u/DreamxRouge06

Lola has an upcoming pageant that involves a swimming contest, but she can’t swim and doesn’t want anyone finding out. Over the course of the day, her siblings invite her to have some fun in their kiddie pool, but she refuses. After a couple days of this, Lana has enough and throws Lola into the pool, innocently thinking that she’s just afraid to get cold from the water as kids their age tend to be sometimes. Lola quickly starts squirming and starts screaming for help, causing Lynn to jump in and save her. After calming Lola down, Lynn brings her inside to dry off, with Lana continually apologizing and the others telling her that it’s okay.

Back inside, Lola’s drinking some hot chocolate and while she’s fine after the ordeal she is embarrassed that she freaked out like that in front of everyone. She admits to a concerned Lynn that she can’t swim and LJ immediately agrees to teach her, since Lola wants to participate in the swimming portion of the upcoming pageant.

Several days of practice go by and Lola has learned the basics, except for diving, but she nor Lynn feel ready to tackle that yet. After one last practice lap, Lola thanks Lynn for teaching her how to swim and giving her the confidence to perform.

The day of the pageant rolls around and Lola gives it her all and does the laps. She ends up getting 3rd place, and Lynn couldn’t be more prouder of her. Lola gives Lynn her award, saying that she deserves it more because without her, she wouldn’t have been able to perform. The two share a hug, ending the episode.

What do you guys think of this idea? Would it be a good episode for those two or not?

The hallway was silent for a moment as the four remaining teenage girls stood outside Lori and Leni’s bedroom door. 

“She can not be serious!” Lynn said with a scowl. “We tell her all that, and she just brushes us off?! What the hell!”

Luna put a hand on her younger sister’s shoulder. “Lori gets defensive like that sometimes. She’ll come around soon.”

“She better, otherwise I’m gonna have a word with her.” Lynn replied, cracking her knuckles in frustration.

“Maybe it’s best if we just leave it be for the night. We can try talking to her again tomorrow.” Luan suggested.

“That’s a good idea. Let’s call it a night and see if Lori’s open to talking about this tomorrow morning.” Luna replied.

Lynn shrugged. “Oh, alright. Goodnight then, guys. Thanks for supporting Linc and I today.”

“No need to thank us, LJ. That’s what families do.” Luna said as she and Luan went into their room.

Before Leni or Lynn could say anything else, a loud wail broke the moment of silence.

“WAAAAAH!” 

“Lily needs to be changed now. Great.” Lynn said with a mild eye roll. “I lost count of who’s turn it was.”

“I’ll do it. You look like you could use some time for yourself, Lynn.” Leni replied sweetly.

“Thanks, Leni. See ya tomorrow mornin’.” 

“Night, Lynn!” Leni responded as she went into Lisa and Lily’s bedroom to help out the 1-year old. 

Lynn then went into her and Lucy’s room and found the gothic 8-year old writing down a poem per usual. The jock sat on her bed and picked up one of her “sports” magazines that she had stolen from her dad a few months back. She glanced at Lucy to make sure that the younger girl didn’t see what she was looking at. Lynn wanted Lucy to keep whatever innocence she had left before the beast known as puberty got her too. Now that she thought about it, she needed to have a word with her father about Lincoln’s lack of knowledge about it, considering he had asked her questions about it earlier in their talk downstairs that afternoon. 

Lynn’s train of thought was interrupted when she heard Lucy call out to her.

“Lynn?”

The jock immediately put her magazine under her pillow before turning her attention to her younger sister. 

“What’s up, Luce?”

“I…I need to show you something.”

“Oh. Okay? What is it?”

Lucy walked over to the foot of her bed and stood by her ottoman. Lynn got off of her bed and joined her sister.

“Your creepy box? What about it?”

“Lincoln…hides in here. From Lori, Lola, our parents on occasion, and you.”

Lynn’s brain short-circuited for a second. “WHAT?! You’re kidding! Please tell me you’re kidding!”

“Sigh. I wish I was, but it’s true. He’s been doing it for a year and I wanted to tell someone as soon as I found out, but he didn’t want me to. That’s why I never said anything about it until now.” 

Lynn was speechless, stunned, and pissed off with herself for never knowing anything about this, but her feelings about it weren’t important right now, her brother hiding in the first place was the issue and she was definitely going to have a talk with him after she takes care of something else.

The jock let out a long sigh before turning her attention to the goth girl standing in front of her. She leaned down so she was at Lucy’s level

“Lucy. You listen here, and you listen good. Now, I’m the last person that should be telling you this, but I’m gonna say it anyway. When someone is doing something like that, you tell an adult immediately. I don’t blame you for doing what Lincoln asked you to do. If I was in your shoes I would’ve done the same thing, but in circumstances like this one, please tell an adult you trust. Understand?”

Lucy nodded. “Yes. Thanks, Lynn.”

“No problem. Now I’m gonna have a word with Linc about this. You just relax and wind down for the night, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you again, Lynn.”

