Hello everybody! it's MutedBadger here and well.. I'M ALIVE!

Yeah, I kind of took unannounced hiatus there for a couple of months but I'm back with the very first chapter of 'One Good Deed' of the new year!

I think you guys have waited long enough, so let's get on with the chapter!


"Lincoln, this is Sam Sharp..., she is my... girlfriend."

Striking a silly pose at being introduced, the blonde-haired girl gives me a bright smile while throwing out her hand for me to shake, "it's nice to meet you Linc."

"Uh, it's good to meet you to Sam," I reply back as I take her hand into mine to give it a quick shake before letting go and taking a step backward.

Looking to Luna, I see that she was watching the both of us with an anxious expression, her eyes nervously darting back and forth, going from me to Sam then back to me as she wrings her hands together and shuffles her feet.

She was afraid something was about to happen, I could tell, hell anyone in a fifty-foot radius could pick up on the almost palpable nerves that the purple rocker was giving off. The question is what was she nervous about, all she is doing is introducing her girlfri-

Oh... I see, she thinks that I am going to judge her for being in a relationship with another girl, I almost crack a smile at how stupid that very thought is, how can I of all people judge Luna for who she chooses to be with?

On the streets, I have seen time and time again people not give a single damn about who they were getting together with.

Granted some of those people were drug addicts and were doing it for money to supply whatever addiction they had and the others were people like me who were starving and needed money for food, but the general premise was still the same.

The constant cycle of watching people from men to women soliciting their own bodies to anyone of any gender who has enough money in their wallet has left me with one opinion of relationships, as long as the two people in them love each other, then it does not matter what gender they are.

So, I can't judge her for choice in partner even if I wanted to, which I don't, not after what I had seen, not after doing all the things that I did on the street to survive, things that I will never tell anyone.

With that in mind, I shoot Luna a quick smile to put her worries to bed and watch as her whole body becomes much more relaxed, losing the rigid form she had taken, as all the nerves flee her mind.

"You've got some sick hair dude!" I am snapped out of my little thought train by Sam who was staring just above my eye line as she ran her hand through her blonde hair, "How long did it take to dye?"

"Dye? I never dyed my hair before, this is my natural colour," I explain to her while looking off to side feeling embarrassed. I never really put much thought into my hair colour and how weird it actually was, I don't know many other eleven-year-olds who have 'snow on the roof' as some people used to put it.

I guess it is just another reminder of how different I am from everyone else, a reminder that no matter how hard I try I can never really be truly normal, that I will always be a homeless fre-

"WHAT?" The loud exclamation catches me off guard as Sam suddenly shoots her arms out wide, "Dude that is so awesome, you were actually born with white hair? "

"Uh yeah? When I came out I had this little tuft of hair here," I respond to her while pointing to the cluster of hair at the back of my head which I knew was standing up, as it has ever since I was born.

Back in the orphanage, I used to have a picture of my mom holding me as a baby just minutes after I was born, I don't remember much of the specifics of that photo due to them being lost in the haziness that are long term memories, but there are two details of the particular image that I could never forget.

The first was my snow-white hair that stood out like a sore thumb against the blue sheets of the hospital bed in the room and the second being my mother's smile as she looked down at me for what could have been the first time. A smile that I knew lit up whatever room she happened to be in, a smile that turned a bad day into a good one... a smile that I got the chance to see so little of.

"My parents gave me some ridiculous nicknames because of it, like snowball or snowflake," My eyes widen in shock as the words leave my mouth with me not even knowing why or how I let something like that slip, I guess I was just getting lost down memory lane and let my guard lower just enough for it to come out.

"Aw, that is so cute," Sam says with a little laugh, "I bet you are probably sick of hearing those."

I could feel my face fall ever so slightly at her words. No, I am not sick of hearing those names, in fact, I would give anything in the world just to hear my mother or father call me 'snowball' just one more time.

Feeling a hand being placed on my shoulder, I turn to see Lynn looking at me with an "are you alright?" look in her eyes, her hand once again grounding me back in reality before I could lose myself to the dark thoughts that I could feel were about to come.

Giving her a quick nod of reassurance, I shift my gaze back to Sam who was now giving me a confused stare as I shove my hands into my jacket pockets, "Yeah... I am so... sick of it."

