A/N: I normally don't do fics like this but…with the way the fandom's been talking about TLH characters lately, namely the sisters, I just felt that this had to be done. I'll explain my motivation and reasoning behind all of this at the end of the story.

Warning, though, it can get preachy and "soap box-y" so if that's not your thing, just avoid it and (hopefully) enjoy the story.

Friday. To kids everywhere, it was a day of reprieve from the monotony and oppression of the public school system and the beginning of a two day respite that was sure to be devoid of any responsibility (except for the imminent last minute scrambling to complete neglected homework assignments).

That unspoken sentiment wasn't any different for Lincoln Loud.

To the outside world, right now, he was just a boy holed up in his room, far too engrossed in some fanciful computer game to pay attention to his frustrated groans and yells that were sure to annoy anyone who had the displeasure of getting in the crosshairs.

Lincoln Loud had a much more dignified opinion, however. Right now, he was engaged in a war of wills, a test of mettle, a battle of dedication that challenged resolve to the utmost threshold…

But unfortunately, he was losing.

"Ha! Let's see how you like this!"

The sound of frantic keyboard strokes filled the room as Lincoln hunched over his laptop as he sat on his bed, glaring at the screen with a mixture of determination and frayed nerves. Finally, the stroking ceased and Lincoln grinned, waiting anxiously for his "opponent" to hopefully not counter him.

Against his wishes, mere seconds later, a distinct "ping" filled his ears, instantly dispiriting him.

"Dang it."

Returning to his "station", his fingers were soon acquainted with the familiar and abrasive texture of his keyboard buttons as they scrambled about in yet another frenetic sequence.

"Okay, fine, how about this?!"

After finishing, once again, Lincoln leaned back, absolutely sure that he wasn't going to be one-upped again.

*ping*

"Dang it."

He should've expected this. They had been at this for the past three hours or so. There was no way that things would change now. Still, that didn't mean that he had to give up. After all, everyone else had fallen to the wayside. Soon, this individual would share their fate.

"Oh yeah? Try this on for size!"

Yet another series of clicks sounded off as Lincoln pressed into his keyboard buttons, praying that despite everything, this wouldn't result in retaliation.

Despite the fact that he was adorned in only his lucky underwear at the moment, Lincoln was about to learn that he wasn't so lucky.

*ping*

Letting out a frustrated growl, Lincoln banged his fists softly into the mattress, not paying heed to how his laptop bounced up and down along with his pounding.

"Dang it, dang it, dang it! Does this guy ever give up?!"

He looked to his side and found his "ammo", a stack of dollar bills that he had accumulated over the past few months from saving up for situations such as these. Deciding to briefly check his inventory, Lincoln picked up the money and thumbed quickly through it, counting out the worth in his head.

"Only…sixty-eight dollars?! I'm almost at my limit here! If this last bid doesn't work, I can kiss this Limited Edition Ruthless Commando DEFCON 1 Muscle Fish bust goodbye!"

gBay had been a kind mistress to Lincoln over the years. Besides going to a comic book store in person, it was his most convenient way of procuring his most desired possessions of his favorite comic book characters. This bust of Muscle Fish was no exception but it did carry on a very high level of significance. It was so rare that they were no longer in circulation and as far as Lincoln could tell, this was the last one left in the entire world…or at least available on gBay.

He just had to have it. Not only did the bust harken back to a gritter, edgier time for Muscle Fish back in the early to mid-90's but as a collector of comic book relics like comics, action figures, and other miscellaneous treasures, he just wouldn't be able to live with the knowledge that such a rare, prized item was within his fingertips but in the end, it escaped him because he hadn't tried hard enough.

And try hard, Lincoln most certainly had. After three hours of bidding and counterbidding with his main opposition, a fellow gBay user by the name of ANTHALAX37, Lincoln was reaching his limits. The current bid was at sixty-seven dollars and all bids had to throw in at least one dollar. This meant that if Lincoln couldn't secure the bid now, it would be all over.

With a tentative approach, Lincoln entered his bid of sixty-eight dollars, squeezing his eyes shut as he chanted, "Please don't bid higher, please don't bid higher, please don't bid higher, please don't bid h-"

*ping*

Instinctively, he shook his fists and roared out his heartfelt sentiments about the current bane of his existence.

"CURSE YOU, ANTHALAX37!"

Before he could blink, the door of his room swung wildly open, eliciting a squeak and bugged-out eyes as he looked fearfully at the sudden intrusion.

"Hey!"

Lincoln shrank back as he looked up at Lori, who was glaring at him with the essence of death itself as she covered up her phone with one hand, clearly to block off the person on the other end (most likely a certain Boo-Boo Bear) from hearing her imminent rant.

"Would it kill you to keep your twerpy melodrama to a less irritating volume?! I'm trying to talk to Bobby and I can't do that when you're in here screeching like a banshee!"

A retort played at the tip of Lincoln's tongue. After a second of contemplation, he decided to just go with it, feeling like Lori couldn't make him feel any worse than ANTHALAX37 had already done.

"Takes a banshee to know what one sounds like," he replied as he folded his arms across his bare chest.

His smug grin melted when Lori took a few steps forward, her teeth bared and her eyes taking on a shade of crimson.

"Why you litt-"

She stopped in her tracks before the clobbering could commence as her ears picked up the voice of Bobby faintly addressing her. Hurriedly, she pressed the phone back to her ear, letting out a nervous chuckle.

"Oh, nothing, Boo-Boo Bear. I wasn't yelling at you. I was just angry about a little pest problem," she gave Lincoln a triumphant smirk at his scowl, "that we've been having around the house for the past eleven years. That's all."

With that, Lori turned around and left, leaving Lincoln with nothing to do except bemoan his fate as the bubbly conversation of his phoneaholic sister carried off into the distance.

Lincoln liked being one step ahead, never worrying about approaching a situation unprepared. But this ANTHALAX37…he had something that Lincoln didn't have enough of; money. No amount of pre-planning would give Lincoln what he needed in surplus.

And now, with a seventy-three-dollar bid on the Muscle Fish bust, he was officially out of the running. Sure, he still had until eight o'clock tomorrow evening before the bidding window closed but Lincoln knew that getting at least six dollars in time for that deadline would be next to impossible.

He didn't have a job, so getting money out of employment was out of the question. Besides, it wasn't like he'd get paid on the first day anyways.

He couldn't ask his friends, either. They had their own savings that had taken a painstakingly long amount of time to gather up and Lincoln didn't think that they would depart from it just to indulge him in the unpredictable nature of online bidding.

Chores around the house were expected to be done without pay so asking for an allowance, for helping out around the house, wasn't an option. Besides, he had already done his share of the housework today and wasn't keen on the prospect of indulging in even more work.

He could always just keep placing bids on ANTHALAX37 until he quit, despite not having the money to match what he bid, but that was the riskiest choice yet. Even if he won, he'd have to come up with the money to pay the seller and even with the three days that he had to pay up, there was no way he could hope to pay off what he was obligated to, which was sure to be an impossible amount to obtain after everything was said and done.

That left him with only one choice left and that was to ask one of his sisters for cash. His parents only gave out money so that he and his sister could buy "essentials"; clothes, food, etc. Except for birthdays, Christmas, or other special occasions, they wouldn't see a penny from them unless it was for buying what they deemed necessary and Lincoln had a feeling that a Muscle Fish bust was at the very bottom of the list of things that they would find "necessary", especially one that was currently being valued at nearly three quarters of a hundred dollars.

It was then and there that Lincoln knew that his most helpful asset would be none other than Lori. She, unlike his other sisters, had a job and she always seemed to be carrying around enough money for impromptu trips to the mall with Leni. Surely, she had to have enough money to help him out. It was a long shot, especially considering his little jab at her earlier, but it was worth a shot.

Scrambling out of bed, he peered out in the hallway and found the door to Lori and Leni's room miraculously open.

Along with not hearing Lori talking anymore, Lincoln knew that if he acted now, he could plead his case to her with the lowest risk of bodily harm from her end.

Without a second thought, Lincoln bolted out of his room, running down the hallway before swerving into Lori's room. He planted on the floor on his knees and he cupped his hands together.

"Lori, quick, could you pl-"

"Ew, gross! What do you think you're doing coming into my room in just your underwear?! Were you literally born without a brain or something?!"

He snapped out of his begging reverie and looked down. Sure enough, he was only in his lucky underwear. He looked up and found Lori glaring daggers at him from the comfort of her bed as she held out her phone in front of her.

Feeling his face take on the same shade of color as his underwear, Lincoln excused himself to quickly run back to his room, adorn himself in his signature ensemble, and scurry back to the same spot he had taken when he first showed up unannounced.

"Lori, quick, could you pl-"

"No."

His chest was bombarded with a sharp pang of disbelief at the terse, cutting response.

"What?"

"Whatever it is that you want from me, I'm telling you that the answer is "no". Go away."

This wouldn't do at all.

