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“The sunset is too bright!” John Dory reached up and pulled his goggles over his eyes in order to protect them. “I’m going to turn into a rock!”
His younger brothers all looked at him like he was crazy.
“What?” He glanced around at each of them.
“Trolls don’t turn into rocks, John,” Floyd said. “I don’t know where you got that from.”
A pause. John held a hand up. “The other day when I told Branch he was a rock.”
“In my defense, I called you a square,” Branch argued back.
Clay shared a glance with a snickering Bruce. “Don’t we all?”
“That’s not funny!” John snapped.
Clay leaned back, folding his arms. A sly smirk crossed his face. “I wasn’t saying it was, dude.”
Floyd chose now to step in, “Brothers, please don’t argue,” he said in his usual calm tone. “We came out here to calm down, to relax, to spend some time together…” He paused to let out an annoyed sigh. “We can’t do that if we’re arguing.”
“We wouldn’t be arguing if John didn’t say he was going to turn into a rock and, by the way, you’re the one who initiated it and you hardly ever initiate arguments. That’s not like you.”
“Yes, but you made me do that,” Floyd retorted. “I—”
“I’m out,” they suddenly heard Branch say, stopping the four of them short and causing them to glance in his direction.
Floyd was the first to ask, “Branch, where are you going?”
“I’m going to go check on Poppy, Floyd,” he snapped as he stormed away from them.
All four of his older brothers paused and looked at one another in silence as they watched him leave.
“Without us?” Bruce asked out of stunned silence.
Branch clenched his fists. “Yes,” he snapped as he disappeared from view.
His older brothers all looked at one another before hurrying off, only to be met by a serious request from Branch:
“Don’t follow me.”
Branch looked all over Bruce’s restaurant in Vacay Island in order to look for his girlfriend but was, for some reason, unable to. Not even Brandy and/or Viva had seen her. And with that, he hurried out to search the sand.
“Poppy, where are you?!” Branch called out, paling immediately when he took notice of his entirely sunburnt girlfriend in the distance, her laying on her back on the sand, looking up at the sunset of Vacay Island.
“Here!” she still called out.
He quickly went to kneel by her side. “Are you okay?”
“I may have spent too much time out in the sunset..?” she admitted as she looked up at him. She remained laying in the sand before Branch urged her up into a sitting position.
Poppy winced as Branch was carefully spreading aloe gel carefully over her shoulders. “You need to be careful, you know?” he told her in a calm but at the same time serious tone of voice as he carefully tied the straps of her swim suit back up.
“I wanted to leave you alone so that you could spend some time with your brothers.”
Branch rolled his eyes. “I left to avoid an argument.”
“You’re suddenly Floyd?” Poppy teased playfully. “I’m surprised he didn’t follow you to do the same thing.”
“He’s the one who started it after John Dory dramatically announced he was going to turn into a rock because the sunset is apparently too bright for him to handle.”
Poppy shook her head at that. “That’s not like Floyd, like at all. And you know that John is like that. Remember when you told me he called you a rock?”
Branch rolled his eyes. “I called him a square.”
“You say again,” Poppy teased.
Branch found himself laughing as well, before falling silent. He opened his mouth to speak, but wasn’t given much of a chance to say anything.
“Branch, there you are.” Branch paused and became startled into silence when he looked up to find his older brothers all standing there and looking down at him.
They stood there in complete silence momentarily, then they put several things down onto the sand beside Poppy: a bottle of sunscreen (from Bruce), bandages (from Clay), a sunhat (from Floyd) and for some unknown reason, an ice pack (from John Dory).
Exasperation appeared on Branch’s face. “Seriously?”
Poppy gestured to the second and last items as she reached out and put the sunhat on, not even caring that she looked funny because the sunhat was now on top of her ponytail.
“Those really aren’t helpful for a simple sunburn.”
Bruce pointed up. “A sunburn in the sunset of Vacay Island?”
“You can get sunburnt here?” Branch asked as he picked the sunscreen up and put it in his hair.
“It might always be sunset, but yeah if you’re not a Vaycationer. Everyone here can’t get sunburnt,” Bruce explained as calmly as he could. “I think I’m lucky I grew resistant to sunburns over time. Makes things easier.” He fell silent after that in order to look up at the sunset fully now.
“Does that mean that we can grow resistant too? The more time we spend here?” John asked, just as stunned into silence as Clay, Floyd and Poppy all were.
Bruce nodded before turning to Branch and adding, “Can you give me the sunscreen so that I can apply some to Poppy?”
Branch stood up now and turned around in order to face his brothers. A look of rage appeared in his eyes as if to say ‘no’. “We seriously need to talk!” he hissed under his breath. “Now!”
“What about?”
“You’re getting too overprotective of Poppy,” Branch snapped as he glared at his brothers. “It may have taken time for all four of you to stop being too protective of me, babying me, to realize I’m now an adult. But Poppy? Are you serious? When are you going to learn?”
“Since when are we too overprotective of Poppy? Since when are we not allowed to protect someone we care about like you do?” Bruce demanded after a bit of a silence, the rest of the brothers nodding their heads in agreement.
Branch lightly tapped at his chin, glancing away from his older brothers momentarily. “Let me think…” he spoke seriously. “Bruce, you pushed Poppy away from a fire she started yet both of you got burned.”
“I was helping her cook whilst you were watching.”
“John, you used your hair to pull her out of the way of a stampede during a hike on the Neverglade Trail,” Branch continued when he turned his attention to his oldest brother.
“She startled the spiders.”
Branch now turned to his third oldest brother. “Clay, you took the supplies I was using to create a splint for Poppy after she fell and did it yourself.”
Clay fiddled with his bracelets. “I do it for Viva all the time, why not for Poppy?”
“Because Viva’s your girlfriend and Poppy’s mine.” Branch turned his attention to Floyd now. “And Floyd, you took over caring for Poppy for me when she was sick.”
“Fair,” Floyd said.
“Still, you don’t need to be overprotective of her. Just be there for her—”
Poppy put a hand on his shoulder. “Branch, I know how to solve this: why don’t you all be my guard on the condition that it’s just for real emergencies and problems.”
“Poppy…”
Before Branch could finish, the air was filled with four shouts of “Of course!”
Branch face palmed at that.