of this mess alive and willing to talk to each other.

It doesn't have to be perfect. Nothing ever is, nevermind family. They just have to be willing to try. And Branch is - she can tell just how much he wants this to work, he's just scared to believe it might. She can't blame him for that, either, because getting your hopes up only to have them dashed down and shattered all over again... it's worse than getting them broken the first time.

She'll do anything in her power to keep that from happening.

And the first thing to do today is make sure they find the brother they're looking for - and make sure he doesn't do something to upset Branch any more than he already is.

They find the right beach and get out of Rhonda, heading over towards the building that says 'Bruce and Sons' on a large sign, with a banner beneath adding 'and One Daughter'. It seems like a good place to start asking around, but the distinctive notes of a Pop Troll starting to sing echo out from the water, and there's a troll on a troll-sized surfboard, purple hair flowing over his shoulders and back instead of sticking up the way most trolls keep it, an impractical but very eye-catching choice.

The way he sings and moves, Poppy can absolutely see where the 'Heartthrob' title had come from, but right now she's got more important things to worry about. "That's him!"

"It sure is!" John Dory agrees, and Spruce hops into the water, starting to turn his surfboard back towards the waves for another ride. "Spruce! Hey, Spruce!"

There's a pause, then the troll sighs and hangs his head, one arm propping his upper body out of the wacky bead-water by his surfboard. "I knew this would happen one day," he mutters without looking at them. "Look, if you want an autograph or something-"

"Spruce, it's your brothers," John Dory interjects, boisterous and slightly shy of laughing. "Come on!"

Spruce twists around, sees the three of them, and lights up. JD starts to grin, but Spruce's focus slides right past him as he reaches the shallows and scrambles out of the water, "Bitty B!"

Poppy darts in front of Branch, trying to head off the incoming... whatever it's gonna be, but Spruce doesn't even seem to register her presence as anything more than an obstacle. She doesn't have long enough to get into a good stance, either, so she's knocked aside without the much bulkier troll even seeming to notice.

Poppy hits the sand much harder than she'd expected, her foot twisting beneath her, and she wants to cry in frustration because this is only going to upset Branch more!

She stuffs the impulse down, though, because if she starts crying Branch is going to absolutely flip, and she's only a little winded, so she can still make this better!

You know.

Hopefully.

Chapter Text

It's like watching caterbus wreck, John thinks, wide-eyed as the oldest of his younger brothers knocks Poppy aside in his haste to get to Branch, whose hackles are visibly up just from the 'Bitty B'. The pink troll hits the sand with a soft 'oof' just as Spruce grabs Branch and tosses him into the air.

Branch twists like an angry cat-beast on the fall, but Spruce catches him anyway, starting to swing him around, and John sees a brief flash of glitter in dark hair and thinks, Oh, Brother, in a kind of horrified irony.

There's a set of motions John can't make out that end with Spruce staggering back, wheezing, while Branch rushes to kneel by the Queen - who's pushing herself up a bit shakily.

"Poppy!" Branch reaches to steady her, visibly uncertain, and she clutches at his arm for a moment as he helps her sit.

"Aunt Poppy!" the glitter troll tumbles out of Branch's hair, frantic in echoed alarm.

"I'm okay!" her tone's upbeat, but Branch frowns at her.

"Poppy."

There's a pause, and the Queen sighs, shoulders slumping just a little, "...okay, I might have twisted my ankle. But it's fine, really!"

"Let me see," Branch demands, no-nonsense and brisk, and John chances a glance at Spruce, who's shock is fading into a guilty wince as he catches his breath.

Branch proves he knows what he's about as he looks over the proffered ankle, taking off the Queen's knitted sandal and feeling around the bone, "...it's not too swollen, but we should probably get some ice on it," he informs, relaxing slightly but still visibly concerned. "Hang on, I'll make you a brace."

And then, despite having had a whole baby troll in his hair, he somehow manages to produce two thin slats of smooth metal and a roll of bandages, which become a tidy brace for the Queen's ankle in roughly six seconds.

Tiny puts a paw on his aunt's knee, "You're really okay though, Aunt Poppy?"

She smiles, "I'm fine, Tiny."

He gives her a suspicious look and then turns his attention to Branch, and Branch smiles, too, soft and just a little amused, "It's a mild strain, Tiny. I only want her wearing the brace until tomorrow to be safe." He turns a stern look on the Queen, "And no antics until the brace comes off, okay?"

He waits until the Queen pouts and nods, "I'll be good."

"Good," he nods back.

And then he twists around and pins Spruce with the sharpest glare John has ever seen.

"Well," John mutters, even though he should definitely keep his mouth shut, "I think you may have made an enemy for life right there, Spruce."

Spruce takes a step forward, ears lowered and eyes wide, "I'm sorry, Bitty-"

John waves frantically, making the 'cut' gesture and shaking his head. No Bitty B! None!

Branch slants part of the glare his way, but it's only for a second before he zeros back in on Spruce. "My name is Branch," he informs in a voice like a frosted dagger.

Spruce stares for a second, and right about then is when Branch's colors hit him. Bitty B had always been closer to John's cyan than Spruce's more aquamarine shade, but right now Branch is a dim ash-blue, and his hair isn't even close to the bright sapphire it had once gleamed. It's not even navy. Instead, it's the color of slate, dulled and dark and bristling out at the tips in his anger.

His eyes look like stormclouds again, and John Dory feels his own ears flatten. Branch looks dangerous.

Spruce takes that in and his ears fold all the way against his skull, "Branch..."

"You hurt her," Branch snarls, and it honestly looks like he might bite.

"Yeah!" says the baby glitter troll, putting bitsy hands on his hips, "You tell him, Uncle Branch!"

Spruce is no longer a thin teenage troll, but the way he curls in on himself still makes him look small, "I didn't mean - I'm sorry."

A pink paw settles on Branch's arm, and half the tension drains out of him when he turns his head to see the Queen's soft smile, "It's okay, Branch. He was just excited."

"Yeah, well, he should've thought of that before ditching for twenty-three years without so much as a letter, shouldn't he?"

That hits like a punch, and John feels it as much as Spruce's step back says he does. John had tried to go back, but the Troll Tree... until Spruce's postcard, he hadn't believed anyone had gotten out. He'd even wandered the forest for a few days in a haze, half-hoping to find someone and half just moving for the sake of motion before Rhonda had taken things into her own paws and carried him back to the Neverglade Trail.

It wasn't until this last year he'd heard about the Pop Village, and even then... hoping had seemed like too much. And then the letter from Floyd, implying that the others were still alive...

There's a slight pause, and then the Queen nods, "Yeah, that's... pretty bad," she admits. "We still need him, though."

Branch makes a low, frustrated sound and gets up, turning to offer the Queen a paw and pull her up after him. He steadies her so she doesn't have to put any weight on the wrapped ankle and Tiny climbs up and re-situates himself in Branch's hair, his glittery little face sticking out between dark strands.

Spruce clearly has no idea what to do or say, and John tries for a distraction that still also is a legitimate topic to bring up. "Okay, Spruce-"

"It's Bruce, now," Spruce tells him, and John blinks.

"Huh?"

"Yeah, I wanted to put the whole 'boy band' thing behind me now that I'm a dad, so I changed my name."

John squints. It's... Calling Branch Branch instead of Bitty B had definitely kept the tensions down, there, so the name thing's probably important, but... "That's gonna take some getting used to," he mutters, loud enough to be heard on purpose. "Right. Okay, Bruce, we need your help."

"You know what, I'm just about done with dancing around this whole thing," Branch cuts in. "Bruce. Floyd's been kidnapped by those wannabe pop stars Velvet and Veneer, who are keeping him in a diamond bottle and using his music to fuel their shows."

John startles, "Wait, Floyd said 'talent'?"

"Trolls don't have talent," the Queen informs. "Our life-force is tied to our music. If they're stealing the ability to sing from him, they're taking his music, his life. The longer they have him, the worse it's going to be."

"Oooh, that is way worse than I thought," John knows his eyes are just as wide as Spr-Bruce's. "Way worse."

"Why do you think I agreed to come on this stupid road trip?" Branch asks, and there's that biting edge again. "I may be pissed at all of you, but I don't want you dead."

"...okay, so I need to talk to my wife," Bruce shakes himself, "Right, come on, I'll introduce you. And, uh, thinking of introductions...?"

"Right," John Dory starts at the same time Branch does, then snaps his mouth shut and lets his youngest brother take over.

"Poppy, Tiny, this is Bruce," Branch's paw indicates the pink troll beside him, "Bruce, these are Poppy and Tiny Diamond." He ends by gesturing to the glitter troll in his hair.

"Nice to meet you," the Queen says cheerfully, despite the fact that the meeting had definitely been less than 'nice'.

"Yo," is Tiny Diamond's contribution, punctuated by a glittering hand sticking out of Branch's hair to wave.

Bruce looks kind of shell-shocked, and - yeah, John sympathizes. Bitty B definitely isn't 'bitty' anymore.

A baby in his hair and a literal Queen on his arm, and Bruce is clearly having a few things shift in his brain. "...you're... you really grew up, didn't you?" he murmurs, and it sounds sad.

"It has been twenty-three years," Branch shoots back, but his tone is less biting. "What did you expect? Time doesn't stop just because you leave."

That stings, and John winces.

"No," Bruce agrees, slowly, like the word itself is somehow heavy. "No, I guess it doesn't. Come on, I'll introduce you."

Chapter Text

Bruce hadn't forgotten about his baby brother, but Branch had never quite been at the forefront of his mind, either. With years ticking by, thoughts of any of his brothers had faded to the background, and while he's too ashamed to admit it, his youngest brother was the one he'd thought of least.

Branch had been all of two when Bruce had gone looking for a better life, and while John Dory had always been held in some resentment in his thoughts, his older brother had been there for the whole sixteen years Spruce had, too. And back then, he had been Spruce - someone he's more than glad to have left behind.

Clay and Floyd came to mind more often, his younger brothers there for fifteen and fourteen years respectively, and long years with them had overwritten the brief two years with a baby he'd barely interacted with until he'd been well over a year old.

Like all newly hatched trolls, Branch had been verbal and somewhat mobile almost immediately, but he'd been on the middling bit of the 'precocious' scale. He'd been clumsy and had a hard time getting around until he'd been almost one, and hadn't been up to dancing until six months after that. With so much of the focus on BroZone as an up-and-coming band even before Bitty B had been born... he hadn't interacted with his baby brother until he'd been in the band, even though Floyd had always made a big deal about how they needed to be there for Branch.

The few times he'd thought of his youngest brother in recent years, his mental image had been fuzzy - cyan skin and sapphire hair and bright-ocean eyes, overlayed with someone with Bitty B's sweet, gentle nature.

Instead, Branch is two shades off fully Grey, with eyes like stormclouds and a temper to match, and a family of his own.

Branch had been two when Spruce had walked out, and Bruce had never really looked back. He'd sent a postcard to Grandma, just like the one he'd sent to John Dory, but... even if Branch had seen it, would he have known it was from Bruce? No scrawled greetings, no little note, not even having signed it? Branch had been two when he'd left, how much does he even remember about having Spruce as a brother, nevermind who Bruce is now?

(And... it had been to Grandma, not Branch. He doesn't even know if she'd gotten it, nevermind his baby brother.)

And, by Music, now that the thought's in his head... he can't imagine leaving one of his kids behind like that. He hadn't even left his only daughter out of the restaurant banner, nevermind his life, but he'd done it to his literal baby brother without a second thought.

(He'd had Grandma, though, right? And Floyd? Or... had Floyd left, too? Clay almost certainly had, he'd been chafing as much as Spruce under the constraints of the band and the Troll Tree, but Floyd had seemed content enough there. Surely he'd stayed, at least for a while.)

(Branch is right, though. Bruce should have at least written.)

And John Dory is broadly letting Branch take the lead, which is incredibly out of character. Either he really has changed in the time between - and Bruce had changed enough that his old name had started to wear like a too-tight coat - or Branch is the kind of person who won't stand for being bossed around and had managed to somehow build a stronger personality than John Dory.

Maybe a bit of both.

(He'd been such a sweet, accommodating kid, though. It feels all wrong to see him like this.)

He hears a gentle, "Come on, Tiny, you still haven't eaten," from Branch, followed up by the little glitter troll's alarmingly adult voice.

"Oooh, did you make that? You're the best, Uncle Branch!" and glances back just in time to see the baby troll - Tiny - biting into something he can't quite make out from the angle, getting crumbs in Branch's hair.

"Hey, Tiny!" Branch complains, but he's smiling.

The pink troll giggles, and just like that, everything about Branch eases somehow, a few of the stress lines around his eyes smoothing and his irises brightening to ocean-blue.

"Whoops, sorry, Uncle," the glitter troll stuffs the rest of the whatever-it-is into his mouth and starts picking crumbs out of Branch's hair, and his youngest brother huffs and flings his head down, sending Tiny tumbling into his hands with a startled yelp.

The pink troll reaches over and plucks the energetic ball of glitter out of Branch's grip, transferring him to sit clinging to her ponytail as easily as anything, and when Branch starts to raise his head she brushes the remaining crumbs out of his hair herself.

A bit of color returns to his skin as he murmurs a quick "Thanks," and Bruce's throat feels tight. He doesn't know what had happened, but that... that's... 

"Yeah," John Dory mutters as he falls into step next to Bruce. "I don't know what we missed, but the Queen's about the only thing holding him together."

Bruce tries to come up with words that won't fall hollow, almost desperate enough to ask about the odd nickname for the pink troll just for the self-distraction, and two overlapping chimes in slightly different keys go off, melding into a single beautiful note.

He blinks and turns back to look, and - glowing flowers blooming on their wrists, pink on the girl's and a soft blue-green on Branch's, and then Branch is scooping the pink troll into a hug as the silver glitter troll drops down into the middle to join in.

"Huh," he blinks a few times. "I forgot all about Hug Time."

The hug leaves Branch's skin another shade brighter, and Bruce isn't sure whether he should feel relieved or horrified. Maybe both. Color shouldn't dull and brighten like that - that's not the way it works, losing color is supposed to be either a thing of years or over in an instant, not a constant flicker of differing shades like some kind of mood ring. Bruce had read so much after his first son had been born, on Vacay and troll health both, everything he could find - even for other Troll Tribes, just in case.

He had never read about anything that resembles whatever's happening to Branch.

Add in that Floyd is in trouble, real trouble, and Bruce feels a kind of sick he hadn't known he could. He's on autopilot as he sets his board against the side of the building and walks into the restaurant; two of his brothers, a bright pink troll, and a baby glitter troll who calls his youngest brother 'Uncle' (and the pink one 'Aunt', but Bruce can't process that right now) trailing along behind him.

He checks his notes on reflex and rattles off the business-things to varying employees while he leads the others to the back counter, behind which is his very tall wife.

Seeing her makes it a little easier to breathe, and he makes the introductions and then six of his kids tumble in one after another - LaBreezy bemoaning the state of government and Junior being bitey and Freddy trapped in an otherwise empty ketchup bottle (how?) and Rainy wanting a cookie and Windy complaining about his bitey brother and Cove popping in for a cookie of his own and it's chaos but it's familiar and grounding.

As such, he manages to wrangle them to some kind of lessened wildness and talk to his wife, just for a few minutes. "Do you think it'd be..." he's a dad, he has responsibilities to his wife and his kids and the restaurant, but at the same time his little brother may be dying. "..crazy, if I went..."

"Oh, honey, it'd be crazy if you didn't!" Brandy tells him, the amazing woman that she is. "You'd regret it forever if you stayed when they really need you. Besides," her eyes slide towards the kids, just in time for LaBreezy to scamper back over with a proud smile and irritated eyes.

"Daddy, Daddy, I have pinkeye!"

"Oooh, boy," he backs up a step, "I really hoped we'd contained that outbreak."

"Looks like not, honey!" Brandy grins, slightly mischievous. "Better run while you still have the chance."

"Yeah, peace out!" the little glitter troll shouts, and dives to hide in Branch's hair.

"Rhonda!" John Dory calls as he rushes towards the doorway, and the pink troll starts to follow but winces on her first step.

Guilt coils in Bruce's chest but Branch doesn't miss a beat, sweeping her up into his arms and carrying her out the door to a... an armadillo-bus?

Bruce scrambles after them, and inside the critter looks more like a camper than a bus, but they're bolting down the beach as only a legged transport critter can in seconds, barely giving Bruce time to call thanks and encouragement to his wife.

"Where are you going? The bridge is over there!" Bruce points, seeing the climbing wall go by out the window.

"There's a bridge?" the little glitter troll crawls out of Branch's hair onto his aunt's head again, "Well, now you tell us! Shove over, Goggles! You're a terrible driver!"

To Bruce's shock, John Dory does, letting the baby troll take over - a mini steering wheel reaching out from the first to meet tiny silver paws as a booster seat pops up in the driver's chair.

"...you know what? I'm not asking," he decides, and turns with the intent of giving a real apology for running over the pink troll.

Somehow Branch has gotten her all the way to the couch-like seat in the back without Bruce noticing them move.

"Branch, I'm fine," she's insisting, and Branch just gives her a look.

"Aaagh! Fine, fine, I'll be good," she gripes, but she's smiling and Branch smiles back.

"Just for a little," he assures, pressing a gel ice-pack he'd produced from who-knows-where to her ankle and wrapping it into place with a hand towel. "It's not bad, but the way you jump around, it could get bad if you don't take it easy for at least a few hours."

Rather than responding with words, she makes grabby-paws at him.

Branch huffs and rolls his eyes, but settles next to her, letting her sprawl across his lap and reaching to undo her ponytail.

Bruce takes a deep breath and approaches, stopping several steps away, "...I'm sorry," he says, to the pink troll this time. "I should have been paying attention, and I definitely should not have run you over like that."

"Oh, no, it's fine," she assures, waving dismissively. "I know you didn't mean it. I've gotten excited like that plenty!"

Branch snorts softly, lips quirking into a lopsided smirk, "Yeah, but you're not the one who runs people over when you get caught up. You just get everyone else caught up with you."

"I do not!"

"Yeah? What about the Bergans, then?"

"That was - they were just happy!"

Bruce stares. "The Bergans?" he repeats, numb.

"Oh, yeah," the pink troll blinks, "I guess you've been gone a while, huh? It was a whole thing, but we managed-"

"-you managed-" Branch corrects, and gets shushed with a pink paw for his troubles.

"-to show them how to be happy without eating trolls, so they're our friends now!" she finishes, without missing a beat.

Bergans. Friends. Bruce does not compute.

He kind of just stares.

Branch gives a slightly commiserating shrug and carefully lifts the headband out of the young woman's hair as she brings her paw back down. Blast it, he's already forgotten her name, and she's clearly very important to his youngest brother.

Branch sets the elaborate headpiece aside and starts running a paw through her vibrant hair, and she sighs and leans into his touch with a content hum.

Bruce casts about for something to focus a conversation on (maybe Branch'll say her name again) and settles on the headband. He hasn't seen a Pop Troll wear something like that before, especially not with the cresting fan of leaf-like decorations. Well, at least not unless you counted King Peppy.

"Does the headband mean something special? I haven't seen a Pop Troll wear something like that before."

Branch blinks, looking vaguely startled, "...wait, did I not...? Right. Let's try the introductions again," he shifts his free paw to gesture towards Bruce, "Poppy, Bruce is my second-oldest brother. Bruce, this is Queen Poppy of the Pop Trolls, and the Pop Queen of the Great Harmony."

Bruce sits down, thumping onto the camper floor with his jaw maybe a little loose. "What?"

Branch smirks at whatever face he's making, "What?"

"Wait. The little guy calls you 'Uncle', and calls her 'Aunt'..."

John Dory comes over and sets a hand on his shoulder, "Don't think about that one too hard, bro."

It's good advice. His brain feels like it's melting.

"Yeah, I'll worry about that later," he agrees, maybe just a tiny bit faint, and Branch keeps up the smirk for a few more moments before John Dory admits he has no idea where to find Clay.

"Right," Queen Poppy sits up, "Make us a plan, Plan Man!"

Branch is on his feet and next to what looks like a massively intricate clue board before either Bruce or John Dory can otherwise react. He scans the board twice, turns to glance around the cabin, and then sets his sights on Bruce, "I know John Dory hasn't heard from him, but do you have any idea where Clay went?"

Bruce shakes his head, "I sent postcards, but I only had names to go off," he waves vaguely at John Dory, who had definitely gotten his considering its prominent place on the clue board. "I could barely keep track of myself back then, nevermind the rest of you."

Branch narrows his eyes, "Track, track... that's it!" he produces a hammer from his hair and strides across the spacious camper room, breaking the glass on-

"Oh, ew," Bruce wrinkles his nose.

"The Funderdrawers!" Branch announces, "John Dory, I have no idea why you kept these, it's incredibly disgusting-"

"They're memorabilia!" he defends, and is ignored.

"-but I'm glad you did," Branch finishes, and then produces a stick entirely too large to actually fit in his hair from nowhere and loops the Funderdrawers on the hooked end. Two seconds later, he's leaning out the front, hanging the fancy underwear in front of the critter's nose. "Can you find him, Rhonda?"

The critter-camper sniffs a few times and then lights her headlights, giving an odd, crooning howl.

"She's got the scent!" John Dory cheers, and Branch comes back in, dropping the Funderdrawers into a small bag that he then ties shut and throws at their eldest brother.

"I can't just burn those in case we need them again, but they are truly the worst thing you could possibly have chosen for memorabilia," he informs, as Tiny... Diamond? (apt name) climbs down to leave the critter to her own devices.

Bruce needs a nap. Or a drink, but the nap is definitely the healthier choice. "I can't handle any more new information right now, so I'm just gonna go nap in the corner, guys. Wake me if you need me."

He gets an amused scoff from Branch, a cheery, "Sweet dreams!" from the Queen (which he definitely isn't over), a casual "'Night," from John Dory, and a "Great idea!" from the baby glitter troll, who follows him to the corner and climbs up to curl on his chest and just zonk out.

He half expects the stress to keep him up, especially since it's not even afternoon yet, but instead he's asleep before he can even get comfortable.

Chapter Text

Branch makes Poppy rest while Rhonda is tracking, but he at least doesn't make her keep the ice pack on too long. Well, no, of course he doesn't - Branch knows better. Ice packs for too long are a bad thing. But when he takes the ice pack off, he also takes the brace off and checks her ankle again.

"We can leave the brace off for now," he concedes after a moment, "But no jumping until at least tomorrow, and try to stay off your ankle today."

"I'll be good!" Poppy agrees, "It's not like there's much to do riding in a camper, anyway."

Branch stares at her. "Why would you say that? Now something stupid is going to happen."

Poppy doesn't even have the chance to refute that, because JD spins the driver's seat around with a manic grin that definitely proves Branch's point.

"Brace yourselves, boys and girl," JD snaps his goggles down over his eyes, and then he reaches for the glowing button with the orange and gold spiral on it. "Let's Hustle!"

The world goes weird.

Poppy has no idea what's happening, but there's a sense of both moving and not moving, and all the colors are washed bright and flat, and she feels like she's made of dripping paint, and she sees a blob of blue that she's just sure is Branch but doesn't look anything like him. Things whirl and twist and blur together, and there's a moment where a giant purple three-eyed genie-thing with keyholes for pupils picks up Rhonda and carries her off.

Poppy simultaneously sees the whole thing from somewhere outside and knows she's still riding inside the critter. It's so weird.

And then the purple genie drops Rhonda, there's a rippling flash of a resonating five-pointed star, and she and Branch are landing in a heap. John Dory is still in the driver's seat and somehow Bruce and Tiny had slept through the whole thing, but Poppy has a thought pop wildly into her head.

"Wow. Too much hustle... is a thing."

Branch shifts an arm, and there's a rainbow light effect dopplering after it. "Huh," he says, and waves his hand the other way, "Look at that."

He sounds vaguely drugged, and Poppy twists around to look in his eyes. His pupils are a little blown, and the rainbow shadowing his movements is a little concerning (even if it looks very cool), but it's also fading pretty quickly.

Branch blinks once, twice, and then shakes himself all over. "Oh, oh, that was weird," he informs, his pupil response getting much more normal as the last of the light trail disappears. "I did not like that."

"Guys, I think we're here," JD calls back.

Branch glances over at Bruce and Tiny, and Poppy tilts her head, "Leave them in the camper?"

"Yeah, it'd probably be good to have at least someone well rested along."

"Right. We should leave a note."

Branch fetches a notebook and pencil from his hair, writes a note saying they're going into the old Bergan golf course to look for Clay, and ends with the time because Branch is thorough like that, and folds it into a standing triangle to place in easy sight-line of where the two trolls are napping.

