As was usually the case whenever Luke was rocking out on the top bunk of his bed, he imagined himself not in his small bedroom in Royal Woods but instead on a massive stage before a crowd of thousands of cheering fans, all of them calling his name and begging for an encore. He'd walk out casually, like it didn't even matter to him, looking like some teenage punk rock god with his mohawk and tattered denim vest over a shirt adorned with skulls. With stage lights shining down and pyrotechnics and neon signs firing off all around him, he'd give the people what they wanted.

His fingers would dance across the fretboard with Hendrix-like precision, each and every note ringing true both in his fantasy and in his bedroom as he rattled off an opening guitar riff that was like lightning.

Then he opened his mouth to sing, and his crazy rock n' roll dream was shattered. "Something something, something something/Blah-blah-blah, something some-thing/Yada yada yada, I'm Luke Loud/La la la la, da da duuuuuum/Blah blah blahblahblah, yada-dada"

They were only placeholder words, if they could even be called that, designed only to stand in place of the real lyrics once he actually got around to writing them. So he'd been telling himself for the last six weeks. Otherwise the song was everything he wanted it to be, but for the life of him every time he sat down to write verses his mind was blank. Lars wasn't the only one in the house to deal with writer's block.

By far his least favorite part of the songwriting process was crafting lyrics, and half the time whenever he got to that point for some of his past songs he debated going the Sigur Rós route and just using a pretty-sounding gibberish language whenever he sang. Either that or forgoing words entirely in favor of instrumentals. But inevitably he'd always decide post-rock wasn't really his scene and trudge his way through writing lyrics that he always found functional, if lacking.

As he strummed the final chord, fighting back the powerful urge to smash his guitar like Pete Townshend, Luke opened his eyes to find that his fantasy was gone and he was back in his room, the residual echoes of his last note bouncing off his walls. He half-hoped to hear some applause waiting for him, but all he heard instead was Lynn's pissed-off voice coming from the bathroom just outside his door.

"This book is full of shit, and you know where shit goes?"

Curious, Luke craned his neck to peek into the hallway, where he saw some wet black object fly from the bathroom and land with a damp plop in front of Lars' feet, where Luke could then tell that it was a composition notebook. As the young goth boy fell to his knees, Luke had the thought that his little brother never looked so forlorn, which, considering it was Lars he was looking at, was quite a feat. Poor Lars, he thought. Always moping about all melancholic and infinitely sad. At least it seemed like he had Linka to comfort him. "Lars, I'm so sorry…" he heard her say, placing a gentle hand on Lars' shoulder.

"It's fine," he said, clearly lying. Lars may have had a monotonous droning kind-of voice, but even that couldn't hide the slight quiver in his tone.

"…Hey, why don't we ask Loni if we can borrow his hair dryer? That way we can dry off the pages before the poems fade completely."

Poems? Was that what the ruined book was for? Luke never knew Lars liked to write poetry. Come to think of it, there wasn't much about his brother that Luke did know. Sure, he had the vague understanding that Lars had an inclination towards real horrorshow type stuff like seances and tarot cards, but other than that it seemed to him like the kid was always on the periphery, that lonesome place separate from all his siblings. A black sheep boy.

"Why bother? Even if we did, there's no way I'm gonna touch this book again," Lars said, sounding broken inside. "Besides, now that Lynn knows my secret, he'll probably just keep making fun of me for it. Sigh, maybe he's right. Maybe I am a loser…"

That settled it. Luke couldn't stand by and let this continue. Hearing Lars talk about himself that way brought an ache to his chest, and there was no way he wasn't going to do anything about it. His way may not have been the same as Linka's, with her soothing voice and comforting nature, but he knew that if he tried he could help his little bro feel better all the same.

After all, what else were big brothers for?

Later, after asking Linka what had happened and having it explained to him, Luke knew what he had to do. He first made a mental note to get back at Lynn later in the day on Lars' behalf. Lynn may have been strong for his age, but he still wasn't above getting a swirly from Luke when his big brother felt that he deserved it. Then he'd see how he liked being dunked in the toilet, like he did with Lars' book. Before that could happen, however, there was a far more important matter to attend to. One that would hopefully kill two birds with one stone.

