My first request, first AU of a fanfiction I wrote and first one-shot fanfic. This request was suggested by Red the Pokémon Master, who said:
I actually want to see an AU of [Sycophant, my first fanfiction] where instead of trying to murder Lincoln in his sleep, Lynn tries to kill herself over realizing everything she did to her family and him, failing after he ends up saving her.
Red's parameters are:
*Lynn realizes that she's a horrible person
*Lynn will attempt to commit suicide in some fashion, but...
*Lincoln will save her
You can tell me how well I did in the review section. With that here is the Sycophant AU, Triple Strikeout!
We see a dreary overcast with rain deluging so severe it has already caused 4 inches of floodwater! This sudden severe storm front has swept across the northeastern contiguous United States starting from a patch of the Pacific Ocean near Mexico. It has traveled north-northeast and has cut through the Mexican Bajas and a little bit of the Mexican mainland, the southeastern part of Arizona, New Mexico, the Oklahoma panhandle, Kansas, the northwestern part of Missouri, the southeastern part of Iowa, the upper half of Illinois, just narrowly avoiding Indiana before heading to the state we're keeping an eye on, Michigan.
Zooming into the map of the US, we center the state of Michigan in our sightlines. Zooming in a second time shows us the cities and towns of Michigan. We center the town of Detroit in our sightlines and zoom in even further. Nudging the sight screen 12 miles to the northwest and zooming in, we see our destination, Royal Woods. Entering our citywide vision, we head to the cemetery. Why there of all places? Haven't you heard it's May 2, 2017? Wasn't something important supposed to be happening on that day?
We see an auburn-haired girl kneeling over one of the graves and shedding tears over it. Upon closer inspection, this girl has freckles on her cheeks and is wearing a jersey with the number 1 on it. She must be an aspiring athlete. Was she too competitive and accidently gave a member of the other team a fatal concussion?
"Lana…it's all my fault. I just wanted you to stop helping him. You would've disrupted the entire dynamic of our house. I just wanted to scare you off. Instead, it's because of me you…"
She bursts into tears. It seems that she's caused this "Lana" to meet a terrible fate, hasn't she? The girl places a stinging nettle bouquet on the grave. It's indicative of her personality, beautiful, but rough around the edges. Just like the flower, she shows tough love. She begins to head home when she gets a threatening message. A stern, yet fatherly voice is heard on the other side. It sounds like a kid trying to imitate Bryan Mills from Taken.
"I know who you are. I know what you did. I don't want any restitution, I know it won't bring my younger sister back. What I have is a very particular set of skills acquired over many years in my profession, skills I won't hesitate to use on you. All you have to do is apologize for your negligent transgression and vow to uphold what our sister wanted us to do. If you do, I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you."
The girl ignores the message. After all, she knows that Liam Neeson, one of the most badass people on the planet Earth, is in Northern Ireland, acting in his next blockbuster movie. She deduces that this "Liam Neeson" is just some punk prank caller trying to torment her in some sort of sick joke. She arrives at an unassuming white house. Miscellaneous toys are strewn all around the front yard and the back yard. This house's address? 1216 Franklin Avenue. She opens the door and finds an angry mob awaiting her arrival. A man in a dark green shirt and slightly darker than khaki pants steps in front of the undecuple member mob. He puts his right hand in front of his face, runs it through his hair and takes a deep breath. He then bellows her name.
"LYNN JR!"
Lynn recoils in fear. The angry mob begins to surround her but the man gestures them to stay back.
"We know what you did! Lisa showed us everything! How you held her hostage. How you almost beat Lana to death!" The man explains
"What?! But Lola and Lori beat her up too!"
"At least they feel remorse for their actions and apologized. I punished them too. But we all know that you were the mastermind in causing Lana's death!"
"But dad, I…"
"I don't want to hear it. You're suspended indefinitely from playing any sports!" He shouts
The man leaves, and a woman with blond hair, wearing a salmon colored shirt, leaves with him. The other members of the mob disperse back to their respective rooms. Lynn climbs up the stairs to the second-floor hallway and glances in each of the other rooms, seeing what misery she wrought.