"So uh Sam, have you seen any cool stalls around here?" Luna asks while stepping into the conversation, probably trying her best to break the tension that had suddenly filled the air between us.

"Nah, I haven't been here that long, only about ten minutes or so before I literally ran into you." Sam says while turning to look at Luna, giving the rocker a quick shake of her head, "I was actually quite bored, but now that you are here, you can be bored with me as we both go look for something to do."

Sam suddenly latches herself on to Luna's arm who's face morphs into a grin at what the blonde-haired girl said before she begins to pull her in the direction of where all the stalls were scattered about.

They take a couple of steps forwards before Luna throws us a look over her shoulder and asks, "are any of you dudes coming with?"

"Well, If you don't mind me being in your 'presents'," Luan jokes quickly as she begins to follow the two retreating forms of Luna and Sam while bringing out her tally counter and giving it a quick click.

"Luan if you are coming then no puns," I hear Luna exclaim from where she was, probably not willing to put up with the comedians jokes for the whole time she is here.

"What? You don't like my holiday puns? That's a little 'Rude-olph' of you, HO-HO-HO" Is Luans reply as she laughs loudly and once again gives the tally counter a click.

I don't get to hear Luna's response as the three of them disappear into the crowd just leaving me standing here with Lynn.

"Well, I guess that just leaves me and you," I say while turning to look at her "so what do you want to do?"

"Actually Linc, I have something I need to take care of by myself," Lynn tells me as she slowly backs away, "I promise you it won't take that long, I just need to get this one thing."

I was about to protest her leaving me here all alone but before I could utter a single word she abruptly turns around and swiftly makes her way deeper into the market, leaving me to eat her dust as she did.

This left me standing all by myself in the middle of the entrance, alone...

As I stand here I suddenly come to a realization, and that was the fact that this is the first time in days that I have actually been in the company of absolutely no one.

I know it sounds bad but these past couple of days have been absolutely grueling on me, not in a physical sense, even though I do feel sick but in more of an emotional one.

These girls are trying their damn best to extract my hidden past out of me bit by bit, and as much as I hate to admit it, they are doing a great job at it, hell Lynn has even found out about 'him' and is getting me to spill it to the other two later tonight.

The constant bombardment of questions has been draining on me mentally, as I try my best to lie in some places while dealing with the awful true memories that they drag out of me in others.

So It might be nice to enjoy the silence that has fallen onto my lap for however long it takes for the trio of loud girls to once again decide to descend on me like a pack of ravenous wolfs.

With that nice thought, I take a single step forward into the market, ready to enjoy sometime alon-

"Lincoln."

I physically have to stop myself from catapulting five feet into the air as a voice suddenly speaks from behind me. Just from the sound of it alone, I could tell it was Lucy, and as I turn to look at the person, I see that my assumption was correct because standing just behind me wrap up in a dark coat was the young goth.

"Sigh, I have been standing here the whole time," She had? Man, this girl must have some spooky ability to just blend into any background and go unnoticed, "the rest of them paired up and ran off without me as soon as the van doors opened."

As Lucy speaks, she stuffs her hands into her pockets and gives the ground a soft kick.

Looking away from her, I scan the surrounding area for any sign of any one of her sisters, but I only spot random people who are coming in and out of the market.

Glancing back at Lucy, I decide that I probably shouldn't leave her here by herself, something bad could happen, so I offer out my hand for her take while asking , "Say, Lucy.. would you like to come with me and see what this place has to offer?"

My outstretched arm hangs in the air for a couple of quiet seconds, and I was just about to retract it when, to my surprise, Lucy suddenly plants her gloved hand into my open palm and wraps her fingers around mine.

Giving her a brief smile, I begin to lead us into the market following in the footsteps of the other three girls, pulling Lucy behind me.

As we make our way deeper into the place, my nose is suddenly assaulted by the overwhelmingly strong smell of food that seemed to permeate throughout the air reminding me once again of how hungry I am at the moment.

"Are you hungry Lincoln?" I hear Lucy ask from beside me while letting go of my hand.

"What? Me? hungry? No," I quickly say to her while bringing my newly freed hand up to rub the back of my neck, "I had that bowl of cereal earlier tod-"

Turning to face Lucy, I am greeted by the surprising sight of thin air where the dark girl should be standing. I stand there stunned for a few seconds before a little bit of panic rushes through me as I rapidly look left and right to see if I could catch sight of where Lucy had gone.

