"Look, why don't we just try it?"

Poppy thinks she probably would be embarrassed – hell, she's pretty sure she should be embarrassed – but with four sleepless nights at her back, she figures she's more than earned the right to be a little bit brazen, and besides, she's too exhausted by now to even think straight, much less care for something as inconsequential as propriety.

Looks like the same can't be said of Branch, though. "Try—try it?" He more squeaks the word than says it, angular cheeks aglow with a furious, dusky blue blush. "Y-you mean—you mean try—you mean—um, you—you mean…" He can't even meet her eyes anymore. "...s-sleep in—uh, sleep in the—in the same—

"In the same bed," Poppy finishes the sentence for him because she's sick of waiting for him to spit it out – God, he's like a nervous trolling performing his first song for the village, with all that sputtering, and she knows, somewhere in the back of her mind, that this usually wouldn't irritate her, but she's far too tired to care. "Yeah, Branch, that's exactly what I mean." She brings her hand up to her temple, hoping to assuage the ache that's resided there the past two days, and the motion knocks her flower crown askew, but she doesn't bother to fix it the way she usually would.

"I just—I know we laughed it off at the time, but Branch, maybe Dad was right. Maybe sharing Lord Bedfellow really is the only way to solve this."

"Or!" Branch says quickly, in a voice tinged with panic. "Or we just—we just drink some more coffee! It's worked so far—why fix what's not broken—?"

"I don't want any more coffee! I want some sleep, Branch!"Poppy doesn't care that she's shouting, and something inside her thinks maybe she probably should, but she's already caring about how tired she is, and about how bad her head hurts, and about how apparently Branch finds her so repulsive that sleeping next to her for one damn night isn't even a last resort, apparently the idea sickens him so much, it's off the table entirely, but so help her, she is not spending another night like this, no matter how he tries to get out of it. "I just want to get some sleep! I'm exhausted, and I can tell you are, too—that coffee won't help when you've collapsed, you know! And if it doesn't work—if it doesn't work, we'll just forget about it, it'll be like it never happened—I can't keep running the village like this!" She falters suddenly, and draws in a slow, shuddering breath. "Just—please…Branch, please…"

Branch swallows hard, and in the suffocating silence, it's loud as a scream. "Okay, fine." It's so quiet, Poppy thinks she might have imagined it, but then he stands up straight and repeats himself. "Okay. Fine. You win. We'll try it."

"Thank you." Poppy can't keep the relief out of her voice, and she doesn't even try – she's sure it's showing on her face anyway, and besides, she's too busy caring about how tired she is and how badly her head hurts and how apparently Branch finds her so repulsive that sleeping next to her for one night isn't even a last resort—

"Just—uh, just drop by the bunker at sunset, then, I guess." Branch gestures vaguely in the direction of his underground home, and takes a small step back, like he's going to leave, and Poppy may be tired, but she's not that tired.

"Uh, no." She wraps her fingers around his wrist to stop him from going any farther. "We'll be spending the night in my pod, where it's warm, and dry and," she realizes then that he's not looking at her, he's staring at her skin against his, and her mouth goes dry, and okay, maybe she's not too tired to be embarrassed, if the sudden heat in her cheeks is anything to go by. "…and…and…"

Damn him.

She lets him go.

And she waits for him to argue – maybe point out that his bunker is impenetrable, and security matters so much more than comfort, honestly, Poppy, who raised you, she waits for him to argue because that's what he does, only he doesn't, he just keeps staring at her, and then he raises a hand like maybe he's going to touch her, and then he drops it again and just says, "Okay, fine."

"Wait, what?"

It can't be that easy. There's no way Branch would make it that easy.

"You win," he says, and there's a weary note in his voice that sounds like it has nothing to do with sleep. "We'll spend the night in your pod. That's what you want, right?"

"Yeah," Poppy says, because she can't say no, I wanted you to argue with me, I wanted you to make me fight for it because that's what you do, and it drives me crazy and a little part of me loves it, too, and she can't say no, I wanted you to want to sleep next to me. "Yeah. That's what I want."

"All right." Branch lifts one shoulder and lets it drop in a half-shrug. "Good."

He doesn't sound like he thinks it's good – he sounds like he thinks it's the exact opposite of good, and Poppy grits her teeth. "Great."

"Fine." There's a definite bite to his voice now, and he doesn't sound like he thinks it's fine, and Poppy decides maybe she doesn't love it when he argues, maybe it just drives her crazy, because right now, that sounds like the safer bet.

"Fine!" She realizes, belatedly, that she doesn't sound like she thinks it's fine, either, but she's too angry to care.

"Fine!" Branch is practically shouting at this point, and maybe it's the light, but Poppy could swear he's blushing again, and then he turns on his heel and storms away through the wood, and it feels like the bottom of her stomach just gave out, and as she watches his blue form disappear between two mushrooms, she feels an awful, inexplicable sense of loss.