Starting from the bathroom, she heads to the first room on the right. Upon entering the room, an imposing female wearing a cyan tank-top forces her out of the room and says only this.
"GET OUT."
Another female, this one wearing a seafoam green colored top, just stares at her. It's the "I'm not mad, just disappointed" stare that moms use all the time. But deep down, she's feeling anger and bitterness for her depraved crime that deprived them of their precious younger sister. She slams the door in her face.
Heading directly across the hall, Lynn enters the second room. In it, she sees a female wearing a white shirt with a yellow skirt crying profusely over a picture of a young female wearing overalls and a red cap.
"Lana! I couldn't save you! Why couldn't I have noticed them faster?!"
A female wearing a purple shirt with a skull on it, as well as a purple skirt, approaches Lynn.
"Don't you think you've done enough damage to our family, dudette?" She says with disdain in her voice
Lynn gets kicked out. She heads to the center room on the left. This is her bedroom. She tries to turn the knob, but the door won't open. It seems like someone locked it from the inside. On the door is a note, which Lynn reads.
"You're dead to me."
Lynn nods pitifully in acknowledgement. She heads to the rightmost room. Inside, a young female just stares blankly at a picture of their family. Lynn approaches a crib with a baby inside. She talks to her.
"Lily? Do you still like me?"
Lily responds by clubbing her with her rattle.
"Ow!"
The only thing that the rattle hurt was Lynn's soul. She heads to the room furthest away from the bathroom, this would be their brother's room. Originally, it was a linen closet. She tries to open the door, but she gets zapped!
She then heads to the last room she didn't check on, the room across from Lily's room. Lynn cautiously enters this room, it's the twins' room, of which this "Lana", is one. She sees a girl with blond pigtails wearing overalls and a red cap. Could it be…?!
Lynn edges closer, she can hear crying.
"Lana? What's wrong?"
The girl stands up…
"…"
"It's me, your big sister, Lynn!" Lynn responds hopefully, trying to atone for her horrible actions "It was an accident, I just wanted to…!"
"I know who you are…"
"Great, I just wanted to apologize for what I did, I am genuinely remorseful…"
"Shut up, Lynn."
"Lana?"
The girl turns around and locks eyes with her. She can feel those piercing blue eyes and she instantly feels cold.
"YOU FUCKING BITCH! I WILL END YOU FOR WHAT YOU DID TO HER!"
She tries to attack Lynn, Lynn dodges. She realizes this isn't Lana…it's Lola, her twin sister! And she is absolutely LIVID that Lynn caused Lana's death! Lynn tries to flee, but Lola pins her down and tries to give her a no holds barred beatdown! The other sisters hear the commotion and try to intervene. Lola continues to mercilessly attack Lynn!
"HOW DOES IT FEEL? YOU'VE BEEN DOING THIS TO US FOR YEARS! NOW IS THE TIME FOR PAYBACK!" Lola shrieks at her
"Lola, stop!" a boy with white hair and an orange shirt pleads
"Lincoln, stay out of this! I'm giving the bitch what she deserves! She's beat you up, she's beat Lana up, and she even killed my beautiful twin sister! She doesn't deserve any mercy!" Lola shouts back
"It was a tragic accident. Lynn didn't mean to kill Lana!"
"But it's still her fault she's dead!" Lola bursts into tears, the girl in the seafoam green dress tries to comfort her.
"Why? I can't understand…why would you stick up for me? After everything I've done to you over the past few years?" Lynn asks while having an emotional breakdown.
"Because we're family, and family sticks together, no matter what." Lincoln responds
Everyone else disperses. Lynn heads back to her bedroom and finds the door unlocked, she enters her room and begins her retrospection on what happened. She lost a baseball game and blamed Lincoln for it. She won her semifinal match because Lincoln was wearing a mascot suit to prove to her that he wasn't bad luck. Lynn thought he was good luck, so the family forced him to wear the suit. Lana chose to help Lincoln after hearing a cruel comment from Lola. Lola, Lori and herself teamed up to prevent the fragile family dynamic of the Loud House from shifting. She tried to stop Lana from helping Lincoln by setting up a firecracker trap to scare her off. It backfired, and it resulted in her death.