Pressing his face down into the carpet in kowtow, Lincoln exclaimed, "Please, Lori! It's just one small favor!"

"5."

His body tensed up, knowing full well what Lori was doing. This was a warning that she administered to any of her siblings that caught her in a bad mood.

It was a simple gesture with a simple consequence for failure to conform; the recipient of the countdown had until "1" to get out of her sight before they found their limbs contorted and bent from all angles in the form of a pretzel.

But Lincoln couldn't heed her warning, not this time. Despite his better instincts, he found that pressing onwards with his pleading was all he had.

"Lori, please, I'm asking you, as your brother, let me-"

"4."

"You don't understand! This is a matter of life and-"

"3."

"I'm begging you! I'll-"

"2."

"I beseech you, Lori, let me just-"

"1."

Lincoln looked up and saw his executioner slowly approaching him, her knuckles cracking along with her neck as she bent it from side to side.

He was too scared to move and just as he was about to prepare for his leg to be twisted around his neck…

"Lori?!"

The girl in question immediately halted her path of destruction as she walked right past Lincoln to lean her head out the doorway to respond.

"Yeah, Dad?!"

"Did you remember to clean the dishes like I asked?!"

Even without looking at Lori right now, Lincoln could feel her cringe in revulsion. Out of every chore, she hated dish washing the most. She often complained about how the labor made her fingers sore from the scrubbing and pruney from the constant water submersion. As a result, it made texting uncomfortable for her, a fate that Lori found to be worse than death itself.

"I thought Luan was in charge of dish cleaning duty!"

"No, Luan's supposed to mow the lawn! The dishes are your responsibility today, sweetheart!"

Getting to his feet, Lincoln looked on as Lori submitted to their father's authority with an elongated groan.

"Ugh, fine! I'll be right there!"

She spun around and growled once she saw Lincoln looking right back at her.

"Great. First, you dial up the annoying factor up to eleven and now this."

"Did someone say up to eleven?!" Luna shouted from down the hallway. "I read ya loud and clear, dude!"

Knowing what was coming, Lori immediately shut the door before the full blast of her heavy metal riffs could tear through her ears and deafen her at an early age. With that, she moved to flop on her bed and wait out the violent storm of chords that were still loud enough to vibrate the walls of her enclosed room.

Before she could get any further, she felt the clammy grip of a familiar hand wrap around her wrist. She looked down and sure enough, there was her little brother, looking up at her pleadingly.

"Hang on, Lori!"

Rolling her eyes, she decided that entertaining Lincoln would be for the best. After all, if he was desperate enough to ignore her countdown, what he wanted from her had to be something of dire importance.

At least, of dire importance from the perspective of a nerdy eleven-year-old boy.

"What now, Ace Sappy?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

She winced as Lincoln grinned from ear-to-ear. Usually, that was a prelude to some scheme of his and right now, Lori didn't feel like getting involved.

"What if we worked out an agreement that could benefit the both of us?"

Okay, now she was interested.

Slipping her arm out of Lincoln's lax grasp, she walked over to her bed to sit down on the edge.

"And what do you mean by that?"

Lincoln took a few steps closer, his arms folded behind his back as if he were a general addressing his troops.

"See, the thing is, I need some more money so I can bid for a Muscle Fish bust on gBay. I was gonna ask you if I could borrow some-"

"Which I would've completely shot down, by the way," Lori interjected.

"Anyways," Lincoln continued with a slight irritated frown, "since I know how much you hate doing the dishes and I'm strapped for cash, I was thinking that I could cover for you today and in exchange, you give me money."

Lincoln watched as the weight of his proposed pact fell into place in Lori's head. Finally, she addressed the issue with a need for confirmation of his terms.

"In other words, I pay you to do my chore?"

Lincoln nodded. "Exactly."

"Hmmmmm..."

Time seemed to crawl at a snail's pace as Lori tapped her chin with a finger, looking up at the ceiling as she weighed her options. After a few seconds, she gave Lincoln an answer.

"Sorry, Lincoln, but not even the horrors of dish washing are worth losing money over. You'll just have to ask someone else."

With slumped shoulders and a defeated sigh, Lincoln turned to leave, knowing that once Lori made up her mind about something, begging and pleading further wouldn't help.

Once his hand grabbed the cold texture of the doorknob, he could feel the vibrations of Luan's loud music reverberating through his body. The sensations that tingled through him…they felt good.

Uplifting.

Invigorating.

Inspiring! He couldn't give up now! Not after everything that he had gone through!

"Wait!" he shouted as he spun around and found Lori staring back at him with derision from his insistence on engaging her over a topic that she thought was as good as closed.

Ignoring that silent warning signs to abandon all hope, Lincoln went with a slightly different angle.

"Think about it like this, Lori. If I'm downstairs doing dishes and you're up here in your room, just imagine all the texting and calling you and Bobby could be doing."

He almost laughed when a dreamy sigh escaped Lori's lips as her eyes sparkled in a way that only Bobby could inspire her to do. He didn't even want to start thinking about what they texted to each other but apparently, it was enticing enough for Lori to get up from her bed, march over to Lincoln, and declare, "Okay, okay, fine. You do the dishes and I'll give you…"

She reached into her pocket and pulled up a fist of crumpled dollar bills.

"Five bucks. Deal?"

Lincoln looked at the money with a bit of a disappointment etched on his face. She was one dollar short of what he needed. Still, it was better than nothing and Lincoln wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Plus, with luck, he could scrounge up some loose change from around the house and hopefully get that last dollar.

He nodded, silently binding them contractually.

"Deal."

Thirty minutes later…

Lori whistled in astonishment as she looked back at her reflection from the shiny, sparkling dinner plate that she had picked up from the ones that her little brother, who was looking at her expectantly with a proud look on his face, had stacked away in the dish rack after he had cleaned them.

"Gotta say, Lincoln, you certainly know how to put a platter through its paces," she beamed and placed the plate back in its place.

Lincoln rolled his hand around.

"All in the wrist. Plus, a little motivation never hurt anyone."

"I certainly agree," Lori smiled as she pulled out the money from her pocket from earlier.

"Here you go," she said as she handed off the money to Lincoln. "Five bucks as promised."

Lincoln stuffed the money away, hoping that Lori didn't catch how disappointed he was.

"Something wrong?"

Dang it.

Lincoln looked away from Lori nervously. He didn't mean to come as ungrateful but he couldn't help himself from feeling let down, despite it not being Lori's place to give him more money just because he wanted it. They made a deal and they committed to what they promised each other.

But still, five dollars wouldn't be enough and now that Lincoln thought about, what was to say that ANTHALAX37 wouldn't just counterbid him again? Or worse, what if someone else joined in the fray? He'd have find a way to get his hands on more money than he initially thought was necessary and since Lori looked like she was supplying…

He gulped. It was worth a shot.

"Well, no, it's just…"

He trailed off as he thought of the best way to approach Lori. He didn't have long as her patience wore thin enough for to respond with, "Just what?"

He chuckled weakly as he flashed a toothy grin and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Just…I'd probably be a lot safer with a few more dollars."

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"And just how much is 'a few more dollars'?"

Another chuckle, this time more high-pitched, tore through his throat.

"Maybe…thirty more dollars?" he spitballed weakly.

Lincoln felt his insides churn as he waited for Lori's face, which was scrunched up in either repressed fury or contemplation, to unclench before she hopefully agreed to be charitable to his cause.

The answer to his plea made a tiny bubble of hope form in his chest.

"You know what, Lincoln? I'll cut you another deal."

The smug smile she adopted didn't make Lincoln feel anything but uneasy but at this point, he would take anything that he would grant him what he needed.

He silently told Lori, through his gaze, that she had his attention. Once she got the message, she laid down her terms.

"In exchange for every deed you do for me today, I'll give you a dollar. Also, you're not allowed to refuse whatever I ask of you. Essentially, take what you get or get to steppin'. Sound good?"

Lincoln's eyes widened in delight. Even though Lori was sure to put him through his paces, he essentially had control of his destiny. Whatever he wanted to earn, she would give him as long as he agreed to do whatever she asked. In his mind, he'd be a fool to turn down such a helpful offer.

"You've got yourself another deal, Lori," he said, bracing himself for the tough day of labor ahead of him.

Six hours later…

Slowly but surely, Lincoln trundled towards his room, counting the money that he had in his grip out loud while he ignored his tried feet protesting his movements.

"Thirty-seven…Thirty-eight…thirty-nine…forty!"

Grinning triumphantly, he stuffed the money away in his pants pocket and continued on his way, recalling what Lori had put him through for the past six hours.

Drink fetching, toenail painting, foot rubbing, bed making, laundry folding, sandwich delivering…anything that Lincoln had thought that a servant would be tasked to do, Lori had asked of him, all while having a satisfied smirk on her face as he spent the day pampering her and catering to her every whim.

If the circumstances had been different, Lincoln would have been offended at the demeaning labor but in this case, though he was weary from a long day's work, he was happy all the same. Lori had paid him nearly fifty dollars today and it was sure to give him the edge over ANTHALAX37 and anyone else that made a bid on him.