"Okay... am I allowed to walk yet? Because that was weird, but my ankle doesn't feel like anything anymore."

Branch frowns slightly, and checks again. "...the swelling's down," he considers for a moment. "Okay, but if it starts hurting again, you tell me right away."

"Promise!" Poppy agrees, and scrambles up. She manages to keep herself from bouncing out the door because Branch is still worried, but she feels fine! It's like she never twisted her ankle at all! It's even moving right, so it's not like it's just numb, and even Branch had admitted that it's not swollen - but he's such a worry-wart on a good day that she doesn't want to make it worse when they're so far away from everything familiar.

Branch is the bravest troll she's ever met, but he's always more on edge when they're not near home.

"Are we sure this is the right place?" JD asks, leaning towards them and lowering his voice as they approach the gate.

"No," Branch admits easily, "but it's our best lead and we're already here. We should check it out."

So of course they do, and the place doesn't look as abandoned on the inside as it does on the outside, which is both encouraging and kind of not, because... well, that's kinda weird. Poppy's been around Branch enough to know that's kinda weird.

And then a yellow fuzzy golf-ball looking thing rolls up to them and pops open to reveal a troll whose frizzy hair makes her look like she'd stuck her fingers in a light socket.

"Huh," Poppy blinks at pink skin almost exactly the shade of her own, though the yellow hair is very different. "Hi?"

"Ohmigosh hello!" the other pink troll squeals, eyes wide and a grin overtaking her whole face as she vibrates in place for a second before going for a full-on hug attack. "It's been forever since I've seen new faces! Hi! I'm Viva, and this is our home!"

Viva then goes bouncing all over, sending Branch staggering sideways with another hug (which he thankfully sees coming even if he doesn't have time to dodge) before turning her affection on JD, and Poppy sidles two steps closer to Branch. "Is this how people usually feel when they meet me?"

Branch gives her a flat stare that's only a little bit ruined by the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, "Yes."

Poppy takes that in. She's... kind of impressed, actually. "Huh."

She watches for another few seconds, more entertained than she probably should be, and then decides that there is a rush and she should move this along, no matter how much fun it is to be on the other side of it. "Viva, hi, yeah - it's great to meet you, it really is, but we're looking for someone, so I was wondering if maybe you could help us? We need to find a troll named Clay, he's these two's brother..."

Viva switches tracks as more trolls come rolling up disguised as fuzzy golf balls, and that is an amazing idea, Poppy's going to have to see if she can do that.

"Yeah!" Viva says after a beat of considering silence, "Clay takes care of all the boring stuff around here that I don't have the patience for! Hey! Someone get Clay!"

"On it!" someone calls from the back, and a magenta golf ball rolls away.

"Oh my gosh, someone teach me how to do that, it's so awesome!" Poppy watches the sheer speed the disguised troll manages.

"No. No, no, no, no - you do not need a new way to give me heart attacks!" Branch protests.

Poppy whips around and grins at him, "Come on, it's fast, it's kinda subtle, and it looks like so much fun!"

Branch opens his mouth, pauses, and closes it again, frowning slightly. "...I really hate to say this, but you have two good points in that."

"Yes!" Poppy cheers, throwing up a fist in celebration, though she remembers not to jump. "Oh my gosh, I can't stand this, Branch! Branch, let me bounce!"

"You're lucky I'm letting you walk."

She totally is and she knows it, "My ankle feels fine, I swear!"

"Uh-huh, because healing by psychedelic paint dimension is clearly so reliable," Branch deadpans, and Poppy snickers but he does have a point. "For all we know it messed up your nervous system and you just can't feel it anymore."

Poppy gives that some actual thought, "I don't think so? I mean, it's moving fine. I guess I might be, I don't know, hallucinating that it's fine? You were definitely high while you were still trailing rainbows."

"Whoa, wait, trailing rainbows?" JD bulls forward, "That's not good. Hustle is not supposed to do that unless you go way overboard!"

"I guess you went overboard, then," Poppy tells him, "Branch was trailing rainbows for at least forty seconds."

"Okay, okay, lay off the Hustle with Branch in the camper, got it."

"Is that..." someone says from off to the side, cutting through the moment of distraction, "...Bitty B?"

Branch's ears twitch down and his expression goes stony.

JD is making elaborate stop gestures, like somehow Branch won't see, which Poppy thinks is stupid because Branch is much more aware than that. He might as well just say it out loud.

"My name is Branch," Branch says, low and hard, because he's not going to compromise on that and he shouldn't have to.

The green troll comes closer at a steady walk, nothing like the exuberant rush that Bruce had, and looks Branch over. "...well, you're definitely not 'Bitty' anymore," he agrees.

Anger flares in Branch's eyes, and Poppy shifts between him and this newest brother, "Look, can we talk? It's important, and about your other brother."

Clay blinks, shakes himself slightly, and nods. "Yeah, sure. I've got an office. This way."

Poppy takes a deep breath and digs up her optimism. This is the last brother they need to find. After that, it's straight for Mount Rageous, and then they can get Floyd and start working on the real problems!

Well, no. Floyd being kidnapped and trapped is a real problem, but it's the kind that's at least straightforward. All they have to do is get him back and get him out.

Trying to untangle the interconnected landmines of feelings scattered throughout everything between the brothers? That's gonna take time, if it can be done at all. If they've changed, if they want this to work, then it can be done. But only if they all put in the effort.

(Branch deserves to have a family, but if he's the only one trying... Poppy really hopes they're all willing to try, because otherwise... otherwise she doesn't want to think about it.)

Chapter Text

Clay goes with them. Of course he does! Floyd's life is on the line, there's no way he's going to sit around at the golf course and do nothing!

He does feel bad about bailing on Viva like that, but she's too scared to leave and he can't stay, but he does call over to her that he'll be back. He will. He's not abandoning them! He just needs to help his brother.

Besides, John Dory really seems to have taken a step back, and that makes it a whole lot easier to deal with him. Spruce - Bruce - has the whole name-change thing that's gonna take a bit to adjust to going on, along with thirteen kids, apparently. The pink troll is a less neurotic Viva, and Branch...

Clay doesn't know what to think about Branch.

He's not a toddler anymore, that's for sure. He's a whole adult troll with a girl and a kid - a nephew, anyway, but given said nephew is along on this crazy road trip into danger, it kind of implies things.

It doesn't help that calling him 'Bitty B' had made him angry.

It helps even less that he's... well, he looks kind of... he's not cyan and sapphire anymore. He's not Grey, there's color in him, but it's all muted, sooty blue skin and slate-blue hair. He's got stress lines along his face that even John Dory doesn't come close to matching, and those lines only ease when he's looking at the pink troll, currently handing the tiny glitter troll in her lap some kind of treat.

Clay's terrified of the answer, and can't bring himself to ask.

"Okay, okay," Spru-Bruce says, and herds Clay and John Dory towards the front of the camper, "I think we need to give Branch some time with her Majesty before we go butting in again," he announces, and Branch glances over and there's a bit of relief to his expression as he catches their second-oldest brother's eye and nods.

"We're going to need to practice," John Dory says, but it sounds more like a caution than a protest.

"Yeah, well, that can wait a few minutes," Clay decides, and shoves John Dory into the driver's seat. "I've got a few questions," he adds, much quieter, not wanting Branch to overhear.

John Dory's ears lower a bit, and S-Bruce winces.

"Okay, that," Clay points at Bruce. "What is that about? What's going on with Bitty B?"

John Dory hunches his shoulders, "...we don't know, exactly," he admits, low and guilty. "Don't call him that, by the way. He hates it."

"Okay, so - who's the pink girl?" Clay tries.

John Dory blinks, "Oh, we skipped introductions. Whoops. That's Queen Poppy. Don't mess with her. She's pretty forgiving, but Branch isn't, and I don't know the details but I think... I think she's all that's keeping him together."

That brings a new kind of worry, "Wait... what?"

"When I first saw him," John Dory's ears tuck against his skull, "...when I first saw him, I didn't recognize him at all. He was completely gray, and I don't know if it's Grey or something else, but..."

"It's definitely something else," Bruce says softly. "When my first was born, I read everything I could find on troll and Vacay health both to try and keep an eye out for anything going wrong. Half-and-half kids are new, so I was worried... and there's nothing that matches Branch's symptoms. Nothing. But JD's right on one thing: Queen Poppy is his anchor."

Something clicks in the back of Clay's mind, and a conversation he'd had with Viva once on lost siblings makes him jolt, "Wait, wait, did you say Queen Poppy? Like, Peppy's daughter Poppy?"

"Uh..." John Dory exchanges a wary glance with Bruce, "...yes?"

"Shit," Clay curses, and then bites his tongue. There's a kid on board. "Gumdrops, that's Viva's sister."

It takes a minute to calm the muted exclamations from Bruce and John Dory, and then Clay turns around and heads to the back.

"Okay, so this is probably really bad timing-" he starts, incidentally interrupting some kind of hand-pat-gesture game, and Branch gives him a wary look as Queen Poppy glances up and the baby glitter troll puts tiny hands on tiny hips.

"Aw, come on, man! I was gonna win that round!"

"Sure you were," Branch rolls his eyes. "Tiny, no one beats Poppy at that game."

He's a lighter blue than he'd been at the golf course, and Clay gets why Bruce had said he's not Grey, and tries very hard not to worry about it. (He doesn't exactly succeed, but he manages to lock up his questions and not push, mainly by focusing on the other thing.)

"It's important," Clay stresses. "Queen Poppy, I'm going to guess from how you didn't react while we were there that you don't know, but... if you're Peppy's daughter, then... Viva's your sister."

There's a flash of confusion, "What? But I don't have a sister," she looks towards Branch, eyes wide and slightly frantic, "Do I? I mean, I would have known, right? Dad would have told me?"

Branch's ears go down and his eyes go wide, and his skin dims a little as he reaches for her but he doesn't seem to have a response, so Clay keeps going.

"I probably shouldn't be the one to tell you this, but the day of the escape, when the tunnels collapsed, Viva and the others got cut off. They eventually made their way to that golf course and turned it into their home, and I stumbled across them a while after that. Viva used to talk about you sometimes, but I think you were really young then? It makes sense that you don't remember."

"Dad would have..." she trails off, lips twisting down into a scowl that doesn't suit her at all. "No, who am I kidding, of course he wouldn't," her tone gains a tinge of hurt. "He never tells me anything important until I find out some other way and make him."

"Poppy..." Branch scoots closer to her, "Hey, if you want to go back..."

"No!" she shakes her head and softens her tone, "No, Branch, I'm not leaving you alone with this," she gestures broadly. "Viva... she's safe where she's at. I can go back for her after. Right now, your brother is more important."

Branch closes his eyes for a moment, his expression something Clay can't read, but he opens his arms and Queen Poppy flings herself into them, accepting and returning an encompassing hug. "Okay," Branch agrees. "We get Floyd, and then we go back for your sister."

"Well, that doesn't seem fair," the glitter troll - Tiny? - pouts, folding his arms and jutting his chin into the air, "Am I the only one without a long-lost sibling?"

Poppy giggles, a little tearfully, and Branch tightens his hold on her. "We can do this," he says, and as gentle as it is there's still steel in his tone. "Together."

"Yeah," the pink troll tucks her head into his shoulder, and a little more blue returns to his skin. "Together."

Clay feels very much like he's intruding, but that right there tells him all he needs to know about those two's relationship. If they're not married, he'll eat his romper.

Behind him, John Dory clears his throat, "So, I don't want to intrude on the moment or anything, but... we really do need to practice if we're gonna save Floyd."

Chapter Text

Viva knows she's scared of a lot of things.

Having Clay around makes it better - he's good at the fidgety stuff, keeping track of numbers and repairs and things like that, things that they need but Viva can't make her mind make sense of. It had been harder before Clay had showed up, a lot harder, because Viva had just been a kid and she'd been scared and there had been food and water but she hadn't known enough of what everyone needed to keep her people healthy, and sometimes the buildings would break more and more than one troll got hurt.

No one had died, thankfully, but people still got hurt, and since Clay had put himself in charge of safety and expenses and stuff, all that had stopped almost entirely. There are still accidents, but they're from people doing dumb stuff instead of things breaking.

He'd helped her come up with ideas for keeping them all safe, the golf-ball disguises and traps for giants and more, and having him around just made things easier even when he wasn't doing anything. Just knowing he was there if she needed advice, it helped so much.

(No one calls her 'princess' anymore. She isn't queen, either, and doesn't want to be. But there are so few of them, and not being reminded of her old social status every day helps, so she's just Viva and Clay's just Mr. Clay and everyone else is just who they are and they're getting by.)

Having Clay run out like that, it hurts. She's scared. The world out there isn't safe! What if something bad happens to him?

But... she gets it, too. It's his little brother. If her sister was alive, and she found out she was in danger like that... Viva would want to help, too. She's not sure she'd be brave enough to, but she'd want to, and what if Clay needs help?

Should she go after him? No, no, she can't go after him, it's not safe. And it's not just not safe, it would leave everyone at the golf course not safe, either. She has to keep everyone safe! Clay will be fine, Clay has to be fine, because if Clay's not fine...

...the dilemma is still chasing itself around in a circle in her head when the Bergans show up.

Two of them.

Viva's got everyone scrambling as soon as she realizes it's real, that it's not just another nightmare, half-dreamt while tired and stressed despite still being awake. The older trolls and all three kids get shuffled into real hiding while everyone capable of manning the traps converges on the Bergans, and they almost seem kind of nervous at seeing the little polka-dot colored balls gathering around right up until they all drop the disguises and whip out the kite strings.

"They're just trolls!" the female Bergan sounds relieved. "How cute! Hi!"

The greeting is unexpected, but Viva's not going to fall for the friendly tone, and they've already got the male Bergan's feet tangled.

"Uh, Bridgy, I don't think these trolls are friendly!" the male sounds alarmed, but Viva's too caught up to think on it.

"Hang on, Grissy!" the female ducks down and sweeps out an arm, but rather than grabbing anyone she just pushes them back. Viva goes to lunge at the male as he untangles his feet, hoping the others will stall the female.

He yelps and grabs her when she kicks at his face, and an instant later everyone freezes, several trolls shouting her name but all of them hesitating to charge in, probably afraid the Bergan will crush her if they startle him.

"Uh," the male Bergan stares at her, then looks at the female, "...now what?"

"...we should just back out slowly and put her down when we're outside," the female decides.

"Good idea. These poor trolls are terrified," the one holding her observes, and of course they are! "I don't think they know about the whole thing with the new laws."

"I'm really sorry about this," the female Bergan tells Viva, weirdly earnest. "We didn't mean to scare you. We won't hurt anyone, promise!"

"Yeah," the Bergan holding her agrees. "You probably won't believe me, but it's illegal for any Bergan to harm or eat a troll now. Anyone who tries has to deal with me," his eyes narrow, and the look isn't directed at her but his expression is dangerous.

Viva hears him. She does! She hears everything both of them are saying, but she can't make sense of it. She can't move, either, and it's not just because the Bergan is holding her. He's not crushing her or anything, he's just - holding her, and both of them really do seem apologetic but Viva can't make herself believe it and couldn't risk believing it even if she could.

They've been found. Even if these two Bergans aren't going to hurt them, or at least not right away, they've been found. The other Bergans will come, unless somehow these ones don't tell anyone, and Viva is so frozen in sheer, overwhelming terror that she's gone right back around to a weird glassy calm.

Is this shock? Is she in shock?

In the end it doesn't seem to matter, because the Putt-Putt Trolls move out of the way fearfully as the Bergans back out of the golf course and go back to their... motorcycle?

The one holding her very carefully sets her on the ground and they walk their motorcycle far enough away to be actually safe for a nearby troll, then they get on and just... ride away.

Not in the direction of Bergan Town.

(Unless there's another Bergan settlement, and Viva shuts that thought down. It's too scary, and there's nothing she could do about it either way.)

There's time. Not a lot of time, but time.

Enough time to actually prepare an organized move instead of a hasty bolt of an evacuation.

Viva scrambles back into the golf course, waving off the rush of trolls asking if she's okay - she is, and it's a surprise and she still feels numb and it's not until she misses three times when trying to pick up her fallen sticky-hand that she realizes how badly she's shaking - but none of that's important.

"Tell everyone to start packing. Everything we can move. I don't know if those Bergans really are friendly or if they'll be telling the others where we are as soon as they get home, but we can't risk it. They're going in the opposite direction of Bergan Town, so we should have at least a few days, but the sooner we get out of here, the safer we'll be."

Clay. Clay. She doesn't believe he's abandoned them, he'd just gone to help his brother, and when he comes back and no one's here, he's going to be terrified. A note? Some kind of message, one the Bergans won't understand when they come, or that's too small for them to notice hidden away somewhere Clay will know to look but Bergans would be too big too find.

They can't wait for him, though. Viva can't wait for him, because no one will leave unless she's leading or dead. She knows that. And she has to keep everyone safe.

(If the Bergans had been telling the truth, there's something about new laws and not wanting to hurt trolls, but she can't risk it. She can't believe it, either. The Bergan King Gristle had eaten her mom! He'd been planning to feed her baby sister to his son! He probably had fed her baby sister to his son. Bergans are dangerous!)

"Right!" the others scatter, and Viva takes three deep breaths, forces her hands to stop shaking, and heads to start packing. Weapons, food, water. Any supplies they can transport with relative ease.

(Please let Clay not walk back into the golf course while there are Bergans there, searching for them. Please let him be okay.)

There's a little time, but none to waste.

The golf course isn't safe anymore.

They have to go.

Chapter Text

Poppy tugs on his paw as Branch starts to go get geared up for practice, and he glances at her.

"Branch..."

He frowns, not liking her tone. Poppy very rarely sounds uncertain, so her uncertainty now is more than a little concerning. "Poppy?"

"That isn't..." she waves at where John Dory's pushing them into old roles, lining them up to match the memory of the one time they'd really gotten close. "It's not... that's not harmony."

"It is what we practiced," Branch grimaces. "We almost got it to work. If I hadn't screwed up..."

"That wasn't your fault!" Poppy protests, catching both his paws in hers.

"Yes, it was," Branch sighs, gently pulling away. "Look. It'll be clear pretty quickly if this is gonna work or not, and if it's not, we go for the big guns."

"Right," Poppy looks upsettingly dispirited, but they really don't have time to waste. Branch feels bad about pushing her away, but it's Floyd's life on the line and even if he's expecting the Perfect Family Harmony to end up being the last-ditch Hail Mary kind of resort, they really should practice.

"Hey," Branch reaches out, tipping her face up until she's meeting his eyes again, "Even if everything else falls through - it's us, right? Together."

"Together," Poppy agrees, tapping his fist with hers when he holds it out, and then she takes a breath and gives herself a quick shake, "Right. I'd better make sure the cavalry is geared up and ready to go, then."

She reaches into her hair for her the communicator that Cooper had given her and moves up to stand near Tiny - still 'driving' Rhonda - and start typing.

Branch rolls his shoulders, "Alright," he mutters, trying to psyche himself up.

It doesn't really work.

"All right, B! Now for your outfit!"

Branch takes one look at the diaper and turns a deadpan glare on John Dory. "That was appropriate when I was two, John Dory. It's not even approaching appropriate now."

"Uh..." John Dory whips the diaper around to hide it behind his back, "Right. Okay, we'll worry about those details later."

"Besides, wearing stage outfits while trying to pull off a rescue mission is stupid," Branch adds, unable to quite help but point that out. "Our best bet is to get a hold of Floyd in the diamond and get him out once he's safe. If we end up having to try and sing him free in the middle, we're not going to have time to worry about things like what we're wearing."

John Dory kind of wilts a little, "...okay, well, now I just feel dumb," he admits.

Branch ignores it when his other two brothers exchange glances that he can't quite decipher and steps into his old place in line.

"...right, let's give this a try, then," Bruce shakes out his arms.

"Oh, this is either gonna go great or be a disaster," Clay announces, rolling his neck and stretching his shoulders.

"One way to find out," John Dory flips a switch and a familiar beat picks up, and Branch can't quite help how his ears lower and his skin goes two shades darker.

'Perfect' may be the only song they'd practiced with for the Harmony before, but his only real memory of it is definitely not a good one. His eyes find Poppy, instinctively seeking some kind of reassurance.

She holds up the communicator in one paw and gives a thumb's up with the other, and that's enough to shake the worst of the knot out of his gut. Backup's ready and waiting.

Whether or not Branch's brothers can pull this off is almost academic when it comes to it, because if they can't - well, Poppy takes the impossible and turns it inside-out on the regular. One way or another, they're getting Floyd out.

They get to 'Perfect, perfect, perfect: Harmony so cold' before John Dory calls a halt, and Branch shakes himself out as an old set of arguments, half-remembered, start springing up around him. Three more tries, and they don't even get through the first verse on the fifth before it's less that a halt gets called and more that another argument bursts up, resentment cast mostly at John Dory but also at each other, old hurts long left to fester flaring into fresh anger.

Branch hadn't ever had a part in that, Floyd and Grandma having kept him out of it for his age, and he doesn't know how to stop this, how to mediate or, or...

....yeah, no, clearly this isn't working.

"Guys, come on, Floyd doesn't have time for this," he points out, calm and level because shouting only ever works if only one person's doing it, and even then it's a gamble.

They don't seem to hear him and the fight only escalates, and Branch feels small and young and useless again, and he gets exactly why Poppy had been worried. She's right. It's not harmony. It's only even family in the worst way, anger and bitterness and ugly feelings that build on each other and don't get forgiven.

He's not a baby anymore, watching and unable to do anything at all. He's a whole adult troll, and his pretty sure he can take any of his brothers in a fight. Maybe all of his brothers. But what's the point? The Perfect Family Harmony needs family to pull it off, and they're so caught up in fighting there's no way it'll work.

Plan B still has them in it, but the Harmony will never work. Not like this. He's about to say so when raised voices turn to shouts, and he can't even identify who says, "-and go our separate ways!" but it hits like a Country Troll kick in the teeth.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?"

He knows tempers are running high. They've been walking on eggshells around him, and he sees that, and he hadn't known how to address it but this is not how he wanted that weird timidity to be resolved. But they're so busy being mad at each other that they can't even think about anything else.

And, yeah, Branch gets that, he's mad, too - but he's trying, so why can't they!?

Floyd doesn't have time for Branch to get mad, too. If they're not - if they're so caught up in old hurts they can't focus for Floyd's life, then...

"You didn't think we'd live together after this? We've got our own lives!" John Dory actually laughs.

...then this is just a waste of time.

"Is that somehow funny to you?" Branch demands, a cold, familiar hurt bursting in his chest, abrupt and terrible and swirling with rage. "I wasn't hoping for a miracle! I just thought that maybe we'd be enough of a family to at least talk to each other after this! You don't want to be a family, fine. I'm out. I can't do the Harmony on my own, and it's pretty clear that none of you are even trying. Tiny, pull over!"

(Floyd doesn't have time for this.)

Rhonda churrs in confusion as Tiny does as instructed, and Branch casts a bitter glance towards his so-called brothers before turning away. "Poppy, let's go."

"Come on, Tiny," Poppy settles the glitter troll on her head and comes to take Branch's paw in hers in a show of support he desperately needs.

"Branch, don't be a baby," Clay starts, and that makes Branch's temper flare.

"I haven't been a baby since you all walked out on me!" he snaps, spinning back to face them. "I was two years old. Grandma did her best, but then she got eaten and none of you were there! Maybe it would be easier for you all if I'd been the one to die that day, but I didn't, okay? I didn't and I know you don't care about me but I thought you'd care about Floyd enough to at least try! Clearly, I was wrong, and I am done waiting on you."

Poppy's right by his side as he makes Rhonda open her door and jumps out, but she hesitates in the doorway for just a moment, "I really hoped that Branch could have his brothers back," she tells the three still standing in the back of the armadillo-bus, and she's sounds coldly disappointed in a way that feels like vindication but still makes his heart ache all the more. "...now it's looking more like he never had any in the first place."

And then she jumps down after him, Tiny clinging to her ponytail, and she takes his hand again and sticks with him when he starts walking. "I'll call for a pickup," she says gently.

Branch nods, throat tight and a sick, raging fury that's at least half grief boiling in his gut. He wants to rip something apart.

She sends a message and tucks the communicator away again before turning and taking both of Branch's paws in hers, twining their fingers together in a way that eases the clawing tangle inside just a little. "I'm sorry, Branch," she looks at him with sad eyes, and he has to blink back tears. "I really hoped that this would work out."

"Yeah," he mutters, looking away. "Me too."

Ding!