The more Lynn thinks about it…Lana was the gallant and beautiful heroine in that situation, doing everything she could to make Lincoln's quality of life better in this household, and Lynn…Lynn is the petty villainess, who did nothing but get in her way. She finally realizes that everything happened because…of…HER! She really has been a horrible person to her siblings! Lynn becomes despondent over thinking about this fact.
"Maybe Luce has some poetry to calm me down…" Lynn reassures herself halfheartedly.
She starts perusing some of Lucy's poems, but she still feels like the scum of the Earth. She starts to realize that maybe the flower in that game Lana loved to play was right all along.
"Sparing me won't change anything. Killing me is the only way to end this."
And since he was the villain, Lynn knows what she has to do, she just doesn't know if she has the strength to do it…
She has to kill herself to make it right. Lynn knows that bringing Lana back is an impossibility, but if she commits suicide, then her family would be safe from her forever. She can't hurt them anymore.
Lynn shrugs it off and tries to push that dark thought out of her head by immersing herself in Lucy's poetry. Upon all of the poems that Lucy has made, read, and collected, one stands out. It's a red book in Italian. It has the words "Inferno, la prima parte della trilogia epica, la Divina Commedia" on it. She starts to read the dark tome of knowledge. She reads the most edgy and yet most terribly tragic passage in the entire book, Canto 33, which, in its native Italian, says this:
La bocca sollevò dal fiero pasto quel peccator, forbendola ai capelli del capo, che' egli avea di retro guasto. Poi cominciò: "Tu vuoi ch'io rilinovelli disperato dolor che il cor ml preme, già pur pensando, pria che io ne favelli. Ma se le mie parole esser den seme, che frutti infamia al traditor ch' io rodo, parlare e lagrimar vedrai insieme. I' non so chi tu sei, nè per che modo venuto se' quaggiù; ma Fiorentino mi sembri veramente, quand' io t' odo. Tu dei saper ch' io fui Conte Ugolino, e questi è l Arcivescovo Ruggieri; Or ti dirò perchè i son tal vicino. Che per l'effetto de' suo' ma' pensieri, fidandomi di lui, io fossi preso e poscia morto, dir non è mestieri. Però quel che non puoi avere inteso, ciò è come la morte mia fu cruda, udirai, e saprai se m' ha offeso. Breve pertugio dentro dalla muda, la qual per me ha il titol della fame e in che convien ancor ch' altri si chiuda, m'avea mostrato per lo suo forame più lune già, quand' io feci il mal sonno, che del futuro mi squarciò il velame. Questi pareva a me maestro e donno, cacciando il lupo e i lupicini al monte, per che i Pisan veder Lucca non ponno. Con cagne magre, studiose e conte, Gualandi con Sisimondi e con Lanfranchi s' avea messi dinanzi dalla fronte. In picciol corso mi pareano stanchi lo padre e i figli, e con I' acute scane mi parea lor veder fender li fianchi. Quando fui desto innanzi la dimane, pianger senti' fra il sonno i miei figliuoli, ch' eran con meco, e dornandar del pane. Ben se' crudel, se tu già non ti duoli, pensando cià ch' al mio cor s'annunziava; E se non piangi, di che pianger suoli? Già eran desti, e l'ora s'appressava che il cibo ne soleva essere addotto, e per suo sogno ciascun dubitava; ed io sentii chiavar l'uscio di sotto all'orribile torre: ond' io guardai nel viso a' miei figliuoi senza far motto. Lo non piangeva, sì dentro impietrai; Piangevan elli; ed Anselmuccio mio disse: `Tu guardì si, padre, che hai?' Però non lagrimai, nè rispos'io tutto quel giorno, nè la notte appresso, infin che l' altro Sol nel mondo uscio. Come un poco di raggio si fu messo nel doloroso carcere, ed io scorsi per quattro visi il mio aspetto stesso, ambo le mani per dolor mi morsi. Ed ei, pensando ch' io 'l fessi per voglia di manicar, di subito levorsi, e disser: `Padre, assai ci fia men doglia, se tu mangi di noi: tu ne vestisti queste misere carni, e tu le spoglia.' Queta' mi