A/N: A combined request - JaydeDog, who wanted a scenario in which Branch tells his brothers about their Grandmother's death, and trollsstanlol from Tumblr, who wanted a scene written based on the TV spot where Branch and Poppy hug 🙂

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Thick, cloudlike fog surrounded the high mountainous area. With the altitude that they were at, it was no surprise to find that there was a light layer of snow, which crunched underfoot with each step that was taken, frosty and cold. Though, if it did happen to send a chill through Branch, he wouldn't have been able to tell. He was too hot with frustration, and had wandered off blindly onto the vast red pathway that led away from the grand, glitzy, diamond-studded city.

Mount Rageous, he reminded himself that it was called, and Branch scoffed. Darn right it is. He could certainly feel the rage coming onto him if he kept this up any longer. Which is why he chose not to keep it up. He trudged off, wishing he wouldn't succumb to feeling so angry so quickly, but he couldn't help himself. With twenty years of practice at being grumpy, it came quite easy. Especially when his brothers triggered it to come out. He'd thought he could control it, but his tolerance only continued to lessen with each brother that was tagging along. First with John Dory. Then Spruce. Then Clay. An argument was inevitable... surely, they'd felt the tension in the air beforehand, right? JD couldn't possibly be oblivious to the frowns Branch made whenever he'd try and sneak in a noogie or punch to the shoulder. Spruce couldn't just disregard the way Branch would roll his eyes when he'd casually hum a tune from their past. Clay couldn't not hear the way Branch grumbled at his obnoxious laugh when he'd cracked a couple of jokes to JD and Spruce, like everything was fine.

Pfft. Everything is NOT fine. And it seemed like those bozos were finally getting the message, with the manner that they'd reacted to Branch's hard words minutes prior, cold like the air around him...

"You LEFT me. I was ALONE. How can I call you my brothers? Why would ANYONE do something awful like that to their 'family'?" Branch demanded to know.

"How could you have been alone, Branch?" John Dory had asked. "Grandma was with you!"

"Grandma DIED!"

This made JD go stiff. "Wh...what?"

"Branch," Spruce piped up uncertainly, "when did - "

"When did it happen? Pfft. A couple of years after you left. She waited EVERY DAY hoping you guys would come back, and she suffered a miserable death at the hands of a bloodthirsty Bergen with that hope NEVER fulfilled. And I had NOBODY after that..."

The three brothers were speechless, horrified to hear what had happened to their youngest of the bunch. JD looked confused, as though he couldn't comprehend that there was anything bad that possibly could've happened to him after the band had broken up and gone their separate ways. Spruce looked down at the ground in shame, feeling his heart clench for his late grandparent. Clay rubbed his arm, his ears drooping slightly in the sadness of it all.

"Branch, I - I mean..." Clay had begun to stutter.

"We didn't know!" JD blurted.

"Yeah, I can see that. That's pretty obvious. In fact, you guys don't know a LOT of things. Like what it does to your baby brother when you go off and do something like ABANDON him!"

"But we didn't mean - " Spruce tried to defend, but had been cut off.

"Oh, what, you didn't mean it? Yeah right. All you did was think about nobody but yourselves..."

"Branch! Where are you going?"

"Far, far away... from YOU!"

Branch shuddered some, but didn't let it bother him. It was a little nippy outside, but he had a tolerance for the elements. Heck, he'd walk all the way back to Pop Village if he had to. But it looked like that plan was to be halted in its tracks.

Branch heard a rapid patter of footsteps rushing in behind him, and a voice he could manage to listen to all day call his name.

"Branch!"

That is, if he was in the mood to listen. Not even Poppy's voice could placate him at this point. Or so he thought.

When Branch failed to stop, he suddenly felt Poppy's presence right behind him, and she quickly made to grab his hand. The grip was firm and steadfast, and it worked at making him pause this time, though he didn't turn around just yet. Poppy saw this, and she spoke, the tone in her voice as unyielding as her grasp.

"I have been by your side from the moment we met, and you've been by mine..."

She said nothing more for the minute that followed, allowing Branch the silence he needed to think. She'd been able to read his behavior well over the course of time that they'd been friends, and she knew that Branch - as a Troll of fewer words that she would ever be - needed this opportunity. And he did take advantage of it.

