Through Their Eyes
First Year
Lucy
Oh, Edwin, Lucy couldn't help but consider the bust of the one her eternal love was promised to as she sat there on the bench, twiddling her thumbs beside her sisters while the greatest worry shot threw her in an agony beyond unpleasant. Please watch over Lincoln. Or do something to get him out of here, if you can.
She wouldn't say it out loud, but part of her truly hoped such a thing would happen, her throat constricting as she briefly looked up only to spy an intimidating figure before looking quickly back at her black shoes kicking in the air.
If she'd been braver, perhaps she'd have risked a look around for any bats or some other signal her dark prayers to her eternal love might have been answered.
But instead she remained there with only her thoughts and all but one of her sisters and her only brother at her sides.
Why'd they have to be so stupid? that was the crux of it, ultimately; if they'd never been so stupid, Lincoln wouldn't be here right now, away from his family.
Trapped.
Nor would Luan, come to think of it. But Lucy was sure her older sister would be alright. She was a victim in all of this, no question about it.
Lincoln, though?
To Lucy at least, there was no question of his innocence either.
Lincoln isn't a murderer! He'd never do that! I know Lincoln, he wouldn't do that…
Again, she risked looking up, saw no trace of her parents nor her two siblings. Lily gurgled her usual utterances in Leni's shaky arms, but even those had a joyless quality, as though she were asking the exact same questions everyone else was thinking.
Finally a familiar face entered her view once more, coming quickly down the hall in his familiar turtleneck.
Dad.
"Alright, kids, come on," his voice was strained, more than likely from having to talk so much while terrified the wrong word might condemn his child. "Your mother and Luan are on their way out to Vanzilla right now and we're getting ready to go to the hospital."
"The hospital?" whoever said that, Lucy didn't know. Instead her mind raced, The hospital? Why? What's going on?
Her thoughts came to a halt when their father gave a weary sigh. "It's okay. Everything's gonna be okay, Lincoln just had to be sent there since he started feeling ill while they were talking with him and the detective was worried."
Lucy sighed as well. Well, that's a first.
Lori
Worried! Lori wanted to growl, spat, yell at the top of her lungs as they left the police department behind. Sure would've been nice if they'd worried like that before they let the jackass out! Maybe then Lincoln wouldn't have…
Oh god, she choked back a whimper, kept quiet lest she worry her siblings, her parents as they all clambered into Vanzilla, Luan now between her and Leni while Luna leaned over the seat for support. Lincoln's already had a shit week because of that asshole, it's gonna be a thousand times worse if anyone finds out about this! Damn it!
She wanted to kick the seat, but that'd just punish her family. And her.
And despite what everyone thought of her, Lori loved her family. Punishing them for all this wasn't anywhere near her mind.
It wasn't their fault, after all.
"You okay, Luan?" she whispered to her little sister, put a reassuring hand on the smaller girl's shoulders. When she responded with a nod, Lori sighed. "If…" she took a moment to calm down, then started again. "If you want to talk, we can."
"I'm okay," Luan whispered back, swallowed. "Really."
Luan might have been telling the truth, but Lori could only be grateful Luan didn't ask after her. The last thing she wanted to do was lie to her sister, but she didn't want to worry her, either.
So instead, Lori wrapped her arm around Luan, as much to calm her own mind as to possibly provide her sister comfort.
If Luan's like this, I can only imagine what Lincoln's going through…
Goddamn it! Lori tensed ever so slightly, then relaxed and hoped nobody picked up on it. It's bad enough my brother's probably traumatized because he had to fight that bastard, then get harassed all week because he beat a damn rapist! Why'd they have to throw him into a room and treat him like he's some damn murderer when they let the guy out to begin with!
"I wonder," Lori's attention was brought back to the physical world at the sound of Luan's voice, "how that girl, Joy's doing? Think they've heard about…?"
Their mother briefly lifted their spirits when she said, "They know," then, when Lynn Jr. asked, she looked back and smiled weakly, "We heard them when the detective called. It was the happiest sound in the room."
Lori couldn't help but smile. "Good."
Her sisters were in total agreement.
With that, Lori returned to her thoughts, her hands briefly brushing over her shorts pocket where her phone rested. When was the last time Boo-Boo Bear and I talked? Maybe, she looked down, considered it, then shook her head slightly. I'll text him later. It's got to have been a week, though. I hope he's not mad about that.
