Wow, quite the interesting reception to the first chapter. And sorry for the delay. Well, here's chap 2.
Lisa sighed as she got off the bus and headed home. It had been a nice conference, where she got to converse with people of a similar intellect. She was sad it was over, but also somewhat happy to be home.
As she walked up the front steps of her house, she found that it was oddly quiet. Despite not needing to, she looked at her phone to confirm the day was in fact Sunday. So why was her house quiet?
Opening the door, Lisa saw Luan and Leni sitting on the couch watching TV, the latter holding Lily. She noticed that despite being absorbed in whatever they were watching, the older girls seemed somewhat troubled. Lisa thought nothing of it as she greeted them before heading into the kitchen.
In the kitchen, she saw Lucy and the twins at the table, making snacks. They, too, had somber looks on their faces. Again, Lisa thought nothing of it as she grabbed a juice box and made her way upstairs.
Upon getting to the top of the stairs, she could hear Luna and Lynn in their rooms, each doing their respective passions. Luna was strumming a guitar, but seemed to be trying to play the blues; Lynn was roughly hitting her punching bag, muttering some not-so-nice words while she did so. Lisa again had to admit this was odd behavior. She almost walked into Lynn's room to ask what was going on, when Lori threw her door open.
"LINCOLN, GET IN HERE!"
At the other end of the hall, Lincoln timidly opened his door and peered out. Upon seeing his oldest sister glaring at him, he immediately shut his door. Lori growled as she stomped down the hall and threw her brother's door open, stepping inside before slamming it shut.
Despite knowing it was wrong, Lisa walked over and placed her ear on Lincoln's door and listened. Despite yelling a moment ago, Lori was now keeping quiet as she spoke to her brother.
"Alright, Lincoln, listen up and listen GOOD!" Lori snapped, and Lisa could hear Lincoln gulp, "I'm only gonna say this ONCE: your pervy little friend crossed a line yesterday, and just when I was beginning to think he was ok. Now, I know Clyde is like a brother to you, but I am your sister. So, you have to choose: him or me."
"W…what?" Lincoln asked timidly, and Lisa's eyes went wide. Clyde had crossed a line? What had he done? As far as Lisa could remember, Clyde had actually been making strides to getting over his obsessive crush on her oldest female sibling.
"You heard me!" Lori snapped, "You can't be his friend and my brother at the same time, so choose! NOW!"
"N…no!" Lincoln said defiantly, and Lisa silently said goodbye to her only male sibling.
"What did you just say?" Lori growled dangerously.
"I said no!" Lincoln snapped back, "I love both of you. So what if Clyde made a poor error in judgement? He's still my best friend. Now, get the HECK out of my room!"
Lisa wisely stepped back into her room as Lincoln's door was thrown open, Lori looking absolutely furious as she stomped back to her room. Lincoln nervously looked at her retreating form, before sighing as he shut his door.
Ok, Lisa had to figure out what was going on NOW! She closed her door and made her way to her bed. She pressed a hidden button, which caused her bed to raise up and placed itself against the wall, the underside being a giant TV. She typed on the keyboard underneath it, going to yesterday's feed.
The whole family knew about Lisa's hidden cameras planted throughout the house, but no one had ever done anything about them. They just decided to assume that Lisa was not watching them in private, precious moments, even though they knew this was likely not true.
As Lisa zoomed through the morning tapes, she paused when she saw Clyde arrive. She quickly resumed fast-forwarding through them playing video games, pausing again when she saw Lori walk downstairs and Clyde NOT freak out. Following this, a couple more minutes of game playing, before Clyde went upstairs to use the bathroom.
As Lisa watched the next 5 minutes of video (alternating between a few cameras as she did so), her eyes went wide in shock.
A few minutes later, the entire family was gathered in Lisa's room. Her TV was on display, no attempt to hide it.
"Family units, I have gathered you here for something very important," Lisa said, as she pulled up the footage she was looking for.
"Whatever this is, it'd better be quick!" Lori snapped, "I am NOT in the mood to be in the same household, let alone the same room as that little traitor!" Lori and Lincoln were standing at opposite ends of the group, though Lincoln still shrunk underneath his oldest sister's glare.
"Yes, about that," Lisa said uneasily, "I need to ask that each of you will stay put for what I'm about to show you. It's very important."
"Is everything ok, Lisa?" Rita asked her daughter nervously. Lori was already pretty upset; last thing either parent wanted was more anger in their household.
"Not yet, but it will be," Lisa replied, as she pressed PLAY.
The video showed Clyde enter the bathroom. A minute later, Lynn's hockey puck was shot against the door. Clyde stepped out, and Lynn zoomed past him into the bathroom, using the tub to shoot around, knocking the puck out from under Clyde's feet, before knocking into him as he stood up.
The collision caused Clyde to spin around uncontrollably into Lori and Leni's room, before crashing into Lori's dresser. As he let out a groan of pain, a pair of Lori's underwear fell from the top drawer onto Clyde's face.