Plus, it wasn't like she forced it on him. He willingly put himself through the ringer and in his mind, if he was going to get this much money in such a short amount of time, he had to earn his keep and he was proud of himself for doing so without a single complaint.

Finally, he made it to his bedroom, flopping onto the bed face first. He looked up at his laptop, which he had left on the gBay page with his beloved Muscle Fish bust bidding auction still in place. His eyes scanned the screen and to his shock, he realized that ANTHALAX37's seventy-three-dollar bid was the only one that was left to surmount, even after hours had gone by since it was set.

To Lincoln, it meant that he was still the only user he had to worry about and thus, he could confidently put everything that he had earned on the line in one final bid. He didn't feel like going back and forth with ANTHALAX37 again, placing down increasing bids by small increments for hours.

No, this was going to be one huge bid, one that put all forty of his hard-earned dollars into play at once. Hopefully, it would catch his adversary by surprise and cause them to relent from Lincoln's upcoming one hundred thirteen-dollar bid.

Sighing, he cracked his fingers before they slowly lowered on the keyboard.

"This had better work," he muttered.

"Hey, Lori?"

Lori looked up from her phone and looked across the room to Leni, who was gazing at her expectantly from her bed. Lori grumbled under her breath, knowing that look all too well. Leni was about to ask her a question and knowing the ditzy blonde for practically her entire life, she knew that it wouldn't be one that future philosophers would be pondering about in lecture halls.

"Yes, Leni?" she asked, masking her vexation as best she could.

"You know about square roots, right?"

"Uh-huh?"

"Well, why aren't octagon roots a thing?"

Lori's left eye twitched as she resisted the urge to grab the pillow she was leaning against and scream expletives into it. Not even she expected this level of…sheer stupidity from her. Bless Leni's little cotton socks but questions like these only made Lori worry for her little sister's future in the real world.

Sighing, Lori explained, "Leni, that's not how-"

"Or oval roots?"

"Again, Leni, that's-"

"Or parallelogram roots?"

"Leni, for the last time, that's not how it-"

Suddenly, a knock on their bedroom door rang out, prompting both girls to swivel their heads towards the door.

"Thank goodness," Lori mumbled, thankful for the distraction as she motioned to Leni that she would get it.

She was in front of the door in no time flat and opened to reveal…

"Lincoln?"

There was Lincoln, giving her the biggest, brightest, and…creepiest smile she had ever seen him wear before. It nearly caused her flinch back.

"Lincoln, what are you do-aah!"

She was tackled onto the ground as Lincoln leapt towards her in a bone-crushing hug.

"It worked, Lori! It worked!" Lincoln exclaimed as the side of his face pressed into her midriff.

"Wh-what worked?!" Lori asked, too stunned to be angry.

He looked up at Lori, still hugging her with all his might.

"The bid I just placed! ANTHALAX37 gave up! He sent me a private message telling me that he wouldn't be trying to outbid me anymore! I may only have a day left before the bidding ends but I know that I'm in the clear!"

Despite the roughness of Lincoln's hug, Lori grinned. Throughout the day, she put Lincoln through the wringer and he never gave up. Amidst the pleasure of being tended to like she was at a luxury spa, she was proud that her brother persisted on striving towards his goals with determination and now, from the sounds of it, everything paid off in the end.

Still, he was squeezing her a little too tight for comfort.

Ruffling a hand through his hair, Lori said, "Glad I could help. Now, could you please get off of-"

She squeaked when Lincoln did so but not before he kissed her on the cheek. It wasn't something that he often initiated with anyone but his younger sisters and the sudden affectionate gesture caught her off guard, causing her to do nothing but look back at Lincoln with her mouth agape.

"Thanks, Lori! You're the best sister ever!" Lincoln proclaimed and hollered jubilantly as he ran back to his room.

Lori's grin only grew once she heard his bedroom door close. Though he clearly said those last words in the heat of the moment, since she knew that Lincoln loved all his sisters equally, she still couldn't help but feel satisfied that she had gotten him to say those things.

"Well, about time he realized it," she chuckled to herself as she stood to her feet…

Only to realize that she was surrounded by all sides by all nine of her sisters and from the looks on their faces, they were not happy with Lori at all.

"Seriously, what is it with me and awkward sibling encounters today?" Lori bemoaned, not having the slightest idea what she could've done to earn their ire.

"'Best sister ever', huh?" Luna sneered.

"I don't think so," Lynn said.

"My theorems, observations, and mass quantity of objective variables have something to say about that," Lisa said.

"Tryin' to butter up to Lincoln behind our backs, are we?" Lana grilled as she pulled out a large wrench from under her hat and patted it threateningly on the open palm of her other hand.

"Poo poo!" Lily squealed.

"What she said!" Leni shouted.

The envious sisters raised their voices and hurled accusations all once. Having had enough of being at the center of hasty allegations, Lori placed her middle finger and thumb into her mouth before whistling loudly, causing her sisters to stop in their tracks to cover their ears from the sharp noise.

"Ladies, ladies, timeout!" she bellowed.

Once she had their attention, Lori motioned for them to follow her inside of her bedroom. Once every sibling was accounted for, Lori shut the door. She sat on her bed as her other sisters huddled around her.

"Look, it's not what you think. Lincoln and I just made an agreement and apparently, it worked out in end for him and he was really happy about it. That's all it was."

"What kind of agreement?" Luna quickly asked, her body language letting Lori know that she was still suspicious.

Sighing, Lori went on to explain everything that Lincoln had done for her because of the deal they had made. She told them the reason why Lincoln would even agree to it in the first place and finally, she let them know that Lincoln's "best sister ever" comment was said out of appreciation for Lori's idea coming through in the end because of how he thought that he had that bust won.

By the end of her story, her audience seemed satisfied with the explanation but regardless, a certain pink-clad pageant winner was not happy.

Hopping on Lori's bed, she glared at Lori as she yelled, "Wait, you had Lincoln as your personal slave all day and you didn't bother telling me?! Do you realize how much trauma I could've spared myself if I had gotten him to scrub the toilet instead of me, especially after Lynn was done using it?!"

She spun around and glowered when she heard Lynn let out a mocking snicker. It faltered when Luna marched over and shot her a glowering look of her own.

"Last time I checked, Lola, he's our brother, not our slave. Plus, he was paid. He wasn't exactly doing all that work for free."

Lola grumbled and let out a whispered "Whatever, Luna" as she slid off the bed.

"True," Luan said to Luna, "but I wouldn't have minded scratching Lincoln's back if he scratched mine, y'know?"

Everyone, sans Lori, murmured in agreement.

"Oh well, guess we all missed the boat," Lana sighed.

"Wait, we were gonna go on a cruise?!" Leni cried, looking at her sisters with a look of betrayed angst. "Why didn't anyone tell me?!"

Ignoring Leni's comment, the sisters, except Leni since she had been there the whole time, began to move to leave the room, lamenting their missed opportunity.

Emotions rushed into Lori all at once as she watched her despondent sisters depart. She felt pity that they hadn't gotten into Lincoln's good graces by helping him out and by getting treated like queens in the process.

But more than that, she felt pride in the brilliant idea that sprung to mind. As far as she was concerned, she was full of those today.

"Hold on, girls."

Her words caused them to stop in their tracks, though they still hadn't turned around to face her.

"What if I told you that you hadn't missed the boat yet?"

"So, we are going, after all!" Leni squealed. "Yippee! I'll go pack!"

As she scrambled about to go look for the perfect cruise items to pack in her suitcases, the others returned back to where they were to get to the bottom of Lori's enigmatic words.

"What'd you mean by that, Lori?" Luan asked.

Lori smirked. "Simple. I just came up with an idea that'll let you all enjoy Lincoln's personal pampering for yourselves."

"But according to you, he said he had that bid in the bag. What's gonna make him ask us to give him money for favors?" Lynn pondered.

Laying herself across her bed, Lori divulged her scheme. She picked up her phone and quickly searched in the Internet until she on the homepage of gBay. She held up the phone for all to see.

"Well, what if we all made gBay accounts? Then, throughout the day tomorrow, we keep placing bids on that bust Lincoln wants. Then, he'll keep running to us for money to keep up with the bids that we keep putting up.

The thing is, though, those gBay accounts I was talking about? We have to make sure that Lincoln has no idea that we're controlling them."

Expecting to instantly be showered with praise for her brilliant plan, Lori was stunned when her proposal was met with silence. She turned over to her side and saw her sisters mulling over her words in their heads.

Lynn, Lisa, and Lola didn't seem to mind the idea from the looks of things.

Lily, of course, just babbled as expected of a baby.

Luan, Lucy, and Lana looked neutral, neither hating it nor liking it.

Leni, on the other hand, who had some towels and pool noodles under her arm, looked extremely uneasy and hesitant to commit.

"So…you want us to…trick him?" Leni asked.