He's reaching for a hug before the overlapping tones even fade, and Tiny huffs, "Are you sure those things aren't primed to go off whenever someone needs a hug?"

Branch manages a laugh, because he's had that thought, "They're not," he presses his face down into Poppy's hair for a moment and Tiny climbs into his, "Believe me. I've checked."

And then there's a heavy whir and one of the flying piranha-looking ships that the Rock Trolls are so fond of quite literally fishtails to a halt in front of them, the mouth zipping open to show Barb in all her prickly, abrasive glory. "Load up, Pop Shop! If BroZone's a no-zone, then we'll get you in!"

She did not just say that.

"Barb!" Poppy pulls an arm free of the hug to wave wildly.

"Barb," Branch greets, slightly more sedately, and lets go of Poppy.

She doesn't let go of him, one paw keeping a firm grip on his wrist as she takes off towards their new ride.

Branch follows without protest. He's got a lot of feelings to sort through, but first things first: they need to get Floyd somewhere safe.

Chapter Text

John Dory isn't the only one left standing in the back of Rhonda, ears dropping lower as a sick chill settles into his gut. He can see stunned horror on both the brothers still beside him, and he's pretty sure his face looks the same.

"...Grandma got eaten?" Clay asks, tremulous, and...

"I didn't..." John looks around, "I didn't know."

He should have, though, shouldn't he? It's not like it hadn't been obvious that something really bad had happened. But... when had... how long had it been? Had Branch even had anyone there for him? No, he has Poppy. She wouldn't have left him alone-alone. Right?

(They'd all been kids when they'd bolted, hadn't they? John had barely turned seventeen before they'd broken, and Floyd... he'd been fourteen the night John had walked out, hadn't he?)

But... that's not... that can't be right. Queen Poppy is younger than Branch. Even if she'd done her best - and she must have, she must have - there's no way she could have looked after him as just a kid herself. And that's assuming she's known him her whole life.

And that... that probably isn't right, either.

(It hadn't seemed so bad, when he'd been a kid himself. Looking back... glitterballs, they'd all been too young.)

"But..." Bruce blinks, then blinks again, and his eyes are wet. "He was just a kid."

John bites his tongue, because what he wants to say might be right but it's still cruel. Instead he tries to find something in all of that aside from numbers that don't add up, and the only thing he does is at least as bad.

"Does he really think it would have been easier on us if he'd died?" slips out, that realized horror too much to silence, and Clay and Bruce both flinch.

It's Clay who tries to answer, "He... thinks we don't care about him."

Which makes John flinch, because... he should have seen that. No. No, part of him had. In the way Branch had watched, had shifted himself between them and the Queen every time one of them raised their voice, even when they were joking or laughing. In the way he'd mostly kept Tiny away from them, except when the precocious baby had sought them out on purpose. In the way Queen Poppy had put herself between them and him whenever the focus on him had stayed too long.

Branch... really doesn't trust them at all. And the worst part about it is that Branch clearly still cares about all of them, even if he thinks they don't care about him.

Bruce lowers his face into his paws and takes a long, shuddering sort of breath before looking up again, "...can you blame him?" he asks, low and guilty. "We abandoned him."

John hadn't ever thought that word, but it fits. It fits entirely too well.

"I'm a bad brother," he states, and it's not exactly a new realization but this is a whole new level of failure.

"We're all bad brothers," Clay agrees, and he sounds like he's going to start crying, too. "We've got to fix this!"

John swallows, "I don't think we can."

Clay whips around to stare at him with something bordering on frenzy, and Bruce flinches and curls in on himself with a jagged little sound of grief.

John squares his shoulders. "But that's no reason not to try. We go back them up when they get Floyd, and we can apologize after."

"So... we're not trying to do the Harmony?" Bruce asks, uncertain.

John rubs his face aggressively, stuffing down all the feelings he's got tangled up in his throat, "Branch is right. That needs a family, and we're... I think we've ruined that, with him. I sure have, at least, and that means it won't work. We need to be a family before that's got any chance."

"So how do we get Floyd out?" Clay wonders.

John doesn't know, but maybe he doesn't need to. "...Branch and the Queen can handle that," he decides, and he thinks he even believes it. "We just have to get him. Diamond and all."

"And we talk about all this later?" Bruce waves between them and the door Branch had left through, and John nods.

"When Floyd's safe. We might not be able to fix things, but... maybe we can make it up to him somehow."

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

(John's supposed to be better than this.)

(He never really has been.)

Chapter Text

"Alright, so which plan are we at?" Barb asks, deliberately sardonic, but she's definitely paying attention.

"Right now we're on 'C'," Branch rolls out his copy of Plan C, because of course he has one. "Essence said the guy in charge of Mount Rageous isn't listening even if Quincy's still working on him, so we sneak in and grab Floyd. We just need to get him away from there, and we can figure out how to bust his prison once he's safe."

"So..." Poppy looks over his shoulder, examining the paper, "We go in through the vents and lift him out?"

"Exactly," Branch nods. "Since we've got Barb and the flying piranha, getting out will be a whole lot easier than it would be on our own."

"Flying piranha?" Barb mutters, and then cracks a grin, "I like that. I'm coming with you, though. I'll leave the boys here on lookout."

Branch doesn't miss a beat, "Since Rock Trolls don't have the hair thing, Poppy and I will do the heavy lifting. It'd be easier with Smidge, but we should manage without her."

"Smidge being the little yellow one with the scary voice?" Barb asks.

"Smidge being the scary little yellow one," Branch agrees.

"We've got her in the back," Barb waves, raising her voice. "Someone go wake the yellow Pop!"

There's a scramble and a slightly muffled, "On it!"

Popstar winces, "Wow, I feel sorry for whoever said that."

Barb actually kinda does, too, because she's seen what happens when that tiny troll gets woken, but they probably don't have time to worry about shit like that.

Branch quirks a faint smile, "Tiny, you stick up here on overwatch. If there's any unusual activity at the front, I want to know about it."

"You got it, Uncle!"

"That leaves you on watch inside," Branch adds, looking at Barb. "If you've worked out that new guitar-weapon, now would be the time to break it out."

Barb reaches over and pulls out her instrument. It's not armed with the Rock String - which, you know, Poppy broke with the rest of them - but with some Funk Tech and a whole bunch of experimenting, they got something with a kick all the same. "We've never given this baby a field test, but get me close to one of those rubber noodle giants, and I bet I can leave them reeling!"

There's a screeching shout, a deep bellow of rage, and the whole ship judders several inches sideways before helm gets it back under control. "Sounds like Powerpuff is up."

"Smidge!" Popstar calls in greeting the instant the tiny troll comes into view, and Smidge grins widely on seeing her.

"Poppy!" she calls right back in her heavy baritone, rushing in for a hug.

Ugh. Pop Trolls. At least Branch stays out of the mushy stuff, though the baby glitter troll dives into the hug with his own his own shout of: "Smidge!"

(Barb idly notes he does not call her 'aunt'.)

He's a baby, though, he's got an excuse to be huggy. (Then again, 'being a Pop Troll' might be an excuse.)

"Right," Branch sticks to business, "Smidge, you're the strongest, so if you're with us, it'll make busting Floyd out a whole lot easier.

The little yellow Pop gives a thumbs up. If there's one thing Barb's noticed about that one (aside from the fact that she takes being woken by force with all the grace of a sleep-deprived bear), it's that she doesn't actually talk much. Insecure about her voice? Or maybe just with strangers. Whatever, not Barb's business.

"Okay, so we go in through the air exchange on the roof. I'll stop the fan blades so we don't get diced, and from there we'll need to cut the power to the air system so we can move freely."

Poppy sticks a paw up into her hair and feels around for a second before nodding, "I can do that!"

"The next bit is luck," Branch admits. "John Dory couldn't give a good description of where in the building Floyd's being held, so we're going to have to do a manual search. If we don't find him fast enough, we'll have to take a direct confrontation into the Rage Dome."

"That doesn't sound so bad to me," Barb spins her guitar like a baton and then slings it over her back. "I could use a little confrontation after the past couple days."

Branch grimaces, "Me too, but it's better for Floyd if we can do this without a fuss. We can confront them on our own terms if they don't have a hostage."

Barb wrinkles her nose, "Ugh, yeah. You have a point," she admits, while studiously ignoring the fact that a Pop Troll had just said he could use some confrontation. Well, it's Branch, and he's definitely the angriest Pop Troll she's ever met, and since this is about his brother being kidnapped... yeah, it makes sense that he'd be spoiling for a fight.

"Great, but the longer we take up here, the less time we have down there," Poppy points out, and Barb has to agree on that point, too.

"Right! Get us to the Fraud House!"

She sees Branch mouth 'Fraud House?' somewhat incredulously, but she thinks it fits. The wannabe pop stars stealing talent from a troll definitely aren't real with any of it except the crimes.

"Saves us having to scale the walls, at least," Branch mutters.

"Yes! Thanks, Barb! This is gonna be so much faster than it would have been without you!"

"Don't thank me yet, Pop Queen," Barb rolls her shoulders and shakes out her hands, exchanging a glance with Smidge. "We still have to get in there and find your boy-toy's brother."

Branch just rolls his eyes at the crack, and Barb feels maybe a bit unreasonably accomplished at that. She's not sure if it means they've finally gotten over themselves and officially gotten together or just that it's something he's so used to it doesn't impact anymore, but either way it's a step in the right direction to settle the stupid dancing around each other those two idiots pull.

And then she gets to see Popstar and the Grouch working together for something other than a song for the first time. She'd heard stories - like, who hadn't? - but she hadn't seen what a seamless team those two really make.

Branch dives headfirst down a ventilation shaft with the fan still going with zero hesitation and Poppy follows him down without so much as a blink. Are all Pop Trolls this crazy!?

Smidge just shrugs when Barb looks to the only other Pop in the immediate vicinity in hopes of an answer.

So, that's a 'no', because the yellow one drops them down with that Pop hair-trick, and Barb stares at the fan blades clogged with something pink that might be cotton or some kind of wool or possibly Popstar's hair - no, too fine, and she's still got hers. Whew.

And then she and Smidge land in the inside vent and Poppy's already at work with a blowtorch that Barb is afraid to ask the origin of, and the power shuts off.

The tugging air currents cease, and they get looking.

Chapter Text

"There!" Branch holds up a hand to stop the others and scans the room below them. It's empty, except for the giant-sized perfume bottle with a troll slumped inside it, colors all faded.

Not like Branch - the stress and lingering anger has him pretty close to gray - but washed-out, like watercolor canvas caught out in the rain. Even from the distance, he can tell feet and hands are the worst, but the troll's hair is nearly white at the base even through the purple tint of the diamond, and only shows pink at the tips.

Branch slips through the grate-flaps, wrapping his hair around one to control his descent, and hits the table beside the bottle as gently as he can. "Floyd," he calls when his brother doesn't notice, and then again, slightly louder. "Floyd!"

Poppy says something he can't make out to Smidge and Barb before dropping down to land beside him, but Branch can't tear his focus from his brother. Floyd looks terrible, hands and feet actually transparent and the rest of his colors only faint pastels instead of the bright aquamarine and carmine he's supposed to be, the difference in hue more worrying than if he'd gone Grey. At least Branch would know how to handle Grey.

Floyd stirs, blinking aware sluggishly. "Who..." he squints, and Branch kneels next to the diamond, pressing a paw to it like he could reach through.

"Hey," he can't hold his anger, seeing Floyd like this. It'll be back later, he knows that, but right now his concern is too great.

"...Branch?" Floyd stares at him, eyes wide, "Branch, is that you?"

"Yeah," he says gently. "It's me. I'm here."

"Branch," Floyd takes a shuddering breath, tone all brittle and trembling. "Branch, what... you can't be here, you need to leave! This is a trap!"

"Hey, easy, it's okay!" Poppy rushes to reassure, "We're here to rescue you!"

"No, you don't understand," Floyd tries to stand and stumbles, slumping back down to the bottom of the diamond bottle, "Velvet and Veneer, they sent those letters, you can't let them catch you!"

There's a creaking sort of metallic crunch from above, and dust shakes down from the air vent.

Right. There's no way they'd get the diamond through the grate, Poppy must have had Barb and Smidge handle that. Since that bit is apparently now handled, it's not a surprise when Barb thumps down beside them, Smidge dropping from her back after having provided the method of lowering.

"We're not leaving you, Floyd," Branch informs.

"Please," Floyd begs, "They'll be back any minute! They're in and out all day before shows, there's no time!"

"Give it up, Bottle Boy," Barb drawls in her caustic manner. "Branch doesn't leave people behind."

Floyd flinches, and Branch is simultaneously annoyed with her for her casual cruelty and vindictively pleased at the show of guilt. "Not now, Barb," he is all he says about it. "You're on lookout. Poppy, I need you spotting from above. I'll keep the bottle steady while Smidge does the heavy lifting. As soon as he's in, get that grate closed!"

"Right!" Poppy and Smidge's replies overlap, and then Poppy is clambering up into the open vent and Smidge is wrapping her hair around the bottle holding his brother.

Branch takes a good hair-hold from the other side, "One, two, go!"

Smidge could heft the bottle a dozen times over by weight, but the diamond is smooth enough that it's hard to keep a good grip. It's fine, though, because Smidge is stupidly strong, and with Branch steadying it the bottle's in the air vent in moments, the bright pink of Poppy's hair stretching down to take it from them and settle it beside her.

She checks to make sure the bottle's stable and starts heaving the grate back in place.

Branch has about two seconds to breathe out in relief when the door to the room slides open.

"Smidge, get Barb up there!" he mutters, knowing the hiss of a whisper carries, and Velvet stomps in sideways, the female of the music vampire duo wearing an elaborate chestpiece with wide shoulderpads, each studded with a diamond bottle like the one Floyd's in, her brother right behind her and the two of them struggling to carry... Rhonda!

Branch's eyes narrow. They haven't spotted him yet, but he doesn't have time to head for the ceiling before they do, so he dives behind the nearest grooming tool and ducks down. A quick scan of the male shows only one side of his shoulderpads has a diamond.

"See?" Velvet sounds disgustingly proud, "I told you it would work! My letters had them come running!"

Branch feels his ears lower as his eyes go wide, and he looks back to the diamonds. On one of Velvet's shoulders, John Dory is pushing himself to his feet and looking around in confused hostility.

"Hey!" Velvet drops Rhonda's hindquarters right as the door hisses shut behind her, "Where's the other one!?"

"A little help, Sis! This thing's getting loose!"

Rhonda redoubles her efforts as her hind paws hit the ground, rumbling and heaving against the arms still holding her exactly in time to cover the grinding clunk of the grate settling into place. A glance up shows Poppy's worried face looking down through the slats as Smidge and Barb start tightening screws.

"Give me a minute," Velvet snaps as Veneer stumbles, ending up having to brace himself against the closed door to keep Rhonda from knocking him over entirely, and then she's three strides closer and Branch has nowhere to hide.

"Why, you-" she grabs at him, missing when she has to twist to dodge a blur of familiar pink whipping at her face. The Rageon shouts in anger, flailing a hand wildly.

Branch's blood turns to ice at Poppy's cry as she's hurled across the room, hitting the wall with an audible thwap before falling to the ground.

"Poppy!"

The fall itself wouldn't have been too bad, the more clinical part of his mind points out. Trolls are small, but sturdier than most things their size. They're not heavy enough to have a fall of a few feet do them serious harm if they're not already injured.

She didn't just fall.

Branch takes a step towards the edge of the table, eyes locked on the pink form crumpled by the baseboards. She's not moving. She's not moving.

Rhonda breaks free with an angry howl and headbutts Veneer in the noodly torso, snapping with blunt teeth.

Velvet takes two stomping strides towards Poppy, lifting a foot-

-and Branch snaps.

His hair is around her throat and yanking before he even knows what's happening, sending her off-balance and choking to the ground. He reels himself in, ramming shoulder-first into her nearest eye and tightening his stranglehold until she's scrabbling, fingers starting to close around him.

He bites.

The grasping fingers flinch away, and Branch is extremely aware of Poppy's location and how far they are from it, and Velvet's no longer in immediate range of her. Rhonda's rushing over with a thrumming roar, and Branch lets go, using his hair to fling himself back towards Poppy. He skids to his knees next to her, but there's no time.

(She's so still.)

His eyes flick back up to the grate, where Barb is speaking frantically into her communicator and Smidge is dangling halfway out, gesturing wildly.

Branch lifts Poppy  as carefully as he can with the need for haste and gets them back onto the dressing table as Veneer manages to find his feet, stumbling over to snatch at Rhonda and haul her off his sister.

Branch flings his hair up to grab the vent and pulls, launching himself and Poppy upwards. Velvet crashes into the table below them, shattering the mirror and sending huge shards of glass flying.

He twists, curling around Poppy in a desperate attempt to shield her, and something hits him. His left arm goes numb and his grip falters, but he doesn't even have time to call out before green hair whips down to take Poppy from him, and only recognition keeps him from fighting it.

Smidge hauls as only she can, getting Poppy and herself behind the metal slats.

Pale fingers wrap around Branch and squeeze.

Branch lets go of the slats and brings his hair cracking down across Velvet's already bruised eye, then whips it back around her neck and yanks as tight and as hard as he can. He hears three of his brothers shouting, but he doesn't care.

He's not going down without bringing this one with him. She'd tried to kill Poppy. (She might have succeeded, and that thought tumbles around the back of his mind in a sickening whirl.)

And then Veneer's there, kicking Rhonda back as she tries to intervene and unwrapping Velvet's neck. "Easy, Sis! He's no good if you kill him! We still need another troll!"

Velvet growls and shoves him at her brother, and Branch is caught again before he can even process the moment of passing hands. She turns with a purple perfume bottle in hand, and Branch struggles and snarls and bites, but Veneer shoves him inside and Velvet slams the bottom on, screwing it in place with a sneer.

He looks up, and through the distortion of shaped diamond, he sees Smidge staring down at him in horror, and then glancing over her shoulder.

Floyd's safe and Smidge and Barb'll get Poppy out of there, but...

He snarls again as the diamond he's in is flung carelessly down amongst glass shards, rage and terror tangling over each other until he's shaking.

Poppy has to be okay. She has to be.

(She wasn't breathing.)

He sinks to his knees, curling in on himself, sick with the image of Poppy crumpled still and silent.

Please, please, please, Poppy, please.

Numbing cold sinks into him, a familiar hollow ache spreading through his bones as the world closes around him, crushing and terrible.

He can still hear her body hit the wall, and the silence that had followed.

I can't do this without you.

Chapter Text

There is a unique kind of horror to watching something bad happen to someone you care about right in front of you, and not be able to do anything.

Clay hadn't known that.

He knows now.

He's not entirely sure what had happened, honestly. He'd seen a blur of motion outside his mostly-enclosed prison, heard something soft hit something hard a fair distance away, and heard Branch scream, maybe a word lost in the chaos of other noises as Clay had been tossed around in his diamond. He'd spotted the blur of something reddish on the floor as the sadistic fraud went to stomp, but between the colored prison and how he'd been tossed around as Veneer had struggled with the angry armadillo-bus, he hadn't been able to make out much.

Branch had given a solid go on straight up killing the female Rageon, and Clay would have been proud of his baby brother for doing so much damage to a giant if not for the fact that - as soon as he'd managed to get his bearings again after being thrown across the room to the ruined dressing table - he could see Branch up close.

With layers of tinted diamond between, even up close some detail is lost, but Branch is wild-eyed and shaking and growing visibly darker by the second, crumpling down in a slow-motion fall that ends with... nothing.

He's just. Lying there. Bleeding. Not - not much, it's just a cut, but... "Branch!"

His blood looks wrong. Darker than it should be. Pop Troll blood is - objectively speaking - quite pretty. Clay's seen enough from small mishaps around the golf course to be aware of that. It looks like rainbow glitter-pen ink, or it should, but Branch's... even with the tinted light from the diamonds, it shouldn't be that dark, that thick. Like spilled tar.

Bruce and John Dory are getting up from where they'd been rattled around just as badly, and Clay turns in rising fear. "What happened!?"

John Dory looks terrified. "...the Queen," he manages, and his voice is shaking. "I don't... I don't think... I don't think she made it."

Branch shudders and tucks into a ball, and the eerie purple cast by the diamonds is a false sense of color.

Clay's heart sinks. He's still not sure exactly what all's been happening in Branch's life, but it's been pretty obvious that he loves... he'd loved... Viva's sister more than anything.

There is no way losing her hasn't broken something unfixable.

"Branch?" Bruce asks, shoving at his diamond until it rolls a facet closer. "Hey, Bitty B, can you hear me?"

That stupid nickname hadn't failed to get a rise out of him before, but this time he doesn't so much as twitch an ear, and Clay's ears fall in response.

"Branch," John Dory echoes, and heaves his weight into the side of his diamond, rolling it until it collides with the one Branch is in. The impact makes Branch slide along the angle he's curled up on as his diamond rocks, but gets no response.

"...what do we do?" Clay asks, tipping his prison closer, too.

"What can we do?" John Dory spits, bitterly helpless. They're all stuck in diamond prisons, and if Branch even can still hear them, he's not showing it.

Clay swallows again, trying to keep calm. The situation is bad, but other trolls - lots of other trolls, from what he's pieced together - know where they are and there's no way they're not already planning a better breakout.

They can't do anything except try and snap Branch out of it. Clay's not sure how, but he knows... basically nothing about what it means to really go Grey. There'd been a weird moment like, a month before, when everyone at the golf course had gone all dark with bright pink hearts beating in time for a couple minutes, but that had just been some weird phenomena that had freaked everyone right out and then gone away, not really anyone going Grey. What little he'd ever heard had been from some of the older trolls.

Which amounts to basically nothing. (There had been words like 'sad' and 'hopeless', but he doesn't want to think about that.)

Clay rolls his diamond close enough to clink against John Dory's, and John Dory clinks his against Branch's, rocking taps that don't get a response.

Bruce joins in, and Branch doesn't move. There's no space for Clay to follow, and Branch doesn't move.

Clay tries not to think it, but 'hopeless' echoes around his head in old Agni's voice, and some part of him recognizes described symptoms beyond just the lack of color.

"Come on, Branch," he pleads, adding his voice to his brothers'. "Don't do this, man. Don't..."

Don't give up. Don't die.

He can't say it. He can't ask it.

(He's got the sickly feeling that it's too much to ask.)

Chapter Text

Floyd has not been so confused ever in his life. He'd learned about the other Troll Tribes while traveling, of course, but he hadn't interacted much. They'd never been friendly to him, and he hadn't known why so he'd just kind of avoided them.

If he weren't so worried about his brothers, he'd spend more time looking for answers as to what in the name of all Music is going on, but so far what he's got is that five of the troll monarchs are holding some kind of war council because his baby brother is one of the trolls being held by two fraudulent, talent-sucking Rageons.

The Rock Troll who'd been on his rescue team is apparently Rock Queen Barb, and she's back from whatever meeting she'd been in and checking on the pink troll who still hasn't been explained to him. She'd been with Branch, though, and that means she's important. Like, personally important, even as Queen Barb's presence implies she's politically important as well.

 Two Funk Trolls - one biped and one quadruped - and one Techno Troll seem to have figured out his diamond prison, at least.

"Wow," the biped Funk sets aside his equipment, "That's actually pretty clever. Too bad they had to use it for this," he gestures to the diamond.

"So, you can get him out?" Queen Barb asks.

"Yes," the Funk assures. "It's screwed in from the bottom. Being that it's industrial grade diamond and not gem quality, the flaws inherent in the crystalline structure hide the seam and threads quite well, but all we need is a good grip and a few extra hands, and we can get him loose."

"Great," Queen Barb rolls her neck and shoulders, "Point me, and someone tell me how Popstar's doing."

"Not well," the Classical tending to the pink troll flicks her wings, drifting to settle sideways on a chair. "If you hadn't gotten her here so quickly, I have no doubt she would have died. As it is, while I have hopes for her recovery, it's going to take time. She's unlikely to wake for several days, at the least."

"Well, we'd better get Branch back before she wakes up," Queen Barb joins the quadrupedal Funk in bracing the diamond still on its side while the Techno Troll and the biped Funk affix handles to the base with some kind of adhesive cement and start turning.

Floyd feels completely extraneous, but... "Getting Branch back is something I want, too," he offers, "but why are you focusing on him? They have all four of my brothers."

"All four of your brothers aren't Branch," Queen Barb rolls her eyes. "Branch goes a little nuts when Popstar's in trouble, sure, but the last time it was Branch in this kind of trouble, that girl broke Music Itself to save him. If we don't have him back by the time she wakes up, I'm betting we can kiss Mount Rageous goodbye."