allor per non farli più tristi lo dì e l'altro stemmo tutti muti. Ahi dura terra, perchè non t'apristi? Poscia che fummo al quarto dì venuti, Gaddo mi si gittò disteso a' piedi, dicendo: `Padre mio, chè non m' aiuti quivi morì; E come tu mi vedi, vid' io cascar li tre ad uno ad uno tra il quinto dì e il sesto: ond' io mi diedi già cieco a brancolar sopra ciascuno, e due dì li chiamai poi che fur morti; Poscia, più che il dolor, potè il digiuno."Quand' ebbe detto ciò, con gli occhi torti riprese il teschio misero coi denti, che furo all' osso, come d' un can, forti. Ahi Pisa, vituperio delle gcnti del bel paese là dove il "sì" suona, poi che i vicini a te punir son lenti, movasi la Caprara e la Gorgona, e faccian siepc ad Arno in su la foce, sì ch'egli anneghi in te ogni persona. Chè se il Conte Ugolino aveva voce d'aver tradita te delle castelia, non dovei tu i figliuoi porre a tal croce; Innocenti facea l'età novella, novelle Tebe, Uguccione e il Brigata, e gli altri due che il canto suso appella.
Lynn doesn't understand what that means, so she translated it into English, and…she's now traumatized for life. She scoffs at the book, as what happened wasn't a famine, even though there was one going on in Italy the 1300's. No, what happened to him was that he was immured, executed by starvation by a megalomaniacal coward who wanted to rule Pisa! This gives Lynn an idea however, she'll kill herself by immurement. Even though the term means you have to be locked in a room, then starve/dehydrate to death, Lynn has other plans. Since she's an athlete, she'll just overwork herself to death to expedite the process!
Lynn writes a letter and throws it at Lincoln's bedroom door before dashing outside.
A few minutes later, Lincoln deactivates his security system and notices Lynn's letter. He opens it and reads it.
"Went out for a 20K run. Don't wait up for me!"
Lincoln brings it over to the female in Lily's room, she's wearing a green sweater and loose fitting magenta pants. She has brown hair and glasses.
"Hey Lisa, should we be worried about this? Lynn said she was going out for a 20K run today."
"Elder brother, the only thing we should be worried about is our fridge. Lynn would need to deplete all of the food we have to have enough glycogen for a 20K run."
They check the fridge, it's still full.
"Ok, now we should worry." Lisa admits
6 hours later, Lynn finishes her 20K run. She heads back upstairs while everyone else is in the dining room eating dinner.
"Hmm, Lynn isn't usually one to miss dinner." Lucy comments
"Yeah, that glutton usually carbo-loads on all of our food!" Lola points out "Oh well, at least we can divide it amongst ourselves."
After dinner, everyone heads to bed and goes to sleep. The next day, Lynn sneaks out for her early-day training jog. However, the note leaves behind this time is alarming. Lincoln finds and reads it.
"Don't worry about me. I'm training for a 40-mile marathon. I won't be back for a while."
"Lisa, do you think Lynn can actually run a 40-mile marathon?" Lincoln asks
"In a continuous run without food or water? No. I could explain it to you, but this video simplifies it for you."
All of the siblings gather around to watch the video Lisa pulled up. It's asapSCIENCE's "What If You Stopped Eating?" video (the first one). It explains what's happening while Lynn is out on her jog. Keep in mind she hasn't eaten or drank anything yesterday and today.
"In the first 6 hours-all is fairly normal. Your body begins to break down glycogen-which stores energy in your body-into glucose, which your cells use as fuel. Around 25% of energy is used for your brain alone, while the rest goes to muscle tissue and red blood cells. But after about 6 hours, this method of energy production halts as the glycogen stores deplete, which can lead to the notorious "hangry", or hungry and angry feeling that many of us know too well."
We see Lynn looking even angrier and more irritated than usual while running.
