Purple with envy Pt2 Creek and Branch

Chapter two:

Branch spent the next few weeks avoiding both Poppy and Creek as he really didn’t want to have to deal with either of them right now, but the grey troll knew that eventually one of them would find him. Branch had just finished picking some green cap mushrooms when he was tackled from behind, as the survivalist hit the floor he let out a surprised huff of air, then turned his head to one side and as the voice of the pink troll came from the weight on his back he felt the first flickering of anger lighting inside him. “Branch! Here you are! I’ve been looking for you every were!”

“Poppy get off of me now!” Branch yelled at her with furry as anger at her actions built inside him.

The princess ignored his anger, she hugged him rather than getting off of the grey troll, as the pink troll did this the survivalist reacted by reaching around behind him, he hastily shoved a hand between them and quickly pushed Poppy off of his back and as he did so Branch growled out at her. “I told you once before personal space!” With the pink troll now off of his back the grey troll quickly rolled over, he got to his feet and then turned to face the princess giving her an impressive glare as he did so. “What was that about?”

“I wanted to give you a hug and to show you how much I’d been missing you!” Poppy told him with an overly cute pout.

Branch rolled his eyes at the princess and then asked in exasperation. “What is wrong with you Poppy? You’ve been behaving oddly around me for ages!”

The pink troll blushed, and then said very shyly to Branch. “Well I…I really like you Branch! As more than a friend…I’d love us to date!”

The grey troll and Poppy were totally unaware of the fact that Creek who had also been looking for Branch and now he was watching this scene unfolding between the two trolls concealed in the nearby long grass. When the purple troll heard the princess make this confession to Branch he felt like his heart was being stabbed by something very sharp, this feeling made Creek feel very confused, he couldn’t understand why the idea of Poppy and Branch dating should hurt him so badly. He cared for the princess she was one of his dearest friends so her dating the other troll shouldn’t bother him and didn’t. As for the other male troll as soon as Creek thought about Branch dating the guru quickly discovered that he really hated the idea of the survivalist dating another troll. It was this thought which had all of the spiritual thoughts coming to a complete halt, as he began to realise that the idea of Poppy dating Branch made him feel very envious of her, the guru didn’t really understand why he should feel this way about the grey troll, but at the same time he started find himself irrationally hoping that the grey troll would say no to the princess.

Branch let out a deep sigh, he closed his eyes for a moment then opened them and said to the pink troll as gently as possible. “Poppy, you are a good friend and a lovely troll, but I can’t go on a date with you, I don’t love you that way…Before you ask it’s not just you…I just haven’t found the troll to capture my heart yet.”

Poppy deflated slightly, but gave her friend a smile as she said to him. “I see, well at least you were honest with me Branch.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you Poppy.” The grey troll told the princess with a small smile.

“It’s alright Branch, you can’t help the way you feel after all.” The pink troll said reassuringly to the survivalist.

Branch laid a hand on one of her shoulders and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I’m sure you will find another troll much better for you than I could ever been as a romantic partner.”

“Thank you for saying that Branch. I’ve been a bit of an idiot around you lately haven’t I?” Poppy asked this question with a rueful chuckle.

The grey troll gave her another small smile, nodded, he took his hand the pink troll’s shoulder and with the fingers of this hand a short distance apart he then said to the princess. “Just a little.”

The survivalist doing this drew a proper laugh from Poppy this time, she shook her head at him and said with a sigh. “I wish more of the trolls got to see this side of you. I can’t believe that there isn’t a troll who you could thinking of giving your heart to.”

Branch shrugged at the other troll and then said to the princess. “I’ve never been like the other trolls, so finding a troll willing to take the time to look beyond my grey surface to what’s under it or to understand how being grey effects my life isn’t exactly very easy. All any of the other trolls see is a paranoid troll who runs around screaming about Bergen’s all of the time.”

“Well to be fair to the other trolls you do spend a lot of time doing that.” Poppy said with a grin for her friend.

