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Everything feels like it’s falling back into place again. Branch doesn’t think he could ever be happier to have his brothers finally home. And now most of them could finally live in his bunker! Even John Dory was willing to sort through his stuff to at least keep some of it in his room in the bunker. And that’s great!
If they could all stop getting distracted by old memories.
“Oh! This is that time Baby Branch got gum stuck in Spruce— sorry, Bruce’s hair!”
“What! You do not have a picture of that!”
“Of course I do!”
“Why did you take a picture of that?”
“Clay took the picture! I was busy trying to get all the gum out!”
Branch sighs. He’s been handing things down from John Dory’s loft bed, without really looking. Somehow, he didn’t expect this to be a trip down memory lane. He should have, seeing the absurd amount of family photos JD kept by his bed.
Floyd picks up one photo. “I forgot about this.”
John Dory leans over to see what his brother is looking at. “Oh! That’s the time you dyed most of your hair black. That was a look, let me tell you!”
Branch picks up one of the pictures still up by the loft bed. He sees a young, turquoise-haired troll. “What, you have your own baby pictures up here, too?”
“Hm? Oh, no. That would be my kid.”
Four brothers freeze in the middle of what they’re doing, while John Dory continues on digging through a box. Going on smiling as though he didn’t just drop an absolute bomb. “John,” Bruce says, being the first to collect himself. “Your kid?”
“Yeah! He looks just like me, doesn’t he?”
Bruce blinks. “My god. I’m an uncle.”
Branch looks more carefully at the photo in his hands. This kid looks so much like his oldest brother. Kids don’t look that much like their parents! Yes, when he looks close enough there’s a few differences. A rounder face. Slightly greener hair. Eyes were a different color. Ears a bit more pointed.
“Wait, you haven’t really left the village, like, at all.”
“Yeah? So?”
“John Dory,” Floyd speaks carefully. “You haven’t gone to see your kid since you guys all saved me.”
“He doesn’t need his old man constantly checking in on him! Plus, he’s been traveling around on his own for at least a year at this point.”
“On his own?” Floyd, Bruce, and Branch shout in unison. Clay still looks like he’s struggling with this information. Wide eyes, fingers wriggling and fidgeting by his head.
John Dory holds up his hands in defense. “Woah! Woah! He’s a grown man! Older than I was when I started hiking on my own.”
Branch shakes his head in disbelief. “How old is he?”
“About 20 by now. Oh! Not much younger than you, actually!”
Clay finally gets out of his stupor enough to speak. “How.”
“Clay, you helped us give Branch and Floyd The Talk. You know how trolls have kids.”
“ How .” Clay circles his hands in the air. “You— You! You. How. Who.”
“What, his mom? Oh, that was Angie.” John Dory sighs fondly. “Man, she could kick my butt if she tried.”
Branch looks around more carefully at all John Dory has taped to the wall and ceiling. Are there any more recent photos of this guy? What if somehow, Branch came across this guy while interacting with the other tribes, and never really noticed? There’s a kid’s drawing of a moon, signed as “from Pete.” So was the kid’s name Pete?
“So, where’s your wife now?” Bruce asks.
“Or… or did she die?” Floyd carefully adds.
“Was she blind?” Clay exclaims.
“What? I didn’t marry her!”
“Didn’t marry her!” Bruce all but screams. “You made a baby with her, and— okay, nontraditional family structures are cool. But did you not even think about it while you were raising a kid with her?”
“I mean, I didn’t even know he existed until he was five.”
“ HOW! ”
“Clay, that word is going to lose its meaning if you keep saying it.” John Dory stands up from the floor and stretches. “Man, it’s about time for lunch, don’t you think?”
“Don’t change the subject!”
Branch continues looking around for more things on this mysterious nephew he never knew he had. There’s a stack of papers. Letters? Aha! All of them are signed as being from Pete!
“Wait. Wait, what’s this kid look like?” Floyd reaches up to Branch, and Branch passes the photo over to him. “I think, maybe, possibly? There was this guy in the Indie Mountains that reminded me of you.”
Branch does a double take. “You met him?”
“I guess?”
“Oh, yeah, you probably did,” John Dory affirms with a shrug. “He mentioned something about it in his letters.”
“I’m sorry, you knew where Floyd had been? ” Branch feels weirdly offended. If John Dory knew where any one of them had been, why not visit them?
“Yeah. I talked about you guys a lot to him. Especially when I still thought most of you guys were dead.”
“Oooohh that’s a lot to unpack.” Clay grips at his own head. Bruce pats his back comfortingly.
Branch remembers what John Dory said when he crashed the wedding. “That’s not fair, Branch. I did come back.” Did his oldest brother really come back? Did he come back to a withering troll tree? He couldn’t have known where the new village was, could he?