Since the moment we met...

Branch could in fact remember the moment they'd met, and what she was saying was true. She was there, the whole time, checking in on him throughout the years of their childhood and beyond it, seeing if there was any way she could help at cheering him up or becoming his friend, while he, through it all, had just pushed her away in the manner that he had learned to grow accustomed to in his grayness. She was ever faithful, ever caring, being there all the way through their teen years and into their adulthood, and on that fateful rescue mission to Bergen Town that changed things between them. And the more he thought about it, the more his anger was turning into sadness. The realization had hit him that he could never hold a candle to flame. She'd pulled much more weight in the whole "being there" department than he had, that was for sure. He'd only been there for her once they started to become friends, once he'd regained his colors and actually started to tolerate things like hugs and songs. Anything prior to that, he felt greatly embarrassed for, and Branch wished he could do anything to take back all those mean words he'd said to her, any moment that he'd childishly ripped up one of her invitations in front of her (only to sheepishly put them back together again once he'd gotten into his bunker), any time she was just being herself and he'd rejected her.

It was all voiced in the one conclusion that he could come up with: "I'm not good enough..."

This took Poppy aback. "What?"

He whirled around to finally face her, grimness on his face. "What I said," he replied. "You shouldn't have bothered, Poppy. I was never worth your time..."

Poppy shook her head vigorously, "No, Branch, that isn't—"

He cut her off before she had the chance to finish with, "It IS true. We both know it. No matter how hard I try, I'll never be..." The word 'good enough' stuck in Branch's throat, and he had to swallow it down. He was starting to get that same feeling again, when he was thinking those very same things after BroZone's failed performance that had caused the band to break up. He hadn't been good enough for them. Now he wasn't even good enough for his own girlfriend. That was what hurt the most of all. The girl he loved brought down along with him just because he couldn't get his act straightened out.

But Poppy thought otherwise.

"Branch, I've become a much better person because of you. You've taught me so much - You've shown me so many things about myself that I would otherwise have never known. Without you, I wouldn't have even learned how to be a good queen... or a good friend." She paused and squeezed his hand tighter. "Everyone has problems sometimes, Branch, and there's nothing wrong with that. What matters is how to work through them. And I'm here for you, no matter what."

Branch regarded Poppy, taking in what she was saying. Poppy didn't sound like herself - or, rather the Poppy that he'd first met. The Trolling who was chipper 24/7, and whom he'd heard whine to her friends and father about Branch being so grumpy and not wanting to join in on the parties that she would invite him to. This Poppy sounded much more mature, and, if what she was saying was true, he never would've imagined that the cause for her change was him. Had he really done that?

Well, she did change ME, he thought. She changed him from losing himself completely from his dark outlook on life, from spending gruesome days thinking that he'd be better off dead to instead appreciate the life he had, even with its ups and downs.

"You really believe that?" he asked her.

"Of course I do, " she said, giggling to lift the tension.

"Why?" he whispered.

"Because I love you, Branch," she answered, as though it were obvious. She opened her arms out and looked at him expectantly, to which he gave in and scooped her in for an embrace he hadn't realized he needed.

"And I love you, Queen Poppy," he mumbled into her ear. They leaned against each other's foreheads once they parted, his blue eyes looking deeply into her bright fuschia.

"I don't ever want to hear you say something like that again," she said, referring to his belief that he hadn't been good enough.

"All right. I won't," Branch assured her, clasping her hand in his again.

She smiled at him, then looked over to the direction where the caterbus was parked further along the pathway. "Do you wanna go back?"

He glanced warily in the same direction she was looking, not quite ready to see his brothers' faces again so quickly. "Actually, um... do you think we could just wait a few? I promise it won't be long..."

She nodded her head understandingly. "Whatever you want."

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A/N: I had to make another Shrek the Third reference in there with Artie's "Far Far Away" line lmao. Seems to me that Branch was walking off after some kind of argument with the way he's frowning in the "Chance" TV spot. I bet there's going to be plenty of Broppy fluff happening in that scene ❤️ (plus, I really hope we get a flashback of kiddo-Poppy and kiddo-Branch meeting!😯)