For This You Were Born

P2 C3: Tiny White Houses

Chapter 3: Tiny White Houses
Summary:
Spruce has a life, he really does.
He just misses his brother.

Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text
"Lenny! Come on, man, table seven is still waiting for their drinks! Chop! Chop!"

Spruce knocked the counter for emphasis as he paused through his open floor plan restaurant. There were mostly tables inside, under the safety of a beautiful structure his younger brother had designed for him, but there was seating outside too and plenty of space for the light to come in. He could, technically, close the large doors but the weather was rarely bad so it was rarely closed. The restaurant had technically been open only for about five years, as Spruce had spent the years before that helping build Troll Village. It had been a messy time.

Between escaping the Bergens, the betrayal that nearly killed him and the loss of two of his brothers, Spruce felt the full load of family responsibility for his brothers in an instant. He hadn't exactly planned to spark a new plan for escape for all trolls in the tree but he wasn't going to say no to helping either.

He tried not to think about those first few years after John Dory and Branch died. Adjusting had been hard and for a long time, it had felt impossible. He would rather just not think too hard about it. It was hard enough sleeping in a room alone. He had practically always shared one with his older brother. It was hard enough turning around and not ever seeing his big brother. It was hard enough suddenly being thrown into the role of the oldest.

He was never meant to be the oldest.

He hated it.

He wanted his big brother back.

He knew, logically, that it was impossible. John was dead but that didn't mean his heart didn't long for him back either. Was this how John used to feel all the time? Always feeling like you had to do something and being tired all the time, feeling like you had no one to lean on? Spruce had been lucky - he found people to lean on with Troll Village being so different from life at the tree. But John Dory didn't really have anyone. He couldn't lean on either of their parents - they had hardly been there - and John wasn't one to try and lean on his younger brothers for support. Spruce had to practically force John Dory to let him help. But, he supposed, he never actually saw the stress and pressure his brother was under.

Spruce hated his mother.

Of course he did - all three of them did. But Spruce felt a type of hate that he wasn't sure his brothers could quite understand. Because it spanned before her betrayal and long before she had handed his brothers over to be killed. He had no idea where she was or even if she was living in or around the village. He didn't really care. He made it clear that she was not welcome in his establishment. He hated what she had done and he hated that she left John Dory to do more than he should have ever had to.

The only thing she had ever taught him was he couldn't really trust anyone - not even family.

He knew it was something that Clay in particular struggled with more than Spruce or Floyd. Spruce let himself trust. He made himself try, at least. While Clay's reaction had manifested into blatant mistrust and anger, Floyd's had with sensitivity and people pleasing. Spruce had gotten the worried, anxious and paranoid end of the stick.

His therapist called it catastrophic thinking. The worst scenario one could think of had happened and now he thought - consciously and subconsciously - like that all the time, with any given scenario. Even the simple and mundane.

Spruce thought perhaps in another life, he was relaxed and simple and John Dory was alive. He would take twenty years of radio silence between them over this.