46. Ch 46- Sisters United

(A/N: hey, guys! Hope you all had a good holiday season, and thanks to everyone who read my Christmas stories. I've finally gotten my last assignment done for this semester, so I'll try and get as much written before the next semester, and will try and get a more regular upload schedule going. In the meantime, thank you all for reading, and enjoy!)

"See you later, Leni!"

"Later, guys!" Leni smiled to herself as she walked towards her house, having been dropped off by Miguel's mom after a successful shift at Reininger's. She had taken the shift that day so that one of her co-workers could go to an appointment- 'I think it was her dentist,' she remembered thinking- and because it was a Sunday, that meant it was what she called a 'beasy' day, meaning that it was an easy busy day. It wasn't as hectic as it was on a Saturday, which was the typically busy day of the week at the department store, but there were more customers there than there were on a typical weekday. This meant that she didn't get bored at work, but she didn't have to work non-stop, and that was her favourite kind of work day. 'Plus, I was able to get these great shorts and tank tops for Linky,' she thought, looking into her bag at her purchases. 'Now he has more stuff to use for gymnastics, and he doesn't have to wear the same clothes as he does at school for practice.'

When Leni had gotten home after the fashion show, the blonde had felt a weird kind of happiness. Of course, there was a whole lot of pride over how well the fashion show had gone, and she was so grateful that her little brother had opened up to her. At the same time, however, there was a part of her that felt… different. She wasn't entirely sure how to put it, but it felt like concern, and she thought it might have been to do with the fact she now had a big responsibility to hold by not letting his secret out.

She put that thought to one side as she opened the front door, being greeted with the usual loud sounds of her family, from the twins arguing over the remote and Lori gushing to Bobby over the phone, to Luan telling her jokes and Lily blissfully cooing while playing with her blocks. "I'm back!" She declared as she shut the door behind her, though no one looked up from what they were doing. Looking around, she saw that her brother was nowhere to be seen, so she headed upstairs, only to see his room was empty. She scratched her head in confusion, then turned and saw Luna heading into her room, so she walked up to the rocker and asked her, "hey, do you know where Linky is?"

"Dude, he's at practice, remember?" She told her older sister, matter-of-factly.

"Oh, right! Thanks, Luna. I'll give him these when he gets back from gymn-"

She caught herself as she realised what she was about to say, but Luna had started to catch onto it. "What was that?"

"I said, um, I'll give him these when he gets back from… the gymnasium! Yeah, no point going there to give him them if he'll be back soon, right?" She gave a nervous chuckle, which Luna stared at her dubiously for, but only for a second before returning to her room. Once the door was shut, Leni exhaled. 'Great going, me!' she mentally scolded, heading into her room and collapsing on her bed. 'It's not even been one day, and you almost spilled it! No wonder Linky took so long to tell you, if you're just going to blab it out to everyone! Might as well go on Twitbook and post, 'proud of my baby brother for telling me he does gymnastics! Hashtag, 'oops'!' A heavy sigh escaped her lips as a frown took over her face. 'Maybe he shouldn't have told me yet… he should have waited until he told the others before he told me, that way I wouldn't ruin it for him.' She took a deep breath through her nose, exhaling as she sat back up with a determined expression on her face. 'No, Leni! Don't be thinking that! He trusted you enough to tell you the truth, so now you have to do what you can to help him! And that means not telling anyone… but maybe there's something else I can do to help him.'

She got up from her bed and went onto the landing, walking until she reached the middle bedroom. She knocked on the door, which opened enough for the fashionista to see that the jock was not inside. Leni hadn't seen the fifth eldest sister when she got back from Reininger's, and she wasn't in the living room, so she figured that-

"Lynn's in the basement," a voice behind her spoke, interrupting her thoughts and making her yelp. When she saw it was Lucy, she started to calm down, her hand over her heavily beating chest. "She's training for basketball, her coach is letting her go back to practice this week."

"Oh… okay… Thanks, Lucy." The goth wordlessly nodded before heading into her room, leaving Leni to steady her breathing. Once she had collected herself, she headed downstairs, then went through the dining room and kitchen to get to the basement stairs. As she made her way down, she could hear Lynn counting her reps, soon seeing that the brunette was squatting with a weighted barbell on her shoulders. She got to the bottom just as Lynn put the barbell down, panting slightly from her workout. "Hey, Lynn?"

