Author's Note

I don't think every chapter is going to have an approximate equal length. This chapter is shorter than the last, but I feel like it tells it story well enough. Anyways, I hope you enjoy.

Living a Loud Life

Chapter 2: New Car Smell

The first few specks of light had barely cracked over a new morning sky. Dew was still freshly attached to vegetation outside. The air was crisp and devoid of the hustle and bustle that would come with each following hour. It was the perfect sunrise for Lana to get started for a brand-new shiny day.

"You smell that world? That's the smell of a fresh start…aaand an overdue body wash."

Jumping out from underneath her covers, she grabbed a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a bar of soap and headed towards the bathroom down the hall. One of the humps, you had to get used to in apartment of this size was sharing communal space. Aside from the bedrooms which offered moderate privacy, everything was essentially open for every tenant. Even the bathroom door lacked a lock. Lola had complained about it when they'd first arrived and demanded that Lana fix it, but Lana saw it as but a minor inconvenience at best, not worth the touch of her handyman fingers.

That isn't to say that Lana did no work around the place. In the first week the twins started living here, Lana took stock of every faulty appliance, scraped floor, and damaged wall. The next Monday she hauled in a huge amount of supplies and went to town fixing damn near everything she could touch, aside from Lola's bathroom door request that is.

The leaky faucet in the kitchen sink? Fixed. The coffee table near in front of the couch with the noticeable dent? Sanded and lacquered to perfection. The faulty thermostat that nearly set the apartment on fire? Tinkered with and repaired.

That loudmouth of her sister's which wouldn't shut up?

"Mm…I'll get to that eventually."

Lana was shuffling these thoughts around when her leg unexpectedly met with a furry friend. Gazing down, a smile crossed her face.

"Oh, well look who it is, up and at'em this early!"

Lana laid a hand down and gave a loving rub to her dog, Charleston. Technically speaking, the contract to the apartment was iffy about pets, only allowing them in cases of mental health or disability. Luckily for her, Clyde's history with psychiatrists gave him the permission of having one such pet. Of course, he only got said dog after Lana begged him, saddened that she couldn't take her aging pets at home with her after already being away with them in college.

Charleston wasn't her only pet she lived with, however. Echo, a gecko, Ferb, a gerbil, Sunny a goldfish, and an emperor scorpion named Sting were all animal residents of Lana's space. Despite her working multiple jobs, the blondie still found periods each day to feed each of her animals as well as care for all their hygienic needs, occasionally at the expense of her own. While Lana was comfortable with her dirtiness, she was aware of the necessity in keeping her fauna in a clean environment. Her personal mess was confined to her side of the room after all.

"Good boy, good boy. You want some food? Go for a walk?"

The Doberman breed gave a happy bark in response.

"I hear you and I will. I gotta wash up a little though, now. Keep it quiet, okay? We don't want to wake up Lola and go through another one of her outbursts like last time."

Removing her hand, the young woman crossed through the doorway of the bathroom. Closing said door, she put down the items in her hands and began removing her articles of sleepwear, a light green tank top and pair of navy gym shorts. Stepping in front of the toilet, she removed the washcloth hanging above on a stainless-steel towel bar. Drawing the shower curtains aside, Lana climbed into the porcelain bathtub, turning the handle and letting the waterdrops fall onto her needy skin. Yes, Lana wasn't the most seeking person when it came to a bath or any form of bodily maintenance. The idea of makeup, fashion, and really cleanliness had always been a load of hogwash in her mind and in a way, a contradictory of her honest identity. To her, the layers of filth earned after manual labor was quintessential to who she was.

With a washcloth in one hand, and a bar of soap in the other, Lana began wiping down her body of all the filth and muck accumulated. Two days of sweat, dirt, and grease stains peeled off her skin like painter's tape off a wall. As sheets of particles were rubbed away, so too, was the stench of smoke, grime, oil, and fur. Taking some suds, she started to scrub at her scalp, loosening all the amassed specks both hidden and visible in her hair.

Indifference was the mentality Lana took when it came to her sun colored tresses. She never found herself particular or wanting of one style over another. Several of her sisters had recommended different cuts, ranging from pixie to trying out curls, yet she had always declined. Like being clean, the mere idea of setting aside multiple minutes to maintain a mane everyday was entirely ridiculous to her. It was a huge time waster and made her feel like Lola of all people.