He waited till he was sure that Lynn was preoccupied downstairs with playing his favorite first person shooter, some M-rated military simulator that gave him an excuse to scream obscenities into a wireless headset at other players halfway across the world, before he strolled into his younger brothers' room, entering "cool big brother mode" as he walked in. It was a persona he had spent the past several years trying to craft for himself. Just as he expected, he saw that Lars' coffin was sealed shut, and no doubt inside the kid was doing his best to imagine himself as a corpse. A line from the Grizzly Bear song "Little Brother" came to Luke's mind for a moment. Wide-eyed and up in arms/My little brother was a solemn one/He always had his quiet corner.

If nothing else, Luke hoped that by the end of the day he'd be able to show Lars a less morbid way of coping with his sadness.

He walked up and rapped his knuckles on the wood to the tune of the hey ho, let's go part of "Blitzkrieg Bop," which had been stuck in his head the past twenty minutes. It seemed like there was always a song of some kind knocking around in his skull.

"Go away, Lynn," came Lars' muffled voice from inside.

"Dude, it's me," Luke assured him, "open up, will ya?"

The lid creaked open and Lars sat up, rising slowly from his bed like a zombie from its grave. "What?" he tersely asked. After the day he'd had, Luke couldn't blame him for taking such a tone.

"Come to my room, I need your help with something," Luke said.

Lars sighed. "What could you possibly need my help with?" By the sound of his voice, tinged with shades of fear, Luke assumed he must've thought this was a trap of some kind, like he expected Lane to be waiting for him with a prank laying in wait as soon as he got there.

"I'll explain it when we get to my room, alright? Then if you want you can go back to your little pity party."

With another browbeaten sigh, Lars climbed out of bed and followed his brother down the hall and into his bedroom. Luke and Lane were never as adamant that nobody should enter their abode as Loki was with his and Loni's, but still to be invited inside was a pretty rare honor that Lars, even in his depressed state, couldn't help but marvel at. The space smelt of cheap body spray, and compared to what Lars was used to as Lynn's roommate, it was a welcome improvement. Posters for musicians Lars didn't recognize plastered the walls, most of them photographed live on stage in the middle of playing intense guitar solos or belting out the words to some power ballad at the top of their lungs, their faces contorted with passion. On the side wall stood a dresser with half the drawers hung open and loose shirts and pants seeming to slither out of them, and next to Luke and Lane's bunk bed was a wooden desk plastered with band decals. Much like in his own room, the floor was a cluttered mess, though of his comedian brother's stray rubber chickens and whoopee cushions and other assorted prop gags.

Lars followed him up the ladder to the top bunk, where Luke's guitar was already laying in wait with a cable plugged into the input jack leading down from the body to an amp on the ground. At first it was cramped, but after Luke rested his axe casually across his front Lars was able to comfortably sit with his feet hanging over the side. It was a different feel, being high in the air as opposed to hidden away in a casket, but Lars ultimately decided that he liked it. Fascinated as he was by death, he imagined himself in a coffin of a different sort; one of those Native American sky burial scaffolds he had read about once.

For a few seconds, Luke appeared more preoccupied with turning the keys on his guitar and plucking each string to tune them. Once satisfied with the results, he casually said, "so, I hear you're a poet."

Immediately Lars turned his head away and nervously rubbed his elbow, embarrassed. "Are you going to make fun of me too?"

"Relax dude, like I said, I brought you here 'cause I need your help." He sat up and gripped his guitar with the clear intent to play. "Here, listen to this."

He strummed out his latest song, this time not bothering with singing his nonsense lyrics, focusing only on playing to perfection. As was Luke's trademark sound, it was bouncy and short, barely over three minutes long, the musical equivalent to a quick burst of adrenaline to the system. When it was finished, Luke looked expectantly to his brother, who only sat a moment with a blank look on his face, unsure of what he was supposed to say.

After an awkward pause, he eventually settled on, "Sounds nice."

