"C'mon, Lincoln! Get the lead outta your feet and let's do this!""

Out of all the activities that his older sister, Lynn, dragged him into, this had the most potential to get him into the ER by far. He could tolerate parkour throughout the house. He could handle arm wrestling despite the fact that he knew he's always lose. He could even take on the challenge of trying to keep up with Lynn at tennis and return serve without getting smacked in the face with a tennis ball. However, climbing all the way up the tall oak tree in front of their house was where he drew the line. Just looking up at the giant, lumbering stack of wood was enough to get him to feel queasy. And if that wasn't bad enough, Lynn didn't want to just climb up the tree, she wanted to race him! Was she out of her mind?! He looked over to Lynn, wanting to firmly stand his ground as he was determined not to face an early demise.

"No thanks, I'd rather stay down here and not plummet to my death."

Being the optimistic and eager beaver that she was, Lynn just rolled her eyes and laughed.

"Don't be silly, Lincoln. I've climbed up here dozens of times before. It's nothing that you can't handle. Besides, you climb up on the roof to read your comic books all the time, don't you? This is nothing different."

'Nothing different, my foot! Seriously, Lynn, I like having all my bones intact, thank you.'

"Lynn, that's a sturdy roof, with plenty of surface area for me to roam about without the risk of falling off. This is a giant oak tree where one slip up means I'm going to the morgue. BIG difference."

"You know what else is a big difference? The fact that I'm here. Be honest, Lincoln, have I ever let you get seriously hurt before?"

Lincoln squinted at her with glaring eyes at her choice of words.

"Yeah, don't think I didn't catch you use the word 'seriously' there."

"Lincoln…"

Picking up the dangerous edge in her voice, Lincoln was quick to try and abate any tension before Lynn or the tree would put him to rest.

"Okay, okay, okay. Fine. So you never let anything really serious happen. But still, why exactly do I have to undertake this highly dangerous, highly pointless activity? Baseball, football, lacrosse, hockey, I get those but last time I checked, there's no serious tree climbing competitions I've ever heard of or ANY for that matter."

Lynn lightly scoffed as if the answer was obvious.

"One, we haven't bonded in a while and..."

"Lynn, I spent half the day with you shooting hoops yesterday afterschool."

"Like I said, one, we haven't bonded in a while and two, that's your problem, Lincoln. You don't have the right mindset. Once you get good at something that might look scary at first, it no longer becomes dangerous or pointless. C'mon, don't you wanna feel like nothing in the world can slow you down? That no matter what happens, you can take it head on without fear?"

That was something that Lincoln wanted to feel every day of his life, living without fear. Who wouldn't want to? But did that mean that climbing a tall tree was necessary? Perhaps not but accomplishing something of such a dangerous magnitude would be pretty cool and something that he could totally show off to Ronnie Anne. Although Lincoln was coming around to the idea of doing this, he still felt a little apprehensive.

"Well, I suppose you have a point but I…"

Taking a mile with Lincoln's inch, Lynn enthusiastically took the initiative to start their little competition right away after hearing what sounded like Lincoln latching onto to the prospect of their race.

"Good! Last one up gets a dutch oven! Hahahaha!".

Well, if anything was going to get Lincoln to get up that tree, the threat of suffering yet another one of Lynn's dutch ovens definitely did the trick.

"Oh, heck no!" Lincoln declared loudly as he tore up the tree right after Lynn, dodging branch after branch on his quest to reach the top. He would beat Lynn if it was the last thing he…

"And Lynn Loud takes the gold! Sorry, bro, better luck next time!"

Lincoln wearily grabbed onto the branch that Lynn was presently gloating atop of, panting and heaving as he willed his body to sit atop of it.

'Dang it. Stupid squirrel cost me the race. Why can't they just mind their own business when a guy's trying to have a race?'

Lynn looked over at her somewhat disappointed brother and thought that now would be the time to cheer him up with her surprise. "Aw, don't be like that, Linc! There's another reason why I brought you up here. Look out there."

Lincoln turned his head over to where Lynn was pointing and couldn't believe his eyes. He had seen plenty of sunset skies before, thinking that after you'd seen one, you'd seen 'em all and that there was no point in acting like you were looking at anything truly unique. But this…this was breathtaking to say the least. From his view up top of the tree, the entire sky looked like a canvas on an easel, with palettes of warm colors stroked brilliantly across the surface that were enough to invoke sensations of pure awe and the best part was, it seemed like it stretched for miles. Only one word came to mind for Lincoln when it came to this marvel…

"Woooooow…"

"I know, right? Aren't you glad you listened to me?"

"Yeah. I guess you were right all along. But why didn't you tell me about it before? I totally would've climbed up five trees for this."

"Simple. It's one thing to talk about it. It's another thing to actually see it for yourself. Now then, if you'll excuse me."

Lincoln was puzzled by Lynn's behavior as she watched her descend slowly down the tree. Why wouldn't she want to sit up here and watch the sunset with him? What could honestly be better right now?

"Where are you going?"

Lynn was more than happy to answer, although with the small, devious smirk on her face, Lincoln knew that it couldn't be anything good.

"The kitchen. Chef Lynn needs to prepare for the feast of a lifetime since as the loser of our little race, you're gonna have to peek your inside my Dutch oven and I need all the fuel I can get. See ya!"

A/N: Poor Lincoln. Let's keep him in our prayers this evening, dear readers. Not gonna lie, the premise of this story was originally a lot…darker than what I actually came up with here. I won't tell you what it is because I just might decide to turn it into a fic later on in the future but I'm sure you can guess what it is anyways. Anyways, regardless of how you feel about this story, don't be shy to leave a review behind and tell me how I pulled off a Lynn + Lincoln story.