**********

Lincoln was playing one of his video games, but he wasn’t paying it much attention. He was still stunned by Lynn sticking up to Lola at dinner earlier. He still couldn’t believe that someone actually put the 6-year old in her place, not that he didn’t feel bad for her, but he felt that she needed to learn how not to treat people sometimes, and he was thankful that his big sis stepped in. 

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on his bedroom door, much to his shock.

“Uh, come in?”

The door opened and Lynn entered. “Hey, Linc. You busy?”

Lincoln put down his Gameboi and answered his sister. “No, what’s up?”

Lynn sat down next to Lincoln on his bed and sighed through her nose before turning towards him.

“Lucy told me about you hiding in her ottoman.”

Lincoln froze. “S-she did…?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you mad?”

“No. I’m worried. Really worried. Why didn’t you tell us anything about this?”

“I didn’t want you guys to feel bad for scaring me.”

“Didn’t want us to-?! Lincoln, are you serious right now?!” Lynn asked, flabbergasted. 

The white-haired boy immediately flinched at her tone. Lynn noticed that and took a few deep breaths to calm herself down before she spoke again.

“Sorry about that, Lincoln. Didn’t mean to scare ya like that. I yell when I’m concerned sometimes. I’ll work on not doing that around you or the younger girls alright?”

Lincoln sighed in relief. “Thanks sis.”

“No problem. But I have to ask, why do you hide in there, and who do you hide from?”

Lincoln hesitated a bit before answering.

“I usually hide from Lori the most, then Lola, then…you, and on very rare occasions; Mom and Dad. I hide in there because I know you girls wouldn’t immediately look there. Like I explained earlier today, you girls don’t knock on my door, so my room usually isn’t my safest option to be alone with my anxiety running rampant, so I started using Lucy’s ottoman as a substitute.”

The athletic brunette was speechless at this revelation. “You don’t feel safe, in your own room?! That’s insane!”

“I didn’t know what else to do.” Lincoln responded sadly. “I didn’t wanna potentially get pulverized.”

Lynn felt sick to her stomach. “Is that what you think we’d do to you?”

“Given your history of constantly getting me involved with sibling fights or straight up threatening to pummel me, yeah. My brain assumes that you girls are gonna beat the hell outta me, whether I was guilty or not.” 

Lynn felt like she got punched in the stomach. “Wow. Just…wow.” 

Lincoln looked at his sister’s facial expression and immediately felt bad for making her feel guilty.

“Lynn, I’m sorry if I made you feel bad just now-“

“Stop right there!”

“Huh?”

Lynn put her hands on her brother’s shoulders and looked him firmly in the eye.

“You listen here, you never, EVER apologize for telling someone how you feel. Do you hear me?! You shouldn’t be the one saying sorry in this situation. The people who should be apologizing are myself, our sisters, and our parents for making you feel like you have to hide from your own family when you’re in an extremely stressful state is okay and/or a healthy coping mechanism. I already told Lucy this, but you need to hear this too; when someone you know is doing something like that, you tell a trusted adult about it and talk things out with them, not hide for God knows how long. I’m not mad at you for any of this, I’m just concerned. Deeply concerned. Tomorrow I’m setting up a family meeting where you and I are gonna talk to everyone about how you’ve been feeling lately. Our parents especially need to hear about this, because you shouldn’t have had to hide from us in the first place. Actually, when was the first time you used that thing?”

“Last year. Lori was flipping out because her phone charger went missing and she immediately started looking for me to follow through on her human pretzel threat, because earlier that day I accidentally annoyed her by doing something. I can’t recall what I did that annoyed her, but it was probably something stupid. Anyway, she was yelling for me and I knew that she was gonna break into my room and scold me, so I ran into your room and since neither you or Lucy were present, I found Lucy’s ottoman open and I went in there. I wound up staying in there for about an hour before Lori calmed down. I found out later that night that Lily had plucked the charger while she was still learning how to crawl around. Crazy, right?” Lincoln said with a laugh. 

Lynn just stared at him with an unamused look on her face. She was beside herself and horrified that Lincoln had a designated hiding spot from the girls, herself included. It was taking so much out of her to not storm downstairs to her parents’ room to give them a massive earful for not being aware of this. Plus not mentioning how casually Lincoln had revealed all this to her, which made her even more concerned than she already was.

She suddenly stood up.

“Alright, Lincoln. Here’s what’s gonna happen. One, the meeting tomorrow. Two, I’m gonna be moving that freakin’ ottoman somewhere else with Lucy so you can’t hide in there anymore. And three, if you ever feel like you have to hide from us, go get me, Luna, Luan, or Leni and we’ll help you out. Got it?”

Lincoln nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got an ottoman in my room that needs to be relocated. But first...”

Before leaving her brother’s room, Lynn went over to him and wrapped her arms around him in a warm hug. She waited for him to hug her back before she gently kissed his cheek, making him smile warmly against her shoulder.