Floyd blinks, "What?"

"You probably noticed," Barb waves at him, "'Bout a month back, when you went all gray for no reason whatsoever? Lasted a few minutes, and was absolutely terrifying even with the wacky glowing heart-thing on your chest thumping to a beat you didn't recognize but knew all the same? And then *poof*, all your colors were back?"

He had. It had been pretty early on in his captivity, and he'd thought it had something to do with the whole 'draining his talent' thing, and had probably been lucky that neither of the Rageon duo had been in the dressing room to see it.

"Yeah, that was what Popstar pulled when Branch got turned into a mind-controlled zombie by way of the personification of the source of all music. She just up and broke Music because her boy was in trouble. We don't want to find out what she'd do this time."

Floyd thinks that over. The pink troll must really love his brother to do something that drastic. "That is both very sweet and incredibly terrifying," he admits.

"Yeah, Pop-sweet and Pop Queen crazy," Barb agrees, and the bottom of the diamond falls loose with a soft tink. She comes over to give him a hand out, and it's so strange to see the world without a film of purple across everything that it's hard to even judge colors anymore.

"Your turn to hit a bed, bro," Barb informs, and the Classical troll flits over and helps him stumble to the one next to the pink troll. "Get some rest. We're calling in everyone to bust your brothers out, so all you got to worry about is getting better. Branch is gonna be enough of a nightmare with just Poppy out of commission, we don't need to tack on any extra stress for that dude."

Floyd takes a deep breath and lets it out, then looks over to where the pink troll - Poppy - is lying, hooked up to a bunch of strange machines and completely still outside the shallow motion of each breath.

"For Branch," he agrees, and lets himself be sedated.

Chapter Text

"Branch, come on, man," John Dory presses both paws against the diamond surrounding him, rocking it hard enough to tap edges with the one Branch is curled in.

Branch can't make himself react, not even to focus his eyes. He's vaguely aware of three of his brothers trying in various ways to catch his attention, but he just...

(Poppy had come because of him.)

...he can't.

He doesn't quite notice the haunting tune thrumming in his blood, threading through his thoughts with a terrible kind of synchronicity.

Well I learned what I didn't want to know,
And I saw where I still don't want to go.
So I tried to take the path less traveled on
And I'll leave my stories far behind me,
To be whispered when I'm gone

When I'm gone~

In this life you must find something to live for
'Cause when the darkness comes a-callin'
You go back to where you were before
And this life is as fragile as a dream
And nothing's ever really quite as it seems

As it seems~

I found my hope when she took me by the hand
Is it now torn away? I can't quite understand
Now I wish I knew - nothing at all
But the freedom that comes when you're in mid-fall

He's not singing. He's not even humming. Everything feels raw and torn apart and empty, the resonating song echoing about in the hollow inside him only making everything hurt more. He can't - the last thing he really remembers is the dull sound of Poppy hitting the wall and the way her broken body had hung slack in his arms when he'd tried to get her out.

When he had gotten her out. But - she hadn't - he hadn't been able to feel her breathing. And he knows, he knows that if there had been a way, Smidge and Barb wouldn't have let her die. He knows that.

He just... doesn't know if there had been a way.

(She'd hit the wall so hard.)

He doesn't know how to hope without her, either. He's not sure he cares enough to even try. If she's... if she's gone, what does he have left to lose?

No. No, that's not how he should be thinking. He doesn't have anything left to lose, not if Poppy's really - he doesn't. But they do, and it may not matter what happens to him, but his brothers still have lives to live. He's never been a part of that, so he doesn't matter - they can go back to the same lives they'd had without him.

So long as they get out, anyway, and finally he manages to wrest a reaction from his numb body. His eyes refocus, and suddenly he can hear again, and what he hears is his brothers, talking to and at and around him, and he has no idea how much time has passed but it doesn't matter, either.

He'd seen how he'd been shoved into his diamond prison, and that means he knows what to do to get his brothers out.

But first he needs to move.

"Branch?" Bruce rocks his diamond and it clinks against Branch's, and Branch shoves himself around to face the base of his diamond.

"Hey, you with us, bro?" John Dory asks, hesitent, and - no, not really.

Branch can't make his throat work and shakes his head instead, flinging out his hair to anchor himself to stillness inside his purple prison.

"Branch?" Clay asks, but now his own hair is blocking his view of all his brothers, and since he's now facing entirely away from them, they can't see what he's doing. Doesn't matter.

"Hey, man, what's going through that head of yours?" Clay calls, and Branch ignores him.

He braces with his hair and plants his hands and feet against the base of the diamond and starts to press, like he's trying to crawl. It takes a minute, the angle making it harder, but the screwed-in base starts to shift, and he gets it half a turn before the two Rageons come back.

He snarls and lets up, not wanting to tip them off, and just curls up again.

"What's wrong with him?" Veneer asks, wandering over to poke at Branch's bottle. "He's all... dark and gloomy and quiet. And he was mean! The rest of you little guys aren't mean!"

"You kidnapped us all and killed his wife, and you think him fighting back is mean? Dude, new level of hypocrisy, there."

Branch flinches, ears flattening down, Clay's words hitting like knives.

Poppy can't be dead. She can't be! If she's dead...

(She hadn't been breathing.)

(That had happened before.)

(But this time Branch isn't there, and there aren't any handy chargebugs to use, and she's gone and he'd gotten himself caught and he's not there and he can't save her if he's not there.)

If Poppy's really dead, Branch is going to kill Velvet for what she'd done and Veneer for helping her do it, and nothing and no one will stop him.

(Even though it's his fault.)

"Wait, we didn't kill anyone!" Veneer protests, suddenly sounding uncertain. "...did we?"

"That pink troll that your sister murdered?" John Dory sneers, and Branch curls tighter, numb denial shattering into shards of agony and hate. "Yeah, her. The Queen. I'm pretty sure that's not just murder, it's also a declaration of war."

"Don't listen to them, Veneer," Velvet snaps. "They're just messing with your head. Get ready, it's almost showtime!"

Branch doesn't react when she grabs his and Bruce's diamonds, shoving them into her shoulderpads almost carelessly. What he does do is brace himself against the walls again, and go back to working the bottom loose.

He'll have to break out on whatever stage they end up on, in full view of any cameras and an entire audience if he wants to make his point. That's fine. Branch knows how to be patient, and it won't be long to wait.

Cold fire coils around his lungs like some poisonous serpent, for what they'd done and what they intend to do, and Branch won't let his brothers be used, be ruined by the ones who'd killed Poppy. He'll get them out, neutralize the threat, and after that - after that, nothing matters.

(His temper had left his brothers to get caught. His hesitation had made Poppy come back to get hit.)

(She's gone, and it's his fault.)

Chapter Text

"Yo, Essence, we got eyes in there?" Barb asks, and the speakers in her Flying Piranha (that's such a great name, Barb is so keeping it) hiss a little before the Funk monarch answers.

"Their cameras are streaming live, but we're sending in drones to scout you a clear path."

"Hit it, Greg," she tips her head towards her tech guy.

"Right," he's subdued for a Rock Troll, grey-purple and black with silver and dark purple streaked through his mop of hair, and he yanks a lever and a screen drops down. A moment later, it lights up with the Rageon's livestreamed Rage Dome show.

"Holy- is that...?"

"Hey, Branch doesn't look so good..." Riff leans forward, staring at the shadowed splotch that had just busted out of one of those posers' shoulderpads.

Velvet, right, that's the bitch's name. Not that it matters, 'cause Riff's right, Barb's seen Branch on some pretty bad days, but he's not a bit grayed around the edges, he's full-on Grey.

"What did they do to him?" someone mutters, too low for her to match a voice.

It clicks.

"Oh, shit, we gotta get in there," Barb watches as a line of black loops around Velvet's neck and drags her face-first into the stage before the Grey troll lunges, popping a whole-ass diamond prison loose from her tacky shoulderpads, and then Branch turns on the other one. "He doesn't know Poppy's alive!"

There's a moment's confusion, "Wait, what?" Riff twists to look at her, "I thought you said he's the one who got her to you!"

"He did! But it took me a minute to get her breathing again and by then they'd already grabbed him!"

Riff's ears lower and his shoulders hunch, "He'll kill them. He will kill them both on live TV in front of every Rageon in that dome."

"Call Essence back and get our boys moving! Plan's screwed, we need to get in there now!"

Her ship surges forward, and dots on the side tracking screen show the others moving with them and a swarming cloud of the beetle-bikes taking up the rear.

"Queen Barb, why have you deviated from the plan?" Essence asks, tense but not angry. Barb isn't sure that woman can get angry.

"Turn on the TV if you can't figure it out! Branch thinks Poppy's dead!"

There's a moment of silence, and then Queen Essence says, "...I see. Vibe City can't fit in the Rage Dome: you'll be on your own for this."

"Yeah, we go in, grab Poppy's boy-toy and the diamonds, and we get out. But if we don't do it now, he's gonna kill them!"

Not that Barb doesn't think they'd deserve it, but this is gonna be enough of a political nightmare without adding in the mess of proving Branch had been justified in public murder. They could probably swing self-defense, but it'd be so much easier to just avoid the whole thing.

The entry hall whips past outside, "Bring us in low and open the front! Get us as close to the rageball as you can!"

"You got it!"

The engines hiss in protest as they flip broadside to stop, the front dropping open as the zipper's pulled back, and Barb leaps out, hitting a jarring chord of sound right into Green-lips' face.

He flops back and sideways with a cry, bringing his hands up over his ears, and Barb scans the stage for Branch as three of her backup ships sweep down and open, teams of her boys leaping out to roll the diamonds inside.

"Branch!" she calls, and he's got a literal stranglehold on Pink-lips, Velvet clearly both unable to breathe and starting to panic, "Get it together, Boy-toy! If you're not there when Popstar wakes up, she's gonna go nuclear!"

Branch stills.

Thank the Strings.

"Come on, we got your brothers, we gotta go!"

Branch turns away from the gasping Rageon, hair receding to its normal length, and he takes one step towards Barb, then a second.

He doesn't look like he believes her, but he doesn't exactly look like he doesn't, either. He mostly looks like he's locked in his head, like his body's moving because that's all he can do and not because he's telling it to.

Right. He's as far from 'with it' as can be while still being mobile, so Barb runs over and catches his wrist, hauling him after her by main force to drag into her ship, "Go, go, go!"

And they're all of them clearing out, the announcer on live news trying to make sense of what's going on and confusion turning to outrage amongst a suddenly milling crowd.

"Shit," Barb mutters, Pop Troll in front of her or no. Not that Branch is listening, so it's whatever. "Come on, man!" she snaps her fingers in front of his eyes.

No reaction. Great.

"Shit," she says, much more empathically. "Get us up to Vibe. We gotta get this guy into medical, like, now."

It takes maybe ten minutes. It feels like hours, and the closest thing to interaction Branch actually does is sink down to sit on the floor, blinking dull eyes and lacking even a hint of color.

"Come on, Branch," she tugs, and he stands without protest, following in a passive daze when she pulls at his arm, "I know you can't believe me right now, man, but I'm taking you to Poppy, okay? She's gonna be okay. You're both gonna be okay."

She palms open the door to the medbay that Poppy and Branch's already freed brother are in, and Floyd sits up with horror written all over his face the instant he lays eyes on Branch. "Branch?"

Barb can't blame him. She's pretty horrified herself.

Branch doesn't notice him. Barb's pretty sure Branch can't see anything but Poppy.

He makes a sound in his throat, a faint little keen that sounds desperate and broken and terrified, and he's across the room before Barb sees him move, stumbling to a halt and reaching out a visibly trembling paw to press to Poppy's cheek.

And then he collapses.

"Holy shit!" Barb yelps, flinging herself forward, and Branch's brother flinches in surprise. Name, name, the doctor's name- "Concerta! Patient! Patient now!"

Branch's breathing sounds clear, but he's got one hell of a fever, and the faint flickers of blue in the fingers that had touched Poppy are already fading out. Barb doesn't have any idea what to do for Greyness. Rocks fall to it more often than most, but that's not saying much - one in a few hundred may be more, but it sure as hell isn't a lot. There's programs in place, but Pops aren't Rocks, and they don't work the same. A Grey Pop?

She doesn't even know if they can get better. Branch has been dancing on the edge for as long as she's known him, and the only times he's ever brightened up are with the Pop Queen, and - shit, she really hopes this hasn't broken him for good.

Seeing him like this'll break Popstar's heart as it is, but if he's not gonna get better, Barb'll bet everything she owns that Poppy will turn around and break the ones who did it right back.

Chapter Text

"Where's Branch!?" John Dory has no idea who all these strange trolls are, especially since he's not sure any are even Pop Trolls, but they're all very efficient about twisting open the diamond prisons in teams. "And-and Tiny Diamond!"

Bruce tumbles out of his diamond next, shaking himself and moving to give Clay a hand down while John Dory looks around in increasing panic.

"Hey, hey, calm down, man!" a tall quadrupedal pink troll trots over hastily, and his accent is much more Pop than Funk, which is weird. "You're out of those things now, so I'll take you to your brothers."

"Where's Tiny Diamond?"

"Tiny's fine, he's back with his dad," the pink Funk Troll assures. "I'm Cooper. Poppy's crew took me in after I fell off Vibe City when I was a kid and landed in your guys' forest."

"Is Branch..." Clay hesitates.

"...hey, I know it looks bad," Cooper lowers his head to meet them at eye level, "Really, though, guys, he's gonna be fine. Once Poppy wakes up, anyway."

John perks up, "Poppy's alive?"

Cooper stumbles, "Oh, gumdrops! You guys thought... Man, no wonder Branch went Grey again!"

John stops dead and both his brothers collide with his back. "...again?"

Coopers ears droop and his whole body curls downwards, "Spicy gumdrops," he mutters. "You didn't know?"

"Know- know what?" John demands, something hysterical welling in his chest, and Bruce steps closer and sets a hand on his shoulder.

"What happened last time?" His tone is low and overcontrolled and can't at all hide the sense of dread.

"I mean," Cooper looks back and forth between them, and Clay steps closer, too.

"Come on, man, he's our brother."

"...I mean, your guys' grandma got eaten in front of him when he was just a little kid," Cooper admits, stumbling over the words. "I didn't meet him until after Poppy found him in the woods and started inviting him to everything. It was pretty bad... and, you know, no troll got eaten after everyone escaped the Troll Tree, so... it had to have been a while. Poppy did her best, but he wouldn't... it took her, like, six years to get through to him at all. He's doing a lot better since last summer, though. Started singing again and everything! At least... when Poppy's around."

John Dory is a failure of a brother, and he doesn't want to think too hard about what all that implies.

"Twenty years?" Clay whispers, and a glance shows he looks terrified. "Branch was Grey for two decades?"

Cooper starts walking again, and there's not much choice but to follow. "I mean," he taps a paw on the ground uncertainly, "Around that, at least. Poppy's the only one who never gave up on him, you know? I think all the adults had written him off as dead. Her dad was really surprised the first time she managed to drag him home with her, anyway. He stuck a little closer after that, but most of us didn't... um. Like, Creek was really mean to him, and the rest of us thought he was weird and got mad 'cause he was mean to Poppy, but Poppy would just turn around and make him personalized invitations to stuff and hunt him down in the woods and make sure he was eating and just, well, Branch said 'generally be a nuisance', but he was smiling when he said it."

John swallows. The only one his baby brother had in the whole stupid village is the Pop Queen, and that had definitely been pre-crowning. And only because she'd found him in the woods.

"Yeah, are they married? No one ever said," Bruce half-raises a hand, clearly just looking for a new topic.

Cooper laughs a little, straightening up, "Not yet, but everyone knows they might as well be."

"Aw, man," Clay makes a face, "Guess it's a good thing I didn't make that bet with anyone."

"Bet?" John twists to look at his green brother better.

"I assumed, okay? The two of them and that kid? What was I supposed to think?"

"No, no, I get it!" John holds up his hands, warding off the defensiveness, "I assumed too! I just... no bet?"

"Yeah, I didn't think anyone would bet against, okay?" Clay huffs and folds his arms.

"Well, I wouldn't have," John has to agree.

"I wouldn't have, either," Bruce admits. "Bets only work when there's something to bet against."

Cooper smiles down at them, big and goofy. "Come on, we're here. Uh - and remember that when Branch is like this, he's not going to want you too close, okay? No crowding, and definitely no hugging."

And the door they've gotten to slides open, and Floyd looks up from where he's sitting, looking all washed-out like he'd been dipped in bleach. Despite that, he visibly brightens on seeing them, hopping off his bed in eager excitement. "Brothers!"

He stumbles, and John gets there first, catching him and bracing him up until he steadies.

Floyd hugs him, and John sniffles a little. "Floyd, I was so worried!"

Two more trolls impact from behind, and then it's a group hug but that's just fine with John. It's like the old days, from before Branch was born - them piling together when the world got too much.

"I'm fine," Floyd assures, "Or, well, I'm tired all the time, but Concerta says that'll pass. Branch, though..." he looks over to where there are two beds pushed right next to each other, and Branch looks even worse without the purple tint lending false color to his skin.

Cooper comes in behind them and droops a bit again, "...he'll be fine," he reminds, even though he looks upset. "I know it looks bad right now, but you'll see! He's just... you know, really stressed. As soon as Poppy wakes up, he'll brighten up again."

John finds his eyes seeking out the pink troll lying hooked up to a handful of machines on the bed next to his brother's. She's got braces on her right arm and leg, and another for her neck. "...how bad is it?"

Cooper's ears fall, "...pretty bad. She stopped breathing for a while, but Concerta said that Barb handled that right and that Poppy should be okay once she wakes up. It's just... gonna take a while for her to wake up."

John swallows, and his eyes track back to Branch. "...is Branch..." no, that's a stupid question. Of course he's not okay. A better question is... "Why isn't he waking up?"

"Oh, that," Floyd rubs the back of his neck, offering an answer that Cooper doesn't seem to have. "...yeah, Dr. Concerta may have sedated him."

Cooper nods, "That's probably a good thing," he paws at the floor for a second, "...anyway, I'll leave you guys to catch up. If you need anything, that button on Floyd's bed will call in assistance. And, uh... you're not prisoners or anything, but you probably shouldn't go wandering too far by yourselves. It's really easy to get lost around here."

And then it's just them, and John Dory has no idea what to say.

Chapter Text

"Jeez, he's still not talking, huh?" Queen Barb sighs, looking at Branch with a frown that seems genuinely concerned.

"Not a word," Floyd admits, ears drooping as he follows her gaze. It's been days. "I don't know if he even knows we're here," he waves inclusively at John Dory, the other two off getting food, and unable to quite help but keep his own voice low like they're in a library. "When he's awake, he just kind of... stays there. Watching Queen Poppy."

"I can't blame the dude," Queen Barb scowls, looking down. "He's had it rough. I mean, I'm worried about Popstar, and I don't love her like he does."

"Everyone keeps saying he'll get better," Floyd looks back over, and Branch doesn't really seem aware - he's just lying there, unfocused gaze locked on pink hair. "But... I mean... are we sure?"

Queen Barb's scowl gains an edge, "Man, don't ask me that, Mr. Sensitive. He were a Rock, I'd say solid chance - but you Pops don't work the same way we do. So. The other Pops say it? Then you take it as truth."

"Is there anything we can actually do, though?" John Dory asks, and Floyd grimaces at the doubtful tone.

"Seein' as how I never heard of any of you until you crashed the wedding, I doubt it. Branch'd need to trust you for that, and he definitely doesn't."

Floyd winces, and John Dory scrubs a hand over his face. He mutters something that sounds a little too much like, "I know."

Queen Barb groans through her teeth and shakes her head, "Look, you Pops are stupid forgiving, right? Give it a bit. He'll snap out of it when Popstar wakes up, and you can figure out the rest of your shit after that."

It's weirdly comforting, hearing that from the rough-around-the-edges Rock Queen. "You really think so?" Floyd asks, feeling a little more hopeful.

Queen Barb scoffs, "As long as you put some effort in," she pauses for a moment, "Watch yourselves, though. Branch has a temper. You push too hard, and you might end up like Velvet."

The most recent newscast involving the duo that had kidnapped him had shown Velvet and Veneer both without any makeup, Velvet sporting a massive black eye and bruising welts on her neck from where Branch had legitimately tried to strangle her. Veneer has similar welts, one on his wrist and one high on his neck, and also a brace on his ankle.

Floyd's baby brother had done serious damage to two Rageons - giants - and likely would have killed one or both of them if Queen Barb hadn't intervened.

Floyd still isn't sure whether to be proud or terrified (maybe both), but all that homicidal fury aimed at something his own size? Floyd doesn't want to know how much damage Branch could do.

"Then again, they hurt Poppy," Queen Barb muses, and Floyd is sixty percent sure she's deliberately poking at them. "You all? You only ever really hurt him."

Floyd flinches. John Dory hunches down in his seat, shoulders up around his ears and expression miserable.

The way she'd said that... it means things that Floyd doesn't want to think about. Doesn't want to know. But his brothers had told him what Cooper had said, and... Queen Barb's right. If Branch was Grey - Grey like he is now - for twenty years... It's their fault. It has to be. There's no other answer.

"That's what I thought," Queen Barb mutters, and walks over to Queen Poppy's bed. She brushes a paw over pink hair, apparently deciding that Floyd and John Dory are now beneath her notice. She looks at Branch, and Branch blinks slowly, turning his head to meet her gaze, and she gives him half a smile. "Hey, Dipstick. Hang in there, yeah? Popstar's still counting on you."

Branch nods, and it's not much, but he's interacting. Floyd's vision blurs.

Branch is interacting, but not with them. Never with them. (Not that they deserve it.)

"I know it doesn't feel like it right now," Queen Barb offers, almost gentle, almost kind. "But you're gonna be okay. Both of you."

Branch tucks his chin towards his chest.

The Rock Troll sighs, "...yeah, want me to get Concerta to knock you out again?"

Branch gives a single, tiny shake of his head, and Queen Barb sighs. "Suit yourself, but it'd probably make the wait go by faster. Still no? Then I'm leaving you here with the two ditzes in the corner. Got shit to do, man. Don't break anything while I'm gone."

Branch wrinkles his nose and Queen Barb actually laughs, a quick scoff of sound. "Later!"

And then she's gone, and Floyd and John Dory are left alone in a room with their mute little brother and their own building regrets.

"...you know, when I first met her, I wondered why Queen Poppy was so mad at me," John Dory admits, very quietly, and his eyes track over to where Branch is curled, Grey and silent on a hospital bed. "...I think I get it, now."

Floyd hasn't even really met the Pop Queen, but he thinks he gets it, too.

Chapter Text

Poppy jerks awake, heart pounding as she jolts halfway to sitting before falling back, head spinning and chest tight and half her body weighted down, something wrapped around her neck - not constricting but heavy and restraining. "Branch!" she tries to yell as some machine shrieks nearby, and she twists frantically against whatever's tangling up her limbs, "Branch!"

Her voice comes out quiet and choked and nothing like a shout at all.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Easy, your Majesty!"

There are unfamiliar paws on her shoulders, pressing her down, but even so some of the frenzy clears and she realizes there's a lot of white and beige in sight, and she knows Funk tech when she sees it. This is a medical room, and if she doesn't see Branch...

"Where's Branch?" she demands, and even in a hissing rasp it gets an immediate reply.

"He's right there," the blur standing over her says, and she squints at a bush of green. Right. Branch's brother, Clay. "He's right there, Queen Poppy, don't move."

She follows the fuzzy outline of his arm, trying to turn her head, but the thing on her neck - that's a brace - makes it hard. She strains her eyes instead, and she can kinda see another bed right next to hers, way closer than the medical rooms are usually set up with - not that she minds, in fact she'd like him closer, please - and a blur of charcoal black.

She feels her ears fold down as she blinks a few times, forcing her eyes to focus, and Branch's skin is dull and ashen, not a hint of blue to be seen. "Oh, Branch," she reaches, but she can't reach, and when she tries to push herself up again Clay holds her down. Oh, the heavy feeling on her right side is two more braces, one each for arm and leg.

"Don't! Don't, please, you're still hurt."

She'd kind of gathered that, "But Branch-"

"Hey, no," Clay waves his paws, "Once the doctor's looked you over, I can move his bed closer, but you're hurt, your Majesty. You almost died."

"Why isn't he waking up?" Poppy glares, fighting fear with anger.

"Oh, right," Clay rubs the back of his neck, "...he has a fever and he had a... rough morning, so Dr. Concerta sedated him again."

Sedated.

Poppy's anger dies and she can't help but relax a bit. It's not, you know, great, that he needed to be sedated, but it's not anywhere near as bad as most of the other options.

