Different paths same roots

5- Resentment with longful backings

A few days have passed since the original shipment of his letter begging Branch to come save him, he theorized that Branch should've gotten the letter a few hours ago due to how far Bergen town was from Mount Rageous. While the days passed John grew more tired and annoyed but the best friends seemed to have grown a new type of bizarre tension that made them oh so much more unbearable to him.

"Ritzy!" Orchid chimed in while wagging John around in his cage as if he were an accessory rather than a sentient being, clutching his abdomen hoping to protect himself against the walls and shivered as his skin now felt like a bag of bones with how he could feel his spine and ribs through his peach fuzz skin due to the lack of food that the partners in crime had bestowed upon him.

Most of his hands and feet were now a sparkly translucent as the duo kept draining from him, his headache was now a permanent attachment to him that made him cry in pain. Blood still lingering on his lips and can still taste the iron from his chest infection he developed from the harsh and grimy conditions that Ritz and Orchid forced him through. Like lack of showering and or cleaning the crystal immediately after he had an accident.

"What Orchid?" Ritz looked up from his glossy magazine, cringing as John glared at him, his guilt over keeping the Troll was eating at him but Orchid soon giggled and showed off a large gemstone choker, Ritz got the hint and got up to help her put their new prisoner into the new crystal confinement around her throat, John letting out a yelp as it was an extremely tight fit and made him contort into a small ball to have some relief against the solid walls.

"I was thinking of wearing it To Veneer's party, It's two way glass, this one can see out but no one can see in." Her snow tinted with rich violet finger with it's pink twinkling with glitter fingernail tapped into the crystal ornament that was attached to a band of eggplant purple.

"Wow you're so smart Orchie." Ritz sarcastically snarked as he sat back down and John saw how their relationship with each other once achieving fame was dwindling And turning into something that screamed unresolved hatred and tension.

"Right!? I love me too sometimes.. I just hope that Velvet thinks so too." With that Ritz snapped the book shut and snorted at Orchid's gushy phrasing of Velvet's name and decided to say something on it,

"We both know that she's too good for you." That seemingly set her off, the overwhelming silence loomed over the room like a shadow as sharp needle like beady eyes bore into Ritz's lilac. John noticed how the higher in climb he got on his socials the less he seemed to kiss her ass and say everything she wanted to hear and not feed into her fantasies.

"The fuck did you just say!?" Orchid immediately snapped and gripped Ritz by his hair, her mouth set in a grim snarl flashing her dull canines as Ritz sniffed hard before landing a wad of spit right on her cheek.

"You heard me, especially with how bad you're obsessing over that chick, don't you think it's a bit creepy? I swear, you're like a lovesick puppy who's gonna end up with a restraining order." His condescending smirk sent Orchid into a frenzy as she moved to get dressed for her upcoming music video that she was going to shoot with Ritz as the backup vocals.

He was mainly an interviewer but John noticed as the longer their careers went on the more Orchid wanted to entangle him in her work, almost forcing his hand by batting her creepy caterpillar lashes at him along with flashing a bit of cleavage to get her way with him.

John knew that Ritz only fell for it only due to his under lurking love he held for the ringleader of their small two manned operation. She however didn't reciprocate and only used crumbs of affection and flirty teases to pull him along in their trollnapping scheme. That's how she was able to convince him to kidnap John in the first place; feeding him delusions from her sleek silver tongue as she told him to catch John before he could make his way back to Rhonda.