Author's Notes (Top of the Pops): I'm surprised and flattered by the overwhelming response to this fic, I really am.
As a heads up, chapters are going to vary in length. When I set out to write this story in the first place, I planned for none of them to be longer than 2,500 to 3,000 words, but like I've been saying, I've just been having so much fun with it all that it's hard to put a cap on some of them. But there usually is a cap to them: a line or dialogue or revelation that's just such a good stopping point or a hard blow that it'd be lame to make the chapter continue past it.
Let me show you what I mean.
He did it.
He couldn't believe he actually did it. Just like that, he made his mind known. Seeing Lucy recoil and her face twist in revulsion and confusion, he knew it was about time to get out of there before the waterworks started. Sure, she was a stoic girl, but he knew he had just pushed her past her limits. He stood and started towards the stairs.
"Ah-bu-bu-bu-bu-but Linc, mah boy!" Lynn Sr put his hands around his son's shoulders. "I know what we said, but... are you sure? I-it's fine if you really feel that way, I swear! I-I just—"
He politely removed his father's hands from his shoulders. "Sorry, Dad. But I just can't."
Rita shoved her face into her hands.
Lucy stood there, mouth agape at first, then closed, as her whole body sagged. Somewhere, a light had just gone out in her life.
"Linky!" said Leni.
Less calmly, he said, "Don't you Linky me. You all said it, didn't you? That I'm not obligated to forgive any of you." His eyes passed over them all like a judge having just dropped an unexpectedly harsh sentence.
Earnestly, she replied, "But, like, if you aren't oblong gated to forgive, what if you forget?"
Lincoln stopped and snickered darkly, then warmly. "Leni, I love you, I really do."
"Aww, I love you too, Linky."
"But sorry, not sorry. I can't forgive Lucy. Not now. And that's that." He passed by a dazed and confused Luan, ruffling her hair with a sudden palm noogie, and disappeared up the stairs.
"Lincoln, Lincoln! Wait!" shouted Lynn Sr. He looked to his gothic daughter and then to the stairs before bolting after his son, Rita close behind.
Lori sighed and set her head between her legs. 'I literally knew something like this would happen...'
That which she feared came true: that Lincoln would actually take up their offer to not forgive them, or at least one of them.
They weren't lying, she told herself, were they? Part of that process meant giving Lincoln his own agency, and that meant accepting whatever he chose. It was entirely possible he chose to not forgive any of them. It was entirely possible he chose to not forgive one of them.
That didn't make it feel any less offensively painful. And she looked up at the little baby bat still standing there, her hands still outstretched as if holding a poem.
She stood up, arms folded and fingers against her chin, and followed her parents upstairs. Luna also stood, and went to Lucy.
"Hey, Luce... are you... are you okay?"
Silently, she replied, "Yeah…"
Lily looked up, peering past those bangs that had obscured those eyes. The trembling, the twitching, the shock, the horror— she was a window that had been broken, but the rest of the pane had not yet shattered.
"Wucy…?" A rare sight unfolded indeed, but Lily's eyes bent in anger as she looked to the stairs, but that anger passed as Lucy turned and walked briskly upstairs.
"L-Lucy, wait!" shouted Luna. Luan looked at the girl as she moved, then looked back down.
'Dang it, Lincoln. Why Lucy?'
Lynn's bangs obscured her own eyes, and she wheeled herself back towards the couch.
Lola, Lana, and Lisa exchanged their nervous looks and followed their family.
Lincoln threw himself onto his bed and told his dad to go away.
"But why, son? Why? Don't you care about this family?"
He looked over his shoulder and angrily asked, "So it was a lie, then? Reverse psychology?" Mockingly, he chided, "Oh, we'll let you forgive or not forgive us, whatever you want, Lincoln!" He put his head into his pillow. "But I guess that only counted if I actually forgave you guys. And now that I made my choice, that's suddenly a bad thing? Please."
"Linc... I..." Lynn Sr. bit his lip and looked off out the door, where Rita came in. "It's not that I don't support your decision. If you really don't forgive Lucy, that's perfectly fine. But can I at least get a reason?"
Lincoln glared at him.
Lynn Sr. shivered. "I-I mean, yeah, she kicked you out, but so did the rest of us!"