"At this point, your body enters a state called ketosis as it begins to fast or starve. Because there is very little glucose in your blood, your body must begin to break down fat for energy. This fat is in turn broken down into fatty acids. However, your brain cannot use long fatty acid chains…which is a problem! Because there is no more glucose in your body and the fats are too large to cross the blood-brain barrier, your brain changes modes and begins to use ketone bodies for energy, which are short-chain derivatives of fatty acids. This works for the time being, but ultimately only 75% of the brain's energy requirements can come from ketones-it still needs glucose! Which means your cognitive functioning becomes impaired. Now, it's important to mention you don't have to be starving to be in ketosis. Many people enter this phase if they are on a low-carb diet, or professional athletes who use all of their carbs for an extended period of time -like marathon runners- will be in this state as well."
Lynn has made it 7 miles for her 40-mile training. She begins to feel lightheaded and disoriented, but she must persevere! She takes a short pause and continues running.
"However, beyond 72 hours, not only will your mood and energy suffer, but your brain will start to break down your body's own protein. The proteins release amino acids, which can be converted into glucose- which is great for your brain, but bad news for your body. Basically, your body is cannibalizing itself by destroying its own muscle mass. In women, undernutrition often shuts down the menstrual cycle as the body tries to reduce energy expenditure. Bone density diminishes, and both men and women may experience loss of libido."
Looking at Lynn's progress, she's made it to 13 miles, but she's losing a lot of herself…
"Within a few weeks, the body's immune system will be so weakened without any vitamins or minerals, that many will die from disease. Otherwise, it will continue to use up all energy sources until there is no glucose, fat, tissue or muscle mass left. One of the more common causes of death is cardiac arrhythmia or heart attack, due to the tissue degradation in the heart, diaphragm and body. This is fairly common in those suffering from anorexia. Of course, the body experiences severe organ failure all around. Starvation can lead to death in a short as 3 weeks or up to 70 days."
Lisa closes the video.
"We need to find her…NOW." Lincoln says in a panic
"What are you talking about? We still have 19 days before she starves to death." The girl in the seafoam green dress states
"Leni! That's only if she did absolutely nothing. She's training for marathons! She's going to use up all the energy she doesn't have and she'll die! We can't let that happen! Lana would never forgive us if we could have saved her but chose not to because of what she did! Now, who's with me?!"
"WE ARE!" The sisters shout in unison
The siblings tell their parents what happened. Everyone immediately gets in Vanzilla and begins to drive all across town looking for Lynn. She couldn't have gotten far! She's had to run those 40 miles, and by now, she's only gotten past mile 16. They get stopped by a red light and they anxiously wait for it to turn green. The red light flashes a blinding light as it turns green and now we're…in a hospital room? It's in the ICU unit.
"It's lucky that you found her when you did, Mr. Loud. Otherwise, she would have died from exhaustion. But she seems severely malnourished…have you been starving her?"
"What? NO! She looked absolutely healthy yesterday!" The man in the green shirt rebukes
"Well, she's going to need to be here for a few weeks to regain her energy." The doctor says, as he's taking his leave
Lincoln approaches her bed and begins to speak to her.
"Lynn, are you alright? We we're all so worried about you."
"You shouldn't have been, I told you where I was…but I guess I did overexert myself. I won't do that again, Linc."
"Glad to hear it."
It's 2 weeks later and Lynn has been discharged from the hospital. She's perfectly healthy again. She thinks of her next plan of attack.
("Ah! That was so close to working! Why'd my wimpy brother interfere? Well, I know how to do this, Lincoln seems so distraught over Lana's death. He wants to avenge his sister. Heck, I would want to avenge Lana's death too, and I'm the one who accidently killed her! Yeah, this HAS to work!")
Lynn begins acting all normal, but it's all a façade. She's waiting for someone…there he is. Lincoln has left his room for whatever reason, this is Lynn's chance to strike! She pounces on Lincoln and begins to beat him up!