She turned to see Leni standing there, a small smile on her face. "Hey, Leni," she said to her older sister. "What's up? You guys don't tend to come down here unless you're looking for something."

"Actually, Lynn, I was wondering if we could talk," Leni explained, the younger girl detecting the serious tone in her voice.

"Oh! Yeah, sure. I was just wrapping up my workout, anyway." She lifted the barbell in deadlift fashion, placing it back on its rest before sitting down on her workout bench. "So, you wanna talk here, or-"

"Here's probably best."

Hearing this, Lynn gave a small smile. "I think I know what this is… you want me to help you workout, don't you?" She gave a small laugh, not noticing Leni was trying to tell her something. "You know, I was wondering when one of you girls would join me and Linc. I can help you build some muscle, but it won't happen overnight."

"Thanks, but that's not it," Leni ascertained. "I get sweaty enough at dance class, I don't need more workouts."

Lynn's smile dropped, slightly disappointed about that. "Oh… well then, what do you wanna talk about?"

"It's… it's about Linky." Lynn tensed slightly, having an idea what this might relate to but deciding to be patient enough to hear it for herself. "Yesterday, after the fashion show, we went to the mall to celebrate, and he ended up telling me that he does gymnastics."

"Wait… he told you? For real?" Leni nodded, making Lynn's smile return. "No way! Way to go, bro. So, how did you feel about it?"

"Well, I was a little upset that he didn't tell me straight away, but after he explained why, I totally got it, and I'm happy he told me."

"And you don't mind that he…"

"Of course not. He's my baby brother, and if it makes him happy, then I'm happy too."

"Glad to hear it. So, I'm guessing there's more to it than you just wanting to tell me this."

Leni nodded, sitting down next to Lynn on the bench. "I want to try and help Linky. He trusted me enough to tell me, and I want to help him tell the others."

Lynn looked down at her hands, patting them slightly on her legs. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I know he's worried about how everyone's gonna react, but if he leaves it too long, it might make things worse."

"Exactly! It's like when there's a sale- if you wait too long to get something, you might miss out." Lynn looked at the blonde, surprised by the eloquence of her analogy. "Still, what can we do to help him?"

"Well, he can either tell them one at a time, or he can tell them all at once, though by this point, I don't think he's gonna tell them all at once. Thing is, though, he has to figure out how he's going to tell them, so there's nothing we can do there."

"Oh…"

Both girls deflated a little, feeling at a slight loss now. A moment later, however, Lynn's head snapped up and her eyes lit up. "But maybe we can figure out who he should tell."

The high schooler turned to her, a confused expression on her face. "I don't get it."

"Meet me in my room in five minutes. I need to take care of something real quick."

When Leni eventually went into the room shared by the jock and the goth, she saw that Lynn was stood in front of a whiteboard, a marker in her hand. She saw Leni open the door and small her. "There you are. Come here." Leni obliged, walking over to the whiteboard. "One sec." She then grabbed a sign off of her desk- though, it was little more than string attached to a piece of paper which read KEEP OUT- and put it on the outside door handle, then closed the door so everyone else knew. "Okay, no one's gonna bother us. I told Lucy to keep out while we talk about this, and no one else really comes in here."

"Okay. So… what are we doing?"

Lynn donned a smirk as she tapped the marker against the whiteboard. "Last year, when I captained my basketball team, I had to decide which position my teammates would take, and to do that, I had to weigh out their strengths and weaknesses, which- no offence to them, but- they had quite a few weaknesses. That's what we're gonna do."

"We're gonna put our sisters on a basketball team?"

The palm of Lynn's hand met her face, a slight groan of irritation escaping her. "Okay, let me put it a bit more clearly. Lincoln needs to figure out which of our sisters to tell next, so we're gonna help him figure that by weighing out their pros and cons."

"Oh! That's, like, so smart!"

"Glad you understand. So, let's start with Lisa and work our way up the ranks, 'kay? No point worrying about Lily, she's too young to get any of this." Leni nodded, then watched as Lynn placed a picture of the four-year-old on the whiteboard with some blue tack, writing the words pros and cons as headers of a table next to it. "Alright, what do we got?"

The blonde's face scrunched you as she started to think. "Um… oh, she's smart! She, like, totally understands everything, so she'd probably understand if he told her."