"Yeah, it's pretty killer," Luke agreed, not even trying to put on any kind of false modesty. "See, I want this to kinda be like my anthem, you know what I mean? My signature song, the one they call encore for. Only one problem; no lyrics. I was wondering if you could help a brother out now that I know you're an artistic-type too. After all, what else is a song but poetry that sings?"

Luke expected, or at least hoped, that Lars would jump at the opportunity instantly, to be excited that somebody else in the house appreciated his gift. But instead he still seemed wary. "If you want it to be your signature song, then shouldn't you be writing the lyrics?" he asked.

"Nah, I was never really good at that. I'm more about the music than the words. 'Sides, some of the best musicians of all time worked with other lyricists. You could be like the Van Dyke Parks to my Brian Wilson. The Bernie Taupin to my Elton John."

Another blank look from Lars, this time caused by hearing a series of names he didn't recognize. "What?"

Now it was Luke's turn to sigh. He had chosen a couple of the most famous examples he could think of, and got confusion in return. Typical. Shaking off his annoyance, he decided to speak more plainly. "…Point being, you're a writer, Lars. All I'm asking is for you to write. Please?" Much like Lars did earlier when imploring Loki to give his book back, Luke entwined the fingers of both his hands together like he were groveling. "I ain't too proud to beg!" he added with a small laugh.

Still though, Lars was unsure. "You wouldn't want me coming up with lyrics for you. All my poems are really dark and depressing and…um…" he struggled to find the proper word, one that would convey what he meant without it sounding embarrassing.

Luke decided to finish the sentence for him. "Sensitive?" That must've been the wrong thing to say, since Lars only blushed and hugged his knees to his chest. Realizing his mistake, Luke shrugged like the whole idea was no big deal. "Hey, there's nothing wrong with having a sensitive side. Like when Metallica released "Nothing Else Matters," one of their best songs. But I know that if you tried, you could write something really fun and rockin' too. You just need to be more confident is all."

Confidence was the furthest thing from what Lars was emanating. "I don't think I can do that."

"Why not?"

"You wouldn't understand," Lars said, shaking his head. "You're so cool and laid-back and everybody likes you and I'm just…I'm just a loser."

"Are you kidding me!?" Luke was practically shouting, loud enough that Lars couldn't help but wince and flinch backwards a bit, almost to the point where he had to regain his balance lest he fall off the bunk entirely. Lowering his volume, but speaking with no less passion, Luke pressed on. "First of all, just because Lynn and Loki were being a couple of assholes earlier doesn't mean people in this family don't like you, or even that Lynn and Loki don't like you. Second, you are not a loser! In fact, you're pretty much the coolest guy in this whole house!" Lars scoffed at the idea. Nobody, not even Linka, had ever told him he was cool before. "No, seriously!" Luke insisted, "I mean, you talk to the dead, Lars. That's some serious heavy metal shit right there. Plus, you've got this whole Siouxsie and the Banshees type of look going on. I always really dug it."

At the mention of banshees, Lars perked up an infinitesimal amount. He had read about them, those Irish phantoms that wailed and shrieked and signaled death, and had even tried to commune with one during his past rituals. It never worked, but he still held hope that one day he'd succeed. "Who are Susie and the Banshees?"

Ordinarily Luke would've jumped at somebody's throat for getting a band's name wrong, as it was a major pet peeve of his, but this time he let it slide. "All you need to know is that they're really awesome. Just like you."

That, at least, got through to Lars a little. He shyly smiled, the corners of his lips turning upwards barely a fraction of a millimeter, an uncertain gesture as if he wasn't well practiced at it. It wasn't much, but it was a good start. At least now Luke could tell that he was making some real progress with Lars' self esteem. "…I guess I could give it a shot."

"Yes! Thanks man!" At that, Lars swung his legs over the ladder at the side of the bed, clearly with the intent to make the climb down. Before he could descend even a single rung, Luke signaled for him to stop. "Wait, where are you going?"

"Back to my coffin," Lars said. "Laying in the dark helps me think of ideas."

"Aw, don't leave yet! You and I never get to hang out. Stay and listen to some tunes with me, they can be anything you want. Lemme guess," he added with a chuckle, "you're probably way into gangsta rap, right?"