"Lynn? Why are you doing this?!" Lincoln asks
"You know why…"
Lynn continues to pummel him but Lincoln is still not fighting back. He should be fighting for his life! Why is he continuing to take Lynn's beating? Lynn's punches slowly get weaker and weaker until she can't bring herself to hurt him anymore. She bursts into tears and runs away. Lincoln tries to chase after her, but she outran him. Lincoln, who's trying to find out what the heck just happened, investigates Lynn and Lucy's bedroom. On Lynn's bed, he finds a terribly drawn picture. It has a brown-haired stick figure lying in a pool of blood wielding a knife, while a white-haired stick figure looks on what happened, it's wielding a gun. The facial expression on the white-haired stick figure is of shock, but the brown-haired stick figure's facial expression is happiness. Lincoln is in disbelief, he tries to find something to tell him that what he's thinking couldn't possibly be true. He opens Lynn's nightstand. Inside are more terribly drawn pictures, all depicting some sort of self-mutilation to this brown-haired stick figure. He realizes that what he was thinking was right all along. Lynn didn't want to kill Lincoln, she wanted Lincoln to kill her as payback for Lana's death. She wanted to commit suicide by cop. The problem was that Lincoln is a pacifist and he would rather die than hurt someone he loves.
Lincoln runs off and heads into Lisa and Lily's room and he shows the drawing to Lisa.
"Lisa, I think Lynn is suicidal! Has she asked you for anything strange?"
"No, but she did want me to experiment on her last week. She even tried to beg me to, but I refused. Lana wouldn't have wanted me to perform experiments on my siblings. I think I saw her heading up into the attic. If what you say is true, elder brother, then you have to stop her now, before it's too late!" Lisa states urgently
Lincoln dashes off to the attic, he sees that the window is open, he climbs out and sees Lynn on the roof. He tries to approach her, but Lynn tells him to back off.
"Why are you doing this? We love you, I love you!" Lincoln shouts
"How could you ever love someone who killed our sister?! People like that don't deserve mercy!" Lynn rebuffs him
"Lana's death was an accident, It's not your fault!"
"Yes, it is! It's because of me that she died! I don't want to hurt anyone else. I'm going to jump for it."
"No, we need you, I need you! We don't want to lose another sibling!"
Lynn turns around and glances at Lincoln.
"We don't want to lose our star player!" Lincoln pleads
Lynn ponders this for a while. It seems like ages have past, even though, in reality, it's only been about 2 minutes.
"Truthfully, I don't want to die, but I'm just too dangerous to be kept alive. This is the only way!" Lynn responds
"No! There's another way! Just walk toward me and we can talk about it!"
Lynn thinks about Lincoln's proposition.
"…"
"…"
"…"
"…"
"…"
"…"
"…"
"All right, I'm heading back."
Lynn begins to head toward Lincoln, she slips on a roof shingle drenched in rainwater and starts to fall off!
"Oh no, you don't!"
Lincoln grabs Lynn's hand and pulls her to safety.
"You aren't dying on my watch! It's like I said, we're family, and family sticks together, no matter what!" Lincoln replies
The two of them head down from the roof and head into the house through the attic. Lincoln and Lynn descend down the attic stairs and are immediately surrounded by the other sisters!
"We were so worried about you!"
"Don't ever do that again!"
"It wouldn't be the same without you!"
"Please, you have so much more to live for!"
Upon hearing this outpouring of support for her, Lynn feels something she rarely experiences, happiness. She feels truly happy from everyone's support.
The doorbell rings. Lincoln answers it, it's Clyde.
"Hey, Lincoln. So why did you call me here?"
"I need your therapy skills, Lynn is still pretty shaken up over the Lana incident, can you ease some of her guilt?" Lincoln asks his best friend
"Sure buddy."
Clyde goes upstairs and begins his therapy session with Lynn. Lincoln breathes a sigh of relief, because once Lynn's mind has been healed, the Loud family can recover from Lana's death and still stay a family.
"Even though I wasn't able to save our precious Lana, I'm glad I was able to at least save one of my sisters from this tragedy. Because in a family as big as mine, we all have to look out for each other. Our family becoming complete again…it's what Lana would have wanted and we will respect her wishes."