"Lincoln! Lincoln, wait!" Lucy stopped and caught her breath. "Please, whatever it is I've done to curse you and ruin your spirit, please— I swear I'll change! Look!" She pulled away her bangs and grinned, a most disturbing sight. "I'll even cut my bangs if it bothers you. Anything. Just tell me..."
Her bangs. After all I told her. That's what she thought was going to make me feel better? Cutting her bangs? CUTTING HER BA…
He sat up, stretched, scratched his back, smacked his lips, looked at Lucy, and said, "Well?"
"..."
He threw out his arms and shouted, "Well? You gonna tell them, or should I?"
"Wha... What?"
He sucked in sharply and said, "Say, Mom? Dad? You remember that little incident a few months back? With the Princess Pony book?"
Lucy pressed her hands against her chest as the memories of that incident came galloping back. "O-oh..."
"You mean your book? What happened, did Lucy do something to it?"
Lincoln grinned evilly. "Something like that. No, no, you see, that was LUCY's book."
Lynn Sr. furrowed his brow and realigned his head. "Oh. Oh, is that all?" He looked to his wife in disbelief. All this over a children's book?
Hanging onto the door frame, Rita shook her hands together as she said, "We grounded you for that, Lincoln... We're so sorry. Why didn't you tell us?"
Flatly, he responded, "Because let's face it, you wouldn't have believed me. Besides, I was fine with it! Sure, I missed my Ace Savvy convention because I got grounded. Sure, I missed my one and only chance ever to win Ace Savvy #1, Original Print Gold Edition, signed by Bill Buck and Barry Barnes, with a CGC of 9.8. Sure, I may have been relentlessly mocked and bullied by my sisters for liking such a 'stupid kid's show'. Sure, YOU may have even bought ME a Princess Pony lunchbox that got me bullied at school. But that was all fine. You know why? Because I stuck by my little sister." He smiled gingerly, with thin eyes.
He stood!
"And you know what? Big brothers deserve to stick up for their little sisters. That's just what big brothers do. Oh how'd it go? 'Anytime, Linky, anytime. I'll be here for you, no matter what.'" Hearing those words made Lucy shiver. "I was there for spooky little Lucy because I knew family always sticks together, through thick and thin, through good times and bad, and we always had each other's backs."
"Lincoln, are you... are you not forgiving her over Princess Pony?" asked Rita in horror.
"Well, something like that." Deliberately he kept his eyes off his parents and eyed Lucy up and down. "Who knows."
When Lincoln raged and Lucy trembled, the others furrowed their brows.
Lola and Lana looked past Charles, who had also gathered at Lincoln's door.
"Ugh, are you serious?" went Lola, her hands on her hips. "If that's all, then Lincoln needs to chill out."
Lana however was transfixed and went, "Something else's gotta be going on…"
Rita pleaded, and it was nice to hear his family plead to him, "If you'd like, w-we could ground her! We'll take away her poetry book, whatever you want!"
Lucy shuddered at the prospect. That book was where she poured her black heart and empty soul onto virgin pulp. If she lost it, she didn't know what she'd do. But if it meant making it up to Lincoln, surely it was punishment enough. As painful as it would be, as much as she'd hate every agonizing moment. If anything, her unwillingness to go through with it would be even better for him, would it not? Why deny him the satisfaction of knowing she's genuinely being punished. Ah, but that meant she'd actually be punished.
His eyes thinned further, almost to the point of closing, before he opened one and rubbed his chin. "Anything I want, huh?"
The family in the room leaned into him, and Lucy bowed herself, knowing that this wasn't going to be pleasant.
Looking out his window, he grinned wickedly, as if he had given this much thought. "Funny you should offer that."
"Lincoln, wait," said Luna, stomping up the stairs. "Don't do this, l'il dude. It wasn't Lucy's fault. It was ours!"
"Yeah," said Lori, rubbing her elbow. "We made her feel unsafe, like she couldn't be herself."
Lincoln rolled his eyes. As long as they still think it's about the book.
"It was even our fault that the younger kids didn't stick up for you during the Incident," said Luna.
"Uh, no, not me," sassily shouted Lola from behind the door. "I'd been waiting for a reason to kick Lincoln out."
"Quiet, you!" shouted the family.
"Lola, you're grounded," sternly shouted Lynn Sr.
Instead of resisting or throwing out words of offense, she sulked off. Lana remained, and Lisa took her place.