How is she this good at slipping away?

A couple more seconds pass of me looking for her, a task I knew would be hard as rocks as her outfit made her perfectly blend into the shadows that were being cast by the setting sun in the distance.

I guess I am just going to have to search each stall indi-

"Sigh, here take this."

This time I had no such luck in stopping myself jumping into the air with a little yelp at the sound of the monotone voice that somehow appeared behind me.

"Lucy! We just talked about this," I exclaim to her while turning to face the direction she materialized out of once I was firmly on my feet again.

Peering at her, I see that she was holding two large pretzels in her arms, one of which was swiftly pushed into my hands, "Luce I can't take this off of you."

"You already have."

I open my mouth to argue my point but hardly get the chance to do so as Lucy spins on her heel and begins to walk away from me, leaving the words to die in my throat. Shaking my head, I take a bite of the admittedly tasty pretzel and break into a light jog to catch up with her.

The two of us walk in silence, taking occasional bites out of the warm pastry in our hands, enjoying the soft murmur of the many voices around us which engulfed both of us like a warm blanket.

With each step taken, I could feel my eyes begin to mindlessly scan the crowd, not really looking for anything in particular. As I was looking around, I catch sight of some familiar blonde hair belonging to a certain Loud sister who seemed to have it out for me.

She looked to be having a conversation with Lola about something and whatever it was appeared to be going in Lola's favour as the young girl holds out her hand and waits for money to be deposited into it.

I wonder what that could be abo-

"Sigh, you are about to walk into a wall Lincoln," I hear Lucy say from beside me making my head snap back to looking towards where I was going, which was right into a waist-high wall.

The crash into said wall was about as eventful as walking into a waist-high wall at low speed could be, which was not at all, the most exciting thing to happen was that my half-eaten pretzel almost slips out of my grasp.

Taking a few seconds to get a good grip on my pretzel once again, I find myself peering over the wall right into the ice rink that I saw from the entrance.

"What were you looking at Linc ?" Lucy's voice draws my attention away from the people who were skating passed at the moment of my crash.

"Oh uh nothing," I say while going to take another bite of the food in my hands.

Lucy was quiet for a few seconds before she tilts her head to the right and sighs for real this time, "You do that a lot."

The words catch me off guard, "Do what exactly?" I ask her, feeling my eyebrows furrow in confusion.

Turning her back to the wall, Lucy leans up against it and drops her hands to her sides while letting go of her pretzel, allowing it to drop to the ground before mumbling out, "Lie... ever since we have met, you have lied in nearly every conversation you had with anyone of us. "

Any words that I could say escape me as I am left dumbstruck by what she was saying, how does she know I have been lying practically all this time? "I don't know what you mean Lucy."

"Lincoln, all my life I have fallen into the background of any situation, becoming part of the furniture of any room I stand in, always forgotten by my sisters in one way or another," Lucy says while staring straight ahead, showing little to no emotion, "it has allowed me to watch people without them even realizing that I am there, making me good at picking up little things that people give off, things they give off when they lie for instance and you give off a lot of them"

"No, I don't," I exclaim quickly, defending myself while standing up straighter and putting on my best poker face.

"Sigh, yes you do," Lucy declares like it was a fact, "When you lie you stammer and pause a lot, you also rub the back of your neck with your hand and your voice gets higher."

"Lucy I have not once lied to you," I say to her while doing my best not to do any of the things she just mentioned and watch as she stands there silently for a few seconds before she wraps her arms around herself.

"What's your second name.." The words were spoken so quietly that I almost missed them.

"My second name, what's that have to do with anythi-?" I try to ask her, but I am cut off by the dark-haired girl who stands up off of the wall and looks directly towards me.

"Just tell me your second name Lincoln," She asserts with some force behind her words and I find myself taking a step back at them.

"Smith, my second name is smith," blurting out the first name that comes to mind, I feel my hands ball into fists and wince as my fingernails dig themselves deep into the skin of my palms.

"Rockstin! When you first met us you told us your second name was Rockstin!" Lucy exclaims monotonously, "you lied about coming back to visit after you helped me with my poems, you lied about your sick grandparents and you lied about who you really are."