Branch shows up at her door just as the sun is slipping slowly behind the trees, the green forest awash in rich golden light, and he isn't angry anymore, and he isn't nervous or awkward or stuttering anymore, but he won't look her in the eye, and he won't speak to her except in terse, one-word sentences like yeah and okay and fine, and all in all, he looks like he's about two seconds away from bolting, and maybe this whole thing isn't his first choice, he's making it pretty clear that this isn't even his last choice, but Poppy is going to get some sleep tonight if it kills the both of them.

"So," she plops herself down on one side of the bed, and stretches her legs out across the slightly wrinkled covers with a grateful sigh. "You think we both need to, like, have our heads on Lord Bedfellow for this to work, or maybe if we just keep it between us, or…" She staggers to a halt, waiting for him to interrupt her, to roll his eyes and make some snarky comment, so she can make one back, and things can go back to normal and they can forget about this afternoon and she can pretend her heart isn't crashing inside her at the thought that she's going to be sleeping beside him.

But he doesn't, he doesn't do any of that, he just looks at the ground, and kind of shrugs a little, and murmurs, "Whichever, I guess."

Poppy swallows the sudden, searing wave of ire rising in the back of her throat, and forces a smile. "All right, I vote we just keep it between us for now, and if that doesn't work, we'll try something else. Sound fair?"

Branch crosses and then uncrosses his arms. "Y-yeah, sure, whatever." He crosses them again. "Sounds fine." He still won't look at her, and Poppy wants to scream herself hoarse at him, wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him, wants to make him look at her, make him talk to her, make him say something cutting or sarcastic, she wants to make him be him again, but instead, she just puts Lord Bedfellow beside her, and peels back the heap of fuzzy pink blankets and crawls underneath them, and tries to focus on the cool silky sheets against her skin.

When she looks back up, Branch is staring at her – she can't even begin to read his expression, and she doesn't want to try, but there's something about the way he's looking at her, lips slightly parted, color rising in his cheeks, that makes her think, for a minute, that maybe he likes what he sees, and the idea, however far-fetched, makes her feel brave, and she pushes herself up one elbow and opens her mouth to speak, and then his gaze meets hers, and he turns his face away, averting his eyes as though he's witnessed something indecent, and something inside her tightens, and she rolls over until her back is to him so she doesn't have to look at him anymore.

It doesn't do any good – she's still uncomfortably, intensely aware of his presence behind her, she can still hear the soft, muffled thumps of his bare feet against her plush pink carpet, God, she can hear him breathing, heavy and rapid and trying to be quiet, and he doesn't have to like this, he doesn't even have to be comfortable with this, hell, she's not really comfortable with this, to tell the truth, but at least she's not making him feel completely disgusting, and she just can't take it anymore, but when she tries to speak, her voice comes out hard and sharp and not at all like her. "You do know it's going to take both of us for this to work, right?"

Somewhere behind her, the footsteps come to an abrupt, jarring halt. Another breath, a little deeper than the others, like he's steeling himself, and then the other side of the bed dips beneath his weight, and Poppy suddenly wishes she hadn't said a word, because now he's so much closer, and every time she breathes in, she catches the scent of his soap—his stupid homemade soap, he never let her talk him into using anything else—and then he sinks slowly down into the sheets, and his arm brushes against hers, his skin is on her skin in a way that feels, somehow, so much more intimate than when he held her hand in that pot barely a month ago, and something inside her quivers just before her entire body goes weak as jelly like it does when he says her name—and then he jerks back like she burned him, and suddenly his skin isn't on hers anymore—and okay, fine, he doesn't have to touch her if he doesn't want to—and then he moves, and she can't feel the heat of his body beneath the blankets beside hers—and okay, fine, he doesn't have to be close to her if he doesn't want to—and he reaches back and readjusts Lord Bedfellow until it forms a barrier between them, and Poppy—

Poppy loses it.

"Why are you even here?!" She sits up on her knees in the bed, and shoves the – usually comforting, but now nothing short of smothering – blankets away from her body with one hand, pushing stray wisps of tangled pink hair out of her face with the other.

Branch is—he's staring at her, and he doesn't get it, she can tell he doesn't get it, and so when he opens his mouth to speak, she interrupts, because she can't even stand to hear his voice right now.

"No, you know what? Let's just forget about it, let's just forget about all of it! You can just go running back to your bunker, the way you obviously want to, and we can forget about Lord Bedfellow and just—just live on coffee for the rest of our natural lives because you're too much of a child to—

"What are you talking about?!" Branch pushes himself up off the pillows, familiar scowl etching its way onto his face. He finally looks like himself again, and Poppy doesn't even care because now he's trying to turn this around on her, trying to act like this isn't completely one hundred percent his fault, trying to act like she's the one who started all this shit in the first damn place, trying to act like he hasn't been behaving like—like—did he think he was hiding it?

