welcome to the party, pal

[branchifer]

Who: Branch, Miguel, Tim, Boba, Dan, and Stacia
What: The supply and prisoner exchange
Where: The emptied out workroom floor
When: After all of Branch's chaos.
Warnings/Notes: Some blood, eventual cw mentions of cannibalism probably when Branch is hashing it out with Dan and Stacia, I'll put warnings in the subject.

[It's going to plan. And the heightened chaos is making it exactly as distracting and chaotic a situation as he was hoping for. The floor is cleared and there are people leading Elves and yetis to areas they've cleared, but traps can still be heard going off, sometimes randomly. Occasionally there's the angry argleblorgleblorg of a yeti getting chili powder exploding out of an air cannon to their face.]

[In some areas where traps were already set off and cleared, somehow (read: thanks to his 14-year-old secret accomplice) they've been reset, only to go off again.]

[It leaves things nice and unsettled and distracting.]

Comments

THE EXCHANGE - Boba, Miguel, Branch, Tim

[branchifer]

[Branch drives in to the appointed meeting spot in a little RC car, the controller propped on the dash. Tethered to the car with a bit of jump rope is an adjustable kid's roller skate, the kind that straps onto a sneaker, with the little critter cage containing Tim safely strapped into it.]

[He parks the cage where Tim is visible along multiple gaps in the tables.]

[When he gets out of the RC car and uses his hair to lift himself up onto a work table it is very clear that he is not well. The thing about being poisoned with enough snake venom to kill you probably like 2000x over is that even when you wake up, you have to take it easy. He has very much not done that, pushing himself to the absolute limits of trollish endurance. After getting hit by a different RC car right around the beginning of all this, reopening his leg wound, he's been overtaxing the myth healing by just running around.]

[The venom had blood thinning properties and while he's no longer poisoned, his body's hasn't entirely self-corrected everything wrong with his body chemistry. You might even say it's not...N'Sync? As a result, as he limps slightly on the table, the Christmas ribbon that was used as a poor substitute for a bandage over the original bandage is now soaked through, too, and he's leaving tiny little footprints of his own blood with the foot of the affected leg.]

[He's a far paler blue than he was when many of the others saw him in the Multi-plex or before and he's sweating hard and panting with exertion.]

Alright I'm here! [He calls out with that deceptively loud voice.] And I brought Tim. A deal's a deal!

[mostdangerousbird]

[ Tim would’ve saved his most vociferous arguments for the roller skate contraption.

He’s seen enough things towed behind other things -

- he’s ridden a skateboard while hooked onto the back of an armored truck with a grappling gun -

to know how these sort of plans end. The words “redneck engineering” and “dollar store physics” definitely came up. There was a hot minute where Tim wanted to affix himself to the base of the house with duct tape to keep himself from bopping around like a ball bearing, but he wasn’t sure what removing duct tape would do to him. His skin has to be thinner.

So Tim did his best to hang on to the mesh for the ride. He looks a little green and thoroughly static electrified when he crawls out of the candy cane slipper sock that he’s used as padding in lieu of a seatbelt. His hair is sticking straight out to meet the enormous mounds of fur collar. The coat, too, looks exceedingly floofy and round.

Tim sways and sits, swinging his head to follow Branch and hisses at him. ]

For the third time, I can do a bandage than that with the lining of this coat! I’m going to do it anyway when you pass out from blood loss. I refuse to let people die from stubbornness.

[orivodika]

[Boba's been busy. Ever since he and Branch talked he's been resetting old traps and putting up new ones, all while trying to avoid any of the rooms Loki has "cleared". This is the most fun he's had in--

He doesn't finish that thought.

Frost taught him that "charm" and he's holding a bag of supplies. Now all he needs to do is go in and wait for one of those snow globe things. Then he's getting out of here.

He knocks on the door to the work room.]

I have the supplies!

[He doesn't wait for a response before entering.