"Wow," went Lincoln with a whistle.
"Please don't take that the wrong way, Lincoln," said Lori, shaking both her hands together.
"Actually, I adore the fresh honesty. And to be fair, that does sound like Lola. I'll just hafta remember to keep that in mind."
"But Lucy?" exasperatedly asked Luna.
"If we knew Lucy was into it, considering how OBNOXIOUSLY hard she goes into being a goth and how much she says she hates pink and pretty things and whatnot," said Lori, loudly at some parts in case the goth in the room couldn't hear her, "we'd literally have been ten times more ruthless than we were against you. Lucy couldn't have taken that like we thought you could." In hearing herself, Lori felt the words tasted like poison.
Lincoln calmly said, "Because she's an insecure hypocrite."
The family blinked. Lucy recoiled again, but not as much as she ought to have. The atmosphere was no longer just tense, but actively toxic. Rita pulled her daughter closer to her in disbelief.
He shrugged. "Sorry, guys. I'm just calling it as I see it." He looked to Lucy. "As I know it."
Lucy looked away. "Lincoln, you… you already told me that before," with a painful memory dredged back to the surface.
"That I did," went he, the same memory far sweeter. Like judgement day it was, that heavenly day not long after the Incident when he finally got to roast his entire insane family in public before telling them to get lost— all their flaws and failings screamed back at them with no way out. It was glorious. And here played out a little replay of the great Loud bonfire roast. His evil grin back, he added, "But there's something else I didn't say that I wish I did."
"But... it's not her fault. She was right to fear us, because we're terrible like that. It's our fault! Blame us, not her!" pleaded Luna.
With a tinge of nervousness as if he was afraid the wrong words would come to his mouth, he said, "Guys, look. It's a personal reason, okay? I get it, you guys screwed up and put her in that position, but she still failed. That's still on her." He looked right into Lucy's bangs, scowled, and said, "And if I had to be honest? Right now, I don't want anything to do with her."
Luna stepped forward. "But why? You can't seriously blame her for it."
Lincoln snapped. "Yes, I can! So what if you're bunch of bullies? It still happened, she KNEW how I felt, and she still failed to prove herself. She still did NOTHING." He sat on his bed, grumpy and arms folded. His brow low on his face, he shook his head slowly, hoping no one else said anything. Oh, if they kept on about this, he knew exactly what he was going to say next.
Lucy backed away, turned away from Lincoln, cowering in her mother's embrace, feeling she wasn't wanted. She knew exactly why he felt this way, to a degree greater than anyone else.
"If I'm not wanted, I'll just leave."
"Yeah, Lucy. Leave. Just run along and get out of here." He stood up again. "All this crap about sticking together, pretending that we were sooo close—" He shrugged. "Guess it was bullshit."
Gasp went the family.
"Lincoln, language!" went Rita.
He stepped towards Lucy as she trembled and quivered. "I trusted you, Lucy. I trusted you. I believed what you said. I was always there for you, and you let me down. It's not the same as what everyone else did." With every step, he grew more animated. "You KNEW I had your back. You KNEW I was always there for you. You know, I always sympathized with you when you complained that you were ignored. You were just like me in some ways. Whenever I felt like no one would leave me alone, you felt like no one cared to remember you. Even if I wasn't the best at it, I always tried to remember you when everyone else ignored you, and I thought you were there with me. You'd always listen to me, so I thought you'd be there when I needed you. Instead, you ignored me the way everyone ignores you. Well you know what?" And then Lincoln got in real close.
"Now you know why everyone ignores you."
Author's Notes (Bottom of the Heap): I have no idea if this was the wham line I always thought it was. Tell me in the comments if it was suitably brutal or if I'm just overreacting.
First and foremost, let me address That-Engineer's comment that this just seems bizarrely mean in comparison to what was done to Lincoln: yes, you're correct! I'm not even going to sugarcoat it: since this was born as a plot-driven story, I did have to contrive a reason for Lincoln and Lucy to have such a poor relationship. No matter your opinion on the Loud sisters and how annoying they can be or even that she betrayed Lincoln, Lucy's really not one of the "bad" ones and even the "bad" ones like Lynn and Lola are often over-hated for what happens in the show. They really just have bad moments, which to be fair are contrived even in the series because of Nickelodeon's unspoken mandate that Lincoln technically and canonically isn't allowed to have a "favorite" sister and so having one be unambiguously better than the others would go against that groupthink policy. Hence why even Leni isn't always a perfect angel. Blame the writers.