The silence that followed her rant seemed to stretch out and fill the air between us, almost as if it had become a solid wall with any noise from the outside world failing to pierce the soundless void that had formed leaving it to be broken by one of the two of us.

"I just want to know why you are lying and why you felt like you could tell Luna, Luan, and Lynn but not the rest of us." In the end, it was Lucy who spoke first, probably knowing that I would never be the one to break the silence that festered in the air.

Hearing her words, I take another step back in shock, how does she know that I told those three about what I am keeping secret from the rest of them.

"Ho-w do y-ou know that I told them something?" I say with a quiver in my voice.

"I have noticed how they act differently around you ever since you had that conversation on the park bench a couple of days ago," Lucy explains, "They look at you with more concern in their eyes since that day, so you must have told them the truth that you are keeping from the rest of us or at least some of it."

"I-I- " I stumble over my words, trying my best to put up any form of defence and failing miserably in doing so.

"It had to be something bad or the others would have told the rest of us by now at one of our sibling' meetings," Lucy states, her face still holding a stony expression, "I want to know too, I want to help you with whatever it is that makes Luna and Luan look at you like that, what makes Lynn glance at you every five minutes to make sure you are OK."

"She doesn't glance at me every five minutes," I say incredulously feeling my nails dig even further into my palms.

"52," The girl in black responds quickly, "that is how many times she looked at you out of the corner of her eye on the drive over here."

"How do you know that?" I ask her, trying my best to think back to the car ride over here to see if I could remember if she did look at me that many times but all I could recall was the constant bickering between Lana and Lola who were sitting behind me.

"I told you Lincoln, I pick up on these things," Lucy affirms her earlier point before shaking her head, "but that doesn't matter, what does matter is you telling me what you are hiding."

"I can't tell you Lucy, no more of you can find out, it could make it harder for me when I finally lea- " I instantly slam my mouth shut and I could feel my eyes widen in shock at what I nearly just said to her.

"When you what?"Lucy quietly asks, her jaw clenching as she does, "when you finally leave us?"

"Lucy no! I would never do that, I'm not planning on leaving," I say rapidly, doing my best to cover over what I almost said, knowing full well that there was little chance that Lucy was going to believe me.

Lucy lowers her head, allowing her dark black hair to fall over her face preventing any chance I had in reading any expression she might have at the moment, not that there was much chance of that happening in the first place.

I was just about to start talking when I hear her quietly whisper something, "another lie."

It was so soft that I almost didn't hear it, nearly losing what she said to the background noise provided by the abundance of people around us.

"Lucy I..."

"LINCOLN!" Any chance I had to respond to her was stripped away from me as a loud shout makes me instinctively look over my shoulder to spot a quickly approaching Lynn who had a bag in her hands with god only knows what inside of it.

"What are you doing over here by yourself?" Is the first thing Lynn says to me as she reaches where I am standing.

"By myself? I'm not by mysel-" Turning back to look at where Lucy was standing I stop speaking as once again the goth had disappeared into the market crowds. "Oh... I was just checking out the ice rink."

"Ok..?" Lynn with some uncertainty before she just shrugs her shoulders and gives me a mischievous grin, "Well, why are you watching them skate when you can skate yourself?"

Before I could react to what Lynn said I find my hand suddenly being grabbed by her, "Woah, Lynn there is no way I am going ice-skating, I don't even know how to skate."

"I guess it is a good thing that I can!" Lynn happily exclaims while beginning to pull me in the direction of where the skates were being given out.

I wanted to argue with her more, I really did but my mind was too preoccupied with the conversation I just had with Lucy. I hope she doesn't tell the others that I plan on leaving because if she does, then Lynn will definitely spill my secret to the rest of her family, even her parents.

That could lead me back to 'him'... and I can't let that happen, no matter what...

No matter what.


Well there we have it chapter 15 is finally done! Lincoln had a lovely conversation with Lucy, didn't he?

It feels good to get back to writing everybody! I hope to be able to post more often this year, but I won't make any promises.

I also hope to be more active in the community, leaving more reviews on stories, taking part in more of the shipping weeks and drawing more fan art (Which can be found on my twitter.)

Anyways, as usual, thanks for all the reviews, favourites and follows guys! While I was gone, this story hit 250 follows, which is just insane!

Thanks everybody!

Catch you on the flip side - MutedBadger