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Make It Wit Chu	By : DoctorYnot Category: +G through L > The Loud House Views: 73636 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: Doctor Ynot does not own the fandom of The Loud House and does not earn, nor seek to earn any sort of monetary gain from this story.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
Unfortunately, I had to remove the original author's notes for this chapter as they were so long they violated the terms of service! I can't tell you how bad I feel for having to do that, as there were a lot of people I wanted to acknowledge publicly in the chapter proper that have been really decent to me, really patient with me or both, including you the readers. All I can really do is put them into a pastebin and hope you'll take the time to check them out. There are some links in there to some amazing Loud House artists and art I'm sure you'll love, including some made of this very story, along with the names of brilliant Loud House fanfic writers you'd do well to check out, thoughts and thanks I wanted to convey to some reviewers in particular, plus a bit of general info on my plans (e.g. This isn't the last chapter of Make It Wit Chu, but the next story I intend to update is Fashion). Since posting this chapter I've received some absolutely incredible reviews, too. You guys have been so generous, and I'm so thankful. Your kind words have really, really meant a lot to me. I was so overwhelmed I wanted to go over one at a time and thank you all all over again but then I'd end up right back where I started! I'll get you next chapter, I promise. As it is I'm running up against the character limit again with the fragment at the end so I'm gonna stop here and just post a link to the paste with the original foreword, and after that what little of that foreword I can still fit here.

https://pastebin.com/a9ce9PDj

Heck, I can't resist: google any of these names for terrific fics/art! ADullPerson, MedullaMind, Poxus, AbberantScript, Flagg1991, Trillhouse, George Glass, DiscretionAssured, Epikalroo, UnderratedHero, Nosferatu676, Spagthesis! There's lots more greats but this all the space I have!

[I'd just like to thank everybody that's left a note or a comment, big or small. Seeing an email notification for a new review was a great source of cheer for me when I was low and reading all of your thoughts, theories, wishes and praise has been one of the most gratifying parts of writing this fic. I'm so glad Make It Wit Chu captured your imagination enough that you'd want to talk about the way it made you feel or speculate about what happens next, and I've treasured all your kind words of encouragement. Not to be dramatic, but after the huge amount of my being I've sunk into this story I do believe I'd soldier on to finish it even if I was the only one actually reading it. That said, knowing such wonderful people are along for the ride definitely makes it easier to push on through. If all of you will forgive me, there's just a few folks I'd like to thank by name. This has been almost two years coming, after all.
Oh, as a very, very brief aside, there was a bug that disabled anonymous reviews for a few months. I'm sorry that I wasn't aware of it until BegottenSpud pointed out he'd made an account so he could leave one. The site owner was kind enough to fix it for me when I brought it to her attention, so there shouldn't be a need to register anymore. My apologies for any hoops anybody had to jump through before and my thanks to those that went through the trouble anyway. Thank you very much, all of you!]
>The ring of rubber on steel echoed across the empty park as the basketball collided off the rim, falling back to the asphalt. Lincoln watched it bounce away from him, at first quickly and then more lethargically, until all its energy was used up and it finally dropped for good. The ball slowly rolled off the edge of the blacktop and came to rest on the grass surrounding it. He walked over and picked it up.
>It was mid-autumn and the seasonal chill had started to set into the air. The little boy could feel it burn his lungs every time he took a deep breath, could see it every time he exhaled and another huge plume of vapor poured out of his mouth and nostrils. One of the issues with living in Michigan was that when winter approached it brought with it a kind of cold that felt like it got beneath the fingernails and under the eyelids, overbearing and aggressive like some sort of pest. It was something most people couldn't or didn't want to deal with, choosing instead to spend the season out of state or bundled up at home. In the past Lincoln had sometimes resented how deserted that made their town feel this time of year, but nowadays it meant there was nobody else around at the park near his neighborhood. He was thankful to be so alone.
>The little boy bounced the basketball once off the rough, frosted over tarmac that made up the floor of the public court. The noise it made echoed quite far without any other sounds around to drown it out.
>The people weren't the only thing missing; the area's wildlife had also long since lit out to stay ahead of the frost, the surrounding trees bare of any form of life. Instead of holding aloft chirping songbirds as they usually did, their limbs were instead adorned only with blackened, brittle bark that covered the leafless branches that stretched off to nowhere. The dead and freezerburned wood stuck out of the ground like road markers in the dried out grass, and with only a handful of splashes of sickly, pale green to rest the eye on scattered amidst an ocean of tan and patches of snow, the usually picturesque park seemed surprisingly desolate.
>All Lincoln could hear was the wind, chilly and sharp as it snapped across his body, flowing easily through the thin material of his old winter jacket. He didn't mind. He would have put up with any kind of weather as long as it got him some time alone.

>His dad's two week training seminar had rapidly transformed into a month-long company retreat. Lynn Sr. had been very proud when he'd told them all about it on the phone during their weekly group call, beaming about how his colleagues had insisted he'd already become critical to the team and how they just couldn't do without him. Lincoln suspected that it was just more that a bunch of tightly wound corporate types found it refreshing to have a friendly down-to-earth guy like his dad around, but he kept those thoughts to himself. The rest of the family didn't complain, they were happy that he was settling into his new job so smoothly. Lynn Sr. had asked for them to let him speak to Lincoln alone for a bit, obviously still worried about his son and, despite missing their father and hating to lose out on any time with him, Rita was proud to see her daughters file out of the living room without a single complaint so the two could have some privacy.
>Most of the girls, mother included, were still treating Lincoln quite gingerly after the incident two weeks ago. The little boy's uncharacteristic outburst had come as quite a shock to them, and that combined with how withdrawn he'd become in the days afterward had set the whole gaggle of women to worrying about their brother. With the exception of Luna and Luan (whose awkward manner around Lincoln Rita attributed to normal teenage moodiness), each of his siblings seemed to come to the conclusion that right now what he needed most was for his adoring sisters to show him how much they cared about him.
>His family would constantly knock on his bedroom door in the days to follow, at times simply opening it outright, dragging the young man into their games and hobbies whenever possible and rarely allowing him a moment's peace. If he wasn't inside his room, they'd search him out. His sisters were relentless. By constantly showering attention on him they were trying to help him understand that he was surrounded by people who loved and cared about him, that he didn't have to go through the tough times by himself.
>And yet the more insistently they fussed over him, the more distant and tense Lincoln seemed to become. His younger sisters simply assumed he was taking their dad's absence hard, and were thus quite concerned at how he might react to this surprise piece of news.
>If the little boy was bothered, however, he gave no indication of it. His siblings had peeped in on the two's conversation from inside the kitchen as Lincoln hunched over the couch and held the phone against his ear.
>His dad told him how sorry he was about everything, how they'd do all kinds of things together when he got back, how much he loved Lincoln, how much he needed him to be brave. Lynn Sr. asked him if he could be the man of the family while he was gone. Lincoln assured him he would.
>Another bracingly cold gust of wind against the boy's face brought him back to the present. He lifted the ball to his chest and prepared to shoot.
>Of course, between his dad's absence and his mother working late more often, that meant Lori usually had the run of the house.
>The basketball bounced off the rim again.

>Throughout his entire ordeal, stretching back to the very first time his oldest sister had touched him, Lincoln's strategy to dealing with what was happening had always been not to think. It was that simple. Don't think. Inwardly he was always on the move, always trying to stay ahead of his own fears and worries, making sure never to dwell on them for an instant. He would mentally jump from one foot to the other constantly, like someone stranded on hot coals. Lincoln did his best to stay distracted and would shout himself down whenever his mind inevitably staggered back to the present, trying to force him to process what was being done to him.
>His coping strategy was exhausting and inevitably left him feeling hugely fragile and threadbare, but he knew that if he stopped, even for a moment, the reality of everything that was happening would plow through him like a bulldozer. Would crush him into dust. Lincoln wasn't sure if there was enough of him left to get back up if something like that happened.
>The little boy remembered those old cartoons. Remembered how when the coyote ran off a cliff, gravity only caught up to it when it looked down.
>All he had to do was keep moving. All he had to do was not look down.
>Now though, after Luan, the fear and panic had taken a deeper hold. It often seemed as though parts of him would get ripped away during the simple course of the day. Just getting through breakfast felt like getting dragged through a thorn bush. Something as small as one of his sisters gracing him with a kind word, a gentle touch, or even simply a sympathetic look would devastate whatever sense of wellbeing he still had as every one of his instincts would immediately screech that he was in danger.
>The things that the little boy used to find comfort in now felt like torture, and consequently his moods became more unstable than ever. Sometimes he'd be filled with the same nervous, chittering fear that had been flowering just beneath his skin for months. Then other times, almost out of nowhere, his knees would buckle under the weight of his constant dread and he'd simply become exhausted. Like someone was forcing his eyelids shut with their thumbs. Whenever that happened he'd have to struggle just to not fall over. Fight for breath.
>Lincoln didn't know how long he could keep things up anymore. It was killing him. He had noticed that lately, almost as if in defiance of his will, his mind would buck and reel on him. He would see things that weren't there. Hear things. His subconscious screamed at him that the worst was yet to come, which just made him more anxious, until at his worst it felt like all that was still left in him was the fear and the dread.

>Don't think.

>The best thing to do would have been to hide himself away, find some quiet corner of the house to try and gather his strength in. But after the spectacle he'd made of himself the day his family went shopping, it had been very hard for Lincoln to manage anything like that. Upon seeing him in that state, each one of his siblings had taken it upon themselves to make him a bigger part of their lives, apparently hoping they'd be the ones that could make up for their dad not being around.
>The twins used every spare moment they could find to hang around their big brother, Lola trying to draw him back into being an assistant for her pageant shows, even offering to split prize money with him, and Lana trying to take him on as her plumber's apprentice. Lynn now constantly hounded him to try out with her for one of their local little league sports teams, assuring him he had the quickness necessary to be a star and talking about how he owed it to himself to give it a shot already and stop wasting his time on comic books and videogames. His little sister Lucy seemed the most enthralled of all by her big brother's recent attitude; the girl had taken to shadowing him, appearing at the moments he felt his weakest to ask if he'd like to collaborate on an elegy or help her write a lament. Talking about how she always knew he had a tortured poet's soul.
>Even Lisa, a girl that hardly had time for anything as petty as adolescent drama, had started checking up on him. She'd drop by every so often, knocking on his door and then pushing it open before he could answer, quietly asking her big brother if there was anything she could do to make him feel better.
>Sometimes he wanted to snap at all of them to leave him alone, but he never did and deep down he knew he never would. His sisters loved him; they just wanted to help. Lincoln had realized there was no depth he could ever sink to where that fact would elude him.
>Leni, for her part, was the most affectionate of all. But then she always had been. The young woman would simply scoop up her little brother whenever she had the chance, heedless of his protests, and spend hours holding him, telling him everything was going to be alright, that their dad would be home soon. That she loved him.
>That they all did.
>The little boy would just let himself go slack in her arms, trying to resist the eternally looming panic attack that felt like it would grab hold of him the moment he stopped trying to fight it off and answering just enough of her questions to not worry his affectionate big sister. Just enough to let her believe that what she was doing was helping.
>In the end the house had never felt as small as it had the last couple of weeks. There was a growing sense of anxiety, of danger, every second he spent between its walls. It had come to the point that when he passed by one of his younger sisters and they'd try to touch him, he'd rapidly have to come up with some excuse for why he'd instinctively shrink away.
>Lincoln hated it. They hadn't done anything wrong. Watching them try to hide the hurt on their faces the third or fourth time it happened made his stomach cramp with guilt. He needed to escape. He needed to be alone, at least for a little while. Someplace where he wouldn't hurt anybody and where nobody would hurt him.
>That was why he was out by himself so often lately in the freezing cold while everyone else was happily huddled together in their warm, cozy homes. It was only alone and far away from the Loud house that he felt like he could rest.

>Lincoln suddenly heard the rapid patter of sneakers on pavement from behind him and, as he turned his head to see where his missed shot was going to land, a blur of white and red appeared from out of the corner of his eye and snatched the basketball out of the air before it could hit the ground.
>”The Royal Woods Bannermen's new star player capitalizes on her opponent's mistake!”
>Again, he could hardly make her out as she bounded around him repeatedly, but the previous quiet of the park was shattered all the same by her rapid dribbling and energetic self-provided commentary.
>”Lincoln Loud has no answer for her attack! Could the injury rumors be true!? The fans are on their feet!”
>After dashing around him one last time she sprinted towards the basket. The figure leapt up on one leg and hooked the ball towards the rim, the basketball sailing through the air and easily swishing down into the net without ever touching the backboard.
>”She shoots! SHE SCORES!” The next words that came out of her mouth could only generously be described as such, really more of a whooping 'raaah'-ing noise that he supposed was her imitation of a cheering crowd. The little jock laid it on thick, posing and flexing for her imaginary fans, totally ignoring the boy she'd just swiped the ball from. Lincoln's lips pursed into a small, tight smile and he shoved his hands into his pockets, hunching over just a bit to make himself a smaller target for the cold. Any genuine emotion on his face was quickly replaced by the mask he'd trained himself to keep up as he felt the hot coals start sizzling beneath his feet again.
>”Hey Lynn.”

>His sister at last turned to look at him, grinning. The young athlete's eyes sparkled with mirth as she picked up the ball from beneath the basket and tucked it under her arm, jogging up to her little brother. She seemed genuinely pleased to see him.
>”Linc, how come you didn't tell me you were coming out here to play basketball? You know I'm always up to shoot some hoops!” She chastised him, a bit miffed. Lynn paused for a moment to consider it and, as realization dawned on her, her expression became just a little bit smugger. “It's because you knew I'd cream you, isn't it?” The tomboy drawled teasingly.
>Lincoln sucked a breath in through his teeth and tried to make his smile seem a bit more embarassed. He didn't have to consciously remember not to look her in the eye; he did that with all his sisters without even having to think about it nowadays. “You got me.”
>Lynn made another noise, something between an exclamation of triumph and a snort of offended dismay, but if possible her grin got even wider. “Lincoln, you coward!” She was trying to sound mad but there was laughter in her voice. “We're squaring up right now! And two for flinching!”
>The tomboy quickly brought a fist up and faked a punch to her little brother's arm. Lincoln just stood there and watched it come, Lynn's knuckles pausing just before they could crash into him. He stared down dully at his sister's fist. In his mind all he could think about was how quiet the park had gone again.
>”L-Lincoln?” The tone of his sister's voice just as quickly snapped him out of the daze he'd suddenly fallen into. Lincoln couldn't tell how long it'd been, how much time he'd just stood there like a lump staring at her cocked fist. The little boy blinked in surprise and raised his eyes to look at Lynn's face. “...You didn't flinch." She explained a bit nervously, still smiling but now looking considerably more unsure of herself.
>There was another awkward moment when he didn't reply.
>"Not afraid of your big sister's punches anymore, tough guy?” Lynn finally offered, mercifully breaking the silence. There was a brief flash of something in her smirk, some kind of quiet anxiety. She was making a joke but there was obviously real concern there.
>It took him a second to process what she'd just said, which only seemed to agitate her further, before he remembered to recoil. Lincoln brought a hand up to the back of his neck, rubbing it self-consciously. His heartrate actually sped up a bit as he struggled to think of some excuse he thought she might buy. His hope was that his genuine fear of being found out might help the lie sound more real.
>“Sorry.” He finally remembered to speak. What was he apologizing for, he felt himself wonder distantly. “I, uhh, I guess my reflexes have slowed down a little lately." Lincoln explained. "Y-you know how...”
>The word stuck in his throat like molasses, the boy struggling to spit it out.
>“...Sick I've been lately.” He finally rasped, giving her a smile that couldn't help but appear slightly pained despite his best efforts.

>It was only now that he'd been startled, his normal fears and anxieties thrown into disarray, that the little boy could stand to take a closer look at his sister's face. He quickly noticed just how strained her own smile actually was. His stilted, awkward explanation had done nothing but make her more worried and he hated the immediate lash of guilt and merciless self-loathing he felt when he realized that. Lincoln couldn't help but grimace.
>Lynn's previously energetic grin got a little gentler, her face tight with apprehension. She unclenched the fist she'd been making and, after only a moment's hesitation when she brought her hand up and thought she saw him wince, grabbed her brother softly by the shoulder. The jock rubbed his arm as if trying to console him.
>It was a rare display of tenderness from a girl that tried hard not to appear too girly, and it made Lincoln instinctively bow his head again, genuinely ashamed that he'd upset her. The last thing he wanted to do was cause anyone any pain. Just the thought of hurting one of his sisters made his stomach roil.
>”Listen...” Lynn began, trying to find the right thing to say. It was challenging for her. The athlete had always believed actions spoke louder than words, and trying to be honest and open with her feelings like the rest of her family was had never been something she was very good at.
>The jock suddenly felt a brief but intense flash of envy for her far more sensitive and ladylike big sister, Leni, one she was surprised to realize she'd apparently been nursing for longer than just that moment. The tall blonde was feminine, beautiful, and so, so good at stuff like this. She always said exactly what she meant and she never would have been embarassed to hug Lincoln when he was hurting, not even for a second. Lynn grit her teeth in quiet frustration at her own nagging insecurities, but at last gave a long sigh, doing her best to settle down and concentrate on what was most important right then.
>“I know I give you a hard time sometimes," Lynn finally admitted sheepishly, casting her eyes down to stare at her sneakers. It was an obvious understatement, but she knew her little brother would forgive her for downplaying it that way. He always did. And all the rest of their family, too, whenever he had to deal with their rougher edges. Whether he realized it or not, their brother was kind of an inspiration to them; Lincoln's seemingly endless good will in the face of their assorted quirks was a big part of the reason the girls could find it in themselves to let it go whenever one of the others sisters' more obnoxious habits got on their nerves.
>It was why there had been such a weird, tense mood among the younger kids ever since he'd started going off to be on his own more often.
>"You..." Her face pulled up into a grimace as she tried her best to be sincere, but Lynn couldn't help but shake her head and groan with exhaustion. "You know you can tell me anything, right?" She finally offered lamely, raising her eyes to stare into his. The deep hazel of her irises was framed by her glossy, chestnut brown bangs as she leaned in closer, apparently believing that the nearer she was to him physically the more he'd have to trust her words.
>He couldn't turn away. Lynn allowing herself to look this vulnerable was a very rare sight to begin with, and knowing it was because of him made it seem even stranger. "You know that I-" She began, then cleared her throat, as though remembering something. Lincoln could tell that the longer she stared into his eyes the more awkward she was starting to feel. It was an unusual and uncomfortable sensation, to be the cause of his sister's nervousness. "I mean, I'm here for you." She finally decided. There was a pause. “We all are.” The tomboy quicky clarified.
>They were such simple, innocent words, yet hearing them uncorked a maelstrom of emotions that he couldn't even hope to sort out. From the moment his sister showed up the little boy hadn't even had the time he needed to go back to pretending he was okay, much less process any admissions of affection. Lincoln was sure she could feel how tense the muscles on his arm were even through his shirt, even as hard as he was trying to stand still and loose as a noodle, to look normal, be normal, to not trouble any of his family. His eyes were now glued so firmly to her shoes that it felt like someone was physically pushing down his head from behind him.
>”Lincoln?” She prodded again, and as her hand slowly rubbed down his shoulder it at last found itself beneath his rolled up jacket sleeve and on his bare skin. Her fingers curled beneath his forearm, but it was only when her thumb found the inside of his elbow and slowly, hesitantly, rubbed a slow and affectionate circle on his skin that Lincoln reacted. His stomach instantly lurched and it felt like he was struck by a lightning bolt, his back stiffening as he suddenly raised his head to look his sister in the eye.
>”Why are you here, Lynn?” He couldn't stop the hard edge of suspicion, of anger, from creeping into his voice as he stared her down. She seemed startled, eyes widening and flinching just a bit. The hand on his arm fell away but his inexplicable feelings of paranoia and betrayal didn't fade. “Why are you REALLY here?” He insisted.
>”What are you talking about, Lincoln?” The tomboy was surprised by the sudden change in his mood but didn't back away. Even after her earlier clumsy attempt at a tender moment and knowing that her brother wasn't in the best state, she felt herself instinctively becoming combative in the face of his glare. Lynn's fight-or-flight response was only really accustomed to going one way. “I was just checking up on you!” She replied, surprised to discover how hurt she sounded.
>”So you didn't just come here to play basketball with me. Did the others send you?” His words came out quickly and quietly, low, wary, somewhere between a growl and a squeak. As Lincoln heard himself it wasn't lost on him that it sounded a lot like the noises Lana's mice made just before they got fed to her snake.
>Lynn gawped, falling into a small panic as she was found out in her lie. Her mouth opened and closed and she even briefly turned away from him, thrown off-balance by his challenge. “No, that's not...I...” Her eyes darted around nervously, carefully avoiding his face. The girl fell back to what came naturally and tried going on the offensive. “Why are you being such a jerk? I'm trying to be nice here!” She protested angrily.
>”Then why are you lying to me?” Lincoln stepped forward into her personal space and his sister's eyes widened even further if that was possible. The words tumbled out of his mouth faster and faster and his head felt hot. The little boy was struggling to force down all the anger and pain rolling through him and control himself but it felt like he was being pushed by the start of a wave, one he was certain would soon become huge and undeniable, and propelled by every selfish outrage inflicted upon him by the people he trusted. Lynn was just unlucky enough to find herself in front of it, but it'd been building since long before she showed up at the park that afternoon.
>The tomboy, for her part, had just met real resistance from her younger brother for possibly the first time in her life and discovered that she didn't quite know how to handle it. Her mouth moved silently, as though she was struggling to find the right thing to say, before Lynn gave up and simply announced what she was feeling with no thought given to the consequences.

>”I'M JUST WORRIED ABOUT YOU, OKAY!?” She finally shouted, shutting her eyes, balling her fists and screaming her explanation right into his face. If there had been any birds around they might have been scared off by the noise. But there weren't. The siblings were alone.
>Her words froze him in his tracks. Lincoln's blood suddenly cooled off, rapidly enough that it almost left him lightheaded, and he felt himself emerge from what seemed like another out-of-body experience.
>He could see her again. Not one of the specters and monsters and ghouls constantly lurking around around in his head, jumping in front of people's faces and twisting their words to scare him, but her. Lynn. Someone who loved him and cared about him. His big sister. She hadn't done anything to him. Like the others, she was just trying to help. That was all any of the girls wanted to do.
>Her hands were clenched into small, trembling fists at her sides, her eyes still closed. The athlete's lips nearly quivered. “...W-we all are...” She again insisted weakly, almost as an afterthought, opening her eyes just so she could look away from him.
>It felt like he'd been punched in the stomach.
>Lincoln opened his mouth to say something but no words came out. The earlier sting of self-loathing now felt like a full-on roaring fire eating him alive, making his eyes water with the intensity of it. He tried to will himself to raise his hand, put it on her shoulder, but a sudden bout of exhaustion made his body feel like it was made of lead.
>Lynn, unaware of the state he was in, kept talking. She still couldn't look Lincoln in the eye and instead simply rubbed her own arm as if to reassure herself, mirroring her earlier gesture to him.
>”You're different." She explained miserably. "You treat us all so weird. It's like you don't even want to hang out with us anymore. Like you don't even care about-...” The words just hung there, the full thought seemingly too unbearable for his sister to say out loud. She quickly covered for herself, changing the subject. Lynn found some anger and hurt inside of her and used it to help keep her voice from cracking. She couldn't imagine anything worse than letting her little brother see her cry. “You're never around, dude!" She suddenly accused him, shaking her head and hoping the cold wind would dry the tears forming in her eyes.
>Lincoln knew what she meant. At first his retreats from their home had been sporadic and brief, just long enough to allow him to recompose himself, but lately they'd become longer and happened more frequently. He should have guessed it would only be a matter of time until someone noticed it and said something.

>Like always, the little boy had had a plan. He knew that he couldn't just disappear from the house or lock himself in his room and never speak to his sisters. That would just worry everyone and make things worse.
>It had been up until about a week and a half ago that he'd been able to ration out his strength and make what he thought would be enough appearances to set their minds at ease, let them believe he was doing better. Every time he walked into a room Lori, Leni, Luna or Luan were in, it was hugely draining to bear it and pretend everything was alright when all he really wanted to do was run away. But he would push through. Luna and Luan would at least be too ashamed to try and talk to him. Leni wasn't, though, and the way her face lit up with that sweet, happy smile she'd get every time she saw him made the little boy want to cry.
>Lori, meanwhile, always made sure to place herself as close as she could to him whenever possible, mostly during meals. Near enough that he could just barely feel the warmth from her body at his side. Sometimes he'd catch a glance at Luna or Luan when she did it. It seemed like they wanted to protest, but their eldest sibling would just give them a smirk, letting her arm curl around his waist to hug him against her, and they'd simply stare down at their food miserably.
>While all this happened Rita would smile and compliment the two on how close they'd been lately. How wonderful it was to see them getting along.
>Lincoln said nothing. His sister's reply would only be to laugh and kiss her little brother on the top of his head.
>The boy allowed himself to get pulled along by this current, knowing by now that it was useless to fight it, but he would at least try to place himself on the course that would hurt the least and be most useful. Lincoln would often cling to his mother, for instance, knowing the older girls would never try anything in front of her. The downside to this was how fawning Rita was. He used to love his mom's hugs, but more and more Lincoln had to fight not to recoil when she touched him.
>The older woman's heart broke at seeing her son seemingly feeling so lonely that he'd look for company in his boring old mom, but she was grateful for it all the same. She doted on him even more than usual, trying to give him twice as much love to make up for his dad being gone. Lincoln, for his part, would be the perfect picture of obedience, listening to her as she gossiped about her patients from work or talked about the latest creative hurdle she was facing in writing her novel. She had noticed that he wouldn't say much, but it was rare to find such a good listener, and Rita appreciated it.
>He'd also hang around Lily or Lisa in their room. That was a little easier on him. Lisa was often too wrapped up in her latest projects to pry too deeply into why he was choosing to spend so much of his time with them. Lily napped most of the day and even when she didn't it wasn't like she could ask him any questions.
>It could sometimes be hours before the little scientist even realized he was there. She'd express surprise and question him on when he'd slipped inside, but Lincoln would quickly act interested in one of her experiments and the little girl would happily launch into an in-depth explanation on the implications of this or that hemoglobin study or AI algorithm, and soon enough she'd forget how the conversation had even started. Lincoln simply nodded patiently whenever she got to a point she seemed especially excited about. He knew his industrious little sister was actually pretty desperate for anyone she could share her enthusiasm about her research with. Talking about her work was something she found energizing and it wasn't as though there were too many people in their home willing to listen. Or who could even grasp what she was saying, for that matter.
>Not that Lincoln could either, but he would pretend, and the little girl was pleased enough to have him around not to test his understanding of her chosen topics too deeply. His interest made her happy and that made him feel a little better about everything else.
>More importantly, if anyone ever asked where he'd been all day he could just say he with Lisa and she could confirm it. No reason for anyone to worry.
>When other options were unavailable he'd resort to simpler tricks, like spending a little more time in the bathroom than strictly necessary to do his business to so that he could say he was using it when someone inevitably knocked. Or setting the television to auto-tune one of his shows when he knew others would be watching it.
>Small feints like that, when all taken together, allowed him to make his presence felt enough to set his family's concerns about him a little more at ease. Even when what he was really doing was spending most of his time hidden away and alone. Lincoln worked hard to convince everyone that he was doing fine; by employing lies and half-truths and picking his moments he was able to create a passable imitation of himself, of who he was. Who he'd been. He could sustain the illusion that he was present and there was no cause for alarm, and that warded off any possible confrontation about his emotional state for another day.
>That conversation was what he feared the most. More than what any of his sisters might do to him. He was a good liar, but at this point every instinct he had told him that if seriously pressed, he would crack, and that was something he simply couldn't allow to happen. Luan was right. The consequences for his family would have been too much. He couldn't be responsible for that anymore than she could. He couldn't let it be his fault that everything fell apart.

>But things had changed when his mother had started getting called into work more often. Her constant absences and Lori's resulting stewardship of their home had strained his already fragile sense of safety past the breaking point. The eldest sibling took full advantage of the opportunity and her nightly visits soon bled over into the day, her desires seemingly only intensified, stoked, by her other sisters having taken their turn with him.
>All of his plans were left far by the wayside as the little boy struggled to acclimate himself to this new status quo. It seemed like things would inevitably get worse for him faster than he could mentally prepare himself for it. Lincoln was, at this point, experienced in giving ground and compromising with painful new circumstances, but this was just too much. There were a million new fears to contend with with no parental supervision, and he hadn't even been able to really handle it when he still had his mom there.
>Lincoln would never scream. Luan was right, he reminded himself now almost daily. Whatever else, she was right. But just knowing that if he did then his mother would hear him had been a rock he could hang on to. With that gone he was left more adrift than ever and fast running out of ground to give.
>At leasts were Lincoln's greatest treasures. 'At least I have dad.' 'At least I have mom.' 'At least no one else is getting hurt.' The little boy was almost out of at leasts.
>To his badly warped senses it felt like he was living out some kind of twisted horror movie. After Lori was done with one of her extended evenings with him he'd be too afraid even to step outside to go to the bathroom for fear of meeting her or one of the others on the way. Every instinct he possessed told him they were prowling the halls, just waiting to corner him. He tried to be sensible and talk himself out of delusions like that, but it was no use. Any kind of rational analysis of the situation was always easily overcome by the sheer bone-deep fear, overpowered by what his body itself told him was true. He dimly wondered if the body always defeated the mind in situations like these.
>It was almost impossible to keep his composure surrounded by so many needy girls and every noise, every half-heard footstep outside his door, sent him into near teeth-snapping fits of fear and anxiety. Lincoln needed at least a few moments of peace a day to try and pick up his shattered nerves so he could remold himself into a state that would at least pass for normal, but he found less and less opportunities to do that at home and he had a terrible fear of losing his hold on himself in front of his younger siblings. Of his gameplan falling apart. He couldn't fail. He was protecting his family. Lincoln just had to hang on for long enough. If he did, something good would happen. He was sure of it. He just had to hang on as long and as hard as he could, for all of their sakes. He knew they would do the same for him if things were different.
>His crude, inelegant solution had been to start leaving the house earlier and coming back later, chasing peace where he knew he could find it: far away and by himself. He'd put on a jacket and scarf and skulk out of the house at dawn instead of the afternoon, well before anyone could see him. Sometimes he'd catch his mom on her way to work and she'd ask him what he was up to. The little boy would just say that he was out to get some exercise, that he liked seeing the town empty like this.
>In a way, it was true. Walking the silent, frozen streets, now from the first light of morning until dark, until it got too cold for the little boy in his thin coat to withstand, afforded him the precious moments away from his family he needed to keep himself together. Sometimes he could go hours before seeing another human being. Those were his favorite days.
>But in his desperation, he'd gotten greedy. He might have gotten away with slipping out every once in a while just to smooth himself out, but this often and for this long? Someone would get worried and go looking for him to bring him back sooner or later. He'd never be able to evade the inescapable gravity of the Loud house with half-measures.

>"A-And when you are it's like you're not!" The little boy was snapped out of his reflections by his big sister's sniffling. His eyes fell again on the tomboy as she rubbed her wrist against her cheek. "I know you miss dad, but WE miss YOU! Don't you-”
>Before she could say anything else the girl suddenly felt a pair of arms wrapping around her. Her next words died on her lips as Lincoln unexpectedly hugged her and, to her shame, she felt her eyes welling up again. She'd been totally unprepared for such a gesture. Her brother had been been so careful not to touch any of them lately, claiming that it was because he didn't want to get anybody sick, that when the jock finally felt his hands on her again after so long she almost gasped.
>He was warm...
>"I'm sorry, Lynn." The boy said almost robotically. Lincoln was used to apologizing to his sisters but it hadn't been something he'd had to do lately. It felt kind of nostalgic.
>He thought he'd been so crafty. So clever. But he was just fooling himself. His family had easily seen through all his clumsy deceptions. They had always known something was wrong. He knew now that that's why Leni would take so long to let him go once she got a hold of him. That's why even quiet, reclusive Lisa would make the rounds to make sure he was still there, well after he started playing his little games of subterfuge.
>And that's why Lynn was crying.
>All this time he thought he'd been so smart. Smart enough to allow his ordeal to pass mostly unnoticed by his family. Smart enough enough to let them think he was just mad about dad being gone, like Luan said. Lincoln should have figured this too would end up like most of his plans.
>"I didn't mean to worry you. I'll work harder to get better, okay? I wasn't trying to blow any of you guys off." The little boy would just have to dig deeper. Work harder to reassure them, find the extra strength he needed to do it somehow. His family was depending on him. He couldn't let them down.
>Family was the most important thing in the world.
>The young athlete said nothing, instead just lowering her head so that she could find a space on the puffy scarf her little brother was wearing to rest her cheek against. Her face was angled towards him, dipping in close to his neck. Ideas flashed through her head quicker than she could slow them down and analyze what they meant.
>They were both being so mushy.
>This wasn't like her at all!
>It was a good thing there weren't any other people around to see this.
>She'd really missed Lincoln's hugs...
>"Your nose is cold," Her little brother murmured against her shoulder as her wind-nipped skin brushed against his, her hands slowly creeping up to his chest as she prepared to hug him back, "Like a puppy's."
>Lynn gave a strange, outraged squawk, shoving him off of her. The boy let her push him away. It seemed like she was trying to look mad, but the tomboy couldn't help the smile that blossomed on her face. "Shut up, Lincoln!"

----

>The two had walked back home from the park together soon after. Lincoln was conscious now about how his sister had been feeling, how all his family had been feeling, and tried to put her at ease. He made sure to be as present and engaged as he could, asking Lynn about her latest matches, what her friends were up to, whether she'd met anyone interesting lately. The boy worked to keep the topic of the conversation off of him and keep her talking, and the more she did the more comfortable his sister became.
>By the end of their trip home she was swinging her arms happily as she walked, describing a goal she'd blocked just the other day to clench a playoff berth for her little league soccer team in the upcoming Royal Woods regionals.
>"So I beat her back to the box, kicked off from one of the posts and headed her shot back to Margot!" Lynn cackled, leaping up into the air and landing in a fighting pose as she explained how she'd vanquished her soccer nemesis, a girl named Nina Vargas she'd been competing against in various sports teams since she was six years old. "She was so mad! She almost took a swing at me!"
>Lincoln pursed his lips and smiled as Lynn mimed the referee blowing on his whistle and pulling out a red card, but he couldn't help but notice the awning of their porch from out of the corner of his eye. His teeth grinded together just a bit as he gave a tense swallow, and even through his best efforts at seeming himself the instinctive dread the sight their home generated within him was almost enough to stop him cold. He nodded to Lynn with feigned interest as she turned back and beamed at him after finishing her story.
>"Can you believe that? Talk about losing your cool!" She exclaimed, and her hand shot out to take his without even thinking about it as she turned back towards their street. Lincoln felt his throat swell with discomfort at the unexpected physical contact and the looming menace of the house awaiting him just at the end of their walk, but he forced himself to calm down. He thought back to how upset Lynn had been when she'd confronted him, how small and unhappy she'd looked. The memory made his stomach churn, like his mind was digesting something rotten.
>Lincoln realized now that he was the type of person who, if forced to choose between hurting someone or being hurt, would rather be hurt. It was just his nature.
>"Yeah." The little boy murmured quietly as he tried not to break out into a cold sweat. "Who freaks out like that?"
>"Totally!" Lynn agreed as she continued dragging him towards their porch. Lincoln kept his head down and his eyes on the ground directly beneath him. He might have tripped if his sister hadn't been leading him by the hand through all the random playtime debris on their yard, but the jock didn't pay it any attention. She was far too energized from hanging out with her favorite training buddy again after so long to pick up on how his body language had suddenly changed. She was just happy that he was talking to her again, and in longer sentences than 'I can't, I'm sick' or 'tell mom I'm not hungry'.
>She didn't notice how clammy his hand had become.
>"Lynn?" He suddenly asked as they finally arrived at their doorstep. His stare drifted over the grass of his yard, to the concrete of the walkway, to the wooden steps that lead up their door until finally coming to a stop on the Loud house's doormat. He smiled wanly as he read the inscription embroidered upon it while the building seemed to reach out for him like a blind, grasping hand.
>'Home Sweet Home'.