Of course, I didn't leave it at that, because it's blatantly obvious that Lincoln taking the fall for clogging the toilet isn't enough. I'll go ahead and spoil that there is another reason for Lincoln's feelings that hasn't been relayed to the world. This is going to be fanon. As with a lot of things in this morbid tale, it was a scrapped aspect of Rotten Apple. Circa September 2020, it played a massive role in that story, but it didn't take more than a month before I quietly dropped it because it didn't really matter to the story. Here, it's the biggest reason why Lincoln dropped a bleedin' A-bomb on his little sister, and admittedly when you consider it on top of everything, it probably will go fairly far in making Lucy out to be slightly more of an asshole for going along with kicking Lincoln out. Unfortunately to those who hope that it makes her completely unsympathetic or Lincoln's verbal brutality justified, I can't say that's how it plays out, unless you personally feel that to be the case. Part of the tragedy of the story is that sense of disproportionate retribution, and here's where it starts.
As a small hint to what it is, it was born as a showerthought over the perception that Lincoln and Lucy are the closest of the siblings (which admittedly I genuinely feel ought to be the case in a version of the series that wasn't hobbled by Nickelodeon; it'd be either Lucy or Lana realistically). It's something that made sense to me circa 2020 and seemed like something they'd actually do. And no. It's not THAT. Head, gutter, OUT.
So feel free to tell me that Lincoln's being uncharacteristically mean even for a NSL fic, because it's true and my fault. I do swear things make sense in retrospect once I flesh out the story and expand on these earlier points. Who knows, it may even be that Lincoln's ruthlessness isn't actually directed at Lucy necessarily… Then again, considering more than a few of these types of stories have the boy literally try to remorselessly kill his family (and more often than not succeed), it certainly could be more OOC. But like I said before, those are those stories, and this is this one. Their standards ought not apply.
Trust me when I say "there are fates worse than death"...
Secondly, here's a revelation that I wanted to put in one of the earlier chapters (but didn't due to the extended author's notes): you can credit/blame heavy5commando for this story.
"Wait, but didn't this come from Rotten Apple collapsing from a Lincoln doesn't forgive Lucy subplot?"
That's most of the story. But the reason I even came up with that in the first place stems from a chapter in Luck, Nightmares and Fears: What If where Lincoln refuses to forgive Lucy (almost specifically) over the Princess Pony incident coupled with the harshness of No Such Luck creating a deep sense of betrayal. He could forgive his other sisters, even the ones who wronged him in technically worse ways, but he couldn't forgive her. Gee, sound familiar? It intrigued me enough to leave me wanting a similar scene in Rotten Apple, but as I've made clear, it didn't really fit. One thing led to another, and here we are. It's essentially the same idea, but filtered through the mind of Saccharine Melody. Oh no!
Now for some public review responses:
To everyone saying "Go easy on Lucy," ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! AHHahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
To everyone commending me for shooting down "Guardian Luna": You're right, Luna isn't really Lincoln's guardian. But isn't the concept at least interesting? Maybe if Luna genuinely tried to be, something could come of that idea, eh…? Similarly with Leni, as mentioned by PLC the CD. Mistakes into opportunities, maybe? Or maybe it's just too late to forge such bonds. Too little, too late, eh? We'll see.
That Engineer: This was originally a side effect of pantsing the story since I don't do pantsing all that well and thought "What the hey, I'll risk it this time." However to clarify, the apologies aren't actually scheduled. Luan spoke up at an awkward time and Lynn Sr. seized the reins of the moment to attempt to clear the air once and for all.
Fmarcsthespot: A lot of gnarly stuff that happened to the Louds over the past two months. As someone who isn't one of those fanatical types who wishes to see them burn, I'd go so far as to say "some people went too far in some places."
Toto McNono: "Only thing that gets me is Lincoln's line about the police. You wrote that he begs Dr. Lopez to not call the police... but then say he called the police himself? Or are you implying that he's scared that Dr. Lopez's testimony would cause the police to actually act?" The latter. However I admit that was a funky sequence of logic. It's part of the risk of pantsing a story, I guess, and I'll likely go back and fix that in the future.