Branch looks bad and Boba's not looking great either. He has deep, dark circles under his eyes. His face is slightly sallow. He's barely eaten or slept since the got here. He's tense. He's half expecting someone to jump out of a shadow and drag him away.]

[ninjavampire]

[ By meeting time, Miguel has left his secluded pile of machine bits and paper copies to observe the whole interaction out of sight, somewhere high up and well beyond Branch's 50-feet requirement. He'll have to apologize to Jack later for perforating some of the wood walls to hold on to his lurking corner.

The mask conceals the blanching of his eyes as he focuses in on Boba first, then on Branch and Tim. There was something very off about the pattern of the traps, but the ridiculous chaos took precedent and so the thought was still percolating around without an end conclusion. ]

If it all looks good on your end, give him the bandages and the charm.

[ his voice is... a lot gentler talking to Boba than to Branch through the comm. Sure, the agreement was mutual and the danger was mostly at "mischief" level, but it felt weird having a kid do this part.

From what he could gleam from his limited line-of-sight, Branch wasn't doing too hot either. If the idiot had simply stayed put! ]

[branchifer]

[Branch just gives Tim a glare over the bandage thing. He hisses:]

I'll bandage it on my own when I actually have some.

[He knows how to do bandages. You have to know how to do self first aid when you live alone for 10 years and regularly run around the woods hiding from predators when gathering firewood, food, and supplies.]

[And there's the kid. He unwisely turns his back on Tim.]

[After being given the supplies and checking to make sure it's all there, he meets Boba's eyes with a little nod.]

Okay, do the charm, so they send the whatever.

[He can do whatever magic they gave him that gives a fake light show or something and then they're out of here.]

[mostdangerousbird]

[ No one could fault Branch for turning his back. He doesn’t know. How could he? Sure, Tim can fight, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to spend dedicated time worrying plastic mesh so he can slide himself through the slit like a snake.

Which he does, in the coat no less.

(The broken plastic rakes through the fur instead of catching on his clothes and skin.)

Once free, Tim drops the coat and runs as quickly as he can silently. The goal is out of hair’s reach until he can see an opportunity to help achieve the best outcome. ]

[orivodika]

[After handing off the supplies, Boba gives a small nod back.

He does the spell just like Jack showed him. He isn't sure if he believes it actually does anything, but he doesn't want to tip his hand too early and it's a good excuse to get closer to Branch.]

Charm's done. Send in the portal.

[The door behind him cracks open and a glider with a snow globe attached flies into the room. He watches the flight path carefully.

Boba holds himself very still. His hands clench and unclench. He's anxious but knows he shouldn't show it, no matter how much he wants to just grab the globe and go. They're so close to getting out of here. He's so close to getting out of here. He makes himself take deep and purposeful breaths.]

[ninjavampire]

[ all according to plan. There is admittedly a little relief at spotting Tim running off to safety, which means this doesn’t need to escalate into something serious.

But something still didn’t sit right in his gut. As the glider floats closer and closer, it suddenly occurs to him how bizarre it was that the traps were still being reset when Branch had waited for Lucky to arrive. Between that, and the visibly nervous signs, it occurs to him who was Branch’s accomplice.

He shuts off the comm as the realization hits. He didn’t have time to explain to Jack.

It is time to go for the dramatic dive as he swings in for an intercept, finding himself in yet another second-before-disaster save.

A red web shoots out and grips the globe as it lands in Boba’s hand, yanking it away as Miguel makes his landing a few paces behind them.

The air stirs a bit from his the wing membranes of his suit, softening his fall. ]

Sorry, kid.

[ he sounds… genuinely apologetic. But he can’t let the kid leave on his own. The deal was off. ]

[branchifer]

[No no no, they were so close!]

[There's no point in pretending they're not working together right now.]

We need that globe!

[His hair reaches out and grips a chair so he can swing in Miguel's direction.]

Just let us go! The kid doesn't want to stay either. He said you're making him fight people against his will, so he's coming with me.

[He's breaking his end of the deal, what with promising to not grab anyone else, but even this is out of misunderstanding - Boba's, and therefore Branch's. The desperation in his voice makes it clear that he really does think he's saving a child from the same people he's terrified of.]