>"Hmm?" Lynn turned around, quirking a brow. She noticed how he was staring at the floor and her eyes flicked down to see if one of Lana's creepy crawlies had escaped, but despite her best efforts she couldn't spot anything out of the ordinary at Lincoln's feet. She looked back up at his face with interest.
>"Is..." Lincoln blinked. Once upon a time, he'd always been happy to see their big front door whenever he got back from a trip or home from school. It had seemed to represent comfort and safety to him, the assurance that within was a place where he was loved. Now it felt so menacing it was all he could do stay on his feet in front of it, like lingering in front of the open jaws of a hungry animal. He knew it would open at any moment. And he knew that the person on the other end of it might do something terrible to him. "Is mom home?"
>Lynn tilted her head in surprise, but as she opened her mouth to reply she heard the knob turn and the hinges creaking. The athlete recoiled upon seeing how her brother shut his eyes hard and bowed his head when the door was pulled open behind her. Was he shaking? She couldn't help but stare as her worries from earlier slowly started to resurface. Lynn studied her little brother's face and, without even thinking about it, took a step forward. Her concerned hand reached out uncertainly to touch his cheek. She didn't notice the presence lurking at her back.
>"I didn't know you two were hanging out together." Warm breath puffed against the back of Lynn's ear.
>The tough little athlete, that tomboy riddled with all those secret doubts and insecurities about whether or not she was feminine enough, suddenly gave a VERY girlish scream as she jumped into the air in surprise. Before Lynn could think about it she'd bolted behind her little brother, arms throwing themselves around his body as she peeked over his shoulder and pressed her chin against his back.
>"LUCY!" Lynn screamed indignantly against Lincoln's shirt, too frightened to notice how his body suddenly sagged with relief at the spoken name and he raised his head again, opening his eyes. "Mom said you had to stop doing that!"
>The pale little goth couldn't help but give a small smirk at her sister's reaction, one subtle enough that only the people that had known her for years would even be able to notice. That just made Lynn angrier, and she popped her entire head up from behind Lincoln to rest her jaw on his shoulder, giving her a better angle to yell at her sister from without risking getting spooked again. It didn't dawn on her that she was using her brother like a human shield.
>"Welcome back." Lucy smiled and pulled the door open, stepping aside so the two could come in.

---

>"Hey Luce, do you know if mom is home?" Lynn asked after shutting the front door behind her, having tentatively forgiven the young goth after she apologized. She didn't wait for an answer before walking over to the cabinet next to the stairs and opening it to dump her basketball inside. Lynn had always had a bad habit of playing her ball games indoors, causing considerable amounts of damage on the rare occasion she missed a throw. As a result, a few months ago their parents had taken to forcing her to store her toys near the entrance to the house. The hope was that if the tomboy had to walk all the way downstairs to fetch one anyways then maybe she'd decide she might as well keep going, out to the backyard or driveway, and they'd save on incidental repairs when she took her playing outside. It had worked. Mostly.
>Lucy's eyes were still on her brother, who lingered just beside the front door. He'd made no move to take off his jacket or scarf and his stiff, awkward manner gave her the impression that he meant to leave again. The thought made her unhappy. "She's not." The girl replied.
>"What? But I thought mom didn't have to work late today?" Lynn asked again, kicking off her cleats and leaving them strewn messily across the living room as she walked back over to her siblings, almost purring as she felt the warmth of their carpet through her socks. In her hurry to leave the house that afternoon she hadn't thought to bundle up, and after spending so long in the Michigan cold she was more than happy to let their home's central heating bring the feeling back to her toes.
>"Apparently she had to drive Lisa to the university for some sort of interview. She should be back soon." Lucy answered while continuing to stare at Lincoln. The little boy had stood there doing nothing until the temperature of the house got too uncomfortable for him in his winter clothes, then reached up to start unbandaging the scarf from around his neck. The goth gave the tiniest of relieved smiles as Lincoln followed up by pulling off his coat, then hanging both items of clothing up on the rack near the door. "What were you guys doing, anyway?"
>"Oh, you know~" Lynn sing-songed, jogging in place to help her warm up faster. She seemed pleased with herself. "Just shooting some hoops. That's the way it is with athletes like me and Lincoln; we're out there no matter what the weather is like!" She bragged, taking a step forward to pick a piece of yarn from her brother's frayed old jacket off the front of his shirt. Lucy quirked a brow as she watched her roommate's hand linger on Lincoln's chest for just a moment longer than was necessary. The boy said nothing, merely blinking at his big sister.
>"'Athletes like me and Lincoln'?" Lucy repeated dryly. "Lincoln hasn't played any sports since you guys tried to pull that switch with the Royal Woods Roosters and you hurt your leg. He's not into jock stuff."
>"He was just resting up for this season!" Lynn's eyes widened in surprise at the challenge, turning to her sister. "And the coach was playing him in the wrong position anyway! He's obviously a running back, not a quarterback!"
>"He's 'obviously' an artist." Lucy shook her head, her jaw setting. "Did you drag him out of bed just so he could go play basketball with you? In THIS weather? You know he's sick." There was suddenly a hint of genuine testiness in Lucy's voice, which was received with surprise by the two recent arrivals.
>Lynn recoiled at her sister's accusation. For his part Lincoln too was taken off guard by how quarrelsome the goth was being; he was sure that if Lynn wasn't in such a good mood things would have quickly devolved into a shouting match. He didn't really know where her attitude had come from, but it dawned on him that he'd been hearing his younger sisters argue a lot more lately, especially once he'd started spending more time outside the house. Back then he'd been too self-involved to give it much thought, but now he was starting to realize the kind of rough feelings his absence had created.
>"Hey, hey, hold on..." He stepped between the sullen poet and her flabbergasted rommate, who looked like she had just gotten enough of her wits about her to argue. "It wasn't like that. I forgot my coat when I left this morning and Lynn was bringing it over. She was just looking out for me." The lie came easily. He knew his big sister would hate for anyone to find out they'd had any kind of an emotional talk. As far as the tomboy was concerned, emotions were for wimps. He couldn't help but spot out of the corner of his eye the grateful, almost ashamed look she gave him. Lynn stared down at the carpet and smiled, the retort she'd been preparing for her sister dying on her lips in the face of his gesture.
>The next thing he noticed was how quickly and drastically Lucy's expression changed as she heard him speak, and he turned so he could get a better look at her. It ocurred to him that that might have been the longest sentence he'd spoken in front of her that week. Guilt began bubbling in the pit of his stomach again from the expression of shock on the goth's face and he gave a long sigh. "I'm sorry if I worried you, Lucy." Forcing down his instinctive apprehension at the prospect of someone touching him, Lincoln reached out and took the young girl's hand.
>Lucy just blinked, speechless, and looked down, her eyes unable to help but linger on how the warm shade of his skin contrasted sharply with her own pale flesh. Lincoln rubbed his thumb reassuringly over her small, soft knuckles. She didn't say anything for a moment, and the boy began to feel increasingly concerned when she tugged her hand out of his grasp, but immediately afterwards she stepped over and threw her arms around him. The little girl stood on her tiptoes so she could get as much bodily contact from her big brother as she could after the inadvertent green light he'd given her by holding her hand first, squeezing him as though she was trying to make sure he couldn't wriggle free like she was trying to make up for lost time. Lincoln swallowed his unease and smiled, returning the hug, and when he did he felt Lucy's shoulders shudder a bit with contentment.
>Eventually she pulled away from him and walked over to Lynn. The jock didn't quite know what to expect, still half-thinking her roommate was about to try and start another fight, but instead Lucy simply bowed her head and slowly walked into her sister's half-raised arms, not able to look her in the eye. "I'm sorry." She whispered against Lynn's neck, resting her forehead against her shoulder.
>While initially surprised, Lynn just smiled and lifted her hand up to stroke her sister's back. Physical affection always had come a little easier for her with the tiny goth than it did with the rest of her family. She couldn't really say why, she just minded the mushy stuff a bit less when it came to Lucy.

>Lincoln simply watched the two. He felt a strange mixture of relief, guilt and anxiety. It was one thing to hear from Lynn how much they missed him, another thing to see it for himself. Secretly, he'd never believed he was anyone's favorite sibling or so integral to the proper functioning of the family. Lincoln knew he was loved, of course. All of them were. But with each of the sisters paired up two to a room, he thought it was only natural they'd end up feeling closer to each other than to anyone else, including him. The idea made him a little sad sometimes, but it wasn't something he'd ever really dwelled on either.
>He'd underestimated how much he meant to them. To all of them. It was a bittersweet feeling when he suddenly recalled the maxim that the more you loved someone, the easier they could hurt you.
>'You can't just ignore us.' His eyes widened as the memory of the words Luna had said to him once, what seemed like a lifetime ago, came back to him unbidden. 'We're your family.'
>The little boy grimaced, raising his hand to his hair and pretending to scratch an itch, as he usually did lately when something took him by surprise. He let his fingernails dig hard into his scalp as he shut his eyes, giving a quiet hiss.
>Don't think.
>"Lincoln?"
>He opened them again, looking up at his two sisters as they stared at him with a bit of worry, pulling away from their embrace of each other into a loose half-hug. The boy blinked, giving a quick gulp to swallow the saliva that had become stuck in his throat. "Sorry! I had an itch and I...forgot I bumped my head." Lincoln coughed, trying to look embarassed. He quickly changed the subject before either of the two could press him on it. "Listen, I'm kind of wiped."
>He couldn't help but notice the way both their shoulders seemed to sag a little. Lynn's disappointment was more obvious, the jock not being very talented at hiding her feelings, but to someone who knew her as well as he did even the nigh-imperceptible deepening of Lucy's characteristic frown beamed her emotions out as clear as a lighthouse. They were obviously expecting Lincoln to excuse himself so he could head to bed, and though he wanted to do just that, their reactions let him know he still had work to do convincing them that things would be different. He dug down deeper.
>"Do you guys wanna just...watch TV for a while?" Lincoln offered tentatively, giving them a small smile.
>For a while his sisters said nothing, instead simply staring at him like he'd grown a second head. But then, ever so slowly, Lynn's lips peeled back to reveal a toothy, excited grin. She uncoiled from her roommate to sprint up the stairs, already halfway up by the time she answered him. "Wait right there!" She shouted down at the two. "I'm gonna go change into my PJs! I'm freezing!" And then she was gone. Lincoln and Lucy heard a door slamming on the second floor.
>The little boy let the smile fade from his face as he stared down at his own shoes for a second, trying to brace himself for what came next. Spending who knew how long, however long it would take for his sisters to start thinking everything was back to normal, right in the main thoroughfare of the house where anyone could see him or touch him was exhausting just to think about. The boy almost gave a long, tired sigh before suddenly sensing the presence looming next to him.
>"Lincoln." He turned back to face his little sister. It was amazing how quickly he'd almost forgotten she was there. The quiet girl naturally kept to the background most of the time anyway, but when placed next to the outsized personality of her big sister and roommate it was even harder to keep track of her. It was something the two girls were aware of, too. On more than one occasion Lynn had distracted their parents while Lucy searched for their hidden Christmas presents, all while the four of them were in the very same room.
>"Hey, Luce." He smiled at her. Lincoln didn't notice how she placed her hands in front of her lap, rubbing the one he'd held earlier where he'd touched it. She gave a small smile as she heard him say her nickname.
>"I just wanted you to know how glad I am that you're...back." The little girl mumbled, unable to meet his eyes. He knew that she didn't just mean back from the park.
>Lincoln was surprised at how deep the gratitude in her voice cut into him. There were so many things he suddenly wanted to say right then. The little boy felt as though he had to explain himself, make sure Lucy understood that it wasn't that he'd ever stopped caring about them. That he was just scared.
>The truth sprang to the tip of his tongue and very nearly fell out of his mouth before he remembered how important it was that he keep things to himself.
>The urge had been so shockingly unexpected and intense. For a second it seemed like the most natural thing in the world for him to tell his little sister what he was going through. His mind was rearing on him again, Lincoln realized, more insistently than ever. He swallowed the words pooling at the back of his throat and they tumbled down into his belly like a handful of rusty screws, his stomach giving a quiet grumble of complaint. Rather than say anything the little boy instead just reached out and took Lucy's hand again.
>"Let's pick a show before Lynn makes it back," He grinned weakly, giving her shoulder a gentle shove. "Otherwise it'll be pro-wrestling for sure."
>The goth gave a quiet guffaw, the closest the girl ever came to a laugh, and obediently led her big brother to the living room by the hand he held. She picked up the remote as Lincoln settled himself down into the middle seat of the couch, turning on the TV while he tried to get comfortable.

>"I think there might be an ARGGH! re-run on right now on Creepy Mysteries." Lucy offered, hunched over their coffee table as she cycled through the stations. Her big brother smirked quietly at how she'd remembered his favorite show, letting himself deflate against the couch cushions as he prepared for the evening ahead.
>"That's alright, sis. I'm too tired for ghosts." Lincoln murmured. He watched as her back stiffened, the young girl quickly trying to think of something else he might enjoy, afraid he was about to call the whole thing off and slink back to his room. "Vampires might be fun though." He finally offered.
>Lucy nearly gasped, turning around to face her brother. He just smirked and patted the cushion beside him. The little goth quickly hopped on the couch as her thumb flew over the well-memorized buttons that switched the TV to the Somber Desires channel, and one of their near-constant Vampires of Melancholia marathons.
>The show itself was utter cheese: all about a teenage girl, her two hundred year old nosferatu boyfriend and the trials and tribulations of their love. It'd been running for years thanks to the slavish devotion of the aficionados of the books it was based on, but the costumes were cheap, the dialogue was bad and the plotlines were agonizingly predictable. Plus, hardly any of the actors could actually act. In short, it was simply bad television.
>Lucy, however, adored it. Lori and Leni sometimes humored the girl and watched it with her, but all his other sisters couldn't stand the series and even Lincoln at best tolerated it. Vampires were at least a sort of undead, after all. That said, seeing Lucy's pale face light up, as much as it ever did anyway, when the organ notes of the opening theme song began to play was enough to convince him he'd made the right decision. She settled in next to him happily.
>"Aww man, what!?" The little boy turned his head to spot Lynn at the foot of the bannister in nothing but her socks and one of their dad's old jerseys, already rushing over. "No fair! I told you to wait for me!" She almost dived onto the cushion on his opposite side, already moving to wrestle Lucy for the remote from across Lincoln's legs. "There's no way we're watching Zombies of Sadtown!"
>"It's Vampires of Melancholia!" The young goth hissed, trying to swat her big sister's hands away. "And Lincoln wants to watch it too!"
>"Come on, Lynn." He offered tiredly, sitting up a bit to get between the girls again. "Just let her watch her show."
>The tomboy was half laying on Lincoln's lap as she tried to reach over for the remote her little sister was holding away from her. Feeling her slim, firm figure squirming over the top of his legs was something Lincoln found deeply agitating, and he knew he had to put a stop to things before his body started reacting the way Lori had trained it to react to soft, feminine weight grinding on him.
>Lynn, thankfully, ceased her struggling at the anxiety in his voice and blinked up at her brother. She gave a long sigh and let herself fall, boneless and defeated, over his lap. "But it's so laaaaaame~" She moaned miserably.
>"Just give it a chance!" Lucy pleaded, a bit of desperation bleeding into her monotone. Contrary to her usual solitary nature, the girl quite enjoyed watching her favorite show with company ever since she'd first binged a season with her two oldest sisters (they'd gotten drawn in by the latest teen sensation guest starring), but no one in the house shared her interests. Being able to get any of her siblings to join her was an unusual treat, especially her roommate or her of-late absentee big brother.
>"No way!" Lynn stuck her tongue out and smirked, rolling over on Lincoln's legs to rest her head on top of one of his thighs. He could feel the warmth of her hair against his windchilled bluejeans as the tomboy used him like a pillow, tucking her hands behind her neck. He shifted in place just a bit to try and get her face a little farther away from his crotch, but fell still when Lynn gave a soft whine at being jostled. Lincoln groaned and prepared himself for a difficult few hours.
>For her part Lucy only huffed indignantly, letting herself fall against the couch's backrest. "Mortals..." She complained under her breath. Lynn just chuckled and squirmed against Lincoln's lap a bit more, trying to get comfortable.

>The goth gave the two a sidelong glance, clearly miffed at her roommate already hogging their brother the way she was so quickly after he'd gotten back. But that was just Lynn, she knew. Her big sister's natural competitive streak had never left her with too much respect for the concept of sharing, especially not when it came to Lincoln.
>All of his sisters called on him a lot, perhaps more than what was fair, but Lynn had always done it just a little bit more than the rest of them. Even moreso since a few months ago, once she'd turned thirteen and officially become a teenager. She always seemed to find some reason to drag him into her activities, some excuse to put her hands on him. Lynn wrestled her little brother to the ground so often, cackling happily while he struggled fruitlessly to squirm out of her grasp, that it was like she was hoping to make a career out of it.
>But could anyone really blame her for being so straightforward with her affection? It wasn't her fault Lucy was so much shyer than she was, the goth admitted, pursing her lips unhappily. Lynn wanted to be near her brother, so she crawled into his lap. That was as far as her thinking went. If she wanted to do something she just did it, and she didn't waste an iota of energy worrying about how it might make her look, totally self-assured in her own actions. At least, that was what Lucy believed. Lynn didn't care if she seemed greedy or needy or anything.
>That was probably what the goth admired the most about her sister. Envied the most about her. It sure had its perks, she thought sullenly, as she watched Lincoln play with her sister's hair while the tomboy purred contently. Nobody ever forgot about her. Nobody ever looked past her when she was there.

>Just like Lucy's earlier frown, the way her shoulders sank slightly then might as well have been have been an outright tantrum for anyone who knew her as well as Lincoln did. His gaze flicked from the sibling laying on his lap over to the young goth drawing her knees up to her chest so she could hug them to try and keep warm. He licked his lips and shut his eyes for a second, taking a deep breath.
>Dig deep.
>Lucy stiffened as she suddenly felt a hand reach past her back and behind her arm, curling over her ribs. Before she could turn to see who it was Lincoln dragged her towards him, pulling her slowly across the cushion to send her body tipping over and falling gently against the side of his. Lucy blinked for a moment at the sudden feeling of the warmth of his shirt against her ear, not quite sure how to react, before quietly smiling. She nestled into her big brother's side, resting her head on his shoulder and giving one of her characteristic sighs. This was the best.
>Lincoln could smell her shampoo and feel her soft hair against his neck as the opening musical montage transitioned into the show proper. He tried not to think about how exactly he was going to endure being smothered in the warmth and scent of both his sisters for the next few hours when already his tattered nerves were begging for mercy. For now, he contented himself with the fact that he'd made them happy. That would have to be enough.

---

>The episodes, from the much-maligned seventh season, turned out to about as painful as he and Lynn had expected. Apparently the main actress had to be recast that year due to her unreasonable salary demands and the head writer, in some kind of relationship with her, quit when the producers let him know their decision. Lucy happily filled him in on the entire behind-the-scenes drama during the quieter moments of the show, when the characters stared wordlessly into each other's eyes, which turned out to be most of the running time. It was strange for Lincoln to see Lucy so animated by something, and even stranger to hear the solemn little girl gossip, but he supposed each of the siblings had things they were unusually geeky about. For her, it was Vampires of Melancholia.
>Still, by the fourth episode or so the program had seemed to find it's footing again. Of course, that was far too late for Lynn, who had fallen asleep on his lap about fifteen minutes into the marathon. As for Lincoln, the feeling of both his sisters' bodies intermittently stretching and writhing against his kept him wide-awake. He made sure to stay engaged with Lucy to keep his mind off how Lynn's soft, steady breaths had been rolling across his inner thigh for the last thirty minutes.
>"So, who do you want Matilda to end up with, Mortimer or Beauregard?" Lincoln asked, quizzing her on a set of secondary characters while his dozing tomboy of an older sister unconsciously grabbed his arm and pulled it under her chin like a blanket. He tried to ignore how soft and warm the skin of her neck felt against his wrist, squirming uncomfortably into the cushion beneath him as his body keyed in treacherously on the sensation against his will.
>Lucy pulled her head off her brother's shoulder and gave a long, troubled sigh, as though he had just asked her which one of her parents she loved the most. The seriousness with which she was obviously contemplating the question almost made him laugh. "You can't ask me something like that, Lincoln." She complained. "Mortimer loves her for her humanity, but Beauregard knows she has the soul of an immortal...The Melancholia message boards have been arguing about it forever."
>She sounded like he and his friends did when they discussed comic book lore. Lincoln decided to see how deep it went, just to help pass the time, as one of the actors went into another monologue about the horror of eternal life. At the moment the only thing that felt eternal was the episode they were watching.
>"What about Griselda and Edwin then?" He smirked, moving away from side-characters and on to the central romance of the show. The boy was sure his little sister would enjoy talking about her feelings on that. There was no way she hadn't spent a long time thinking about it, at least; she owned all the Melancholia books. It would be like if someone asked him if he thought Ace Savvy should end up with the Card Countess or not. He used to have strong feelings about stuff like that.
>He was surprised then when his little sister suddenly went very quiet, reaching out for the remote to the TV. She ticked down the sound bars until Beauregard was mutely pleading with Matilda to run away with him, the volume getting turned all the way down to zero transforming the overacted show into the pantomime it seemed to be trying so hard to be anyway. Lincoln stared at Lucy curiously. For a long time the only sound in the living room was their big sister's quiet snoring.
>"Lincoln." The little goth finally whispered, no louder than she normally did, but in the stillness of their den it was as stark as a gunshot, almost making him flinch. There was a strange tentativeness to her voice.
>"Yeah...?" He asked, and after hesitating for a moment she turned to give him a sidelong look.
>"Do you think it's..." She began, then paused. Lincoln noticed the small, sudden grimace and the way her pale hands anxiously twisted the hem of her dress. He couldn't help but sit up a little in interest, causing a whine to slip out from the still dozing Lynn at how her pillow suddenly shifted.
>Lucy didn't speak very much, but when she did she always picked her words carefully. Her brother could count on one hand the times he'd heard her stammer or let a sentence drift off to nothing. Watching her fumble like this was off-putting; could two fictional characters' relationship really be this sensitive an issue for her? He knew she loved the show, but still.
>"Do you think," he noticed her mouth set and her hands still as she finally decided upon what to say, "That there's such a thing as a bad kind of love?"
>Lincoln suddenly felt his guts clench like his intestines were making a fist, the sensation nearly making him choke. "W-what...?" The little boy gasped, shutting his eyes and immediately struggling to get his stomach to settle. He could already feel a nervous headache coming on. Setting his jaw, he forced the question out. "What do you mean, Lucy?" He tried to ask innocently, and in his attempt to keep his voice steady it instead took on a tense, awkward pitch.
>"Do you think that there's kinds of love that aren't okay?" She repeated, seemingly too preoccupied with her own thoughts to pick up on the unusual tone of his voice. "Or is love always a good thing?" Lucy turned to face him fully, sitting up on her knees so she could be level with her big brother's eyes. It was a leading question, he realized through his daze. There was a right answer, or at least an answer she wanted to hear.
>Lincoln was so shaken, taken so off-guard, that he couldn't even ponder the implications of her asking him something like that. At the moment his thoughts were inevitably filtered through the lens of his own experience, all he could think about was himself. His mouth had already been opening to answer her that there were. There were bad kinds of love. His eyes darted around uncomfortably and he licked his lips, sucking in the air he needed to speak, when Lucy's hand reached up to tuck one of her bangs behind her ear.
>A single, dazzling blue eye was suddenly revealed from under the black tar of his sister's hair. Lincoln's gaze fell upon the rare sight, his breath stilling in his chest. Lucy leaned in, her knees parting just a little as her hands fell upon the cushion in front of her to keep from falling over. Her face was very near his now and all he could see, all he could focus on, was that one blue eye. The words died on his lips.
>His little sister was eight years old and he had been about to tell her all about how people you loved could let you down. How they could hurt you, over and over, and how even then you might not be able to stop loving them. How much worse that made it.
>Lucy was asking him about pretend vampires and Lincoln was about to tell her that sometimes he wished he'd never loved anybody.
>The young man shut his eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out again with a shuddering sigh.
>"Just don't...hurt anyone." Lincoln at last begged, hopelessly.
>"What?" Lucy blinked, shifting backwards to sit on her haunches. Her dress rode up above her knees a bit in her awkward position. The boy caught himself, shaking his head and tugging his hand away from Lynn's clavicle to wipe the beads of fear sweat off his brow, drawing an irritated growl from the tomboy as she slowly began to stir.
>"...Nothing. I'm sorry. I was thinking of something else. What...What was the question?" He asked, trying to buy himself some time to come up with a better answer. As Lucy began to repeat herself she was suddenly interrupted by the sound of someone pulling into their driveway, then shortly after that by the side panel of a van noisily sliding open.
>Lincoln raised his hand to let Lucy know to hold on until they could see who it was, grateful for an excuse to hit the pause button on their conversation while he composed himself. A few seconds later their front door began to rattle as the person on the other end seemed to have a bit of trouble with it, finally managing to push it open after a few shoves.
>"Kiiiids!" Rita Loud called out blindly, trying to balance three boxes of pizza on her chest while at the same time struggling to yank her house keys out of their front door's stubborn old lock. "I stopped in town on the way home and got us some Little Vincent's!"
>"And it's firsht come firsht sherve!" Her daughter Lisa added promptly with a shout, the little scientist wriggling between her mother's thighs and the doorframe in a mad dash to be the first one to the dinner table. Rita laughed as the normally composed and measured little scientist bolted past her. The Loud family matriarch moved over to the bottom of the stairwell to repeat herself in case any of her children hadn't heard her when she finally noticed the three of them on the couch.
>"Hey there girls, come get your-" Rita paused mid-sentence, "...Lincoln?" She blinked, having a bit of trouble believing what she was seeing.
>Two of his ten sisters were stubbornly wrapped around the of-late reclusive little boy like clingy, affection-seeking blankets, and her son wasn't even trying to pry them off his body or halfway through nervously excusing himself to go hole up in his room. Three sets of eyes, two of them wide open and a third slowly blinking awake, stared at their mother as she gawped at the scene.
>"How did you...When..." Rita drifted off, pinching the bridge of her nose and sighing as she tried to collect her thoughts. "...Don't move." She finally declared sternly, setting aside the boxes of food and reaching into her back pocket for her smartphone, fumbling to switch it to snapshot mode while aiming the camera at her kids. "I HAVE to get a picture of this for your father." Rita explained with a wide grin.
>Lucy groaned, throwing an arm up to hide her face as her mother uttered a soft 'aww!', all while Lynn smacked her lips and pulled her head off her little brother's lap, mumbling about if anyone else smelled pizza. Lincoln just lowered his head and tried not to blush. He realized dimly that he couldn't even remember the last time he'd actually felt like he might.
>"Oh fine!" Rita huffed indignantly, throwing up her arms in exasperated defeat. "The paparazzi will leave you alone! Just come get your dinner, would you?" The miffed older woman pretended to put the phone away and the children lowered their guard, but she took a few quick snaps while they were distracted trying to disentagle themselves from each other in their hurry to the dinner table. She smiled to herself; Lynn Sr. was going to love these.
>The three finally managed to pull themselves off the couch without falling into a heap of limbs together at its foot, making for the dining room as their other siblings' doors creaked open upstairs when the smell of pizza finished wafting through the house.

>When Lincoln tried to follow his two sisters past their mother, however, he felt a hand fall on his shoulder. He turned around and looked up at Rita as she favored him with a smile, the older woman pursing her lips and leaning down to press a gentle kiss on her son's forehead. The little boy fell still as he felt his mother affectionately rub his arm.
>"I'm glad you're feeling a little better, Lincoln." She whispered, and he knew she'd added that 'a little' part to make sure he understood there was no rush and she wasn't expecting him to force himself to go right back to normal.
>Her warm breath against his ear sent unwanted spasms of electricity shooting up his back. Lincoln turned to face her but for a horrifying instant all his senses would allow him to perceive was the blonde hair, the twinkling, half-lidded eyes, the easy smile. All the things her firstborn had inherited from their mother. He grimaced.
>She looked just like her. She felt just like her.
>The little boy shut his eyes and almost whimpered as he felt his low instincts begin to stir, his body coming awake instinctively at Rita's touch. Lincoln was confronted with a vile new perversion for the first time and nearly crumbled then and there in the face of it. There was always a new horror, it seemed. He'd once heard a teacher say that the natural tendency for things was to get worse, not to improve or even to maintain themselves. It was something called 'entropy'. He hadn't given it much thought at the time. In those sun-drenched days the concept of decay hardly even seemed to exist in his world.
>"...Thanks, mom." He mumbled. His chest was hot and the blush from earlier was now openly glowing on his face as he fought not to let his feelings show. His mother looked like she wanted to say more, but Lincoln caught the feminine footfalls on the stairs behind him. The little boy quickly scurried away without turning to see who the first one down was, leaving Rita to stare off after him.
>A shadow of anxiety passed over the older woman's face, but then she felt the weight in her hand and looked back down at her phone. The picture staring back at her was of her baby boy happily hugging his two sisters.
>She couldn't help but grin.
>Rita's worries were forgotten as she followed her son into the dining room.

---

>When Lincoln finally managed to get to his seat, most of the rest of the Loud children still occupied in the kitchen fetching themselves plates and glasses, he felt another hand fall on his shoulder. A different hand. The slim, feminine fingers dug into the fabric of his shirt a little harder and a little more possessively than his mother's had.
>"Out all day again, huh Lincoln?" He heard his oldest sister ask. Her body was bent over slightly, her other hand resting on the table as she leaned forward and pretended to read the receipt stapled to the side of the pizza box.
>Lori sounded unhappy. The tone of her voice was languid, almost bored, but there was an undercurrent of accusation there, like she was implying he had done something wrong. And beneath that, so faint he almost didn't catch it, something else. Something that deeply surprised him.
>Hurt.
>Not offense, but actual, genuine hurt. She had already asked him to stop spending so much time away a few nights before. Lincoln had been expecting his sister to be angry, or taunting, or vindictive at his continued resistance. The emotions you'd expect from someone when their dog was disobedient or a toy refused to work.
>But she wasn't any of that. What she was was upset. By running away from her, he'd actually hurt her feelings.
>The realization made his breath hitch and he grinded his teeth together, keeping his head down and his eyes on the floral-pattern placemat in front of him. He slowly counted the petals on each of the roses to keep from reacting. One. Two. Three.
>"Look, I just get worried when you're gone, okay?" Lori said, her free hand playing with the corner of one of their napkins. She sounded a bit embarassed to admit it. "WE get worried. It's not like I'm trying to tell you how you can spend your time, but you're all alone out there by yourself and none of us know where you are...I just hate thinking that something could happen and we wouldn't be able to find you, y'know?" She sighed, as though she was imagining some harm coming to her little brother and found the notion disturbing. "And besides that, well..." Her voice got a little quieter then, "I miss you." Lincoln sucked in a tense, disbelieving breath, his eyes widening. Nine. Ten.
>"Would you just take a break every once in a while?" Lori finally offered as a compromise. "It's not like you have to head out every day. Hanging out at home with your sisters every now and then isn't so bad, is it?" She added softly, pulling out the seat next to him. "You can sleep with me and Leni tonight in our room, if you want. I know yours is still kind of a mess." Lori sat down and placed her napkin on her lap. "Leni would like that. She's really been wanting to spend some time with you lately." Her hand drifted down from his shoulder to rub his back. The muscles in it were pulled tight enough to hurt. The little boy kept grinding his teeth, counting the flowers. What could he answer? He didn't even know if she was asking him a real question or if this was all simply another strange, awful game.
>"It's not fair of you to shut her out like that, you know." Lori continued, admonishing him with a whisper. "She's sensitive." The boy almost choked on his own saliva.

>As Lincoln struggled to ignore the feeling of his big sister's fingertips drawing circles over the back of his shirt, a voice behind the two suddenly piped up. "Hey, what gives!?" Lori turned to see an outraged Lynn returning from the kitchen, holding a plate with a glass balanced on top. "That's MY seat!"
>The eldest sibling of the Loud house blinked, looking down at her chair before staring at the tomboy in annoyed surprise. "No it's not. I've literally been sitting next to Lincoln this entire month."
>"Yeah, I know!" Lynn answered combatively. "You've been hogging him and everyone's sick of it! I was going to sit next to him tonight!"
>"Well..." Lori seemed taken aback, the rest of their siblings beginning to file into the dining room and staring at the scene in confusion, particularly Luna and Luan. "...Tough." The blonde finally answered blankly, not quite sure how to respond to the athlete's sudden outburst.
>Lynn recoiled, the riled up jock appearing ready to start yelling, but before she could she was interrupted by their mother cutting in from the other end of the table, having found her own place at the head. "Oh come on sweetheart, let the three musketeers sit together." Rita drawled happily, all while opening up the first box of pizza to pull herself a slice. "You should have seen them cuddling on the couch earlier. It was so darling."
>"The three what?" Lori asked. Lucy suddenly popped up on the opposite end of her big brother, startling both Lincoln and their eldest sister. The goth didn't say anything; neither knew when she had sneaked into her chosen seat. The teenager had to remind herself not to scold her, instead trying to stay focused on the central issue. "Mom? What do you mean by 'cuddling'?"
>"That's not fair!" Lola suddenly shouted from the kitchen, sensing drama and rushing out so she could be a part of it. She appeared at the doorway with her own plate and utensils. "If that's how it is then I wanna sit with Lincoln tomorrow night!" The little diva demanded, noticing something her sisters all wanted and instinctively wanting it too.
>"Nuh-uh! Me!" Lana piped up from her own seat, suddenly regretting not joining her brother when she had the chance. She'd been one of the first ones back to the table, too. Next to her the baby of the family, Lily, turned first to Rita, then to Lori, then to the bemused Lincoln himself.
>"Do we have to, like, make an appointment for that now? Who are you supposed to call?" Leni wondered aloud sadly as she dabbed the grease off the top of her slice with a napkin at her own place across the boy. "Can I book Lincoln for the night after that? I feel like we haven't spent time together in forever..."
>"Winken!" Lily finally demanded, banging her little fists on the table of her high chair as she giggled, making her own bid for her brother.
>Rita couldn't help but laugh as she watched her eldest suddenly having to contend with six of her little sisters. Lori turned, flabbergasted, from one to the other, not knowing who to argue with first. Their mother, meanwhile, decided her time would be best spent teasing the object of everyone's sudden affection. "My, my, Lincoln." She smirked, "When did you get so popular?" The flustered child didn't know what to answer, instead simply keeping his eyes on the placemat in front of him as the skin under his collar got hot.
>Lori stared at the mob of squabbling children surrounding her, each one trying to raise their voice to be heard above the others as the argument became more and more heated. Her mom was no help at all, for now content to let the chaos unfold as she went back to her phone and surreptitiously began filming the scene from just over the table. More precious memories to send to her husband.
>"That's enough!" The teenager suddenly shouted as she sat up from her chair right when it looked like hair was about to be pulled, bringing the budding fight between Lola and Lynn to a close. The two girls stopped barking at each other and turned to face her. "You can have the stupid seat! Geez!" Lori snatched her napkin off her lap and picked up her plate. "What the heck's gotten into you guys?"
>The athlete didn't answer her, instead making sure not to waste any time and scurrying past her older sister to force her way into the now empty chair. Lori gave a quick huff of irritation as she crossed the table to sit next to their mom, Lynn already flipping up the lids on all the pizza boxes so she could get a slice with each topping. "You little weirdos..." Lori grumped as Rita, still chuckling, pulled out the chair next to her for her daughter and put the phone away.

>Luan, hanging back with Luna, wanted to make a joke. Something about how the last time she'd seen such a long line for a seat, it was at the mall for Santa's lap. Somehow, though, even with the smell of pizza lifting most of the family's spirits, she didn't feel brave enough to draw attention to herself in front of her little brother. She sighed and spared a glance at her roommate. Luna just grimaced quietly at the scene, the bags under her eyes making her look older than she was, before pulling out her chair. After a moment Luan joined her without comment.
>Lynn grinned to herself, sharing a look of victory with her own roommate from behind Lincoln's back. Lucy returned it, a wordless understanding transmitted between the two, and they scooted their chairs a bit closer to him, apparently deciding to cap off the evening of couch surfing with their brother by stealing from Lincoln's plate and forcing him to try bites that had their own favorite toppings from theirs. During all this Lola finally conceded defeat and made her way over to her own spot next to her twin, though not without voicing several indignant complaints.
>Dinner passed more or less uneventfully after that. The topic quickly switched from Lincoln to an upcoming children's fashion show Lola was to participate in to raise funds for the local Blue Bells girl scout chapter, then after that Rita broke the news to the family about the week-long series of science lectures Lisa had been offered to host next month at the museum of natural history. The little scientist beamed about how the prestigious university partnered to it had finally seen the value of her latest research and arranged for the whole thing. She bragged that it was certain to help her future career prospects. There was a quick round of congratulations, then another fierce argument suddenly erupted among the siblings, again sans Lori, Leni, Luna and Luan, over who was going to get to go to the city with her and their mom.
>The kids had slowly become increasingly rambunctious without their dad around, competing even more energetically for the smallest things. This time, rather than having deliberately allowed it to happen as she'd done with the issue of who got to sit next to Lincoln, Rita was simply taken by surprise before she could put an early stop to it. After things got heated enough that one of the younger girls repeated a bad word they'd heard on television, their mother finally declared that, thanks to their behavior, none of them would get to come. The announcement was instantly met with groans, hurried apologies and desperate assurances that it wouldn't happen again, but the Loud family matriarch didn't budge, and her children, chastened, soon went back to eating their dinner for fear of their punishment getting any worse.
>Rita sighed, her stern demeanor briefly faltering as she found herself longing for the moment Lynn Sr. would return and help her reestablish some order in the house. The kids obviously missed and needed their father. Honestly, if her eldest hadn't shown herself to be so responsible recently Rita never would have considered taking such a long trip while her husband was still gone. But in the face of Lisa's pleading and the fact that all of them were still on break from school, the mother of eleven figured it was alright just this once.
>Lori, for her part, had spent the entire evening staring pensively at the 'three musketeers' rather than joining in with any of the conversation. She couldn't help but notice how affectionate both girls were being with Lincoln. And how the little boy, though obviously uncomfortable, didn't push them away.
>She smiled to herself.

