Chapter Text
His brothers were gone, all at once that night following the bombed aftermath of their performance. Long brewing tension boiling over in a flurry of unprocessed emotions, a night built on a future of grief and regret. Promises made and soon to be broken. Childhood stardom had been a heavy burden, the older boys may have been sold to the limelight by their mom and dad the second Floyd could talk; but Branch? He was born into it. After their parents had abandoned them and Branch was born, Grandma could only do so much to provide and John Dory already knew how to work their fame, so into the group baby Branch went. The perfect family, the perfect boy band, the perfect marketing ploy. JD sold their childhoods and family stability just like his parents for ironically their own childhoods and family stability. It was an easy decision, those are easy when you don't have a choice, either eat eachother alive or starve. The four older members of brozone chose a different option that night, leave it behind and stop the cycle. Though years later would show the four, even that crooked path held its own consequences.
Branch couldn't blame his brothers for not wanting to raise a sensitive, spoiled brat like him. His own parents couldn't bear the last child they decided to have. With his birth marking the parental abandonment of all of his siblings, how could he ever have hoped to be tolerated? After his brothers left, he could only be grateful that there was one person still left to tolerate his presence, and yet here he was, unable to do the one thing asked of him by his brother Floyd, incapable of taking care of Grandma.
Branch could never forgive himself for what happened, could never forgive himself for fucking up the one, simple task he had been given by his favorite brother. The one flare of hope he could send into the air in the hopes his brothers would come back to him, if he was good and had just done the one job Floyd gave him, they would be back; a comforting lie to tell himself when there was nothing he could do. In Branch's head he had inflicted irreparable damage to every soul that crossed his path. Every fight his brothers ever had, His parents abandonment, and his Grandmother… His beloved and steadfast grandmother, he was so sorry..
It had been Branch’s fault, he begged her to go out to eat that night, he's the reason they were caught up walking at night, it was his fault that a strange man pushed her and took her purse, and it was his fault that he couldn't stop her from hitting her head. It did not matter that he was only 10, it did not matter that Branch had been so terrified he couldn't move, there was no excuse; of course his brothers would never come back. Branch had failed his entire family, becoming a waste of a life before he was even born. And at this point, Branch was determined to live up to the hype.
The bunker he found as a child became his solace after that night, an abandoned world war two bunker his brothers had found in the woods near their grandma's house.
They used to play there with him as a child and go there when their home life got too hectic. He remembered how Spruce used to run with Branch on his back through the hallways, how Clay used to read to him and the echo would make the coolest sound, Floyd coloring the walls in chalk with him, and John Dory would dance with Branch on his feet with music playing softly on a record player. Branch missed that, and he hated that he missed it.
They couldn't let a 10 year old live on his own so they foreclosed his childhood home and jammed Branch in foster care, two years with too many unrelenting and manipulative homes trying to mold him into a child that would fit their family rather than a child that needed genuine connection and patience.
Realizing that he would never be a person to them, he would only be a glorified accessory that brought in money from the state; Branch left just like his family, dodging anyone who would try to put him back into that system. He was fine; he went back to the one place that still felt like home, that same fucking bunker some kook built and abandoned when the fighting died down. For him it was perfect, off the radar and hard to get into, if he didn't want to be found he wouldn't be. Unless you knew what you were looking for.
Branch didn't need them; he had Kismet, and Poppy; some of the only ones who hadn't had the balls to leave him yet was Poppy, a beautiful, sweet, angel of a girl named Poppy.
The one who made waking up in the morning feel semi worth it. They grew up in the same school district sure, but she had always seemed so desperate to reach a hand out to him, to see him, to know him. No matter how many times Branch just wanted to finally let go, and fade away from the life he was living, her bright pink hair became a beacon in the dark- dragging him out when even he wanted to be left alone to rot. Branch couldn't believe that someone who was the antithesis to everything he seemed to be, wanted to give him the time of day. She was kind, bubbly, bright, and fun, she was squishy and warm. She took up weight and space in the world around her and she was allowed to do it.
It was her candle light, a beacon in the pitch black darkness of his life, that allowed him to meet who would become his friends. The members that would form their punk band ‘Kismet’. The members of the band meshed better together than his brothers ever did, becoming people in his life who didn't just care about playing music with him; but instead they liked just being around Branch. Hype always soothed their nerves and brought an energy the group needed, being the one to go out and interact with people the most; he was the group's guitarist. Boom was the drummer and Hype’s fraternal twin, a surprisingly chill dude that would go absolutely ham on the drums and then smoke with Branch behind the stage; a complete opposite to his brother. Trickee worked the keyboard and always managed to diffuse tension in the group or protect his buddies from anything that might hurt them, before leading them to a seat with a whoopie cushion on it. Ablaze the bassist was deceptive in that he seemed down to earth and mysterious, but that man just craved chaos. With Branch being their lead singer, with a reputation for being wild and unhinged on stage while being introverted and anxious in person formed their unhinged little group.
Even though Branch despised the splintering bright lights and the suffocating air- he was addicted to the dissociation. The moment that he steps on stage. He's not Branch the nothing- washed up, child star who couldn't keep his family together. He's the leashed-up animal of a lead singer for Kismet. Nothing but a mouthpiece for the guttural anger Branch held and couldn't put down. But for one night, Branch could give that anger to a crowd and let them do what they pleased with it for a night before experiencing the violent reminder of his pain in a hangover. In those moments, sick and alone in his bunker hearing the empty echos of the hallways closing in on him and cocooning him in the notion that he is and will always end up alone. Nobody will come home with him, comfort him, suffer with him, or even exist with him when he leaves the venues and houses to realize his girlfriend and friends are just that: friends. At any moment he would wake up and they would be just another ghost that walks these hallways. He would lay there haunted by his self hatred, and the scars that littered his arms would grow- only to be hidden away from the world once again. Too ugly, too intense, a fitting expression of pain for the boy who believed the same to be of himself.