Lincoln Loud liked to sleep in on Saturdays.

Every day throughout the week, he woke to the shrill cry of his alarm at six'o'clock sharp, staggered to the shower, and stood under the spray regretting every decision he had ever made in his life. Next, he pulled his clothes on, made his way to the kitchen, and slammed cups of coffee until he felt half-way alive. By that point, his sisters were usually up and in his face. Hi, Lincy this and why are you so grouchy, Lincoln that. I'm grouchy because I just woke up, how 'bout that? Sixteen and tall with lanky limbs, messy hair, and an Adam's apple that stuck out like a knife blade, Lincoln was at that age where sleep was all-important. Studies suggest teens need more Z's than children or adults, and he was living proof; He could sleep for eight full hours and still be a zombie in the morning.

The weekend was the only time he could catch up on sleep, but not this week...not if he wanted to get his hands on the brand new issue of Ase Save.

What's that, you might ask? A misspelling of Ace Savvy?

Nope.

It was a hentai.

That is: It was straight-up cartoon porn. Well, not just porn: It had a lot of gore, crude jokes, and adult storylines too, like the issue where Ase's wife divorced him and took the house. LOL. Lincoln wasn't going to lie, he loved the naked women that graced every other page, but he read it mainly for the over the top humor. If it was just boobies he was after, he had an iPhone, the internet was literally right there. He sure wouldn't shell out 25 bucks an issue for just hentai.

Anyway, Ase Save (pronounced, he assumed, as Ace Savvy, though the creator had never said, probably for legal reasons) dropped every month on the 25th, and Lincoln marked his calendar so he wouldn't forget. This time around, D-Day just happened to fall on a Saturday. If it were any other comic, he'd just swing by and grab it at a decent hour, but Ase Save was a small, limited run thing, so when the issues sold out, my friend, they sold out. You could buy one from eBay every once in a blue moon - if you had five hundred bucks you didn't have a better use for. Lincoln liked Ase Save and all, but not enough to drop that kind of money on it.

Nope.

But he did like it enough to get up at 4am and go stand in line at Komix Kingdom for one. The alarm roused him from a deep slumber, and he reached out and slapped the OFF button with a low grumble. His head hurt, his eyes were bleary, and his brain spun like he was drunk. He took a deep breath, blinked, and almost went back to sleep, but forced himself to sit up, hands splayed to either side of him to keep from falling over. Did he really want this comic that badly? Did he really?

Yes, he did. Comics were kind of his thing. Some guys liked sports, some liked movies, and others still liked carpentry; Lincoln liked comics and graphic novels. Some people (like his sister Lynn) made fun of him for it, but those people are dumb, comics rule.

When he trusted himself to stand, Lincoln got to his feet, snapped on the bedside lamp, and hurriedly dressed in a pair of jeans and a red and black flannel shirt over a white T. He pulled his tennis shoes on, grabbed his green Jansport backpack from its spot between the bed, and sat it on the desk. He unzipped it, opened it, and rummaged through it to make sure he had everything he needed for a long wait. Battery powered charging port for his phone? Check. Snacks? Check. Drinks? Check. He shrugged into a denim jacket, buttoned it, and slung the pack over his shoulder. He pulled a knit cap low over his head, turned the light out, and went to the door.

The hallway was pitch black and silent. He slipped out of the room and crept to the head of the stairs, floorboards creaking underfoot. On the step, he gripped the bannister and tip-toed to the bottom. In the living room, the face of the DVD player flashed rhythmically and a nightlight plugged in beneath an end table cast a puddle of murky glow on the carpet. Lincoln went into the kitchen, his step firmer and surer. He opened the fridge, scanned the top shelf, and snatched a can of Monster. Cracked it open and took a long, thirsty drink. It wouldn't give him the same edge coffee would, but he needed something to jumpstart his day.

Just then, the overhead light came on and cold white brilliance filled the world, stinging his eyes. He winced and looked over his shoulder. Lynn, clad in a long white T-shirt and socks, stood in the threshold to the living room, a baseball bat clutched in her hands. Her hair stuck out at messy angles and dark bags underpinned her bloodshot eyes. She let out a deep breath and relaxed. "I thought you were a burglar," she said.

Lincoln shut the door. "Pretty sure a burglar would raid more than the fridge," he said. He leaned against the counter and took a drink.

Resting the bat in the crook of her neck, Lynn said, "Some people might keep money in there.' She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "What are you doing up? It's barely five in the morning."

"The new issue of Ase Save comes out today and me and Clyde are going to the mall to get a copy."

He didn't tell her what Ase Save was or that it was packed with forty-eight pages of blood, guts, ass, tits, and Ase worrying over his 401(k), but that really wasn't her business to begin with, so…

"Dude, at five in the morning?"

Lincoln shrugged. "We wanna get there first."

He explained that the issue was limited edition, and she rolled her eyes like he was the world's biggest dork. "You're a weirdo."

"That's me," Lincoln said and pushed away from the counter. He slammed the rest of his Monster and tossed the empty into the trash. "Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta get going."

He was at the front door when she called tentatively out to him. He laid his hand on the knob and half turned to face her. "Hang on, I wanna come with."

Wait, what?

Come with?

If she did that, she'd see what kind of, ahem, reading material he liked. He was as confident and self-assured as a teenage boy can be, but that didn't mean he wanted his family to know he read something like Ase Save. That was embarrassing.