The survivalist shrugged at her once more. “Well what can I say I worry, I seem to be the only troll who thinks that if we aren’t careful the Bergen’s will find us.”

“It has been a long time now Branch, can’t you let it go?” The princess asked him gently.

The grey troll shook his head at her. “Not really…I…It…I just…It’s very painful for me to talk about what happened to me and why I worry about us being discovered by Bergen’s again. All I can say is I don’t want us to ever need to experience losing trolls to trollstice ever again.”

“I can understand that Branch from and from what dad told me about trollstice it sounded like it was terrible…So I think that considering it from that stand point it’s reasonable to not want it to happen to our tribe again.” Poppy told him giving Branch a gentle hug.

When Poppy pulled back from this short hug she quickly dashed off back towards town, the grey troll didn’t follow her, he felt that the princess probably wanted a little time to herself. The grey troll dusted himself off, then turned around to find Creek standing behind him, he raised both eyebrows at the purple troll and then asked the guru curiously. “Yes can I help you Creek?”

Creek walked up to Branch, he gave the other male troll a deadly smile as he said. “Yes, you can help me Branch, you can give me that kiss you still owe me.”

The survivalist smirked slightly at the spiritual troll, he felt pleasure knowing that the other male troll had been forced to come back to him to try and to get a proper kiss from him. “I told you that you would find my kisses addictive.”

The purple troll glared at Branch for a moment as anger sparked inside him and then said dismissively. “How can I find your kisses addictive when all you did was kiss me on the forehead?”

“You’re the one who came back for another kiss.” Branch told him with another small smirk.

Creek knew that he couldn’t deny this fact, he felt a small trickle of admiration towards Branch as the grey troll said this to him. “Still I think you owe me a proper kiss Branch.”

“Do you now?” Branch asked him, while he pretended to think about this for a while before he eventually said to the other male troll. “No I don’t think so somehow. I’ll see you around Creek.”

After he said this to the purple troll the survivalist turned to walk away, but just as in the encounter before this one Creek caught hold of Branch’s arm and pulled the other male troll back towards him. The grey troll turned, he looked at the spiritual troll, he could see the determination in the grey blue eyes of Creek and Branch knew that if he didn’t give the purple troll the kiss he had come back for then the guru would just keep trying to get one from him. To be honest the idea of forcing Creek to keep coming back to get the kiss he was so eager to claim from him amused Branch slightly but at the same time he didn’t want to waste time being chased around by the guru. “Why are you so eager to get a kiss from me Creek? Been hiding a crush on me or something?”

The spiritual troll fought not to blush as the grey troll asked him these questions, though he couldn’t say he had a crush on Branch neither did he want to confess that he didn’t like the idea of the other male troll dating other trolls. The guru however could admit, at least to himself that he sure had been dreaming a lot about what it might have been like for the survivalist to have actually kissed him on the lips instead of the forehead which had led the guru to decided that probably the only way to stop the dreams was to find out what the experience was truly like. So the purple troll made a dismissive noise in response to this question from Branch, he used the hold he had on the other troll to pull him closer to him and then said. “I told you already Branch, you owe me that kiss.”

The dark brows of the grey troll rose again. “You seem to be rather possessive of that kiss…Any troll would think that you don’t want any other troll to know what it’s like to kiss me or be kissed by me.”

Creek rolled his eyes and said in a slightly angry voice. “Just give me that kiss already.”

“I already said no. I already gave you a kiss Creek as far as I am concerned that was the debt between us settled.” Branch told him with finality trying to remove Creek’s hand from his arm.

In response to this the purple troll tightened his hold on the survivalist’s arm, pulled him flush to his body and said to the grey troll. “Just give in and kiss me Branch, you know I am just as stubborn as you so just give me what I want.”