Lori shrank back defensively. True, while her plan did call for deception, in the end, she felt that it was the only way for it to work.

"Well, not exactly trick him, Leni. More like-"

Her line of vision was immediately blocked from Luna, who stared her down almost nose-to-nose.

Out of all the expressions her sisters had, Lori's found hers to be the most telling.

It was clear as a starless night sky; Luna was absolutely livid.

"Not cool, dude!" the rocker lambasted. "I'm not gonna diddle our bro and shame on you for even thinking like that!"

Lori, having no time to get caught up in what she felt was undeserved shaming, pushed Luna back by her shoulders.

Shaking her head condescendingly, Lori told her, "Luna, it's nothing like that, I swear. Look, Lincoln's bid ends in less than twenty-four hours. That's way too much time for him to be getting comfortable. Someone else could come in and make a surprise bid and then what? Lincoln's out of the running and all that hard work he did for me will be for nothing.

With my plan, we'll make sure that that bust's price skyrockets to a point where it'll be a much safer guarantee that no one else will want to go for it."

As she expected, Luna's fury subsided. She was glad that she seemingly moved past her childish overprotectiveness of Lincoln and see that no harm was being done with her idea.

Not only that but from what Lori could tell, Luan, Lucy, and Lana looked like they were receptive to the plan now.

"See?" Lori pacified further. "We're doing him a favor and we're doing ourselves a favor, too. Everybody wins."

"Well…yeah but wouldn't it be better if we just told him what we're doing? I don't really feel good about deceiving Lincoln," Leni said, her mouth formed in a frown.

Lori shook her head. She understood where Leni was coming from but this couldn't be done any other way

"It won't work unless we pull the wool over his eyes," Lori sighed. "Lincoln has to think that he's under pressure from random gBay users. If he knows it's us, he'll have no incentive to go through with what we want. Or worse, if he finds out what we're up to in the middle of the plan, then the last bidder has to commit. According to gBay's bidding policy, the only time anyone can retract a bid is if that person can't reach the seller or if the item's description changes. Anyone feel like forking over one hundred dollars for a bust?"

Immediately, they shook their heads.

"I didn't think so. So, are we all in?"

They looked at one another in deliberation, not wanting to make the first move forward unless they saw that everyone was on board.

Satisfied with what they saw from each other, they all nodded…

All of them, except for Luna, who stared sadly at the floor. Noticing this, Lucy called out to her.

"Luna?"

Luna looked all around her and saw her sister looking on at her expectantly, waiting for her response.

With a heavy groan, she nodded, hating herself for giving into the peer pressure. While Lori's plan did sound beneficial for everyone, she still disliked the idea of deceiving Lincoln like she was going to do. She liked to think that out of all his sisters, Lincoln looked up to her the most. She didn't know what she would do with herself if he found out what they were doing to him.

But that would only come as a result of failure and now that Luna was expected to fall in line, she made it her priority to ensure that Lincoln would be left in the dark.

"I…I guess so," Luna said. "It makes me feel kinda grungy, though, and not in the musical kind of way, either."

The next morning…

"Are you kidding me?!" Lincoln cried in disbelief as he looked at his laptop screen in forlorn.

Out of morbid curiosity, after waking up, getting cleaned, and dressing up, Lincoln decided to check and see if ANTHALAX37 had kept his word and hadn't tried to outbid him anymore.

The good news was, he hadn't tried.

The bad news? Someone else had. A user by the name of BunsenLearner_04 had stepped up to the plate and placed a one hundred seventeen dollar-bid on the bust, four more dollars than he had on him right now.

"This…this is impossible! I had this bid won! Gaaaaaah, I should've known this was too good to be true!" Lincoln moaned as he flung himself furiously onto the bed.

As he moped, Lincoln had to admit that he had brought this on himself for thinking that he was safe just because ANTHALAX37 had given up. Lincoln didn't believe that misfortune always befell him but sometimes, he had a feeling that the "hand of fate" liked to toy him, just to get a kick on how down he could get.

"What am I supposed to do now?" he groaned, burying his face in a pillow.

Suddenly, he heard his door creaking open. Knowing that someone had come to see him, Lincoln shifted into a seating position to properly attend to the unexpected visitor.

"Greetings, male sibling."

"Hey, Lisa," Lincoln wearily greeted, sadness prominent on his face. "What's up?"

"I couldn't help but overhear your agony and despair from my room and I-"

"Sorry," Lincoln meekly apologized before flopping back down on the bed. "I'll keep it down."

Instead of leaving like he expected her to do, he was surprised when Lisa scrambled onto the bed to join him.

"Actually, I've come to present you with a solution that may tend to the matter at hand," the scientist proposed.

Lincoln felt his spirits soar. Lisa was a genius! Surely, she had just the thing he needed.

Turning to her, Lincoln asked, with eyes glimmering with hope, "What kind of solution?"

"I unearthed the reason behind your subservient behavior towards Lori yesterday and I wish to initiate the same pact that she formed with you."

He quirked an eyebrow. "You mean…you're willing to give me money in exchange for my services?"

Lisa nodded. "Precisely."

Lincoln thought about it and realized that he didn't have any other options left. He didn't think Lori would indulge him anymore after forking over forty dollars for him yesterday. Plus, even though the sound of more work didn't exactly entice him, again, there wasn't like he had a way for money to come out of thin air.

Except maybe counterfeiting it…

Lincoln shook his head. Yeah, there was no way he was going to hear the end of it from his family and friends if they found out he was beginning a life of crime, especially over a bust of a comic book character.

"Guess I don't have a choice," Lincoln said. "Alright, Lisa, what do you want me to do and how much are you willing to give me?"

Lisa got off the bed and Lincoln's eyes followed her as he stopped at the doorway.

"If you clean out all my test tubes, I'll procure five dollars for your immediate gratification."

"Cleaning test tubes?" Lincoln parroted. "That doesn't sound so bad."

He had enough experience with cleaning lab equipment after lab experiments at school. While it was true that Lisa had numerous scientific instruments at her disposal, it wasn't like this job demanded anything beyond clinical precision, patience, soap, and water.

How bad could it be?

"I implore you to err on the side of caution and sanitary ministration, however," Lisa warned. "The aforementioned test tubes were just used for the impounding of our feces for my poop studies."

Oh yeah. That's how bad it could be.

Holding in the urge to vomit, Lincoln lethargically slid off his bed, intent on carrying through with his horribly revolting task.

"Lead the way," he sighed.

After about an hour, Lincoln finally returned to the sanctity of his room, away from those vile, disgusting test tubes. There was no way he could imagine himself eating with his hands for at least a week after what his hands had to touch. Even with gloves on, it didn't make the work any less disgusting.

"Okay, I really need to talk to Lynn about her diet. That was…more than I needed to see," Lincoln groaned as he pulled out the five-dollar bill that Lisa gave him for his work and placed it on his bed stand along with his other profits.

Once he punched in his new bid of one hundred eighteen dollars, one more dollar than BunsenLearner_04 had set.

With that, Lincoln did his best not to hurl as the kaleidoscope of repulsive images of the last hour came into his head; tubes full of the remains of Lisa's unsanitary, unethical studies.

*ping*

Lincoln's eyes widened as his heart beat faster than normal. He looked upon the screen and nearly threw his laptop through his window in a fit of rage.

Once again, he had been outbid. A gBay user by the name of WhoopieWarrior14 had come in and placed a one hundred twenty-two dollar-bid on the bust.

How?! How was this possible?! It had just been him and ANTHALAX37! Now, more gBay users were swarming in from out of nowhere all at once!

"What?! Again?! You're joking, right?!" Lincoln exclaimed.

"You better not be," a voice called from his doorway. "That's my job."

Without even having to look up to see who it was, Lincoln waved off her jokester sister.

"I'm not in the mood for laughs right now, Luan," Lincoln told her churlishly.

He didn't mean to sound rude but right now, the last thing he needed was for one of Luan's bad puns or gags to set him off.

"Really?" Luan said, stifling a snicker from bubbling out as best as she could. "What's the matter?"

Feeling guilty about trying to send Luan away, Lincoln looked up at her sister's cheery expression and sighed.

"I just helped Lisa clean her…"poop tubes"," Lincoln cringed as the term brought back unpleasant memories, "for money so I could have enough cash to outbid this gBay user for a Muscle Fish bust but as soon as I came back and submitted my new bid, another gBay user popped up and outbid me."

"Too bad," Luan said. "Looks like you'll have to bid farewell to the chances of you ever getting that bust now."

Rather than glare at Luan for the pun that he not only found bad, but poor in taste given his mood, Lincoln was ready to declare defeat…

"Unleeeeeeeess…"

The playful tone coaxed Lincoln to give Luan his undivided attention. It even coaxed him to feel hope despite his oncoming adversity.

"You strike up the same deal you had with Lisa. I pay you to help me out with something. Agreed?"

Once again, Lincoln found himself at a fork in the road.

He could either call it quits, forget about the bust, and move on with his Saturday to enjoy it for himself.