"Well," Lars sheepishly said, still clinging to the ladder, "to be honest, I don't really ever listen to music, other than what I hear you play."

"You're kidding me. You don't have any favorite bands?" Lars shook his head. "Geez, no wonder you're so miserable all the time. We are definitely going to have to fix this." He cocked his head to the side and flicked his eyes to his left, motioning to the desk by the bed. "Go peep what's in that top drawer, little man," he said.

Lars did as he was told, sliding down the ladder and going to the desk. Opening the top drawer, it was immediately apparent what his older brother wanted him to find; it was a black MP3 player, nearly a decade old by the looks of its scratched screen and physical buttons, with white earbuds wrapped around its body. It was all alone there, almost like the drawer was a small temple thats only purpose was to house it, and when Lars took the device into his hands he had the feeling like he might as well have been carrying the holy grail.

"Most people these days just use their phones for everything," Luke said as Lars returned to him on the upper bunk and handed him the device, "but I like the idea of having something for no other purpose besides playing music. Makes it seem almost sacred in a way, you feel me?" Sacred. Luke's voice was taking on almost a religious zeal the more he spoke, his hands gesturing passionately in the air as he delivered his sermon; a preacher trying to make a neophyte out of an agnostic. "You see Lars, music isn't just something you flip on the radio for to kill time on a car ride, it's like…it's like an escape, ya know? An escape from all the things in life trying to keep you down. It doesn't judge you or make fun of you for being who you are, it makes you feel better about it. Whatever it is you're feeling and whenever you're feeling it, there's a song out there made by people who've felt the same thing, who understand what you're going through. I dunno man, seems to me like if anybody in this house could appreciate having an escape, it'd be you."

It was a good speech, Luke thought. Surely a performance like that deserved applause, or at least some sort of positive reaction from his little brother. But he was disappointed to see that Lars' face hadn't shifted at all from its stony demeanor. "Poetry was my escape," he said quietly, "before Lynn ruined it." All of a sudden he was back to being that sad kid broken down in the hallway earlier that day.

With increased resolve, Luke flipped on the MP3 player and scrolled through artists until he found what he was looking for. "Here, put this in," he said, handing one of the earbuds to his brother, and Lars complied as Luke put the other one in his own ear.

"What are we gonna listen to?"

"You see Lars, part of your problem is that you're so quiet all the time. I think it's about time you started living up to the Loud namesake. That's why some Scandinavian Death Metal is in order. Lemme know what you think." With the preface out of the way, he clicked play, and immediately Lars could tell that his life was never going to be the same.

The most striking thing at first were the drums. For the first few seconds that was all that played, great heavy drums erupting like thunderclaps at three hundred beats-per-minute. Each clash of cymbals shot against his eardrum; foreign invaders putting up a violent fight to breach a gate. It was almost painful, the pounding in his head, and yet Lars didn't want it to stop. He could feel his heart beat ever faster, as though trying to match the song's rhythm. Then the guitars came in.

Having lived in the same house as Luke for all his life, Lars might've expected to be accustomed to the loud chugging of guitars, but in all his years he never experienced anything quite like what he was hearing then. If the drums pounded against his eardrums, the guitars pierced through them entirely, snaking their way through his body like burning kerosene and lighting his insides on fire. Somebody on the track started singing, if it could be called that, from the depths of their belly, the voice guttural and coarse and pained, like an animal trapped in the awful grinding of an industrial machine, itself rusted and falling into disrepair. What that voice was singing about Lars had no idea. Occasionally he could make out words like "decapitation" and "lacerate," but otherwise everything was lost in the noise that was so thick he could almost feel it coating his body like mud. As a writer, Lars supposed he should've been annoyed that he couldn't make out the words, but to his surprise he didn't really care. Whatever the lyrics were, there was no denying the adrenaline that now raced through his veins. There was also no denying the raw emotion that he was hearing. He remembered how after Lynn destroyed his poetry book, he wanted to scream but couldn't bring himself to do so. All of that pain and anger that Lars had felt earlier that day was now being externalized in the screaming he heard from the headphones. A voice for the voiceless.

