Chapter Text
A few hours later all of the brothers were gathered around Branch's living room.
Clay was sat on the sofa reading his sad book club book, Bruce was in the kitchen with Floyd, both brothers were making coffee as neither could function properly without it and Branch was sat on the floor beside JD who was still out like a light and was snoring softly.
Bruce walked out of the kitchen with his own cup of coffee in hand, a confused and concerned expression on his face, “So is anyone going to tell me what’s going on? Because Branch has that demonic look on his face that Floyd used to get whenever someone made Clay cry.” The purple haired troll asked. He was concerned, Bruce knew that whatever was going on, John was somehow involved and he wasn’t the cause of the problem. “Yeah and Floyd keeps glancing over at John Dory worriedly whenever he thinks we’re not looking.” The third oldest brother pointed out without looking up from his book.
The youngest brother sighed, “A troll I know also knows John and they didn’t speak to each other all that nicely and I don’t know why.” Floyd decided to speak up before any of his brothers tried to pin the blame on John before they even knew the whole story. “Actually John has given me the watered down version of the story earlier.” Clay blinked in bewilderment, “Really?” He asked in disbelief. John Dory had never been all that could at expressing his feelings growing up. The younger troll nodded, “Yeah, he said that he would give us the full version once we were all together, and I advised him to get some rest because,” Floyd paused for a moment, unsure of whether he should be sharing this information but ultimately decided to continue on anyway, “Because John was quite literally sobbing by the time he finished his story. And that was the watered down version that he refused to name a single troll in.” Bruce, Clay and Branch stared at Floyd as if he had just spoken a different language.
“He was?” Clay asked quietly.
Clay had only seen John cry a grand total of four times growing up. Once when their parents were snatched by a bergen, when Branches egg hatched, that one time they all got into a really bad argument that ended with John having a black eye because Spruce had punched him and the time after he had literally just died. So this was serious.
“He also told me about a troll who saved him from dying.” Floyd smiled smugly as he recalled how happy his da-brother. Brother had seemed while talking about this troll. (Not dad, definitely not his dad) “He sounded so happy when he was talking about them, they even managed to gain Rhonda’s approval. And you know how important her approval is to John.” Bruce nodded with all of the seriousness in the world, “Yeah, Rhonda is basically John’s daughter.” Floyd nodded, “Now I don’t want to jump to conclusions… But I’m pretty sure that this troll is John’s partner.”
Branch scoffed, “They better not hurt him.” If they did there would be hell to pay.
“Don’t worry Bitty, he hasn’t”
The four brothers jumped and whipped around to face their eldest brother who was stretching while yawning. “I’ve known the guy for seven years, and he’s had plenty of time to hurt me, and plenty of opportunities to do so. But he hasn’t and he has no idea how grateful I am for that.” John yawned.
Bruce smirked, “John Dory…” He started mischievously, “Has the John Dory finally gotten himself a partner?” He sang, grinning viciously as John's face darkened a few shades. “No way!” Clay cackled. John took a deep breath as he stood up and made his way over to the kitchen, “Maybe I have, maybe I haven’t” Bruce laughed and clapped John on the shoulder as he passed, “You’ll have to bring him over for dinner sometime Johnny!” The older troll chuckled, “I was gonna introduce you all to him at some point anyway.” He shrugged.
Clay laughed from his spot on the sofa, “Good! I wanna meet the poor sod!”
Floyd smiled, “I think it’s sweet that JD has finally found himself a partner.” John laughed, “It’s not like I don’t know what I’m doing! This may only be my second relationship but damn it’s been going well so far!” The oldest spoke proudly. “Who was your first partner?” Branch asked.
John sighed, “That has something to do with the explanation you want, so let me make myself something to drink and I’ll get right into it yeah?” He spoke tiredly. His brothers all voiced their agreements and moved to get themselves comfortable in the living room and let John go about making his drink. Branch saw the way his dads hands shook as he prepared his drink.
“Floyd!” Branch whisper-shouted, “What happened in the story John Dory told you?” Floyd sighed, “John was close with whoever this ‘Hickory’ guy is, I think they might’ve been in a relationship or something. And something happened on a job they were doing together with Hickory’s brother and Hickory and his brother just left John to die in the rubble.”
“What the fuck?!” Clay snapped, “I need to know everything you know Floyd, now.” Bruce nodded, already planning Hickory’s and his brother's demise in his head.