Or, he could press on and commit to getting the bust with every fiber of his being.

It didn't take long for him to make up his mind.

"Whatever it is, I'll do it."

He had to keep going. After everything that he had done so far, to just give up and let the bust go to someone else, it would feel like everything he had done would've gone to waste.

Liking his reaction, Luan walked up to him, ready to present her deal.

"Okay then, I need you to find and dig up Mr. Coconuts from the backyard. Charles grabbed him and buried him back there but I'm a little too busy to do it myself. How does five whole buck-a-roos sound?"

A little digging and searching? While the work would involve a bit more physical labor than he was used to, Lincoln didn't find the sounds of it to be all that bad.

Besides, knowing how much Mr. Coconuts meant to Luan, Lincoln would've done the work for free if he had been asked to.

"Well, at least poop isn't involved," Lincoln said, until he squirmed in realization. "Although, knowing Charles…"

He shook his head, combating even more revolting mental pictures from cramming into his head. He had work to do and the faster he did it, the sooner he could stay on top of his supposed new flock of rabid bidders.

"Whatever. I'm up for it."

"Great!" Luan said, extending her hand out, "Let's shake on it!"

Without thinking, Lincoln grabbed her hand…

And yelped as a sudden jolt of electricity shot through his body. He looked up and scowled at Luan, was who laughing with the best of them at how he fell for such a novice gag like the joy buzzer.

Shaking his head, Lincoln grumbled, "I only have myself to blame for falling for that one."

Unlike Lisa's job, Luan's was less time-consuming and far less disgusting. After retrieving the buried puppet from the tenth hole he dug up, Lincoln went to give it to Luan, who was less successful in getting Lincoln to fall for the joy buzzer gag a second time after giving him his money.

Once he was back in his room, Lincoln smiled as he looked lovingly at the money and a small toy rocket that he had found in his expedition.

"Well, I found Mr. Coconuts and along the way, my old toy rocket that I lost when I was five. And here I thought Artie the Astronaut actually flew off to the moon."

With the money and toy put away, Lincoln entered in his bid, which now sat at a whooping one hundred twenty-three dollars.

Now, all that was left to do was sit back, relax, and-

*ping*

Resist the urge to go insane!

Lincoln nearly flew off his bed as he found that, yet again, he had been outbid. This time, with a one hundred thirty-two-dollar bid from a gBay user named Fangs&Blood667.

"This…this…this is insane! How could this happen again?!"

Growling in utter frustration, Lincoln slammed the laptop shut, picked it up, and repeatedly slammed it against the soft mattress of his bed, knowing full well it wouldn't actually break.

After about a minute of ceaseless battering, Lincoln gingerly placed it down and laid out on his back, utterly crushed and broken.

"Man, this is hopeless! I'll never get that bust now!"

"Greetings, Lincoln."

He screamed and jolted up from his bed as once again, he found himself confronted with yet another one of his sisters. This time, it was Lucy, who just looked back at Lincoln stoically through her eye-obscuring bangs as she waited for her older brother to calm himself down.

"Lucy!" Lincoln shouted, "what're you doing here?!"

She shrugged. "I felt the chilling aura of melancholy coming from your room. Naturally, I had to embrace its bleakness for myself."

Lincoln sniffed. That made sense but that didn't mean he liked that she always refused to knock.

Without saying a word, Lucy got up on his bed and wrapped an arm around Lincoln's waist as she leaned her head against his shoulder.

Letting out a "sigh", Lucy divulged him with her inner thoughts.

"Normally, I'm not one to diffuse somberness but regardless, it's unbefitting for someone like you to have. It's not a cross you were meant to bear. If there's anything I can do to make you feel better, just tell me and I'll try and see if I can make things right."

Lincoln reciprocated Lucy's side hug with one of his own, liking how Lucy, of all people, was trying her best to cheer him up, even if wasn't feeling all that cheery right now.

"I got outbid for this Muscle Fish bust for the third time today," Lincoln told her plainly.

Lucy nodded. "I understand your pain. Busts are very underappreciated relics. I don't know what I'd do without my Edwin bust. His slender face, his piercing eyes, his sharp, dazzling teeth sparkling in the-"

Her brother's throat clearing got her soliloquy to stop but not before she had drawled on about her Edwin bust in more detail than she cared to let anyone find out about.

"Sorry," she muttered, her pale cheeks flushing.

Awkward silence fell on the situation and knowing that she would have to be the one to initiate her objective, Lucy asked, "Anyways, what's the most important to know is, do you still want the bust?"

With everything that had happened to Lincoln so far, he knew that he wasn't about to quit yet.

"Of course!" he said. "I've worked way too hard just to give up now!"

"Then perhaps, we could work out an arrangement."

Lincoln looked down and felt uneasiness creep through his gut at the mischievous smile that Lucy had plastered on her face.

"Uh…what kind of arrangement?"

'It's official. I hate books now.'

Looking up as his handiwork, an objective that had taken him over an hour, Lincoln scanned Lucy's bookshelf briefly before he turned to his goth sister.

"And there we go, Lucy. All two hundred thirty-nine tomes of the "Most Effective Séance Chants Known to Man & Demon" have officially been shelved in alphabetical order."

Liking what she saw, Lucy revealed a ten-dollar bill from her dress pocket, which he gave away to Lincoln.

"And now my ten dollars departs from me, much like a soul departs from the body after death."

With that, Lincoln left to commit to the familiar ritual of entering in his new bid and hoping that he wouldn't be outbid again.

"All this work may be tough," he said to himself, "but it'll be worth it once I get a leg up on Fangs&Blood667."

Once he was halfway down the hall, he felt his leg vibrate from the pocket where his cellphone was.

"Huh? Who could that be?"

With his free hand, Lincoln pulled out his cellphone and looked at the screen. It was a text, which made sense since his phone hadn't buzzed more than once. It was from his best friend, Clyde, and after reading it, Lincoln's face brightened.

'Oh, that's right! Rusty Spokes invited me and a few friends to go play laser tag with him at one o'clock for his birthday party this afternoon!'

He had been so distracted by the bust ordeal that he had forgotten that Rusty had asked him to join him yesterday.

He checked his phone again and grinned when his eyes fell on the time.

'And with just one hour to spare before party time. Man, am I lucky or what? First, laser tag. Then, the Muscle Fish bust.'

As soon as he entered his room again, Lincoln placed his new big of one hundred thirty-three dollars. He was just about to leave the house, intent on going to Clyde's house, when-

*ping*

"No."

He raced over to his laptop, praying that his ears were just playing tricks on him.

They weren't.

"No, no, no, no, no, n-"

*ping*

Yet again, Lincoln had been outdone, this time, in rapid succession. First, a gBay user by the name of MudMonster6 had come in and counterbid him by ten dollars. Then, almost instantly after that, MudMonster6 got brushed aside by someone named CrownJewel_LL, who spiked up the bid with another ten dollars.

'Am I ever gonna get that bust?! This is crazy! Every time I place a new bid, right on the spot, someone outdoes me. Every. Single. Time. I…I…'

Willing his panic at bay, Lincoln knew that he couldn't make rational decisions on impulses. It wasn't how successes were made and he knew that if was going to make another choice, he had to do so by thinking with a clear head.

On one hand, Rusty's party sounded like a lot of fun. He hadn't done laser tagging in a long time, and more than that, he'd be with friends all the while.

On the other hand, that Muscle Fish bust was one of a kind. From what Lincoln knew, that was the last one that he'd be able to get as easily as gBay was affording him.

Laser tag? He could do that at any time. The bust? It was either get this one or be out of it forever.

His mind was now made up.

'I have to keep going, which means that I have to bail on laser tag. If I leave the house, who knows how many new gBay users will swarm in and jack up the bidding price even further up? I can't leave that bust out of my sight for a single second!'

But now that he knew what he wanted, Lincoln understood that what he was doing wasn't working all that well. He couldn't just wait around for an opportunity to literally come knocking at his door anymore.

'So far, some of my sisters have been helping me keep up with these new bidders. Maybe, just maybe, the rest of them can help me out, too. It's worth a shot.'

Taking out his phone, Lincoln texted Clyde, letting him know that something urgent came up and that he could no longer join him and the others. Once that was out of the way, Lincoln raced out in the hallway, stood in the middle of it, and shouted, "Attention, sisters!"

The rooms of his sisters' doors flew open and all their heads stuck out, waiting intently for Lincoln to explain himself.

"I really need some money and if you guys could help me out, I'd really appreciate it. If you guys need me to do anything for you, anything at all, just pay me and I'll do it. No questions asked."

They all gave each other knowing looks and snickered, except for Luna, who just looked on as at the others reveled in their secrecy.

"Anything?" Lori asked, holding back a laugh.

Lincoln looked around and was more than thrilled that everyone seemed to be on board with his idea. It might have cost him time with his friends but in the end, he refused to miss out on this once in a lifetime opportunity. The hours were ticking down and the bust was hanging in the balance.