---

>The family's dinner passed uneventfully after that. Lincoln brought his plate up to the sink with the rest of the kids once they were all done, then excused himself after pointing out there was still one last slice of pizza left. His ploy was successful, with the ensuing scramble as they all fought to claim it first ensuring that his sisters were too busy arguing with each other to notice him slipping away.
>By the time he made it back to the relative solitude of his bedroom the little boy was exhausted. He pushed the door shut behind him and rested his back against it, a brief respite from the increasing strain of holding himself up under his own power. Lincoln shut his eyes and gave a long, weary sigh as he slowly sank to the floor.
>He was utterly depleted. It felt like he'd used a week's worth of energy in just a couple of hours. Lincoln supposed that made sense, considering he'd just spent more time with his siblings in those couple of hours than he had in the last week. The boy didn't know where or how he'd gotten the strength to fake that he didn't mind all the touching and closeness, to lie that much.
>Or where he was going to find the strength to do the same thing tomorrow, Lincoln realized with a wince. He could still feel the warmth from his sisters' bodies on his own, the softness of their hair, the faint smell of cotton and clean, soapy skin...He remembered the disturbing rush when his mom leaned in close. The little boy took a shuddering breath and gulped, letting his fingertips sink into the carpet beneath him as he fought to calm down. His nerves felt raw, vulnerable, as though they'd sprouted naked across the surface of his skin over the course of the evening.
>Slowly opening his eyes again, Lincoln at last took in the sight of his hiding place.
>His bedroom was certainly a lot more bare than it used to be. It hadn't just been his toys he'd broken after that first time with Luan; he'd ripped up his posters, shattered his models, threw his laptop at the wall. It all seemed so stupid now, he acknowledged sullenly. His tantrum hadn't helped anything, it hadn't made him feel any better. Rita had tried convincing him to go shopping to replace his things since, but Lincoln had kept putting it off.
>None of it seemed important anyway. The boy discovered that he didn't miss any of the objects he'd destroyed. He stared next to him at the trashcan, stacked high with colorful broken plastic. Lincoln pulled his knees up to his chest and reached out mindlessly, tipping it over with one of his fingers; the receptacle tumbled softly to the floor, falling on its side and sending a flood of garbage spilling out. He stared at the mess in front of him and blinked upon noticing a spot of purple peeking up among the blues and greys.
>The little boy reached in, brushing aside a few disconnected model plane propellers and paper scraps from torn comic book pages, and curled his fingers around whatever it was. He felt the hard plastic rectangle press against his palm and tugged it out of the trash.
>What he saw surprised him; it wasn't something he remembered wrecking. It was likely thrown into the trash by mistake. In his hand was one of the two official ARGGH! walkie-talkies he and Clyde had pooled their meager allowances together to buy together a few years ago. Lincoln smiled to himself at the memory, a small wave of nostalgia washing over him, and brought it up to his face. His thumb pressed the button on the side and the small toy crackled to life, the dull hiss of static flooding his room.
>"Cadet Clyde. Come in, Cadet Clyde." He uttered reflexively, remembering all the late nights he'd spent stealthily whispering into the toy he was holding. He let go so the person on the other end could answer. There was no reply.
>"I repeat: Come in, Cadet Clyde." Lincoln tried again, pushing the button and unleashing another burst of white noise. He grinned weakly.
>Lincoln knew that it was pointless. It wasn't like there was anybody listening to his transmission. His best friend had moved away months ago.

>It had all happened so quickly. Everything started with a string of petty burglaries in their neighborhood. It hadn't been anything serious, the person responsible being discovered and apprehended quickly, but Clyde's deeply overprotective parents insisted that it demonstrated how Royal Woods had simply become too dangerous a place to raise a child in.
>The possibility that their neighborhood might be declining had been a hot topic between Harold and Howie the weeks leading up to the incident, the pair's naturally cautious nature feeding into each other's fears about someone breaking into their home and hurting their precious son. In a sort of strange one-upsmanship each had been alarming the other with various exaggerated figures from local lifestyle circulars, written mostly by and for soccer moms with too much time on their hands and stuffed with hysterical op-eds claiming the three percent increase in calls to 911 that year signified the total collapse of law and order in town, and how all parents who truly loved their children should start taking measures.
>It was the kind of overblown fear journalism that was practically designed to prey on the paranoia of bored suburbanite housewives and, having consumed so much of it by that point, Harold and Howie had been successfully worked up into a lather. Lincoln and his best friend had ended up ignoring their stated proclamation that something had to give as the couple's usual well-meaning but futile dramatics, only too late realizing how serious they were.
>The fact was though that even with all the checkout aisle trash egging them on, the two high-strung parents might have eventually been persuaded to let the 'spree of anarchy' go and accept it as the sort of freak incident that every once in a while ocurred in a small town. But that was if it hadn't been for one of Clyde's dads coincidentally fielding a lucrative job offer from a company in Vermont a few days afterwards.
>The new opportunity presenting itself while the crime wave was still so fresh in their minds ended up leading Clyde's guardians, in an uncharacteristic fit of impulsiveness borne from their concern for their son, to decide to relocate their family. The two kids had only even found out about the move by chance a few weeks before it was to happen, the young McBride discovering an invoice for a moving company on one of his parents' desks. Before either of the children had even gotten a chance to try and talk them out of it the date was practically upon them. By that time Clyde's dad Harold had already signed the contract and a lease and there was nothing that could be done. In their blind panic, both parents had neglected to mention to their child that they intended to move until it was too late to back out. They were ashamed of their hysterics, in retrospect. Even responsible adults like them made mistakes.
>This was for the best, the two had assured him, sincere remorse at the idea they might have acted too hastily mortifying the doting fathers when they were at last confronted by their little boy's stricken face. And anyway, Vermont wasn't so far, was it? Lincoln could stay over during the summers, Harold had insisted in the most conciliatory tone he could, trying to blunt the shock of the imminent move.
>On the big day the entire Loud family had visited the McBrides to share one last meal together with them in their old home before everything was loaded into the trucks. The two lifelong friends' goodbyes at that time had been deeply emotional, both of them blubbering inconsolably and promising to call and write each other every day as their families watched on, unable to help from getting slightly misty themselves at the scene the boys were making. Howard, always so sensitive to his child's needs, had even shot his husband a look that wordlessly asked if they were doing the right thing. Harold couldn't help but wonder that himself, but there simply wasn't any cancelling things at that point. The two were eventually forced to recruit Lincoln's parents to assist in pulling the boys apart just so the McBrides could finish buckling Clyde into his seat and begin the long drive to Montpelier and their new lives.
>Lincoln could remember that whole day vividly. As for the calls they'd vowed to make and letters they'd vowed to write, the boys had kept their promise. For a while, anyway. But much like what had happened with him and Ronnie Anne when she'd moved away, eventually they both got too busy or failed to find the time and started missing days. After that, weeks.
>Soon enough the calls stopped coming.
>"Come in, Cadet Clyde."
>Hisssssss

>Lincoln slowly switched off the walkie-talkie, setting it away separately from the rest of the trash with more care than a now-useless toy might merit. The little boy took a deep breath and began preparing to go to bed, the memories of his best friend's sudden departure now at the forefront of his thoughts, until he suddenly felt a knock at his door. His back shook softly as the impact reverberated on the wood. Lincoln shut his eyes.
>"Hey there, Linky. Open up?" The voice was calm and measured, as though even though what she'd said was phrased as a request the person speaking it had no doubt that he would obey. The boy pulled his shoulders in and tucked his chin down against his chest, trying to appear small.
>"Aww, come on. There's someone here to see youuu~" The voice on the other end of the door sang. Even through the honeyed tone, there was a trace more impatience there now. He tried to force himself not to react to it. To defy her for once. He thought again about what had happened earlier with his mom, about the vile, uncontrollable desires growing inside him more and more every day.
>It was her fault.
>He winced hopelessly, raising his hands up to his head.
>"I don't want to have to say it again, little bro." The girl at last whispered quietly, but with finality. All traces of mirth were gone. Lincoln grit his teeth, letting his hands fall limp at his sides to clench the carpet in his fists, trying to force himself not to give in to the subtle threat. He instead focused only on the sound of the blood rushing through his ears as his heart raced, hoping it could drown out everything else.
>"Lincoln?" A different, sweeter voice at last piped up, and his eyes shot open. He almost gasped as his stomach immediately twisted with anxiety. "Why won't you let us in?"
>He brought his trembling hands to his face. It felt like the bile was going to burn through the lining of his stomach as he struggled to think of what to do. His eyes peeked through his fingers at his room, looking for any escape, any way out, any way to pretend he simply wasn't there and avoid hurting her.
>"...Lincoln?" The second voice asked again, worry creeping into her tone.
>The little boy shuddered with misery. After another few seconds of futile stalling, he finally gave a long, hopeless sigh, so deep and vast it felt like it would push all the air out of the small, cramped space of his room. Like it could stretch on forever until his body, bereft of breath, would just fold over itself like an empty grocery bag and float away. His shoulders slackened in defeat and he pushed himself off the carpet.
>Lincoln turned to face the door and stared at the knob, reaching forward and wrapping his hand around it. He faltered for only a second before setting his jaw and turning, pulling the door open, keeping his head down and his eyes on the carpet.
>"About time, little bro." Lori murmured, stepping past her younger brother and into his room, seemingly without second-guessing herself at all. Behind her stood Leni, looking quite a bit more timid and unsure than her older sister, in her own way sharing Lincoln's apprehension. Her hands were folded over her lap and she glanced up from the carpet at him, and it was like she somehow forced him to look up and meet her eyes. The beautiful, innocent blonde gave him a shy smile before following Lori inside.
>Lincoln swallowed and took one last longing glance at the hallway outside before slowly pushing the door shut again, turning to face the two. Lori had already taken her shoes off and was reclining on his bed. From Leni's expression, though obviously pleased to suddenly be spending time with him, he gathered that she was just as confused about why she was there as Lincoln was. Maybe more, since the boy at least had his suspicions, whereas suspicion was a concept entirely absent from the bubbly young woman's character.
>"I've decided that it's time for everybody to come clean." Lori declared simply as her reason for apparently electing to get them all alone in the same place. She took a small breath before continuing. "I know what you two have been up to." The eldest sibling stated flatly. Leni instantly stiffened at the vague accusation, a blush appearing on her cheeks. After a moment of hesitation where she seemed to be confounded about how to defend herself, she finally replied.
>"We, umm...don't know what you mean, Lori?" The innocent blonde clumsily attempted to lie, though the high, stressed pitch of her voice immediately gave her away. Leni had no talent for deception. Lincoln for his part didn't bother to answer their sister's charge at all. He already knew where this was going and that talking, like always, was pointless. This whole show was obviously for Leni's benefit, not his.
>The oldest sibling didn't say anything. Instead she simply quirked a brow and stared at her little sister with her best imitation of their mother's glare of disappointment, waiting for the moment when she'd inevitably crack. Leni hated that look and Lori knew it. The blonde squirmed self-consciously under her gaze for five, ten seconds, slowly getting more and more agitated, before finally throwing her hands up in frustration.
>"I-it's not fair if you're the only one who-!" The fashionista started, immediately attempting to absolve herself of any wrongdoing. Lori couldn't help but chuckle, her faux-glower quickly disappearing from her face as she wordlessly shushed her roommate before she could say anything else, the gesture loaded with obvious notes of tenderness and understanding. Lincoln noticed with dull interest how Leni immediately became more relaxed at the gentle whisper Lori gave, her panic fading away as she sighed, relieved to know nobody was mad at her. It was as though through the bond the two oldest siblings shared, all Lori had to do was make that sound to let her know that things were going to be alright. That it was okay.
>But it wasn't. None of what was happening was okay. Lincoln simply watched his eldest sister, the quiet resentment burning in his eyes not escaping Lori's notice, but instead of discouraging the girl it instead seemed to excite her. "You didn't do anything wrong, Leni." Lori picked her words carefully to both reassure her and playfully needle the owner of the room they were in, and the guileless young woman nodded happily, answering her sister's forgiveness with a sheepish smile. The blush didn't go away. "Fair's fair, and Lincoln's your little brother too." The first of the eleven children gave by way of explanation, like that justified any of their behavior. Lori crossed her legs and cooly turned to meet Lincoln's glare. He could see from the twinkling in her eye that she was in rare spirits; something she'd seen at dinner had clearly left her in a good mood.
>"Still, if you two are gonna keep doing this..." The blonde sighed, as though she was being put-upon or demanded something of. After a moment she couldn't help but give a small smirk, her imperious facade cracking, and she bit her lip to keep from breaking out into a full on grin while staring at her little brother. "Then we're gonna have to figure out a split."

---

>It was eleven thirty PM and despite a fairly exhausting day, Lynn Jr. couldn't help but toss and turn. The tomboy counted the small paint cracks in the ceiling over and over, trying to lull herself to sleep, but it was no use. She was filled with the same nervous, excited energy that she had been all afternoon. It was the exact sort of feeling she got when she had a big match coming up the next day or it was the night before Christmas. The little girl kicked her feet and played with her blankets. It was probably that nap she'd taken with Lincoln that was keeping her up, she concluded idly.
>Lincoln. A feeling of warmth and happiness suddenly flooded through her at the memory, and Lynn found herself giving a wide, goofy smile as she settled a little more comfortably into her bed. She was so pumped that she'd managed to find him and convince him to come back home with her. She had to admit that it had made her feel a bit special somehow, even though she knew he would have probably done the same no matter which of his sisters had asked him.
>"Hey Luce, you awake?" She suddenly called out, eager for someone to vent some of her restless excitement on.
>From across the room, in her own bed, the little goth girl almost thought about throwing out a grumpy 'I am now', but in truth she hadn't been able to get any rest either.
>The reasons for this were mostly the same as her roommate's. Ever since she'd first crawled on top of her mattress to try and sleep off dinner, she'd found herself spending the whole time drifting back to her conversation with her big brother. After the third or fourth instance of it she started making an effort to think about other things, but eventually her concentration would slip and she'd find her thoughts going back to Lincoln again.
>'Just don't hurt anybody.' She frowned. What did he mean by that?
>Truthfully, Lucy didn't know what had even moved her to ask him what she did in the first place. Lincoln was the last person she wanted to talk about that kind of stuff with, mostly out of fear that he wouldn't agree with her feelings on it. Bad kinds of love...The morose young girl wasn't sure if there was such a thing. Sure, the average person usually hated what they didn't understand, and heaven knew that was a broad realm of subjects. But that didn't make something bad, especially not love. Love was the only thing that made life worth living. Barely. What did it matter if some stranger disagreed with the shape it took?
>That's what she thought, anyway. The little girl gave a long sigh. She didn't even know who it was she was mentally arguing with.
>"What are you so stressed about?" Lynn asked curiously, turning over in her bed to face her sister. The tomboy had been around her enough to be able to tell a worried sigh from one of her regular ones.
>Lucy blinked, still taken by surprise every now and again by how well some members of her family knew her. She reluctantly began to admit what was on her mind, knowing it was no use to claim it was personal. That would just entice her roommate to drag it out of her even more.
>"Sometimes I think that I..." The little goth started, but soon found herself chickening out. The ideas going through her mind lately just weren't something she was comfortable talking about with other people yet, not even Lynn. Lucy thought about some way to pivot towards a safer topic, but her experiences that day had left space in her mind for only one thing. Or rather, one person. "What do you think about Lincoln?" She suddenly blurted out, the best the flustered young girl could come up with to change the subject.
>"...Huh?" Lynn blinked, followed by a quiet, cautious chuckle. It was an innocent question, but something about the way her little sister had asked it set her on edge. "What do you mean? He's...great." The jock muttered tersely.
>Lucy gave another sigh and Lynn winced self-consciously, rubbing her eyes with the palm of her hand.
>"What are you really asking me, Luce?" Lynn finally moaned.
>"I mean, do you think that-" The goth grappled with her words like a nervous teenager, struggling to come up with a way to phrase things as non-objectionably as she could. "You know, if he WASN'T related to you..." She explained carefully, before taking a long pause to gather her courage. She took a deep breath and finally said it. "...Do you think he'd be the kind of boy you like?" Lucy mumbled, fighting not to hide her face in her hands as she revealed the idle but irritatingly persistent notion that had been bouncing around in her mind lately, with as much subtlety as the girl could manage in her sleep-deprived state. Like most of the younger girls, Lucy hadn't realized how much Lincoln really meant to her until he'd started becoming more and more distant, and now she was having trouble figuring out exactly what it was she felt about him. How much were you supposed to love your brother before it wasn't okay anymore? All she knew for sure was that she'd missed him so much lately it actually hurt. She'd never yearned for her sisters or even her mom and dad like that. She didn't know what to think. They were chaotic new feelings she hadn't experienced before and it was hard for someone so young to guess what they signified, especially when they were for her own big brother.
>Lynn instantly shot up from the bed, pulling in great fistfuls of her sheets as she haltingly considered the implications of Lucy's question. Her little sister had dropped her usual flowery speech; there was nothing there about mortals this or forbidden love that.
>She was serious.
>"Who did-" Lynn licked her lips, glaring wide-eyed at the goth across the room. For her part Lucy was still looking up at the ceiling, apparently either unperturbed or too distracted by her own thoughts to notice her sister's strange reaction. "Who have you been talking to?" She asked accusingly. "What are you trying to say, huh?" Lynn challenged, her voice quickly becoming animated.
>Lucy blinked, pushing herself up on her elbow to turn and look at her roommate. "What...? What do you mean?"
>Lynn's tone turned a little more shrill as she felt herself getting defensive. She glanced down at the wrinkled mess of fabric she was twisting, then suddenly tossed her blanket aside. It was getting too hot in there anyway. "Did Leni tell you that?" The tomboy suddenly asked. "I was just joking, you know! Leni just didn't get my joke. You know what she's like!" She insisted.
>"Lynn, I don't-" Her little sister began, but was interrupted when Lynn suddenly jumped off her bed, landing on their carpet with her feet set like she was getting ready for a fight.
>"Screw you!" She hissed quietly, the only reason she didn't shout being fear that someone might hear her and burst into the room to ask what the two girls were fighting about. The athlete switched gears and began lashing out, hoping it would get the focus of the conversation off her. "I don't have a crush on Lincoln! YOU have a crush on Lincoln! Everyone knows you're a total creep!"
>Lucy gasped, all her concern for her roommate evaporating as she suddenly sat up on her bed. Her brow creased into a frown, the anger in her voice slicing through her usual monotone and leaving her sounding much more like the sensitive eight year old girl she was. "I'm not a creep! Take that back!"
>Lynn smiled nastily, pleased that her tactic had worked. "'Oh Lincoln, our love is so DARK and FORBIDDEN!'" The jock began imitating her sister's speech, holding her wrist up to her forehead and pretending to swoon. The only light in the room came from the window and the half-moon hanging in the sky outside, illuminating Lynn's hurtful farce. Lucy grit her teeth.
>"Shut up!" The little goth snarled, but her fury was easily overpowered by the hurt and confusion she felt at her big sister suddenly mocking her like she was. Lynn could tell she was getting to her and took things further.
>"'Oh, I just love you SO MUCH, big brother!" She pressed on spitefully. "Those stupid mortals would never understand! Won't you kiss me? Won't you press your palm over my...'" The athlete struggled to recall the exact phrase used in one of Lucy's novels, having swiped one from the few she hid underneath her bed once upon a time to see what all the fuss was about. "...'Aching bosom?'" She finally remembered, this time running her hands over her chest to accentuate her words.
>"I SAID SHUT UP!" Lucy suddenly screeched, picking up one of the books from their nightstand and hurling it at her. It bounced off the side of Lynn's head right around the time she was pretending to kiss Lincoln. To her surprise the jock had actually been getting a bit of a thrill out of the play-acting, for a second even forgetting she was only doing it to torment her sister, but the pain from the corner of the heavy tome striking her temple brought her crashing right back to earth.
>"Ow!" She shouted, bringing a hand up against where Lucy's improvised projectile had hit her. "What the heck is your problem!?"
>The goth almost barked in disbelief. "What's MY problem!?"
>"Yeah!" Lynn replied, holding her hand up to the moonlight to make sure there wasn't any blood. "I was just kidding!" The athlete shook her head, grimacing. "The only reason you got so mad is because you know it's true..."
>"No it's not!" Lucy fired back instantly, half-wanting to jump out of bed herself.
>"It totally is." Lynn smirked. "My little sister is a pervert. You totally want to make out with Lincoln."
>"I'm not! You're the pervert!" The goth countered clumsily, rattled, a furious blush coloring her angry features.
>"Yeah, yeah..." Lynn shrugged, acting as though her roommate's words didn't bother her, though secretly she stewed at the accusation. She grabbed her pillow and pulled her blanket off her bed, throwing it over her shoulder. "I'm going to go bunk with Lincoln tonight. I don't want to sleep in the same room as you; next thing I know you'll want to make out with ME." She continued to needle her. "You know we're related, right?"
>"Why won't you just be quiet!?" Lucy hissed, trying to sound angry, but tears were beginning to well at the corners of her eyes. The words, intended to come out as a roar, were instead a pitiful whine. She shook her head, placing her hands over her ears to try and block out Lynn's taunts. Despite her dour demeanor, Lucy was more delicate than most people gave her credit for. She couldn't stand being bullied, especially not by the people she loved, and most especially not about something she was already very anxious about even without being made fun of for it.
>"Whatever. I'm gonna go tell Lincoln all about it and we're going to laugh about what a creep you are." Lynn lied vindictively, attempting to upset Lucy further when she felt the quickly-forming bruise on her temple begin to throb. She had to fight not to grimace at the pain. She didn't want to give her little sister the satisfaction.
>"Don't!" Lucy demanded miserably. She jumped off her bed, as though she was thinking of trying to stop Lynn by force, but her roommate just stared her down. She couldn't bring herself to go any further; the goth knew she didn't stand a chance against her sister in a fight.
>"Goodnight, Lucy." Lynn finally declared, once she was confident that she wasn't going to try anything. Lynn opened their door and stepped outside, shutting it behind her roughly but quietly enough not to wake any of their siblings. The sentiment, in any case, was clear.
>Lucy just stared at the wall. The tears of hurt and anger she'd been holding back finally started flowing down her cheeks as she began to sob. She almost let herself sink hopelessly to the floor, heartbroken and furious, but then, suddenly, the image of her brother's face flashed into her mind. She imagined the look of disgust that he'd have once Lynn starting lying to him about her, and she discovered that the idea of him making that face, and she being the reason for it, scared the girl far, far more than anything else her sister could do. She couldn't let Lincoln have a reason to look at her like that. She just couldn't.
>Lucy's jaw set and her upper lip slowly stopped trembling. She wouldn't simply roll over this time. Not with this. The little girl wiped her eyes, giving a quiet hiccup, and turned to look at their room's ever-open air vent. It was her favorite place to retreat into when she wanted to be alone, but that wasn't all it was good for: it also connected all of the siblings' rooms together. The vents could take you anywhere in the house if you knew how to navigate them. She quickly crouched down and crawled inside in desperate hopes of beating her roommate to their brother.

>The athlete hummed to herself as she walked down the hall. Secretly, she was sort of happy she'd been able to find an excuse to have a sleepover with Lincoln. Lucy had been getting on her nerves lately anyway, she thought grumpily, rubbing the bruise on her head with a quiet hiss. And besides, the goth had been way out of line making fun of her like that...
>Lynn was sure Lincoln wouldn't mind, at least. He was always up to clearing a spot on his bed whenever any of his siblings had a fight, which wasn't too unusual in a crowded house where half the girls were in the throes of puberty. Honestly, they had been due anyway. It'd be good to take a break from each other so both of them could cool off.
>The young girl dragged her blanket and pillow through the corridor, finally making it to her brother's bedroom. She reached up to knock and call out to ask whether he was awake when the strange sounds emerging from inside finally caught her attention.
>Lynn stood stock still, at first simply trying to figure out what it was she was hearing. There was some kind of creaking, and heavy breathing, and a bunch of moaning and groaning going on behind that. Some of it sort of sounded like Lincoln. She leaned in closer.
>Was her brother alright, she suddenly wondered with a start. Her hand shot out to grab the doorknob and see what was going on, but a sudden flash of...something...kept the girl from turning it. Her instincts were begging her to walk away, the timbre and rhythm of the sounds for some reason making her feel incredibly uneasy.
>As her head swam from the strangely conflicting impulses, the physical sensation of the cool brass orb against her palm was mostly what kept her from drifting off into a reverie. The noises on the other end didn't stop.
>The little girl bent over and pressed her ear against the wooden door, trying one final time to guess what it was she was listening to, but finally looked down at the handle again.
>She had to open it, she reassured herself. Her brother could be hurt in there. What kind of sister was she if she didn't check and make sure he was alright?
>"Lincoln?" She whispered, low enough that she was sure there was no way he could have heard her and thus not giving him a real chance to answer. With that done and so satisfied that she technically wasn't violating his privacy, she finally turned the knob and, ever so slowly, pushed the door open. Lynn leaned in and pressed her eye over the crack she'd created with troubled anticipation.
>The little girl instantly froze. Lynn's pupils shrunk, almost as if attempting instinctively to shield her from the sight in front of her, while her mind fought to process what she was seeing.

>Her brother laid atop his bed. He was naked and sweaty, one of his arms thrown over his face. Heavy breaths made the little boy's chest rise and fall violently as he seemed to heave with effort, gasping to get air into his lungs while his body squirmed helplessly against the mattress.
>Above her little brother, straddling him, was Lori. As Lynn's mind reflexively searched for any small detail it could use to distract her from what was going on, the young girl noted distantly that the only piece of clothing her big sister was still technically wearing were her panties; they currently dangled from one of her ankles. The perspiration on the blonde's body almost made her seem like she was glowing when the droplets of sweat caught the moonlight filtering in through the window above the two, which just made the scene look and feel even less real. Was Lynn dreaming? Her big sister, with one leg on either side of the boy beneath her, propped herself up on her knees. She kept from falling over by steadying her hands over her brother's bare chest while bouncing energetically.
>"Oh God, Lincoln..." She moaned, the most blissed out expression she had ever seen on the normally stern teenage girl pasted over her face. Lynn's heart felt like it was pounding a mile a minute, hammering against the inside of her chest so hard she was afraid they were somehow going to hear it. She didn't know what to do.
>"Ah!" Lori hissed as she felt him press against a very particular spot inside of her when she dropped over his lap. "It's so fucking good! I love you so much..." The blonde gasped, reaching over to grab his wrist and pull his arm away from his eyes so she could look into them. She beamed down happily at her little brother. Lincoln said nothing. The ravenous, desperate young woman leaned in and captured his lips in a scorching kiss.
>Lynn felt her body burning as she stared at the debauchery taking place just a few feet away. Beyond the simple, jaw-dropping shock at what she was seeing, the spectacle of her two siblings caught in mid-passion also dredged up something else. The sounds they were making, the heat bubbling out from the crack in the door, the hot, muggy smell that felt like it was stuffing up her nose and making the breath hitch in her chest...It all mixed together in Lynn's frightened, hormonal brain to trigger something deep, almost instinctual within the tomboy. Her young, well-exercised body had always felt the lash of puberty more sharply than most, and it shouldn't have to be said that like any girl her age it keyed up instinctively at the sights and sounds of sex. Her senses seemed to sharpen and turn hyper-focused on the scene in front of her until it was all she could see, all she could hear, all her mind had space for. It was as though she'd been reduced to an eye. An eye and a heartbeat.
>The athlete was struck dumb, all her higher reasoning overwhelmed by the magnitude of what she'd stumbled upon, but she simply couldn't look away. All that was left of the girl at that moment were hormones, instinct and, ultimately, a budding teenager's sexual curiosity.
>Lynn felt her tongue rub idly over her teeth as she watched Lori pull back from her kiss and smirk, playfully nibbling on Lincoln's bottom lip. The little boy moaned as his sister bent over and kissed him again, this time angling her head so she could get her tongue as deep down his throat as she could. The athlete's hand trembled and she gave a quiet but very hard swallow as it began to drift over her tummy. She could feel the butterflies fluttering around inside as she kept watching, unblinking, while her siblings indulged in each other's bodies.

>The tomboy couldn't say how long she sat there or for how much of the night it went on. She kneeled in front of the door until her knees hurt, until the bristles of the carpet were imprinted on the bare skin of her legs, but she didn't once look away. Not for a second. From her spot huddled in front of her little brother's door, she was witness to innumerable acts she'd had only the barest concepts of before that night.
>Lincoln remained mostly still throughout, but Lori was unfailingly voracious, always the one that pushed things further and dragged their little brother into some exotic new position that left them both panting and moaning and fighting not to cum. Lynn had never thought of Lori as anything other than her elder sister and, when it came right down to it, really just another one of the kids no matter how many airs she put on when she tried to boss them around, usually on the basis of being the oldest. But at that moment, the jock had no choice but to admit the truth. As she squirmed languidly atop Lincoln, a few drops of sweat beading on the nape of her neck and rolling down over her full, bountiful breasts, Lynn realized her big sister really was a woman in every way.
>For some reason the revelation suddenly made her feel very self-conscious about her own much less developed curves. It dawned on her that, compared to Lori, she practically looked like a boy. The jock grit her teeth, her deep teenage insecurities flaring up automatically even in the face of something as demented as the scene she was witness to, anger and shame mixing with the horror and inexplicable feeling of betrayal to create a heady cocktail of emotions that left her almost nauseous.
>Lori was beautiful. No way around it. From a certain perspective, it was hard to blame Lincoln for doing this kind of stuff with her...
>The sudden start Lynn got when she realized she was already hard at work rationalizing what was going on made her nausea worse. The girl shook her head, rubbing her legs together unconsciously and leaning in closer for a better look as she held her breath.
>After what seemed like hours of thrusting and grinding her little brother finally arched his back and groaned, and the jock nearly gave her presence away with a surprised gasp. She quickly clamped her hand over her mouth and watched, entranced, as Lori squealed while the boy she straddled squirted spoonfuls of his cum into her, until it was running back out from between her legs and over his pelvis, matting the sparse white hair he had down there with silvery strings of his sperm.
>The little girl tried to think of what to do as the two finally seemed to slow down to try and catch their breath from their endless lovemaking. Her eldest sister, for her part, looked quite pleased with herself, fingertips drifting down over her flat stomach as she grinned at the boy beneath her.

>Lynn's shaking hands came to rest on the the floor so she could push herself up and leave before being discovered, certain that it was finally over. The words she heard next, however, almost knocked her down to her knees all over again.
>"I'm so glad Leni let me go first..."
>Lori's breathy sigh had slithered out from beneath the doorframe, and her casual, off-hand revelation felt almost like a physical thing, like it was vining up Lynn's legs and body and wrapping around her throat. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't move.
>The girl stood there for a long time, frozen, unfeeling, trying to process what her big sister had just said. Long enough for the squeaking of bedsprings to finally start up again behind her as the lovers got their second wind. Lori began bouncing on their brother's lap once more and Lincoln gave a muffled moan, his body rising up to meet hers. His voice sounded exhausted, but if he complained about Lori trying for seconds, Lynn didn't hear it.
>At that point, in any case, she had seen enough, and even the additional discovery of who else Lincoln was sharing his bed with couldn't root her in place any longer. The tomboy struggled to come to grips with what she'd just been witness to as she staggered away from the crack in the door, walking back to her room in a stupor while sensation slowly returned to her legs.

>As the overwhelmed young woman stumbled into her bed she pulled the sheets she was dragging back over her body, hoping they'd thaw the ice that felt as if it was flowing through her veins. When her head came to rest on her pillow, she took a deep, unsteady breath.
>Lynn laid there motionless for some time. The only sound in the room was her quiet, nervous breathing. The young athlete stared up at the ceiling. Even submerged in a silence that now felt almost cloying and claustrophobic, she could still somehow hear Lori telling Lincoln she loved him. It was like an echo in her brain, one that wouldn't stop. She fought to slip into sleep as the words, and their meaning, haunted her.
>She was too preoccupied to notice her little sister wasn't in their room anymore.

---

>Lincoln slowly began to stir from his shallow rest, eyelids just barely flitting open enough that the dream he was having melted way as his dimly lit room slowly came into focus. Any details he might have remembered about it tumbled smoothly out of his grasp like grains of sand between his fingers, the young boy making no effort to hang on to them. The cold sweat he'd awoken in let him know it hadn't been a pleasant one anyway. They usually weren't lately.
>The boy groggily judged it to be about five or six AM, his haphazard guess based solely on the faint, dull light filtering in past his drapes. He glanced outside the window. The moon had disappeared but the sun had yet to come up. The world was drenched in the dark, desaturated blue of early morning.
>Lincoln gave a hard, painful swallow. His throat was dry. He always woke up very thirsty after a night with Lori. She used to go about her evening visits more quickly, more efficiently, but after the first time her parents had left her in charge overnight the blonde had discovered how much she enjoyed taking it slow and, in her words, 'doing things right'. Lincoln's gaze flicked down at the sensation of lace on his skin to discover her panties placed carefully on the center of his chest. He shut his eyes again and flinched.
>His big sister had gotten more and more careless, more and more indiscreet, once she'd discovered how far he would go to keep what she was doing to him from being discovered. It was a new power she realized she held over him. Where once she had been even more careful than he was to hide their trysts, working just as hard to conceal any evidence that might give them away, now it almost seemed like she WANTED to be found out. It had become a sort of game to her, to see how far she could push things before he said anything, dared to complain. Lincoln was certain it was eventually going to escalate.
>His chest tightened enough he almost couldn't breathe from the dread he felt at the sudden thought of her taking her teasing out of his bedroom, out into the rest of the house. The boy tried to calm down, telling himself that Lori was smarter than that, but recently it had started to seem like she wasn't afraid of anything anymore. As if something had convinced her of her own invincibility, her own blamelessness. Lori had pivoted yet again, as she first had from sibling love to what they shared now, and was moving towards some awful new purpose he still didn't understand.
>She seemed to derive satisfaction from seeing him panic, got a naughty rush at watching the little boy try to come up with some excuse for the bags under his eyes or the 'funny smell' Lola insisted was emanating from him the mornings they were all in line for the shower after a particularly vigorous night of sex.
>Lincoln couldn't help but wonder, despite his best efforts not to dwell on it, how things would change now that she'd pulled Leni into her game. Lori claimed 'dibs' on him the night before, insisting it was her right as the oldest, but had assured her pouting little sister that she could have him again soon. That she'd...be there next time.
>'To show her what really felt good,' she'd said. The sudden urge to escape surged up again, wild and undeniable, and he threw his legs off the side of the mattress in an effort to appease it.
>Lincoln pulled himself out of bed with a muffled groan, brushing his sister's underwear off his chest as his body gave a sudden spasm of discomfort. She must have spent the night with him after he finally drifted off, the boy realized distantly. Lori usually clutched him to her chest at a weird angle when she did and he'd always end up waking up with a kink in his back from it. He stared down grumpily at the panties on the floor before kicking them under the bed with his foot.
>It was an empty gesture, Lincoln knew. His fear would get the better of him eventually; he'd seek them out to sneak into her laundry once he'd woken up some more and the full consequences of someone discovering them laying there sunk in.
>He was at least thankful that, as usual, his fitful sleep gave him the uncontested run of the family's shared bathroom, it being an hour or two before even the earliest riser among his siblings would wake up. Just the thought of having to brave the long, noisy line that typically lead to it, in the state he was in now, made his head swim. Lincoln stalked out of his bedroom and through the hallway, pushing open the door to the bathroom carefully and using both hands to ease it shut behind him so the rickety old hinges wouldn't make any noise. He stood still, pricking his ears to listen in case anyone had stirred, before finally turning back and walking towards the sink.