Suddenly it dawned on him what Luke had meant earlier about how music could be an escape.

"You like it?" Luke yelled. Even with one ear free, Lars could barely hear him over the music. Rather than shout back that he did, in fact, love what he was hearing, Lars grinned and nodded to the time signature, and it wasn't long before he was full on head banging, his hair flying back and forth to reveal his eyes that were shut tight. "Yeah! Now lemme see you throw up some devil horns!" Lars was happy to oblige, throwing his fists in the air with his pinkies and index fingers outstretched. When he opened his eyes, only for a moment, he saw his brother matching his actions, a big smile with his tongue hanging out on his face.

They sat up there for over an hour, listening to the whole album together as they played air guitar and head-banged and waved devil horns through the air. In that small space of time, so perfect and without comparison to any other experience in his young life, Lars not once thought of Lynn's teasing or the cruel way Loki turned on him when he was expecting his oldest brother to help him out. He didn't even think of his ruined poetry book. Best of all, he was starting to come around to the idea that maybe his big brother was right; maybe he wasn't a loser after all. After all, how could he be a loser if somebody as cool as Luke was having so much fun spending time with him?

Finally the last song faded away and their impromptu mosh session had to come to an end. Luke powered off the MP3 player and wrapped the headphones back around its plastic and metal chassis, much to Lars' disappointment.

"Can't we listen to some more?" Lars asked with a trace of sadness.

"Not right now," Luke said. "It's getting pretty late and dinner should be ready soon. But we'll do this again, don't you worry. There's a whole world of music I want to share with you that I know you're gonna love. Grunge, industrial, emo…you know, emo gets a bad rep, but its actually a pretty cool genre if you know who to listen to. Sunny Day Real Estate, Brand New, Promise Ring…I'll make you a sick playlist, don't worry."

Before Lars could say how much that would mean to him, he heard the sound of distant footsteps bounding up the stairs, followed by Lane calling out "Luke!" at the top of his lungs. Within seconds, the young comedian was standing outside the door. Upon seeing the two brothers up on the top bunk, he seemed mildly taken aback. "Oh, hey Lars. What are you guys doing?"

"Nothin'," Luke said, "just hangin' with the raddest little bro ever is all." Said little bro couldn't help but beam with pride at the descriptor, even when Luke grabbed him in his arms and gave him a playful noogie, one that didn't hurt at all in contrast to the ones Lynn sometimes gave him.

"Oh, sorry," Lane said, "I should've been more specific. I meant what were you doing before I came in?"

After Lars and him both finished groaning at the joke, Luke asked, "anyway, whatcha need?"

"Dad just told me to get everybody for dinner is all, and you guys are the only ones not downstairs yet."

"Kay, we'll be right there." His message delivered, Lane turned and walked away, back to the dining room where the rest of the family was waiting. As soon as he left, Luke looked again at his little brother, happy to see that he still had a small grin on his face as he started the climb down the ladder and back to the floor. He was nearly out the door when he heard Luke shouting behind him, "hey Lars, catch!" Turning around, Lars saw the MP3 player hurtling towards his face, and it would've struck him in the nose if he hadn't managed to catch it. "That belongs to you now."

Awestruck, Lars turned it over in his hands, half expecting it to blink out of existence if he examined it too closely. Thankfully, it remained there in his grasp. "You're sure?" he asked.

"Yeah," Luke said, shrugging like it were no big deal, "It's only eight gigabytes, so it doesn't hold that much, but it should be perfect for a kid like you who's just starting to get into music. I've been saving up for something with more storage anyway. Besides, you need it more than I do. You can use it to drown out Lynn when he's being an asshole."

"I…I don't know what to say," Lars said, his voice choking up a bit. After a moment's thought, he settled on, "thank you, Luke."

Again, Luke seemed nonchalant. "Don't sweat it. And feel free to drop in if you ever wanna listen to some jams or toss lyrics around or whatever. You're a pretty chill guy, I like hangin' with you. Oh, and one more thing Lars."

"What?"