Lisa paused the video as she looked to her family, who all had shocked looks on their faces. While they all looked surprised, Lisa noticed that her only brother and oldest sister looked horrifically guilty.
"What kind of friend am I?" Lincoln asked after a moment.
"What kind of monster am I?" Lori gasped, "Clyde wasn't being a perv, it was an accident. And…and it wasn't a moan of pleasure, it was a groan of pain. I just…I just jumped to conclusions without hearing him out." Lori looked down in shame, "I'm a horrible person."
"At least you're not his best friend," Lincoln sighed, "I didn't even think about jumping to his defense or hearing him out. I just grouped myself in with the rest of you, like some type of mob mentality. I owe Clyde a huge apology."
"Not as big of a one as I do," Lori said, still staring at the video screen.
"We ALL owe him an apology," Lynn spoke up, "Especially me. If I had been paying attention-"
"And NOT playing sports in the house," Her father interjected, causing a sheepish grin to appear on Lynn's face.
"Right," Lynn nodded, "If I hadn't done that, this wouldn't have happened."
"I'm gonna call Harold and Howard right now and inform them of this," Rita said, pulling out her cell phone.
At that moment, however, a knocking was heard at the front door. As Rita and Lynn Sr. made their way downstairs, Rita dialed up Harold's number. As they descended to the first floor, they suddenly heard a faint ringtone from behind the front door. Looking at each other in confusion, Rit opened the front door, revealing Harold and Howard standing on the front porch, both looking absolutely awful as Harold pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.
"Fellas, what are you doing here? And what's wrong?" Lynn Sr. asked in concern.
The McBrides looked at each other with deep sorrow, before turning to the Louds and sputtering out, "Clyde ran away!"
10 minutes later, the Louds were all gathered in their living room, listening as Mr. and Mr. McBride explained what had happened.
"…and when I went to wake him up, his room was empty," Howard sighed in misery, "I even found this note."
He handed a single piece of paper to Rita, who held it as all her kids gathered around and silently read it.
Dads,
What happened today showed me that you don't care about me. I didn't do that horrible thing, yet you wouldn't even give me the chance to explain myself. As such, I am leaving for a better life with hopefully better parents. Goodbye forever.
-Clyde
"That…that doesn't sound like Clyde," Lincoln looked at the letter in shock.
"But that's his handwriting," Lisa spoke up, causing everyone to look at her, "What? I may one day need to do some things that require the permission of someone who does not like me. Of course I have studied all of your penmanship so I may perfectly forge it should the need arise. Same goes for all your closest friends and love interests."
"As creepy as that may sound, Lisa's right," Howard spoke up, "I'd know Clyde's handwriting anywhere."
"Same," Harold nodded, as he tried not to break down crying as Rita handed him back the letter.
"Well, have you called the police?" Lynn Sr. asked.
"We were going to," Harold explained, "But first we wanted to check if Clyde had come here, maybe to try and apologize for what he did before he left."
At that, the Loud family all shot each other uneasy looks.
"Er…" Lori spoke up, looking down and rubbing her hands together, "About that…"
A few minutes later, Harold and Howard exited Lisa's room, having just watched the video of what actually happened when Clyde had supposedly been "panty raiding" Lori. Needless to say, both felt even crummier that they already had.
"We were ashamed of him," Howard choked out a sob, "But he didn't even do anything."
"What kid of fathers are we?" Harold couldn't hold it in anymore, and the waterworks started rushing out as he threw his arms around his husband, the two of them holding each other close. It broke the Louds' hearts to see them like this.
"Look, we're gonna find him, then we're gonna make it up to him," Lincoln said, a look of determination in his eyes, "I'm gonna call the guys, see if any of them have seen Clyde."
"We can ride our bikes around town, see if we see him," Lynn spoke up, Lana and Luan nodding.
"I can ride my princess car, too," Lola said.
"I can have Fangs spread the word to the other creatures of the night," Lucy added.
"And I'll take Vanzilla and drive around some of Clyde's favorite places," Lori said, looking down in shame.
"You don't have to do that," Harold said gratefully.
Rita smiled as she placed a hand on both the McBride's shoulder, "Clyde is like another son to us. We're more than happy to help."
Howard said, "And we really appreciate it."
Lynn Sr. spoke up, "How about we all try to track him down, then meet back here in a couple hours? If we haven't found him by then…" He paused and sighed, "We'd better call the police."
Everyone nodded, before heading downstairs, save for Lisa, who said she would stay and hack the street cams and security cameras to try and see if she could find Clyde.
The four parents (and Lily) headed out on foot to try and locate Clyde, while the oldest Loud girls got in either Vanzilla or on their bikes, with Lola and Lana getting in the princess car. From her room, Lucy spoke to Fangs, who then flew off, at which point she got out her Ouija Board to ask the spirits for help. In his room, Lincoln began dialing up the rest of his and Clyde's friends.
All the while, the oldest and the only son of the Louds both felt like the worst people on the planet, both hoping they would get the chance to make things right.