"Did you…" Poppy almost laughs, but something inside her hurts too much to let her. "Did you actually think I wouldn't notice? You aren't subtle, Branch!"

A strangled, breathy noise that sounds something like a half-spoken word spills from his lips, and then he presses a fisted hand to his mouth, knuckles clenched so tight they've gone pale against skin that's darkening rapidly as he flushes sapphire all the way to the tips of his ears, and Poppy can't help it, she does laugh this time – he really did think he was hiding it – and he flinches at the sound.

"I—" He lowers his hand slightly, fingers still curled fast into his palm. "—I d-didn't—I'm s-sorry—

"I mean, you don't have to be happy about it—I don't expect you to be happy about it, but if we have to do it, then we have to do it, and the least you can do is even just pretend for two seconds that you're not completely repulsed by me the entire time!" Her voice is nowhere near as steady as she'd like it to be, and humiliation crashes over her like a wave.

"What?" Branch frowns, the hurt on his face dissolving, dissipating as though it had never been. "You think…" And this time, it's him who laughs, breathless and something almost like incredulous. "You think I'm—I'm—repulsed by you? That—that's what you think?"

"You're making it pretty damn obvious, Branch! You can't touch me—you can't even look at me—!"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Branch spits the last word from his mouth like a curse, jaw clenched and lips tight, face screwed up in anger, "but in case you haven't noticed, Poppy, I'm in your goddamn bed! I'm just trying to put you at ease—what am I supposed to do?!"

"You idiot!" Poppy screams, because she can't say what she'd really like him to do, so she slams a fist into Lord Bedfellow's fluffy, unresisting middle, but it doesn't make her feel any better. "You stupid, stupid idiot!"

"Yeah, go ahead, call me an idiot! At least I'm not the one who got us into this in the first damn place!"

"If I'd known you were going to act like this, I wouldn't have said a word!"

"How else am I supposed to act?!"

"Maybe quit treating me like I'm disgusting? God, Branch, I know you don't want to be here, but I'm not some sort of Frankenstein!"

"Oh, yeah, sure, that's what this is about!" A short, humorless laugh tumbles from his mouth. "Has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that you're beautiful and I want to fucking kiss you!"

Poppy stops.

"What?"

Because there's no way she heard that right, there's no way, there's just no way. She misheard it. Maybe she imagined it, maybe her over-caffeinated, sleep-deprived brain just decided to take pity on her because there's no way Branch just said—

"I want to kiss you," he says again, and this time, he's careful to stress each word, and his eyes never once leave hers, and there's no way she misheard this time, and this is real, this is real, this is real.

"I want—I want to do more than just kiss you—I want to do a lot more than that—but don't worry, 'cause I know you don't want that, believe me, I know, I—I just…" Branch swallows, and rakes a hand roughly through his tangled hair, and all Poppy knows right now is that his lips are moving, and she needs to feel them against her own so badly she can barely think straight, and if he doesn't stop rambling and kiss her right this second, she's going to lose her damn mind.

"Look, I—I'm sorry, I didn't mean—

Poppy loses her damn mind.

"What the hell are you waiting for?!" The words come out breathless and clumsy and a little bit crazed. "You say you want to kiss me, so fucking kiss me, you stupid idiot!"

There's a second where everything is completely still—where Branch just stares at her, and he doesn't seem to even breathe, and then—it's impossible to tell who moved first, but Poppy doesn't care enough to try and figure it out because either way, she winds up flat on her back with Lord Bedfellow beneath her, and Branch on top of her, and he's everywhere—his skin against hers—his hands on her hips—his tongue between her teeth—his legs entangled in her blankets—his heavy, hot breath on her neck—his dark hair twining ardently with her bright—and still, he's not close enough, he's not close enough—too many barriers—too many clothes—

She reaches up and starts popping buttons until the soft blue fabric of her favorite dress falls away from her slightly sweaty skin, and it's still not enough, she still wants more, she wants—she wants—Branch stops.

Branch stops.

His skin leaves her skin—his mouth leaves her mouth—his hair leaves her hair-he pulls back, and she's pretty sure she's going to die if he doesn't keep going, but he just stares down at her, a small frown making its way onto his face. "Are you—Poppy, are you sure you want—?"

"I want," Poppy gasps, voice unsteady but undeniably sure. "I want very, very much."

They don't get much sleep that night.

A/N: IN MY DEFENSE, "PILLOW WAR" WAS AN ACTUAL EPISODE THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED AND IM SORRY BUT I REALLY THOUGHT THIS WAS THE DIRECTION THEY WERE GOING OKAY. NOW YOU HAVE ALL WITNESSED THE DEPTHS OF MY DEPRAVITY. I WOULD LIKE TO FORMALLY APOLOGIZE TO MY MOTHER AND GOD.