And then there's a Classical Troll who flits in and checks her over before declaring her 'on the mend', giving her water and a lecture and answering a few questions before letting Clay make good on his promise to roll Branch's bed closer.

She turns carefully onto her side with Clay helping very reluctantly (and probably only because Concerta had said 'as long as you have aid' on things like sitting or turning) and reaches for his paw, and it's a little too warm in hers. He's definitely still got a fever, but his eyebrows stop crinkling together quite so tightly, so she hopes it helps.

He looks terrible. He looks like he did the very first day she'd met him, which she knows is after he'd been all alone for years, because he'd been too scared and hurt and angry to really even come into the village if he had any choice at all.

"What happened?" she asks quietly, because it's been a while since Branch has been this kind of unhappy, and she gets that her being hurt upsets him, but even so it's... it's got to be more than that. Doesn't it?

"I couldn't see much from where I was at," Clay starts, moving around to stand where she can see him and Branch at the same time, "but when you got hurt, Branch managed to get you up to where your friend Smidge could grab you, but that bitch Velvet grabbed him."

Poppy blinks, turning her eyes on the green troll in mild surprise.

 "That's what Queen Barb calls her!" he defends, but quietly, like he's trying not to wake his brother. "Anyway, the last he'd seen before he got stuck in a diamond like the rest of us, you... you weren't breathing. He just... shut down. Hasn't said a word since. Finding out you're alive helped, but even if everyone kept saying you'd wake up, no one was really sure, you know? So." Clay gestures, maybe a little helpless.

Poppy feels terrible. Of course this is her fault! Branch must have been so worried!

She squeezes her eyes closed for a moment, "Oh, Branch, I'm sorry," she says, because she can't help it even if he can't really hear her, and Branch stirs.

"Branch?"

His face scrunches and his ears flick, and it's a visible struggle but he manages to open his eyes. He stares at her for several seconds, irises like dull graphite, and then blinks.

"Hey," Poppy tries.

Branch's breath catches and he shoves himself up, ears lifting hopefully.

Poppy squeezes his paw, and Branch curls towards her with a gasping sob, blue flaring where their fingers are twined together and spreading up his arm. The brilliant cyan of the first surge of relief soon shifts to a more tempered shade that shows he's still upset and worried, but it's color all the same.

"Poppy," he rasps, and she tugs lightly, hoping for a hug.

It comes immediately, but there's hesitation to the touch, Branch folding over her but bracing most of his weight on the medical cot, wrapping himself around her without much pressure.

It makes her everything hurt anyway, but she doesn't care because it's Branch and seeing relief and returning hope paint him in shades of slate and navy is so much better than ash and soot.

"I'm sorry," Poppy murmurs into his shoulder, "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault," Branch hides his face in her hair.

It kinda is, but it's also kinda not, so she'll let Branch have that one. Instead she reaches up to run a paw through his hair, and hugs as tight as she can with the angle and the tremor in her limbs, and lets him soak her hair with tears.

She doesn't really notice when Clay leaves, but he must because when Branch settles there's no great bush of green hair anywhere in sight, and Branch takes out his I.V. despite Poppy's glare and shoves his cot away before getting a chair from over by the other empty bed.

He's tired and there are still shadows under his eyes and the lines on his face are deeper than usual, but he's right there and he's smiling at her and he's gonna to be okay.

They're both going to be okay.

She can worry about whatever else there is to worry about later.

Chapter Text

One thing's for sure, Floyd is very glad to admit. Everyone around them had been right: Branch is better now that Queen Poppy had woken up. His skin is still dull, sure, but it's dull blue. An ashen greenish-blue, nothing like the bright cyan from Floyd's memories and fading baby pictures, but so much better than the sooty shadow he'd looked like before. His hair is a deep navy instead of charcoal, and while it's nothing like the sapphire Floyd can't help but miss... there's color to him.

His fever has broken, too, and after it had lingered for the entire week that Poppy had remained unconscious, that's a relief in itself. He'd been afraid it had meant Branch's injuries were worse than the doctor had been insisting, but apparently stress really can cause fevers. The best thing, though, is that he's found his voice again.

The less pleasant bit is now that he's no longer completely locked in worry, he has the space to be angry. And Branch is definitely angry, and not just at Velvet and Veneer. No, Branch is angry at all four of his brothers, and Floyd can't even blame him.

It stings, but... Floyd deserves it, and he's pretty sure the others do, too. He's been mostly giving them a cold shoulder, and Floyd isn't sure whether that's punishment or mercy. It kind of feels like both.

He still hasn't left the Queen's side, but currently she's asleep, and Floyd owes an apology at the very least.

He makes his way over, carrying a chair that he sets a bit away from Branch, leaving his baby brother between him and Queen Poppy - something he's noticed is that Branch tries to keep himself between any of his brothers and the Queen, and Floyd doesn't like the implications of that but if it helps Branch feel better, he'll accommodate as best he can.

(At least the neck-brace is gone. Seeing that had left even Floyd feeling sick with worry, and he hasn't even properly met her yet! The leg one's off, too, only leaving her arm wrapped in metal and polymers, though he also knows there's still something wrong with her chest.)

"Hey," he tries, and Branch sighs and pushes himself away from the lean against the Queen's cot, sitting straighter in his chair and twisting to face Floyd, arms folding defensively. It's not the most welcoming body language, but it's attentive, and Floyd will take what he can get. "Can we talk?"

Branch leans back slightly, "...I don't know," he says after a moment, and it sounds less like a snipe and more like genuine uncertainty. "Can we?"

It's as close to a 'go ahead, I'm listening' as Floyd's likely to get, so he takes a breath. "...I'm sorry," he apologizes. "I am sorry, Branch. I should have gone back."

Branch looks at him, and for an instant it's Bitty B looking out of those tired eyes, young and vulnerable and betrayed. "Why didn't you?"

Why did you leave me? Why didn't you keep your promise? Why did I have to be alone?

Floyd can't meet his gaze, shame hunching his shoulders and ducking his head. "I meant to, at first," he starts, because Branch deserves the truth, even if it's a stupid, selfish truth. "The first few months, I kept telling myself; 'Just for a year or two, until the band thing blows over.' Before I knew it, it had been three whole years - I hadn't even noticed the time going by until I found a newspaper and saw the date. Then... then I started thinking differently. I started thinking... I started thinking: 'He's fine, he's got Grandma' and 'He probably doesn't even remember me anyway'. I mean, Grandma was old but she wasn't that old, and you were only two when we left... and being away from the Tree, things were... easier. So I just... I did the easy thing, and told myself you didn't need me, and... stayed away."

He chances a look up, and Branch is staring at him with something brittle in his eyes. "...by year three," he says, completely toneless, "Grandma was dead. I didn't forget you, and I was all alone, and I'd already figured out you weren't coming home."

Floyd's ears flatten against his skull, because Bruce had said that one of Branch's friends had said something about that, about Branch losing Grandma when he was just a little kid, but that's so much worse than Floyd had thought. (So much younger.)

"...some days I almost wanted you to be dead," Branch admits, and despite the words he doesn't sound angry. Just... hollow. "If you were, then you hadn't left on purpose. I'd still be alone, but at least there would have been a reason."

Floyd had been right. That's not anger. That is so much worse than anger.

Branch's lips twist up into something bitter and painful that doesn't even come close to a smile, "Then I'd realize what I was thinking, and feel even worse about it. Of course you wouldn't come back. It was my fault you all left to begin with, so why would you come back?"

Floyd cringes in his chair, trying to lean forward and reach out and curl in on himself in utter remorse all at once. "No- Branch, it wasn't your fault! We left because of us, all right? Not you. You had nothing to do with it!"

Branch stares at him with stormcloud eyes that should be glittering, sunlit oceans, and there's nothing but a kind of tired resignation in them. "Then why was I the only one left?"

Floyd flinches.

Branch nods once, like that's the answer he'd expected, and turns back to lean against Queen Poppy's bed, reaching to take her nearer paw in both of his. He bends to press his forehead against it, and the Queen turns onto her side, proving she's awake and has been for at least a few moments.

She reaches over with her good paw and sinks it into Branch's hair, a steady pressure that seems to just be to let him know she's there. Her eyes are a bright fuchsia, and her stare is... sad, he thinks.

There's steel in it all the same, when she focuses her eyes on Floyd.

"It doesn't work like that," she points out, soft and gentle and unforgiving. "You can't leave someone without leaving them, and it wasn't fair that Branch was the one left behind."

Floyd swallows, the shadowed shades of his baby brother an inescapable proof of what they'd done to him. Branch is definitely through with the conversation, and Floyd can't bring himself to press. Instead, he meets the Queen's calm, assessing gaze and admits it. "No. It wasn't. I know it's too late for this, but..." he looks back at Branch, who's breathing in a steady box pattern, holding himself together with stubborn will and the Queen's presence.

"...I'm sorry."

Branch doesn't answer him, and there's nothing left to say.

Chapter Text

When it's just him and Poppy are the only times Branch really manages to relax, and he knows he's not being really fair to his brothers, but at the same time he can't - he's not ready to face them. It still hurts to just look at them, and they're all here and safe and whole - which means the worry's gone, but the anger hasn't bubbled back up into its old places.

Mostly he feels tired.

It's also a little unsettling, how long it's been since he's heard Poppy sing. And, yeah, a little over a week isn't long in the grand scheme of time, but Poppy makes a habit of pulling at least one spontaneous song-and-dance number per day, plus whatever had been pre-planned and near-constant humming or singing under her breath even when she's actively trying to be quiet.

Which keeps him from being able to really stop worrying about her even as the braces come off one by one, because if she's not singing, she's feeling worse than she's admitting.

It's not just them at the moment, but Dr. Concerta is unhooking Poppy's I.V, and that's at least encouraging. It's less so to have Bruce - and it's easier, a little, to think of him like that. Spruce had left him behind without a word, no farewells and no promises, but Bruce is a complete stranger. And that's... probably not the healthiest way to look at it, but it's easier - waiting over by the wall, and easier or not, Branch doesn't want to deal with him right now.

He's got a lot of 'big feelings' going on, as Poppy would put it, and most of them aren't good feelings.

"I want you to alert me immediately if you start feeling any worse," Concerta tells Poppy sternly upon removing the arm brace, and Poppy gives a dutiful nod.

"Okay!"

Dr. Concerta does not look convinced, and turns her stern gaze on Branch instead.

He cracks a smile, unable to help it. "I'll keep an eye out."

The doctor nods to him, and Poppy pouts dramatically, which at least means she really is starting to feel better.

"I'll be back for another checkup this evening," she turns her attention back on Poppy. "Don't push yourself just because you're not trailing an I.V. line anymore, your Majesty. Think what you'll put poor Branch through if you relapse!"

Branch winces a little, and Poppy's ears flick down, "I'll be good," she promises.

Branch isn't super happy about being used as a guilt trip, but... well, if it keeps Poppy from overdoing it while she's still healing, he's not going to protest, either.

Dr. Concerta nods sharply and flutters out the door.

"Well," Poppy huffs, and reaches to make grabby-paws at Branch.

He huffs back and gets up, moving to settle next to her on her bed when she scooches over to make space. It's a bit of a tight fit, the bed being made for one, but there's comfort in it, Poppy curling into his arms like she's always belonged there.

Branch sets his chin on her head and sighs, eyeing his older brother for a moment before dismissing the idea of trying to interact.

Poppy's more important.

(Poppy wants him to have his brothers back. Branch wants them back, but a big part of him is afraid to even hope for it to somehow work out.)

"I'm so tired," Poppy mutters into the crook of his shoulder, and Branch hums.

"So go back to sleep."

Poppy wrinkles her nose, "...I don't want to leave you alone."

Branch's breath stutters for a moment and he aches with how much he loves her. He can't think of words, can't think of anything, except... he'd written songs even when he'd stopped singing.

"I know they say that the space between
can make it stronger than we've ever seen.
They might be right, but I disagree
'cause I've never felt stronger than when you're with me.

Sometimes I wonder why you even care,
'cause even when I leave you're always there with me.
And like a candle makes a brighter place,
this mark you've made on me can't be erased.

I've stood alone and I've fallen down.
Your hands were there to pick me off the ground...."

He keeps his voice low and lets it trail to silence when Poppy's eyes close and her breathing evens out, not overly fussed to finish. So long as she's resting, he's happy to leave it at that.

He has dozens of songs that he'd written for her, to her, about her. That's the third he's voiced aloud.

(There's more than one he's not sure he wants her to hear, but that's mostly because he'd written them back before, and at least three of them might actually make her cry - and not in a good way.)

He closes his own eyes for a long moment, listening to her breathe, and lets some of his tension ease away. There's a little rasping hitch, there - evidence of the reason she's not singing - but she sounds so much better than she had even just yesterday that it's still comforting.

And his brother is still waiting. He's... pretty sure that if he's steadfast in his ignoring of Bruce, that particular brother will back off, at least for the moment. But. He's gonna have to talk to him eventually. Or never. One or the other, and... yeah, Branch is upset. Hurt.

But he doesn't want to feel this way forever, and if he doesn't face them, he will.

So he very carefully extracts himself from Poppy's sleep-loosened grip and settles the blanket over her instead, and pads over to the chairs he'd repeatedly moved to the far side of the room until his brothers had stopped trying to move them back.

(They'd wised up pretty quickly, at least. He'd not been happy when they'd woken Poppy when she'd actually been sleeping instead of unconscious.)

"What do you want?" Branch asks, and if he's a little curt, he thinks he can be forgiven. Mostly he feels heavy. There's a slow curl of resentment, still, and layers of pain he doesn't want to try and untangle, and the everburning embers of old anger failing to flare into something hotter, but... he has to try.

(No, he doesn't. There's a choice. It's just... which choice he can live with. And he knows himself well enough to know that if he doesn't try, he'll regret it forever. At least if he fails, no one will be able to say he hadn't tried.)

Bruce hesitates, and Branch waves at the chair closest to across from him despite the fact that he is rapidly starting to feel like his limbs are made of lead.

His second oldest brother sits, and reaches up to run a hand through his hair. "...I don't..." he pauses, shakes his head, and tries again, "Branch. I know it's too late to really change anything, but... I'm sorry."

Branch stares at him for a long moment. "I waited," he informs his brother quietly. "I waited for you to come home. Grandma kept telling me you would. You and Floyd especially, she was so sure. Did we really mean so little to you? Did I?"

Bruce's ears lower as he ducks his head, and Branch recognizes that motion.

"...that's a 'yes', then," he sighs, reaching up to scrub a paw over his face. "You left to build the family you thought we couldn't be, didn't you." It's not really a question, and from Bruce's expression, it doesn't need to be.

Branch is so worn down he can't even be angry.

"I wish I could hate you," Branch admits. "I really do. It would be so much easier if I hated you."

Bruce flinches.

The flicker of vindication feels hollow, like knocking on a tree with a rotted heart. "I waited for years," Branch tells him, and if his voice is as hollow as the feeling in his chest, all it does is make Bruce cringe lower in his chair. "I think part of me is still waiting, but it's okay if I don't matter."

It's not, and it is. "It's okay if I'm not what you think of when you think of family," Branch elaborates, and Bruce makes an odd, strangled sound. "It's okay if you don't want to come back. Just... at least say goodbye. At least give me that. I don't want to keep waiting, wondering if any of you are ever coming home. If home was ever home at all."

Bruce reaches out, and the paw curling over his wrist makes Branch's skin crawl.

He flinches away.

"Branch," Bruce chokes out, and there are tears in his eyes.

Branch blinks at him, the heavy weight in his chest and limbs having him feeling sluggish and hazy.

"You matter," Bruce slips out of his chair and goes to his knees in front of Branch's chair, paws wavering in the air like he wants to touch but knows it isn't welcome. "You matter, Branch, and I am so sorry I ever made you think you don't."

Branch considers that. He's too tired to be angry. Too tired to be forgiving, either. Too tired to be much of anything, really. He feels dull and numb, and a glance down shows his skin is the color of ash again. If he were less tired, he'd be annoyed at how his skin gives him away so easily, because it's really not normal for a troll's colors to act like a mood ring.

Unlike other trolls, Branch is literally physically incapable of successfully faking being fine. Right now it's not even so much that he's feeling bad about anything as that he's just exhausted, and it seems to all be catching up to him at once. He wants to go curl back up with Poppy and sleep for a week.

He's not really sure if he believes Bruce, anyway. Poppy... he believes Poppy when she says things like that. Of course he does. He has seen firsthand exactly how - well, no. He has seen firsthand exactly how far she has gone for him, not how far she would go. Given that 'has' had included literally breaking Music, he's not sure he actually wants to find out how far she would go if pressed.

(It's kind of scary, how much she loves him. It's so much more than he'll ever deserve.)

So Branch just sighs, and drops his face into his paws for a few seconds, rubbing at his eyes in something too faded to be irritation. "You're my brother," he states, and doesn't bother trying to sound anything but tired. "You're my brother and I love you but I don't know if I believe you, and right now I'm too tired to even try."

Bruce looks more than a little stricken, but Branch can't quite care. Instead he pushes himself back to his feet, and manages to stumble his way back over to Poppy's cot, but he doesn't quite trust his coordination so he drags his closer again and flops out on it instead of risking waking her.

Bruce, thankfully, quietly makes himself scarce. He's probably going to go share that conversation with the other three - Branch is at least eighty percent certain that Floyd had done so after that conversation - but he's too tired to worry about it.

Instead he checks that Poppy's in arm's reach - in case either one of them has a nightmare, which hasn't exactly been an uncommon occurrence in this particular medbay - and lets himself fall asleep.

Chapter Text

It's been a few days since Barb had checked in - she'd stopped being religious about it once Poppy had woken up, worries mostly soothed - so Poppy's extra happy to see her friend when she shows up.

"Hey, Popstar, how ya feeling?" Barb drags a chair over and plunks it and then herself down, nodding over at Branch as well, "Rageball."

"I'm good!" Poppy assures, and she really does feel a lot better. She can even hum a little bit without it hurting her chest! "How are things going with the Rageons?"

Barb pauses for a moment, and Poppy has a sudden sense of dread.

"Well, I've got good news and bad news," Barb decides after a moment. "Or, good news and embarrassing news. Or something like that."

Poppy looks over at Branch, who shrugs back at her, and then they both turn to stare quizzically at Barb.

"Okay, so the talks are going well. After Rageball nearly killed Velvet after busting out of her shoulderpads on live TV, they can't pretend we don't exist or that we hadn't been wronged. So Branch's stunt there actually turned out pretty well, and the fact that he's a threat to a full-sized Rageon means they can't dismiss us just for being small."

"Good," Branch sounds grimly pleased, which means he'd planned for that, or at least expected it as a possibility.

"Right, well, there's the whole thing where culturally they kind of worship us as beings with a direct connection to Music, so that also works in our favor. Velvet and Veneer aren't seeing the light of day again for a long time, if ever."

Poppy feels kind of sorry for them, but they also totally asked for it. "What about the rest?"

"Well, we've managed to get pretty good treaties and an apology, but that last was a hard sell because their mayor's a power-tripping idiot who wanted to save face. Which is where the... other news comes in."

"How worried should we be?" Branch asks warily.

Barb grins, and there's a tiny hint of a grimace around the edges but mostly she looks like she's laughing at them. "Well... one of Boy-toy's brothers apparently called you his wife to the kidnapping fraud's faces, and Queen Essence took the political opening that provided and kinda," Barb twists her hand in a 'go on' type motion, "Y'know. Rolled with it. So now you're basically politically married."

Branch coughs and Poppy suddenly feels off-balance. That - introducing them in absentia as an actual wedded couple to a foreign power as a political move is... that's pretty inescapable. And she and Branch have barely even officially started dating!

But it's already been done, so it's a little late to mention that.

Barb's amusement fades into something closer to apprehension, "Hey, is that... is that bad?"

Branch takes a deep breath and shakes himself out entirely, including his hair, then sits back and meets Poppy's eyes. He looks uncertain, hesitant, and Poppy remembers just before Bridget and Gristle's wedding, a slip of the tongue that had seemed awkward and sudden given they'd only been an actual couple-couple for like, three weeks. So she's willing to infer that Branch isn't against the idea.

They can talk about it more later, but for now... "I mean, I get why Queen Essence would have done that," Poppy admits. "Politically, it's a good move. It makes Velvet and Veneer grabbing Floyd go from 'random convenient Pop Troll' to 'targeted attack on the Pop Troll Royal Family', especially since they grabbed Branch and his other brothers and hurt me. They can't wave that off, because it goes from a minor criminal issue by their laws to huge international incident, especially since we've got all the Troll Tribes allied, now. I don't like that it was just, you know, sprung on us - but, I mean. It's just. Kind of... sudden."

"Kind of, she says," Branch huffs, but he settles. Poppy'll take it. "I'm with Poppy on this one. I don't like it getting shoved at us like this, but it makes sense and," his ears flick, a slight flush dipping his complexion a brighter blue. "Well."

Barb stares at them both for a few seconds, and then cracks a grin, "Essence messed up some plan to pop the question, didn't she?"

The deeper blue spreads to Branch's ears, which flick back and down uncertainly. "What? No!"

Which means - probably actually no, since Branch usually has at least a dozen plans for everything. So it's a lot more likely that she'd messed up at least a dozen possible plans that Branch had only just even started working on ideas for, given how - yeah, he's not really all that secure.

Poppy's been trying, but the idea of talking about marriage not even one month into a relationship is... awkward, okay? Even though she can't imagine living her life without Branch, or with someone other than Branch, it still feels sudden and rushed and like the ground wants to go out from under her.

So maybe she's not all that secure, either. But, well. It's Branch.

"She did!" Barb crows, cackling like a maniac, and Poppy huffs and folds her arms grumpily.

At least Barb is having fun.

The laughter tapers off after a few more seconds, and Barb looks at Poppy and then kind of just stops. "Uh... Poppy?" she asks, sounding suddenly cautious. "You're not... like, mad, are you?"

Poppy thinks about that. She... kinda is. She's not happy that they're getting forced into this instead of being able to take their own time and work things out as they go. But she also doesn't want to say that until she has the chance to talk to Branch, because if she just up and says she's mad, he'll probably take it the wrong way, since his mind always goes to the worst places first.

(They've been working on it, but some wounds take more than just time to heal. Branch has more than his fair share.)

"I'm a little mad at you for laughing," she decides on, because that is also true. Branch looks more than just embarrassed, and the laughter definitely hadn't helped.

Barb winces. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry," she waves her hands disarmingly, "This is actually kinda a big deal, isn't it?"

Poppy huffs, "I mean. Yeah. I get it, and it's Branch so as long as he's fine with it it's fine, but..."

Branch shifts a little closer, placing a paw on her shoulder and squeezing once.

Okay. So he's okay, and that's okay.

Barb grimaces, "You have a point," she admits, a little grudging. "I'd be pissed if someone sprung something like that on me, no matter who was involved."

"I do get it," Poppy assures, but it still rubs her the wrong way. "It's what's best for our people. That doesn't mean I can't be mad about having to use our relationship like this!"

Barb taps her fingers on her guitar-strap, "...I think I'll go warn the others," she decides, and pretty much bolts for the exit.

Poppy scowls at the closing door.

"Hey," Branch offers, soft and uncertain.

Poppy turns to him, "It's not fair," she says, and there's hurt welling up that has no real source, and she doesn't know what to do with it.

Branch pauses, ears folding down, and then he takes a deep breath and shakes himself. His ears lift into a more neutral position, and his skin lightens half a shade, "It's not," he agrees, "but... Poppy, I don't mind. It's not like there's anyone I'd rather spend my life with."

It's offhanded and casual and matter-of-fact, and one of the sweetest things she's ever heard.

Poppy sniffles.

Branch's expression falls, "Poppy?" he asks, anxious all over again, and abruptly all the recent frustration and stress and worry piles over the edge of this new thing thrown in, and Poppy bursts into tears.

She at least has the presence of mind to reach for him.

Branch gathers her up in a hug, and she curls up as small as she can and cries herself out in his arms. By the time she's good and done, Branch is sitting on her cot and she's mostly in his lap, worn out and feeling much better.

"That's been building up a while, huh?" Branch asks kindly, and Poppy nods.

"I can't even sing," she points out, which makes him grimace in concession.

Poppy does not do well with being kept contained. Most of her days are usually spent singing - if not in full village-wide song-and-dance routines, just little ditties as she goes about her duties, and it's so frustrating to not be able to.

"Concerta said your ribs are getting better," Branch offers in encouragement. "She might still not let you dance for a while, but I bet you'll be up to singing soon."