>The little boy opened both taps and brought his face sideways down to the faucet, taking long, noisy gulps. The taste of the water was unpleasantly metallic, but it was cold enough to ease the burning at the pit of his stomach and moistened his raw throat, and that was good enough. After finally drinking his fill he pulled away, picking up his brush and the communal sibling tube of toothpaste to squeeze a line of it on the bristles.
>Lincoln always made sure to work quickly, his early morning routine carefully timed. He hated to see or speak to anyone when he'd just woken up, and he knew the longer he was in there the bigger the chances of one of his siblings knocking on the door so they could use the toilet. He rapidly began brushing his teeth and tongue, stopping only when he caught sight of himself in the mirror and suddenly noticed the dark purple blemish on his skin sitting right where his neck met his shoulder. He squinted his eyes in surprise before grimacing; his mind still sluggish, it took a moment for him to realize Lori had left a hickey on him the night before for him to discover. The boy's knuckles tightened over the toothbrush angrily, his free hand pulling the pajama top closer over his collar in an instinctive attempt to hide it, before he pulled his shirt off entirely and kicked off his pants, stepping into the tub. His hand pressed over the mark bitterly as he lingered beneath the showerhead, as though he could push it back under his skin where no one could see it. He tried to convince himself it would fade over the course of the day. That no one would notice. He finally reached out to turn the shower handle.
>Lincoln didn't wait for the boiler to warm up, his fingers soon tangling in his hair in a ploy to get the dollop of shampoo he'd squirted on his head to work even a second quicker as he stood under the torrent of ice water. The soap was dragged across his body like he was trying to scrape the filth off a car window. Speed was always the most important thing. Fast, fast, fast. No dawdling, don't leave any openings, don't stumble. The frantic pace he made sure to maintain meant that ten minutes later he was already out and back in his room getting dressed, the towel he'd wrapped himself in hardly having enough time to get soggy before he threw it back off.
>He still wasn't safe, he knew. Not while he was still in the house. Here, too, Lincoln worked quickly. The first thing he looked for were his socks and underwear, and after that his pants and a shirt. The little boy threw his clothes on as quickly as possible so the smell of sex, which still permeated the small converted linen closet, wouldn't start clinging to his skin again. He climbed up on his bed to push open the window and air his room out, then clambered back down to slip his shoes on, squashing the backs down with his heels. He could pull them on all the way once he was safely outside.
>The little boy tiptoed his way down the stairs as quietly as he could, his hand gripping his housekeys tightly so they wouldn't jingle from being jostled on the way. At last he reached the base of the stairs and stretched his hand out for the coat he hung next to their front door, relief flooding through him at the prospect of spending the next few hours alone.

>"Good morning, Lincoln." A voice called out from behind him. He froze. His hand gripped the sleeve a little tighter, almost enough to tear the worn fabric, before he gathered his courage and slowly turned to face the source.
>His sister Lucy sat in the middle of the couch, her knees pulled up to her chest. The boy sighed with relief.
>She was still in her pajamas. The sound of the shower had probably woken her up, Lincoln figured. Her sleep was always a little more delicate than the rest of the family's. He couldn't help but notice how her hair was a bit disheveled. His brotherly instincts led him to sense she hadn't gotten a good night's rest.
>"Hey Lucy," He smiled weakly, the well-worn mask of congeniality he used for his loved ones immediately jumping to his face. "I'm sorry if I woke you. I was just trying to beat the morning bathroom rush. You know how it gets." The excuses came out of his mouth without him even having to think about them. Lincoln's recent ordeals had devastated almost every aspect of his being, but there was one part of him that had only gotten sharper: his ability to lie.
>The little girl said nothing, instead just staring at him from beneath those dark bangs of hers. As usual, Lucy's expression didn't give anything way. He met her gaze for a moment, but his instincts screamed at him to leave before he ran into anybody else, and he found himself slipping on his coat and scarf even under the normally overwhelming pressure of her wordless stare.
>"I thought you were going to try and be home more often." The goth finally mumbled, and Lincoln gave a small start as he remembered his promise from the day before.
>One day. One night. That's all he had managed to get through before needing to run away again.
>He shut his eyes and gave a quiet hiss. "It's...kind of complicated, Lucy." Lincoln offered lamely, the best he could come up with when placed on the spot like that. He opened his eyes again, hoping futilely she'd let it slide, but her expression hadn't changed. The boy shook his head, defeated. "...I'll be back a little earlier today. I promise." He finally conceded.
>Again Lucy said nothing, but after a while she finally stood up from the couch and walked to him. He squirmed in place at her approach which his threadbare mind could only interpret as menacing; in his less rational moments Lincoln occasionally feared the sullen little girl would be able to simply sniff out the truth somehow, drag it from him, her inscrutability more unnerving to the boy some times than others.
>Lincoln blinked as his sister simply reached out and wordlessly took his scarf in her hands. He quickly realized the air of ominousness she'd been carrying had all been a product of his frayed nerves. The girl stood still for a moment, hesitating with the tail as she cast her eyes down at the floor, but before he could ask her what was wrong she seemed to find her resolve. She tucked the loose end down into his collar to help bottle in the warmth, then let her hands dwell over his chest.
>"Lincoln." She finally sighed, "Can I...ask you something?" Lucy murmured quietly.
>"S-sure, Luce." He answered, thrown a little offbalance by how unusually tentative she was being. He was a lot more used to his sisters just grabbing him whenever they wanted something from him, like they were shaking coins out of a piggybank.
>She licked her lips, obviously thinking carefully about her next words, but after a long while simply shook her head.
>"...Just come see me, okay? This afternoon." Lucy finally gave up fighting against whatever it was she was struggling with, offering her big brother only those words as a compromise with herself.
>"That's it?" Lincoln asked curiously, noticing that her hands still hadn't left his chest.
>"Yeah." She nodded firmly. "This afternoon. At five. There's something I need to talk to you about."
>She then mouthed something unsurely but didn't actually speak, as though expecting him to interrupt her the moment she made a sound. When he didn't she hesitated for a second, apparently gathering her nerve, then suddenly gave a small start. Her fingers dug into his coat with just a bit of desperation as she tried to reveal something quickly before her cowardice caught up to her again. "I kept having these really weird thoughts, you know? I was afraid you'd be grossed out, that you'd hate me for them. Or that you'd be scared of me. I know everyone already thinks I'm weird." Lucy admitted to what she believed her family really felt about her. She took a hurried, hopeful breath and continued before Lincoln could interrupt her to assure her that wasn't true, like she was certain he was going to. "But you wouldn't, right? I mean, if that were true then why-" The young girl began babbling in her excitement, her words mixing together unintelligibly like they were racing each other to get out of her mouth first.
>"Slow down, Luce." Lincoln finally cut in, surprised. "I can't understand you." The goth seemed to realize the spectacle she was making of herself and stiffened. "...Do you wanna start over?" He offered gingerly, but after a moment where she seemed to consider it she just smiled sadly, shaking her head again.
>"Five o' clock." Lucy finally repeated, sounding a bit defeated. "We'll talk this afternoon."
>"...Alright, Lucy." The little boy agreed, too grateful for the chance to escape his home to think carefully about what it was she was saying or why she seemed to be so flustered. It wouldn't have been the sort of thing he would have treated lightly before, but at the moment the need to be anywhere else was too overpowering.
>"Please don't forget." She suddenly added as Lincoln began to turn away from her, sounding quite a bit more fragile than the first time she'd asked. Or maybe he was only just noticing it now that he'd had a bit more time to pull himself together. She stopped staring at the floor long enough to look up at him and tuck one of her bangs behind her ear, once again revealing those beautiful blue eyes as she stared into his face. He couldn't help but notice the dark rings under them. He was right; she hadn't slept. "You won't forget, will you?"
>The words caught in his throat before he could answer her. Lincoln shook his head, still too rattled to carry himself as naturally as he could have if he'd just had a little time to gather his thoughts before meeting one of his sisters. "I promise I won't forget, Lucy." He nodded once. "Don't worry."
>She stared up at him and the corners of her lips rose into a small, achingly frail smile, and between that and getting another rare look at her eyes his little sister was almost pretty enough to take his breath away. Lincoln found himself restored somewhat, to his surprise, by the sight of her face. Restored enough that he could give her an honest grin, leaning forward to press his forehead against hers playfully. The little goth immediately blushed, pulling away to hide by pressing her face into his chest.
>"...Okay." She finally answered, and he could feel her smiling against his coat. He rubbed her back a bit, to his surprise only very slightly discomforted by the feeling of her unusually warm skin radiating through her thin sleeping t-shirt, before finally turning away. The girl didn't follow. "See you later, big brother." She called after him.
>Lincoln hesitated at the way she'd said it, almost turning back to look at her and ask what was on her mind after all, but instead he just kept on walking. He paused next to the sports cabinet beside the stairs, noticing the bright orange basketball Lynn had dumped into it the day before. Lincoln reached inside carefully and pulled it out, tucking it under his arm. The little boy spared another curious glance at the goth before opening the door, as though to give her one last chance, but she said nothing.
>"Listen, Lucy," He finally offered gently, his hand fiddling with the doorknob. "I didn't really get most of what you were talking about, but just so you know, I could never hate you." Lincoln gave her a tight lipped but genuine smile.
>"You're my little sister." He reminded her brightly.
>The boy turned away, stepping out into the early morning Michigan freeze. Lucy watched him go. Behind her back, her thin, pale fingers twisted the hem of her nightshirt hard enough to ache.

---

>As the hours passed the rest of the family slowly stirred too, the quiet serenity of dawn quickly replaced by the characteristic din of the Loud house at early morning.
>Lynn blinked blearily as the rising sun blazed down over her face through their room's window, unsure of when exactly she'd dozed off.
>It seemed to her like she had spent entire hours thinking about what she'd witnessed. Maybe the whole night. At the time she had been so certain that she'd never be able to relax again after what she'd seen, let alone go to sleep. And yet at some point her physical and mental exhaustion must have finally gotten the better of her.
>Now that the jock was sparking awake again she could feel the shocking memories tumbling around inside her belly once more, getting more and more uncomfortable the more lucid she became, equal parts excitement and dread. The girl had been desperately struggling to understand her own heart lately even before she'd spied through the crack in Lincoln's door. Now? It was like she didn't know which way was up. Lynn couldn't bear to sit still one second longer. Being alone with her own thoughts the entire night had been pure torture, and she had no desire repeat the experience that morning.
>The athlete hopped up to her feet as she impulsively came to a decision with her characteristic lack of care or caution, then nearly tripped on them as the lack of rest took its toll on her balance. Lynn threw out her hands to steady herself with the dresser and tried to get the room to stop spinning. The dizziness from her lack of proper rest was the only thing keeping the girl from running off at that moment. There was only one notion bouncing around in her head, only one idea that her mind had any space for.
>Lincoln. She had to talk to Lincoln. She'd wrestled with her feelings about what she'd stumbled upon all evening, played back what she'd seen so long and carefully that it felt like it had left permanent shadows of the act scorched into her mind, but after hours of thinking about it the only conclusion she'd been able to reach was that she needed to talk to her little brother. It wasn't a solution, it wasn't even really a plan, but she couldn't shake the persistent idea she had that if she could just see him maybe she'd be able to understand her own feelings about everything a bit better.
>The tomboy struggled to rub the sleep out of her eyes as she found her footing again, by chance casting a glance at Lucy's bed. A sharp pang of guilt bit through her as she remembered how she'd treated her sister the night before. She'd been so awful, and all just in a cheap bid to spend the night with her brother without the goth asking too many questions. Lynn released a tense, awkward hiss through her teeth. She knew she owed her an apology. It looked like it would have to wait for later.
>When the young girl finally felt like she could start walking again without risking falling over, she pulled open the door to their room and stepped outside. The upstairs hallway was the usual maelstrom of activity that it tended to be at that hour, with half the family crowded outside the bathroom waiting for their turn. The girl took a couple of steps forward and then yawned despite herself, the way her eyes instinctively shut nearly causing her to bump into Lola at the back of the line.
>"Hey, watch it!" The bratty little princess barked as Lynn only barely managed to stop herself from tripping over her.
>"Sorry, Lols." She apologized quickly, too tired and preoccupied to argue. The tomboy straightened up, smacking her lips and taking a hard inhale of the cold morning air to try and get some of her wits about her. She clumsily thought to work towards the objective that had gotten her out of bed in the first place. "Hey, have you seen Lincoln?"
>"What's it to ya'? Lola replied cattily, clearly still miffed about the seating arrangement the night before. Lynn groaned.
>"Come on, don't be that way. I had a rough night." The jock complained. Her little sister gave a dismissive 'hmph!' , but eventually relented, having little choice once she noticed how depleted and raw Lynn's voice sounded.
>"I haven't seen him yet. With how he's been acting lately, he probably already left." Her tone was aloof, but behind the front she was putting up Lynn could detect that the pageant queen's words carried a note of hurt. The tomboy grimaced.
>"You're probably right," She admitted. Lincoln had promised them he wasn't going to do that anymore, but Lynn had extracted that promise from him before she'd found out what he was up to at night. She wasn't quite sure if she could trust what he said anymore, not after what he'd already failed to share with her. "I'll...go see if I can bring him back, okay?"
>"I'm not expecting any miracles." Lola muttered beneath her breath, checking her fingernails imperiously as though she didn't care. "...Then again, you and Lucy ARE his favorites." She finally tacked on sullenly.
>Lucy, Lynn suddenly remembered. She still needed to apologize to her.
>"It's not like that, Lols." The athlete found herself assuring her little sister, but couldn't keep the excitement from seeping into her voice at the possibility of it being true.
>God, she really was a mess. The lack of sleep was definitely doing a number on her already poor impulse control.
>"Yeah, yeah..." Lola waved her off, turning away to face her sleepy twin's back in the line to the bathroom. "Well if you DO see him, tell him I get to sit next to him tonight."
>"I will, sis." Lynn smiled. She playfully mussed up the blonde's roller-adorned mane from behind while Lola wasn't looking, sparking an immediate outcry from the spoiled little princess and a vow that she was going to tell their mom on her, all while Lynn scurried back to her room to fish her toothbrush out of the mug she kept on her nightstand and raced downstairs to wash up in the kitchen sink.
>Upon descending the last step, however, she froze upon noticing Lucy sitting on their couch in front of the television.

>As usual, the goth had set the volume low enough that whatever show she was watching couldn't hope to compete with the racket that reverberated through the house. But that was Lucy, Lynn thought with a guilty smile. She hated to bother anyone.
>"H-Hey, Luce." Lynn announced herself carefully, still unsure how her roommate would react to her. She doubted she'd blow up or anything, that wasn't really Lucy's style, but it never hurt to play it safe. "Watchin', uhh...Watchin' some TV?" The jock offered lamely.
>Her sister didn't answer, in fact not even turning to look at her. All she did was reach out with the remote to increase the volume by a couple of bars. Lynn sighed. She was obviously still upset.
>"Listen, Lucy...About that stuff I said the other night..." Lynn grimaced as she fought to get the words out. Fessing up when she did something wrong had never been easy for her. "...I'm sorry, okay?" She finally hissed through clenched teeth. "I was being stupid." Shortly after admitting to her mistake the tension drained from her taut shoulders and the tomboy couldn't help but take a heavy, miserable breath, running her fingers through her chestnut brown bangs. "You're not weird."
>Lynn licked her lips pensively. For some reason, she'd always found it easy to confide in her spooky little sister. Maybe because it was a bit like talking to a brick wall, what with how she seldom ever managed to surprise her. Or how, because of her long bangs, she never had to see her eyes. Even now, with the goth still mad and clearly in no mood to humor her, Lynn couldn't help how her apology suddenly turned into a confession, so accustomed was she to being just a bit more honest with her than she was with her other siblings.
>"I'M weird." She admitted quietly. When that failed to draw any response from her roommate, the jock gave another tired sigh. "The only reason I was saying all that stuff is-" She hesitated, then shook her head as she realized how close she'd just come to saying something crazy. "Look," she declared, "I just want you to know that I know you don't think about Lincoln that way. That's all." She offered as an olive branch. Lucy continued her silent treatment, but her posture shifted at her sister's words, turning to face her just the tiniest bit.
>"I was just being stupid." Lynn repeated apologetically, realizing Lucy intended to extract her full pound of flesh. "The only reason I even had the idea is that, well..." She took a deep breath. "Sometimes I feel like Lincoln is the only boy that pays any attention to me. That cares about me." She grinded her toe on the carpet self-consciously before realization dawned on her and she corrected herself. "I mean besides dad, obviously. But that's different." Was it, she wondered? They were still family either way. Although her perception on just what family was had been badly shaken by what she'd witnessed the night before. What was it exactly that she got from Lincoln, in any case? The feelings he gave her that she didn't get from anyone else? The tomboy gave a frustrated sigh as she wrestled with her emotions. She really needed to talk to him.
>"I mean, I know YOU don't get lonely." She suddenly spat with a surprising amount of venom, the goth recoiling, before Lynn caught herself. She gave Lucy another guilty look as she hurried to apologize. Her sleep-deprived state had left her emotions raw and very near the surface of her skin. She reminded herself she still had a lot to make up to her roommate to already be picking a fight again. The little girl pulled her knees in closer to her chest and shifted just a bit further away from her, causing Lynn to panic. "I'm sorry!" Lynn insisted desperately. "I'm sorry, okay? It's just...I DO get lonely. I know I act like I don't, but I do. It's nice to have someone care, you know?" She sighed. "Really care, like Lincoln does. Heck, that doofus doesn't know the first thing about sports, but he'll still fake it just so I can have somebody to talk to. And he'll practice with me even though I always put him through the wringer." Without even realizing it, Lynn started gushing about her little brother. "He's always making sure I eat right, making sure I'm not hurt...Nobody else worries about me like that."
>The jock smiled privately to herself as she sang Lincoln's praises, remembering the most recent thoughtful thing he'd done for her. She had desperately needed a buddy to help her sharpen up for her football team's season opener, so Lincoln had filled in as her training partner for almost three hours even though he wasn't on any teams and had come home that day with a new comic book he had been looking forward to reading. She'd hardly even had to try very hard to convince him. He just did stuff like that for them whenever they needed him. Thinking about it always gave her a feeling of warmth in her chest and made her lips curl up like she'd just tasted something sweet. He was their wonderful, devoted brother. The instinct to monopolize him was something all of them had to struggle against for the sake of the rest, not that they'd ever tell Lincoln that.
>Lynn had put off processing her actual feelings for a long time, content merely with what she already had, but after last night it didn't feel like she had that choice anymore. The sisters were always in competition for the things that made them happy, and she supposed it was inevitable that eventually that would extend to Lincoln as well. Lynn studied her roommate's expression for any kind of reaction, but her words had apparently sent the goth reminiscing fondly herself on the last time Lincoln had spent time like that with her.
>Her own situation had been similar, but different. A poetry jam she was stressed about, endless stanzas bounced off a boy certain to have better things to do, but never any complaints. Lucy smiled to herself at the memory. He really did always put them first. There were times they didn't even have to ask; she still remembered how Lincoln had allowed himself to be subjected to ridicule just to protect her from her sisters' jibes when her princess pony book had been discovered. Her big brother looked after her.
>Lynn sighed, finally resolving to cop to what mortified her the most. She cast a glance at the stairwell to make sure no one was coming down, a gesture that didn't fail to catch Lucy's interest.
>"I guess that eventually I...I mean, maybe I..." Lynn hesitated, her tongue tripping over the awkward and thorny confession, before the realization of what she was intending to do suddenly caught up to her in a single electrifying jolt.
>She had just nearly admitted to her little sister that she might have a crush on their brother.
>What was she thinking? No matter how understanding Lucy was, no matter what Lynn had seen last night, everything was still just too strange. SHE was too strange. Maybe they all were. Lynn shook her head, pinching her wrist hard beneath her sleeve to snap herself out of it and help get it together. "Look, do you accept my apology or not!?" She finally demanded, crossing her arms and huffing testily as she turned away, at that point not really caring whether Lucy did or didn't.
>"I do." The jock jumped in surprise at the even, monotone voice behind her, turning back to stare. Lucy's face was still as mysterious and inscrutable as ever.
>"O-oh." Lynn replied, deflating a little as her sister took the wind out of her righteous indignation. Her shoulders slackened and her arms fell back loosely to her sides. "W-well, thanks, Luce. I really appreciate it."
>There was silence between the two for a while, Lucy staring at Lynn's face impassively, before the athlete turned and awkwardly began making her way towards the sink.
>"Just so you know, I get lonely too." The goth declared, Lynn freezing beneath the threshold that separated the kitchen from the living room. Lucy hopped off the couch, pushing the power button on the remote as she headed towards the stairs. Lynn didn't turn to look at her. "You're not the only one Lincoln takes care of."

>Lynn listened to the soft patter of Lucy's footsteps disappearing up the stairs, thinking on her statement, before releasing the breath she'd been holding with a heavy shudder. Guilt over the way she'd behaved gave one last lurch at the pit of her stomach. She shook her head and proceeded into the kitchen, opening one of the cupboards and fishing around behind the fancy Malcolm and Welles' Fruit Keg Tapping kit stored inside.
>Their father had purchased the curious device on the spur of the moment when he'd watched the infomercial on TV a few years ago. The one that featured a handsome middle-aged man with a full head of hair easily strapping the complicated baby-backpack looking contraption on a ripe watermelon, turning on the tap and dispensing juice for his excited, grateful family.
>Rita had protested that it was a pointless purchase that would never see use, but Lynn Sr. had insisted that from now on the Louds would be able to have fresh, tasty watermelon juice whenever they wanted, even promising how he'd make sure to get it out least once a week.
>Now here it sat, shoved into one of the dustier corners of the kitchen, having only ever been used maybe three or four times. Lynn Sr. had grappled with it as best he could, but the tap had turned out to be much more difficult to operate than advertised, and the constant exotic fruit shopping a real hassle. He'd dutifully forced himself to use it it the first couple of weeks, then quietly stowed it away in a seldom-visited cupboard, hoping his wife would have the grace not to remind him that she'd told him so. Rita was happy to keep that fact to herself, simply grateful that she wouldn't have to contend with any more dismembered, ruined watermelons festooning the walls of her kitchen while she tried to clean up after breakfast.
>The shameful item neither parent wanted anything to do with was the perfect place to hide the spare tube of toothpaste the kids used whenever they didn't feel like waiting for traffic to let up in the upstairs bathroom or were otherwise in a hurry. Mom and dad didn't like them brushing their teeth in the kitchen sink, but they could get away with it if they were quick enough, especially on the weekends when the two of them, exhausted by their children's constant shenanigans, liked to sleep in late.
>Lynn pushed the toothbrush into her mouth and started scrubbing, sure that she had some time. With their dad in New York and thus mom having to manage all of them all by herself, there was no way she was getting up at this hour. The athlete couldn't help but let her thoughts wander as she did, the mindless, repetitive motion of the bristles lulling her into a daydream.
>She'd wanted to see Lincoln so badly, but now that she had a moment to think, she wasn't even sure what it was she intended to say to him. 'Hey bro, saw you fucking Lori the other night. Wanna talk about it?' Lynn nearly bit through the toothbrush, her teeth leaving a mark on the plastic where her jaw clenched in frustration. She just didn't understand why she couldn't be as good with words as she was at sports. As things stood, she'd trade every trophy on her shelf right now for some clue as to how she should play this. The tomboy gave another troubled sigh.
>Secretly, in spite of it all, she had to admit that she nursed a quiet hope that once she was face-to-face with Lincoln the right thing to say would simply come to her. Like in the movies. Things would just work out somehow.
>Her mind drifted to Lucy and how she'd reacted to what she'd said; her stilted, awkward admission. Lynn couldn't help but wonder if her sister had managed to suss out what it was she was really feeling despite everything. The goth was more empathetic than people gave her credit for. Lynn was at first mortified at the idea that she might have, but calmed down once she realized how cool about it she'd been if she had. Maybe all those books she'd read had helped her keep an open mind to unusual things.
>Or maybe she was just being stupidly optimistic. It felt like Lynn was barely keeping her head above water in the face of everything that was happening, and that was with her making sure to avoid seriously thinking about her feelings at all costs. She couldn't understand why she was suddenly acting so careless and dumb.
>Then there was what Lucy had said. 'You're not the only one Lincoln takes care of.' Why would she bring that up? What was that supposed to mean? The tomboy's grip on the handle tightened, suddenly feeling herself getting possessive of her little brother. That wasn't fair of her, of course, and Lucy was right: Lincoln had always looked out for all of them. It was why they loved him so much. But still, what exactly did her roommate intend by mentioning that after the conversation they'd just had? Lynn supposed it could be nothing, but after what she'd seen, she wasn't taking anything for granted anymore. At the time the tomboy had been too paranoid and self-absorbed to actually consider Lucy might have been sincere when she asked what she'd asked the night before. About what if Lincoln wasn't their brother.
>What if she had, though? And if so, then what did that mean for Lynn?
>She gave another heavy sigh after once again turning things over and over endlessly in her mind. It was pointless; she couldn't deal with this. Not alone.
>The athlete pulled the toothbrush out of her mouth and spat into the drain. She knew at least one thing for sure, and that was that she wasn't going to be able to fix anything that was going on by just standing there. Lynn had always been firmly of the opinion that solutions required action, not a bunch of belly-scratching and second guessing yourself, and that the girl found herself stalling like she was just proved how much she needed to snap out of it. She needed to stick to her original plan: find Lincoln.

>But where could she even start looking? It had been totally by chance that she'd found him the day before. Her brother liked to walk. He could be anywhere.
>Lynn left her soggy toothbrush forgotten on the kitchen counter and walked back into the living room, flopping on the couch and sighing as she let her feet hang off the edge of the armrest. She stared up at the ceiling. As the athlete squirmed on the cushions, fruitlessly wracking her brain for any idea on where to begin her search so she could get started on getting all these worries out of her head, she promptly rationalized that some light exercise would help get the blood flowing and allow her to think more effectively.
>Deep down, Lynn really just wanted to go back to something familiar that could get her mind off things. She got up off the couch and headed for the nearby cabinet where she stored her sports gear, hoping to find something she could bounce or swing or at least toss in the air and catch to help her get her thoughts in a row.
>Instead, when she opened the drawer, there was one item in particular that was conspicuous by its absence: the bright orange basketball that she remembered should have been lying right smack dab in the center of all her other equipment.
>Lynn grinned in relief as realization dawned on her. She took a moment to thank whatever twist of fortune had led her to her discovery before sprinting up the stairs to toss a few things into her backpack, suddenly knowing exactly where to find the source of all her recent stress.

---

>As she strolled through the deserted streets of their town, the tomboy forced herself to suppress an uncomfortable shudder. Seeing Royal Woods so empty and silent definitely wasn't something Lynn was used to. It wasn't as though she lacked the discipline to get up early enough for it, but her team's hockey practice had always been held in the afternoon to avoid the bitterest of the Michigan freeze. Seeing the normally bustling neighborhood so desolate felt off-putting and spooky, and though she imagined Lucy would have enjoyed it, Lynn definitely didn't. Things as simple as the dull, tinted windows of the storefronts that made it so you could hardly see inside or the looming grey buildings that pressed in from all directions; they all came off as quite a bit more sinister with no one else around.
>Between that and how overcast the day was, it definitely felt more like a hallway-hockey kind of a morning than a hockey-hockey one. The tomboy tried to shake it off and remind herself what she'd really come out for, cupping her hands over her mouth and exhaling to warm up her nose. She made the best of it by finding little things to break up the monotone of the walk. At one point, for instance, Lynn noticed a stray soda can on the corner of the street and, after making sure the straps on her pack were pulled tight, ran up to give it a swift kick. The girl listened for the clang as it sailed a good fifteen yards away, up and over a tall fence and into a parking lot. The satisfying echo of tin on concrete made her smile.
>It was a pretty cheap thrill, though, and didn't last. She gave a soft sigh as she begrudgingly continued on her way.
>At the end of the day Lynn simply preferred a crowd. She liked noise and bustle. That'd always been the sort of person she was, antsy for energy and excitement wherever she could find it. It was one of the reasons she enjoyed having such a big family. Experiencing Royal Woods at its eeriest quiet got her tense, and worse, it made sure she had nothing to distract her on her journey but her own increasingly nervous thoughts.
>The jock couldn't help but replay the events of the night before over and over in her head the entire way, trying to suss out some detail she'd missed or some clue that might help her say the right thing. It wasn't a long walk, but it was a profoundly lonely one, and despite talking to Lincoln just the day before she found herself suddenly missing her brother so much it ached. Any confidence she'd gathered from guessing where he might be quickly melted away, and at barely halfway to her destination Lynn had already started questioning her own judgement, wondering if maybe he wouldn't be there.
>Maybe he'd decided to stop by the comic book store first, waited for it to open and gotten sidetracked.
>Maybe he'd changed his mind about playing altogether and was just exploring the town, basketball tucked under his arm and forgotten.
>Maybe he was looking for a different court to avoid running into her again.
>That last, intrusive thought made her grimace, but the young girl tried not to dwell on it. Instead she picked up the pace, her walk turning first into a jog, then into a rather frantic sprint as she raced to her destination, as though the blood rushing through her chest and the wind whistling past her ears would be able to drown out her own obnoxious teenage insecurities.
>Despite Lynn's best efforts, however, she'd still ended up working herself into such a lather by the time she finally neared the park that she couldn't help but give a huge sigh of relief when she noticed the familiar orange polo off in the distance. The sight made her heart soar with happiness and she found herself forced to shake off the silly grin that spontaneously crept over her face. All of her nagging worries were easily dispelled by the appearance of the boy she'd been longing to see.
>The jock went from a frantic dash to a slow, careful stride the closer she got as she silently rehearsed everything she planned to say in her head. Lynn was proud that she'd managed to come up with what she felt were a pretty solid line of openers to start up conversation with on the long trip over before her own worries had gotten the better of her and she'd started booking it. However, as the tomboy finally made it on to the court and the feeling beneath her soles went from pliant grass to hard, unforgiving concrete, watching the back of Lincoln's head get ever closer with each step she took, she found herself once again becoming suddenly agitated until, to her horror, all the lines she'd been mentally rehearsing suddenly began to jumble together. When the time came that Lynn finally had who she'd been chasing right in front of her, her stuck throat felt dry and sticky and she couldn't even remember what her brilliant plan had been in the first place.

>"H-h-hey, Lincoln!" It was all she could come up with between the instant her prepared routine fell apart and the six much slower, much more unsure paces it took to reach him afterwards. The young girl chirped the words, trying to sound casual yet excited, as though she'd only run into him by coincidence, but winced when she heard her voice crack. The tomboy shut her eyes, now totally mortified, and hissed quietly as her little brother slowly turned to face her.
>"Lynn...?" She heard him ask, and as she opened them again, at that point fully expecting him to be annoyed with her for being so weird and clingy and following him all the way to the park when he clearly just wanted to be alone, he instead simply appeared surprised. That painful look of contempt her insecure, puberty-addled brain had been assuring her was certain to come never did.
>Good ol' Lincoln, she sighed internally, her tense shoulders sagging in relief. She didn't know why she was always so afraid he was going to act like just some boy when he'd already proven again and again he was so much more than that.
>She pursed her lips and smiled sheepishly, idly adjusting the strap of her backpack to stop it from digging into her shoulder. Rather than speaking and risk her voice betraying her again, she instead brought one of her hands out from behind her back and gave him a half-hearted little wave. The blush burning on her cheeks felt hot enough to cook an egg on and she quickly shook her head and took an exaggerated breath, clumsily trying to play off how red she'd gotten as being winded from running up to him. The jock avoided his eyes and stared down at the pavement hoping that would help her hide the lie better. She doubted Lincoln was buying it, but he was kind enough not to mention anything if he didn't. Instead he just smiled gently and gave her his own little wave back.
>"So...More basketball, huh?" She finally offered lamely, but with a bit less self-consciousness. Her little brother had already shown he wasn't going to tear her a new one for horning in on his private time, after all.
>For a second Lincoln seemed as if he didn't know what she meant, but when she gestured towards the ball under his arm his eyes suddenly widened and he looked down, as though only just realizing he was carrying it.
>"Oh!" He answered, shifting it to his hands with a roll of his shoulder. "Yeah! Yeah..." The boy gave an unconvincing laugh, trying not to seem embarrassed himself. "Well, I'm still not very good, you know? Not exactly a natural athlete." He shrugged easily, as though the fact didn't bother him. "I just like how quiet the park is, I guess. Practicing gives me an excuse to hang out." Lincoln gave a small smile at that and seemed to drift off just a bit, as though suddenly thinking about something else. He was quickly snapped out of his personal reverie by a loud 'pshaw!', and lifted his eyes off the ground to stare at Lynn. She seemed almost offended, and all of her previous worries temporarily disappeared as she found herself automatically shifting into coach mode.
>"You don't know what you're talking about, Lincoln!" The jock chastised him. "You're just lazy!"
>Lynn instantly winced at her own sudden outburst and the harsh words that had thoughtlessly flown out of her mouth. Her brother simply blinked at her, surprised.
>"W-what I meant to say," she grinned sheepishly as she hurried to explain herself, her tone turning much sweeter, "Is, you know, you've always been so obsessed with comic books and video games that you've never even bothered playing. You can't say whether you're a natural or not! You only just started really practicing!"
>Lynn snatched the ball out of his grasp in one routine motion, letting her backpack drop to the floor with a shrug of her shoulder. By the time Lincoln's dull reflexes finally kicked in and he glanced down at the space between his hands where the basketball had only just been, the sporty girl had already dribbled past him and sank a lazy jumpshot. She hurried beneath the basket and caught it before it could bounce off the court, leisurely making her way back to her little brother while wearing a sunny smile.
>It didn't escape Lynn that the moment she'd started talking sports, and especially once she'd felt the familiar, comforting weight of the basketball back in her hands, all the jitteriness, dread, and kaleidoscope of butterflies she'd been harboring in her stomach since the night before all seemed to evaporate, or at least stop their fluttering. She noted giddily that she could look her brother in the eyes again as long as they were doing something together that she knew. The tomboy might have been real bad at the girly stuff, but on the court or on the field, she knew she was a champion. They were in her element.
>"I'm sure you'd be great if you just tried," She smirked before shooting him the ball, Lincoln giving a quiet 'oomph!' as it flew between his arms and into his stomach. Lynn chuckled and patted him on the back as he bent over to try and reclaim the wind that had just been knocked out of him. "You're MY brother, after all." The girl picked up her backpack and jogged over to a nearby bench, swinging it over one of the hooks at the end before sprinting back to the court, bringing her knees up high with each step to both warm up and stretch at the same time.
>Lincoln's lips pursed into a wry smile, the hapless couch potato fumbling to catch the basketball before it could roll off his abdomen. "Gee, thanks, Lynn." He sarcastically accepted his sister's self-congratulatory praise upon finally getting a firm grip while she took her place between him and the three point line. "You're really too kind."
>The tomboy just laughed, quickly dropping low and rolling backwards and forwards on the balls of her feet as she moved to guard him. "Come on! First to ten, you and me! And don't even think about quitting!"
>Lincoln gave a long sigh, realizing that there was no way he was getting out of playing a few matches with his sister. He hadn't ended up getting much time to himself upon leaving the house that morning after all. Still, just the fact that he could carry on a proper conversation with her meant he was worlds away from the shambles he'd been just an hour earlier. The sharp, almost cloying anxiety he'd been feeling when he woke up had by then cooled into a sort of quiet nausea that was almost comfortable by comparison. The boy was more or less himself again and was glad to find the idea of spending an afternoon with his pushy sibling wasn't as daunting as it might have seemed before.
>Not to mention that Lincoln knew that the only reason Lynn was even there to begin with was because she missed spending time together. It was difficult for such a rough, guileless girl to disguise her intentions and Lincoln was touched by the thought. If a few games of basketball were all it took to make his big sister happy, he couldn't imagine letting her down.
>Lincoln Loud loved his family.
>"Alright." He bounced the ball once off the tarmac before leaning back for a surprise shot he was sure the girl would still easily swat out of the air. "You're on."

--------

>The game was a bit of a surreal experience at first. While initially Lincoln had been committed to at least enduring it for her sake, even that tepid enthusiasm was soon tested. The jock's intensity was at one hundred percent right from the very beginning. As a rule, whenever the boy was facing her Lynn would immediately get in his face, arms outstretched, trying to block off any route he could use to peel her off him. If he tried turning away she pressed against him hard, trying to hinder whatever movement he still had available. The white-on-rice way she liked to cover him with was something he was already familiar with from the many matches they'd always had in their driveway during the summers. The girl only really knew how to play one way, so it wasn't that it had come as a surprise that whenever Lincoln had the ball she was always all over him.
>What HAD come as a surprise was how he suddenly found himself reacting to her attack. To his dawning horror Lincoln couldn't help how he was suddenly sharply, inescapably aware of the way her modest chest pushed against his back whenever she tried to stop him from spinning past her. How the heat from her body seemed to cling to his, so pronounced in the chilly autumn morning. The sudden sensations had led him to panic instinctively; these were feelings he hadn't been expecting, feelings he was totally unprepared for when all he thought he'd have to deal with was a simple game of basketball. He found that the innocent little things that he'd so easily ignored before during all the years they'd played together now had a firm, dreadful grip on him.
>And what was worse, her routine felt to him unmistakably like some sort of bizarre pantomime of his recent experiences, or maybe all he'd been through simply meant that was the only way his addled senses could interpret it. Trying to run and having nowhere to run to, trying to fight and being instantly overwhelmed. It was all he could do to keep his knees from trembling whenever Lynn's hot, excited breaths washed over the back of his neck. Whatever paltry strength he'd gathered in his brief moment of solitude quickly crumbled away to nothing as spasms of fear and expectation crackled through him, the boy still hopelessly diminished from his ordeal the night before.
>Lincoln grimaced as he felt how his body instinctively started to beg off from her, so accustomed to relenting in the face of feminine pressure. Felt how he started letting her push him around, become more pliant.
>Felt himself give up.
>The boy's frustration with his weakness and his treacherous, misfiring senses were palpable, his mind slowly but surely beginning to drift elsewhere as he tried to come up with an excuse he could use for why they should stop.

