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"I can't decide if it's a choice
Getting swept away
I hear the sound of my own voice
Asking you to stay
And all we are is skin and bone
Trained to get along
Forever going with the flow
But you're friction,"
"Treacherous" - Taylor Swift
The first time Floyd had the misfortune of meeting Creek, he did the one thing he’d never done before in his life.
He punched him. Hand clenched up into a tight fist, breathing deep and heavy, nostrils flared in rage as his eyes only saw red. It took a lot of his still recovering strength to send Creek to the ground, and he nearly fell back himself, legs shaking with the effort of keeping himself standing, so much of his energy being drained from the rage. Even his brothers had been shocked to see him like this, so… violent.
But who could really blame him? This pathetic excuse for a troll had left their people to die at the hands of the Bergens.
Branch almost died because of him.
His brother.
It made Floyd sick to his stomach when Branch had first told him the story, and he couldn’t shake the rage he felt deep in his heart whenever he saw Creek acting so normal, so calm, as if he didn’t nearly allow so many trolls there to die. But it was almost frightening how angry he was about the whole situation, how unlike him it was to carry such anger. But what was even more baffling was how everyone in the village had essentially forgiven Creek (aside from Branch, of course). With Poppy it made sense, that was just who she was—second chances could be given in the right circumstances, and as Queen, she had to give second chances where it was deserved.
Floyd could somewhat understand that. He'd forgiven Veneer. He could see that most of Veneer's actions were out of fear and simultaneous loyalty for his sister. He'd given Veneer the benefit of the doubt, the way Poppy and the rest of the village (save for his brothers) had done with Creek.
But this had been different. Coming back to Pop Village, reinstating himself into the society he'd left behind had not been easy, to say the least, especially after two months of captivity and briefly dying. How could he ever go back to the normalcy he so desperately craved when everyone in the village constantly stared at him whenever he was out and about among them? Everyone was kind, because of course they were – for trolls it was second nature to be kind and welcoming as can be. But the pity behind every stare and every smile was driving him insane. Pity for him, for his trauma, everything he'd been through.
He couldn't stand it. Recovering was already difficult enough as it was with his brothers worrying about him all the time, which he could understand at first, he did die after all, but even their care and concern every second was becoming too much. And with everyone, even still, staring at him like some fragile and broken creature, and despite Floyd’s best efforts to avoid Creek like the plague…
Creek was the only troll in the village who didn't stare at him like he was some tragedy. He stared at him from time to time, sure, but not in the same way others did. And Floyd didn't realize how much he would slowly come to appreciate that, deep down. How much that alone had opened himself up to eventually... tolerate Creek.
The only times Floyd allowed himself to be around Creek was for the sake of his own recovery. Yoga was surprisingly beneficial for trauma recovery and as an overall remedy for anxiety, as Creek had told him in his own words. It had been Creek's idea, after all, and after some time had passed and nothing else seemed to help, Floyd finally accepted defeat and took Creek up on his offer. And unfortunately, it was working like a charm—the breathing techniques came in handy whenever a nightmare came on or a flashback sent him spiraling, and the different yoga poses helped with his aching muscles, as much of his physical energy was still not where it used to be, but he was gradually regaining at least some of his strength back.
For the last few months, Floyd met with Creek every Friday at the same time every week for one-on-one yoga sessions. Just the two of them. Alone, per Floyd's request. Truth be told, he didn't want anyone else to know he was meeting with Creek. And by everyone, mainly his brothers. And by mainly his brothers, he especially meant Branch.
Branch and Creek at least seemed to be on... somewhat good terms. Good being that they just barely tolerate one another. Now they would just bicker and argue like children. But at least their interactions weren't terrible. That alone made Creek somewhat easier for Floyd to stomach.
And sure, they hardly talked much at all those first few meetings (aside from Creek’s constant attempts of flirting and flattery), but to get past the overall awkwardness, they had to start talking like normal people. Small things here and there, nothing major, just enough to get them (mainly Floyd) comfortable with their arrangement. Soon enough, Floyd started seeing things differently. He started seeing Creek differently. Maybe he's not that bad, he'd thought then, remembering what his youngest brother had said about Creek.
"Creek's full of himself and manipulative. Don't trust anything he says. His positivity is fake, and his little ‘words of wisdom’ are fake. He'll say anything to make himself look good to anyone who doesn't know any better."