"That's true." She wrote understanding in the pros column. "But, she's blunt. Doesn't really care for how people feel all that much. She also doesn't care for keeping secrets." She added inconsiderate and bad at secrets to the other column. "Anything else?"

"I'm sure she'd be interesting in helping him. She knows a lot about science."

"Yeah, but that's not necessarily a good thing. She might use it as a reason for some experiment of hers." She thought for a few seconds before adding a other column next to the other two, and wrote science under it. "Alright, think that's enough for her. Do me a favour and take a picture of this." Leni nodded, pulling out her phone and taking a picture of the whiteboard before Lynn rubbed out everything in the columns and took down Lisa's picture, replacing it with another. "Alright, next we've got Lola. What do we got for her?"

"Well… he's her pageant coach. Maybe him doing gymnastics can help her with that?"

Lynn nodded, writing that down as a pro. "Good point. On the other hand, though, she's not the most mature. If she doesn't gossip this to her friends, she could use it to blackmail him."

"Would she really do that?"

"She's done so with less." She wrote down the three cons, before realising something else. "She tends to blow whenever she realises she's not the first to find something out, so things might not go so smoothly for Link."

"Oh, yeah…"

Lynn wrote it down, and she repeated the process- once Leni had taken the photo, she cleared the table and took down the photo to put another in its place, this time of Lana. "So, Lana's just as immature as Lola, so she might react the same… although, given what a tomboy she is, she might relate to him better, since he's doing something that ain't exactly 'for boys'. She might understand better."

"Totally," Leni agreed as Lynn wrote both points on the board. "Also, she totally looks up to Linky. He's like her favourite sibling."

The jock gave a slight scoff. "I think that goes for pretty much all of us. Still, you make a good point." She wrote it down under pros, then thought. "I think that about sums up Lana here. You got anything else?"

Leni thought for a moment before responding, "nope." Once again, she took the photo so Lynn could wipe the board clean and replace the grease monkey's picture with Lucy's. "I got it! Lucy loves poetry, so she cares a lot about feelings and stuff."

"That's true. Plus, same as Lana, the stuff she likes ain't typically for girls, so she can relate to him there." She wrote down the two pros, before turning her sights to the cons column. "On the other hand, she talks to herself when she's doing poetry and stuff, so if she wrote about it, someone might hear her. Actually… now that I think about it, she keeps a diary."

"So?"

"So… if someone finds it, and she's written about Lincoln, the whole thing might come out. We all know that's a habit of Lola's." Leni frowned, now realising what she meant as she wrote the two cons on the board. "Alright, we're halfway there." Resetting the board for a fourth time, she grabbed a new picture and started to put it up. "Now, we've got Luan. With all of her jokes, she might not take him seriously."

"True… plus, I'd hate for her to prank Linky because this." Lynn nodded, as she wrote both their points down. "But, she's one of his older sisters. We've all known him since he was born, and she doesn't like hurting people on purpose, especially him." Lynn nodded again, adding that to the other column. She was about to suggest they move on, but Leni thought of something else. "Ooh! Also, she's a clown!"

"Eh, we've kind of covered the 'not serious' thing."

"No, not that! She goes to that clown school… I forget what it's called."

The middle schooler's eyes widened as she got what the older girl was trying to say. "Oh, yeah, I forgot about that! She's mentioned that they do loads of acrobatic stuff there, so she probably understands why he likes it. Might even be able to teach him a thing or two. Good call." She wrote that down as well, before letting Leni take a picture, then clearing the table and switching the photos. "What about Luna?"

"Linky and her have always gotten on so well, ever since he was a little baby."

"Yeah, they are pretty close. Kinda surprises me she hasn't been told yet." She shrugged that off as she wrote Leni's suggestion down. "Not to mention, she wasn't much younger than him when she found rock music, so she can relate to him there."

"And she's so chill, too." Once again, the girl in red wrote these down under pros. "Are there any cons for her?"

"Well, none of us are perfect. She's not as bad as Lola or Lori can be, but she's a bit of a gossip. Might let it slip without thinking."

'Yeah… let it slip…' Leni thought, thinking back to her earlier worries, before shaking it off. She took the photo so Lynn could reset the board. "So, it's just Lori left, right?"