"I'm just pointing out a potential danger." I wouldn't worry about that.
Vallalkozo: "Still, I wonder what makes you think you will be able to keep this fic going, considering you bailed out of Rotten Apple after barely two chapters." I do hope my author's essay in the last chapter was a good enough explanation. This fic is a breath of fresh air and I'm taking it one chapter at a time (at least right now) compared to Rotten Apple, which was stagnant even when I started publishing it online. Couple that with the fact I'm getting to the stuff that I literally made Rotten Apple to be about much, much earlier than I ever would have in that story and I hope you can tell the will to write it is already vastly greater.
PLC The CD: You tend to worry often that I'm going to leave out the other Loud sisters. With Rotten Apple that was a bogus worry because the first 300,000 words of that story were basically going to be nothing but a Loud Sisters Suffer Together tale. Then again that's partially why I lost interest in it. This one, your concern is (or was) far more valid because when I initially threw down the 10-20 chapter plot, the Loud sisters (sans Lynn) barely played a role at all. Harkening back to House Arrest!, Rotten Apple and A Life in Decline ultimately center around Lucy's misery and relationship with Lincoln so spending so much time getting to the literal central element of the story is part of what brought Rotten Apple down. Because I'm literally starting with the Lucy misfortune and can likewise focus on it more, I'm not demoralized over not getting to tell the story I actually wanted to tell. I got what I wanted. Sounds like there's no place for the sisters, right? Wrong! Precisely because I got my dream misfortune fic, I absolutely needed, ahem, plenty of breaks from the darkness. Breaks that only the misfortune of the other Louds could fill. I figured it would get tiring to have nothing but chapter after chapter of Lucy flavored misfortune.
(To clarify to those confused as to what I have out for Lucy, Rotten Apple started out in the summer of 2020 as a dramedy Lincoln/Lucy fanfic called House Arrest! where Lucy did something to Lincoln that got her arrested and placed under house arrest while also deeply estranged from him. It mostly revolved around these two with the other sisters more as background characters, almost a Greek chorus even. But over the course of a couple weeks I inflated the story so significantly that eventually it was all the Loud sisters who did Lincoln wrong and got placed under house arrest and estranged from their brother (think a pseudo-Syngenesophobia), but it still focused heavily on Lucy. But the way it developed meant, as I've been venting about, that a massive chunk of the story wasn't. A Life in Decline came about from me wanting to get back to basics just so I could get to the damn point of tormenting Lucy with guilt, shame, and chances for reconciliation. It already starts out much stronger by getting right to the damn point within the first 10,000 words rather than fucking around for hundreds of thousands of them.)
Vizor5: I assume you were talking about my DeviantArt post about "There's going to be a new NSL soon." Kings of the Con isn't great, but I feel people vastly overexaggerate how awful it is. I was talking about an episode like The Taunting Hour, except worse, where the family turns on Lincoln again but this time goes way too far to a frankly meanspirited and abusive level. Or conversely Lincoln finally does something that even his most ardent St. Lincoln fans can't defend and effectively turns him into "just another Loud kid" in viewers eyes in the worst way.
DreadedCandiru2: It's definitely a case of what she didn't do more than what she did, and we all know what she didn't do. However the full breadth of why it matters is yet to be revealed. I think readers will find the "deeper" reason to be equal parts cute and unfortunate and I do hope people like it. And when it is revealed, here's a challenge: I want you to watch the Loud House pretending that it's genuinely the case, even into season 6, and tell me it doesn't make things cuter and that if it actually was a thing, wouldn't it make sense Lincoln would've felt deeply antipathic towards Lucy for betraying him if NSL had canonically gone south.
Guest who said "shouldn't be acting like adults": That's absolutely true, though admittedly the kids don't always act like kids in the show itself. But don't you worry about Lucy not acting her age. That'll be changing soon enough.
Kal-Or: A lot of NSL stories are pure revenge fics. This one isn't. If Lucy genuinely deserved what's coming to her, it wouldn't be tragic but rather cathartic. All apologies, but unless you genuinely despise the girl, this isn't a catharsis story!
Smithyman: Put a pin in that. The fact we didn't get to see the NSL Aftermath fic that preceded this one might make it seem like she's just now facing the consequences. In reality she and the rest of her family already went through a fair amount of Hell. How much Hell, I'll showcase in future chapters.