[The arc of his next swing puts him right in a path that Tim can intercept.]

[mostdangerousbird]

[ Given an infinite amount of time - heck even 20 minutes - Tim would like to think he’d come up with worthy of the moment, but he’s going for functionality in a time crunch.

So Branch is met with a butterfly net that Tim can barely slam down to the ground. He pulls a dangling string, and a bag of sandbox sand stacked neatly in the corner dumps its content onto the handle of the net.

(Tim, it should be noted, is standing between Branch and the sand. He’s not putting Branch at greater risk. ) ]

Hold on - this is about the kid? Did anyone make him fight after we were here - the fight with the Jersey devil and the theater wasn’t on anyone’s orders.

[ Tim takes Branch’s accusation absolutely seriously, giving it more legitimacy than anything else so far, but he wants to make sure they’re on the same page. ]

They gave us all three options: stay here at the Pole, no strings attached, take the track proof charm and leave, or help them fight. Meaning staying and fighting are independent choices.

[ The look he shoots Miguel, well, probably only Branch can see the how sharp it is, like he’s daring him to confirm otherwise.

(He wishes he could doubt the accusation of lies and hypocrisy, but. Yeah, no, he doesn’t. Pooh poohing first impressions gets people hurt. ]

So the kid doesn’t have to fight, right?

[ninjavampire]

[ Miguel bites back the urge to say something more scathing for such a ridiculous accusation being hurtled at him, but he settles for a shrug and: ]

That’d be news to me, Tim.

[ he will be nice because the guy saved them the trouble of tracking down the troll. ]

Jack doesn’t seem like the type, to be honest.

[orivodika]

[Boba takes a few steps back so he can have both Tim and Miguel in his line of sight.

Sure he doesn't have to fight, because Boba's going to believe the adults that are keeping him trapped here in the first place. He knows how it goes, he saw it in Jabba's Palace. He either fights or stays imprisoned. Or worse.]

Then we should be able to leave, right?

[He needs to get to the globe. If only Miguel would come closer. He would have to leave Branch behind but-- he shouldn't feel bad about that. He doesn't feel bad about that.

No friends, no enemies. Only allies and adversaries.]

[ninjavampire]

Letting a kid get lost who knows where isn’t helping anyone involved, including you.

[ He can’t be the only sane one here, right??

The kid running off after the entire mess in the theater seemed like a terrible idea to him. Boba needed a bag lunch, not an adventure. ]

I’m saving us all a world of trouble, because who’re gonna be the ones who have to scramble when you get caught or hurt out there?

It isn’t gonna be Tiny sitting in the net, I’ll say that much.

[branchifer]

[Branch is...not reacting well to being trapped. He pleads to Tim.]

Please let me go, they're going to kill me!

[He fights first, trying fruitlessly to lift the frame of the net with his hair but he can't. The handle is buried under several pounds of sand. Even with his hair being stronger, he can't lift it.]

Let me go!

[Then he goes to the very end of the net, to tray to brace his hair against both sides to rip the mesh, but it's one of those butterfly nets that's more rounded than tapered at the end. His hair, even extended to full length, isn't really long enough to brace against both sides. Its not strong enough to rip it with what little leverage he has.]

Just let me go - just let me -

Just let me -

[He's so tired.]

[And there's no way out. It's over.]

[He's been trapped before but that was at a time where he'd lived most of his life emotionally shut down and closed off. He's come out of his shell since then. Let himself care about others. Let himself be happy. Let himself feel.]

[That means feeling the fear more strongly. That means he has something to lose. Friends. A community that cares about him. An actual life instead of a tepid existence of routine daily survival.]

[Her.]

[And most importantly of all, the last time he'd been captured he hadn't been alone. Poppy had been there. Even when the whole village was trapped and about to be killed, she'd been there. And after he'd broken his 20+ years of silence and sung to bring her hope, she'd managed to bring back hope to the rest of them.]