>"LINCOLN!" Lynn suddenly barked, her voice piercing through the haze of his self-loathing like a rock hurled through a window, snapping his attention back to the present. "What are you doing!? You're never gonna beat me like that!"
>He froze.
>The boy simply gawped as the private shame and frustration gathering energy inside of him briefly cooled, staring blankly at his big sister while the meaning of her words only slowly set in. She seemed to him then like a lighthouse he'd wished for desperately suddenly appearing in the midst of a deadly storm. When he finally got his wits about him again he couldn't help but give a surprised start, dropping the basketball. Lincoln almost tripped over his own feet to snatch it back up before his fuming sister could steal it from him again. "Y-yeah!" He apologized, "Sorry!"
>It seemed incredible that her unworried, selfish griping had actually managed to rouse the boy from what had felt at the time like such a frenzied paranoia. All the horror and fear slowly melted away in the face of her rebuke and he was suddenly reminded of just where he was and who he was with.
>Nothing strange was happening. There wasn't anything to be afraid of. This wasn't Lori or Leni or Luna or Luan, he wasn't being preyed on or taken advantage of. He was with Lynn. All they were doing was playing basketball. What could be more innocent than a brother and sister shooting some hoops? It dawned on Lincoln that all the danger his senses had been screaming he was in existed solely in his mind. It was all just in his mind.
>As the last of the nascent panic attack faded all that was left was the dizzying relief that washed over him, brisk and clear, like cool water poured over a burn. The feelings of dread and unwanted lust disappeared like they'd never even existed in the first place. He sucked in a breath and turned back to give Lynn a grateful look. She just stared at him, clearly unable to discern the meaning of his expression, a bit of impatience coloring her features as she tapped her foot expectantly, as if to ask 'Well?'
>He couldn't help but chuckle. That was the other difference. Lynn WANTED him to fight her. Maybe even wanted him to win. She wasn't just waiting for him to roll over for her like Lori did.
>Almost as if in response to his sudden spasm of clarity, a half-forgotten memory from when he was younger unexpectedly resurfaced in his mind.
>He must have been six or seven at the time. He remembered how Lynn had creamed him that afternoon for her twentieth win straight at Angry Angry Alligators and how, in his immature, childish sulkiness, he'd simply decided to stop even trying the next game. His big sister had been indulging in her usual post-victory gloating, but cut it short in favor of a quick rematch. Ignoring his grumbling about how he wanted to do something else, she rearranged the playing pieces and reset the timer.
>The first few moves of the new game she'd talked just as much trash as she usually did, still energized by her growing win streak, but then upon noticing how Lincoln was suddenly letting her push him around on the board without even putting up a fight the jock's cocky expression slowly vanished. As Lincoln's lack of effort became increasingly obvious, Lynn turned more and more quiet over the course of the game until she unexpectedly set the whole board aside halfway through. Lincoln was surprised at how unhappy she'd seemed at the time as she took a deep breath and looked him in the eye.
>With about the most serious expression he'd ever seen her make at that point in his life, his sister had gone into a long and spirited speech where she explained to him that while losing wasn't good, giving up was even worse. No matter how hopeless things looked or how bad you got pounded, she said, there was always something you could do as long as you just kept fighting. There was nothing more important than not giving up, the little girl assured him spiritedly. Lynn had asked him to promise her, there and then, that no matter how badly something went, he wouldn't give up like that ever again. It seemed genuinely important to her, surprisingly, and after sitting through her entire impromptu lecture with nothing but a blank look, he'd promised. Lynn smiled, giving him an affectionate punch in the arm in return before asking him if he wanted to play a different game.
>The memory faded almost as quickly as it came. The boy took a long, shaky breath at suddenly being reminded of that old vow. Lynn the life coach. He wondered if she even remembered that day.
>Lincoln ran a hand through his hair, then bent his knees, and Lynn quirked a brow with interest.
>He'd give Lynn the game she wanted, he quickly decided, shaking off the last of his stupor. It was the least he could do after she'd saved him like that.
>It was the least he could do for the girl who wanted him to never give up.
>"It's about time!" She exclaimed as the boy's dribbling suddenly got sharper and he took a few tentative steps to the basket, "Come on!" The tomboy clapped her hands happily to encourage him even as she moved to stop her brother from scoring.

>Lynn wasn't stupid. She'd noticed the weight of the world bearing down on her little brother almost since they'd started playing, even if she'd been acting like she hadn't, and the tomboy had been trying to come up with some way to draw Lincoln out of his own head the entire time they were there. She'd even swallowed her pride and considered letting him get a point on her just to see if it would help, but finally decided against it in favor of just being tough with him. Lincoln was way too smart for something like that anyway. In the end, all she could really do was take off the kid gloves and try to reach him honestly.
>She couldn't believe it had worked. Watching the boy finally showing signs of life again and knowing it was thanks to her was so incredibly gratifying that she almost laughed when, shortly after she stuffed his sudden charge, she noticed the bit of pink tongue poking out of the side of his mouth as her little brother tried to spot any openings he could use to sneak by her.
>The moment she got distracted by that, however, Lincoln surprised her by juking right, then spinning left and dribbling down the lane she'd accidentally left open. His movements were a bit clumsy and at one point the ball almost got away from him, but he buckled down and refused to let anything stop his drive. When the boy finally reached the hoop he leapt up off his feet and hurled the ball upwards.
>The shot was wobbly, and it was inelegant, and as the ball bounced off the backboard and rolled around the rim it very nearly fell back out. But the jock couldn't find it in herself to pay attention to any of that. Instead, she just watched her brother's face while he seemed to try and will the ball to go inside the basket. His expression had gotten so much lighter than it had been just moments before. It looked as though he'd genuinely shed some of his worries, at least for the moment. The girl forgot herself and simply enjoyed the nostalgic sight of her carefree little brother, trying to remember the last time he'd seemed so relaxed around her. Around any of them. She only snapped out of her trance when she heard the jingle jangle of the basketball falling through the chain net. Lincoln's eyes followed it as it bounced off the court and into the grass before he finally turned back to face her.
>The smile that followed was so bright it almost made the tomboy recoil. Lincoln had the most happy, honest grin she'd seen on him in months.
>"Lynn? Are you alright?" She distantly heard him ask, his voice sounding to her as though it was somehow coming from very far away. He tilted his head a bit, querying. The smile didn't disappear.
>Her throat felt too swollen to answer right away. The girl was surprised at how quickly the sudden rush of emotion had gotten the better of her. While she badly wanted to smile back, hug him, laugh, she contented herself with giving him a small smirk.
>"You got lucky." She declared simply, sprinting past the boy to hide her face as she bent over on the grass to pick up the ball. "Don't think it'll happen again!"

----

>First to ten had quickly become first to twenty, then thirty, and so on, and whenever either of them actually reached the mark Lynn would immediately demand a rematch. The game stretched from morning into afternoon as the two children played. The jock ran her brother up and down the court mercilessly, bullying him with her superior tempo and coordination, forcing him to take three steps for every one she did. Lincoln kept up at first, still refreshed and cocky from the earlier basket, but as the hours rolled on he soon began begging for a time-out. His tormentor stubbornly refused, in her heart still too exhilarated by all the wonderful expressions he kept making that she hadn't seen in so long, until she finally noticed Lincoln stumble and nearly fall trying to chase her after one of her fast breaks. The girl purposefully slowed down to allow him to catch up to her before taking a jumpshot.
>"Alright, break time!" She declared loudly as she watched the ball sail through the net, gracefully pretending she hadn't witnessed Lincoln's sorry display behind her.
>Lincoln replied by giving an enormous groan of relief, nearly tumbling to his side from vertigo when the blood suddenly rushed to his head after the exhale. Lynn just laughed and ran back over, propping the white-haired boy up on her shoulder and helping him off the court while he wobbled around on jelly legs like a newborn calf. Lynn led him to the bench she'd hung her backpack on and the boy let himself collapse against it, reduced to a helpless pile of sweat and exhaustion.
>"Don't be such a baby." The athlete chided him as she took her own seat at his side, but she couldn't keep the smile out of her voice. Her feet didn't quite reach the ground and so she took the opportunity to happily kick them back and forth in the air, clearly still possessing energy to spare. Lincoln cracked open one of his eyes to glare at her display of tireless perkiness grumpily, then hissed when the sweat dripped into it.
>"'Look at me, I'm Lynn!'" The boy suddenly started, putting on his best imitation of her voice as he rubbed the back of his hand against his eyelid. "'I do jumping jacks in the shower and crunches when I'm asleep! For Christmas mom and dad are getting me a hamster wheel!'"
>Lincoln continued trying to get his eye to stop stinging, but was a bit taken aback when no comeback was forthcoming. He finally turned to look at his sister, wondering what the deal was.
>"Lynn?" He asked tentatively, perplexed at how she gawked at him and wondering if his little jab had really been so bad.
>In reality, the tomboy was so shocked that her little brother had actually made a joke that she'd been too surprised to say anything right away. As she noticed him getting more and more suspicious, she shook her head, eagerly countering with some teasing of her own.
>"'Well I'm Lincoln'!" She retorted, trying to make her pitch sound deeper, and the boy smiled. The way he looked so at ease with her for a change almost made her breath hitch, but she refused to let it be a distraction. "'I'm a noodle-armed dweeb and the closest I get to exercise is trying to beat my sisters in a race to the TV!'" Lincoln chuckled, but that just got her more competitive. "'And losing!'" She hastily added, which made his chuckle turn into a full-blown laugh.
>When Lincoln began cackling against the park bench his sister just stewed awkwardly, not sure if he was laughing with her or at her. The truth was that while her joke might have not been quite funny enough to warrant such a big response, the endorphins rushing through his body combined with the exhaustion he felt had left the boy feeling happy, tired and drunk. Even beyond that, the sense of comfort and routine he was enjoying after what seemed like an eternity of stepping on eggshells was almost sweet enough to taste. It was like sunlight on his skin, warming his hair, after going so long without it he'd forgotten what it felt like. Lincoln stretched out a bit on his seat as the fits of laughter died down and took a deep breath, shutting his eyes.
>"I'm glad you came to hang out with me, Lynn." He finally sighed quietly. To his surprise, he meant it.

>Her little brother's words stunned her. Lynn was so thrilled by his simple, unexpected gratitude that the girl found herself automatically mouthing a reply before she'd actually thought of what to answer. Inevitably, her tongue tripped over her teeth and a bit of what was unmistakably gibberish ended up tumbling past her lips. Her brother turned to stare at her and she suddenly pounded her chest, pretending the nonsense that had just come out of her mouth was a cough.
>"Are you alright?" He asked, reaching out a bit in concern, but that just made her more agitated. Her earlier confidence now felt like an act, even to her, "Maybe we should head home. We've been out here for a while, after all." He murmured worriedly. "You could be catching a cold."
>"NO!" The girl suddenly howled, causing her brother to nearly jump from his seat in surprise. She waved her arms frantically. "I-I mean, there's no way I'd catch a cold just from this!" Lynn assured him, clearing her throat. "I'm just...winded." There was a pause as he stared at her suspiciously. "I didn't expect my dorky little brother to put up such a hard fight!" Lynn punctuated her statement by suddenly punching him in the arm, as if that would imbue her words with more authority. The boy gave a soft whine of complaint, rubbing his shoulder, and wisely dropped the subject in a bid not to get hit again. The comfortable silence between the two from earlier soon resumed, but the surprising burst of warmth and happiness she'd felt when he told her he was happy she was with him wouldn't fade from her chest.
>God, what was happening to her? The jock turned away so she could hide her face. She really wasn't feeling like herself around Lincoln at all lately. The girl wondered if her brother realized how tightly he had her wrapped around his little finger. When had it gotten this bad? All her life Lynn had always thought of him as such a goofus. Now she was pondering which of his hobbies would be the easiest to pretend to have suddenly developed an interest in just so she could insinuate herself into his day some more. She sighed.
>Lynn supposed that's why they called them crushes: cuz they crushed you.
>The tomboy gave a wry, secret smile. That sounded like one of Luna's lyrics.

>Lynn turned back to face him only to suck in a surprised breath as Lincoln suddenly dropped his hands beneath his shirt and lifted the hem up to his face to mop up some sweat, in the process exposing his stomach. He'd long ago peeled off his jacket and scarf the moment she'd helped him sit down. The girl watched transfixed as droplets of moisture slid down her little brother's abdomen.
>"I'm so tired it doesn't even feel cold anymore." The boy mumbled against the warm, damp fabric. She didn't answer him. He pulled the shirt back off from over his face and reclined a little further, shutting his eyes again.
>Lincoln heard a zipper being pulled, but didn't pay it any mind until he suddenly felt something big and plastic getting shoved against his face. "Hey, quit it-" He complained, opening his eyes once more only to realize it was a thermos.
>Lynn held it out in front of her but stared away, carefully making sure not to meet her brother's glare. She couldn't let him see her blushing again or the jig would really be up. "There's no way you're not thirsty after what I just put you through. Drink." Was her simple demand.
>The boy blinked, taking the bottle in his hand. "Where did you...?" He started, until he noticed the open backpack swinging softly next to his training partner. "Oh." He finished lamely.
>Lynn watched him out of the corner of her eye, giving a surprised cluck of her tongue when her brother yanked the nozzle open with his teeth, clearly too exhausted to fiddle with it. Lincoln tipped the bottle up and drank greedily. The athlete focused on how the muscles in his neck worked as he gave swallow after desperate swallow, finally setting the thermos down again. He gave a loud gasp of satisfaction.
>"Thanks, Lynn. I really needed that." Lincoln sighed and let one of his forearms fall softly against his face to shield him from what sunlight managed to filter through past the plentiful grey clouds. "Here, you have some." He offered, holding the bottle up to her.
>"What? N-no, that one's all yours, I-" She quickly turned to her backpack to show him the bottle she'd brought for herself before noticing that Lincoln wasn't looking at her. His eyes were still closed, his chest rising and falling softly as his heartrate finally began to level back out from his previous exertion. She stared down wordlessly at the proffered thermos before finally taking it from him. She noticed how he smiled in response. The girl stared at where her brother's lips had touched the nozzle and a faint blush rose to her cheeks before shaking her head.
>An indirect kiss, huh? Lynn hesitated for only a second before bringing the tab up to her mouth and pouring. She didn't understand why she was suddenly feeling so weird about something so simple.
>Well, she understood a little. After what she'd seen last night, stuff that had seemed innocent before didn't necessarily come across that way anymore. She supposed that explained why, after sharing glasses with Lincoln all her life, the simple gesture now suddenly felt so intimate.
>And why her lips continued to tingle long after she was finished drinking.
>She set the bottle back down, smiling softly, before turning to face her brother again. Without even realizing it Lynn started to look over his body more closely.
>The young boy was absolutely drenched in sweat. The moisture clung to his shirt, rendering it soggy and hot, the fabric sticking tightly to his wiry frame even as he tried to peel it off his skin to cool off. Lynn watched as he rolled one of his shoulders to get a kink out, the intermittent sighs he gave as he slowly wound down back to first gear making him shudder every so often. For some reason the sight left her feeling extremely thirsty all over again, and her slim fingers wrapped a bit tighter around the water bottle as she brought it back to her mouth.

>"So," Lynn began, her voice coming out a little huskier than usual as she wiped the water and sweat off her chin with the back of her sleeve. "I, uhh...You..."
>They'd spent enough time together by then, surely. The moment had to have come to approach him about what she'd seen. But the thought of bringing it up left her terrified it would increase the tension and distance between them all over again. She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt so happy or relaxed, and the fear of jeopardizing what they had in that instant, regardless of the reason, was almost overwhelming.
>"Hmm?" Lincoln opened one eye to glance at her, but instead of answering him she just got more and more lost in her own concerns. The girl didn't didn't even know how she was supposed to broach the subject. But hadn't that been the whole reason she'd chased him out here? The need for an...explanation? Lynn brought the bottle back to her lips to buy herself some time, but her brow darkened as she struggled to come up with the right words, the memories from the night before making her stew a bit. Underneath it all, it was hard to deny the feeling that something had been stolen from her while she wasn't looking. She didn't really understand it, the emotion not one she'd taken the time to unpack in detail.
>Maybe she'd been afraid to, she coldly considered. The truth was that being out here alone with her little brother without anyone else muscling in on their time together made her feel more special than she had in a long while. She didn't want to think about him with another girl at that moment, even if it was one she cared about too.
>The girl gave another heavy sigh. Competing against him had felt so easy. Wonderful, even. But everything else was still so hard. They weren't in her element anymore.
>Lincoln noticed how troubled his sister seemed and reached out, placing a hand on her forearm. "Lynn?" Her eyes flicked down to stare at his fingers as they splayed over her wrist, his warmth seeping through the fabric of her jersey. She grimaced a bit before shutting her eyes and taking a deep breath.
>Just rip it off fast. Like a band-aid. No pain, no gain, right?

>"Lincoln, which one of us is your favorite?" She suddenly demanded, opening her eyes and turning to face him.
>"W-what?" The boy recoiled, surprised. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but it sure wasn't that. Lincoln found himself shimmying back on the bench a bit instinctively, suddenly not feeling quite as comfortable as he had just a moment ago.
>After all, a lifetime of those sorts of questions from his many siblings allowed him to sense the ones that didn't have any safe answers.
>"Of your sisters." She explained impatiently, heedless of how tense he'd obviously become. "Which one of us is your favorite?"
>"...Well, umm," The boy licked his lips, trying to think of a way he could get out of answering. "W-who's YOUR favorite?" He at last countered lamely. His eyes flicked over to his side as he struggled to think of a different topic, some conversational escape route.
>"Come oooon," Lynn pouted, wise to his tactics. Each of his sisters had almost as much experience trying to pin their brother down as he did getting way. "Don't try and change the subject."
>"I..." Lincoln hesitated. "I love all of you the same." He offered diplomatically, hedging his bets with what he knew was the most fair, unobjectionable answer.
>Lynn couldn't help but groan, giving the boy a quick squirt from the water bottle she still held as he shouted a 'hey!' "That doesn't mean anything and you know it." She complained bitterly.
>He didn't say anything at first, giving her a glare as he wiped her backwash from his face, but upon noticing how sullen she looked he finally decided to take her seriously. "Why are you suddenly asking me that for, anyway?" The boy asked, genuinely curious.
>Lynn didn't reply for a long time. For a second Lincoln thought that might have been the end of the subject, but eventually she muttered something, soft enough that he couldn't hear it. The girl tucked her chin into the hollow of her elbow as she gripped the back of the bench nervously.
>"What?" He leaned in closer, straining his ears.
>"I said-" She suddenly repeated much more loudly, the faint trace of anger in her voice making him flinch a bit. He stared at her but she wouldn't look him in the eye, instead choosing to keep her face half hidden behind her arm. "Would you ever do...stuff...with some of us?" She licked her lips carefully. "I mean, that you wouldn't do with the others?"

>Lincoln didn't answer. The implications of what she'd asked were enough to instantly purge any lingering sense of exhaustion or relaxation he'd still been feeling, his brain rapidly sparking awake again with a terrible sense of foreboding. Her earlier question he'd assumed to be typical sibling competitiveness, but this was different. She was asking him something different. Lincoln began grinding his teeth together.
>The boy almost pulled his hand off her wrist, but when he tried to Lynn's other hand gently fell over it. She wasn't holding him tight enough that he couldn't get away. Rather, it was a sort of unspoken request. She was asking him not to leave rather than ordering him to stay.
>On some level he would have preferred to have been physically forced instead. Her pleading eyes held him in place far more firmly than she could have ever managed with just her brawn.
>"I'm not...sure what you mean." Lincoln murmured through the anxious headache he felt coming on.
>"Yeah you do." She shot back instantly, not letting him buy himself any time. Lynn knew that the most honest answers were the ones you shocked out of people. Her instincts as a sportswoman, trained so painstakingly to spot and exploit it whenever an opponent revealed any weakness, wouldn't allow her to let her brother squirm out of this now that it felt like she had finally cornered him. It was as though she'd been chasing the boy for months and had only in the last few days, and in this moment in particular, caught up to him.
>She squeezed his hand softly. He turned away.
>"It's alright." She suddenly found herself reassuring him before even taking an instant to think about it. The words had sprung from within her heart and out of her mouth before her brain could hit the brakes. "I don't think what you're doing with Lori and Leni is wrong."
>She gave a quiet, tense exhale upon finally revealing she knew his secret, then blinked in surprise as she realized she actually meant what she'd just said. That had been one of the things nagging at the back of her mind ever since that night. She SHOULD have been disgusted. Should have found what they were doing gross, crazy. But for some reason she just...didn't.
>Lynn didn't actually know for sure what that feverish, aching feeling that had pooled at the pit of her stomach when she'd watched them was called. But she knew it wasn't disgust.
>"Wh..." Lincoln finally turned to stare at her, his expression a blend of surprise, bewilderment, and horror. "What?"
>"I mean-!" The look he gave her made her flinch and the jock quickly attempted to correct herself, suddenly terrified that her little brother was going to think she was a pervert. "I-it's a little weird, I guess. You know, since they're so much older and all..." She chuckled nervously.
>The boy's expression didn't even change slightly.
>Lynn suddenly found herself mentally jumping from one foot to the other in a panic as she tried to figure out what it was Lincoln wanted her to say. "A-and, I mean, yeah, brother and sister, that's WEIRD." She at last granted him unconvincingly, only to squirm a bit under his unblinking stare. Lynn shut her eyes and licked the roof of her mouth carefully as she finally revealed her actual feelings.
>"But I don't think it's..." The last words were only a faint squeak, her voice giving fragile wings to the true emotions within."...wrong."

>Lincoln licked his lips, turning away from Lynn to stare blankly at the grass beneath them. The hand she held suddenly felt limp and cold.
>"I'd like to go home now." He whispered quietly.
>"What!?" Lynn recoiled, gripping his wrist tighter, not realizing she might be hurting him. She felt herself become desperate, frantic. The tomboy knew she was bad with words, but she hadn't expected it to go THIS poorly. What had she said wrong? "No! Lincoln, I'm trying to tell you that I think it's...That I..." His expression seemed cold and distant, the words she was saying not even appearing to register with him.
>The girl came very near to falling apart then and there, almost cowed into giving up. But she dug in her heels and gathered her courage.
>Fine. If words wouldn't do her any good then she wouldn't use them. She never needed them before. Lynn had always preferred action to talk anyway.
>Lincoln suddenly felt a hand grabbing his chin and pulling it to face her. The jock squared her shoulders and, before she could chicken out, lunged forward, pressing her lips against his. His eyes widened.
>It was a chaste kiss, by the standards of what he was used to. She wasn't shoving her tongue into his tonsils or groping him while she gave it. All things considered it was actually pretty shy.
>But the sheer crushing revulsion that it engendered within the boy still rolled over him like a truck.
>He just didn't understand. A million ideas exploded in his head in the brief instant their lips touched.
>Why? Why did this keep happening? Had he invited it somehow? Given her some signal, led her on? Was it his fault?
>And then, a notion so awful it almost made him scream against her mouth.
>Had it always been his fault?
>Lincoln shoved his sister away, falling off the bench and on to the dirt beneath. His tailbone bounced painfully off the edge of the blacktop, but he didn't even feel it. His panic made it impossible to decide whether to scramble to his knees or crawl away backwards, and the indecision meant it took a moment for him to even manage to get back upright. Lynn just stared at him, bewildered. She got up, a trace of confused betrayal dancing over her features, and the look on her face made Lincoln feel like someone had just plunged a knife into his belly.
>"Get away from me!" He yelled reflexively, and his sister's eyebrows shot up in surprise and hurt. His pain instantly seemed to become even more excruciating.
>"Lincoln...?" Her voice cracked, the girl almost whimpering as she took a step towards him. Her advance nearly sent him sprawling in terror all over again. "What's wrong?"
>"Wh-" The boy sputtered, his body jerking in a brief spasm of anger. "What's wrong!?" Lincoln took a deep breath, shutting his eyes, and just let it out.
>"Lynn, THAT'S DISGUSTING!"
>He screamed. He didn't think about it, for once didn't worry about how what he said might make the person he was talking to feel. The words surged up from the pit of his stomach, from the core of his being. It felt like they'd been gathering momentum for months and months. Like he HAD to get them out, before they burst from between his ribs and killed him.
>The truth. The truth that none of them, not one of his siblings, seemed willing to confront. The one fact that all of them appeared hellbent on ignoring. All of them but Lincoln.
>What he and his sisters were doing was disgusting.

>They had just been two simple words. A statement of fact, even. Yet Lynn reacted as though he'd slapped her. The color drained from the jock's face and she gave a hard swallow, steadying herself with the bench when she stumbled backwards. Lynn looked dazed, like she could fall over at any moment, and the thought she might get hurt if he wasn't there to catch her was the one thing that kept the boy from escaping, from taking flight into the street and leaving everything that was happening behind.
>"What do you mean...?" She questioned him gingerly, trying to smile despite it all, but it looked false and frail enough to crumble off her face with simple a gust of wind. Her eyes lowered nervously to the ground beneath her, as though she was afraid to meet his gaze. They revealed her true feelings: embarassment, hurt and the most brutally intense shame she'd ever been subjected to. Lynn shook her head. "That's not...true. How can you say that?" She shut her eyes and cringed suddenly, the intense emotions she was trying to deny almost like a physical presence mercilessly looming over the young girl.
>Lincoln watched as his sister's body seemed to harden in place, her expression tentative and anxious like a child attempting to solve a dilemma far too complex for her, while the weight of his words sunk in. At first she just stood there, stubbornly rejecting them, like refusing to acknowledge what he'd said would make it all not true. But when that failed to work and her shoulders began to tremble more and more with the indignity of it all, Lynn suddenly lifted her face and took a step towards him. The boy nearly jolted, but the forlorn and desperate look she gave him kept him rooted in place.
>"I mean, I...I know I'm not beautiful like they are." She blinked miserably, taking another step towards him before breaking eye contact. The girl paused as she suddenly stared down at her own body, and it was as though she was seeing it for the first time in her life. Her breath hitched for a second, taking it in, before all the air drained out of her in one long, hopeless sigh of understanding. She swallowed the sour, nervous saliva that had been pooling at the back of her throat the entire time. The next words she spoke were a bitter question to herself. "Is kissing me really...disgusting?"
>Lynn Loud, the one person he'd always known to be as tough and confident as could be, suddenly seemed as fragile as thin porcelain. Her still very present insecurities, combined with the passion she believed she'd watched her brother and sister enthusiastically indulge in the night before, had led her to interpret what he meant in the most unkind way possible.
>The previously unimaginable sight of her looking so utterly defeated sapped him of any strength he could have used to answer. Lincoln shook his head, gritting his teeth to keep from screaming in frustration at the misunderstanding as the bile in his stomach bubbled and stewed. Her deep, obvious hurt made it feel like someone was rooting around in his chest with a sharp scoop. His expression twisted as he fought not to instantly apologize, not to instantly rush to her. He had to explain himself first.
>"I...I guess it's true I'm not tall..." The tomboy swallowed dryly, her voice unusually steady for a sensitive young girl who'd just experienced a rejection seemingly so cruel, but the illusion of calm was broken by the way her hand trembled at her side. All the pretense and self-delusions a teenager going through puberty needed simply to exist had been painfully stripped away from her in one instant. "And my legs aren't very long..." Lynn continued, scratching her head for a second before taking a hard fistful of her hair when she felt like she was about to lose control. The bracing pain that shot through her scalp as her roots were nearly tugged out helped keep her from falling apart. "I've got-" She winced before suddenly choking, the latent emotion finally bursting through in her voice, nearly strangling her even as she tried to keep things under control for long enough to say what she needed to say. Lynn shut her eyes and clenched her teeth. The effort she was making not to cry felt unreal. "...F-Freckles." She finally hissed with impotent anger.
>Lynn Loud had never really thought about the way she looked before the last few days. She understood she wasn't a supermodel, but it honestly wasn't something that bothered her. It had never occurred to the girl that something as stupid as her looks could be the thing that kept her from getting what she wanted the most in life.
>Lincoln was bolted to the spot, the pain in her voice pinning him in place. Lynn didn't get it. He didn't think she was ugly. He didn't think any of his sisters were ugly. The shock of self-loathing that sizzled through him when he realized that he wanted to comfort her even more than he wanted her to go away almost made him throw up. Why was he so weak? Why could they always play him with just a few tears, make him feel so awful just for not doing what they wanted? Even if what they wanted was something so wrong?
>"My boobs aren't big." The tomboy finally gasped in an effort simply to breathe, unaware of the boy's own frantic turmoil, seemingly catching her second wind and blinking her eyes dry. "They probably never will be." Lynn took took another step towards him and her hands cupped her modest chest unhappily. It felt like her legs could give out from under her any second. But she still refused look at him. She was afraid of the look of disgust he might be making. Just this took all her strength. "My hair's always messed up. I don't paint my fingernails and I look stupid in a dress!" She spat hotly.
>With every new disparaging comment she made about herself she took another step closer until, at last, with her face cast down, she was pressing her forehead against her little brother's chest. All the fight and all the energy, whatever it was that was keeping her upright, began to visibly drain out of her. Lincoln's arms hung limply at his sides. A part of him wanted to hug her. Another wanted to run. The compromise was that he did nothing.
>"...I know I'm not pretty." Lynn finally admitted hopelessly. She lifted her tearstreaked eyes to look him in the face. "But I love you." She whimpered.
>The most painful part for Lincoln was realizing how much she meant it.
>Lynn bit the inside of her cheek to keep from bawling. The tomboy shook her head. "Please don't say that. Please love me too. Please..." She hiccuped, twisting his shirt tighter. He trembled.

>"...It's not fair!" Lynn suddenly shrieked, her brother recoiling in surprise, and she lowered her eyes to the ground again miserably. "Just because of the way we look...? I'm your sister too!" She pounded her fist softly against his chest. "And I care about you more than anybody!" Lynn's voice shook as she realized, to her profound horror, that she was trying to convince her little brother that she deserved love. Unspeakable self-loathing coursed through her for a moment, electric and intense, almost making her break down entirely. But she grit her teeth and shook her head, refusing to give up.
>"I work really hard, Lincoln!" She insisted, almost reproachfully, and the boy she clung to suddenly got a nauseating feeling of whiplash. Memories of his first experience with Leni returned to Lincoln unbidden, like a brand once burned into his brain that suddenly starting aching again. Lynn didn't notice his spasm of surprise or how his breathing went shallow.
>Things kept repeating themselves, he recognized with a fit of almost dazzling dismay. Was this always the way they were meant to go? What happened happened no matter what he did, no matter where he ran or how he tried to stop it. Had he never been meant to escape it in the first place?
>"I know that I'm not the prettiest or the girliest, I know I'm..." Lynn repeated heedlessly, the words trailing off to nothing as she struggled not to choke on a sudden sob. She fought to keep it together. To do what she needed to. "But I work hard!" She finally repeated, as if that was her one lifeline, the single thing that might redeem her. "I wake up early, I train until I'm sore, I do everything I can to make sure I'm the best!" On some level she knew that what she was doing was useless. You couldn't negotiate desire. But still she persevered. Tirelessly. Hopelessly. "You can't just...turn me down! You have to be fair!" The girl's desperate shout echoed in her own ears in the empty park.
>Lynn's breath caught as she noticed with a start what the words coming out of her mouth were. Why they seemed so familiar.
>It was loser talk.
>She'd heard stuff like it a million times before from the kids she played after they got creamed. Losers were the only people that ever moaned about whether something was fair or not. Her coaches had drilled that into her from day one, how everyone got different advantages and you just had to work with what you had and not whine if things didn't go your way. Lynn had never complained when the playing field wasn't even before. She just made sure to try harder instead. Be better. And yet...
>"It's not fair!" She bawled pitifully, clenching her fists as her shoulders trembled with anguish. "You can't just pick and choose!" The girl was hysterical now, anger suddenly sparking behind her eyes. She pulled his shirt to draw him closer, until they were pressed together tight and he could feel the incredible heat radiating out from her trembling form. It was like she was challenging him. "You can't just pick the pretty ones! We ALL love you! I...I love you! Please, Lincoln..."
>For a girl that had all her life been trained to accept nothing less than being number one, here she was, begging just to be allowed to play. She couldn't imagine feeling more sorry for herself than she did at that second.
>But the tomboy didn't care anymore. She didn't care if she was number one. This wasn't a game, she wasn't trying to beat anyone or shut anyone out. All she wanted was a place in her brother's heart. If he would return even a fraction of the feelings she had for him, that would be enough.

>Lynn was done lying to herself. What she had wasn't a crush. It wasn't some passing fancy or whim or kink.
>The truth was, Lincoln had always been the boy she'd imagined herself spending the rest of her life with. In that moment of sharp, unrestrained emotion, she finally realized why all her life what other people called romance had always seemed so phony to her. Why she'd never had any interest in it. Why it had all ultimately ended up coming to this.
>Watching her teammates awkwardly fumble around with other boys their age, her best friend Margo beaming about her new boyfriend, telling her how wonderful he was with the bliss in her voice never seeming to reach her eyes. On some level she had always sensed that all any of them were doing was clumsily imitating their parents or TV shows, using words like 'love' and 'forever' without ever really understanding what any of it meant. Someone her age shouldn't have sensed that. Someone her age should have believed every word they said, been right there on the boy-crazy train with them. At first Lynn had just figured she was simply more into sports than romance. Now, though, she understood the truth. >The reason it had all seemed so childish, why it had never seemed to catch her interest, why no boy could ever seem to hold her attention, was because she had the real thing to compare it to. While Margo and the rest were miming and play-acting deep relationships, she genuinely couldn't remember a life without the person she loved and couldn't imagine what life would be like without him. He had never been just her brother, she now understood.
>The tomboy had never pondered too deeply about the sort of way she cared about Lincoln. She'd never had to. Ever since she could remember, the girl would wake up in the morning or come home from school and her little brother would already be there. She realized only now why she would always grab him like she did, that compulsion she had for physical contact with him. Why sharing food with the boy made it taste better. Why she enjoyed knowing she could always prod a leg rub out of him by exaggerating how sore practice had left her, certain he wouldn't be able to resist trying to make her feel better. They'd watch TV and she'd rest her head on his lap. He'd play with her hair.
>That was the way things had been between them her whole life, and some part of her had assumed that'd be the way things would always be.
>It was seeing Lincoln with Lori that night that had changed everything. Forced her to examine her own feelings more closely and put a timer on their relationship, whatever that relationship was was. It seemed like if the jock didn't come to terms with the way she really felt, she was going to be left out in the cold. On the outside looking in to her brother's love. It was the most horrible thing she could think of.
>So she threw away her fierce pride, that one singular trait that made up almost the entire foundation of her being, and begged.
>"Please, Lincoln..." She pleaded weakly one last time. "Love me. Love me like you love Lori."