"Yep," she replied, putting up the last photo of the eldest sibling. "Alright, like I said, she's a gossip- always talking on social media and with her friends about stuff she shouldn't."

"It's true. Plus, she can be so scary at times, she might make him too scared to tell her."

"That's assuming he can get her off her phone long enough to focus on him."

"Yeah…" As she watched her sister add these to the cons, she started thinking about the other side of things. "On the other hand… she is the oldest. She's helped to look after him since he was a baby, and she does care about him."

"Yeah, that's true, I guess," she remarked, before putting up the con. "Alright, think that covers it." So, Leni took the photo, and Lynn wiped the board clean. "You know, you really knew what you were talking about there, Leni! I wouldn't have seen some of those."

"Really? You think so?"

"Yeah. I know we don't give you credit for it, but you're pretty smart when it comes to certain things." The fashionista beamed, about to thank her younger sister when they heard the front door shut. "What time is it?"

"It's, like, quarter past five."

"That must be Link, then. Come on." As she and her older sister exited the room, they saw Lincoln coming up the stairs. "Hey, bro! You got a-" He ignored her, instead heading into his room and closing the door with a bit of a slam. "Minute?"

"Is Linky okay?" The fashionista asked out of concern, to which the brunette could only shrug.

"I dunno, but we can ask him later. We should let him relax for now." Leni accepted with a nod, walking away and leaving Lynn to wonder, 'what was that all about?'

After he had his shower and got changed into his nightwear, Lincoln joined his sisters on the couch to watch Dream Boat. A couple of them noticed that he was quieter than usual, with him giving them a brief "I'm fine" when any of them asked if he was okay. He was also noticeably quiet during dinner, only saying that practice was "okay", but no one questioned him about it, and as soon as they were allowed to leave the table, he quickly and silently made his way to his room, planning to get his homework done. As he pulled his maths sheet out and started to work on it, he heard his door open.

"Who is it?" He asked, not looking up from his work.

"Just us," Lynn told him, making him look and see her stood next to Leni, the latter giving a smile and a wave. "Mind if we talk?"

"Uh… sure, just close the door." She obliged, closing the door while he turned his chair to face the two girls. "So, what's up?"

"That's what I was gonna ask you. Everything okay at practice?"

"Y-yeah, fine."

Leni put a hand on his shoulder, lowering slightly to look him in the eyes. "You know you can tell us, right, Linky?"

"I know. Seriously, I'm fine, just a bit tired. So… is that all you came for?"

"Actually, bro, it's not. Leni and I were talking earlier, and she told me that you told her your secret yesterday- which, by the way, I'm proud of you for." He gave a small smile at the praise, then let Lynn continue to speak. "Anyway, we were talking, and we think we've come up with something to help you."

"What do you mean?" Lynn turned to Leni, who pulled out her phone and started to show Lincoln the photos she took earlier. "What am I looking at here?"

"If you're going to tell the others about what you've been doing, you need to decide who to tell next." He started to understand as he looked at the different lists of pros and cons of each sister. "I know it isn't that straightforward, and we can't tell you how to tell them… we just want to help. Just because you do gymnastics instead of dodgeball doesn't mean you have anything to be ashamed of, no matter what they think."

"We all love you, Linky," Leni chimed in. "If it makes you happy, then we're happy."

He took a moment to take it all in, seeing the smiles the two gave him and thinking about what they said, before smiling himself. "I can't believe you did all this for me," he told them. "Thank you."

"No problem, Linky." The blonde scooped him up into a hug which he happily returned, and while Lynn was content with just smiling, she didn't resist when Leni pulled her into the hug as well, even joining in on it. When they eventually split, Leni went back on her phone. "I'll send you the photos so you can choose for yourself."

When he heard his phone go off, he opened the message he got and saw the photos Leni had shown them. "Got them. Thanks."

"No problem. So, are you sure you're okay, Linky?"

"Yeah. I'm just tired."

"Alright, we'll let you get on with your 'nerdwork', bro," Lynn told him, making him roll his eyes. "Come find me if you wanna talk, 'kay?"

"Alright. Night, girls." They left his room, shutting the door behind him as he turned back to his desk with a bit of a smile. It was nice that they had done that for him, and it made him feel better after…

He shook his head and picked up his pen again, hoping to drown out his thoughts with math.