[And that hope hadn't been misplaced. Bridget had come through for them, and shown them that at least some Bergens could have a heart.]

[He's alone now. And unlike when Miguel grabbed him, when he thought he'd possibly die, he has time to marinate in the hopelessness and the loss. He leaves the tapered end of the net and trudges back to the center ring. The white netting is dotted with little blood stains where he stepped.]

[He drops to his knees, expression hollow, and takes something out of his hair - a little square of glossy paper, with hints of blue and pink, the vague shapes of two figures.]

[His voice is raw when he speaks again, and barely above a whisper.]

It's not fair. I was finally happy.

[But life isn't fair, is it. He's known that for as long as he can remember. He looks at the picture one last time, tears in his eyes, and then tucks it back in his hair, because he wants it to just be his. Nobody doing this to him is allowed the privilege of seeing her face.]

[Then he bows over against the floor, hands threaded into his hair so tight he's almost pulling it out. And then that is all the feeling he allows. When he pulls himself back up, kneeling there, his expression is now blank. He looks like he's completely emotionally shut down - and something peculiar happens.]

[The color drains out of him. Not the way it does to someone about to pass out, because it doesn't leave his skin paler. The color drains from him like he's turning grayscale, starting from his head and working downwards. The blue highlights in his hair fade so his hair is pure black, blue skin turns to gray. The color even drains from his clothes, the green of his shredded leaf vest, and the patches in his shorts turning sad and dull.]

[Then he falls back to sit instead of kneel, wraps his arms around his knees, and buries his face in them.]

For Dan and Stacia, cw: cannibalism

[branchifer]

[This whole situation has absolutely gone sideways, but one very good choice has been made: calling in two people that might be better equipped for a talk with a despairing tiny nonhuman sentient creature.]

[By the time Stacia and Dan get there, Branch is trapped in a butterfly net, the handle weighed down with several pounds of loose sand. Blood is dotted along the mesh from when he was struggling to break it open. The little Christmas ribbon tied around his left lower leg, over top the original bandage from the graze of Kaa's fang, is soaked through with blood.]

[Getting hit by an RC car had reopened the injury. Overtaxing his myth healing had come at a bad time when his body was repairing all the damage that had been done to his blood and its ability to clot.]

[He's sweating like someone close to passing out.]

[He'd needed to rest and had instead pushed himself to his limit. And he hadn't trusted anyone like Tim that had offered to dress the injury better.]

[Something is wrong with his color compared to when Stacia saw him last - there's hardly any. It's not that he's gone pale from blood loss. It's that he's lost almost all color, as if reduced to grayscale. The blue highlights in his hair are gone, so that it's now black. Even the green of his shredded little leaf vest and the patches in his shorts are duller.]

[He's sitting down in the center of the net's circular frame when they get there, his arms wrapped around his knees. He briefly looks up from where his face is buried in his arms with a dull expression on his face. He's completely emotionally shut down at this point.]

I know you probably don't care what I want, but please, when you feed me to one of your pointy-headed little kids, can you tell them to chew? I don't want to be swallowed whole.

[He closes his eyes tight.]

Just get it over with.

[mostdangerousbird]

[ He’s not heartless. Maybe he’s a little numbed to people having meltdowns after they’ve been caught, but there’s a difference. This isn’t raving as one’s being tied onto a stretcher about how they’re going to get you and your dog.

Tim crouches down when Branch drops to his knees. This is - this is devastation, not anger. Tim would know.

Because it reminds him of Victor Fries. (Liar.) ]

They’re not going to kill you. You’ve barely done anything wrong, and I’m only holding you here until you can make the decision with a cool head. And without major blood loss.

[ And without… whatever this color change is. This must be where the idea that trolls turn to rocks comes from. ]

You can -

[ Be happy. But he doesn’t want to make promises that he can’t keep, and Branch will see through it. Hell, Tim sees through it. If you can’t even lie to yourself… ]

You can still decide to leave once you’re in decent shape. And I’m not leaving until you tell me too. Actually, I probably won’t leave then either.