Putting on his game face, which consisted of a smirk and furrowed eyebrows, Lincoln replied enthusiastically, "Anything."

"Lincoln, I, like, really, really need your help. My back's been killing me ever since I woke up. It's totes a pain in the…well, back. Could you massage it for me? I'll give you ten dollars if you do."

"Hey, Lincoln, I can't find my socket wrench. Help me find it and I'll give you two dollars. Oh, and these croissants that I found under the fridge. Trust me, they're cold but delicious. Worth every bite."

"Bro, could you be a sportin' chap and tighten the guitar strings of my vintage collection of axes? There's a Lincoln and two Washingtons ridin' on the line. You in?"

"You see these soccer balls and footballs, Lincoln? They all need a good air pumping. If you do, I'll fork over five bucks and the promise that I won't give you any surprise Dutch ovens for a week."

"Want three bucks, Lincoln? Okay then, first, I want a neck rub. Then, I want my trophies polished. Then, you're going to…y'know what? Just do the first two things. I'll save my other tasks for later in case you need more money. Chop, chop. This neck's not gonna soothe itself."

Those were only a few of the things that Lincoln's sisters had required of him. All day long and into the few beginning hours of the evening, Lincoln found himself in the middle of a vicious but rewarding cycle.

First, he'd do a task for one of his sisters for money. Then, he'd submit a new bid on the bust. Then, almost immediately after doing so, someone else would come in and outbid him. After that, it started all over again.

By the time three hours had rolled in, Lincoln realized that there were nine bidders, besides him, who wanted the bust for themselves. He couldn't understand why the sudden surge of activity would show up in the last few hours of the bidding window when he hadn't even seen them at all yesterday. Regardless, he knew that he couldn't stop to think about how strange it all was; he had work to do!

As he scrambled about the house, doing things that he had been tasked to do, he also began to sense some patterns from his sisters.

He could tell that Lola was having the time of her life as she ordered Lincoln about like a servant, mocking him as if he were a serf serving his queen. Lincoln knew that Lola didn't really mean any harm, though. Despite her less than moralizing orders (serving as her makeup model was where he almost drew the line), she was just being caught up in the moment. It made sense for the power-hungry pageant winner to revel in her dominance.

Leni was by far, the most generous. She always gave him the most for her jobs, which was always ten dollars. Not only that but what she wanted from him was usually pretty lenient and didn't eat up a lot of time. The only laborious thing he recalled doing for her was packing up some old dresses, in boxes, that she couldn't fit anymore.

The most interesting observation, however, was from Luna. She barely had him do anything for her. Besides the guitar string tightening, Luna had only asked Lincoln to do two other things for her; clean her drum set and listen to some lyrics that she had come up for a new song. Other than that, not a peep from her.

Finally, after almost eight hours of nonstop running about, Lincoln tiredly flopped onto the living room couch. He had just finished making Lola breakfast in bed (at almost seven-thirty at night, no less!) and once she was done with her meal, he took the dirty dishes away, after getting his money from her first, and put them in the sink for later cleaning.

Knowing that the bidding window was closing soon, Lincoln pulled out his phone to check the time and make sure that he still had enough time left.

Thankfully, by the looks of things, he had. Only twelve minutes until eight o'clock. But before he could put his phone away, he realized that he had been texted throughout the day from Clyde, who had sent him various pictures from Rusty's birthday party.

Lincoln looked longingly at the pictures and could imagine how much fun he could've had if he had been there himself.

"Looks like Clyde, Rusty, and the gang had fun," Lincoln said mournfully.

He cringed in agony when he spotted someone near and dear to his heart in the corner of one of the pictures.

"Aw man, Ronnie Anne was there, too?" he groaned, putting his phone away before he could regret his decision to stay at home any further.

Once he did, he pulled out his wad of money that he had just accumulated in the last couple of minutes.

"Oh well, at least with this last fifty bucks, I should have this bid on lockdown."

With that, Lincoln got off the couch and trundled up the stairs. Before he could move on to his room, his ears caught his sisters animatedly conversing in Lori's bedroom about something that he didn't really care to eavesdrop for. Right now, he knew that he had to thank his sisters for carrying him so far. If not for them, he'd be out of luck.

He unceremoniously poked his heads through Lori's doorway and announced himself by clearing his throats. Immediately, they gave each other panicked, guilty looks, as if they had been caught in the middle of plotting out something nefarious.

Lincoln figured that he must've caught them talking about boys or gossip or whatever. He didn't care to find out.

Finally, Lori spoke up, as she often did on behalf of her siblings, flashing Lincoln a smile.

"Thanks again, Lincoln. You were a really big help today."

Her other sisters nodded and Lincoln nearly teared up from joy. It was so nice knowing that after everything they had done, they still valued him as an asset, too, and not some leech that bugged them for what he wanted.

"So were all of you," Lincoln said warmly. "I couldn't have gotten this far without you. I'm really glad that I have you guys as my sisters."

With his heartfelt sentiments expressed, Lincoln left them, missing out how Lori looked at her sisters with a smug "I told you so" look on her face.

He also missed how Luna didn't look content with herself. At all.

"Alrighty then, with that, this Limited Edition Ruthless Commando DEFCON 1 Muscle Fish is as good as mine."

Looking at his laptop clock, Lincoln smiled. With only about a minute left, there was no way that anyone could counterbid him now, especially with the bid he had just placed down.

Before he could shut the laptop off, he realized something…familiar but unsettling about the Muscle Fish bust. It had a blue ribbon next to the bidding timer, which could only mean one thing.

Quickly going onto gBay's front page, Lincoln looked at the bottom-right corner of the screen, confirming his findings as anything but a coincidence or some kind of optical illusion.

'Huh, would you look at that. The bust made it on the 'Featured Items List' on the front page. Must've been from all the bidding and counterbidding that was going on all day. Normally, this would be a bad thing, since more viewers and more potential bidders can get in on the action at the last second, but there's no possible way that anyone would make a counterbid on an over three hundred sixty-six-dollar bid in less than a minute.'

*ping*

The ping rang through his ears, mockingly. A stunned, horrified Lincoln slowly but surely looked at the screen and realized that after everything that he had done both yesterday and today, a gBay user, aptly named Buzzard313, had just secured the final bid for the Muscle Fish bust, placing down an even four hundred dollars on it.

The boy watched helplessly as the bidding window time slowly but surely crawled towards zero. When it did, a single tear fell out of Lincoln's eye and a lump formed in his throat.

"You…you were supposed to b-be mine," he whispered.

For minutes, he just stared at the screen, too heartbroken and disheartened to make a move. His catatonic forlorn was immediately broken as a few unrestrained sobs croaked out of Lincolns throat, whimpering and quiet. Then, his crying grew in volume as his entire body shook and his face brightened red as streams of tears flowed down his face, plopping against the sheets of his bed.

His wailing attracted the attention of his sisters, who all rushed towards his bedroom, nearly tripping over themselves. Lynn, who got there first, opened the door and stood in stunned silence at what she saw. Her other sisters all caught up, and Lori, who was holding Lily, didn't relent on voicing her concern.

"Lincoln, what happened?!"

When Lincoln could only cry as a response, Luna, who had been piled up in the back, pushed her way through to the front as she approached Lincoln, wrapping him up in a hug that Lincoln quickly returned.

"Lincoln, you won the bid, right?" Luna asked, praying that after everything Lincoln had gone through, he had gotten what he wanted.

Finally, after another minute of tears and sobbing, Lincoln broke away from the hug but instead of answering his sister, he just shut his laptop and stared at the puddles that his tears made in his sheets.

"Right?" Luna prodded, not liking how Lincoln wasn't giving her an immediate answer.

She reached over and titled Lincoln's up until she could see his eyes. She nearly wanted to cry herself from what she saw. Not because of the sad, puffy red eyes that blearily looked back at her but because from that one glance, she knew everything that she needed to know.

She just wished that it wasn't so.

"How did you lose?"

At her words, the sisters behind Luna reeled back in horror, feeling absolutely heartbroken for their poor brother and how he hadn't gotten his happy ending after all of the hard work that he did for them.

Lincoln, moving his head away from Luna, looked up at his grief-stricken sisters, knowing full well that they would be disappointed, and perhaps angry with him, that he had wasted their time for nothing.

Regardless, no matter how sad he felt, that didn't give him the right to deprive of sisters of what they needed to know.

"The bust got featured on the gBay homepage from all the bidding that happened on it today," he began, his voice cracking and croaking from his fit of crying. "Then, right after I made my last bid, someone new came in and dropped five hundred dollars on it. I didn't stand a chance."

His head drooped down, conveniently missing his sister's faces take on expression of utter guilt, shame, and self-contempt.

He just couldn't do it. He couldn't look them in the eye while he told them what a nuisance he had been to them.

"All that work…all that effort…wasted. After everything you guys did to help me…it was all for nothing."