“Okay, Okay.” Branch shakes his head. No way is John Dory gonna talk about all of that if he's being this dismissive already. “So, your kid used to live in the Indie Mountains? Does that mean you lived there with Rhonda?”
“Oh, not with that weather! I just visited once or twice.” John Dory saunters over to the tiny kitchenette he has set up. “What are you guys feeling for lunch? I might have dehydrated chili I could whip up.”
“John.” Bruce speaks, suddenly sounding more serious, to the point it’s almost off-putting. “Is ‘once or twice’ all you’ve ever seen of your child?”
“No.” John Dory snaps. He turns with a hard and kind of angry look. “I’m not Tom. I actually care about my kid. We wrote a crap ton of letters to each other.”
Branch looks between his two oldest brothers with confusion. He looks over to Floyd, who shrugs, looking almost just as confused. Clay shakes his head. Don’t ask, goes unsaid.
John Dory goes back to the kitchenette. “Plus, he visited me plenty of times. His stepdad brought him out to the trail a few times.”
“Was he your husband?”
“Psh! I wish!”
“You wish?”
Someone knocks on the door to Rhonda. “Hey, boys! We brought you some lunch!” And in enters Poppy and Viva, carrying picnic baskets.
John Dory lets out a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank hair. I don’t think I could make enough chili for everyone.”
“So? How’s the sorting things going?”
Clay suddenly jumps up. “JOHN DORY HIS A SON!”
The pair sisters stare at him for a moment. “WHAAAT!” They at least have the foresight to put down the picnic baskets before the two of them begin their collective freakout. Branch sighs fondly at the way his girlfriend bounces in circles. He looks back to the letters he found, wondering whether or not it’d be too much of an invasion of privacy to read them.
“Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!”
“Where is he?”
John Dory shrugs. “Based on his last letter I got from him, he’s somewhere by the east coast. Hanging out with some friendly techno trolls.”
“Aww! I could ask King Trollex if he’s met him!”
“Oh! Oh! We could have him visit!”
“And we’ll throw a party for him, with cake and balloons—”
“Alright, cool it Poppyseed and La Viva Loca. Pete doesn’t do big huge parties,” John Dory explains. “He’s a bit shy like that.”
The sisters accept that answer. Branch, however, takes pause. “He doesn’t like big parties, but he’s hanging out with techno trolls? The trolls that rave all the time?”
John Dory shrugs. “Honestly, I think he’s got a crush.”
“Wait, Floyd, can I see that?” Bruce takes the photo from the second youngest. “There was a troll named Pete that visited Vacay Island. And I thought he looked familiar.”
John Dory makes a bit of a face. “He never wrote to me about going to Vacay Island.”
“He had this pet bird. And we both thought the other looked kinda familiar.” Bruce squints at the photo. “I can’t really tell based on this photo. It just looks like a kid John Dory in different lighting.”
“There’ll probably be more recent photos in my pillow case. Branch?”
“Ah—” Branch puts the letters he was still mulling over reading aside. He slips his hand in the pillow case and sure enough, he can feel several photos under there. And he can feel paper, too. “There’s a letter here, too.”
“Yeah, that’s the last letter he sent.” John Dory pours himself a cup of water. “I should probably write another letter soon, he hasn’t responded to my last one yet.”
“Can we circle back to how you’re into your kid’s stepdad?” Clay makes a circling motion with his hands. “I think I wanna circle back to you wanting to be with the guy that married your ex.”
“Oh! Like polycule stuff?” Viva questions. “You have two hands, and stuff. Totally cool.”
“Well, he wasn’t married to her when I met him!” John Dory casually sipped on his water. “He saved me from drowning in vomit and dirt.”
“O–okay?” Clay once again presses his fingers into his head. “Again, HOW? ”
“Oh I got really drunk. Like, totally wasted drunk. And then in walked my knight in leather and a goofy mustache. And that wasn’t the last time he’d save my skin, either.” John Dory chuckles fondly then sighs. He looks back up at everyone. “He’s dead now.”
Bruce sighs and brings a palm to his forehead. “Oh, John.”
“Ah.” Poppy somewhat awkwardly reaches and pats him on the arm. “Sorry for your loss.”
“Eh, it was like 10 years ago. Fire. I’m good now, though.”
Clay puts his face in his hands. “I fucking can’t with this shit.”
“Guys,” Floyd sighs. Though it seems like a very fond sigh.
Branch shakes his head. This is one of those things that would have been common for his brothers back in the day, but he’d been too young to remember or be a part of it. It won’t be long before all these bombs John Dory just dropped are moved on from (although they may be brought up again later, when they don’t have everyone so caught off guard). He looks back to the photo and the letter he pulled out from the pillow.
He hopes meeting a nephew just a few years younger than him won’t be as weird as he feels it would be.