He thought Branch was right, which is why he took everything Creek said with a grain of salt.
Floyd couldn't shake the feeling that he couldn't... fully trust Creek. That maybe he was allowing himself to be drawn into Creek's charisma and not seeing him for what he truly was: a coward. A coward ready to leave everyone anyone behind in the face of danger if it meant saving himself.
I can't trust him.
The thought hit Floyd the moment he came through some bushes, spotting Creek there in their usual secluded spot in front of a large tree—waiting for him. Creek noticed him after a moment and smiled.
"Ah, there you are Floyd!"
I can't trust him.
The thought only grew louder as he took another small step forward. His stomach lurched and churned with uncertainty, and he didn't know why. Why now, so many months later?
"Uh... Floyd?"
He wanted to walk away and never look back. The nausea grew when he realized that maybe he made a terrible mistake coming here. He saw Creek staring at him in confusion, but all he could think about was Branch. The thought of his little brother with the sight of the troll that nearly got him killed made Floyd want to crawl into a hole and never leave again.
"...Floyd?” Creek repeated. “Everything alright, love?"
They never spoke about… it. Any of it. His own ordeal, Creek’s betrayal… Creek never pried about Floyd's ordeal, and soon Floyd found himself never asking Creek further about everything that he did—specifically everything that had happened with Branch. The details that Floyd knew of were directly from his brother. Never much else. Sure, he had tried to ask, to at least find out what Creek was even thinking when he sold out the Bergens, but it was pointless. Any attempt was shut down by Creek’s defiant silence at the subject.
So, Floyd eventually stopped trying. This was strictly business, after all.
He silently made his way over to Creek and sat beside him, eyes glazed over, still deep in thought. So much for leaving...
“You alright, Rose Petal?”
Ugh, that nickname. It used to drive him nuts, but now…
Floyd fell back on his back with a groan, covering his face with his hands.
“…I used to hate when you called me that,” he said quietly, voice barely above a whisper.
“…use to, eh?” He could hear the tiniest bit of smugness in Creek’s tone. “What’s changed your mind?”
“That’s the thing – I don’t know,” Floyd admitted with a huff, dropping his hands from his face and lying his arms down beside him. “I don’t even know why I agreed to this…” Granted, it had been Creek’s idea, not his, and Floyd had tried everything else to help speed up his recovery through other means, and when all else failed, well… this was the last resort.
“We’re here for you, remember?” Creek pointed out, calm demeanor never faltering. “Through specific techniques to help clear your mind and push out all the negativity that’s been pent up in your body. It’s essential for your recovery.”
Easy enough for him to say…
Floyd snorted, but still refused to look over at the other troll. “Yeah, right… because that’s going so well for me.” Yet here he was, still allowing Creek to help him – all this time it was Creek of all trolls that he was allowing this close to him, allowing him to help. A troll that was not directly in their inner circle.
He realized then that perhaps he was looking for some kind of companionship outside of just his brothers. And there was Poppy and Viva of course, but... he needed something more, with someone who wasn't… there. Like a clean slate, he could try to start fresh and finally move on or at least pretend for as long as possible until it became real.
Creek appeared the least bit offended by Floyd’s tone – which in fact he was used to, given their usual interactions. “We can stop at any time, you know….”
“No, no…” Floyd let out a long, drawn-out breath. “I’m not quitting. This has been helping me a lot, actually… I just…” He finally sat up and looked over at Creek, meeting his eyes. “I don’t know anything about you. And you don’t know anything about me. Before I didn’t care, I just wanted to get better, but now… now it’s been bugging me.”
“Well… that’s not entirely true. I know some things about you, and I think you have a general idea about me.”
Floyd rolled his eyes. “I’m not talking about that… yeah, we know each other to an extent, but you don’t know…” He trailed off, pulling his gaze away from Creek and looking down at the ground instead.
“Don’t know…?” Creek raised a brow, leaning in just a bit closer. A teasing smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “…What?”
“…you don’t know what happened to me.”
The smile fell away from Creek’s face just as quickly as it formed. “…oh.”
“Yeah.” Floyd looked up at him. “And I know nothing about why you did what you did.”
No response. Now it was Creek’s turn to look away, seemingly ashamed, and yet Floyd couldn’t help but wonder if that shame was even real. Branch’s words rang in his head again, like an alarm going off.
