#trolls fandom is literally so nice. no amount of fics will ever explain how much gratitude and 'holy shit theyre talking to me' i experienc

[sansxfuckyou]

I am denial, guilt, and fear (and I control you)

Summary: there are good nights and bad nights in the mountains, turns out there's a similar cadence to how they show up even after he's back with his brothers

Warnings: angst, check Ao3 port for full tags

Authors Note: I went insane over the idea that John wrote songs about his brothers while he was out in the mountains, said idea spawned by the fucking epic @ohposhers who draws lots of good art and you should go check it out. title from Mr. Self Destruct by Nine Inch Nails. hope ya'll enjoy and if you do please consider dropping a reblog or checking the ao3 port

He hasn't exactly written any songs since he left BroZone to go be alone in the mountains, but it's a bad night, and this pit of guilt has knotted itself into his gut once more. He feels nauseated with himself for leaving his brothers and he was sure that stopped many years ago, sometime after he found Rhonda.

Sadly, Rhonda no longer counts to fit that empty little brother shaped space because she's his van now. She didn't really fit that little brother role very good anyways, she's more like his daughter whenever he really thinks about it.

Which he doesn't do very often, think about what he's become and how he adapts. He's usually too caught up on whether or not he'll find dinner, or if he'll catch some sweet slopes after a snow fall. He's usually more focused on keeping Rhonda well fed and making sure she's pleased as punch. He likes to make sure he absolutely doesn't have any time to think about his brothers or his past.

But he can't do anything to distract himself tonight, coming out of a fight with a wild animal that was supposed to be sedated doesn't leave a lot of stuff in your head aside from adrenaline. And the small little patches of pain and scratches that he's disinfecting, those are also on his mind. Otherwise it's empty, not focusing on much of anything and he knows where his train of thought will lead him so he tries to avoid it.

He fails, he fails to avoid thinking of his brothers and tonight he can't just cry himself to sleep because the sun is just barely setting. He'll be up while it's still dark out if he succeeds in passing out which he'd like to avoid. So he pours himself a mug of tea, dried berries and mint leaves, and starts looking for his ash tray. He'll just get a little bit high, that should take his mind off things, or make it so much worse, he's not quite sure. Smoking ring pop dust like it's weed is always a fifty fifty on whether or not he'll come down from his high feeling okay or lost in the mountains unable to find his way back for a considerable while.

He does find it, but all that remains are the ashes and a couple cigarette butts he just knows aren't gonna cut it. He gives this long aggravated sound before throwing open his closet and pulling out a very important memento from the before times. From before he left, from before BroZone, from before Branch was born, the guitar his parents gave him when he wasn't even thirteen. It's scratched, it's banged up, but it still works which is really what matters right now.

"Do I still got it," It's a mutter really, strumming the cords of his guitar, still almost perfectly tuned, but just close enough. It doesn't need to be perfect anymore, it just needs to get the job done.

Before he knows it he has paper splayed out in front of him, words and musical notes written atop them, each labeled with a brothers name. He doesn't know why he's doing this, but he is. It eases the guilt in his core, it takes his mind off the animal attack he just survived, it tears away this sheet of denial. Picks away the facade that he's fine, pulls apart the notions of him being over it, holds open his chest and reminds him he still has soft insides despite the roughness the mountains have conditioned him into.

Writing songs about his brothers, some of the lyrics don't rhyme, most of them don't actually. They just match the advances the guitar brings with the tune, the intensity gathers as it crescendos. He'll have to rename them later, so he can tell himself he wrote them for fun instead of this all consuming guilt and regret. He was sure he killed off said emotions many years ago, but apparently he didn't, and they've returned to rear their ugly heads once more.

So he writes and he plays and eventually he finds himself crying, that tight twist in his in his stomach migrates to his chest until it's unraveling. He hasn't sung in a while either, but he does so regardless, words spilling out of his mouth even though he intended to just write them and never say them. Never let out what's been boiling up for the past god knows how many years, but it's nice, working his voice and just getting it out.

He plays well into the night.

-/-/-/-

It's been three months since John Dory got his brothers back, and they spend most of their time in Branch's bunker (except for Bruce, father of thirteen) and John spends most of his time in Rhonda. He can't help it, old habits die hard, but he does spend the days with his brothers at the very least. They let him stick around for board games and he gladly plays, and even though he loses he appreciates it regardless because his brothers want him around.

But, he doesn't want himself to be around.

He ruined everything twenty years, whose to say he won't do it again? On purpose or accident he doesn't want to lose his brothers again (he doesn't know that despite everything they don't want to lose him either). He'll fuck it up again, he'll do something stupid and they'll leave him unless he leaves them first. His brothers that he just got back, his brothers that he's missed and been isolated for so fucking long that it makes his chest ache just to see two of them in the same room.

He needs to leave before he breaks their harmony again, a harmony of four is still a harmony. But if he's gonna do that then he at least needs to leave them something so they know he's doing it because he loves them. He's doing it for their own good and he'll go rot alone in a mountain for another twenty years if that's the price he needs to pay so they can be happy. So they can be happy without him because he sees it a lot more clearly now, they weren't happy with him all those years ago. He just made everything worse, his need for perfection, his need for the perfect family harmony, his need for the band to work out- he fucked it all up.

He really hates himself for doing what he's doing, but he has copies, it'll be fine. He never wanted them to know about the songs he wrote for them, about them, he wrote those songs over the memory of them and they're so visceral no one should have to read them. But it's the only thing he can think of to leave in place of himself, so they'll have a memory of him in his absence.