>When Lynn's genuine feelings were finally transmitted to him they felt loaded with so much weight that they nearly forced him to his knees. He didn't even have the presence of mind to grimace at her final words. Her voice was so charged with emotion. Her eyes were so honest, so sincere, as she stared at his face. It felt like he'd been placed under some kind of spell. Lincoln noticed his hands rising up to grab her trembling shoulders. Before he even realized he was doing it, before he could even consider whether it was a good idea or not, he felt himself tell the truth.
>It simply didn't feel like he had a choice in the face of her frantic sincerity, the absolute emotional agony and desperation he'd just watched her go through. It was the only time he'd ever seen any of his sisters look like they felt how he felt. That in itself gave him a selfish sort of hope, for companionship. For sympathy. For something. He wanted someone to understand him. He needed someone to understand him. Though the consequences of what had happened the last time he'd told someone he thought he could trust what was happening still remained in his mind like an unsutured wound, a pain he didn't think would ever go away, he couldn't bring himself to repay Lynn's truth with a lie.
>Lincoln was still reeling from everything she'd said, the obvious pain she was in blending up the contents of his stomach with rocks and glass. But he knew all that pain, and maybe even her feelings themselves, all stemmed from what she'd misunderstood between him and Lori. She was just confused about what she'd seen, confused about what she felt. He was certain that it was her own mind that had tricked her, a bid for emotional survival after she'd stumbled upon something no girl had ever been meant to see her brother and sister do.
>Things didn't have to be this way. If he could just help her realize that, maybe there was a chance for them. If he could just stop all this. If he could just save her, like she'd saved him.
>"Lynn, Lori..." His eyes felt raw and the cold wind whipping against his face stung. When the words came out of his mouth all he could taste was the ash. "Lori raped me."
>He'd said it so quietly, almost whispered it, but Lynn reacted like he'd screamed at her. She recoiled a bit, the emotion slowly melting from her features as her gaze came to rest over the button on the collar of Lincoln's shirt.
>"Wh-what...?" She asked, watching the plastic reflect the light just a bit. She lifted her eyes to stare at his face, as if that could help her understand better. "What are you talking about...?"
>Lincoln shook his head, but never took his eyes off his sister's. He remembered what she told him all those years ago and, defying every instinct he had, all the voices in his head that told him it was pointless, to just run, that that was his only chance, refused to give up. He wouldn't accept that things were hopeless, wouldn't accept that they were stuck on some kind of track he couldn't escape from. His fingers subconsciously tightened their grip on her shoulders in desperation. There HAD to be a way for him to reach her. There HAD to be a way to make things good again.
>Things could be good again. He knew they could. That was the last rock he clung to. It was the only bit of ground he wouldn't give. Couldn't give. The last bit of hope keeping him from coming totally unmoored.
>Lynn had made him promise her once to never give up. So he wouldn't. He'd fight. For her sake and for his.
>"What she's doing- What we're doing..." He struggled to think of the right words. "It's not love." A sharp pang of guilt surged up in his chest and he winced, hurrying to qualify himself in an effort to avoid hurting her any worse. "I mean, I love you. I love all of you. But..." He shook his head again, miserably. "What's happening isn't right." He shut his eyes and sighed. It was a long, lonely sound, like the wind whistling through the dead branches of the trees around them. "...And it isn't love."
>Lynn's face when he opened his eyes again looked so haunted and hollow it made him, absurdly, want to apologize to her. His instincts screamed at him that her pain was his fault, his responsibility. She stepped backwards once, out of his arms, and stared down at the ground. Lincoln found himself inexplicably missing her warmth.
>"I can't believe it..." She whispered hopelessly.
>The boy's hand reached out to her, trying to think of some way to comfort his big sister. He knew there was a difference between living with something for months and suddenly finding it out that second, and he knew she'd be upset. He couldn't even guess how Lynn felt about him now. The position he found himself at that instant was to him a little more familiar; his sibling's support system. He opened his mouth to console her, but before he could say anything Lynn's fist suddenly flew into his face and sent him staggering backwards.
>Lincoln held a hand over his nose, the sheer surprise dulling any pain he might have felt even as the sensation of heat spilling between his fingers let him know he was bleeding. He blinked and stared up at his sister in shock as she finally lifted her eyes up from the ground, both fury at him and unbelievable shame at herself painted over her features.

>"How could you lie about something like that, Lincoln!?"

>Her second blow sent him sprawling to the dirt face first, and as a near-demented fear suddenly took hold of him he found himself crawling off to the nearby bushes even as she advanced.
>"You're SICK!" She spat, grabbing his shoulder and spinning him over on his back. He began kicking at the ground to push himself away but she grabbed hold of his ankle and dragged him towards her with a hard pull. The sight of his frightened face, blood pouring from his nose, and knowing she was responsible, seemed for an instant to pain the girl and cause her to hesitate. But Lynn soon steeled herself, her hand curling into a fist once more. "WHY!?" She screamed as she snatched his collar and dragged his face close to hers, nearly lifting him off the ground. "Why!?" She repeated, and Lincoln shut his eyes in a panic as she cocked her arm back to hit him again.
>But the blow never came. Lincoln kept his eyes shut until he felt a drop of something warm land on his neck, followed slowly by a few more. He finally opened them again only to see Lynn with her face screwed up as she tried, and failed, not to cry.
>"Why..." She whispered and let go of his collar. He slumped down to the dirt. Lynn wiped her cheeks off angrily with her sleeve, still torn between anger and sorrow. Lincoln couldn't turn away, the spectacle of the storm of hideous emotion roiling through her keeping him frozen in place. He was paralyzed by guilt, fear and confusion. "You'd say something like that...for what?" She gave a quiet hiccup, but the boy recoiled as she suddenly shouted in his face. "Just to spare my feelings!?" He could tell she was fighting not to hit him again. "Your ugly sister's feelings!? You'd let me think Lori did something like that just so you wouldn't have to to tell me I'm not blonde and tall and pretty enough to FUCK!" Her fingers uncurled from the fist she'd been making to give her brother a hard slap. Lincoln's long-supressed anger and indignation boiled up from the pit of his stomach, so venomous and intense it felt like it was burning through the lining of his intestines as he glared at her balefully.
>"Lori's a jerk, but she loves you!" Lynn insisted as she held his collar. She suddenly grabbed him by the shoulders and started shaking him like she was trying to get through to him. Like HE was the crazy one. "Even if it's so I won't feel bad-" The girl winced, her expression faltering into one of intense misery again, and she shook her head as she tried not to start bawling once more, the knowledge that she'd just hit her brother for something he'd only done for her sake making her sick with pity for him and for herself. But even that blade of hot, ugly self-loathing piercing through her wasn't enough to get her to ignore what he'd just done. "How can you lie like that!?" She screamed.
>"I'M NOT LYING!" Lincoln suddenly roared back, harnessing his outrage for the courage he needed to argue. The boy felt himself stare down his sister with the closest thing to hate he could ever manage to look at one of his siblings with, the nightmarish stew of fury and fear swirling inside of him finally threatening to boil over.
>"Yes you are!" Lynn answered frantically, ignoring the venom in his eyes.
>"NO!" He bellowed as, amidst his squirming, Lynn adjusted her grip on his collar so he couldn't break free. He wasn't sure if he'd still been denying her charge or simply screaming at the sickeningly familiar sensation of feminine fingers brushing against the naked skin under his collarbone as they accidentally slipped under his shirt. His terrified, angry struggling at the unwelcome physical contact aroused all of Lynn's worst bully instincts. The tomboy's eyes raced over his face, scanning his expression for some kind of weakspot or vulnerability as she only distantly registered him trying to get away from her, his strength not nearly enough to overcome his athletic older sister's.
>"Why won't you believe me!?" Her little brother nearly screeched as he finally gave up on trying to wrench her arms away from his neck. He stopped staring at her wrists and lifted his eyes up to bore into hers. She ignored the tears welling up at the corners of his eyes as the boy glared at her evenly, firm, making his stand...
>Except for one instant. One where, almost too quick to see, he flinched and the mask of righteous indignation slipped, exposing how naked and defenseless he actually was.
>There.
>"I watched you, Lincoln." Her voice suddenly went soft and dangerous as she licked her lips, the young woman lunging in what she knew would lay their argument to rest for good. "You wanted it. Wanted her."
>And just like that, any heat he'd been nurturing was suddenly extinguished by the dizzying crush of ice her accusation instantly dumped over him. The anger on his face disappeared just as quickly as it had come, replaced by denial and nausea. The guilt in his expression only seemed to energize Lynn, in her mind confirming her accusations. He looked like a deer about to be run down. She couldn't know how terrified he actually was of that possibility, how devastating it was to him to hear anyone else say it and give voice to the source of his deepest shame.
>"N-no," he shook his head, "That's..."
>"YOU WANTED IT!" She screamed again, and he fell silent. Lincoln felt himself wither into the dirt as the voice of his sister joined the others in his head that constantly insisted he'd brought everything that was happening on to himself. How was it that all of his sisters could grasp his weaknesses so easily? So instinctively? It was like they'd been born with the knowledge of how to destroy him. Meanwhile he wasn't even able to raise a hand to them. The boy miserably tried to turn away, but Lynn wouldn't allow him to. She grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her.
>"You fucked her for hours! Hours!" She shouted. He gave no reaction beyond the way his face blanched and his grip on her wrist slackened. Lynn let go of him and stood up. It looked like she was trying to decide something.
>He didn't try to squirm away or run. He simply lay upon the dirt, his eyes almost glazing over as the reality of what was happening once again dropped over him like a pile of rubble. Nearly all the fight had gone out of Lincoln. It felt like he was a crashed car. A crashed soul. He couldn't move; it was an effort simply to gather the will to breathe. He was so tired of everything that kept happening to him. He shut his eyes when they inevitably began to water.
>"And what about Leni, huh...?" She whispered, and the boy felt the shame begin pressing down on his chest like an anvil, driving what air he still had out of his lungs. He tucked his head down into his shoulders, as though he was trying to curl up into himself but couldn't manage it. Lynn licked her lips. "Or did she rape you too?" She finally asked sarcastically.
>She could tell he was trying not to cry, and knowing it was her fault made her hate herself. But she was desperate to get him to understand how wrong what he'd done was. He couldn't say things like that. It was dangerous and it was stupid and it was wrong. Did he even understand what could have happened if he'd told someone else that and they believed him?
>Lincoln didn't answer her.
>Neither of them said anything for a long while. The only sound either could hear was the wind and their heavy, frightened breathing. Before long his nose stopped bleeding, the chill soon making the blood over his mouth dry. The boy still didn't try to get up.
>Slowly the sight of Lincoln in the sorry state he was in, so pliant, so weak, began to trigger a different feeling in Lynn. Something deep and primal, the perfect thing to muffle how pitiful and ugly she felt. Before she even realized she was doing it the jock found herself leering at him. A sensation she couldn't describe began bubbling beneath her anger and fear. It felt like expectation.
>"Maybe I should rape you..." Lynn finally hissed with one last burst of spite. The words had suddenly sprang out of her before she'd even considered their meaning, like monsters crawling out of a dark pit. The pain and fury she'd been holding back after being spurned was deep, and it led her to say something ugly. "Seems like everybody's doing it."

>She wasn't sure whether she was bluffing or not. Lynn had let the shock, adrenaline and anger carry her this far, but the truth was she had no idea what she was doing and hadn't for some time. Her own sense of self-worth had been so badly mangled by the way Lincoln had rejected her, the very foundation of who she thought she was was shaken, and the girl couldn't seem to get a handle on any of her feelings. It was like she was going crazy. Every time it seemed as though she'd managed to get a hold of herself, to calm down, her emotions would suddenly plunge or twist again, as if her injured heart refused to allow her to regain her bearings.
>"You know what...?" She asked, as the perfect, easy rationalization for what she yearned to do anyway suddenly crystalized in her mind. "You won't need to lie to me anymore, Lincoln." The tomboy licked her lips carefully, trying to convince herself that what she was craving was more than just a sudden, terrible impulse. That acting on her desires would be helpful. Useful. "I'm going to prove it to you." She came to a decision. It was the only plan the impulsive young girl could come up with in this situation; the only thing she could think of that might make things alright again. Make it like their big, ugly fight hadn't even happened.
>Like he hadn't said any of the stupid things he'd said.
>"I'm going to prove to you how good I am." Lynn repeated nervously even as she tried to appear confident. "You're going to BEG me to let you fuck me." The boy watched in surprised, distraught alarm as his sister's thumbs suddenly hooked into the waistband of her shorts and panties both. She hesitated for only a moment before pushing them down. The clothes pooled at her feet before she stepped over them, leaving her looming over his prone form. The wind whipped against her half-naked body; she would have shivered if her blood didn't feel like it was boiling inside her veins.
>Lincoln gave a terrified start and tried to crawl away, but the athlete was far too quick. She instantly fell upon him and began tearing at his clothes while he fought to stop her.
>Was she really doing this, Lynn wondered, as one of her hands wrapped around Lincoln's belt, the other snatching his wrists and keeping his arms pinned against the dirt while her knees pressed down over his ankles to stop him from kicking. It felt like it was another person piloting her somehow, like she was watching her own body from outside of it as she yanked her little brother's belt out of the loops in his bluejeans. He struggled against her furiously but she easily slammed his hands back against the ground when he tried to push her away. Lynn was aware that he was screaming, but the words seemed distant. Muted.
>This definitely hadn't been how she'd imagined her first time. But it was okay, if it could mend what'd been broken between them. She saw her fingers work the button on his fly, saw them drag down his zipper and pull his briefs down over his squirming lower body, tangling up his knees.
>It was only when Lincoln's cock was suddenly right there in front of her nose, when she felt the heat radiating from it warm her face in the icy autumn afternoon, its hot, clean smell stuffing up her sinuses...
>That's when she knew. It wasn't somebody else doing it. It was her.
>And she loved it.
>"STOP!" He shouted, his body jerking like a trout on a chopping board. He used all his strength to fight her, but his sporty sister hardly reacted to his efforts at all. "Please stop!" His chest rose and fell with his desperate breaths. "Why do you guys keep doing this to me!?" He finally cried, struggling to twist out of her grip.
>"Doing what!?" Lynn suddenly snapped impatiently, looking up at his face from his dick as though she'd only just noticed he was there. Realization dawned on her and, as surprise briefly washed over her features, her eyes narrowed and turned cold. "This isn't rape, Lincoln." Her voice came out low, carrying a note of danger. She'd practically growled the words. For that one short instant she truly reminded the terrified boy of their big sister. "Don't fucking pretend I raped you. Ever." The unspoken threat was deep and rich and vivid. It had the tone of a promise. It frightened him.
>"This isn't rape." She insisted with a tense whisper. The tomboy shut her eyes to steady her confused heart and the warm breath she exhaled washed over his cock, making him spasm from the contrast as the park's icy wind numbed the rest of him. But he still wasn't ready to give in to her. He was still waiting for the moment her grip would loosen, the moment she'd be distracted.
>It was only what she said next, past all the pain and all the betrayal and all the horror, that finally succeeded in breaking his resistance.
>"We're making love." She assured him solemnly.
>He was stunned, reflexively releasing a soft whine of pain under his breath despite himself. The words had pierced right through him like they were a needle she'd jabbed into his flesh. It felt like the pit of his stomach had suddenly come untethered from the rest of his body as the frozen park yawned around the boy, threatening to gobble him up. Perhaps it was simply a trick of his repeatedly injured mind that made the world appear to heave with color and sensation at what she'd promised. But all the same, it was as though he could feel her words slithering up his chest and face before they oozed down into his ear; like a tendril of sweet, cloying poison dripping into his soul. He watched with dazed wonder as the private fantasy he used to retreat into at times like these became consumed by fire behind his eyes, the image of his living room during Christmas becoming twisted and charred.
>Was there a single idea from when he'd been innocent that the people he cared about hadn't contaminated or destroyed? With everything they seemed desperate to take from him, with everything they kept taking, it almost felt like there was nothing left of him to save anymore. Or at least, nothing worth saving.

>An unsteady hand reached out and touched her brother's penis softly, just for a moment, before pulling back in fright as it slowly began to harden. Her eyes flicked up to Lincoln's face, wondering if it hurt, but for some time his expression had now simply cooled into one of deep, longing disappointment. At her. At himself.
>At life.
>That look her made her a little angry, and she used that anger to gather the nerve she needed to finally reach out and touch it.
>He'd shut his eyes just before she did. Some part of the boy uselessly insisted upon defiance, persevering like an ant with its head crushed. It was bent on trying to pretend that it was somebody else doing this to him. Somebody that had already done this to him before. Lincoln wanted to hang on to the memories he had with Lynn, keep them...clean. They were one of his treasures, like his perfect, sunny past with all his siblings were.
>But as he felt her hand, the skin slightly rough from all the sports she played, wrap around his cock, the image of his tomboy older sister lit up dazzlingly inside his uncooperative mind. Even with his eyes shut he could see her. See everything. His body, of course, was so used to it by now that it was no use trying to stay limp. Like a well trained dog, it obeyed. If any of his sisters even touched him it came to life. That's what it was for, it seemed. He trembled with barely restrained misery and his arms went slack, no longer fighting to escape her grip.
>"Does it...does it feel good?" He distantly heard her ask, her natural girlish insecurity overcoming her desire to stay mad at him. She gave his cock several hard tugs, much rougher than any of his other sisters. Her motions felt distinctly Lynn-like. She never had known her own strength. Lincoln whimpered as the unwelcome pleasure started to bubble up in the pit of his stomach, and even with his eyes shut he somehow felt her smile.
>"G-Good." She nodded. The tomboy was grateful that he'd stopped struggling against her for the moment as she tried to memorize the sensation of the hot, velvet skin of his cock against her palm.
>She was entranced. Her little brother's penis didn't feel like anything she'd ever touched before. Somehow at once soft and hard, and so, so warm. Her instincts were to be careful with it, that it was fragile, yet when she held it it strangely seemed so powerful at the same time. It made her feel both excited and naughty, like the time she'd secretly reached over the velvet rope in a school trip to the museum and brushed her fingertips against a dinosaur fossil they'd been warned not to touch.
>Lynn stared at the red, swollen head and licked her lips, then gasped when she noticed a silvery bead of liquid form just at the tip. Lincoln hissed as the steam from her shallow breaths rolled over his sensitive manhood and when Lynn noticed this she laughed, suddenly feeling a bit more confident in herself. She'd been so focused on it, nearly to the point of tunnel vision, that she hadn't been paying attention to how the rest of him reacted. But Lincoln's dick was attached to a boy. It was attached to Lincoln.
>The jock shifted herself closer to him, getting on her knees so she could get a better look at her brother's face.
>"You like it, huh?" She whispered in his ear. Lincoln grit his teeth and turned away from her. His resistance excited her, her body instinctively reacting to the challenge. She could feel herself getting more and more ready as she touched him, felt him, and her moisture soon threatened to drip down one of her toned legs as she watched her little brother try to stay quiet while she played with his body. Her hand kept pumping him steadily, eventually falling into a rhythm she somehow instinctively knew he would enjoy.
>Lynn had less experience with sex than even Luan; she'd never so much as seen a dirty video. The tomboy had no idea what made boys feel good, and the only thing she knew about the act itself was from a brief instructional movie they'd shown in her health class at the beginning of the year that taught kids how girls got pregnant. Well, that and the night she'd seen Lincoln with Lori.
>Lynn was forced to guide herself, almost totally and completely, by Lincoln's reactions to her movements. The fact that her brother was essentially teaching her how to have sex wasn't lost on her, and if possible made her heart swell with even more affection for him.
>The girl almost had to suppress a joyous, excited laugh. Here, too, he was her training buddy. Good ol' Lincoln. She leaned in to place her lips on his jaw, the closest part of his face she could reach from her position. The contrast between her sudden, tender kiss and her otherwise merciless aggression made his stomach churn with confusion, nearly enough to hurt. The boy tried not to mewl at the unpleasant feeling.
>"I'm still mad, though." She assured him, but the truth was she was actively feeling her anger melt away. While she loved her sisters deeply, the more she rationalized it the more touching it was to her that Lincoln would throw Lori under the bus like that just to try and keep the tomboy from getting hurt.
>But he didn't need to do that. She understood what she had to do now if she wanted him to love her. She'd fight for him, just like she fought for all the things she wanted. Lincoln didn't need to protect her that way. The girl was going to show him he'd been wrong about her to begin with.
>Everything was going to be okay.
>Lynn gave a resigned sigh as she accepted how hard it'd always been to stay upset with him, and the boy felt her smile against his cheek.

>What Lincoln said had been stupid and wrong, she fruitlessly tried to remind herself in one last bid not to let him off the hook so easily, all while her brother spasmed as her pumping sped up. Even if he'd said it to try and spare her feelings. Make her feel less...ugly, she thought, and a pinprick of icy sadness pierced her heart like a thorn even through the warmth of the moment they were sharing. She was shaken from her brief spasm of self-pity when her hand slowed down and Lincoln's hips instinctively bucked to try and restore the sensation, and the surge of delight from being able to generate that response from him wiped it out utterly. She laughed as the memory of her pain faded steadily like a dream, the agony that had seemed so unforgettable becoming sketchier and sketchier in the young woman's mind. It was only a few minutes ago that she'd been lower than she'd ever been in her life. But now? The girl bit her lip as she watched her brother squirm and moan under her inexperienced touch.
>She'd never felt sexier.
>Her movements got faster and faster as she noticed his breathing become heavy. Lynn was jerking him off so energetically now that it actually hurt a bit, but the pain mixed with the pleasure to leave the boy paralyzed and at the edge of climax. She seemed lost at where she could take things from there, how she could push him over the top, but all she had for instruction were his moans. Without meaning to she kept her little brother frozen, right at the foot of the precipice, as Lincoln squirmed miserably. He hated himself for letting Lynn make him want to cum so badly.
>The tomboy stared at his face, increasingly flustered. She knew he was close to something, and every new expression he made seemed more alluring than the last. She was desperate now as her fingers started to ache and her muscles burned. Her tempo began to turn slower as Lynn breathed heavily, gazing at his slightly parted lips. After some time passed where it didn't seem like she was making any progress she reluctantly released him and moved to crawl up his body. She gave a sudden groan when her girlhood accidentally brushed against his leg and it felt like she'd been struck by a thunderbolt.
>"Oh fuck," she moaned, "Lincoln..." The boy shut his eyes and tried not to think about how hot she felt in that brief instant, how wet she was. He could still feel a damp patch on his skin where she had rubbed against him. Lynn rested against his chest, trying to get a grip after the sudden spike of pleasure that felt like it had pierced her mind. As she cooled down, just a bit, she finally felt how moist her hand was. She slowly brought it up to her face, trying to catch her breath as she momentarily ignored her little brother and watched the silvery strings of precum glistening between her fingers.
>Lynn stared at it with interest, her eyes briefly flicking up to Lincoln's as if she was looking for an explanation. When none was forthcoming, the boy stubbornly staring away from her, she huffed. Lynn brought her hand close to her face and, as the smell of his sperm suddenly wafted into her nose, choked. The unexpectedly heady scent electrified and sharpened all her senses until where they were and what they were doing seemed a distant memory. All she could focus on at that moment was his cum on her fingertips.
>Lynn wasn't like Lana. She wasn't into gross for the sake of gross. If occasionally she drank or ate something grody, it was only ever because it was healthfood she needed to keep her body in peak condition. Like most girls, she liked sweet things. Clean things. But at that moment, her body was practically begging her to taste what had come out of her little brother.
>So she did.

>The instant the digit slipped past her lips to land carefully over her tongue, every corner of Lynn's brain suddenly seemed to light up. The girl sat there, not even able to breathe, as the raw, undiluted essence of Lincoln exploded over her tastebuds. She was paralyzed, helpless, as waves of pleasure and joy rocked through her soul.
>"You've..." She practically gurgled after a long stretch of trying to get her voice back. Lincoln felt her trembling against him. She felt so light and small and fragile, like a sparrow that had landed on his chest. His big sister was warm. The boy hated how comfortable it was. He couldn't help but turn to look at her as she stared up at him hopelessly. "You've been holding out on us."
>Lincoln watched as his tomboy of an older sister began licking and sucking at her hand, her tongue dipping between her fingers until they were wet with her saliva instead of his cum. She could feel the lingering heat from his penis on her skin, on her tongue, and it made her dizzy with the thrill of what she was doing. At last she licked her palm, her hand now sucked clean of his sperm. But upon traveling back down his body for more, down to that hot, hard, perfectly shaped source, she nearly jumped as Lincoln suddenly gave a hard spasm when her saliva-slick fingers wrapped around his cock again.
>That's when it dawned on her. What had been missing all that time. She'd slowly become more desperate, more nervous, as she worried whether there was some important step she didn't know about to get a boy to finish. But in the end all she'd needed was simple lubrication. Lynn stared down, surprised, then turned back to look at her brother's face as she eagerly started jerking him off again. The wet sound of her skin against his began echoing quietly in the empty park. It took only the most soft, casual gliding of her hand on his sensitive flesh for Lincoln to gasp and moan.
>The girl realized that now she could get him to pop whenever she wanted, and it was this naughty thought that made her squirm as she brought her face as close to his as she could. With his eyes shut and distracted by the incredible sensations of her small hand pumping his boyhood, Lincoln didn't notice his sister moving closer until she was already upon him. When he opened his eyes again all he could see was her face, leering, practically burning a hole through him as she seemed to try and commit every little expression he was making permanently to her memory. He hadn't believed it was even possible for anything his sisters could do to make him feel embarrassed anymore, but the instinct to hide his face was overwhelming. Through it all, the squelching of her hand made sure he didn't forget what was happening. Lincoln's eyes darted from her mouth to her cheek to over her shoulder. Anything to avoid looking her in the eye.
>Anything to avoid seeing how happy she seemed.
>Lynn didn't understand why she felt so close to him at that moment, but it was as though she could read him like a book. She knew, down to the stroke, how long it was going to take for him to cum. She just keyed into him somehow. Maybe it was because they were brother and sister, or the closest two in age, but she somehow sensed everything he was feeling, and knowing that she was the one responsible for it made her feel...Well, pretty.
>"It's okay." She whispered affectionately in his ear, and Lincoln's body, much to his disgust, automatically leaned into the warmth of her breath in the middle of that frozen park. She allowed it, welcomed it, and kissed his earlobe ecstatically as he nestled closer to her. It was instinct, wasn't it? To seek warmth when it was so cold? He tried to convince himself there was nothing wrong, at least with that. He shut his eyes and and silently hated himself for how pathetic he was.
>"Don't pout," Lynn laughed softly, before peppering the side of his neck with kisses. "It's okay." Even in a tomboy like her, the maternal instinct of an older sister was powerful. She wanted him to feel safe. The love and adoration she displayed for him even as she forced herself upon the boy just twisted the knife, and he found himself almost weeping as she held his head against hers.
>"It's okay." She assured him one final time as her soft voice wormed its way beneath his skin and deep into his chest.
>But it wasn't. And he knew it never would be again.
>"You can cum~"

>Just as Lincoln began to cry out, his body wracked with pleasure even while his mind tried to shut everything that was happening out, Lynn pressed her mouth against his parted lips. The boy's eyes widened in surprise as the tenderness and affection from the first real kiss she'd given him became permanently associated in his mind with the feeling of shame and hideous betrayal, his immature soul left naked and shivering from the stupefying intensity of his orgasm. Her tongue licked against his like a flame as the cum boiled up from his balls.
>Tears spilled from Lincoln's eyes as his sister swallowed his horrified scream, squirt after squirt of his sperm shooting out of his cock and up the back of her arm while Lynn pumped him through his climax. She handled the boy through his peak like a machine, tirelessly, her stamina making sure the steady rhythm of her hand never wavered as she milked him. When his orgasm at last seemed to ebb her grip suddenly got tighter and she started jerking him harder. Taken by surprise, her tongue still exploring his mouth, Lincoln wasn't sure if what followed was an entirely separate climax or more of the first. All he knew, as he writhed beneath his sister and lines of his cum began painting the nearby grass, was that it felt like he was dying.
>Maybe that would be a good thing, some part of his mind offered distantly, as he finally began coming down from his surprised peak and Lynn squeezed the last drops of his sperm out of his abused eleven year old cock. Any fire or hope he might have had left felt like it'd been wrenched out of him. He felt himself deflate beneath his sister, his neck and limbs like rubber. Lincoln was the one that was making them all act like this. Maybe it would be better for everybody if he just...disappeared.
>Lynn, for her part, didn't seem to notice the state her little brother's mind had been left in. The tomboy was basking in the intimacy of the kiss they'd shared and still riding high from bringing him to completion. The girl pushed her head forward, relishing the way Lincoln allowed her to angle herself how she liked, as she seemed to explore every position and shape two people could press their lips together in. She finally pulled away, sucking on his bottom lip as she did, and Lincoln felt her smile against his cheek as she continued giving his manhood slow, lazy strokes, her hand now drenched with his cum.
>"Good boy." She sighed happily, and again the child found his body instinctively nestling close to hers. It was freezing. The only warmth he felt was where she touched him, and the almost molten puddle of juices she'd left clinging to his side when she'd unconsciously started grinding herself on him halfway through his orgasm. "Good boy." She repeated as he tried not to whimper. He just wanted to go home.
>Lynn brought her arm up near her face, inspecting with delight the numerous streaks of semen he'd left dripping off it. This was, after all, the only thing that could get her to stop kissing him, the girl thought, bringining the side of her elbow to her lips and beginning to noisily slurp up his semen. Lincoln shuddered at the sight, the sound of it, and felt his spent cock slowly begin to stir again in response. Lynn didn't pay it or him any mind, though, totally entranced by the taste, smell and texture of his cum. It somehow made her feel so warm, so loved.
>That was what it tasted like, she suddenly realized with a slow lick. It tasted like love.
>Lynn smirked and lazily opened one of her eyes to watch how the silvery sperm caught the sparse light. Afternoon was slowly becoming dusk and the park was getting chillier. At last her tongue travelled one last time from her forearm all the way up to her wrist to lick up the last bit of his orgasm and she smacked her lips happily. She turned to say something to her little brother but blinked when she felt her knee bump against something hard. The girl's eyes travelled down and marveled at his renewed erection.
>"Geez, Lincoln..." He heard her say and, let alone fighting her, his intense shame at how powerless he was to even control his own body's reactions made him grimace. "How much have you got in there?" His sister asked with wonder. He didn't answer.

>The girl adjusted herself, pushing off his chest as she straddled the top of his thighs. His cock bounced with the motion of her body. Lincoln hissed when she pressed close to him and he felt her honey drip down over his balls, her pussy seeming to stick to, to kiss, the base of his penis. Lynn fluttered her fingers against his erection with delight, tugging her jersey up a bit as she held it against her abdomen. Lincoln winced as he felt himself become even harder from his wet cock being rubbed against his sister's faintly budding abs as she tried to measure him.
>"Just past my bellybutton..." She whispered when she finally got him flat against her tummy, still squirming, and the little boy moaned hopelessly. Lincoln gasped when Lynn began sliding her fingers over the taut skin of his dick, the expression of wonder on her face slowly becoming an uneasy smirk.
>"I bet you think it won't fit, huh?" Lynn challenged him nervously. He felt as the rough pad of her thumb scooped up a bead of precum and then slowly began rubbing circles over the head of his penis. The boy writhed beneath her.
>"It won't..." He croaked, trying to keep himself from bucking his hips into the ersatz-womanhood Lynn had made between her wet hand and toned abdomen. He didn't know where he'd managed to find his voice. Perhaps it was fear that she could get hurt. Even now, he didn't want to hurt her. The tomboy just laughed, loving the power she held over him. Once again it was his reaction that gave her the confidence she needed to move forward. She wondered if he'd ever realize how good he was at motivating her.
>"See? You're just the same ol' Lincoln, aren't you? Always giving up..." She began, finally releasing his cock from between the soft, warm valley she'd created for it and Lincoln gasped, his back sagging against the dirt in relief. He felt Lynn clamber up his body and place a knee on either side of his waist, then heard her hiss as her fingers fell over his penis and his weeping head glanced against her core. She was hot, nearly enough to burn. After all, this was a heat that'd been simmering for him for thirteen years. "...Before you even try." She finally finished, once she was done lining the boy's rod up against her pussy.

>For all her tough talk, Lynn had to admit she was a little intimidated. Lori was a lot bigger than she was. Her little brother might end up filling his eldest sister just right, but that might not necessarily be the case for the only recently teenaged jock. As she gazed down at the hard cock ready to impale her, it was a little hard not to feel like she might have bitten off more than she could chew.
>But after all the teasing, could she really back out now? The girl gulped, then shook her head.
>No. Even if her big mouth hadn't pushed her into a corner, the truth was she wanted to do this. She wouldn't have taken things this far if she didn't. Lynn was bent on proving to him that she was just as good as Lori or Leni. As any of his sisters. If she wasn't as pretty as them yet, all she needed to do was work harder than they did. Go the extra mile. Just like sports, just like life: all you needed to do was give things a hundred and ten percent.
>"Oh GOD!" She squealed as she lowered her hips and his cock began sinking into her virgin pussy. As inch after inch of Lincoln was pushed inside of her, Lynn suddenly shrieked when she felt his head break through her hymen. The girl bent over from the unexpected pain, her forehead pressing against her little brother's chest as she grit her teeth and tried to work through it.
>One of her female coaches had once warned her that if she kept playing as hard as she did, tearing it was an inevitability. She hadn't given it much thought at the time. No pain, no gain, right? She never could have imagined that after all the hard spills and numerous fouls she'd taken from jealous rivals, the object destined to break her cherry was her dorky little brother's cock. The idea almost made her laugh, and that was enough to quell the ache between her legs a bit. The girl swallowed the saliva in her mouth and pushed herself back off his chest, squaring her shoulders. This wasn't going to be anywhere near enough to get her to back off from her goal. She continued to press herself down against him, a few more inches of the boy slipping into her tight, clutching pussy.
>"...Fuuuuuuuck, Lincoln!" Lynn whined quietly when he was only two thirds of the way inside. Lincoln could feel the traces of her blood, different from her honey, drip down his shaft. Her arms felt boneless and the strange feeling of his familiar, comforting warmth pressed between her legs and inside her body made her swoon with a sensation she'd never felt before. Every time his heart beat Lynn would feel it through his cock, feel it at her core. They were connected so closely now. It was almost perfect. The girl gave one last squirm and squealed in delight as she felt her brother suddenly bottom out inside of her all at once.
>The breath Lincoln had fought so hard to regain had been choked out of his lungs. Lori, Leni, Luna, Luan. Though it made him feel sick to admit it, the boy was now fairly sure he would have been able to recognize his sisters just by the way their bodies felt. Each one was...distinct. Warm or wet or welcoming in some unmistakable, unforgettable way. But none of them reacted to him the way Lynn did. His sister was so small, her body so fit, that it felt like her entire girlhood was one single, well-exercised muscle. It futilely resisted every new centimeter of his manhood that was pushed into her, defying it, almost like it was challenging him to just try and force himself inside.
>Her vagina flexed over his cock from base to tip. When he at last felt his head wedged against her cervix he swore Lynn's body reacted by instantly jumping to life in response. Instead of continuing to attempt to struggle against him as before, now it seemed instead to want to try and draw him closer, deeper. Squeezing, clenching, massaging- the sensations were overwhelming and bruisingly intense. It was so frantic, so needy for him. They weren't even moving, the tomboy still trying to get used to the feeling of him inside of her, and it was already all he could do not to sperm her energetic little pussy right then and there.
>His eyes, focused on the obscene sight of the base of his cock stretching the lips of her girlhood, were suddenly brought up to her face as he heard her gasp with relief.
>"I did it..." She moaned dreamily. Lincoln stared at her as she steadied herself by putting her hand on his belly, her other hand wiping the tears from her eyes. "I did it, Lincoln."
>The girl held her fingertips unsteadily against her modest chest. It felt like her brother had to be somewhere in her throat by then. And yet, somehow, it didn't hurt. Instead, for the first time in her life, Lynn actually felt like a woman. Shy. Beautiful. Her little brother didn't leave any inch of her unfilled, and like they were she could swear she could feel his heart beating right next to hers.

>Lincoln watched his sister's abs ripple as she began writhing against him, grinding her pussy down on the base of his cock, and had to swallow the moan that threatened to slip past his lips. Lynn seemed totally enchanted, totally in love with the feeling. Not a bit of him was left out in the cold and not a bit of her was left unfilled. They fit together perfectly, like a key into its lock. Like two puzzle pieces. It was as though they'd been made for each other, like this was the way it was always supposed to be. The idea gave him vertigo and he tried to think about something else, anything else, but the sensation of his sister's body squeezing him made sure he couldn't.
>Lynn laughed, feeling like she had achieved something important she hadn't realized she'd been trying for her whole life, and bent over close to him so she could press her forehead against his. Like this, her little brother had no choice but to stare into her sparkling, joyful eyes.
>"I can't believe it's really happening, Lincoln." She gushed, genuinely grateful to him for the way he was making her feel. Lynn grabbed his shoulders and let her hands travel sensually down his arms, the sensation leaving a trail of fire on his skin wherever she touched, until she finally reached his wrists and forcefully threaded her fingers through his.
>"You wanted this, didn't you?" She suddenly teased him saucily, her characteristic playfulness rearing its head as she began to pull herself off of him again. The girl was feeling arrogant now that she'd succeeded. She bit her lip, her smoldering eyes staring down at him with the intensity of a spotlight. There was no affection there that he could see. Just lust and hunger. She wasn't his big sister anymore, not at that moment. She was a woman.
>Her brother's dick had turned her into a woman.
>He couldn't look at her, refused to look at her, so he moved his eyes away. All he could see then was the ugly frostbitten trees beside them, the dry grass, his hand being pinned against to the dirt. His sister's small, strong fingers entwined around his.
>She squeezed his hand. He shut his eyes.
>Both of them could feel the sensitive skin of his penis dragging against her clenching pussy as she lifted herself up. It would have been painful if she wasn't so wet. Lynn's body had seemed to try so hard to keep her little brother's dick out, every inch fucked into her another struggle, yet now it was like it didn't want him to leave.
>When only the head of his cock remained inside of her, she paused. Lincoln squirmed as her pussy gripped it almost hard enough to hurt, as though it was totally unwilling to relinquish this last bit of him. He turned to look at her again in pained bafflement as she remained motionless, not knowing that Lynn was focusing on what he couldn't feel: how her insides frantically clutched at nothing, her body's instincts begging her to take him all the way back in. She denied herself, at least for a moment. Lincoln watched as she frowned, her face screwed up in concentration. She wanted to remember the contrast. This was how it felt to be alone...
>As she slowly let her body drop, a joyous smile bloomed on her face, growing with every inch until he finally bottomed out inside of her again.
>And this was how it felt to be with the boy she loved, she thought, her chestnut brown eyes opening to stare at him sweetly. Lynn definitely knew which she liked better.