“Don’t trust anything he says.”
Which is why his next question – accusation, really – came out as blunt and sharp as it did.
“Everyone said you gave them up to the Bergens with a smile on your face. No regret at all… I want to know why.”
“W-Well, I-I…” He’d never seen Creek so flustered and embarrassed, struggling to find the right words to say to such a question. “It’s… just that—”
“I want to know why,” Floyd repeated, almost desperately, wanting some sort of answer, a reason, anything at all. “Please. Just tell me.”
“I-I—” Creek still couldn’t get the words out, so Floyd continued with his onslaught.
“How am I supposed to trust you or even be near you when I don’t even know why you did what you did? You sold out your friends, your village, just to save yourself?!” Floyd’s voice grew louder the more each word came pouring out of him. He just wanted answers. He’d gone this long without any, and it was eating away at him the more he encountered Creek, especially as often as he had been doing as of late.
The purple troll finally seemed to find some kind of response, sensing this situation was about to grow even more heated. “Whoa, whoa, Floyd—” Creek held his hands up, almost defensive, as though Floyd was pointing a weapon right at him. “Where’s all this coming from?”
Floyd gaped at him, nearly at a loss for words himself. “You’re really asking me that? Seriously? The brother of the troll you nearly killed due to your selfishness?”
Creek seemed ready to jump on the defensive train, but he kept his cool the best he could, though Floyd could see the mask slipping – bit by bit, just a sliver. “…Look, Floyd. I… apologized to everyone. To Poppy, to her father, to everyone… I even apologized to Branch. Do you really think everyone would be so quick to forgive me and let me back to the village if I wasn’t being sincere?”
“We’re trolls!” Floyd yelled, “Forgiveness is practically in our blood!” Save for trolls who had gone through traumatic experiences. Floyd realized then that might have been the pattern. The ones who didn’t trust Creek or believe his intentions to be true—his brothers, himself, even Viva—were the ones who faced the most hardships in their lives.
It finally seemed to push Creek to the edge (or at the least the Creek-equivalent). He did what he always does in the face of any sort of “negativity” – mainly when he was faced with anyone who tried to dig into why he betrayed their village. He clearly could not handle facing the wrongs he’d done, and so he shut down completely.
Creek shut his eyes and got into his usual mediation position, as though Floyd wasn’t even there. Floyd gawked at this, as though a door had been slammed right in his face.
“You’re seriously doing this right now?”
Creek stayed silent, giving an occasional hum every few seconds, right on cue.
Floyd could feel his own frustration growing by the second, but he tried his hardest to not lose his cool. He figured if he could finally get Creek to talk about this, he’d have to be at the very least civil. Yelling would get him nowhere. He had to approach this delicately. “Creek, please. I just want to talk to you about this. I just want to know why.”
Silence.
“I-I’m sure you didn’t do it maliciously.” Contrary to what his little brother would say, and what Floyd had thought as well. He figured giving Creek the benefit of the doubt might give him the push he needed to talk about this. Maybe. “I doubt everyone would have accepted you back if you did it maliciously.”
No answer.
Floyd let out a sigh, defeat taking over. This is pointless, he thought, pulling his gaze away from Creek and turning away. He’s never going to tell me.
He didn’t get up and leave, though he figured he would have if this was earlier on in their… companionship? Whatever this was. He stayed there, seated beside Creek, hoping that maybe some kind of answer would be given, that he could at least understand him even a little. It would make all of this feel less like a mistake.
Then, after a few moments, it dawned on him. A detail he’d heard and admittedly forgotten about.
“You were eaten,” Floyd said quietly. “But not quite. Then you were locked away inside of a gem.”
He glanced over at Creek, who still held his pose, but was completely silent now.
“You… had to have been terrified…”
There was still no answer, and Floyd watched Creek carefully, seeing if he could get something out of him. Anything.
He realized then that he needed to change his approach completely.
“You know… I wasn’t eaten, but… I was also locked away. In a diamond.”
That seemed to do the trick. Floyd saw Creek’s eyes open, dropping his pose and just sitting there now silently still, but now he’d turned his head to meet Floyd’s gaze.
“You were?” Creek did not know much about Floyd’s ordeal, though he wasn’t the only one – not many trolls in the village knew of the exact details, save for Floyd’s brothers, Tiny Diamond, Poppy and Viva.