He felt himself about to cry again but Lincoln held his tears in. He didn't deserve to be mollycoddled for what he had done to them. He wasted their Saturday, their free time and money…for him. If he hadn't opened his mouth to ask for their help, he could've gone to the party and his sisters could've enjoyed themselves. He could shed many tears into the night once they all left him but for now, all they needed to know was that he was truly sorry.

"I'm…I'm sorry I wasted your time."

His sisters looked at one another, exchanging worried expressions but most importantly, guilt for what their commitment to their deception had done to their only brother. While they got to live it up as royalty, they had made him run around like an errand boy, dangling his beloved bust in front of him like it was a carrot and he was a donkey that went after it with aplomb.

And by doing so, they had inadvertently made things worse for him.

Before Luna could say anything else to him, Lori suddenly said, "I'm sorry, Lincoln."

"It's…*sniff*…it's not your fault," Lincoln said, thinking that Lori was just pitying him, "I should've just gave up and-"

"No, Lincoln."

Her insistent tone got Lincoln to look up at them again, namely at Lori, who handed off Lily to Leni before she took a few brave steps forward.

Though his attention was mostly on Lori, he could still catch his other sisters' faces out of the corner of his eye and they all looked…similar and familiar.

Guilt. That was the first thing that Lincoln thought he saw from his sisters when he barged in on them earlier and they looked at each other…as if they were all in on something together and knew that their collusion was immoral.

"I'm sorry," Lori repeated as she pointed to herself.

Lincoln's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "What? What'd you mean you're sorry?"

Lori bit her lip, not saying anything further than that. Lincoln looked around at his sisters and much like Lori, the guilt was much more pronounced.

There was no question about it; Lori had done something and from the looks of things, his other sisters either knew about it…

Or were in on it, too.

"What's going on?" Lincoln grilled, anger slowly rising in his tone. "What did you do?"

He watched as Lori gathered the courage to confess whatever sin had led to this predicament. He almost shouted at her to explain herself but stopped when it looked like she was going to do just that.

"Remember how you and I made our little deal yesterday?"

He nodded cautiously and Lori's eyes nearly watered with her own tears.

"Well, after my sisters found out about it, they wanted in on the action, too. But since it looked like you didn't need the money anymore, I came up with the idea to…to…"

She brushed at her eyes with her forearm, though she still couldn't prevent a few tears from leaking out. By now, her voice was as choked up as Lincoln's was just moments ago.

"Trick you into doing favors for all of us today for our money. See, we made gBay accounts so we could keep making bids on that bust because I knew you'd be desperate enough to keep running to us for cash."

Lori looked on at Lincoln, hoping that despite everything that he had learned, he would forgive them. She nearly gasped and cried on the spot when Lincoln's face adopted an eerily neutral, emotionless sheen as he just looked down at the bed.

Lori could tell what was going on; repressed anger was bottling up inside of him and it was more than she felt that she deserved. She deserved to be yelled out, called out on for being a horrible sister and a horrible person, too.

She took another step forward, giving her and Lincoln just a few inches of space between them.

"I know you're…really mad at us but don't be mad at them. Be mad at me. I'm the one who came up with the plan. It was all me, Lincoln. From the bottom of my heart, I'm sorry that-"

"What heart?"

Lori reeled back from the cold, piercing tone of Lincoln's retort. In the wake of his derision, all she could do was babble hopelessly as she watched her brother stare at her, his eyes showing no forgiveness or mercy in his glazed over pupils.

"Did I stutter? I asked you a question," he growled lowly.

His sisters, except for Luna, all flinched back as Lincoln slid off the bed, standing directly in front of Lori, all while locking eyes with her frightened stare.

"What heart? What kind of heart could a person have to manipulate their own brother like this? You tell me, Lori."

All the sister in question could do was clamp a hand over her mouth, blocking out her sobbing while openly weeping.

"Do you think you're some kind of hero because you're trying to cover up for them? Well, take your self-righteous heroics and stuff 'em. Last I checked, they could've refused on their own but they didn't."

Then, Lincoln turned his attention to his other sisters, who all shrank away and refused to look at him out of shame.

"Did you all have a good laugh? Making me your little… your little…pack mule? Huh? I certainly hope you had your fun because thanks to you, not only did I miss out on that bust but I had to stay holed up this house, running amok and being your slave, while my friends spent their Saturday with Rusty Spokes at his birthday party. But hey, I guess you couldn't just pass up on the opportunity to treat me like dirt."

"Dude, I'm-"

Luna stopped herself before she could say another word as Lincoln turned to her, his glower as eerily simmered yet fierce as ever. She had never seen him look at her like that before and before long, she found herself with tears running down her face.

It didn't even make Lincoln flinch, who barked out a sharp, mocking laugh.

"Sorry? Was that what you were gonna say? Why should you apologize to a pack mule? Apparently, that's all I am to you; some foot servant you can feel power over, someone you can laugh at behind their back while you pull the puppet strings for your sick amusement."

Lincoln looked at the floor now, having had enough of looking at the people who were supposed to be on his side through thick and thin but had ultimately betrayed him. He was angry with all of them. Even at Lily, who hadn't done anything wrong to him at all but what he was experiencing wasn't just some cruel nightmare. In his heart, he felt that when she grew up, chances were, she'd fall in line with the rest of them. It wasn't fair to judge her so harshly but after everything that he had been through, he was tired of being fair.

"You know, I don't pretend to be perfect," he continued, his tone measured but chock-full of aggression, "I know I'm not. I've done things to hurt you all before, sometimes intentionally. I know I'm no saint but at least at the end of the day, I still see you all as family, as people, as…as…"

Suddenly, he rapidly looked back up at them, his face twisted and contorted in rage. Tears, that he had held back earlier for the sake of not burdening his sisters, were now streaming out of his eyes without restraint.

"Human beings with feelings! Do those not count for me?! Just because I'm the guy?! I should just suck it up and take it, right?! I should just be your little toy that you can wind up?!"

Immediately, without a second thought, Luna got up to embrace her little brother again. However, before she knew it, he found herself roughly pushed back as she fell back on his bed. She looked up in horror when she saw Lincoln's outstretched hands, indicating that he had voluntarily pushed her away.

"Don't touch me! Just leave me alone! All of you, get out!"

Doing as he said, his sisters all scrambled out as fast as they could although Luna couldn't help but shoot a concerned look at her brother before she followed suit. Though they were told to keep out, they still couldn't help but watch though the open doorway as Lincoln grabbed all the money he earned from the past two days and threw it at them.

They watched as the dollar bills fluttered towards the ground and what happened next shook them to their cores.

"And take your crummy money with you! I don't need your 'charity'! I don't need any of you!"

The last thing that Lincoln saw, before he violently slammed the door, was all his sisters crying and looking at each other with regret.

Three days later...

Lincoln walked back to his house from school, lamenting about how he had to go back home and surround himself with the company of people that he didn't want to acknowledge.

It had been three days since that fateful Saturday. His sisters, thankfully, respected his need for space from them and did their best not to engage him unless it was absolutely necessary. He never bothered telling his parents about what had happened; the guilt that he knew his sisters were feeling was punishment enough as far as he was concerned.

But then again, was it guilt from doing what they did to begin with or was it simply because their little scheme backfired and forced them to confess? Lincoln was honestly leaning towards the latter because yes, even though he liked not having to be close with the people that he was beyond furious with, that didn't mean that they couldn't at least make an effort to right their wrongs. But from what Lincoln could tell, all his sisters could do was watch from afar as he did his best to stay away from them. If anything, Lincoln thought that his aloofness would inspire them to act, not shrink away when they thought he was coming their way.

Regardless, Lincoln knew that deep down, despite everything, he wanted to forgive them. His father had taught them that forgiveness wasn't about letting the person (or in this case, people) who hurt you get away with what you did but rather, it was about relieving yourself from the pain of carrying around bitterness from a misdeed and moving on through life with your head held high. Still, every time he thought about doing so, the memory of their ruse only inspired him not to make a move. What had hurt him the most, more than the missed birthday party and the bust, was how he was the center of their little game. Lincoln didn't want to believe that his sisters could backstab him like they did but they did and he couldn't help but feel like it was because he was the only boy among sisters.

Would Lori pull together a plan like that on Leni? Luna? Luan? Lynn? Any of his sisters? Not that Lincoln would want that to ever happen, just so he could feel like he was on an even playing field with everyone else, but he never recalled his sisters manipulating each other like they had done to him. Sure, they had their own spats and fights but to the point where they'd all conspire together against one of their own? A conspiracy that involved turning that sister into their personal slave?

'Absolutely not,' Lincoln thought as he saw his house approaching from the near distance.

He didn't rush home from school, meaning that all his sisters were probably inside, just chatting amongst themselves. Like usual, they would depart from him once they saw him coming and of course, they would go right back to acting like they shouldn't get off their butts and do something, anything, to prove that they were truly remorseful.

Once he was at the front door, Lincoln opened it, knowing full well that the door would be unlocked for him. Sure enough, it was and upon opening it, he realized that something was very, very amiss about the living room.