"I sure hope so," Poppy sighs, and tucks her head under Branch's chin.

He reaches a paw to pat her hair down out of his face and then goes back to hugging her, careful of the aformentioned ribs.

"You probably shouldn't really yell either," he observes after a moment, "but I bet you can work up a terrifying growl even if you can't be loud about it. You can practice on my brothers before you turn it on Essence and the others."

Poppy giggles, "I could," she agrees, because those four deserve to be growled at a bit, and just because Branch can do it doesn't mean he should have to, especially since he's definitely been kinda subdued lately.

They lapse back into silence for a few minutes, and then Poppy blinks.

"Hey, Branch?" she starts, because she's told him she loves him and she knows he knows that, but there's something else that's true that she's not sure she's ever actually said. It seems obvious to her, but now that she's thinking about it... it might not be so obvious to him.

"Hm?"

"I'm really glad you're here."

Branch stills, not even breathing for a few moments, before he tightens his arms around her shoulders and curls a little closer, pressing his forehead down into her hair. "...me too," he says quietly, and it sounds like a realization.

She leans harder into his chest, and hopes with all her heart that the new truth of those two words never changes.

Chapter Text

Clay finds out that his off-the-cuff assumption about his brother's relationship status with their people's literal Queen had maybe led to some problems about six hours after it actually happens.

Which is. Not great.

They way he finds out is almost worse, and that it had been his big mouth that had led the Rageons to believe the Pop Queen is married, and led to some political... uh, stuff.

And possibly made Queen Poppy cry.

Which was the political stuff, not specifically what Clay had said, but Clay is at least partially responsible for the situation. He is dreading seeing his youngest brother after having heard from Floyd that Queen Poppy looks like she'd been crying and Branch had said something about the situation at hand.

Branch is scary, okay? And really protective of Viva's little sister. If Queen Poppy really had been crying, then... Clay kind of wants to get out of dodge and never come back, but he'd tried that once and it had caused a lot of hurt.

He can't just up and run this time.

So he braces himself to get reamed up one side and down the other, and braves the medical suite the Queen and his brother are sharing, now that Floyd's been let out to stay with the rest of them.

(It gets a bit tense, but it's not as bad as it had been before everything. John Dory really has taken a step back, and while he falls into old habits when situations reflect their past, it's easier to deal with him than Clay had ever expected. Things aren't exactly great, but they're getting better.)

Branch eyes him with a certain amount of skepticism, which Clay has to admit is pretty fair.

Queen Poppy offers a wave, and it's been a bit since Floyd had bowed out of his attempt at a visit, but it's still clear that she's had a rough day. Which means Clay owes her an apology, too.

She's definitely going to be the easier one, so he takes a deep breath and starts with that. "Hey, so..." Sugar, this is awkward, "...uh, I heard that, um. What I said to those two kidnappers kind of caused some problems for you?"

Oh, that was not meant to sound like a question.

Branch snorts, and he looks more wryly resigned than actually angry, which is something. Queen Poppy wrinkles her nose, "Well, I mean, I'm not happy about it, but Queen Essence was the one who played it off as official."

Okay. So. She's not. Mad?

Clay coughs, scrubs both hands over his face briefly, and tries again. "Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have assumed, and I shouldn't have said anything to, you know. Them."

"Yeah, but," the Queen reaches to set a paw on Branch's wrist, "You thought I was dead. It couldn't really have, uh, caused problems, if that was true."

Branch closes his eyes and turns his paw up, tangling his fingers with hers, and Clay only doesn't wince because he's too busy repressing his feelings around that day.

So, this is the weirdest argument he's ever been in, and Clay figures it's best to drop the whole thing before it gets any weirder.

And as much as he'd rather it was one-on-one, it's not... it wouldn't be fair to ask Branch to talk to him alone. Not really.

"Okay," Clay shakes his head. "Okay, so, I'm still sorry, and but that's not really why I came over. Um."

Branch's ears drop a bit and the Queen turns to him with big, concerned eyes.

He glances at her and nods once, and she offers a supportive smile that makes Clay feel like an intruder. Branch squeezes her paw and gets up, moving over towards the chairs closer to the door.

It's... the illusion of privacy, at least, and a kindness Clay probably doesn't really deserve. "I'm sorry," is the first thing he says after he and Branch are both seated. "I know it's too late to make a difference, and I'm not asking you to forgive me, but I am sorry. I shouldn't have left like that."

Branch just looks at him for a few seconds that seem to drag on forever, and then he leans back in his chair and sighs. "Yeah. How you left sucked. Why didn't you even say goodbye?"

Clay hunches down a little, because - he barely remembers that night, outside of the haze of anger and resentment and frustration and shame and why-am-I-not-good-enough and why-can't-they-see-me?

Which is pretty much the answer.

"...I was angry. I wasn't thinking. I just - wanted out." With years between and Viva's stories of the last two years at the Tree and the disastrous escape that they'd long thought they were the only survivors of... Clay had plenty of time to regret, to mourn the parts of his family he'd thought he'd lost. He'd known John Dory had left, and he'd known Spruce had left, but he'd thought that Floyd had stayed with Branch and Grandma, and that all three had died trying to get out.

Branch closes his eyes and tips his head back, raising his paws to cover his face in a gesture that at least holds a little trust alongside old hurt and frustration. "Yeah. I kind of figured," he mutters into his palms.

"I'm sorry I left," Clay says, and he means it - but at the same time he doesn't, because if he hadn't he wouldn't ever have found the Putt-Putts, he would never have met Viva and been given a place that really feels like his.

But he's sorry he'd left Branch behind, and right now that's the important bit.

"No, you're not," Branch drops his paws and levels his gaze back on Clay, and there's something ancient and weary in his eyes. "I wouldn't have stopped you anyway. You weren't happy there, and I wanted you to be happy, Clay. I did. I still do."

That. Is so much worse than if Branch had started spitting curses at him.

Branch is still watching him. "Were you? Are you? Happy there?"

Clay thinks about that. About a community that takes him seriously, where he's never brushed off as a joke. About how Viva calls him 'Mr. Clay', and asks him every time she's not sure about something.

About how they had spent over two decades living in fear, a few of those years before he'd met them, until he'd learned to live in that same fear, half-expecting death to come walking in one day.

"I don't know," he admits, "but I feel like I belong."

Branch nods once. "It wasn't that you left that ever bothered me," he says, quietly, and Clay has to strain to hear him. "It wasn't even that you didn't come back. It was that I didn't know. You never said goodbye. You didn't - John Dory didn't exactly sit down for a one-on-one, but he at least said 'goodbye forever', so I didn't have to wait there, day after day, week after week, month after month until years had gone by wondering if I should be waiting or not. Wondering if I should be trying to make a home for you to come back to. Wondering if I had a family at all, or if it had always just been people, shoved in a pod together until they could go their separate ways."

Clay's ears drop more with each word, because that's... he hadn't meant to hurt his baby brother. He hadn't meant to leave him behind. He'd barely given him a thought at all, if he's honest - he'd just been running away.

There's pain, there, and there's an edge like old anger that's getting too worn through to hold. Clay has seen that from some of the older Putt-Putts, the ones who'd lost everyone to the Bergans one-by-one over years, well before the escape. Rage that had burned until there was nothing left inside to burn, because there was no other target in range to strike. Until all that's left is scattered ashes and resignation, doused in ever-present pain.

Seeing it on someone under sixty is a dull kind of shock, and Branch isn't even thirty.

Clay had done this. He had caused this. He'd played a huge, horrible part in breaking his baby brother, and he'd done it without even noticing.

"I want us to be a family again," Clay leans forward, earnest and wishing more than anything that he could go back in time and change it all. "I do, Branch. I don't - I never meant to hurt you."

Branch watches him in silence for a long, long moment, and Clay feels like those stormcloud eyes are peering through his thoughts and looking at his soul.

"You're going back," Branch says, matter-of-fact even though Clay hasn't breathed a word of his intentions to anyone.

Clay flinches. "I... I have to," he protests, and suddenly he feels very small. "They need me."

"I needed you," Branch points out, soft and ruthless before he straightens up and his countenance softens. "And I'm not asking you not to. Just... don't hide away in the shadows, expecting the whole world to hunt you. I get it, believe me, I do, but... that's no way to live."

Clay swallows hard and tucks his paws into his lap, trying to hide his trembling fingers. Branch... shouldn't be so accepting of this. He should be angry, he should be raging, yelling at Clay for his part in how much Branch had suffered, not...

...not this.

Because after twenty-three years of no contact, not once reaching out, Branch had found him and Clay had only agreed to come because Floyd was in actual danger. He'd have stayed hidden in that golf course otherwise, and he knows it.

Given how easily Branch sees through him, he has no doubt his youngest brother knows it, too.

And that's not even the worst of it, but if Clay lets himself think too hard on the actual worst, he's going to be sick. It's bad enough that Branch is just - hey, you don't want me, but that's fine as long as you have the life you do want.

Because it's not. It's not fine. None of it is fine.

"Why aren't you mad?" he demands, trying to keep his voice low but his throat is tight and something ugly and hot is burning in his chest. "I abandoned you! If you hadn't shown up, I never would have even tried to find you! I just wrote you off as dead, no proof, no nothing! I left you there with Grandma even though Trollstice was coming up and I knew it and I knew what it was like there, and I knew but I left you there like you didn't matter!"

Branch stares at him until he runs out of steam, and his voice is calm when he replies. "I was mad. I spent years being angry. I was angry when we picked you up. I was furious when I walked out. And then..." he rolls his wrist, gesturing vaguely towards himself and the medical room and the Queen where she's at least pretending to sleep on her medical cot, "...now I'm too tired to be angry anymore. Give it a few more days and it might come back, though."

"What's it like?" Clay claps both paws over his mouth, horrified with the question that he definitely had not meant to ask.

Branch doesn't pretend not to understand, even though Clay really wishes he would. "...like the sun's gone out."

Clay's absurdly grateful that Branch leaves it at that, and tries very hard not to think about all the things that could mean.

He straightens his shoulders and takes a deep breath, "So," Clay tries to make his voice light, "Obviously I can't just come live with you or something, since I've actually got responsibilities that I definitely need to get back to, but..." his ears prick up a little, entirely without his say-so, "...can I come visit?"

He makes it a question, because he could but not if it will somehow make things worse.

Branch blinks once, slow and considering. "...I think I'd like that," he decides.

Oh, thank Music. From how Branch has been talking, Clay hadn't really thought he'd lost his chance to... not 'fix' it, or even really make up the lost years, because they're gone and they're not coming back. But... to get to know the man his baby brother has grown into, and maybe make some things better along the way.

It's nice to hear the confirmation out loud anyway.

"Hey, will you punch me if I hug you?"

Branch gives him a deadpan stare, "If you don't ask first, it's a legitimate risk."

Clay takes that in, and then nods. "Good to know. Can I hug you?"

Branch's stare somehow gets even flatter, and the band on his wrist blooms open with a cheery note and a steady glow, and then he sighs and gets up and just kind of tips over into Clay's chest, initiating a hug himself.

Clay catches him and hugs him as tight as he can, and tries not to cry.

(The saddest book he's ever read isn't near the tragedy he'd almost caused, and the only reason Branch's life isn't a tragedy is a woman Clay has still barely met but is clearly the sun shining in his baby brother's world.)

Chapter Text

Things get settled with the Rageons without Poppy having to get involved, because all of the other troll leaders had made some very pointed comments on her being injured and exactly how protective they all are of her, and Barb had apparently added a snipe about what Branch would do if they pressed the matter.

"I mean, she's not wrong," Branch admits as they go over the transcripts.

Poppy very firmly does not let herself smile at that, because she has to at least pretend to disapprove since Trollex is literally right there going over everything with them.

Her signature is the last one needed, and a short proof of life video with a brief speech, all of which is taken care of in only a few hours. After that, there's another checkup with Concerta, and the Classical doctor finally declares her fit enough to be released.

Which is great, because Poppy desperately wants to go home, and she's pretty sure at least two of Branch's brothers have places they're supposed to get back to.

The other two... well, they'll figure it out as they go.

"Road trip?" Branch half-asks, not exactly sardonic but close.

"Road trip!" Poppy agrees, way more excited than is probably warranted, but she's so tired of being cooped up in this stupid room.

"We should probably get Bruce home, first," Branch decides. "It's been a lot longer than we thought it would be, and he kind of left his wife with a lot."

"Thirteen kids with pinkeye and a restaurant to run?" Poppy suggests, which is what she thinks she remembers about it all, but she's spent a while on the good drugs and might possibly be remembering wrong.

"Thirteen kids with pinkeye and a restaurant to run," Branch agrees, visibly amused, and gives her a hand up.

"Yeeeeaaaaah," she drags out the sound, "His wife is definitely either a saint or ready to kill him by now."

Branch snickers, and they set about rounding up his brothers.

What Poppy is trying not to get super excited about is what Clay had said. They've got Floyd, everyone's alive and more-or-less better (Poppy can hold a note without it hurting, and Concerta had taken dancing off the 'expressly forbidden' list but Poppy is still supposed to take it easy for a while, and probably won't be up to anything complicated for a bit), and Poppy has a whole living sister and she's going to meet her!

Which comes with some negative feelings, too, but most of those can wait until her dad is in her sights. And with Branch's brothers as an example, there's maybe a little apprehension. Like, what if her sister doesn't like her?

"Hey," Branch bumps his shoulder against hers, "If she's anything like you? She's gonna love you, Poppy."

Branch is the best.

Branch is also stopping at a random door and - oh, hey, it's a guest room. Leave it to Vibe to have 'guest rooms' in a hospital. Or is this the - yeah, this might be the private VIP medical center, actually, not the standard hospital. Right.

Anyway, Branch knocks on the door and there's a shout, a few spat not-quite-curses in varying types of sweets, and the door yanks open. JD is winded and visibly frazzled around the edges, his goggles askew and his hair half sticking out sideways like someone had been pulling on it, and he goes wide-eyed on seeing who's there.

"Branch!" he yelps, and then does a double-take. "And Queen Poppy!"

"Hey," Branch looks a bit uncomfortable, but soldiers on, "You guys about ready to start packing up? It doesn't have to be now, but we'll be heading home, soon."

"Right!" JD shuffles aside, "Come on in! We'll, uh..." he sidles around what looks like a card game that had exploded and then turned inside-out (or maybe the other way around), the other three brothers to sprawled positions of despair across varying bits of furniture. "We'll just... clean up."

Clay's bush pops up from behind the toppled couch and he scrambles to right himself. "Whoa! Hey, uh, hey guys!" he tries, and very much fails at being suave.

Poppy hides a smile.

Branch cocks an unimpressed eyebrow, surveying the damage. Floyd is half-hiding in an armchair, face buried in the cushion where it meets the armrest and hair mushed into the seat-back at an odd angle. Bruce is splayed on his back like a man shot, a card lying sideways on his chest and another clutched loosely in one paw while the rest of his apparently losing hand is scattered in a sad arc across the floor, another armchair toppled on its side beyond him.

"Wow," Branch decides, in his 'this is incredibly stupid, what are you thinking' voice. "Amazing, guys. Just wonderful. Do I want to know what happened here?"

JD starts gathering cards back into a deck, "None of them can play poker," he informs, vindictively cheerful, and Bruce sits up quickly, scrambling to look less defeated.

"Oh, hey Branch! And Queen!" he sweeps his cards into a pile and picks the one sliding down his chest off his shirt, stacking them together with a cornered kind of smile.

Floyd waves at them over his shoulder without in any way attempting to remove himself from the chair cushions, muttering something that's muffled into incomprehensibility.

Poppy folds her arms and considers the mess, trying to think like Branch.

The room is a disaster.

She manages the unimpressed stare for just long enough to make the three brothers looking at her duck their heads and shuffle their feet in obvious embarrassment, and then gives up and giggles at them instead.

Branch rolls his eyes but cracks a smile, stepping forward to right the couch and Poppy crouches down to start gathering up the popcorn kernels they'd apparently been using as poker chips.

"Ah!" JD flails his hands, "You don't have to do that! We made the mess!"

Poppy flicks an ear at him, dismissive. "More hands are faster."

Floyd pushes himself out of the cushions and turns around, reaching to sweep a few kernels together and then scoop them into a bowl that had been hidden by the chair. "She's not wrong, guys," he points out.

Protests thus quelled, they all get to work. It's really not as bad as it had looked - Branch rights the furniture in a few efficient motions, and once the kernels and cards are picked up, there's not a lot left of the mess.

"So, you're good to go?" JD asks, looking at Poppy, and she nods.

"Mm-hm, Concerta cleared me this morning," she agrees.

"She's still supposed to take it easy for a while," Branch adds pointedly, "But. Yeah. We can go home."

"And get Bruce home," JD grins, "Brandy's got to be about ready to murder him by now."

Bruce wilts, "I didn't mean to be gone so long!"

Branch's ears twitch, that comment clearly enough to sting, and Poppy twitches an ear back questioningly.

He catches her eye and shakes his head, a tiny motion that none of his brothers see, and she lets it go.

Bruce perks up, "I can't wait to really introduce you all to everyone! They're going to love you!"

Branch's shoulders shift down two hairs, and Poppy breathes a silent sigh of relief. Whatever's going on, they're not just going to split and run this time. They may not be coming back, exactly, but they're not leaving again, either.

Maybe Branch can have brothers again after all.

(Maybe his - their - family isn't too broken to fix.)

Chapter Text

Because Queen Essence and King Quincy are Cooper's parents, Branch isn't particularly surprised when they drive the whole of Vibe City over Vacay Island to let them off. There isn't enough space for a safe landing, and instead of going to land on the bluff on the actual mainland, they pop Rhonda in an oversized bubble and drift them down to the island that way.

It's inefficient. It's dramatic. It's stupid.

It also makes Poppy smile and Floyd stare out Rhonda's window in awe while John Dory whoops with glee, so Branch can't make himself complain. Clay certainly does, but it's under his breath as he hides in the back of the critter-camper, apparently not very enthused about the distance to the ground.

Bruce is too busy being excited to see his wife and kids to pay much mind to the method of transportation, but pretty much every 'Vacaytioner' on the island is understandably fixated on the armadillo-bus floating down from the massive city-ship in varying states of fascination, apprehension, and disbelief.

Except thirteen bright-eyed, long-eared, half-troll children and the Vacay woman Bruce had previously introduced as his wife. They're all watching in eager delight.

By the time Rhonda touches down and the bubble disperses, the children are bouncing in place or over each other and everyone else has come to the conclusion that whatever's going on isn't a bad thing and is thus either entertainment or something to ignore.

Vibe City starts pulling away, and sunlight pours back across the sand in its wake, and Bruce hops impatiently in place while Rhonda opens her door and then launches for the kids.

Varying cries of 'Daddy' and 'Dad' overlap into a general cacophony, and thirteen excited children of varying ages - the smallest of whom is five times Bruce's size - tumble forward in an avalanche to meet him.

"Aww," Poppy coos, watching as Bruce very much fails to hug them all at once but gives it his best go anyway. "How cute!"

"Sure," Branch agrees, deliberately bland. "Cute."

Bruce gets tossed up in the air by one of the taller children, caught by a second, and then launched significantly higher by another child - and caught by his wife.

She plants a kiss on top of his head and sets him back down again, "Easy, kids. Daddy's looking pretty dizzy right now."

"Daddy's definitely feeling dizzy right now," Bruce agrees, wobbling a step and holding up a paw with a finger pointing upwards in a somewhat dramatic gesture of realization. "I did not realize how disorienting that is. I am so sorry, Branch."

"Serves you right," Branch tells him firmly, and shifts to stand a little bit in front of Poppy.

"Wow," Bruce shakes his head and Clay snickers, John Dory taking a very obvious step back with his palms up in pretty clear indication that he wants nothing to do with it.

Floyd smiles and sits down on Rhonda's outstretched ramp, and the critter-bus churrs and tucks her legs under her.

"B's got bite!" Clay calls in a tone of reminder, and Branch sends him a glare on principle.

"Yes, he does," Bruce agrees, and then shakes his head. "Right! Brothers! This is my lovely and very tall soulmate, Brandy, and our thirteen kids!"

"Oh, oh, which one's which?" one of the blue children asks, leaning forward without actually moving his feet.

"I bet that one's John Dory!" a green finger levels on the correct brother, "He's got goggles!"

John Dory puffs up a little, "Yeah, that's me!"

"Wait, so... you're Uncle John," the yellow boy sits in the sand, pointing at John Dory, "And you're pink and blue, so you're Uncle Floyd," he adds, shifting his tracking finger over. "And you might be Uncle Clay?" he squints at Clay's bush of hair, "Your hair's more green than yellow, but..."

"Nope, that's right!" Clay agrees. "I'm Clay!"

"So, then..." he turns to Branch and Poppy, "...I guess... Uncle Branch?"

Branch nods. "Pretty good, kid," he agrees.

"So... who's the pretty lady?" the only girl in the group asks, plopping down to sit in front of them.

"Right, right," Bruce shakes out of his proud dad trance, "Kids, this is your Aunt Poppy. You have to be really gentle with her right now, since she got hurt and isn't quite better yet."

Branch tries not to let that put his hackles up. It's a good warning for kids, who can be careless and clumsy and rough without meaning to. Given these kids are significantly larger than any troll, it's a warning that could even be considered essential.

It's also exposing a weakness to everyone else on the beach, and Branch doesn't like that at all, even if Vacay Island is almost notorious in how laid back and accepting everyone is, even non-native visitors.

All thirteen of the children gasp in horror, and the girl - LaBreezy - scrambles a little closer before lying down on her belly so she's closer to eye level. "Are you okay!?" she asks, just as most of her brothers add in their own questions, some on health and some demanding to know what had happened.

She's always been good with kids, so Branch isn't surprised when she slides past the question on her health and easily refocuses the children on what had happened. "You know those two new Pop singers, Velvet and Veneer?" she asks, and all the boys exchange glances while LaBreezy narrows her eyes, looking suspicious.

"We like their music. Daddy said it reminded him of Uncle Floyd."

Branch winces at that, because it makes perfect, terrible sense - and Floyd grimaces, hunching down. Branch wants to go comfort him, but that would mean moving away from Poppy, and sticking with her is still the stronger instinct. It's okay, though, because Clay moves closer to their brother and so does John Dory, and that makes Floyd smile again.

"Yeah, that's because they kidnapped your Uncle Floyd and were using his music. So your Uncle John found out about it and came and got the rest of us, and when we went to save Floyd, Velvet hit me really hard. Obviously we got Floyd anyway, and we're all fine now, but it hurt a lot at the time."

Branch shudders, closing his eyes against the memory of that sound, and Poppy leans into him when he wraps an arm around her just to feel her breathing.

About six of the children chorus "That's awful!" while four voices add slight variations on "Why would they do that!?", two add in more wordless dismay and LaBreezy herself gasps quietly, eyes going very wide, and then she pushes herself up on her hands.

She doesn't stand, but it makes her loom a bit, "We need to go beat them up!"

Branch stares at her for half a beat before smirking in approval.

Poppy lifts her hands, "No, no!" she says, very obviously placating, while being careful not to dislodge him. "There's no need for that!"

LaBreezy narrows her eyes, and several of the boys crowd in around her with very similar expressions.

"Your Uncle Branch already handled it!" she finishes, and thirteen sets of eyes lock in on him while his... sister-in-law frowns just slightly.

"You beat up a Rageon?"

He doesn't even know which kid had asked that, but it's about when Bruce bulls back in, coming between them with a wave of his arms for attention. "No, no, your Uncle Branch didn't beat up a Rageon," he laughs a little, shifting to flap one hand dismissively.

Branch distinctively remembers leaving a Rageon with several welts around her throat after having yanked her face-first into a stage floor, so would beg to differ - but then his second oldest brother looks around like he's making sure no one else is listening (an assessing follow-up on Branch's part proves that at least four nearby Vacay and one 'vacaytioning' Rageon very much are) and leans in, holding up a hand to his mouth like he's imparting a secret.

"He beat up two!"

Branch blinks, leaning back. "I did?" he mutters, confused. He only really remembers going after Velvet.

"He did!?" the children gasp in wide-eyed awe.

"Oh, yeah he did!" John Dory butts in, bounding over with a wide grin. "Left that, b-er... kidnapping music-vampire Velvet with a huge shiner and messed up Veneer's wrist! And ankle!"

"Huh," Branch tilts his head. "Do not remember that."

Or, rather, he remembers trying to get (keep?) them away from Poppy, but the exact sequence of events is... hazy, at best. He definitely remembers going after Velvet specifically in the Rage Dome, though.

"Yeah, you were running on blackout rage at the time," Clay sidles over. "Not so surprised you don't remember."