>As she began to bounce up and down, the athlete rode the highs and lows rapturously, giving precious little thought to her little brother himself as she used him like a toy. Unlike before, her eager pussy now happily welcomed him inside every time Lynn fell on his lap. Sweat dripped down his back as he struggled mightily against the instinct to fuck her back, the girl's energetic riding of him seeming to dare him to try and resist against the incredible sensations her pussy provided as it milked his cock. As for the girl herself, with every new motion she discovered something different she enjoyed about the act, felt him grinding into some part of her she'd never known about before, and the experience was breathtakingly addictive.
>Once again his cockhead prodded the entrance to her womb and her toes curled, the girl fighting not to scream. Electricity rushed through her body and she shut her eyes. It felt like he was forcing her to love him. "You wanted me to come find you!" She finally gasped, completing the thought from earlier she'd almost let him fuck out of her mind. But she wasn't going to let him off that easy, oh no. No way was Lynn going to let her little brother run away from this. "That's why you took MY basketball!"
>The boy winced as he grasped instinctively what Lynn was suddenly driving at. Sick, guilty bile gathered at the back of his throat and he instantly struggled to disentangle his fingers from hers. As lost as Lynn was in her passion, it wasn't any use. She reacted to his efforts by lifting his hands and holding them aloft between their chests in what must have been, in her mind, a romantic gesture.
>The girl licked her lips and grinned, shutting her eyes so she could focus on the feeling of him pumping into her. Her movements slowed down for just a moment, becoming languid, lazy, enjoying that particular stroke, before speeding up again. Lincoln mewled helplessly at the delicious feeling. Her voice was soft and distant, like she was dreaming while still awake. Her voice became a little calmler. "You knew I'd see it was missing. Knew I'd come looking for you." The boy tried to ignore what she was saying. He knew it wasn't true. It'd just been an accident.
>"Probably eve-ffffuuuUUCK!" She suddenly howled as his precum-slickened head poked halfway into her cervix on a particularly forceful thrust. Her eyes shot open and her nostrils flared, the preteen girl staring down at Lincoln as though he'd just hit her, even when all the motion was from her. The boy recoiled when her fingers clenched around his nearly hard enough to make his knuckles pop and she bent over to get in his face, her new position almost making him scream as it caused her tight little cunt to spasm against him in a whole new type of way.

>"You knew this was going to happen! You totally seduced me, you little jerk!" She accused him, fire and mirth dancing behind her eyes. Lincoln opened his mouth to try and deny it but when he did Lynn suddenly twisted her waist and the ensuing sensation wrenched the breath out of his lungs, transforming his half-formed words into a pained, aching hiss. The way she could manipulate him with her body made her feel all-powerful, and her nature as a bad winner began to surface.
>"You knew I'd see the ball was missing, knew I'd chase you here, knew what I'd do if you pretended you weren't into me!" She punctuated every statement by dropping her hips, and Lincoln had to bite the inside of his mouth just to keep from cumming hard into her womb.
>"T-th-that's n-not-" The boy's teeth chattered with the effort he made to speak, to stand up to her. To fight. Like she'd told him to before everything had gone so wrong for all of them.
>"Aww, what's the matter? Widdle Lincoln can't talk?" She grinned. The instinct to bully her cute little brother to climax was strong, but Lynn forced herself to slow down. When the urge to cum at last became less maddening Lincoln gasped in relief. He stared his sister in the eyes, trying to glare at her angrily, but with the tears pouring down his cheeks and wincing in irresistible pleasure every so often he just looked even more adorable to her. More perfect.
>Her brother seized the break she'd offered him to try and speak, only to give a surprised, muffled yell when she instantly kissed him. He yanked his head away angrily.
>"Lynn-" She quickly kissed him again. "Don't-" And again. "I-" And another. He was trying to get her to listen to him but she just took the opportunity to tease him further. His look of righteous indignation crumbled more and more with each condescending kiss. She rested on his chest with a cheshire grin, waiting to pounce every time he tried to open his mouth. "Wh-" Another soft peck on the lips.
>"St-" He tried to blink the tears out of his eyes and failed, his expression faltering. "...Staaawp..." He finally moaned between her kisses, the stern mask at last falling off to reveal him for the pitiful, fuckdrunk little boy he was. Lynn squealed at how helpless and beaten down he looked, nuzzling the crook of his neck affectionately.
>"I win." She whispered against the outline of his collarbone, bending forward to nip at his earlobe.
>The line that separated the two became blurry. Lincoln was starting to feel like he didn't know where his sister ended and he began. Like he was getting swallowed up, his sense of self overwhelmed somehow. Lynn had always overwhelmed him. It made sense that this was no different. Her thrusts increased in speed, in intensity, until both of them were gasping and groaning. The siblings were totally helpless then, firmly in the grip of their own overstimulated hormones, their own bodies' frantic, demented hunger for each other.
>Her little brother shuddered as he felt the too-familiar sensation of his impending orgasm. He heard Lynn's heavy breathing next to his ear, felt her saliva soaking into his skin. Every part of his body she touched felt like fire, every part she didn't frozen and dead. The rough pad of her thumb dug into his palm, rubbing firm, insistent circles on it. Lincoln squirmed beneath her like a butterfly pinned to a board. She laughed. The girl approached the precipice, spurred on by the manic pounding of her hips against his, felt the boy's balls pull up against his body. She was delirious. As she was inexorably drawn to climax by the frenzied pumping of her brother's cock inside of her, the tomboy could form only one coherent thought.
>This was the best day of her life.

>When at last she came, as fiercely as she did everything else, the feeling crashed into the petite girl like a tidal wave; the tomboy couldn't help but scream herself hoarse. Lynn wrapped her arms around Lincoln's head and hugged it to her chest like it was the only thing keeping her from being washed away. As the athlete's young mind was suddenly shattered with pleasure, her fit, pubescent body already attuned to even the slightest change in sensation, his warm cum inevitably flooded the depths of her clutching pussy. Lynn's scream turned into a choking, confused gasp from the sensation of his cockhead wedged against her cervix squirting jet after jet of her little brother's sperm into her welcoming young womb.
>Lincoln's peak was just as sudden and ferocious as his big sister's. The boy struggled to breathe through the sensation of his climax as his mind was bleached white, his hips lifting up a bit involuntarily to spear the girl more firmly on his aching cock, while he felt Lynn tremble against him. His chest burned from the nonstop shallow breaths he was forced to take to avoid suffocating even while his balls twitched and his back jerked, as every time he attempted to breathe deeper his sister's strong arms forced his mouth and nose firmly against her chest. The little boy gasped and gagged, desperate, and as he tried to scream his tongue accidentally dragged across her nipple over the surface of her shirt, her grip briefly loosening enough in response that he could avoid getting smothered
>Lynn inadvertently made him work for his oxygen by thus forcing him to kiss and suck her breasts every time he tried to pull away, her inadvertent asphyxiation making his orgasm even more desperate, even more painfully intense. His sister's hot sweat, soaked into her jersey, washed over his tongue. It tasted somehow...feminine. Lincoln shut his eyes as even the air in his lungs became filtered through the essence of his sister, until the sensation of her felt like it wasn't simply on his skin but permanently soaked inside him. All he could taste, see, smell, feel, and hear as he came was Lynn.
>All through her orgasm his sister continued to fuck him. The first string of Lincoln's cum inside of her had seemed to frenzy the tomboy and she began to pump her hips even more ferociously, so fast and hard he thought it'd be a wonder if she didn't end up bruising his legs. She was so tight, her body so firm as her well-trained muscles spasmed, that he understood immediately how utterly hopeless it was to try and wrench her off him while she came. Instead Lincoln just limply allowed himself to be dragged along by her rhythm, his own body mindlessly answering every clench of her pussy with another spurt of his potent cum.
>Between the lack of air and the seemingly unending fountain of sperm Lynn was making sure he ejaculated inside her eager girlhood, Lincoln slowly found himself getting more and more lightheaded. It was becoming increasingly harder to see, to hear, to the point it soon seemed like all the boy could really do anymore was feel. Feel and cum.
>In the welcoming sea of black he was plunged into, Lynn's presence, her intense, almost tangible hunger remained the only thing still tethering him to the present, looming over him like a red sun. Everything was plunged into twilight but her. Her taste. Her smell. The heat, the writhing, the clenching, the moaning and the mindless, inescapable instinct. His elbow brushed the ground and the frost clinging to the blades of grass beneath him surged up his arm and into his brain, the world outside of Lynn's embrace so deathly cold. He was freezing and burning and getting drained to his core all at the same time.
>Even through every overeager spasm of his balls not a drop of his sperm had yet overflown from his sister's body, her pussy far too small and stretched too tight by his shaft to allow it to escape. It instead squeezed and massaged and wrenched and jerked his cum out of him to where she craved it the most, to where her body knew it belonged: the teenage womb that had only just months ago become fertile. By the time Lincoln's climax finally began to recede he was certain he must have filled her up entirely.
>Lynn gasped as her muscles, moments before pulled tight as chicken wire, began to loosen and the hold her hormones had on her mind finally slipped. The athlete almost fell over him when strength at last gave out. She released her deathgrip on her little brother's head and the boy collapsed into the dirt, Lynn weakly draping herself atop him as the sparks behind their eyelids guttered and died. As their frantic lust slowly waned and receded, gratified, reason ever so slowly flowed back into the bombed out, empty space in their heads it had once occupied.
>It was over.

>Both children took haggard, heavy gasps, spent bodies desperately trying to refill their lungs and moisten their throats. It was only when reality finally started creeping back in at the edges of their consciousness that they felt the frost nipping at their exposed skin.
>Any complex reasoning was still impossible for the girl, but out of mindless instinct she placed her trembling hands on her little brother's belly, trying to push herself up and away from the cold ground. Of course, her strength was still far too drained for her to ever manage such a thing, and all she really accomplished was pushing the little breath Lincoln had regained back out of him. Eventually the tomboy's hands began to roam over his chest, as though struggling to find better purchase, until at last they scrabbled unsteadily up his jaw to land on his face. Lincoln was too exhausted to resist as a couple of her small, thin fingers accidentally slipped into his mouth while she tried to push herself up again. It only registered inside Lynn's dazed mind that he was actually there once she felt the blunt ridges of his teeth under her fingertips.
>The jock lifted her head off his chest to look at Lincoln. Her chin dug softly into his solar plexus, her eyes tired, her throat dry. Lynn slowly began to crawl up her brother's body so she could get more skin to skin contact with him, a journey of only a couple of inches that consumed what little energy she had and left her hopelessly depleted all over again upon finishing it. She sought out his body heat as the sun finally began to sink over the horizon, drawn to him like a moth to a flame. They were plunged into darkness for a moment, the girl clinging to him just a little bit tighter, before the street lights suddenly came to life and illuminated the two prone kids. In the state she was in Lincoln's face, so exhausted, so spent, seemed like the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.
>"T-that was..." Lynn gasped, still reeling from getting fucked so hard her brain felt like it had short-circuited. She'd never experienced anything like that. If she took all the victories she'd ever scored in her life and combined them times a million, they still couldn't even compare. The girl took a gulp, trying to speak a second time, but almost fell over without managing anything as she slowly felt the warmth from her little brother's cum radiating out from the deepest part of her womanhood. The freezing air chilled the sweat on both their bodies, but even with the quickly plummeting temperature it felt like with his seed inside her she'd never feel cold again. She was so happy she could cry. "That was..." She repeated a second time, before at last giving a single pleased, blissful sigh.
>She let the words hang. Any strength she could have used to talk she instead used to not fall asleep in his arms in the middle of the public park. Beneath Lincoln might have been bitter cold, unforgiving grass and dirt, but beneath Lynn all there was was Lincoln's warm chest. His welcoming arms. His beating heart.
>Her lover.
>"I love you, Lincoln." She confessed dreamily, the word suddenly seeming hopelessly incapable of expressing the true depth of her feelings for him.
>The boy, dried strings of his own blood still staining his chin, said nothing.

>The cold, apathetic Michigan moon hung in the sky. Somewhere in a nearby neighborhood, a misunderstood young goth girl sat on her bed. At first, she'd been tense. Expectant. Every little creak and whine of their floorboards sent her head whipping towards their door, fully expecting the boy she'd been waiting for to walk through at any moment. She'd twisted her thin, pale fingers until they were red and swollen, worrying about what to say, how to say it.
>But time continued to pass and all she ever heard was the usual laughter and shouting that always rang throughout the house. Pretty soon her mother called out that it was bed time. The younger kids all scurried back to their rooms, going quiet. Lucy turned to the clock and looked at the time. Seven o'clock.
>He wasn't coming.
>Lucy laid back on her bed. She took her pillow in her hands, pressed it to her face, and cried.

-

>Rita stretched out upon the couch, humming tunelessly as she flipped through the fifteenth draft of the novel she held against her chest in the form of a slightly too-thick manuscript. She'd just gotten to the bit where the courageous white-haired protagonist sprinted through an active construction zone in his chase for the love letter the wind had swept out of his hands. She smiled; that part was one of her favorites. The well-worn story had been doing a good job of keeping her from dwelling on her family troubles.
>The younger children hadn't given her many problems that evening, which she supposed she ought to have been grateful for. The issue nagging her of late was the behavior of some of the older girls; they'd really gotten to worry her lately. The fact the woman didn't have her husband there to confide in simply left her feeling more lost, more concerned about the possibility of something being wrong. He already knew what he would tell her if he was there. 'Puberty'. As far as Lynn Sr. was concerned that was the beginning and end of anything that could be going on with a girl from ages twelve to eighteen. Heck, he was even right about that most of the time, but Rita simply couldn't shake the feeling that this was something more.
>She thought back on how Luna and Luan had excused themselves shortly after dinner, explaining that they were going to bed early. The matron of the house frowned as she remembered the looks on their faces. Luna seemed exhausted, almost emaciated. It didn't escape Rita that her normally vivacious daughter had been looking worse and worse ever since she stayed home that one weekend they spent with aunt Ruth to take care of Lincoln.
>At the time she and her husband had simply assumed that she'd caught whatever it was he had, but it seemed impossible that Luna could still be sick from it after so long. Yet the young musician was undeniably afflicted by a feebleness and malaise that left her much depleted from her typical hard rocking rambunctiousness. She hardly even sang anymore; the girl simply spent all her time scribbling in her private songbook, the one her mother knew she only wrote in when something was seriously bothering her. Rita thought she might have even heard her vomiting once when she passed by the bathroom on the way to wake the children one morning. Whenever confronted, though, Luna assured her that everything was fine.
>Just like Lincoln did. The older woman sighed.
>Her roommate on the other hand was exactly the opposite. Luan had recently taken to making even more jokes and puns than usual throughout the course of the day, often with little or no prompting. She seemed desperate in her attempts to get a laugh out of the people around her, the girl giving off a sort of nervous, frantic energy that stood out as unusual even for her. Rita figured that it was due to her father's absence, Lynn Sr. being one of the few people in their family that truly shared his daughter's sense of humor. With him away she supposed Luan had no choice but to try her best to make an appreciative audience out of the rest of them. Rita couldn't find it in herself to blame her, even when the comedian was being a bit much. She knew how important validation was to someone her age.
>Still, the mother of eleven couldn't help but feel that that might not have been entirely all. Luan's recent compulsion to try and lighten the mood whenever anything important was being discussed, for instance, was new, and not something she had ever really been guilty of in the past. The teenager might have been a born jokester, but she had always had more restraint than to wisecrack when the family was talking about something important, understanding that there was a time and a place for everything.
>Now, however, it seemed as though those were precisely the moments she was most insistent on lightening the mood. They couldn't discuss Aunt Ruth's illness (she was getting worse) or mention how she might soon need hospice care without Luan butting in with about five or ten rapid fire puns. It was like she couldn't stand her mother and sisters being serious or talking about anything difficult. As though she was frightened of it somehow. Rita was beginning to find it a bit exasperating, but she knew that if she asked what brought it on Luan would just make some excuse or brush her off, same as Luna.
>"Teenagers..." She muttered in complaint. The lights flickered for just a second. Rita knew that meant a storm was coming; their house's ancient wiring was more accurate than any weatherman.
>She thought back to her headache. Even that wasn't all; there was their older sister, too. At this point the mother of eleven believed that if Leni could have physically conjoined herself to her little brother, she would have. Rita simply couldn't understand why the young woman was suddenly so clingy with him. At first she'd believed it to be Leni's usual sweet nature and desire to make Lincoln feel better overtaking her common sense, but it had started to feel like more than that lately. On several occasions the Loud family matriarch had actually caught her daughter legitimately mooning after the boy, staring at him for minutes at a time from across the room when she thought no one was looking. More than one fawning sigh had been heard when she was lost in her own little world like that. Leni gravitating towards Lincoln any time the family was all together was a stark contrast to Luan and Luna, who most of the time seemed to try and avoid him if they could.
>The bubbly blonde seemed incapable of understanding that the boy needed his space. Rita hoped her son would never find out how many times she'd had to head his older sister off with some distraction whenever she caught her making her way over to his room. She knew it would just upset him if he did. It broke her heart to have to manipulate her hopelessly sweet daughter that way, but she knew Lincoln would never have told her himself, no matter how badly he wanted some time alone. This was what was best for everybody.

>She could only thank heaven for her eldest. Unlike the rest of her sisters, Lori had dealt with both Lincoln's recent moods and the unexpected development of their father going away admirably. Rita couldn't remember the last time she'd thrown one of her I-can't-wait-'till-I'm-off-to-college tantrums, and she even seemed to be able to handle her younger siblings, especially the twins, more reliably. As a matter of fact, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that in her husband's absence Lori had rapidly become indispensable in managing the household and her mother, consciously or not, had been giving her more and more power and say. At one time Rita might have worried she was putting too much pressure on the girl, but her firstborn had welcomed the new responsibilities. Rather than getting stressed about it, she seemed more relaxed and happy than ever. Even her skin was looking better than usual. The older woman had almost asked her if she was on some new type of health diet. She and her daughter were quite similar to each other, after all. Maybe it could do good things for her too?
>Rita needed to maintain her figure now that her husband was a hotshot executive after all, the blonde thought to herself with a giggle.
>At that moment Lori was probably in her room playing with her phone, but she knew if Lincoln took much longer to return the girl would try to pull her aside again to give her another talk about how nice it would be if Rita could ask him to spend more time at home. It was so like her to worry about him, even if, when anybody asked her to her face, she'd pretend she didn't give a hoot. Rita smirked.
>The rest were just sleeping quietly upstairs. The only noise audible throughout the usually raucous house was the soft knock of wind against the porch and the soothing sound of water slowly coming to a boil emanating from the kitchen, courtesy of the teakettle she'd set out earlier. The older woman gave a sigh of contentment and let her toes curl, pushing her bare feet under one of the couch cushions to keep warm as she soaked in the rare moment of peace in the crowded home. She stared back down at the well-worn book in front of her. This must have been her fiftieth pass of it.
>Rita wasn't an egomaniac, of course; it wasn't that she was so enthralled by her own work that she'd re-read it endlessly for leisure. Rather, the mother of eleven had discovered that she found proofreading the story to be terribly relaxing, even after so many front-to-back corrections. If she really took the time, she could always discover a tiny grammatical mistake, a line that could have been phrased better, an idea that could have been expressed differently, and would make a note of it, inevitably extending the already large manuscript even further. It was much less strenuous work than brainstorming a new story, yet still allowed her to feel as though she'd accomplished something creatively that day. Whenever the older blonde got a moment of quiet to herself she'd usually fish out the tome and give it another pass. It was a lot more rewarding than watching Love Boat reruns on the TV, anyway.
>Rita was only broken out of her reverie by the sound of the doorbell. Her eyes flicked over to the clock hanging on the wall and she blinked, pulling herself off the couch and slipping her feet into her slippers. The woman of the house strode over to the entryway. It was about time those two got back! She was practically huffing over how long her kids had decided to stay out as she cast a glance at the clock. In this sort of weather, no less!
>Still, at least Lincoln was spending time with someone besides himself again, Rita acknowledged. While she didn't have any definite proof he'd been out with Lynn, the girl's absence and her well-worn motherly intuition would brook no other possibility, especially with how she'd seen the two carrying on together the day before. The older woman smiled to herself softly. Maybe her son was finally coming back out of his shell. She resolved then to only scold them gently for not checking in with her before staying out so late. Her slim fingers curled over the handle and pulled the door open, only to be shocked at the terrifying sight that greeted her.
>"O-oh my goodness! What happened!?" The woman gawked, horrified, at the two battered children staring up at her from the doorway.

-

>Neither one of them said anything for a while, even after they finally gathered the strength to disentangle themselves from each other and shakily put their clothes back on. Lynn seemed to struggle just to get her foot through the leghole in her shorts, so unsteady it was a wonder she could even stand, but the boy had more experience with the distinct sort of physical exhaustion they were overcome by and fewer clothes to find, and so had a little less trouble. Lincoln didn't look at his sister while she continued getting dressed after he was done, but he also didn't stalk off and leave her there. When the tomboy at last managed to find and pull tight the waist string on her bottoms, she turned to her awaiting brother and smiled sheepishly.
>"I've never been this tired." She admitted weakly. He didn't answer her, instead after a moment wordlessly turning and walking away. At the pace he was moving it seemed clear that he believed she was going to follow him. She did, and soon the two children were on the familiar road back to their home.
>She'd been expecting a million thoughts to be racing through her head, for there to be all sorts of secrets, wishes and dreams she'd desperately want to confide in the boy next to her now that she finally could, but to her surprise she didn't feel the need to extract a single promise from him or even discuss the future at all. Just this was already perfect. Not one thought disturbed the serene, placid stillness of the athlete's mind. Lynn was simply...satisfied. Deeply so. For the first time in her life it felt like she genuinely didn't want or need anything; that she was content from the absolute core of her being. Her lips curled up into a delighted smile as she walked the deserted town with her little brother and the way it felt like they were the only two people in the world.
>"Royal Woods is pretty creepy like this, huh?" Lynn instead offered as simple, easy talk, casting a glance at the empty neighborhood shops that seemed even more off-putting at night than they had that morning. Strangely, however, she wasn't set ill at ease by them like she'd been before. Rather, revisiting everything that had first made the tomboy so tense on the way over with pleasant company instead got her feeling the way she did when she watched 'making of' documentaries of movies that had scared her and listened to them explain how they made the fake gore. The girl's sense of peace and wellbeing was totally unassailable. The emotions she'd been swept up by earlier in the day, the gutwrenching confusion and fear that made it so she could hardly put one foot in front of the other, now seemed like they'd never really existed in the first place. Like a shadow that frightened her all throughout the night, sinister and creeping, only for morning to come and her to realize that all along it was simply a toy with the moon to its back.
>Lynn laughed. It might have been corny, but after confessing to and being accepted by the love of her life it was like someone had turned the nightlight on in her heart. She skipped a few steps forward ahead of the boy so he wouldn't be able to see her sudden grin.
>"You wouldn't believe how goofy I was acting this morning," The jock admitted, turning to face him and walking backwards so she could watch his expression. Lincoln didn't break his stride or even look at her. Lynn didn't seem to notice and her voice went an octave higher in her excitement, as though she was telling him the punchline to a joke. "The entire way over I felt like The Harvester was gonna get me!"
>She laughed and turned forwards again, timing her pace to be a bit slower than Lincoln's so he'd catch up to her. He did and soon they were walking side by side, their only company the street lamps that lit cold spotlights over the pavement every dozen steps. Lincoln still refused to speak but the girl found herself happily accepting the comfortable silence, satisfied at simply being with him. Lynn noticed his hand hanging limply at his side out of the corner of her eye and soon stopped swinging her arms, walking a bit closer to her brother until their shoulders were nearly pressed together and the backs of their fingers brushed against each other every couple of steps. It seemed to be her own clumsy, shy way of inviting him to take it.
>He didn't. The sudden disappointment she felt was the first truly unpleasant sensation she'd experienced since they first made love, and the immediate impulse she had was to blame herself; of course Lincoln wouldn't get the hint, not with the way she'd acted all her life. She was such a tomboy! He must have thought if he suddenly took her hand like that she'd smack him for treating her like a girly girl.
>The jealousy and insecurity she harbored towards her big sisters briefly resurfaced in her heart, like a sharp, angular fin peeking out of a dark ocean, hinting at the ugliness and danger beneath.
>But that was only for a moment. The happiness she was so consumed by easily burned away those feelings for good the moment they reappeared. Lynn remembered what had happened the last time she believed she wasn't good enough, the last time she'd compared herself too much to Lori and Leni. How she'd proven him and herself wrong.
>'Play to your own strengths.' It was Lincoln himself that had given her that advice once, and it was only now she truly realized how wise it actually was. Instead of asking him to make the first move, she did what she should have done from the start. What she'd done that afternoon.
>Lynn's fingers slowly snaked around the edge of Lincoln's hand and gripped it tight. It was warm, she noted distantly, unable to help the blush that rose to her cheeks as her little brother's palm pressed into hers. The boy didn't pull away. She smiled. After a few more steps Lynn moved closer and let her head rest against his shoulder. His scent made her heart beat faster, just a bit.
>In the end that was the position they'd ended up walking in all the way through Royal Woods, down their street and finally to the front of their door. For the second time that day she was thankful there was no one else out and about in town thanks to the cold. She didn't know whether she would have had the guts to act that way if there had been anybody there to see them.
>The lovestruck little girl was simply too drunk with innocent, romantic delight to think about anything else as she rang the doorbell.

>That's why it came as such a bad shock when their mother opened the door and screamed the moment she took a look at them. The wonderful spell the tomboy had been lost in was shattered as she was roused from her dreamlike happiness and forced to come to terms with the condition the two of them were actually in. She turned to face her brother and, with the stars now pulled back from her eyes so harshly, winced.
>There were no two ways about it: Lincoln was a mess. The boy sported a mean shiner over his left eye and his nose was red and swollen, the ugly vermillion of his normally orange collar making it obvious it had only recently stopped bleeding. A few drops had even gotten into his hair, and the sharp contrast of rusty, dirty red on clean white made Lynn nauseous with dawning horror even though she knew for a fact the injury wasn't nearly as bad as it looked. The girl cast her eyes down at her own body and finally noticed the dried blood staining her fingers and smeared over her shirt where Lincoln had kissed her chest. Both the children were covered in dirt and grass stains.
>Lynn felt sick. Her insane euphoria had somehow made all of these things seem trivial and unimportant, but they weren't. She'd beaten her little brother up. His blood was even now flaking off her knuckles. The memory suddenly resurfaced of the look on his face when she'd been looming over him. Without the adrenaline and emotion clouding her judgement it was only now she realized how Lincoln hadn't even looked angry after she'd hit him. He'd just seemed scared, perplexed, as though he couldn't understand what had just happened. Like the idea of Lynn hurting him was impossible.
>The tomboy felt the room start spinning as the fear and the vertigo took a hold of her. What had she done?
>"What happened to you two!?" Rita repeated, too stunned and frightened to decide which of her children needed her attention the most as she dragged them inside the house and quickly shut the door. The woman stared at the pair, eyes darting between them in panic, before finally sensing Lincoln had gotten the worst of it and bending down to hug her son to her.
>"Lynn!" Rita demanded, deciding the boy was in no state to answer her. The worry in her eyes started to change into anger as she took a closer look at her daughter, finally realizing the blood on her shirt wasn't hers. The woman rapidly seemed to come to a conclusion about what had happened but still screamed for the tomboy to explain.
>Lynn's stomach felt like it had gotten scraped out of her with a rusty hook. She stared at her mom, then at Lincoln's blank expression, the same expression he'd been making the entire way home, as his face pressed against Rita's bountiful breasts while she held his head tight. Terror flowed into her body as their mother's panic fueled her own, and it seemed the guilt from when she'd first started hitting him that had been pushed so far into the back of her mind had only gathered momentum in the meantime at it finally caught up with her.
>While her mother continuously demanded she answer her, excuses, lies and apologies all piled up at the back of Lynn's throat, all fought to come out of her mouth first, as she glanced down at herself again. At his blood all over her chest. She looked up and the sight of her brother made her knees weak as she stared into Lincoln's dull, unexpressive eyes. It was like he couldn't even see her.
>As bad as she felt, as nauseatingly guilty as she was, she still couldn't help how she wordlessly begged for him to save her. Even if she knew there was nothing he could do, even if she knew everything was her fault, even if she knew she'd hurt him, she still somehow expected him to know how to rescue her from her own mess. Like he always did.
>At her pleading gaze, Lincoln slowly turned away from the girl, as though that was his answer. Soon the sight of her mom and brother got blurrier as tears began gathering behind her eyes. She felt herself shaking as she lowered her head.
>Nobody said anything, but the tension hanging between them was thick and dangerous and it was easy to tell that Rita was about to explode. The tomboy balled her trembling fists and grit her teeth just as she felt her mother suck in the breath she needed to scream at her.
>"...Bullies." A weak voice rasped just before she did.
>It was like all the air had gotten sucked out of the room. Lynn couldn't even think as her body froze. It took all her strength just to lift her head and keep her mouth from falling open, staring at her little brother, but he still wasn't looking at her. His half-lidded eyes stuck to the carpet. Rita tried to control her anger as she glanced down at her boy, holding him just a little bit tighter.
>"W-what was that, honey?" She offered gently, her tone a stark contrast from how she spoke to Lynn, as though afraid anything harsher than that would send her son squirming out of her arms and running back to his room. She rubbed his back soothingly to encourage him to speak, but he didn't seem to react to the gesture.
>"Bullies." Lincoln murmured. "I was playing basketball in the park with Lynn and some big kids came. They wanted us to give them our ball. I said no." Lynn didn't interrupt as she listened, dazed, to her little brother lie for her. His voice carried no emotion. "They took it anyway. When I tried to get it back they pushed me down and started beating me up..." Here Lincoln seemed to sniff and shut his eyes, as though the next words were a little harder to force out of his mouth than the others. "...But Lynn saved me."
>There was a long period of silence where no one said anything. Rita was tense and quiet, casting a different sort of glance at her daughter, but her hand still rubbed at his back let him know she was expecting more details. The girl herself, for her part, just stood there, stiff and incomprehending.
>"...She punched one in the nose and kicked another one and they ran away." He finally finished, his tone still flat and lifeless.
>Lynn didn't breathe as her frightened, overloaded brain slowly started processing his words. Lincoln's sudden story might not have been as elaborate as the ones he usually came up with to get them out of trouble, but in the face of his injuries it had the ring of truth to it. Especially, the athlete distantly realized, since they'd forgotten to bring the basketball back with them.
>Their mother didn't seem to know how to react at first. She cast her eyes down at the boy beneath her, then back at Lynn. Her expression seemed drawn between suspicion and guilt. The woman knew very well how ready Lincoln always was to fib if it'd get the girls out of trouble. But looking at the shape he was in, she simply couldn't imagine him lying to her now to save his sister if she really had been the one responsible for this.
>Finally Rita's eyes began to water as guilt won out. She pulled one of her arms off Lincoln and extended it towards Lynn. At first the jock was too shellshocked to react, but some subconscious, childish instinct to avoid getting in trouble soon sent her walking blankly into her mother's embrace.
>Rita hugged her two children tightly, tears threatening to spill as her voice cracked. "My brave boy..." She rubbed Lincoln's back hard, pecking the crown of his head with desperate kisses. "My little hero." She pulled away to stare at Lynn, the athlete having a bit more space to move around within her mother's slightly looser grasp. The girl simply stared, stunned, at the look of pride she gave her. Her mom leaned in to press her forehead against hers before pulling away and hugging the two again.

>Rita heaped more affection and worry on the kids, reassuring Lincoln about how courageous he'd been and fawning over Lynn for protecting her little brother the way she had. It was obvious how mortified she felt for the initial tone she'd taken with her daughter, the conclusions she'd jumped to. She had already quietly resolved to make it up to her somehow, increasing her allowance or giving her more indoor ball game privileges. Something.
>But the girl herself couldn't think about that right now. All the dazed tomboy could concentrate on was her brother. She couldn't look at him, the children's faces forced against one of Rita's shoulders each, but she could feel his shoulder against hers. Feel his fingers brushing against her hands everytime her mother's back shook with a suppressed sob.
>He'd lied for her. He'd saved her, again, even after what she'd done to him.
>Just like he always did. Lynn gulped as her mouth went dry, their mother still squeezing them like she was afraid they'd disappear.
>After what seemed like an eternity, Rita finally pulled away from the two. Her eyes glanced between each of their faces, her hand still softly caressing her son's head and her daughter's shoulder. Finally she turned to Lynn. "You did something amazing today, sweetie. Head up to your room now, okay?" The woman gave a sniffle as the emotion threatened to send her voice breaking again, the relief and worry still far from being out of her system. She only forced herself to calm down so as to not to upset her children, but it seemed they were taking what had happened better than she was! Rita suddenly realized she was being so immature compared to her two dry-eyed kids. But she adored them so much... The idea they could have gotten hurt made her feel sick. "Head up to your room." She repeated, swallowing the sob that threatened to spill from her chest. She coughed and gave a hard sniff, steadying herself. "I need to call your father."
>Lynn nodded dumbly and her mother let go of her. The woman turned around and grasped blindly for the remote, still totally unwilling to release her son from her embrace. At last she found it and turned the television on. "You stay here for a bit, okay Lincoln? Just watch TV. I'll be right back." She finally pulled back from the boy to look into his eyes. He didn't answer her and Rita felt her heart quake. She gave him one last, tight hug before getting up and hurrying to the kitchen.

>At last the two were left alone. Lynn stared at him, still totally dumbstruck, while Lincoln simply gazed down at the carpet. Her mother's horror had made him appear even more badly injured to her, and she felt like hot coals were getting shoveled into the pit of her stomach as hideous shame and breathless gratitude clashed for control of her emotions. Lynn's face twisted for a moment as she felt herself nearly start to bawl.
>He was so good to her. At that moment it almost felt like her love for him could turn into obsession if she wasn't careful, and that frightened her.
>The girl just stood there, trying to get words to come out of her mouth. But her throat was so dry and brittle apart from the emotion gumming it up. Lynn knew anything she could force herself to say would just come out as a wail. The sight of her brother got blurry again as tears first gathered behind and then finally spilled from her eyes. The two just stood there, quietly, until the tomboy couldn't help herself anymore. She jumped forward and kissed him, a sudden, uncontrollable impulse.
>Numerous sudden gasps let her know they weren't alone, and Lynn instantly swiveled her head to see where they had come from. There, at the top of the stairs, were gathered all of the Loud siblings that had still been awake when the two had gotten home, having come to investigate what all the noise was about. It was clear that they had all witnessed what she'd done.
>Luna appeared horrified by what she'd just seen. Luan, insanely stressed. Their sister Leni, for her part, seemed torn between girlish delight at the sweet sight she'd been privileged to and worry for her little brother. The only one whose reaction to the kiss wasn't written plain as day on her face was Lori, who only frowned a bit.
>Lynn turned from them back to her little brother, who appeared uninterested and unsurprised at the fact they'd been discovered, still only staring at the carpet. She'd been ready to panic at being found out but the fact he seemed so calm, strangely so in fact, made her feel calmer as well. Fine then, she secretly smiled. If Lincoln didn't care that their sisters knew about their relationship, she wouldn't either. It wasn't like they could say anything anyway, at least not Lori or Leni.
>The tomboy wanted to stay with him, to hold him if only for a second longer, but finally shook her head, turning and sprinting quickly up the stairs. Her sisters dutifully got out of her way, though some did it more slowly than others. All of them, that was, apart from Lori. The blonde grabbed her wrist just as she tried to run past.
>Lynn froze when she felt her oldest sister's fingers dig into her skin firmly enough to bruise, practically yanked back from where she'd been heading. She slowly turned to face her. Lori's expression went from a frown to a glare of barely mitigated anger. The tomboy couldn't help her surprise and instinctive fright. She almost trembled, but forced herself to stand tall and not show any sign of weakness. After a long, tense moment, where all the other sisters limited themselves to simply watching the two, the eldest daughter finally spoke.
>"Don't ever hit Lincoln again." She commanded, so plainly seething that as the words came out of her mouth it sounded as though each one had been dipped in her bile. The teenager had easily seen through the lie her little brother had contrived to save Lynn from their mother's wrath and was furious with her for what she'd done.
>Lynn almost flinched, especially when the eldest Loud sibling squeezed her arm hard to add more emphasis to her statement. The jock felt her wrist throb in complaint. She took a moment to compose herself before shaking her head.
>"I won't." She whispered softly, but firmly. Lynn wouldn't have dared even if Lori hadn't said anything. Her lingering guilt still had her so gutwrenchingly sick that the girl found herself almost wishing Lincoln had told the truth just so she could have gotten punished and with that maybe feel like she'd started paying off her mistake.
>Her oldest sister stared at her coldly, almost dangerously so, as though measuring the sincerity of her words. Finally, after a pregnant pause, she at last let go. The tomboy cradled her forearm. Lynn turned away and, without another word, slinked off into her room, shutting the door behind her.