While Lori was lost in her thoughts some small talk managed to resume among her family and soon all that was forgotten as they were outside the hospital rushing in, shoes clicking against the pristine tiled floor as the large family hurried to their missing number's side.
And when they finally reached him?
"Lincoln!" hers was just one of many voices that rang out the moment they spotted him there, reclining on the hospital bed, flecks of dried red still caked in his white hair from that afternoon's… event.
He smiled, weaker than he'd ever been, as he said, "Hey guys."
Lynn Jr.
Lynn was a hard ass. She'd admit it, happily at that, and never even considered being otherwise nowadays. It just wasn't her nature, not anymore, not since entering middle school.
And she was a heck of a hard ass toward her brother, her one and only brother. But it wasn't personal. Or, at least not the kind of personal that was rooted in hostility or hatred, like he'd killed the dog her husband left her after she wrested herself free of the criminal underworld only to lose the man she loved to cancer. Nah, not even close. It was because she knew he needed it, needed someone with the aggression, the go-getter mindset, to toughen him up for the world, to make him a man!
Okay, not like that.
So, when she saw him there, sitting on the bed, the nurse instructing everyone not to touch him until he could be fully cleaned up, the first words out of Lynn's mouth were the highest praise she could come close to thinking of.
"Dang, Lincoln!" she chuckled, flashing a grin and two thumbs up. "I can't believe it, you really embraced your inner Zinedine Zidane on that as—er, guy! I knew you had it in ya!"
Lincoln could only raised an eyebrow as the nurse began cleaning off the rest of the blood. "Huh?"
"Soccer player," Lynn explained when everyone but the nurse looked at her. "He was pretty aggressive, headbutted people, that sort of thing. It was awesome."
"Oh, got it," but if it affected him any to be compared to such a guy, Lincoln didn't let it show. No puffing up of his chest or swelling of the ego, just calm acceptance, taking her word for it because there were more important things to worry about.
That was the kind of guy he was, Lynn knew. Or, at least he was becoming that kind of guy.
Sure, she tried to mold him, toughen him up whenever she got the chance. And maybe it worked, maybe she'd succeeded, because she'd noticed it got progressively harder to mold him as time went on. Whenever she managed to stretch his silly face or stringy form nowadays, he just sprang right back into shape once more, like nothing could change him anymore.
And honestly? She kind of hoped nothing did.
But she wouldn't be caught dead actually saying that.
"Hepatitis!" her father's and mother's voices brought her out of her thoughts, made Lynn's eyes shoot wide open as she honed in on her brother's blues.
"Whoa, Lincoln!" she gasped. "Really? You had anal sex!"
Lori was the first to speak up after everyone recoiled, uttering, "Literally what!"
Lynn looked at her. "Don't look at me! Lincoln's the guy who did the deed!"
Rita, once she managed to calm down, put her hand on Lynn's shoulder and turned her daughter toward her. "Sweetie, you can get hepatitis from many, many different things."
The girl sat there, silent, before finally opening her mouth and croaking, "You can?" then, after the nurse, trying so hard not to laugh or react in any way unprofessionally, nodded, Lynn added, "Oh. Okay then. Carry on."
Yes, Lynn was a hard ass. She also wasn't above getting her own in, and when she deserved getting hers?
Okay, she didn't take it happily. It wasn't her nature, so sue her!
But she took it this time, especially now. So she let her siblings rib her, dealt with the humiliation of having to have her parents reexplain things to her she should have paid attention to the first time around.
Still, I hope he'll be okay, she looked out hers and Lucy's door to Lincoln's, the portal opened while Luan and Lincoln both watched some movie or other together while he recovered in bed for the second week since that day. Not just with the hep, either. Maybe Luan'll be able to get him to open up, get him back to normal since they seem so close these days.
And while she gets him to do that, Lynn's face grimaced as she recalled some of the kids at her school and what they'd said, maybe I'll open up a few faces of my own. I can't believe those assholes are actually defending that bastard! 'Oh, that poor rapist and murderer wannabe, I only feel bad because he's the right color and it makes me feel powerful!' If I hadn't of hesitated, I could have cleaned every last one of those assholes' clocks!
She looked back, heard Lincoln and Luan both laugh at something, then her shoulders slumped and her face twisted in sadness.