"…and then we spent the last couple hours searching around town for him, to no avail," Howard sighed, as one of the police officers took some notes.
"And you say that he ran away because of a misunderstanding?" The officer writing things down, Officer Flynn, asked, looking at the two men curiously.
"I can explain that," Lori sighed. It was about dinner time, and the Louds and McBrides had met up at the McBride household after having no luck finding Clyde anywhere. As such, they had called the police.
Officer Flynn took detailed notes as Lori explained (with Lynn piping up, too, when it came to her part) about what had happened the previous day, and how said events clearly contributed to Clyde running away.
"I just feel so awful," Lori sighed in misery, "Clyde's a good kid, and even though his crush on me could get to be a little much at times, I shouldn't have just assumed he did that without hearing his side of the story."
"And we should have trusted our son," Harold sighed, equally as miserable.
"Well, we'll put the word out," the other cop, Officer Maxwell, spoke up, "We'll find your boy. Don't worry."
The McBride's nodded, and after a couple more statements, the police left. Harold invited the Louds to stay for dinner, but none of them felt like cooking, so they ordered Chinese, which they ate in silence.
It had been a week since Clyde ran away, and Lincoln had never felt more depressed. He had had to tell his friends at school what had happened, and a few of them were actually disgusted that he didn't try to stick up for Clyde during the argument. A few others, however, were sympathetic to the Loud boy's plight, and wished him condolences.
As for Lori, she, too, had been receiving mixed reactions when people found out (it had made the news, and knowing that Lori's brother was friends with Clyde caused her friends to ask some questions). A couple were shocked that Clyde had NOT in fact panty-raided Lori, while others were disappointed that Lori would jump to conclusions without hearing the whole story.
Lynn had also been grouped in with her brother and oldest sister, seeing as it was revealed that she had caused the misunderstanding. At the very least, she, along with the majority of the rest of the sisters, was able to float under the radar with this whole thing.
As Lincoln was getting ready for bed on that Friday night, he thought back to how much had changed in just a week.
"Was it really just last Saturday that all this happened?" He muttered, as he changed into his pajamas and hopped into bed. Understandably, Lincoln hadn't been sleeping much, as the guilt over causing Clyde to run away was really getting to him.
As all the lights in the house turned off, Lincoln grabbed Bun-Bun, his cherished childhood stuffed rabbit, and clutched the toy tightly as he let a couple tears fall. Clyde was the brother Lincoln had always wanted, and yet when the time came, he treated Clyde…almost like how his sisters treat him. Lincoln wasn't cruel or bitter, but the family had in recent weeks acknowledged that they were slightly dysfunctional, and were trying to work on it. One thing that they had accepted was that the girls tended to gang up on Lincoln whenever he screwed up or they wanted something.
Lincoln shook his head. The family was working on themselves, and now wasn't the time to be thinking about that. All that mattered was that there were times the sisters, whether intentionally or not, made Lincoln feel like garbage, and that was exactly how he had made Clyde feel. Not considering his feelings, acting in some sort of a mob mentality, and just assuming he was wrong for no real reason other than he was the odd man out.
"If there was an award for universe's worst best friend ever, I'd win it in a landslide," Lincoln sighed miserably as he closed his eyes and tried to get to sleep. At the very least, tomorrow was Saturday, so the guilt-induced insomnia wouldn't bother Lincoln too much, as he could spend all day in bed.
As Lincoln lay in his room, trying to relax his mind, he thought he heard crackling. He tried to ignore it, but whatever it was kept crackling. He briefly wondered if whatever it was was coming from one of his sister's room (god they needed to work on their walls), but after listening, could tell it was coming from HIS room. Lincoln figured maybe his alarm or laptop needed a change of batteries. For now, he'd take the batteries OUT, and deal with it in the morning.
Lincoln got out of bed and did just that, and he thought he was in the clear. However, as he lay back down and turned his light off, the crackling started again.
"UGH!" Lincoln threw his covers off and turned on his light, looking all around. He was seriously considering taking any and all electrical devices he had in his room and throwing them out the window. He looked all around, wondering what it was…when his eyes rested upon his walkie, laying by the side of his dresser.
Lincoln wasn't someone who was overly eager or a natural downer, but he was just so scared that having hope in this situation would hurt even worse if it failed. But he couldn't stop himself. He reached down and picked up the walkie, the crackling growing louder as he held it to his ear. He timidly pressed the button and asked, "Clyde?"
More crackling, and Lincoln shook the walkie, even stepping onto his bed to see if that could boost the signal. It did. And what Lincoln heard made his blood run cold.
Though distorted, Clyde's voice rang out, "…need help! I've been kidnapped by some lunatic! Lincoln, please help!"
So, the Louds are caught up, and Lincoln and Lori feel awful, as do Clyde's dads. And now, Lincoln may have found out the shocking truth.
And yes, this story made reference to my previous story, "A Bit Dramatic for my Taste", where the family agrees they need to work on fixing their issues.
R&R