It was empty, not a sister in sight. He strained his ears to pick up on the sound of girly, sisterly chatter but didn't find that, either. Shrugging, Lincoln shut the door behind him and moved to go upstairs so he could go to his room and get started on a book report that Mrs. Johnson had assigned his classroom to complete by next week.

Once he made it to the middle step, he stopped when he saw Luan, Lucy, Lola, Lana, and Luna suddenly pop up out of nowhere and stand in his way. Instinctively, Lincoln turned around, not wanting to confront his sisters when all he wanted to go was homework. Upon turning around, he found, to his annoyance, another blockade of sisters: Lisa, Lynn, Lori, and Leni.

Now that Lincoln had a chance to absorb the gravity of this peculiar situation, it was clear to him that his sisters wanted him for something. What that "something" was wasn't clear to him since they just stood there, not saying anything to him.

"What do you all want?" Lincoln sighed irritably.

"Lincoln?"

He looked up at the top step and saw Luna looking down at him with the most regretful look out of any of them. It almost looked like she was going to cry again and in that moment, he wondered if him pushing her had something to do with it.

"We know you're super miffed at us and you have every right to be. We're not asking you to forgive us but please, even though we don't deserve it, just hear us out and let us try to make things right with you."

The boy only looked back at Luna with contemplation. This was the moment he had been waiting for, for them to finally initiate something. Regardless, he felt bitter about the fact that it had apparently taken them three days to do this and Lincoln wondered if again, if their guilt was done out of obligation to morality or if they really had something to give him out of genuine dedication to him.

"Please?"

Her begging plea, one that he felt was sincere and not hollow, was the last push Lincoln needed for him to make his move but even after he said…

"Fine."

He still had his doubts. But curiosity, as well as a tinge of pity for them, won him over. With that, his sister motioned for him to follow them to the living room. Once Lincoln took a seat on the couch, he was surrounded from all sides by his sisters who now, had big smiles on their faces.

Lincoln looked at them expectantly but they all seemed content to just let their actions stupefy him.

In no mood for games, Lincoln was about to exasperatedly what his sisters were doing when Luna showed what she was hiding behind her back.

She handed off the object to Lincoln; it was cardboard box. Lincoln looked down at it quizzically.

"What's this?" Lincoln asked.

"Open it," was the reply he got from Lola.

Figuring that it was some kind of present, Lincoln did as he was asked, tearing away at the tape that held the top flaps together. As he grabbed the flaps to open the box, he could've sworn he heard stifled giggles from Leni, which only caused him to look at the box with deliberation.

What if it wasn't a present? What if this was just another prank and they had tricked him to get to this point? What if…

Before he could further debate on his sisters' motives, Lynn stepped forced, gently prying his hands away before she opened the box herself. When she did, she pointed at the opening for Lincoln to looked into.

Taking a deep breath, Lincoln slowly but surely peered over the box…

And nearly fainted on the spot at what his eyes found.

"Is..is this…"

He hurriedly reached inside the package, grabbed the item inside, and yanked it out. He gasped sharply when the object came to light.

"No way! The Limited Edition Ruthless Commando DEFCON 1 Muscle Fish bust! You guys managed to find another one?!"

He hugged it tightly, not wanting to let go just in case this was a dream. If he was, he wanted it to last forever.

"Nope," Lynn said, shaking her head. "I'll save you the technobabble from Lisa and just tell you that thanks to her, we were able to track down the buyer and make them a counteroffer they couldn't refuse. Thankfully, they lived in the area, so it didn't take long for us to find him."

Lincoln looked up at his sisters, still clutching onto the bust for dear life. If he thought that his sisters were going to go out of their way to make it up to him, he had no idea that they were willing to take things that far just for him.

And a gesture like this? That could only come out of love. Real, genuine, heartfelt love!

"You did all of that for me?" Lincoln asked, grinning once they all simultaneously nodded.

"Geez, guys, you really didn't have to," he said before he sniffed, wiping a tear away from his glistening, wet eye.

"You're right, Lincoln," Luna admitted. "We didn't have to. But guess what? We wanted to. We made your Saturday a living nightmare by using you for our gain and thanks to that, you missed out on laser tag and the bust."

"But that's not all we did for you," Lana said, pulling out a giant wad of money from her overall pockets and walked over to place it next to Lincoln.

"Here's all the money that you earned from us," Leni said. "You earned it so you get to keep it."

"And we'll return the weight of your services with our own commitment to tend to your whims, menial or otherwise, for an entire week," Lisa added. "Whatever you require of us, we'll adhere to your desires without complaint."

Lori stepped forward until, like the elder sister that she was, she stood at the front of the pack.

"But the last and most important thing, Lincoln, is that we swear that we will never use or trick you like that again. We're a family and we should treat each other like one. It doesn't matter if some stick out more than others; that's no excuse to treat them like pack mules."

And that, to Lincoln, mattered most of all. He could live without the bust, the money, and the servitude but knowing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that his sister valued him like a family member, despite their wrongdoing, was enough to get Lincoln to stand on his face and stretch out his arms wide.

"C'mere, you guys!"

Knowing that that was the family sign for a group hug, they all rushed in and got into one squealing, pile of hugging limbs.

"Does this mean that…you forgive us?" Leni asked tentatively.

"Absolutely!" Lincoln exclaimed.

Lincoln wanted nothing more than to just bask and revel in the giant amassment of sisterly love, but despite the warmth and joy surging through him, there was just one thing that they had said that was kinda bugging him, like an itch one just couldn't reach and scratch himself.

"But I gotta know, who was the buyer? Is he someone I know?" Lincoln asked.

All the girls sniggered, once again being in on something that Lincoln knew nothing about but this time, there was nothing in the world that was going to stop them from including their brother.

"Funny you should ask, Lincoln," Lori said with a smirk on her face.

In the house of a reformed curmudgeon, said ex-crabapple was looking over the bounty of delicacies that came from his next-door neighbors. They drove a hard bargain but a month's supply of lasagna? How could he pass up on that?!

"Nice bartering, Louds. Ol' Grouse is gonna eat like a king for a month!" Mr. Grouse exclaimed as he gave his new inventory a once over and closed the refrigerator.

Whistling a merry tune, the old man suddenly stopped when he noticed an omnipresent, invisible force looking on at him with skepticism. Knowing what they were thinking, Mr. Grouse looked on defensively at the ubiquitous presence.

"What?" he shrugged. "Stuff like that makes me feel young. Sue me."

A/N: Man, what a doozy of a story this was to write. I was tempted to split this into chapters but I didn't think this story really warranted that. Plus, I wanted to take a crack at writing out a long one-shot that would hopefully keep people's interest all the way through.

Anyways, I think it's high time for that explanation I was ragging on about earlier.

With all these "Lincoln vs. his sisters" stories I've seen cropping up lately, I wrote this hoping that a story that plays into that theme, WITHOUT having the sisters acting cruelly OOC, would be well-received. In other words, I didn't want the sisters just acting like jerks to Lincoln because "plot" or because fanon now dictates that they're irredeemable monsters who hate their brother.

Then again, I'm not so arrogant that I can't be receptive to constructive criticism. If you felt as though the Loud sisters were still OOC here, I'd like to know where you thought I went wrong. Keep in mind the "constructive" part, however. Banal, indignant ranting will be treated with the disrespect and contempt that it deserves.

Anyways, it seems to be the status quo that Lincoln's sisters get their jollies by bottling up Lincoln's tears and drinking them so perhaps, with me not writing them out like that, I've committed a faux pas by not giving you cathartic satisfaction by not making Lincoln do anything dramatic enough (like suicide) for the sisters to be riddled with guilt for months and months and months.

There's probably not enough sister-shaming for some of you, the ending may have come across as too sudden, peppy and "deus ex machina-ish", and my inclusion of the fact that Lincoln is just as capable of being as selfish and mean as they can be might not have been to your tastes but, I don't know about you, I just can't watch this show with the idea that the Loud sisters are Cinderella's evil stepsisters and Lincoln's supposedly some "too good for this sinful Earth" character that's constantly bombarded inside of a familial whirlwind of suffering and torment because his family treats him like a "black sheep". Puh-lease.

Yeah, I get that "Brawl in the Family" and "No Such Luck" left bad tastes in a lot of fans' mouths (even though I don't personally hate those episodes), and didn't leave a positive reception of the sisters and the parents as a result, but I'm not going to pretend that a plethora of awesome, funny, heartwarming episodes and moments, that got us all to watch in the first place, never happened and I'm also not going to pretend that they don't overshadow all the bad by sheer numbers.

But hey, I'm just some lonely fanfic writer with too much time on my hands. What do I know? I just don't like holding onto negativity when it's not warranted. Like Mr. Grouse said in this story, "Sue me."

Oh, and my apologies to anyone who just so happens to have any of my made-up "gBay" account names. Trust me, if I just so happened to make a direct reference to you, it was not intentional and we should all just forget about it and call it a funny coincidence.