Branch was quiet for a few moments, he brought up his free hand placed it to his lips, then tapped his bottom lip thoughtfully with his forefinger before saying to the other male troll. “Very well Creek I will give you what you want, but only this once.” Slowly the grey troll firmly brought his lips to those of the guru, this elicited a partly surprised and partly pleasured gasp from Creek and he let go of Branch’s arm. The survivalist rested his arms at his sides, he refused to hold the spiritual troll as he did this, Creek had been kissed many times before, but none of them had made him feel so wonderfully alive inside before now.

This kiss between the two male trolls only lasted a few moments, but somehow this simple act had fundamentally shifted the worlds of both of the male tolls. Branch took his lips away from those of Creek, he looked at him with slightly hooded eyes, he was pleased to see that Creek looked as stunned on the outside as he felt on the inside. The grey troll stepped back from the guru, he turned away from the clearly shocked Creek and walked away into the forest trying to appear as cool and calm as possible on the outside while on the inside his feelings churned.

Branch made his way through the forest, he didn’t rush, the survivalist was glad that he couldn’t hear Creek behind him, as the grey troll was going somewhere he liked to go to in order to clear his thoughts, Branch felt he needed to do this because of the way that giving Creek a simple kiss had shaken him. Eventually the survivalist made his way towards a pool, the grey troll placed the back pack down to one side, he drew out of it a yellow towel and flannel as well as a spare pair of brown trousers. Branch took off his leaf vest, he placed the towel down on the bank by the side of his vest before walking out into the pool with the flannel to wash. The grey troll started to wash in the water letting this act still his mind, Branch let out a contented sigh as he felt himself start to calm down from his reaction to kissing Creek.

Little did the survivalist know that the guru after a few moments of standing there in shock after the kiss, he had determinedly followed the other troll to the pool intending to talk to him about what had happened between them and now instead of doing that he was watching him washing. Creek had tried to look away from what Branch was doing but he just couldn’t, he watched as the grey troll ran the yellow flannel over his grey skin making it shine in the sunlight like polished stone. The spiritual troll’s eyes roved over the strong back and arms of the survivalist, he found himself appreciating the sight before him and wondering what it might be like to wash that skin for Branch. The water ran in droplets over the skin of the survivalist, Creek followed one of them down over his back to the waist of the grey troll before it re-joined the water of the pond and as he watched this water the guru actually found himself envying it for being able to touch Branch. The grey troll went on from washing his body to washing his hair, totally unaware of his hidden audience, the survivalist washed his hair out and then walked out of the water back onto the bank.

Branch lay his flannel to one side, he quickly dried his body off with the yellow towel and once this was done he then moved onto his hair. When the survivalist’s black hair was dried off, Branch didn’t comb his hair as most trolls would after washing it, instead all the grey troll did was run his fingers through his hair a few times and then leave it. As Creek watched him do this the purple troll found himself wanting to go out there and comb the jet black hair of the other male troll properly. He found it very hard to sit on this urge, the purple troll decided that next time that he met the survivalist he would somehow convince Branch to let him comb his hair. Creek knew it wouldn’t be easy to convince the other male troll to let him do this, as for trolls any act which involved their hair being touched or groomed in anyway was highly intimate and generally only done between couples or family members. The spiritual troll politely looked away as Branch changed into a new dry pair of shorts and back into his green leaf vest. Creek didn’t dare to move in case he gave himself away to the other troll, as he felt sure that if the grey troll knew he was there he would be in a world of trouble. When the guru looked back at Branch the grey troll was packing his towel, flannel and wet shorts back into his back pack, with this done the survivalist let out a sigh of contentment and then set off back towards the bunker.

It was only once the spiritual troll was absolutely sure that the survivalist was gone that he came out of hiding, Creek looked in the direction Branch had gone in and knew without a doubt he was going to dream of him in the water and of what it might have been like to wash him. This knowledge caused the purple troll to let out a groan of pure frustration and then go home, hoping that maybe just maybe he would be wrong about the fact that he would have the dreams about branch in the pool. Creek had to admit, his reactions to Branch lately had him more than a little confused, he couldn’t help but wonder what exactly was happening to him and why he was finding himself so drawn to the grey troll lately.