Author's Notes: Oh boy, I guess i should give a fair warning for the people that can get easily triggered with Lincoln acting like a meanie in fanfiction, 'cause I'll have to keep riding this train for a while... Anyways, my biggest regards to all of my followers, this story would have never grown the way it did without you guys :)
king Ks: Thanks a lot for your continued reviews, it's like fuel for us writers to get any sort of feedback and i'm glad that you like the way i convey feelings in this story!
Disclaimer: I don't own The Loud House, the brand, as well as all of its characters and settings belong to Chris Savino and Nickelodeon, all rights reserved.
Chapter 47: Descent.
Lucy's P.O.V:
.
"An unexpected confession
Bestows a wave of calamity
Creates a chain of recession
And a conduit of necessity"
.
"The path to their deepest desire
Lies ahead of sorrow and gloom
Their deeper bond goes haywire
In the face of conflict and doom"
.
- sigh - I express my frustration to myself, the progress for this poem is slow, painfully slow, countless drafts done, discarded, burned.
But what can I do? The source of my inspiration consists of two lost, confused, traumatized and depraved souls.
One continues to cry every night, masking her regret with pride.
The other holds everything within, including his growing darkness.
What a perfect recipe for corruption.
Yet here I am, nowadays, acting as the messenger, the link, the one who hears one side, and spies on the other.
It's been 6 months now, we're finally approaching the long awaited Christmas Eve, where the regulation set up by our parents would finally be lifted, a moment for the entire family to celebrate, for more than a few reasons.
Lori, Leni, Luna and Luan are coming for a week to spend some time with us, that alone should finally stop an end to the silence, the maddening silence that even I was beginning to despise… what an irony indeed.
Of course, the whole ordeal with Lola's feelings had also been "sorted", the princess admittedly has been showing no signs of interest in our brother ever since, it was particularly jarring on the twins birthday, where she would rather spend her time talking about her coach to her peers, that being one of the only "events" in which she was allowed to interact with our brother, more over, she made the surprising, yet chaotic decision to invite "Fernando Dubois" himself.
Expectedly, mom, dad and some of my younger sisters were not taking their eyes off of her, the idea of them being allowed to see each other was probably a little too much at the time, but even I have to admit; she made an incredible job at straight up ignoring her "former" crush through the entire thing.
… Wish I could say the same thing about him.
Of course, I guess I should mention what Lana did on that day, well…
She didn't go, or rather, she wanted to celebrate a "different birthday party for once", obviously that meant a "party of two" with Liam, or maybe just a party without Lola.
And that was the first time I saw mom snap at her, she got called out for her escapades, she got called out for not informing when she was staying outside, she got called out for acting like an outsider to the family.
And somehow, her own secret was out, she got called out for "losing herself to a boy".
She was grounded, hard, and was forbidden to go to his farm, ironically enough "Till the eve of Christmas", now Lana was miserable, retracted and barely interacted with her family.
She was a shut in.
And that same "boy" got banned from visiting the house, by none other than Lincoln himself.
Lincoln…
It's hard for me to admit it really, but so is being the primary witness of his descent.
Lincoln is no longer the sweet caring brother that I once knew, the symptoms that I was seeing in Lola had now been transferred over to him.
And amplified to a concerning degree.
It was every night, at 9:00PM, with absolute accuracy, he would be knocking on my door, sometimes inviting himself in, and disturbing my writing and rituals.
I tried to help him, I tried to find anything that could be enough to at least validate my brother's opinion, to give him a reason to justify his actions, but it was no use.
Fernando was very much a professional coach, his delicate "sweet talking" was nothing but a part of his strategy to inspire confidence in his contestant, his approach was not physical at all, except when measuring her figure, his demeanor had zero changes regardless of whether they were alone or in company, overall just a normal guy.
Lola herself would only respond politely and "seductively" in the way a beauty queen was supposed to, to provide an aura of confidence and to highlight her "feminine charm", but never once did I ever perceive her being awkward or "overly affectionate" with that man.
But that wouldn't make Lincoln happy, no matter how many times I was told to check for evidence to no avail, he would berate me, say I was "doing it wrong", and say that he was "100% convinced that he was a terrible influence to Lola", nothing I said would ever calm him down.
And thus, he grew more and more bitter everyday.
There was no "movie Saturday" anymore, no more sudden visits of Clyde by that matter, before, he used to at least greet Lynn or Lana, now there wasn't even eye contact, he would sometimes come early and walk to his room, never to be seen again by anyone except me, he would barely talk with Lily or Lisa, if our parents were to confront him, he would respond with monosyllables, or simply ignore them and leave, he would reject lunch on weekends, or he would only pass by to eat his pre-made sandwich, away, on his room.
And his relationship with Stella was a mystery, even to me, he would always change the subject when I asked him, but one thing was for certain.
She hasn't come over in months…
And that was only the tip of the iceberg.
Lincoln missed the bus on many occasions to wait for Fernando to arrive, he would then say unsettling, creepy remarks.
"What was your inspiration on the latest dress? It makes her look kind of sexy don't you think?"
I knew what he was trying to do.
But an innocent man wouldn't fall for that, it still scared me nonetheless.
More so considering the morbid "spectacle" that he threw on her birthday no less, Lola wouldn't stop talking about the virtues of her latest training, from her perfected ribbon performance to her improved selection of clothing and giving the credit where it was due, Lincoln, of course, did not like those comments at all.
Still, it probably wasn't a very great idea for him to step into the conversation and shove the man into the cake, causing the entire table to collapse under the weight, eliciting a predictable "gasp" from the audience.
His next words are still stuck in my head.
"Fancy seeing her in a short dress, ehh, fuckhead?"
Then, he just left, no one, not even Lola, said anything in return, he was promptly grounded for a few weeks.
But the message was clear, It was clearer than a drop of fresh unicorn blood: Lincoln did not care one bit about the well being of that man, he knew the ultimate consequences of the bait that he was trying to make Fernando bite on.
He wanted him gone, and his patience was all but dead.
And yet… he still wanted me to believe that he was fine, that he was just "stressed", that he was just being "perceptive" and "preventive", not a single slip on logic of his own.
Or awareness…
Lincoln, I see your pain, I see your conflict, I see you desperation, I want to help you, but first you need to help yourself.
You need to stop bottling up your real feelings, for they will explode.