-

>As the tension rapidly left her shoulders the three steps Lynn needed to take to her bed quickly came to seem like three miles. The jock walked forward unsteadily until her knees finally gave out and she flopped onto her mattress, releasing a deep, emotionally spent breath. She couldn't wait until she fell asleep. She was grateful to know that at least it wouldn't take too long. Not with how drained she felt.
>"Tired?" A voice suddenly asked from the darkness, and Lynn clenched her teeth hard enough the enamel nearly cracked. Her previously boneless body clenched like a fist for just a second as her eyes darted sideways in her fright, only to release an additional, much more exhausted sigh as she realized who it was.
>"I really wish you wouldn't do that, Luce." Lynn complained, though without much energy. She kicked her sneakers off her feet without ever getting off the mattress, pushing them to the floor past the slats at the base of the bedframe. She realized she must have stank, her clothes and skin still stained with sweat and plenty of other fluids, but she just didn't feel like she had the strength to stand up, much less shower.
>The voice didn't answer her for a while. Lynn didn't turn over on her side to look at her sister, there wasn't enough light to see anyway and she was too tired besides. It was only now she realized Lucy had sounded just a bit sullen, but the athlete couldn't bring herself to wonder why. It was a struggle simply to stay awake the moment her head nestled into her pillow.
>Silence dominated the room until the exact instant Lynn's mind began to fade, then Lucy spoke again and she was roused like she'd been struck by a thunderbolt.
>"How was your day?" The goth had asked quietly. With how disoriented she became, Lynn didn't pick up on the mysterious current of emotion running just beneath the words. She wasn't particularly empathetic at the best of times, and her sister had always been far from expressive, so she simply took Lucy at face value. The jock might normally have been crabby at being woken up the moment she'd fallen asleep, but the rapidfire flood of memories the question prompted capped off with the recollection of how Lincoln had saved her, instead sent her sighing pleasurably. The ugly jolt she'd received when she got home was nothing compared to the joy from finally making her dreams come true, and the way the boy showed he forgave her by lying for her had done much to ease the asphyxiatingly guilty conscience she still nursed from hitting him.
>This last week had been the craziest time of her life, but now that everything was said and done she honestly couldn't imagine herself feeling any happier. She couldn't imagine feeling any more fulfilled. Lynn thought about the question hard, trying to think of the perfect words to capture the emotion that sent her heart fluttering every time she thought of her brother, how wonderful everything was now and how wonderful she was sure it'd always be. She thought and thought and thought before finally giving up.
>"Amazing..." Lynn muttered simply, shaking her head, the word so charged with meaning it felt like it had pushed a good deal of air out of the room. It was, in truth, an understatement. She wanted to say it was the best day she'd ever had. Wanted to tell her sister she was in love. Wanted to tell her the boy she loved loved her back. Wanted to giggle and laugh and talk with Lucy, tell her all she was feeling, all the dreams she was having, all the stuff she couldn't wait for.
>But she didn't have the strength. Saying that single, honest word, so laden with joy and happiness and hope, releasing it from her heart like a canary from a cage, was the last thing she managed to do that day. With Lynn's previously boundless energy well and truly expended, the girl slipped irresistibly into sleep.

>She didn't notice the two semi-obscured eyes that had been watching so carefully from the moment she first walked into the room still boring into her. Didn't notice how Lucy had been hugging her knees to her chest as she sat on her bed, the skin on her cheeks red and irritated from tears, her voice noticeably cracked from all the crying she'd done into her pillow when two hours after he promised he'd be there her brother still hadn't shown up. All this on what she'd believed would be the most important night of her life.
>All those bloodshot, tired eyes did was peer at Lynn. Analyze her as she slept peacefully. Unaware. Satisfied. Lucy, ever so sensitive to the deeper meanings of what people carelessly said, took a long time to process every dimension and corner of that solitary word. The goth rolled it around in her mind as though, through some clue in Lynn's tone that would become clear if she just thought about it hard enough, she'd understand why Lincoln had apparently chosen to spend the day with her roommate instead of Lucy. Everything from the way her sister was walking to how exhausted she was became another thing for the slighted little girl to obsess over and ponder about. It didn't seem possible that her big brother could have just blown her off like that for no reason. That wasn't the way he was. In her unsteady state, her mind still so rattled from what she'd witnessed the night before, her normally reserved temperament desperately groped for any sort of emotional outlet.
>Lynn must have done something, she suddenly decided, with no need to consider it any further. Gotten to Lincoln somehow and kept him away. She knew better than anyone how pushy she was. The goth grit her teeth and her deep, simmering disappointment easily twisted into anger and resentment. She was almost grateful to her sister for allowing her to externalize some of her pain in that small way. She knew it wasn't fair. She had no proof, after all. But it didn't matter; that small inkling of being wronged by her roommate yet again was enough to get her out of her own head, and after spending the last two hours beating herself up about what she should have said to her big brother instead to get him to come it was a welcome bit of relief.
>When the goth at last could stand it no longer, when Lynn's obvious contentment finally became truly unbearable, she stalked off her seat on her bed to loom over her. She wasn't sure what it was she intended to do, lurking beside her helpless, unwitting roommate like that. Maybe simply act her age for once and interrupt her pleasant dreams out of spite.
>But any notions of revenge, or anything else that might have been passing through the girl, instantly vanished once she got close enough to her sister.
>It was the smell.
>It was the same smell as the one from the night before. That heady, violent scent that had pierced through her young belly and sent her mind aflame when she'd been scrambling to beat Lynn to their brother. The one that had tantalized and lured her as she'd been making her way through the vents, over to his room and the scene she was greeted by. That horrifying, titillating, unforgettable scene that had spurred her actions and kept her, even now, crucified at the edge of expectation and hope.
>Lucy understood what happened then. She didn't know the details, but her maiden's heart could suddenly only interpret the look on Lynn's face, the smile on her lips, the loose, satisfied sprawl she lay in in one way.
>The reason for Lincoln's absence was suddenly very, very clear to the little girl.
>The bark of hopeless laughter that welled up from the pit of Lucy's stomach was hard to supress. She couldn't help it; the image of Lynn giving Lincoln the same kind of pitiful, abortive confession the goth had attempted and, unlike her, actually being rewarded for it suddenly sprung unbidden to her mind. She knew there was no way the tomboy had been as tentative and cowardly as she was, though. She'd probably just told him point blank and given him no choice but to accept her feelings. That's what girls like Lori and Lynn did. The self-pity her previous anger at the jock had momentarily quelled suddenly came rushing back. Lucy bit her lip and, as she found herself doing more and more lately, wished she was braver. Wished she was more like her big sisters. That she could have the things that seemed to come so easily to all the other women around her.
>Except that for once she didn't leave it hanging at just an unfulfilled wish. Didn't skulk back to her bed in defeat pining for something everyone but her got. She thought about Lincoln again and how much he meant to her. How much he did for her. How far out of his comfort zone he always went just to make them all happy.
>How could she expect him to love her, truly love her, if she didn't do the same?
>The goth's eyes narrowed. She looked at her empty bed, then at the half-open door. The little girl clenched her fists until her fingernails marked the delicate, pale skin, struggling furiously against her own fundamentally timid nature. After what seemed like an eternity her confused emotions finally settled. Lucy gave one last glance at Lynn, the scent of fulfilled passion cooling on her roommate's skin and wafting up into her sinuses giving the little girl that last bit of courage she needed as the pit of her stomach twisted uncomfortably in response. She took a deep breath before creeping out into the hallway and stalking quietly into her brother's room.
-

>The little boy sat in front of the TV while the rain bounced against the window, his mother dialing the telephone in the other room. He'd been watching it for a while, or perhaps it would have been more accurate to say that it was in his line of sight after he'd stumbled over to the couch. Most of the stuff playing on the television just seemed like white noise to him, the sights and sounds all running together into a nondescript mess. It was difficult for him to concentrate on it with the shrill buzzing in his head that'd only been increasing in volume and intensity the entire way home. His attention was only drawn when a familiar jingle sounded and the screen suddenly became awash in warm, pleasant colors.
>He finally recognized something that he was seeing. It was a commercial that'd been playing lately on the childrens' channels almost nonstop, one for a new summer toy for kids. A strange contraption sat in the middle of a sunny yard. It was some sort of limbo game, a special hose you could set up within a plasic housing that fired water at fixed heights. The idea was to slip under it to avoid getting wet and adjust it lower each time.
>"How low can you go?" The announcer asked cheerfully. The boy didn't blink, staring blankly at the television as the storm outside ever so often rumbled angrily. "How low can you go?" The voice repeated itself as excited little girls in bathing suits appeared from off camera to try and shimmy beneath the arcs of water. The image distorted as the signal waned momentarily from a burst of thunder. "How low can you go?" The phone number for money orders danced across the bottom of the television. Lincoln shut his eyes as the buzzing reached a frenzied peak, almost enough to be painful.
>The words repeated within his mind long after the commercial finished.
>How low can you go?

>Lincoln listened at how his mom tried contact his father in the kitchen. It seemed Lynn Sr.'s ringer had been turned off so Rita had been forced to look up the name of the hotel online and call reception. After a few minutes of fencing with the man attending the phones she was finally put through to his room. From what the boy could glean through the half of the conversation he could hear, his dad was explaining to his wife how he'd muted his cellphone so he could sleep since all his new friends had been constantly calling him to join a party they were throwing in one of their suites, and he had been too wiped from too many of those kinds of parties to partake in this one.
>At first the Loud family patriarch had been cheered by Rita's unexpected call, always happy whenever he got a chance to talk to his wife or kids. In truth, during the first two weeks he'd been away he'd been so clingy she'd had to force him to promise to only phone them once a day, out of concern that he'd close himself off to new opportunities and connections by being too preoccupied with his family. The father of eleven found it agonizing at first but eventually adapted, got into the swing of things and now seemed to find the distance a bit more bearable, in turn putting himself out there more with his new colleagues.
>However, when Rita interrupted him as he started to ask about her day he got a bit more concerned. Lynn Sr. only then started to notice how strained her voice sounded. The father of eleven quickly realized his wife hadn't just called him to chat, and when he asked her what was wrong she breathlessly related the state two of her children had come home in that night. Lincoln watched out of the corner of his eye how his mom's shoulders seemed to sag in relief, apparently glad to be talking to someone she could be openly worried around. The line went quiet for a long time, but the boy percieved a bit more chatter from the earpiece and soon Rita was explaining what had happened as her son had relayed it to her. They talked to each other in hushed tones for a moment, until there was a sudden shout that Lincoln heard even from where he sat.
>"Dammit! The McBrides were right!" He heard his father fume through the phone, clearly enraged both from what had happened to his kids and the fact that he couldn't be there to check in on them himself.
>His wife responded by speaking more softly, enough that Lincoln couldn't hear her. She cast a worried glance at him from over her shoulder, but Lynn Sr. was in too much of a state to realize she was trying to get him to keep his voice down.
>"No, Rita! We acted like they were crazy but Royal Woods really is going to the dogs! Can you imagine this happening even five years ago?" His dad's voice was pained as for the first time he truly felt the infuriating impotence of being hundreds of miles away from his family while they needed him.
>"I know, I know," Rita spoke, finally raising the volume of her voice when she realized it was no use trying to get her husband to calm down. "I'm as upset as you are, Lynn! But you need to get a hold of yourself..." It seemed the woman had passed the burden of her fright and worry on like some kind of infection. Her hands had been trembling when she'd first dialed the phone but now that she was forced to console someone else she, strangely, found herself in more control than she had been when she'd simply been alone with her emotions.
>"I will not calm down!" Her husband answered, perhaps childishly. "I'm off in New York drinking champagne with a bunch of richie riches and meanwhile my kids can't even leave the house without getting mugged! This isn't right, Rita. I'm getting on the next plane back!"
>"Oh, Lynn," His wife said, worried that she'd just made things worse. "You can't leave! You just got there! Look, it's only a couple more weeks. Just hang on. The kids are safe now and blowing your big networking opportunity isn't going to help anything."
>Lincoln could practically hear his dad squirming on the other end of the line as his mom's measured words and soothing tone slowly but surely began to wear him down. The two shared a few more whispers with each other until the speaker crackled to life again and he could hear the defeat in his voice.
>"...I want us to move. I don't want my kids living in a town where they can't even play in the park without being in danger." His words were heavy, apparently finally realizing there really wasn't anything he could do at the moment.
>"We'll talk about it when you get home, honey." She assured him gently, "Do you want to talk to Lincoln?"
>"Yes!" The boy sensed how his father jumped. "What about Lynn Jr.? Is she there too?"
>"I sent her to bed. She looked like she needed some rest." Rita sighed. "God, Lynn, when I first saw them I..." The woman bit her lip, turning to cast another furtive glance at her son. He was still staring at the TV, but her voice went an octave softer anyway in case he heard her. "Lincoln looked so hurt, I...I thought maybe she'd hit him." She released a troubled sigh. "Can you believe it? I'm so ashamed of myself..."
>The voice on the other end of the line was understanding, supportive. "You were scared, sweetheart. It's alright. We both know she has a temper sometimes, just like her old man. Anybody could have made that mistake."
>Rita sighed again and nodded, running a hand through her hair. Part of the reason she'd called was simply so that her husband could help her feel less guilty about the ugly thought she'd had. Lynn Sr. seemed to realize that now that he was calmer and was happy to ease the frazzled woman's nerves.
>"But you know our girls." He continued. "They'd never hurt Lincoln."
>At this point Lynn Sr., the man himself relieved at finally being able to process and assuage his horrible worries, took on a softer, more joking tone.

>"They're practically in love with him."

-

>Once he was finally handed the phone his father treated him gently. Lincoln could tell it was driving him crazy not being able to be there, so the boy acted as though everything was fine. He was good at that after doing it for so long. Lynn Sr. gushed about how brave he'd been, how proud he should feel that he hadn't let himself get pushed around. He apologized again for being away but swore again that he'd be back before he knew it, that everything was going to be okay.
>Lincoln knew that his dad would be up all night worrying unless he told him he was alright, so he did. Lynn Sr. asked him if he'd thanked his sister for protecting him like that. Lincoln answered that he hadn't yet, so he made him promise he would. Lynn Sr. repeated how much he loved him and missed him and how he couldn't wait to see him again. The boy told him he felt the same way. Rita took the phone back with a small smile as the call finally ended and gave her son a tender kiss on the forehead, helping him up from the couch.
>"Listen, honey..." His mother began. It was obvious she was nervous about how to broach the subject on her mind. "After what happened today, I'm really not sure I want you heading out alone like you've been doing."
>Lincoln blinked up at her, seemingly not understanding. Rita squirmed unhappily under his gaze. The older woman had ended up with some time to think once she'd handed the telephone over to him. Once she did, she couldn't help her mind drifting back to how Lori had nagged her all through the month about how it wasn't safe for a boy his age to head out alone so long and for so late. She recalled how casually she'd brushed her eldest daughter off, how unconcerned she'd been, and now the guilt was eating at her ceaselessly. She'd been too carefree and her only son had ended up getting hurt because of it. It was something she refused to let happen again, even if he resented her for it. She knew he'd understand someday, once he had kids.
>"I know you love those long walks of yours," Her voice came out a little more firmly once she became committed to her course, "But it's just not safe out there anymore. You understand, don't you?" Her eyes glimmered with worry, but Lincoln could still only stare, half in a daze, as though his normally quick mind was having trouble imagining where the conversation could possibly be going. Rita sighed, realizing she was going to have to be the bad guy and spell it all out rather than wait for him to realize what she meant himself.
>"Whenever you leave the house from now on, I want you to take one of your older sisters with you." She ordered gently, her hand reaching out to squeeze his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Lincoln. I just never want anything like this to happen again."
>Her son blinked. He lowered his gaze, staring at her chest, as he slowly grasped her meaning. It seemed to take him quite a while and for a second she almost thought she saw a shudder go through him. It had happened so fast that she wasn't sure she hadn't just imagined it, but she tried to console him just in case.
>"Oh, don't be like that, sweetie..." She gave him another quick hug. "Listen, why don't you try asking Lori to keep you company? Something tells me she might be more up for it than you think." Rita smiled at him sweetly. The boy blinked at her again before slowly lowering his head as her demand finally appeared to sink in. He seemed to her then all of a sudden so deeply and profoundly defeated, whatever little spirit he had left draining out of him all at once, that her heart shook. The woman steeled herself, using all her strength not to give in to that look, and patted his back.
>"Go wash up now and go to bed. I'll make you some pancakes tomorrow just the way you like them, okay?" The woman paused for a bit, then grimaced unhappily when she noticed her promise had no effect on her son's mood. Rita leaned in and pressed her lips against the crown of his head one last time, taking a deep sniff of his hair as she hugged him tight. She led him to the stairs, carefully helping him take that first difficult step, but after that the boy seemed to go into autopilot, walking up on his own before disappearing into the second floor hall. His mother stared after him and sighed.
---

>Lincoln didn't go wash up. Instead he just stood there in a daze, as though he'd just been in some sort of terrible car crash. After a while he finally turned with some difficulty to scan the hallway around him; he could feel the furtive eyes of some of his older sisters peeking at him apprehensively from the entrances to their rooms. The boy ignored their stares, making his way slowly and clumsily to his bedroom at the end of the corridor. The door was already ajar and he slipped his thin body past the opening before pushing it shut, then at last truly alone for the first time since he'd arrived back home. Lincoln didn't bother with the lock. He somehow sensed by the atmosphere outside that no one intended to vist, at least not tonight. It was an unusual kindness considering the way things usually went. They were being thoughtful.
>Lincoln blinked as his eyes gradually adjusted to the almost pitch black of his room. What little light there was streamed in from beneath the doorjamb, but after a moment of apparent hesitation someone quietly stepped outside their bedroom to turn off the hallway light and then that was gone too. The small space he slept in was plunged into even deeper shadow as ugly grey stormclouds roiled in front of the moon outside his window. For once the house was quiet.
>The boy took the last few unsteady steps in the dark before finally collapsing over his mattress. Finally by himself and with his mind overcome by the need for rest, the last instincts remaining to put off acknowledging the reality of what had happened to him until he was somewhere safe fell away and the events of the day rolled over him like a rockslide. The sudden images flashed past his eyes unbidden, an act of violence his mind inflicted upon itself.
>To his surprise, however, the awful memories couldn't find any purchase in Lincoln. Couldn't gouge any deeper injury into his battered, numb psyche. He simply recalled what he'd experienced dispassionately, as though it'd happened to somebody else. He felt colder now; stripped apart so comprehensively, it didn't seem like there was any uninjured part of him left for it to damage.
>Inside his mind the entire day was replayed over and over again as he lay there, the rain sliding down the window casting a series of shifting lines and twisting patterns over his expressionless face. The boy recalled every miserable moment in detail; the bruises on his aching, sticky body throbbed as though to make sure he couldn't forget if he tried. His normal impulse would have been to second-guess himself, to wonder if things could have been different if he'd simply acted another way. But he didn't have the energy for that anymore. He didn't have the will. Lincoln had been through enough that the idea of coming up with some plan or plot at that point seemed whimsical. He was so tired. If he'd wanted things to be different before, now all the boy wanted was to be allowed to sleep. That was all he could bring himself to wish for anymore. Anything more than that was just another hope someone could use to hurt him.
>Stormclouds rumbled in the distance and the old wooden house groaned in the frenzied winds. His grimy clothes stuck to his skin; the clean, soft sheets under his fingertips only made him feel more filthy by comparison. As the boy's abused consciousness guttered like an ember and the last few glowing cinders settled, smoking, over his threadbare soul, a self-destructive instinct all of a sudden gripped him hard. For the first time in months, he stopped fighting not to think.
>Reality caught up to him all at once like it'd been waiting all along for his discipline to slip. Every single looming catastrophe his instincts told him stood just around the corner rushed to the forefront of his mind as though demanding his attention first, every possible disastrous outcome the truth could have upon his family. He was on the tightrope and all around him was nothing but the abyss.
>Lincoln thought about his mom. Lincoln thought about his dad. Lincoln thought about how afraid he'd felt that morning. Lincoln thought about how afraid he always felt. Lincoln thought about how Lori had told him she loved him the night before. Lincoln thought about how Lynn had told him she loved him that afternoon. Lincoln thought about how he'd trusted her. Lincoln thought about how glad he'd been she wanted to keep him company. Lincoln thought about last Christmas. Lincoln thought about how low you could go.
>Lincoln thought about life and death and happiness and sadness, about the future and the past and his friends and the people he missed and the people he hoped missed him. The future seemed to race towards him inevitably, mercilessly, a vast grey expanse devoid of hope, frozen in endless twilight. Lincoln thought about what it used to feel like for his stomach not to hurt.
>Lincoln thought about what was going to happen now.
>He gave a hitching wheeze, the last trace of oxygen catching desperately in his throat like his body didn't want to let it go.
>Don't think.
>The dread pushed down on him like a huge, invisible weight, crushing the life from his body. The breath that finally rattled out from his chest was dry, and halting, and the boy couldn't find it in himself to care anymore whether it was the last one he ever took.
>He shut his eyes. Tomorrow was on its way. But today, at least, was over.

>"You forgot about me."

>The voice was quiet, almost a murmur, but to Lincoln it was more jarring than the dying peals of thunder outside. The boy opened his eyes again, his pupils dilating sharply in an instinctive attempt draw in every detail around him as his senses screamed danger. His surroundings were cast in almost total darkness, but as the rain gradually eased up and the clouds that had been smothering the moon finally finished drifting past, faint light shone through the window and illuminated his bedroom. The pale little girl that had been standing quietly at the foot of his mattress at last materialized in front of him. She must have been there the entire time, Lincoln distantly realized. Watching him.
>He didn't jump or shrink back in fright. He was too depleted to be physically startled anymore. Lincoln simply stared back at her, unblinking. His sister Lucy received his wordless gaze impassively.
>"...You promised." She finally reminded him, her tone slightly sullen. At first he didn't understand what his little sister meant or why she was there, but then all at once the dim memories from early that morning began to resurface in his mind, bubbling through the thick, muddy tar it felt like his brain had been dipped in that made it so hard for him to think.
>He blinked, suddenly understanding both her presence in his bedroom and the attitude she had that seemed to imply he'd wronged her. Lucy was right; Lincoln had forgotten all about how he'd said he'd come home early so she could tell him what she couldn't bring herself to that morning. He'd been so earnest when he'd made that promise, too. But after what happened that afternoon, all of it had been washed from his mind entirely. Lynn had left no room in him for anything or anyone else.
>There was a stretch of awkward, tense silence when Lincoln didn't answer her. He was usually so quick to apologize when stuff like this happened. When it didn't come the girl couldn't help but suddenly feel miffed. Lucy hesitated, then cast her her eyes down and shook her head.
>She instantly regretted her childish thoughts, her immature grumbling. It had simply been an instinctive bargaining posture she'd taken, learned from living in a house with so many siblings and where the squeaky wheel usually got the grease. But it wasn't the time for cheap ploys like that. In the end, with the plan Lucy had it was important to convince him first that she wasn't a child, that she was an adult and he could trust her to mean what she said. That was mostly because of how crazy what she intended to say to him tonight actually was. Instead of doing that and being grown-up about things, the first thing she'd done once she'd gotten a moment alone with her big brother was whine to him. Stupid. It was the seldom-seen brat in her that only came out when she was with him, the part of the girl that was used to Lincoln pampering her and felt slighted when he didn't make her the center of his attention. Lucy didn't like that side of herself. She couldn't behave like a little girl anymore. She'd already made a decision to act differently this time, and that had to start with chasing after what she wanted, not sulking about something that had already happened.
>Lucy reminded herself that she needed to be more like Lynn.

>Lincoln had in fact felt his mouth moving to apologize automatically, just like he always did whenever he let one of his sisters down, however he was surprised to find how the words wouldn't come. Instead the air rushed out of him uselessly and the only sound he managed to produce, no matter how hard he tried, was a strange, shuddering sigh. If he said it he should mean it, that had always been what he'd believed about situations like these. But even though there wasn't enough emotion left in him for him to be sincere, his overactive conscience still wouldn't allow the boy fib. He blinked, his eyes moving up from Lucy to stare at the ceiling as if that would hold any answers. He didn't feel present enough even to speak to her right now.
>His little sister waited, but when it became clear that's all Lincoln intended to do, she pushed forward a little more urgently. "I...I saw what you did, you know." The goth confessed bluntly to the previous night's voyeurism. "You and Lori." Her words were a whisper, as though if she spoke them quietly enough he might not feel betrayed that she'd spied on him, but despite how she tried to keep her voice steady she couldn't prevent the emotion that seeped into it.
>It wasn't at all what he'd expected Lucy to come into his room that evening to say, he acknowledged with dull surprise. Lincoln found himself bracing instinctively for the moment the full weight of her words would settle in and his fear would inevitably send him scrambling, falling over himself to make denials.
>But it was funny; the boy didn't react at all. Didn't feel anything from the revelation. He knew that at any other time before, Lucy's admission would have generated a desperate response from him, spurred him immediately into manic, frantic action. Forced him to assure her that she'd seen wrong, imagined it, dreamed it. Anything. Instead, he found himself totally unmoved. Even though he knew he should, Lincoln simply couldn't bring himself to argue. There was so little of him left to hurl against her anyway. It was better to stay quiet than to mewl out more lies.
>If her brother had been surprised by what she'd said, he didn't show any sign of it. Lucy licked her lips, taking his silence as her cue to continue. "You did it with Lynn too, right? That's why you didn't come when you said you would." It was a conclusion she'd obviously already reached; he understood somewhere that the only reason she'd asked was so that she could reveal that she knew that, too. He could guess her assumption had been what motivated this secret, late night visit.
>Lincoln shut his eyes, taking another unsteady breath. It was strange. His sister was there, talking to him, asking him things. She was right next to him. Yet he suddenly never felt more alone than he did at that moment. The young goth faltered for a second, unsure of how to react to her big brother refusing to answer her, but after an instant where she seemingly gathered her nerve the boy felt the bottom of the mattress shift just a bit. He opened his eyes again to see her perched on her knees at the foot of his bed. Her gaze, hidden beneath her bangs, seemed to flicker nervously between his face and his body before she finally reached out and placed a small, tentative hand on the boy's leg. She retracted it right away afterwards, as though she'd just touched something hot or dangerous, but eventually her palm returned to settle fretfully over his thigh.
>For the first time since she could remember, Lucy had chosen to ignore the fears and insecurities that always made her hesitate and second-guess herself. Instead, she was bold. As bold as the timid little girl could bear.

>Perhaps it was some special sibling connection that did it. Perhaps it was simply how hard it was for him to interpret physical affection any other way anymore. Or maybe it was the deep experience with girls no boy his age should have. But somehow in that instant, just by the way she touched him, Lincoln felt like he could suddenly guess what it was Lucy hadn't had the courage to admit to him that morning. The secret, troubling dilemma she'd been going around and around with, the one problem she couldn't run to her big brother to make better. Until now.
>With just a touch he understood perfectly what she wanted from him. After everything that had happened, his instincts seemed now to be totally keyed in to his siblings' desires.
>His chest tightened, briefly, but that was it. There was no larger reaction. He didn't flinch or recoil. He didn't scream. Lincoln wasn't surprised by his sisters' seemingly unanimous wishes anymore. He wasn't disgusted, upset or even resistant.
>He was just tired.
>The goth waited seemingly with bated breath. She sensed he understood her intentions somehow and it was like she'd been expecting him to fling her off or rebuke her instantly. Her fingers had just barely brushed over his skin, the girl prepared to flee in shame the instant he did. But when he simply lay there, pliant, her eyes widened. Lucy couldn't have known that his silence sprang from already being flayed down to the bone. The girl blinked nervously as her own fevered, hopeful yearning led her to imagine her brother's stillness as acceptance of her feelings. As acceptance of her.
>Deep inside, perhaps some part of Lincoln still held on to the selfish hope that someone would figure out what was happening to him. He'd never been able to entirely turn away from the fantasy of some shining, heroic figure realizing the truth and rushing to his side to help. So he wouldn't be betraying his family, the boy imagined how he'd deny it all, but they'd simply ignore his lies. They'd sweep him up into their arms and he'd be safe. They'd understand without him ever having to admit it. They'd care.
>And maybe if Lucy had been a little bit older, if attraction and lust hadn't been such new and confusing feelings for her, the sensitive little girl really would have noticed the pain lurking behind her big brother's vacant eyes. The way he seemed to wince, just a bit, at her touch. Maybe she would have sensed that this fear of her love was born of something deeper.
>And maybe, just maybe, the goth, who knew what it was to be lonely and misunderstood, would have actually been able to reach through the ice Lincoln had hidden himself inside of to the frightened, wounded boy still shivering underneath. Maybe it would have been enough.
>But none of that happened. Lucy's frantic, longing heart would only allow her to see what she wanted to see.
>They were children. Neither of them had any malice in thought or action, but in the end both their fates were sealed all the same. It didn't matter.

>"I just don't want you to leave me behind anymore..." She murmured desperately, like that was her explanation both to him and to herself for everything she was doing and everything she was feeling. Lucy had thought long and hard that day about what she would say when the time came. The perfect words. She'd scribbled poem after poem, pored over the ones she'd discarded as she joined some of their lines together and tore others apart, all in the frantic hope of creating something beautiful. Something half as beautiful as what she felt. She needed desperately to reach him, to make him realize that this wasn't some passing fancy born of jealousy after what she'd seen, that her love for him was real. That it always had been. Nothing had seemed good enough.
>She should have known that in the end none of it was necessary. Her brother had simply peered into her soul and see through to her heart, just like he always did. No words were ever needed between them. The little girl licked her lips hesitantly as she worked up her courage.
>His weary eyes watched as Lucy began stalking carefully up his prone body, moonlight mottling her porcelain skin while her hair and clothes both appeared to radiate darkness. He felt so drained. Lincoln couldn't help but perceive what was happening through the prism of his experiences, and the distinct image he had was of a vulture swooping down to tear chunks off a carcass. Lucy reached one of her delicate hands up to her face, tucking one of her bangs behind her ear, and peered hopefully at the boy.
>And there it was. That solitary, gorgeous blue eye, framed by shadows, watching him. She'd always been watching him, he knew now. He took in another halting breath as he stared into it, paralyzed by terrible expectation, Lucy's expression eager but unsure, and didn't even bother to fight. He let his head hang back and his gaze drift off to the window before shutting his eyes and going slack. He felt more than saw how his little sister smiled. She seemed so pleased simply that he hadn't rejected her. So grateful.
>They were all always so grateful.
>Lincoln finally stopped struggling. His mind released its grip on the hard, sharp stone lining the edge of the chasm it had been trying for so long not to fall into, that had been slicing and scoring the palms of his hands for what felt like a lifetime. After all this time it was easy. It was almost a relief. The boy let himself plunge into the ocean of ink waiting beneath him and the darkness he knew there was no escape from. He breathed deeply, letting it flood his lungs and his mind and his soul. Let it swallow him up. Let it take what it wanted.
>Sometimes when a person got cold enough, it could almost feel like warmth again. That was one of the few mercies of the world. Lincoln nestled finally into the ice. He was content, at long last, to freeze.

>Lucy, afforded free reign of her brother's body, eagerly leaned forward to push her lips against his neck and opened her mouth. The boy felt his sister's baby teeth scrape softly against his skin as she trembled. Her tongue was pressed flush against the artery beneath as she thrilled in dizzy delight at the feeling of his pulse, his heartbeat, throbbing against it.
>In the darkness, she couldn't see the red mark that sat just at the edge of her lips, placed there the night before by her oldest sister. Lori's own mark of ownership.
>Warmth gathered between the goth's legs as she sucked and nipped softly at his flesh in her own childish attempt at what she envisaged as the penultimate intimacy. One of her secret, long-held desires finally consummated: the eternal vampiric kiss that would tie her and her big brother together forever. Her gentle bite didn't break his skin of course, but with the moon at her back and her shadow stretching over him she hadn't noticed his injuries. And when Lincoln's body gave just the smallest shudder, Lucy found her mouth sliding over his collarbone and a few drops of his long-dried blood she didn't even know were there.
>She blinked as the distinctive coppery flavor bloomed over her tongue. The little girl's eyes widened. For a moment she simply froze, completely and utterly, in perplexed surprise. But when the taste began to settle in her mouth, it felt like her entire body suddenly electrified. Every last cell, every iota of her being, vibrating and eager, both joyous and famished, awoke to the moment.
>It was magic. Lincoln had made their kiss magical.
>The girl finally pulled away to stare at his face with rapturous joy. Lucy appeared as though she wanted to say something to him but couldn't quite manage it. The goth licked her lips reflexively; they were still just faintly moist with the essence of him, sharp and sweet and addictive. Her breath came out shallow, hot. She set her jaw and gulped softly under the boy's impassive stare. Her noticeably shaking hands came to rest on the collar of her dress and lingered there for a moment before the young girl finally gathered her courage and yanked on the garment, tugging it over her head.
>Her clothes disheveled Lucy's long hair as she pulled them off, finally exposing her pale flesh to the moonlight. At first it seemed like she was nervous to be naked around him and wanted to get rid of them as quickly as possible to compensate for it, as if that would make it easier, but right about the time her dress was tangled up around her neck the little goth seemed to remember something. She froze with a sudden embarassment Lincoln didn't understand in light of her previous eagerness. After a long moment, she hesitantly cocked her hips towards him, awkwardly straightening her dress back on with her hands. She paused for a moment and took a deep breath before finally beginning to take it back off much more carefully and deliberately, in a manner Lincoln only distantly understood she believed was alluring. The goth had become determined to make the moment as perfect for him as he had inadvertently made it for her.
>She was trying to strip for him. His eyes narrowed with a pained wince.
>The shy little girl did her best to seem sensual and sultry. Some of her older friends with smartphones their parents had forgotten to put a net nanny on had told her this was the sort of things boys liked once, when they were discussing their crushes. Lucy hooked a finger at the end of one of the striped, black and white detached sleeves she wore, peeling the soft cotton off slowly, pinching it with her thumb and forefinger once it was loose and dropping it over his chest. She repeated the process with its twin, all the while swaying awkwardly to the beat of a song only she heard. Her clumsily teasing movements only made her appear more like the child she was, however, and the whole spectacle felt even more perverse and disturbing to him for it. The rest of her body, including her bare breasts, were revealed then as she finally stripped off her black dress; pale pink nipples capped off the flat chest of an eight year old girl. Lucy was too young to wear a bra.
>The goth was as thin as her big sister, but rather than appearing composed of sinew and lean muscle like Lynn was, she instead seemed fragile and wisp-like. Ephemeral. Lucy was soft and light as she perched delicately on his stomach, like a phantom or a dream. Lincoln's eyes followed the nearly non-existent swell of her breasts down to her faintly marked ribs, her young, flat belly, her narrow hips, and came to rest finally on the white panties whose only defining feature was the little black bow on the front. That lone bit of lace simply sat there above her dampening little slit, adorning it. Mocking him.
>She seemed innocent. She WAS innocent. The little girl didn't even understand what it was she was doing, he suddenly grasped. That entire routine had simply been an imitation of older girls, of girls like Lori. A grim pantomime she lowered herself to in an attempt to appear more mature, and that to Lincoln only served to prove innocence was no barrier to the ugliness that stretched throughout the Loud house, like black veins underneath the walls, infecting everyone within it.
>The boy watched how Lucy bit her lip before reaching out and taking his wrists in her hands. He was surprised by how warm she was. They sat together like that for a long time, neither saying anything, the only sound in the room Lucy's tense, expectant breathing, until the goth pulled one of his hands up and placed the palm of it over her undeveloped chest.
>Lincoln shut his eyes as he felt her nervously begin forcing him to caress her, her willowy legs suddenly pulling tighter against his waist when she began grinding against him instinctively. He listened to the sound that burst from between her lips then, the low, quiet moan emerging from the throat of a girl too young to be making those kinds of noises. She whimpered eagerly and squeezed his wrists, and he felt her fingers clench over the bruised skin where Lynn had grabbed him earlier. He couldn't help but notice how much smaller they were than the shadow of the marks they sat in. How much smaller she was compared to her older sister. To him.
>That was the moment Lincoln knew that Lucy meant to fuck him tonight no matter what he did. No matter what he said. His beloved, eight year old little sister. She still snuck into his room sometimes when the creaky house scared her at night. He helped her with fractions. She kissed him on the cheek. He'd sometimes wondered about the kind of boy she'd end up with one day.
>As the first few drops of the young girl's honey began to soak into the bottom of his shirt, his sister bent over to place her lips against his for the first time. She had little experience in kissing and so her soft, excited breaths predictably ended up tickling his cheek. The rain outside started up again. After a moment of shyness, Lincoln felt her finally press forward and her small tongue slip out of her mouth to prod hesitantly against his teeth, as though asking him to allow it inside. He denied her, resisted, for only a moment.
>His jaw slackened; she happily deepened the kiss.
>He was tired of fighting.
>When a small, familiar hand inevitably drifted towards his waistband, the little boy shifted his hips so Lucy could push his pants down easier.
>Lincoln Loud had given up.
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