"He also put both of them on the floor on live television," Floyd gets up and makes his way over slowly, "Man, I have never seen anyone get that pissed off."

Bruce nods along with the other brothers, and his wife raises an eyebrow at them over a baker's dozen of bright-eyed vengeance-seekers. "It was very impressive," Bruce agrees, shrugging at Brandy. "Apparently Branch doesn't take it well when anyone hurts the Queen."

Poppy twists a little bit, eyeing him with a slight frown, "...you know, I don't know whether I should be congratulating you for being amazing or scolding you for being reckless."

"To be fair," John Dory half-raises a hand, saving Branch from having to figure out what to say to that, "We did think you were dead at the time, so I think Branch's response was pretty reasonable."

"...right," Branch makes a face. That had not been better than figuring out what to say himself, thanks. "Please don't remind me."
 
"No, yeah, okay," Poppy agrees. "That's better than my response would have been."

Floyd fields that one, "Queen Barb said something like that," he muses in the tone of 'stirring the pot', "Something about 'kissing Mount Rageous goodbye' if Branch wasn't back before you woke up?"

Branch ducks his head slightly, burying his face in Poppy's hair to hide the expression he just knows he's making.

Poppy huffs and folds her arms and leans harder into his hold, like he's a wall holding her up. "I wouldn't have blown up the whole city!" she protests.

There's a beat of silence, and then she kind of droops a little, more sheepish than tired, "I mean. Probably."

"Someone please change the subject," Branch begs, because he's going to go incandescent if this keeps up, a hot flush of something he can't even begin to parse into actual words swelling through him like the building edge of a tsunami.

"Queen Barb?" one of the kids shuffles closer, "You know a queen?"

Poppy nods firmly and Branch dares lift his head. "I know lots of queens!" then she pauses, "Well, I know three queens, a mayor who is also a sheriff, four kings, and one former king who has since abdicated his throne."

Large tan hands reach down and start righting children, "All right, everyone, let's bring this inside," Brandy decides for them. "We can keep talking while I get some work done and Daddy catches up on things."

There's a few halfhearted protests and cries of awwww! but for the most part the kids pick themselves up easily enough, making a circle around the trolls to escort them in. Brandy does glance down at them as they go, though.

"So, that's a lot of important people you know, then."

"...right, we skipped that part," Bruce taps a finger against his chin, "It came as a shock to me, too!"

Brandy tilts her head curiously.

"So our lovely pink lady here is Queen of the Pop Trolls!"

"Oh!" Brandy blinks, then looks down at them all with a smile that looks a little impressed and a little like she's not sure whether to believe it.

"...and also apparently united the Troll Tribes in some apocalyptic mess a month ago," Clay tacks on.

"Not by myself!" Poppy protests.

 "My goodness," Brandy murmurs as the kids exclaim in awe all over again. "And she's 'Aunt Poppy', then?"

She eyes where Branch has his fingers twined with Poppy's rather pointedly.

There's still some conflict in his chest when he thinks about that, but... "Yeah," Branch agrees.

"Being aunt is way more special than being queen anyway!" Poppy declares firmly, and given the altering angle of Brandy's smile, that pretty much cements her place in the family for life.

"Oh, but," Brandy looks over them all, suddenly concerned. "The little sparkly one you had with you last time?"

"Right," Branch shrugs, "That was Tiny Diamond. He's kind of an honorary nephew through the Snack Pack, but he snuck aboard. We got him back to his dad when everyone met up at Vibe City for," he wrinkles his nose, "Politics."

LaBreezy immediately shuffles out of her place in the adorable protective circle of children. "Oh, oh, tell me more!" she turns big doe eyes on Poppy, "Please?"

Poppy laughs, "There's not much to tell," she admits. "I slept through the peace talks."

LaBreezy's jaw drops in shock. "You slept through peace talks!?"

"Poppy," Branch rolls his eyes. She's Poppy, but she's not that kind of irresponsible.

"You didn't 'sleep through' the peace talks!" John Dory agrees, puffing up indignantly.

LaBreezy sighs, relaxing. "Peace talks sound really important," she whispers, not at all quietly.

"They are really important," Poppy agrees like she's imparting a big secret, then straightens up and continues more sheepishly. "I still missed them, though. They only let me out of the hospital yesterday."

LaBreezy's eyes go wide again, and she stares at Poppy and then slowly turns her gaze on Branch, "...are you sure you beat those jerks up enough? We can still go beat them up more!"

Branch laughs, unable to help it. "I like you, kid."

"Bloodthirsty," Clay nods, clearly approving.

"Guys," Poppy sighs.

"Life sentences in prison?" Floyd offers up.

"What's a life sentence?" the green kid with orange hair asks.

"It's when someone gets sent to prison for their whole life," Clay spreads a hand across the air in illustration, like he's pasting a spreadsheet to a wall.

"They deserve it," Branch says firmly.

"No arguments here," John Dory nods.

"Guys," Poppy turns a hint of a scowl on the lot of them.

Branch shrugs. "They tried to kill you, Poppy. They deserve worse."

"Not the point," she huffs, and waves to indicate the kids.

Oh. Right. She's a teacher. She probably senses when kids are gearing up for real mayhem.

Bruce glances around at his scowling herd and winces a little, "Right, right. Okay, kids! Let's get Daddy caught up on everything that happened here while he was gone, okay?"

"Yeah!" the yellow one scoops him up, "Come on, Dad! We've got a whole shelf of stuff for you!"

Brandy watches as the kids carry their dad off in a rush of renewed - but less bloodthirsty - excitement and says, "Whew. Good catch, your Majesty."

"Oh," Poppy wrinkles her nose. "Ew. No. You're basically my sister. Just call me Poppy!"

Brandy's smile softens and she carefully offers Poppy - and, by extension, Branch - a lift up onto the counter, leaving John Dory and Clay and Floyd to take the ramp, and then turns to grab a tray of troll-sized glasses and a pitcher, "The boys don't get the same privilege?" she asks, a little teasing.

"Eh, they were all mean to Branch," Poppy waves dismissively. "You seem pretty cool."

Brandy's smile gains an edge of mischief, but she doesn't comment on that. "Well, I'll go make sure everything else is handled for the moment and be right back! You can tell me all about your adventure!"

...yeah, okay, Branch is sold. If Brandy and Poppy are hitting it off that easily, that's all he really needs to know. And, well, maybe... maybe he doesn't have to be too apprehensive about this place, either. Aside from a few lazy waves and greetings, they've been let alone - he can't even hear much gossip on their rather... extravagant entrance.

(This place is his brother's, in the end. Maybe, just maybe, that means it's actually safe here.)

(It's not what he'd dreamed about when he was still little, back when he'd still had all his hope before Grandma had died, but... it's something, at least. Maybe it's even family.)

Chapter Text

John Dory knows perfectly well he's the only one of them who hasn't sat down for a serious talk with Branch. From what he's heard the other talks had gone...

...well, they'd gone, anyway.

It not like they hadn't sat in that stupid in-a-hospital-but-for-guests (which is still weird) room and whispered about what Branch had said like the walls would judge them all for their failures. It's not like every time one of his brothers had crept back from attempting to apologize looking like they'd been stabbed hadn't been followed by an accounting that spread that feeling to the rest of them.

Floyd had brought a more coherent timeline, Bruce the terrible knowledge that Branch doesn't believe they care, even literally can't believe they care. Clay's was even worse, that Branch still wants them safe and happy, even if he's got no place in their lives. All three of them had said he isn't even angry.

So. John's been... putting it off. He's being a coward and he knows it, but the idea of having Branch look him in the eye after... after everything he hadn't done, and not even being angry?

John Dory has no idea if he could take that.

But that's no excuse not to try. He'd failed all his brothers, back then, but at least three of them had been old enough to make their own choices. Or... by Troll Tree standards, anyway. Looking back, they'd all been too young - but by Troll Tree standards? They'd been old enough.

Except Branch. Branch had been two. A literal baby. And Grandma...

Back at the tree, trolls never died of age. Once they started getting older, they'd get singled out for Trollstice of they didn't give themselves up. John had known that. No one ever talked about it, but pretty much everyone had known.

And, sure, John had known there was an escape plan in the works, a few of the older trolls growing cautiously excited that a project over a century old was finally getting close to the end, but he shouldn't have just assumed things would somehow be okay.

(If he's completely honest, he's not sure he ever had. Part of him had always expected to find an empty pod when he came back. The hows and whys... he just hadn't let himself think about it. But he'd been a kid, too, and desperate and terrified and just hoping that somehow, if he wasn't there making everything worse, somehow the rest of them would find a way to be okay.)

(They hadn't.)

So. John needs to... not talk to Branch so much as apologize. He's not expecting forgiveness, and he's not gonna ask for it, but he needs to apologize all the same. Branch deserves at least that. At least.

So John goes looking.

It's kind of surprising to find Branch without the Queen, but he does, and Branch takes one look at him and just... sighs. He pushes himself to his feet and starts wandering in the general direction of Rhonda's favorite local nap spot, and John Dory doesn't know what else to do but follow, so he trails along after his little brother and tries to come up with something to say.

The first thing that comes out of his mouth isn't the apology he very much owes, but it's something that's been burning in the back of his head. "Why aren't you mad?"

Branch side-eyes him for a minute, "...you really want the answer to that?"

Phrased like that, John's not sure he does, but it feels like it's important to know. He shrugs uncomfortably, "I don't know, man, but..." he waves, trying to encompass something he can't find the right words for.

"I was," Branch taps Rhonda's side, prompting the armadillo-bus to pop open her door with a sleepy grumble, and John can only follow him inside, pathetically grateful for the offered privacy when his living camper shuts her door behind them. "I was," he repeats after a moment, eyes focused somewhere else, somewhen else. "For years. I was furious to the point of panic when you turned up at the wedding. I just wanted to punch you in the face and tell you to get lost, back to wherever you'd been hiding all these years, so I'd never have to see you again."

John deserves that. "So... why didn't you?"

"...because I knew I'd regret it if I didn't at least hear you out," Branch admits, and there's an old, settled pain in his tone. "I guess I'm not that angry anymore, partly because I'm tired and partly because... I figured something out."

John's not sure whether to be hopeful or terrified at how Branch says that, slow and considering and... something else, something undefinable. "Yeah?"

Branch's lips quirk into a lopsided almost-smile, something tired and bitter and resigned. "I don't need you."

John Dory rocks back, feeling the words like a blow to the chest.

Branch turns to face him and looks him dead in the eye, "I don't need you. I don't need any of you. I thought I did, for years I thought that if you just came home, somehow everything would be all right. But you didn't, and... I'm okay anyway. Poppy gave me that. As long as I've got her - I don't need anything else. I don't need you."

John can't find words. There's a kind of buzzing in his head he can't quite think past, and he doesn't - he doesn't know what to do, to say.

Branch watches him founder for a moment, and then extends a mercy. "But... just because I don't need you doesn't mean you can't still be there."

John scrambles for something to say, anything at all, and a flailing corner of his mind points out that he still hasn't apologized. The conversation feels like it's rapidly coming to an end, and if he doesn't get it out now, he might not get it out ever.

"I'm sorry!" he blurts, abrupt and jagged and not at all how he'd wanted to say it, but he can't stop now that he's started, Branch's startled expression entirely notwithstanding. "I was the oldest. I was supposed to look after you, and I didn't. I left- I abandoned you, and I didn't mean to but I did anyway and I'm sorry."

Branch stares at him for a long moment, and then he sighs all over again, "John Dory, you're the only one who didn't leave me waiting."

That... makes no sense? "What?" he glances around, but of course there's nothing to explain that.

"You said goodbye," Branch points out in the tone of reminder, and John's brow furrows.

Had he? He doesn't remember that.

"You didn't sit down for a one-on-one," Branch rolls his eyes, just a little, "but before you walked out that door you said 'goodbye forever' and I believed you. You didn't... you didn't leave me waiting. You didn't leave me wondering if you were ever coming home. I mean, sometimes I kinda hoped you would anyway, but I wasn't counting on it, and I wasn't wondering if I should be counting on it. Out of the four of you... that hurt the least."

Oooooh, that is bad. That is so bad. That is the worst thing Branch could have said.

"Branch," John tries, taking a half-step closer and then stopping when he sees Branch's shoulders tense, lifting towards stiff ears that indicate he's a lot less comfortable with this conversation than he's pretending. Great. That's just... John's just going to ignore that, since he doesn't know what else to do.

"Branch, I shouldn't have left at all."

"Maybe not," Branch acknowledges after a moment, and a tiny bit of the tension drains out of him. "...but you did, and we all have to live with that."

John's ears flatten. Branch isn't wrong, but that's...

...he doesn't know quite what it is. But it's not forgiveness.

You know what? That's fine. John Dory doesn't deserve forgiveness anyway, and even if it's not forgiveness, Branch has already offered a chance.

That's way more than John deserves, but he's selfish and hopeful and not going to let that chance slip away, either.

There's a gentle *ding* and an aquamarine glow, and John stares at his brother's Hug Time bracelet for two seconds before he grins and lunges in, just after Branch looks down to fold the thing closed with a paw.

He manages to get his arms around his baby brother before Branch twists like an angry snake and John reels to Rhonda's floor with sparks in his eyes and his nose throbbing.

Branch scowls down at him, not quite thunderous but definitely unhappy, and then turns to stalk for the door. "I'm leaving."

John Dory has the horrible, sinking feeling that he'd just ruined the second chance with Branch before he'd even really started.

(He'd pushed a step too far.)

All he can do is watch as Rhonda's door folds shut.

Chapter Text

Branch makes a beeline for Poppy, hackles up and feeling distinctly frazzled.

She sees him coming and starts to perk up, then catches his expression and cringes halfway through. She says something he can't hear to LaBreezy, who has a bizarre but avid interest in politics and has been harassing Poppy for information nonstop every chance she gets, and then jogs over to meet him.

She tilts her head and half-spreads a hand in silent question, but the idea of a hug is grating in and of itself, so he shakes his head. She shrugs a bit and gestures expansively to the sand instead, and Branch lets his legs fold out from under him and plops down hard.

Poppy settles two inches away, giving him enough space to breathe while still being right there, and perks her ears attentively.

Branch curls forward and drops his face into his paws. "I'm going to kill one of them one of these days," he mutters.

Poppy makes a sympathetic sound, "One of your brothers? Who did what this time?"

Branch huffs into his palms, takes a breath, and straightens himself out. He turns a plaintive look on Poppy while LaBreezy sits herself down several feet away, whipping out a book from nowhere. She's not exactly leaving, but she's at least pretending to give them some privacy.

"John Dory," Branch makes a face, "Just - it wasn't the worst apology I ever heard, but then he just tackled me when my bracelet went off-"

Poppy snerks, eyes bright with laughter, and Branch scowls at her.

"I know, I know," she waves, "I'm sorry, Branch, it's just - your face."

That is the tone of Poppy sympathetic enough to be sympathetic but not nearly sympathetic enough not to laugh. Which Branch will admit - grudgingly, and only to himself - is entirely fair. He still scowls harder on sheer principle.

Poppy's expression softens, and she leans a little closer without actually reaching for him, which he's grateful for. He's tempted to bristle his hair like hedgehog spines, but he'd never live it down if he did.

"Do you want me to talk to them?" she asks, and while there's still some amusement, she's genuine in the offer.

"Please," Branch groans, flinging himself onto his back in the sand. "I think I broke his nose and sooner or later I'm actually going to kill one of them."

Poppy laughs out loud at that one, and for a moment irritation wars with fondness.

Fondness wins, and half the tension drains out of him all at once.

He pushes himself back to sitting and huffs out a breath. He's still annoyed, but not really with Poppy.

"Okay," she says through her giggles. "I'll round them all up after dinner."

"Thank you," Branch groans, "Why are they all idiots?"

Poppy settles, "...because they love you, Branch," she says, gently, and he slants a look at her. "No, don't give me that, they do," she insists. "They don't know how to show it, and they're all feeling guilty about messing up as badly as they did, but they do love you so they're trying to, you know. Fix things."

Branch shifts until he's sitting on his knees and holds out an arm in invitation, and Poppy scoots over into his hold. "Some things can't be fixed," Branch points out, and it feels mean to say it but it needs to be said. "What happened... it's way too late for them to 'fix' anything. You're the one who fixed me."

Poppy wraps both arms around him and squeezes for a moment, "You weren't broken, Branch," she protests.

That's debatable. "I don't know," he wrinkles his nose, "I felt pretty broken."

Some days he still does, but it's always better with Poppy around.

Poppy doesn't have an immediate response, and Branch ducks his nose into her hair, taking comfort in her presence and the way it settles the staticky buzz out of his blood. "That's not the point, though," he continues. "They can't fix it, and even if they could have, once, they're way too late now. I mean..." he struggles for a second to find the right words, "...we can move past it?"

"Do you want to?" Poppy asks, and it's soft and gentle and completely lacking in judgement, and he is so grateful.

"I think I do," he admits. "I do. I just... half the time, when one of them touches me it's..." he doesn't have the right words. A crawling, burning discomfort that makes him want to shove them away, makes him want to bolt to somewhere safe and never look back. And it's not always, it's just... a lot, that's all.

"I'll talk to them," Poppy repeats, and tilts her head to look up at him with an edge of mischief to her smile, "And if you end up breaking a few noses, well. It serves them right."

Branch buries his face in her hair, ears heating in guilty embarrassment. "I didn't mean to! He just startled me!"

Poppy reaches up and pats his head a few times in teasing commiseration. "It still served him right, Branch," she assures cheerfully. "I can do it again, if you want?"

Branch groans, but he feels a lot lighter. "Please don't go punching my brothers in the face."

"I dunno," Poppy muses, a teasing little smirk on her face. "It sounds like fun."

He's grinning. He should not be grinning at that, it'll only encourage her, and while he doesn't think she's serious, he also wouldn't put it past her. Like. At all.

"Poppy," he protests, pulling himself somewhat upright.

"Feel better?" she asks, smug in her certainty of his answer.

He has to give it anyway, because, "Yes," he admits. "Yes, I do."

(The image of Poppy punching any one of his brothers in the face is both entertaining and kind of horribly appealing, but he absolutely cannot say that out loud. If he does, she will actually do it.)

He puts his chin on her head and wraps as much around her as he can without involving his hair or otherwise moving, "I love you so much," he tells her, and means it with everything he has.

Poppy twists around until she can hug him back. "I love you, too!" she declares, like it's something to be written into law, and he can't quite help the fond huff of laughter.

Even when she doesn't know what to say, she always knows just what to say.

Chapter Text

"Whoa, man, what happened to your face?"

Floyd turns to follow his second-oldest brother's gaze and immediately sees both who and why he's asking. "Are you okay?" he half-echoes as his eldest brother grimaces and looks away.

"Who are we talking about?" Clay pops his frizzy head up from behind the accounting book Bruce's wife keeps - which is, naturally, larger than five trolls put together. "Whoa, John Dory! Your nose!"

John Dory shuffles his feet uncomfortably, and then just sits down where he's standing, "...I talked to Branch," he admits, and he looks so discouraged and sounds so dejected that even without the damage to his face, Floyd would have assumed it had gone badly.

"And he... punched you for it?" Clay hazards, squinting.

"No!" John Dory looks up, indignant, and Floyd very pointedly raises an eyebrow at his bruised, swollen nose.

His big brother rubs the back of his head, ducking back down a little. "...his Hug Time bracelet went off, and I hugged him, and... I think it was an elbow."

That's... something. Floyd's not sure what, though. "Do you think it was an accident?"

John Dory droops, "I don't know, but he was really mad and just - stormed out, after that. I don't know where he went."

"Probably to the Queen," Bruce observes.

Floyd has to agree. From what he's seen, Queen Poppy is the center of Branch's whole world, and also the way he grounds himself when things get to be too much. He's not sure if it's healthy, that Branch is that dependent, but... after twenty years in the same state he'd been in before the Queen had woken up in the hospital...

Anything is better than that.

"But he got mad?" Clay asks, and it sounds...

Floyd squints, "...why do you sound hopeful?"

"Because he wasn't mad!" Clay flails a hand at them, climbing over the account book, "Because he wasn't mad even though he should have been! If he's finally mad... I mean, it sucks and it means we might have to dodge a few punches, but it means he's getting better."

Floyd leans back a bit, "...Queen Barb said he has a temper," he realizes out loud. Floyd hadn't seen a hint of that temper past the cold shoulder and the beatdown he'd laid on the Rageon duo, but the cold shoulder could easily have been apathy instead of anger.

John Dory's ears perk up a little, and Bruce starts looking hopeful, too. "So this is... good?"

Clay waves a hand uncertainly, "It's... maybe?" he tries.

Before Floyd can come up with something to say to that, a flash of pink catches his eye, and he turns just in time to see Queen Poppy land on the edge of the desk they've all incidentally turned into an impromptu meeting-room.

"Hi, have you seen-" she stops, taking in the array of trolls before her, and Floyd feels his ears lower submissively. There's something in her gaze that feels sharp and overpowering. "...nevermind," she decides out loud. "I don't need Brandy after all."

John Dory slowly twists around to stare at her with wide, hunted eyes, and Queen Poppy folds her arms and raises a single eyebrow, looking for all the world like they're small little distainful things that should be beneath her notice but are insisting on reaching for her attention anyway.

It's remarkably intimidating.

"Um," John Dory scoots back, apparently too scared to try standing up.

"I was going to wait until after dinner," Queen Poppy tells them all, sweeping her attention across so she meets eyes with each of them in turn, and Floyd almost flinches when her gaze bores into his.

It's not even that she's angry. He's not sure she is. It's just - there's something to her that feels like it really shouldn't be challenged right now.

"But since you're all conveniently together right here, we need to talk."

"Oh, boy," Bruce sidles towards Floyd, "Why is that so intimidating?"

"Because you hurt Branch," the Queen tells him, sharp and no-nonsense. "Line up and sit down," she gestures towards John Dory.

Floyd decides obedience is the better part of valor and scrambles. Bruce and Clay are wise enough to do the same.

John Dory half-raises a hand, "How much trouble are we in?"

He doesn't get an answer. Instead, the Queen uncrosses her arms and starts pacing in front of them, which is for some reason even more intimidating, and then turns on her heel and focuses a glare on all of them at once, somehow.

"We need to lay some ground rules on how you interact with Branch," she states. "He's trying really hard, you know. He missed you all a lot while you were gone, and he wants to be a family again, but you're making it really hard on him. You can't just - go up and touch him, and you definitely can't hug him without warning. He is terrified that one of you is going to startle him in a bad moment, and he's going to actually kill you. He's really upset about what happened back at Rhonda, by the way," she adds towards John Dory. "He didn't mean to hurt you."

"So... he's not mad?" John Dory sounds understandably confused.

"Of course he is!" the Queen stares at him like he's an idiot. "Anyone would be mad after what you all did to him! But being mad doesn't mean you stop loving someone! And Branch... I love him with all my heart, but that doesn't stop him from being dangerous. He doesn't really know any of you, and he reacts without thinking when something grabs him, and if he ends up really hurting one of you it'll break his heart. I don't just hug him without warning!"

Floyd leans back, placing a hand against the desk beneath them for balance, "...that... I don't like how much sense that makes," he admits after a moment. "So... no touching Branch?"

Queen Poppy huffs, "Ask first. It doesn't have to be words, but make sure he sees you coming and if he pulls away, don't push it. Branch was alone for a really long time, and... there's not a lot of things in the woods that grab you without it being a bad thing. He's got reflexes. He's afraid they'll hurt you. That he'll hurt you."

Another repeat, and she's really pounding the importance in. Floyd closes his eyes and nods, and tries very hard not to imagine his brother as a little kid, fighting to get away from some predator that had grabbed him while he was all alone in the forest.

"Right," John Dory droops in place. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"Don't tell me you're sorry," the Queen gives him a principled stink-eye. "But if it makes you feel better, Branch isn't really mad about it. He just didn't want to stay there 'cause he was afraid it'd make things worse."

Clay raises a paw, "Does he... get panic attacks or something?"

"Or something," the Queen agrees.

"Right," Clay scrubs both paws over his face for a moment, "A lot of the Putt-Putts do, too. I know how to handle it."

"Good," she nods once. "Then you can go over the details with your other brothers. The big thing with Branch is not to startle him, especially not if you're close enough for him to reach and possibly hurt you. Even if nothing bad happens, it'll upset him that something could have. Okay?"

Floyd nods, and sees his brothers nodding too, and his chest aches with guilty sorrow but - he can do this. They can do this. They can do better.

Branch still wants to try.

And that? That feels like a miracle.