If Lincoln knew what was being said about him by complete strangers, would he still be proud of what he did? She hoped he would, that he was proud. When the adults, when society, didn't step up and do the right thing, her eleven year old brother did. He protected Luan, he made sure that Joy girl didn't have to go through a drawn out court case, made sure nobody else would be hurt by that asshole ever again, he did the right thing.
She was sure of it.
Lynn only hoped he knew that, too.
Lynn Sr.
Lynn Sr. normally tried to keep his kids from fighting. Sure, it worked as well as pulling a rabid weasel's abscessed teeth while struck blind and deaf in a hurricane with subzero temperatures, but he tried. And usually, to find out they had hurt someone would be grounds for punishment.
But right then and there, as he tried his best not to hurtle through the streets as they all but chased the ambulance the police department had called to take his son to the hospital, all he wanted to do was praise Lincoln.
Maybe it'd help to salve the hurt deep in his soul.
I voted for that, it was the same thought he'd had all that day and night since getting the call at work. I voted for all those policies, and they almost got my daughter hurt and my son… what in the hell am I gonna do? How can I even begin to apologize to you two? To you, Lincoln?
"He'll be alright, Dear," his wife said from the passenger seat after turning back around. "Say what you will, Lincoln's tougher than he looks."
It took far too long for Lynn Sr. to respond, but not because he had his doubts. No, it was because he didn't have his doubts, because he could see what she meant, couldn't notsee what she meant. All the crap (yes, crap, because what he wanted to say wouldn't come to mind so easily) he put up with on a daily basis? That boy would have to be tough. And if he wasn't before, LJ made sure he was by now.
So strong was he that, even as he sat there, being questioned while running a fever, a fever he'd had all week since around the first blood-spattered altercation with that asshole but hadn't told anyone about because he didn't want them worrying, all Lincoln did was try to make sure he didn't worry his parents or his sisters.
That he kept strong, didn't break down, didn't panic.
All to be strong for them.
"I just-" he paused, swallowed, stopped at a light. He made sure his voice was kept low, he didn't want to catch his daughters' attention now they were talking among themselves once again. "I just wish I'd been thinking more."
"Hmm?" his wife was genuinely curious now, and her face said as much.
A moment to collect his thoughts led to a short nibbling of the lip before he said, "That, 'creature,' wouldn't have been out if it wasn't for that program."
"Program?"
"Yes," he nodded, looked at his wife now they'd hit another red light. "If it wasn't for us voting those politicians in, they'd never have started that program and that guy wouldn't have gotten out. He'd be alive, and Lincoln wouldn't be…" words failed him as the light turned green once more.
It must not have occurred to Rita, he realized then as her face fell and she drifted to her own thoughts.
Well, that went great. Now he wasn't the only one feeling guilty for his son's predicament.
But if he and his wife felt guilty, some of that was salved by the outpouring of support Lincoln received from both familiar and not so familiar faces.
Soon after they'd gotten back from the hospital, he'd had his first visitor in Clyde and his family.
"Y-you're sure you're-" Lynn struggled to find the words, "okay?"
"Why wouldn't we be?" Harold raised a curious eye at Lynn Sr. as his husband and son visited with the younger boy. Howard's emotional side was on full display as he thanked every god and deity (including some Lynn Sr. was quite certain were eldritch in origin) that Lincoln was safe and sound and such good friends with his darling sweet boy who, at that moment, was begging his dad not to embarrass him in front of Lori.
Lynn Sr. felt rather ashamed as he rubbed the back of his neck and said, "Well…" as his voice drifted lower and lower.
But Harold only grimaced, clapped the man on the shoulder and looked him dead in the eye. "Lynn, not for even one millisecond would I ever claim that rotten piece of-" Lynn Sr.'s eyes widened at the words coming from the man before him, "-as one of my people, let alone my son's people. Our people are your people, good honest people. People who wouldn't harm others for no good reason and when they do?" he looked over at Lincoln, got just a tad misty-eyed then. "When they do, they do it for the right reason, not the wrong.
"I'd hope you'd see it the same," he finished, looking Lynn right in the eye once again.
The other man almost started crying as he embraced the larger man before him. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
"No problem." When both men parted once again, Harold looked aside at Lynn Sr. and asked, "Is there anything the family needs? We'll help with any lawyers if he needs them."
"Gods, no," Lynn Sr. laughed, though it was just a tad weak, for the first time that week. "At least they did something right, finally. The district attorney sees it as clear cut self-defense of another. No charges."