For Miguel

[orivodika]

[Boba watches Branch's breakdown. It makes him feel-- nothing. He doesn't feel anything about it. (But if he were to feel something, if would be sadness; pity. And a little resentment, being forgotten about so quickly and easily.)

He pushes all that not-feeling down and turns to Miguel with a challenge in his eyes.]

If I leave then it's not your problem. I can take care of myself.

[Miguel helped him before. But he's getting no goodwill when he's standing between Boba and his way out.]

[hallelujahjunction]

[Dan's been doing some version of "this" for a very long time, jumping in and coaxing the wounded into trusting the healing hand they're offered, walking onto bloody scenes with his calm demeanor and soft-spoken tone as great a tool as his skill with a needle or disinfectant, unwinding people from the traps they can't relax enough to slip themselves. He's been doing it long enough to know that there's no silver bullet. Every person is unique, with their unique triggers and paranoias, and that's why he never approaches a situation like this feeling certain about the outcome.

But feeling confident can come from just feeling competent, and Dan knows that he and Stacia are both that. Stacia gave Dan a brief explanation of what she knew about the little guy earlier, back when said little guy was passed out in a Big Gulp cup, and Dan's smart enough to put two and two together even before Branch says anything. After all, Dan's married to a prey animal. He knows how deep that drive can be and how scary the world can seem.]

Ain't no carnivorous kids around here. [While Dan's voice is certainly unpleasant, in the way rusty hinges and blenders and strep throat often sound unpleasant, people often find the soft, warm monotone to be weirdly calming.]

Don't worry about the sudden movement. I'm sending you a tool.

[He crouches down, several feet away from the butterfly net, observing the blood and the injuries from far enough away that he hopes it won't feel like encroachment to Branch. He pulls his small Swiss army knife from his pocket and places it on the ground, feels the slickness of the floor for a second, then slides the knife like a hockey puck with expert coordination so it comes to a stop less than a centimeter from Branch.

He figures that Branch can, if he can finagle his hand out of the net, use it to slowly cut himself free. It's probably a little too big for Branch to effectively wield it as a weapon, but it might give him a sense of security, while he's at it.]

I'm Dan. I heard you done met Stacia.

[branchifer]

[He doesn't believe him. And there is a part of him that wants to turn his back. It'd be considered deeply insulting to his own people to just turn his back on someone talking to him. The visible rejection.]

[The same way it's insulting to stomp on a party invite.]

[But he doesn't have the energy to even do that.]

[He just briefly glances up at him with a dull expression and then lowers his face again. He doesn't have the energy to react and he's given up.]

[Later on, though, he will remember this. Alongside all the trying to coax him into understanding he's safe, even as he held Tim captive. Alongside insisting that there are people that won't let anyone hurt him. He'll remember that Tim offered that protection and then refused to leave him.]

[credit_not_blame]

[Thank fuck Dan is here. Stacia does her best, but she does have Rage and that makes her unsettling at best to prey animals and people who feel hunted. And Branch isn't about to dismiss that warning niggling because she's not little and cute in comparison to him. She's huge and terrifying, and can get even more huge and terrifying.

She follows Dan's lead and settles a few feet away and slightly behind Dan, crossing her legs to try and indicate that she's not going to spring up to her feet suddenly and grab him. When Dan introduces her, she wiggles her fingers in a wave.]

Hi there. You got stuck to my giant hairy arm when we were fighting those flying monsters, remember? I wanted to thank you for distracting the snake, and apologize for not keeping a better eye on you when you were unconscious.

[branchifer]

[Monster girl. The one who said she was a monster that fought monsters. It gives him slight pause to see her. He'd already known that she had to be the one that had gotten him out because who else could've done it? She was there when he lost consciousness.]

[But there is also a knife to be concerned about. He scrambles for it, awkwardly manipulating it to cut a big enough hole to slip it inside with him. From there, it's a lot easier to use to cut the netting from his side of it.]