“And you will.” John spoke as he sat down on the sofa with a sigh of relief.
After a few moments of silence JD spoke, “So what do you guys wanna know?” Branch spoke up before any of his brothers could get a word in edgewise, “How do you know Hickory?”
The ex-leader of Brozone pursed his lips together, “Okay theres a few things you all need to know before I tell you guys this story, and I promise if you guys hate me after that I won’t blame you and you all have the right to kick me out after I explain to you guys yeah?” His little brothers blinked at him, confused by what he had just said, so John continued. “Okay first, I was/am a bounty hunter and Hickory is too.” John wasn’t looking at any of his brothers as he explained.
“I met Hickory in a bar in the Lonesome flatts…”
It was a cool evening in the Lonesome flats, John had sat himself down at the end of a bar and was happily sipping his glass of tequila before he turned in for the night. He’d parked Rhonda a little ways from the village as not to alarm anytroll who came across her and he’d already cashed in his bounty so all he needed to do now was clean and bandage the cut on his forehead that he’d covered with his signature goggles to prevent any of the more curious and outspoken locals from asking questions.
The oldest brother of five hadn’t been paying very much attention to the happenings of the bar, it was one of the more quiet ones that the Lonesome flats had to offer. So imagine his surprise when a glass went flying past his head and smashing into the wall behind him.
John’s head whipped around as he zeroed in on the direction the glass had come from to see an angry four-legged troll with orange skin and wild yellow hair standing over and yelling at a (admittedly quite handsome) pale-green skinned troll with lovely auburn hair that was sweat to one side of his face that had a faint hint of stubble covering it, and he was dressed in what could only be described as ‘cowboy attire’
John Dory sighed, he’d already had enough of this asshole's voice for one night.
The teal troll strode over to where the asshat was making the scene and tapped them on the shoulder.
“WHAT?!” The asshole slurred in his face, making the grey-teal troll sigh, “Will you just leave the poor guy alone? What he did he do to you anyway, beside exist that is.” The asshole scoffed while John stood there with his arms crossed waiting for an answer. The asshole snarled at him, “All you two-legged trolls are the same! I bet your both in on this to try an d monopolise on us poor hard working trolls and take all of us hardworking country troll out–!”
John had had enough of the asshats speech and punched him in the face, sending him crashing to the ground, the asshole groaned and tried to pull himself up, but someone had passed John a broken table leg and without thinking he smacked the guy with it. Knocking him out cold.
“I still don’t know who gave me that table leg.”
John let out a breath as he tried to get his breathing back under control, “Sorry about that folks!” He apologised to the other trolls at the bar. “You okay man?” He asked the troll who had been getting hate crimed earlier. The troll blinked as they snapped back into reality, “Yeah..yeah, I’m fine thanks.” The two trolls smiled at each other for a moment before John spoke again, “No problem, the bastard threw a glass in my direction and it almost hit me earlier.” The grey-teal troll shrugged and then turned to the bartender, “You want me to get rid of him on my way out?” The bartender nodded and John huffed as he somehow managed to haul the four-legged troll onto his shoulder.
A few minutes later the two trolls strode out of the bar in search of somewhere to dump the bastard before they went their separate ways. Or well thats what John thought was going to happen until Hickory offered to let John stay at his and his brothers campsite for the night. “Theres always pleny’ o’room for one more.” The pale-green troll had shrugged. John sighed and smiled fondly, “I would but Rhonda, my armadillo bus, would get worried if I’m away for too long.”
The dejected look on Hickory’s face was rough to make John fold, “I can probably stay for dinner though?” He offered weakly, soaking in the hopeful expression that took over Hickory’s face faster than a flash of lightning.
“I met his brother Dickory that night too, a real prickly troll he was back then.” John chuckled as Branch rolled his eyes, “He still is, I’ve met him. I’m not a fan.” John looked at him wide-eyed, “I keep forgetting that you’ve met them. You’ll have to tell me how later Bitty.”
“Anyway, where were we?”
John kept running into the two brothers over the course of the next few months, on jobs, after jobs and sometimes whenever he was just passing through an area, and obviously they’d all help each other when they did run into the others.
“Now that I think about it, it’s kinda creepy how often we ran into each other.” John thought.
“Yeah you don’t think?” Clay sassed, yelping when Floyd punched him once JD had turned away.