He gives brief skims of each sheet as he returns down the elevator of Branch's bunker, guitar slung over his shoulder so he can get a sense of how the chords will sound if they play said songs. They all sleep like bricks (even Clay which is a shocker considering how constant of a vigil the putt putt Trolls had going on), he can get away with a couple strums without any of them noticing and maybe even a few muttered lyrics. He needs to rework the one for Bruce more than any of the other ones, rewrite the name if it ever pops up for starters.

He finds himself sitting on a stool beside Branch's kitchen counter, scratching out words and rewriting them. He's getting too wrapped up in this. This was supposed to be a quick little in and out operation. But nope, he's stuck reworking Bruce's song so it seems sincere, he wants them to have a good memory of him. Not an oddly tainted one like they did for the last twenty years, if he's gonna end up making the same mistakes he'll at least try to avoid that one.

"John Dory, it's eleven PM,"

It's Bruce, the voice is groggy and coming from behind the teal Troll who spins on the stool to face his younger brother.

"It's when I do my best writing," A lie, a partial lie at least, enough truth to make it sound true. His nervousness comes off clear on his voice and it is very clear that Bruce is seeing directly through his bullshit.

He takes a couple steps forward and watches with John's reaction with rapt attent, the scuffle to hide something. He acts like he doesn't see it, "What's with the guitar?"

"Oh, this old thing?" He holds it up very, very carefully, "I got tired, thought I'd strum out some tunes to try and get back in a sleeping mood."

"I thought you quit making music for the last twenty years," Bruce countered with, he'll build to what's on the counter, ease his oldest brother into it. That's how it works with his kids, just calm them down from the panic and they'll tell him anything. He presumes it'll work the same for a fully grown Troll who couldn't emotionally mature past the age of seventeen out in the woods.

"Hard to forget how to play guitar, it's part of me," John said, the anxious edge slowly disappearing. Fucking Bruce, he thought only Floyd had that magical ability to calm people down, apparently not. And if he's unlucky he'll end up pliable enough and tell Bruce everything, by accident of course, not because he's been bottling it up for twenty years and needs someone to hold onto him while he cries-

Hey now, that's a pretty big jump, he cried plenty when he was out in the woods.

"And," Bruce takes a seat beside John before reaching for the papers. There isn't any recoil and he distantly wonders if this is a trap, but it isn't. As much as John Dory can be a dick, he wouldn't be a dick at this hour, "What about these?"

"Songs, wrote 'em while I was in the mountains," He half lied, although he wouldn't call it lying, just telling half of the truth. Bruce already has the papers, he'll know what's actually going on soon enough. John can feel his chest constricting again, he's not making out of this one alive.

Bruce places them back down, he's not gonna violate John's privacy any further, "How was it out there anyways?"

"I- to be honest it was kind of boring after I found Rhonda, my lovely daughter," John answered with, making sure to cut himself short. He gave just enough for Bruce to push further, to pry him open because John sure as hell isn't spilling it without incentive.

"No stories to tell me that you don't wanna subject Branch too?" Bruce teased.

There's this long sigh and the knot in his chest starts to come undone, pressure starting to build in the back of his eyes, "I really missed you guys, I thought I'd never see any of you again I kind of thought some of you might've died. And hell Floyd nearly did die, we nearly died trying to save him," He takes a shuddering breath and he just knows that he's probably crying just a little bit, "What a mess."

Bruce doesn't even know what to say, a part of him was sure John Dory was untouchable in terms of emotional hurt, a part of him knew nobody was untouchable. But he was the younger brother, he idolized John for a short period of time and turns out that he still hasn't beaten it all down. He just spreads his arms, "Do you want a hug?"

John doesn't even answer, he lurches forward, fully slumped against Bruce and just crying. He hasn't cried in the arms of literally anyone in far too long, he can barely form a sentence, it's almost pathetic. But Bruce just holds tight and doesn't let go and it grounds John into reality, into the reality he was planning on running away from.

He can't believe he'd ever do that, run away from his brothers again, go be alone in the mountains ago. It fucking wrecked him last time and now he's trying to willingly surrender himself back to a place where the only control he holds is where he goes. He's never been more glad to have a brother in his entire life, even when he pulls back he's still sniffling just a bit.

"Feel better?" Bruce asked quietly.

John laughed, "Oh absolutely not, it helped but I think a dad hug isn't gonna cut it this time around," He reaches for the papers, the one for Bruce. As much as he wants to shut up and go to sleep he keeps talking because he knows he won't reach this momentum again for a long time, "When I was in the mountains I really missed you guys right? And I was writing songs you know, busted out the old guitar and some pencil 'n paper."

Bruce is handed the paper and he's cautious to read it.

"Wrote songs about you guys, try and take the edge off," John admitted quietly, "They're kind of bad, and old, and I was going to leave so I thought I'd leave them behind 'in my memory' or whatever but then I got caught up fixing mistakes."

"You were going to leave?!" It's a lot louder than he intended and panic is quick to blossom across John's expression.

"Shut it! Or just, be quiet, I've changed my mind," John said, "But, no one else is allowed to know about this."

"They'll be flattered to hear you wrote songs about them," Bruce said.

"Yeah, and no one was supposed to learn about those songs unless I died or disappeared which backfired big time, so don't tell anyone," John practically demanded.

Bruce held out a paw, "I won't tell," he swiped it away when John went to shake it, "If you spend more time with your family."

"Fine, I'll spend more time with you guys," John agreed, Bruce placed his paw into John's they shook on it.

There's this small, comfortable beat of silence.

"Love you bro, we all do,"

John doesn't really believe Bruce, not entirely, but he says it back, "Love you too man."