Chapter Text

Brandy has to admit she's pretty fond of her... sister-in-law? If that's the right term. Over the past few days, it's been made pretty clear that whatever is going on, the 'Aunt' bit to Queen Poppy's name had been added by default due to a misunderstanding-turned-political-weapon.

And while it's very clear that the Pop Troll Queen has strong positive feelings of some kind towards her husband's youngest brother, it's a lot less clear what those feelings actually are. (Brandy doesn't want to admit it, but it's hard to read faces on such tiny people, and some of the body language, too. It took her a while to be able to read Bruce, and he exaggerates his gestures and stances for her - a thing he'd done long enough it's turned into habit.)

And it's also clear, both by observed evidence and what Bruce had confided to her during the nights, that Queen Poppy is the absolute center of Branch's world, and for her husband's sake, Brandy wants to get a better grasp on exactly what's going on there.

Given that the boys are all saying their goodbyes two feet over, she's running out of opportunity.

"So," she leans an elbow on the counter, smiling down at the completely unintimidated pink troll. It's flattering, that kind of trust - even Bruce had taken months to stop cringing at first. "That Branch is your best friend, huh?"

Bruce is her best friend, her husband, and her business partner. A good marriage needs that friendship to be solid and true, even before any kind of romance.

"What?" Poppy blinks up at her, visibly confused. "No! Bridget's my best friend!"

Brandy glances towards the boys, who have all frozen except for Branch, who only flicks an ear in a gesture that time with her husband has taught her is dismissive. He's clearly not bothered, despite the other four's very obvious collective trepidation.

"Branch is more like... gravity," Poppy tilts her head and folds her arms, cheerfully thoughtful. "Or, hmm... Oh! The glue that holds my whole world together!"

Brandy watches in amusement from her natural vantage point as the ordinarily dull-skinned troll starts to flush a deep cyan even as he ducks his head in very obvious embarrassment as all four of his brothers start ribbing him on hearing that.

Sound carries easier down the ramp to the counter than up it, and it had been a bit of a risk, but Brandy had to be sure. And, well... "That's quite the comment," she muses.

"Well, he is! I'd be sad if something happened so Bridget wasn't there anymore, but I know what I'd do. But... Branch has always been there for me. I don't know what I'd do without him." She seems to give that some consideration, "I don't know if I'd do anything without him."

That makes Branch flinch and whip around to face the ramp, stricken, the brighter color draining back out of his hide.

Brandy has definitely missed something. Another glance at the boys has her husband catching her eye, and his expression isn't as alarmed as his little brother's, but there's a wide-eyed edge of shock to it. He says something, and Branch takes a visible breath and then turns back around, not interrupting despite his alarm.

"That's also quite a comment," Brandy crouches so she's not looming as much, "Seems pretty serious, then."

"Branch'll tell you I helped him get his colors back," Poppy informs, and - yes, Bruce had said something like that, and had since explained what Branch's lack of vibrancy seems to be an aftereffect, and what the state he'd called 'Grey' usually tends to end in. "He won't tell you he helped me get mine back first."

Brandy pauses, chancing another glance towards the boys, and she's not entirely sure what's happening over there but Branch seems less tense, so it's good enough.

"You seem bright," she points out anyway, because the pink troll may be a notably different color than any of the boys, and thus somewhat harder to compare, but her skin still seems quite vibrant.

"Oh, yeah," Poppy waves a paw, "I didn't lose my colors very long, so it didn't mess with my pigments. Dr. Moonbloom says Branch is the first one she's seen survive being Grey long enough for long-term effects after recovery."

Brandy pauses, and then decides to wait before thinking about that. Preferably until she can talk to her husband, because that does not sound good, and she doesn't want to hash it out where either the kids or the troll in question might hear.

"But he's important to you," she reiterates, even though that's been obvious the whole time.

"Mm-hm!" Poppy nods enthusiastically, "Branch is the best!"

"Branch can almost certainly hear you," Brandy points out, because the troll in question is starting to go cyan again, and she's satisfied that whatever is going on with politics and such, those two are in this together for the long haul by choice.

Poppy turns around, sees Branch all hunched down and brightly-colored and grins, "Poor Branch," she laughs. "Aww, look at him blush!"

Paws go up, head and shoulders go down, and his next complaint is audible despite the poor acoustics, "Poppy!"

Brandy echoes the pink troll's grin, "Well, it's about time for you to head out, anyway. You should go rescue him before his brothers finish teasing him to death."

Poppy nods and hops to the top of the ramp, and then announces "Raa-haa!"

There's a fraction of a second of hesitation as Branch shifts a foot in front of him, bracing slightly, and then Poppy launches herself to the bottom of the ramp, landing on his back in something too violent to be called a hug. He dips a shoulder and rolls her around in front of him, promptly holding her up as a shield.

That's... very well in tune, Brandy realizes. Bruce has told her everything as it comes up, as he learns it, and Poppy had given all four of her... of Branch's older brothers a very thorough scolding on warnings before physical contact, but if Brandy hadn't been looking for it, she never would have noticed the near-invisible moment of is-this-okay and sure conveyed through a nonsense sound and a shifted stance.

Yeah. Whatever is going on politically, those two are definitely going to be okay.

(Well, that's one less thing to worry about.)

Chapter Text

Given that they're on their way to the golf course where Clay had holed up - pun completely intended, given the golf ball disguises - with the Putt-Putt's led by Viva, it's completely predictable that Poppy is jittery with nervous excitement.

Given that Clay had bolted out the gate and left Viva shaking in his wake, it equally unsurprising that he's even more frizzy-haired with nerves than his usual 'struck by lightning' look.

Floyd still tires easily, so he's mostly dozing on the back couch. Poppy's better, but she's not at a hundred percent, and should be doing more-or-less the same - which she isn't. John Dory is jittery on sheer caffeine overdose on top of his mild anxiety, and Branch has almost reached the point of doing something dramatic just to ease the tension.

"Boys and - Queen," John Dory calls from the front, imitating Tiny Diamond's inflection rather poorly, and Branch slaps a paw over his face. "This is your driver speaking! I have no idea how long it will be before we reach Hole-In-Fun... is that right?" he trails into an aside, "That doesn't sound right. It's an abandoned Bergan mini-golf course, they didn't do 'fun' until after Queen Poppy came around."

"John Dory," Branch groans.

"Right, yeah, anyway, since Hustle is a no-go with Branch aboard, this may be a long drive."

"Great, yeah, thanks," Branch huffs, lowering his paw to offer a glower instead, "Way to calm down the jitterbugs back here. Excellent job. Where is Tiny when we need him?"

Poppy giggles.

"Uh, what?" John Dory twists around, scowling back at them with overdone offense. "I'm a great driver!"

Branch pretends to give that some thought. "...yeah, no, Tiny's better," he judges.

Poppy giggles harder as John Dory's mouth drops open and he gapes, only half feigned to Branch's eye. He raises a paw to point, standing up, "See? See?" he looks to Clay and Floyd for help that definitely doesn't come, Floyd blinking up at him with sleepy confusion and Clay raising both hands in a 'leave me out of it' gesture.

"B is such a critic!"

Poppy raises a paw like a schoolchild.

John Dory shifts his pointing finger over to her, "Yes, your Majesty?"

"You did just leave the driver's seat while the vehicle is still in motion," she chirps. "Tiny never did that unless someone else took over!"

John Dory's expression goes significantly more real in the gaping. "Wha- what about when we were tracking him?" he points at Clay again.

Poppy glances at Branch, who takes the cue. "Rhonda took over. She was literally scent-tracking, and directing her by the wheel could have made her lose the trail."

"Ooooh," Clay presses a paw to his chest, "Burn."

"What am I witnessing?" Floyd asks after another second, shaking himself more awake.

"The rest of us making fun of JD just because," Poppy replies promptly, and John Dory sinks to his knees, raising both fists towards Rhonda's ceiling and shaking them in dramatized horror.

"They're all ganging up on me, Rhonda!"

"Oh," Floyd nods and puts his head back down, "So long as you're having fun, then."

John Dory drops the drama, "Yeah, okay, it's kinda fun."

Branch snorts.

"But it really might be a while unless we Hustle, and after what the Queen said about the last time, I'm not really sure we should go there."

"Question!" Clay announces, raising a paw, and John Dory swings a pointing finger towards him again.

"Go!"

"Hustle?" Clay asks.

John Dory points at the Hustle button. "Really cool," he informs.

"Opens a portal into a psychedelic paint dimension that works on different physics than normal space and makes it a lot quicker to get places, as far as I can tell," Branch states.

Clay squints, "Yeeeeaaaah, that doesn't sound super safe, man."

"It's perfectly safe! So long as you don't overdo it, anyway."

Floyd lifts his head again, "Then why is it bad if Branch is in the critter?" he flicks a glance towards Branch, "Sorry, Branch."

Branch isn't sure why he's getting an apology, so he just shrugs back.

"Because Branch was trailing rainbows after last time," Poppy informs. "I guess Hustle is kind of like a drug?"

"Yeah, B's a bit too sensitive to it," John Dory makes a face, "It's usually not dangerous, but I've read that people who react more strongly like that can get seizures, and I don't want to risk it."

"Yikes," Branch leans back, a little startled. "Okay, thank you. Seizures do not sound fun."

"Oh, man, they are all kinds of not fun," Clay nods. "Ol'Jinga got super sick one year, and when the fever peaked she had a seizure. Scared the living daylights out of everyone at the golf course. Got better anyway, thank Music, but not something I want to see again."

"Yeah, let's avoid that if at all possible," Poppy agrees, wide-eyed, and Branch nods along. It sounds unpleasant on a personal level, and also like it would give Poppy a heart attack, so a thing to be avoided on multiple fronts.

"Right, so, since we've got a long ride..." John Dory holds up a pack of cards. "Poker?"

Branch reaches out and plucks the pack of cards from his hands before the groans and complaints can turn into a real argument. "I'll be dealer."

"And house," Poppy half-asks.

"And house," Branch agrees, because he will never, ever play poker with - or, more accurately, against - Poppy ever again, but playing effective referee sounds like fun. One time actually playing against Poppy in the game was more than enough. Given the havoc John Dory seems to have wrecked on the other two's confidence, maybe he'll be some kind of a challenge for her.

(Branch very much doubts it.)

Chapter Text

In retrospect, Branch bowing out of the actual game in order to play dealer/house/referee/whatever maybe should have been their first clue that poker against the Pop Queen might not have been the best idea.

She looks so innocent, though!

The worst part about it is that she isn't even cheating, and Branch isn't cheating on her behalf, either. No, she's just - her luck is insane, and also she can apparently read everyone's minds.

Or something.

Either way, Clay is thoroughly distracted from his nerves in favor of halfheartedly attempting to stop the card-based massacre going on in front of him. That he's maybe kind of party to.

Floyd looks half-asleep and vaguely amused, and is clearly only playing to keep the game going - folding just about every hand.

Clay would have bowed out entirely, except they're playing for popcorn kernels that go back to Rhonda's storage cupboards after the game, and so there's nothing but pride riding on it, and by this point he's already flat broke on pride. John Dory, though. John Dory is why Clay's still playing.

Branch's smirk has a distinctively vindictive slant as their eldest brother gets more disbelievingly dismayed with every hand, and while he's not started laughing, it's pretty clear that's just because he's having too much fun listening to the increasingly creative attempts to keep from swearing like a Rock Troll.

Branch deserves to be a little vindictive. Clay's all for him getting it out in a relatively harmless way, because while they would probably deserve it if Branch started throwing punches, Branch's 'punches' take down Rageons and it's safer for everyone if he doesn't get shoved into blackout rage. Also, it's way better than the passive acceptance he'd been showing before.

That had been unnerving. Clay does not want to see that on Branch ever again. And, sure, he's not nearly as mad as he probably should be, but after the days he'd spent nonverbal and colorless in the hospital... anything is better than that. At least he's talking. And he is better, and clearly getting better, and while he's not the kind of furious Clay still thinks he should be, he's definitely working back towards 'angry', which is something.

Anyway, the actual competition has gone down to a face-off between the Pop Queen and John Dory, the pink troll grinning with fearless cheer and Clay's big brother smiling a forced kind of smile, sweat dampening his temples and looking cornered. He's five kernels in with only two left by his elbow against Poppy's amassed pile, and the only reason hers isn't bigger is that Floyd and Clay both have been unafraid to fold, even with no real stakes.

She raises by two.

John Dory looks around the table, and Clay grins and shrugs at the begging glint. He'd folded at the first bet this hand, and Floyd had been right behind him.

John Dory makes a weird grumbly sort of keening sound and throws his hand face-down on the table. "Fold," he groans.

Poppy's grin gains an edge of teeth, and she tosses her hand down.

Branch bursts out laughing.

Clay stares in incomprehension for several seconds before he can't help but join in, a hysterical giggle escaping his throat despite his best efforts to keep a straight face.

Queen Poppy had nothing.

Floyd tilts his head slowly, then reaches over and flips John Dory's abandoned hand upright. A pair. Jacks.

Poppy scoops her winnings into her pile, smug as all getout, and John Dory makes an incoherent sound of disbelief and flings himself backwards so hard he smacks his head on the couch.

Clay's pretty sure this game is over, and that belief is only reinforced when Rhonda shifts her stride, slowing and weaving in a way that sends popcorn kernels skidding across their makeshift 'table', which is just a patch of floor with a paper mat spread on it.

"Oh, good gosh, look at that, time to clean up!" John Dory pushes back upright and scrabbles to grab as many cards as he can.

Branch snorts, still smirking, and reaches over steal them away and reassemble the deck.

"That was fun," Floyd decides, and he still sounds sleepy but he also sounds amused, so Clay knows he actually means it.

"Yeah," he agrees, only a little reluctantly. He's not supposed to be the 'fun' one anymore, but - poker isn't a 'fun guy' game, so it's fine, right?

"It was!" the Queen chirps, an edge like vengeance to her smirk, and Clay abruptly remembers the warnings they'd gotten about that girl.

...she's letting them off lightly, he realizes in a kind of awed terror, and very carefully does not let that realization show on his face, busying himself with returning the popcorn kernels to their container. That particular mental torture had almost definitely been aimed at John Dory, which begs the question of what she's got in store for the rest of them.

Had she already gotten Bruce, or... you know what? He doesn't want to know.

Rhonda churrs, and Poppy folds up the paper mat before handing it to Branch, "Sounds like we're almost there!"

She's excited, at least. Clay himself is more anxious.

Viva's gonna be mad. Then again... he has Queen Poppy as a distraction. Her sister is definitely going to make Viva forget about being mad, maybe even entirely forget about being mad, so maybe he doesn't have to be anxious?

It's not like Viva wouldn't understand anyway. She'd had - she has a sister, and Clay knows that Viva would have done anything for Poppy if she'd known she's alive.

It'll be fine!

Right?

(Wrong.)

Chapter Text

Poppy doesn't need to see Branch tense or Clay's ears start to fold flat to know something's wrong. When they'd come by to get Clay, the other trolls had started rolling out disguised as golf balls immediately, but this time there's no movement and no sound but wind and critters.

She's really glad JD had hung back with Floyd, not wanting the still-skittish and weakened troll to get overwhelmed by Viva's incredible energy levels. Floyd wouldn't be able to run very fast if it came to it, and his control of his hair seems to be shot. (Dr. Concerta had said to ask Dr. Moonbloom about that, because the poor Classical has no idea what to make of Pop Troll hair stuff. None of the other trolls can do the hair tricks at all - they can't even stretch their hair, nevermind color-changes or anything else.)

"...where is everyone?" she asks, and Branch grunts in his throat and turns to check outside the walls.

"I don't know," Clay sounds more flat than anything, but Branch does that too sometimes: he's so upset that he's just stuffing everything down to deal with when he's safe.

That's... not a good sign, but it is understandable.

Okay, okay. She needs to think. Clay's kind of freaking out, and Branch is looking for evidence of something bad attacking, so... "Clay, is there anywhere that Viva would know to leave a message if something happened?"

Clay shakes himself, "Right. Yes. Uh... her - her hut, she'd, uh, yes."

"Okay," Poppy glances around, and even though it's upsetting that no one's around, she also doesn't see any signs of destruction. Nothing's broken, there's no marks like there was a fight, no pastel glitter-stains of Pop Troll blood. No obvious immediate danger. "Show me."

"Right," Clay starts moving.

Poppy follows, and he leads her into a home made from one of the mini-golf course hut-things, alcoves cut out of the sides for storage but, outside of some troll-sized furnature, empty.

Clay starts looking around until he spots something in the lowest alcove, down by the floor, and he comes up with a letter.

First is relief: Viva's note says that they'd all gotten out okay, but they'd had to move because two Bergans had found them and the others will know after they make their way back to Bergan town.

From the descriptions, it had been Bridget and Gristle, and they wouldn't have hurt anyone, so they're safe.

Second comes worry. They were safe. They had been safe. Now they've left, and that means they're in danger from everything in the wilds and Poppy needs Branch because Branch is the best tracker and they need to find Viva and everyone fast.

It's been over two whole weeks since they'd gotten Clay, and from the letter the Bergans had shown up that same day. They've been running for over two weeks. That's not safe!

Poppy's got Clay by the wrist and halfway back out of the golf course before he catches up with what's happening enough to even manage a halfhearted protest, but Poppy has other things on her mind. "Branch!" she yells, urgent but careful to keep any trace of panic out of her voice.

She's not in trouble. They're not in trouble. There's no need to panic, they just have to find Viva and some thirty scared trolls in the middle of the wilderness before something bad happens to them after they've gotten a two-week head start.

Branch is there in moments, navy hair whipping him through the open gate to skid to a halt in front of them, and Poppy explains as quickly as she can, Clay anxious and tense beside her.

Branch frowns, "Right. That explains a few things. It's been too long to find a trail for just a few people, but if they all went together there's bound to be something. I'll start looking. Get John Dory to bring Rhonda inside for now; I'll come get you as soon as I've got a direction."

"Right," Poppy agrees, and hauls Clay back to Rhonda. He's clinging to the letter like a lifeline, and Poppy... she kinda gets that. It's easier to hold it together when something's really wrong with something physical to hold on to, and having it be a letter from the person he's probably the most worried about would help more than some random rock or something.

"...hoooo-boy," JD mutters when he sees them coming, "...how worried should I be?"

"Uh, well, no one's hurt or dead," Poppy offers.

JD stares at her, ears slowly lowering. "...but?"

"They're gone," Clay's fingers clench, and the letter in his paws crackles.

He loosens his grip immediately and smooths the paper flat again.

"Gone?" JD looks back and forth between them, "What do you mean, gone? We were just here two weeks ago!"

"It sounds like Bridget and Gristle came through on their honeymoon," Poppy grimaces, "...they don't know the Bergans won't hurt them anymore. They got scared and evacuated."

JD stares more, and sits down on Rhonda's ramp of a door, "Sugardrops," he swears. "They're somewhere out there?" he gestures vaguely at the scrub-land.

"They brought supplies with them," Poppy assures. "The whole place is stripped pretty clean, except for furniture and stuff. They probably have enough for a couple months at least, and we'll find them before that."

As soon as Branch has a direction, she can call for an air search and get everything sorted out a lot faster. Well, they could do that without a direction, but that's a whole lot less efficient, and since the trolls they're looking for have been running for two weeks, efficiency and speed are important.

It's okay, though. It's okay. They're together, and Viva had kept them safe even when she'd been a lot younger, so she'll be able to do it even better now that she knows how. It sucks that she has to, but Poppy's sure she can do it anyway.

It's up to Poppy - with Branch's help, since he's the best - to make sure Viva doesn't have to do it very long.

Chapter Text

It's not long before Branch picks up a trail. It's not much, but it gives a direction, and Poppy's calling for air support - which is a thing they have now, apparently - the instant they've got said direction.

Queen Barb is apparently perfectly happy to give her 'beetle bikers' (whatever those are) a paired grid-pattern search, and the report comes in before the end of the day that the skittish Putt-Putt Trolls have been spotted.

Rather than have beetle bikes descend on them from above, Poppy calls for their own airship to meet them as they take Rhonda - already familiar to the trolls in question - to make contact.

Even Rhonda trotting close sends them scattering down into the brush, blending as best they can with scrub-grass and gritty stone, but Clay had expected that and everyone lets him go first.

That works, because a suspiciously-shaped knot of grass unravels into Viva, dull green paling back to bright blond, and she rushes Clay with a relieved cry.

"Viva!" Clay catches the desperate hug, "Hey, it's okay, it's okay, you're safe! You're all safe, we're getting you out of here."

Viva sniffles, wild-eyed in a way Clay is only too familiar with, but she trusts him enough that some of the frenzy eases with sheer relief. "You- where can we go?"

"Okay, so this is gonna be hard to believe," Clay prefaces, "So... oh, sugar, where do I even start? Okay," Clay shakes himself all over, "Right. So. First things first, we've got an airship coming in, so don't freak out when they get here."

Viva blinks. "...airship?"

Her confusion is completely understandable. "Yeah, that's a... really long story, I guess? So, the hard-to-believe but important things right now are, uh, the Queen made peace with the Bergans so the Golf Course is safe if we decide to go back. And there's a village with all the other survivors in the forest, if we want to go there. Or the Queen will help us get set up somewhere new, if we'd rather do that."

Viva stares. "...the Bergans... really won't hurt us anymore?" she asks, and her voice is very small.

Clay had expected more disbelief. Clay had felt more disbelief. "They really won't hurt us anymore."

She stumbles, and Clay scrambles to steady her. "I-" she bursts into sudden, probably-should-have-been-expected sobs, "I believed them," she admits, thick and wet and all mixed up. "One of them had me in his hand and they said they were sorry for scaring us and they wouldn't hurt us and I believed them, I just - I couldn't believe the rest of them wouldn't when they found out, but it's real?"

Huh. Okay. Clay can work with this. "Yeah, from what I heard the two you saw were probably the Royal Couple on their honeymoon. And the other thing that's really important is even better, Viva!" he makes sure to emphasize that, because it's not better for all of them, probably, but it'll mean a whole lot more to Viva.

Viva sniffles, wiping her eyes, "What could be better than that?"

"The Queen who made peace with them? It's your sister, Viva. Poppy's alive. She's even here."

Here and confined to Rhonda until Clay can get the basics out of the way, because Branch is paranoid and also Poppy's ribs are still a bit tender.

Viva freezes.

"Uh, but before you get too excited," Clay waves for attention, and Viva's eyes snap to him with a frenzied kind of focus.

Whatever she sees in his expression makes the frenzy get an edge. "What's wrong with my sister?"

"Her ribs are kinda banged up? So don't hug her too hard just yet?"

Viva slumps, "Okay. Okay. I can do that. I can be gentle. She's - you're sure it's Poppy? You're sure?"

"Am I ever," Clay shudders dramatically, "She's great, don't get me wrong, but holy gumdrops is that woman terrifying."

Viva bristles in sibling defensiveness, "Poppy's adorable!"

"Oh, yeah," Clay nods, as other Putt-Putts finally start relaxing enough to come out of hiding. "Super sweet, super adorable, and super terrifying. Did you miss the part where she made peace with the Bergans? The way I hear it, half of them literally swear by her name these days."

Or so Cooper and the hair-conjoined twins who claimed to be part of 'Poppy's crew' (whatever that means in relation to the literal Queen) had said. Clay had almost asked Branch for confirmation, but he'd chickened out, not sure whether he wanted his brother's take on the situation.

"Really?" Viva somehow perks up and droops down at the same time. "What if she doesn't like me?"

"She said the same thing when she heard about you," Clay informs, and it suddenly occurs to him that they both actually have some insecurity issues. Poppy seems so self-assured... but she'd really had the same response. "You'll be fine. She loves you already. Just remember the ribs and it'll go great!"

(It does go great, thankfully. Sure, the excited squeals seem pitched even higher than normal to make up for the lack of bear hugs and full spontaneously choreographed song-and-dance routine, but Queen Poppy tucks herself into Viva's arms and gives a hug that Viva carefully doesn't exceed the pressure of in return and Viva's tears are, for once, entirely a good thing.)

(Now they just have to get everyone safe. It's not as dangerous as if the Bergans were still a threat, but a whole group of tiny tasty troll snacks alone in the wilds might still attract the beast-monster type of predators.)

(Clay would really rather avoid that. Thankfully, so would everyone else, and within two hours a hulking blimp of an airship settles down nearby, and Branch chivvies Clay into rounding up everyone and their little scatter of carts to get on board.)

(The relief when the last of them is in the ship and the whole thing lifts into the air and points them back at the golf course is strong enough that Clay just about drops where he stands.)

(For once, just once, things have gone entirely right.)