Sighing, Lana voiced her frustration to no one. "Can I go one hour without having her name in my head?"

That was something she had to do. Stop comparing herself to her.

It was hard though. Harder than she thought, now more than ever. Living together just the two of the plus one meant that a good portion of her week was spent in a space with her being one of two foreign faces to look at. To be fair, the comparisons weren't started by her. Everybody already did it the second they learned one of the two was an identical twin, as if there was some spell that drew people to investigate the similarities themselves.

"Tch, it's all stupid Lola's fault. If she wasn't such a show off, we wouldn't get half the annoying attention we do."

Truthfully, Lana had grown accustomed to having part of herself, in essence, shared with someone else. She'd of course, known Lola her whole life, and sharing with her, whether she liked it or not, wasn't something she'd been nurtured to live with. Still, it didn't make it any easier. There was the voice in her head that whispered every now and then that Lola resented being a twin, but Lana ignored it, as best as she could. Simply put, she'd accepted the circumstances she was born in and did her best to deal with them.

Perhaps that's part of the reason she came to live with her.

"Forget about her. It's time to focus on me and the present."

Foregoing those feelings, Lana turned the shower dial off and got out. After hanging up her washcloth, she used the towel hanging next to it and dried the droplets left along her stark figure, from her worn feet to her moist hair. Wrapping the somewhat damp towel around herself, the laved lass grasped her toothbrush and toothpaste. Squeezing out a sizeable dollop of the dentifrice on the bristles, Lana set to work scouring her molars and incisors. Stopping after 40 seconds, she closed her mouth and gargled before spitting out the mixture of saliva and cleaning fluids into the sink below. Opening wide, she inspected her teeth. Satisfied, she turned the faucet on and drained the ill concoction down the drain. Picking up the pajamas she tossed down earlier, Lana collected the remainder of her items and exited the lavatory.

Not one for modesty, Lana strolled casually through the hall back to her room. She briefly wondered where Charleston could have gone but figured he was moseying around in the kitchen, waiting for his bowl to be filled. In her never-ending train of thought Lana's brain came onto the subject of Clyde.

Her and Clyde didn't exactly have some unbroken bond since they were kids. When one boiled it down, they're relationship had always been associates having the mutual acquaintance of Lincoln, granted one of them was related. Even moving into living together, their connection had changed much beyond the occasional request for food or help around the apartment. Clyde kind of kept to himself, and while Lola might've been apathetic to it all, Lana was a bit wanting for a friendship of sorts, outside of work that is.

Notwithstanding the unspoken distance, Lana hadn't been blind everything involving Clyde. Sharing space together led to a person picking up on another's quirks, both good and bad. Despite his many stories on the matter, Lincoln hadn't explained quite well enough just how much of a clean freak Clyde could be. Call it O.C.D., germaphobia, or a sanitary upbringing but it was clear that something in his head drove him to have all of his personal belongings in an orderly manner. Lola once had some orange juice and left the carton accidentally open in the fridge. The poor guy nearly had a panic attack when he saw it later. What's more is that when it came to his work, something he didn't talk much about with them, it was easy to see whether he was having a good or bad day. The tells in his body language, from the nervous rubbing of an arm, to the sing song bobbing of his head, made his mood all the more clear in her eyes.

Yet what was arguably most fascinating to Lana, was that her roommate seemed to share, to a certain degree, her brother's innate stance to help others out. Yes, there was bit more cowardice in some scenarios, usually involving her twin. However, more often than not he came through with his promises.

"Heh, considering Lola and I's little spat, it seems like at least one human in this place has my back."

Upon returning to her room, Lana dropped her towel and pajamas again on the floor. Placing her bath products on top of her four-drawer beech dresser, she opened the compartments to gather her attire for the day. With a quickness, she began putting on her outfit. In less than minute she was fully clothed in a moss green mechanic shirt and faded denim overalls. Grabbing her hat, the only constant of what she wore, the young Ms. Loud maneuvered out of her room, going into the kitchen to get both her and Charleston something nourishing to really wake up.