Over the course of those few months John Dory had come to realise that those casual feelings of affection he had felt upon first meeting Hickory, were in fact, not just casual feelings of affection, they were anything but casual affection and would spontaneously combust and consume the teal-grey troll whenever the pale-green troll was in his immediate vicinity. Rhonda also seemed to like the taller troll and his brother too, letting them stay inside whenever John asked.
It had only been about two weeks since the pop troll had last seen the dynamic duo, so when he found out that the two of them were after the same troll he was, the grey-teal troll was more than happy to collaborate with them again. He figured that it would go the same as it had all the other time the three of them teamed up. They’d team up, form a plan. Execute the plan, catch whatever or whoever it was they were after this time, give them to whoever placed the bounty, cash it in, split the cash evenly, have dinner together and go their separate ways until they all inevitably ran into each other again. Rinse and repeat.
So imagine his surprise when he woke up trapped beneath a pile of rubble, unable to breathe properly, bleeding, in unimaginable amounts of pain and unable to feel his left arm. John had tried calling out to see if Hickory and Dickory were okay, but his voice wasn’t working properly because of all the dust and smoke he was inhaling.
His hearing on the other hand? Besides the ringing, worked perfectly fine.
“I can’t just leave ‘im!” John heard Hickory shout desperately at someone, presumably Dickory. Dickory scoffed, “Oh mein gott, he really does have you wrapped around his finger doesn’t he?” There was a pause, “Leave him Hickory, we can always find you a new pop troll boy toy if you want one that badly.” The older yodel troll mocked, John heard Hickory sigh heavily. “Okay…” He whispered dejectedly. The grey-teal troll gasped, his heart feeling like someone had just shoved his machete into it.
‘No…” He thought as tears streamed down his face, colours dimming and becoming much more greyer than they had been before, “Why?” He rasped before he passed out. His last thought being, ‘I loved you, why?’ before he welcomed the cold embrace of darkness.
“I AM GOING TO KILL THAT COWBOY!” Clay roared as he stood up. Bruce joined him, “Count me the fuck in.”
Floyd was crying just as much as John was, and Branch was sat quietly by his dads feet.
The oldest laughed wetly, “Please don’t guys..” Despite the raging guilt and sadness clashing into each other inside him, John smiled happily, it made his heart all warm and gooey to see that his little brothers, his babies still cared about him enough to be angry and Hickory and Dickory on his behalf despite how bad of a brother he had been to them growing up.
Branch stood up wordlessly, effortlessly grabbing the attention of all of his older brothers, “You okay Bitty B?” John asked, Branch tilted his head with an unreadable expression on his face.
“You do know that it’s not your fault right?”
John swallowed thickly, “W-what?” he stammered.
“Hickory deciding to listen to Dickory and leaving you to die.” Branch clarified, “It’s not your fault dad.”
John blinked as tears welled up in his eyes.
Apparently he’d taken too long to answer because when he zoned back into the real world, Bruce, Clay and Branch had all joined in on the hug that Floyd had been providing the entire time. “What Hickory did is in no way, shape or form your fault da-John.” Bruce spoke with an undeniable finality that couldn’t be argued with or against. “Ueah! That asshole doesn’t know what he’s missing out on!” Clay spoke as he pulled away from the hug, “Yeah you might not’ve been the best brother growing up,” That made John flinch, “But at least you tried, you made sure that we were happy, healthy, safe and well cared for.” John felt Floyd nod from where he was with his face pressed into John’s neck, “And you are definitely no ones boy toy!”
Branch sat up, “Yeah, I’m gonna kill Dickory for calling you that.”
John sighed, “Again, please do not kill my ex-situationship or his brother please.”
His brothers blinked at him, “And why the hell not?!” Floyd protested, “Yeah! Why not?! They left you to die John, get perspective!” Clay shouted exasperatedly. John gave them all the patented ‘Dad look’ that made them all shut their mouths immediately.
“I won’t let you kill them because you would go to jail for murder, no matter what the cause or reason for said murder would be, it is still murder.” John held up a hand to silence his babies protests, “HOWEVER, as I am a petty troll at heart, and you all seem eager to cause some chaos, you may make their time in pop village as difficult as you want without directly causing any physical harm to either of them. Okay?” All four of his little brothers nodded, obviously a little disappointed that they couldn’t just kill the two yodel trolls and be done with it, but also quite happy that their dad is letting them exact some revenge on his behalf.
John sighed, they all reminded him of Grandma whenever John or security told her about a handsy or violent troll after a concert.
That troll would disappear before the next sun rose.