Only the ones who’d been there knew the details. But even those few didn’t know the whole story; those entire two months were all Floyd’s – the memories and the nightmares that would never go away.
Floyd nodded, resisting the urge to turn away from Creek’s curious but sympathetic gaze. Talking about this out loud with someone else was difficult enough, but he figured it was the only way to truly connect with Creek and get him to open. “For two whole months.”
Creek’s eyes widened. “Two months?”
“Yeah… it took some time for my brothers to find out where I was and to come get me once they did. There were some moments where I thought that maybe they wouldn’t come for me after all…” A faint smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “…but in the end, they did, and that’s all that mattered.”
Creek winced, pulling his gaze away from Floyd, who tilted his head at the sudden disconnect. He stayed silent, and Floyd immediately jumped into action.
“The others came for you when you were captured,” Floyd pointed out, trying to be careful with his words, knowing the wrong wording could end the conversation right then and there. “Including my brother.”
“I know,” Creek said, voice barely above a whisper. There was a twinge of guilt in his tone.
“They came to save you and you turned around and stabbed them in the back.”
“I know.”
“So why? Why did you do that?”
Creek let out a frustrated sigh. “Because I was scared, alright?”
“I was scared too,” Floyd replied sharply. “But I didn’t throw my brothers under the bus just to save myself.”
“I-I thought I was going to die! The chef told me if I didn’t help her, I would be eaten!”
“Well guess what? I did die.”
Creek finally turned his head to look at Floyd, clearly in shock by this revelation. Floyd could see something behind those purple eyes, but he couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but he clearly hadn’t been expecting to hear that.
“…you… died?” Creek seemed horrified by that.
Floyd always assumed they were drastically different. He was selfless, always looking out for others as long as he could remember. Creek, meanwhile, was selfish, under a layer of positivity that trolls like Branch would easily see through. To Creek, everything was up to the universe to decide.
“Yeah. For only about a few minutes or so, but… I was dead for that short period of time.” A few minutes that, in truth, felt like an eternity, and Floyd couldn’t remember what that short amount of time felt like, or what he saw or heard. If there was an afterlife for them, he couldn’t recall what he saw to prove or disprove that.
Creek opened his mouth, as if to respond, to say something, anything to that reveal, but he fell silent after a moment and turned away. Floyd also turned away, thinking that perhaps he’d lost his chance, that Creek was going to simply shut down again and pretend that everything was fine like he always did.
A minute of silence passed between them, and Floyd was certain that the conversation was over, that it was all pointless. But then he heard Creek speak up, tone so quiet it was almost a whisper.
“I… didn’t want to do it,” Creek admitted. “Deep down, I really and truly didn’t… but the fear of dying got the better of me and I… choose myself. And once I realized that I would actually live, I got… giddy, I guess?” He took a deep breath, as though to steady himself, to push himself to continue speaking. “I know it seemed like I was happy to do it, and nothing I can say can change that… I made my choice, and I’ve had to live with it every day since.”
Floyd stayed quiet, letting Creek’s story seep into his mind, pondering his words carefully. It was so strange to see Creek – normally calm and collected and positive – act so… crestfallen. It was so unlike him. He knew Branch would say it was an act, that it wasn’t genuine, and the rest of their brothers would certainly agree. Floyd used to believe that sentiment.
But now? He wasn’t sure what to believe anymore. Creek seemed genuine enough that Floyd was starting to think that maybe there was something there. This was exactly what he’d been looking for from him – a peace of mind to allow Floyd to continue going to Creek for these sessions without any shame that would come afterwards.
The shame that Floyd could understand, to an extent. Leaving Branch behind and never returning… it was a shame he’d feel for the rest of his life – just as Creek’s shame would surely never leave him either.
Floyd searched for the right words to say, but when he couldn’t think of any, he carefully and gently placed his hand on top of Creek’s, not just as a gesture of gratitude for being vulnerable, but to also show Creek that maybe he could be truly forgiven after all – in time.
Creek blinked and slowly turned his head to look at Floyd, whose pink eyes held a much softer, more sympathetic appearance to them. Floyd noticed a faint tint of red appear on Creek’s cheeks, and he couldn’t help but smile a little at him.
After a few moments, Creek smiled back.
Maybe I can trust him.