"There's a song on there by Tim Hardin. I want you to give it a listen whenever you're feeling like the black sheep of the family, alright?"

"What's it called?"

"You'll know it when you see it."

With a final nod, Lars ran out the door, sporting a giant smile as he untangled the headphones and placed one in his ear, powering up the MP3 player and playing the death metal song he had already picked as his favorite, knowing that if he was careful he'd be able to hide the wire cleverly through his shirt so he could listen to music all during dinner without anybody knowing.

Luke, meanwhile, lagged behind, choosing to stay in his bed an extra moment as he watched his kid brother run with more excitement than he'd ever seen from him before. Laying on his back, arms crossed behind his head and a satisfied smirk on his face, Luke couldn't help but feel proud of himself. If Lars was, as he said, the raddest little brother in the world, then he felt pretty confident in calling himself the raddest big brother in the world.

As soon as dinner was over and he was excused, Lars hid his new MP3 player in his pocket and rushed back to his bedroom, eager to lock himself inside his coffin and go to work writing those lyrics that his big brother commissioned. His mind was overflowing with ideas; gone was the writer's block that plagued him earlier that day, replaced with potential lyrics that he was desperate to put on paper before he forgot them. Without his poetry journal, he had to tear out a few pages from his school math notebook. It was a crude method, and he would've certainly preferred something more dignified to contain what he was sure would be not just one of his finest works, but one of the greatest songs of all time, but in the end he supposed beggars couldn't be choosers.

He just hoped Lynn wouldn't tease him too much when he saw him there in his bed, writing away, though not because Lynn's words could hurt his feelings. Now that Lars knew that he was cool enough for Luke to actively want to hang out with him, Lynn's opinion didn't really matter to him at the moment. No, Lars just didn't want anything to distract him as he scribbled and scrawled. He supposed, of course, that if it came down to it he could always pop his earbuds back in and cancel out any of his roommate's insults.

He opened the lid to his coffin to climb inside, but was surprised to see a black moleskine journal, one far more expensive looking than the old 99 cent thing he was using before, laying on the pillow. Taking it into his hands, he flipped through the gold-edged pages and found many of them were already written upon with words that he recognized as his own, all except for the very first page, which bared a handwritten message in black cursive:

Lynn probably won't ever want to admit it, but he felt really bad for wrecking your book, so he and Loki went out and bought this for you. I went through your old one and copied as much as I could (don't worry, I wore gloves), but I'm sorry to say a lot of it was unsalvageable. Looks like you'll just have to come up with some new poems to take their place! You have a beautiful talent, Lars. Don't let anybody ever stop you from writing!

-Linka :)

It was weird, having a smiley face drawn in a book that contained some if his most depressing pieces of writing, but Lars couldn't care less. He was too busy fighting back tears of joy. He heard Lynn enter the room behind him and jump onto his own bed, where he opened a sports magazine and started reading it.

"Lynn, I-" Lars started to say.

"Don't make it weird, dude," Lynn cut him off, then went right back to reading.

Happy beyond compare, Lars climbed into bed and opened his new book to a clean page, taking a pen from off the floor and preparing to start his task. But something was nagging at the back of his mind, and Lars couldn't bring himself to begin until he scratched that itch.

Putting in his earphones, he turned on his gift from Luke and scrolled through artists until he found Tim Hardin. Clicking on his name, it was immediately clear which song Luke wanted him to listen to. He pressed play, expecting more death metal, but what he got instead was a gentle acoustic guitar softly playing with lush orchestration and a crooning voice singing over the melody:

Here I am back home again
I'm here to rest
All they ask is where I've been
Knowing I've been West

I'm the family's unowned boy
Golden curls of envied hair
Pretty girls with faces fair
See the shine in the Black Sheep Boy

If you love me, let me live in peace
Please understand
That the black sheep can wear the golden fleece
And hold a winning hand

I'm the family's unowned boy
Golden curls of envied hair
Pretty girls with faces fair
See the shine in the Black Sheep Boy

Only after listening to that beautiful song several times did Lars finally start to write again.

AN: Thank you for reading this story about a boy helping his kid brother feel cool.