Harold's face set firm and, with a single nod, he said, "Good. And that's the way it'll stay if they know what's good for them."
In the days that followed, several other families stepped up to support Lincoln. The Santiagos were pretty much a sure bet, and Bobby and Lincoln almost seemed like brothers from the way they both acted toward each other nowadays. The family of the one victim, Joy, was another somewhat expected set of supporters. The Spokes, Gurdles and Hunnicutts weren't unexpected, either.
He was a tad surprised the Rosarios showed up in support of Lincoln, however, but then he'd learned of their connection to Joy and that explained a lot. A girl named Mollie and her family also lent their support, but it was a hell of a shocker to see the Pingreys come out to support Lincoln as well.
Lynn Sr. hoped all that support would boost Lincoln's spirits somewhat. Keep him above water.
After all the things Lynn Sr. had seen and heard said about his son by many around town and at work, he knew the boy would need it.
Lisa
The weeks since her only brother unit had first had the displeasure of meeting with that reprobate and societal reject when he tried pulling their fourth eldest sister unit into his car to have unwilling sexual relations with her, Lisa had watched with as much stoicism as she could manage.
Normally, she'd have thought this an easy thing to do. The truly hardened rationalist side of her said she had eight other sisters if anything had happened that day, and that April Fools would not have the same level of pants wetting terror had anything truly untoward happened to the pranking demon.
This was all seemingly very rational.
Which is why her rational side had found itself tied up, its feet encased in a mixture of tricalcium silicate, dicalcium silicate, tricalcium aluminate, and tetracalcium aluminoferrite, street name Portland Cement, and thrown into the nearest body of water after she let loose with that double-barrel twenty gauge she keeps hidden away nearby for those experiments that get out of hand and out of cage.
It was in her personal opinion the only rational choice after such thoughts were allowed into her head.
As for her brother unit, though he'd managed to become infected with Hepatitis B both the doctor and, when able to, herself had come to the conclusion that it was acute, not chronic, and that he'd recover with no further issues. Everyone else had to get vaccinated, sure, but she could agree quite readily with her parental units when they'd uttered the words, "Any port in a storm."
Admittedly, she didn't like having to look up the meaning behind that phrase. After all, great minds like hers should be able to parse such things easily.
But such a thing didn't come so easily to her nowadays.
And Lisa couldn't understand why.
Three months later she also found something more bothering her, but couldn't quite place it, either. It gnawed at her though, every day now for some time at that.
What in the world was it, though?
End of 1st Year
A/N: Thank you for reading, folks! I hope your time was well spent and that you have a wonderful rest of your day! The following is just some thoughts on this story and its creation, so you needn't bother reading it if you don't feel like it. The TL;DR Cliff-notes version of it is that I used my randomizer to choose through whose eyes the story was told, and that the story is only five chapters long so long as I don't run into any horrible mistakes in need of editing so bad that I split things up for quicker posting.
Thank you!
And now, the expanded version.
Making Lincoln a pariah and having Luan have reason to see him as otherwise became an interesting idea (in my own opinion) I had a while back when considering writing their pairing. But after reading a few Loudcest stories regarding the two, I knew I didn't want to pursue the same old tale as usual. And after writing the Seven Ways series of stories, plus Tell a Tale, I had the randomizer I made to choose the characters for that, and well… long story short, I added other characters and decided to randomize through whose eyes I'd tell the sordid tale of Lincoln and Luan's relationship and, more to the point, how everyone around them deals with the aftermath of it all.
Yes, each character was randomly chosen. I didn't meddle in the choices either save to remove Howard and Harold's viewpoints as it got far too long and… well, I couldn't really think of ways to have them "Observe" the story with much clarity that others couldn't and be better at it. Sadly, I failed there, not my randomizer. I did add their names, after all.
Off-topic, but Clyde is so one of my favorite characters. I really wish my randomizer gave him more spots in this tale and the fact his is one of the longest parts should tell you something.
My sincerest apologies for such a long author's note. This story, so long as I don't happen upon some serious mistake in need of editing, isn't long at all at only five chapters. But hopefully it will entertain you, those who choose to read it.
Anyways, thank you for listening to my spiel, I hope your day goes splendidly and that you enjoy the tale I have to tell here. If you choose not to come back, then still have a wonderful day!
Thank you.
And no more author's notes for this story! ...hopefully.