[When the hole is big enouugh he climbs to his feet and stumbles out. The stumble turns to his leg just folding under him. Even his hair is tired. He tries to reach it up towards the rung of a work table, but it just flops over before he can reach and goes limp. He retracts it, stumbles a few steps to press his back against a table leg, grasping the little blade in his hands.]

[Where is he even going to run to? They're just going to hunt him down. And even if he was able to, by some miracle, get his hand one of the (magic?) globes, what are the chances he can hunt down the kid and bring him along? He can't leave a kid behind with people that will force him to fight.]

[He clings had to the knife, holding it up despite its awkward size. Dan was right that it gives him some security. At least if someone tries to grab him he can hurt them.]

Oh, ha, yeah, big accident, right? Whoops, accidentally left me to get eaten.

[He shoots at Dan:]

Because there absolutely are carnivorous kids. The little kids with the pointy hats. I woke up to find out someone fed me to one and they were chewing on my head.

[That is freak behavior.]

And people don't - they don't believe me that someone fed me to them, like kids just randomly do that on their own. The big people back home used to have to teach their kids it was okay to eat us.

[ninjavampire]

[ You know, there is another whole ass teenager in the room to worry about, but Miguel does have the decency to feel like he put his foot in his mouth when Branch goes completely catatonic after his little shpiel. Yeesh. It's hard to see, but there's an expression of sympathy there.

But now for the kid. Still holding the globe, Miguel faces him to try and see if they can talk this out. ]

Okay. Why the rush to leave, anyway? You've got free food and a place to sleep.

Jack got hit in the face with pepper bombs and he still wanted to talk it out with him. [ thumb point to the trollish emotional cataclysm happening a few feet away ] As far as people who host a surprise party of interdimensional guests, he's far from the worst.

[ He will defend Jack's honor!! he's been a generous host. ]

[hallelujahjunction]

Well, it ain't okay to eat you. Not where I'm from, at least. And I'm a vegetarian. [Dan sits cross-legged, like Stacia, a few yards away from the net as he watches Branch work his way out. Even sitting, they both absolutely loom over Branch, but at least this demonstrates no immediate intent to capture or squish or eat him.] Converted to it a few years back.

[He fell off that wagon in the Wilderlands, but he figures that hardly counts. Turning down game meat would have been self-destructive and shortsighted.

He figures it's just pedantry to try and convince Branch that the elves aren't little carnivorous kids.]

And Stacia won't be feeding you to nobody neither. I'm sorry for the way your time here started. That sounds terrifying. No wonder you booby-trapped the place. [Dan looks around at the evidence of the chaos.] Look, I believe you that someone tried to feed you to a kid. I seen people do a lot of fucked up things and that might would be in line with some of them.

[orivodika]

[This place has free food and somewhere to sleep? So did prison. Do better.

Boba puts his right hand around his left wrist and squeezes lightly. It's a bad habit he's gotten into. An unacceptable tell. The bruises and burns from the stuncuffs are almost healed, but they skin is tender when he touches them. But he needs the reminder that the cuffs are gone. In some ways, the ache helps.

Boba takes smaller step back in the hope of luring Miguel into moving forward. He wants to make him feel like he's gaining ground.]

If he's so nice then why won't he let me leave?

[He needs to know if he's really trapped here. He needs to know if they'll let him go.]

You said you would help if I'm in trouble. [It's clearly an accusation. Boba never expected Miguel to follow through, but he remembers the promise.]

[credit_not_blame]

[Oh, there's an elf here who's in trooooooouble. Stacia breathes slowly, trying to keep her Rage dampened to reasonable levels that won't terrorize the guy further. She'll come back to the apology later, he's clearly not willing to hear it right now; not until his grievances are resolved.]

I'm not a vegetarian, but I'm strongly against eating anything smart enough to hold a conversation. We've got Jack, the guy that brought us here, working out which of the elves assaulted you. [A word she has chosen very deliberately, to show him how seriously they're taking this.] Because that's not acceptable behavior here, and we don't want it to happen again.