"Uh...you sure?" he asked, stopping Lynn on the bottom step. "We're gonna be out there for, like, you know, five hours. Standing in line. Not moving. You're gonna hate it."

Lynn was, and always had been, a ball of crackling, can't-stay-still energy, and being still was to her what taking a bath in garlic was to a vampire.

A look of uncertainty crossed her face and her resolve visibly wavered.

"It's gonna be really boring," he went on, "even I don't really like it."

"What time does the place open?" she asked.

"Ten," Lincoln said.

She scrunched her lips contemplatively to the side and cocked her hip, her ponytail swishing like a pendulum. "Hmmm...well…"

Lincoln nodded. "I totally understa -"

"...I'll just bring my football."

With that, she hurried up the stairs. Lincoln sighed and hung his head. Great. Real nice. He should have known. Lynn was literally the most stubborn person to ever live. Once she made up her mind about something, she made it up and you couldn't dissuade her for anything.

An idea struck him then.

He'd just ditch her.

Heart slamming, he jerked the door open, went out, and pulled it closed behind him. He rushed down the steps, darted across the lawn, and grabbed his bike from beside the garage. He jumped on, pushed off, wobbled, then got his balance. He pedaled down the driveway, hung a sharp right, and pumped his legs, the cold night air blowing against his face. Darkened houses cheered him on and stars twinkled down at him from the lightening heavens like winking eyes (good one, Linc, XD). He didn't mean to brag, but they didn't call him "The Man With A Plan" for nothing...and by 'they' he meant 'himself.'

Twenty minutes after losing Lynn, Lincoln pulled up to the North Woods Shopping Centre, a long, L-shaped strip mall anchored by a Food-Lion. Komix Kingdom was on the very end next to a Chinese take out place. A line of people stood at the door, some in lawn chairs like football tailgaters. Clyde, dressed in jeans and a jacket, waved to him from the back of the queue, and Lincoln rode over. He parked, jumped off, and set the kickstand. "Hey, buddy," Clyde greeted.

"You got the stuff?" Lincoln asked without preamble.

Clyde grinned and stepped aside to reveal two canvas chairs flanking a cooler. "Way ahead of you."

"My man," Lincoln said appreciatively.

They each sat in one of the chairs and Clyde poured them cups of coffee from a thermos. He handed one to Lincoln, and Lincoln nodded his thanks. "How many people are in front of us?"

"We're number twenty-nine," Clyde said.

Lincoln whistled.

"Tell me about it, and I got here at 4:30."

Typical. Every month he and Clyde got here disgustingly early and there were always people ahead of them no matter the hour. One time, they thought they were slick and rolled up at 2am to get a jump on the crowd.

Yeah, that didn't work: There were guys with freaking tents set up. They even had a little fire and everything. Like, okay, I get it, we're comic book nerds and we have no life, but damn. For the longest time, his and Clyde's goal in life was to be first, but there was always someone bigger, badder, and dorkier than them.

He couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not. On the one hand, not being a hopeless geek was awesome. It meant that one day he'd have a girlfriend and not troll 4chan from his mother's basement (have sex, incel, says the man who's never had sex). On the other hand, it meant that he was a failure at the one thing he truly dedicated himself to.

Hmm. He'd have to think on that one. As it stood right now, he had a hot cup of coffee, a brand new issue of Ase Save to look forward to, and - what's that?

In the darkness, something moved. He leaned forward and squinted his eyes just as Lynn appeared on her bike. His heart sank into his stomach. Oh no. What was she doing here?

She parked next to Lincoln's bike, hopped off, and removed her helmet. She slipped the chin strap around the handle bar, saw them, and flashed a big, bright smile. "Is that your sister?" Clyde asked.

Lincoln propped his elbow on the arm of the chair and massaged his temples with his thumb and forefinger. "Yes," he said.

"Yo, nerds," Lynn said and dropped onto the cooler.

"Hey, Lynn," Clyde said. "I'm kind of surprised to see you here."

Lynn shrugged. "Eh, just tryna get some quality time with my baby bro before I have to leave for college."

She half stood, grabbed Lincoln in a headlock, and ground her knuckles into his scalp. Lincoln cried out and pulled away with a breathless, "Get offa me."

Releasing him, Lynn sat.

"What are you even doing here?" Lincoln asked. "How did you know where we were?"

Lynn rolled her eyes to the sky, where streaks of light blue and soft purple heralded the coming of day. "Hmmm...you told me."

Did he? He tried to remember but couldn't. Then again, he was barely awake, and in that state, he did all kinds of silly stuff. One time, he came out of his room only to realize when he was halfway to the John that he wasn't wearing any underwear - he tossed and turned a lot sometimes and more than once, his undies made their way off. Thank God no one saw him. His sisters loved teasing him and each other, and if one saw him walking balls naked down the hallway, he'd never hear the end of it.

"How did you find us?" he asked, rephrasing the question. "I didn't think you knew where Komix Kingdom was."

"I didn't," Lynn grinned, "but Google did."

Ah.

Yay, technology.

Lynn spotted the thermos and lit up. "Hey, is that coffee?"

"Yeah," Clyde said, "you want some?"

"Uh, yeah," she said as though that should be obvious.

Clyde poured some into a plastic cup and handed it to her. "Thanks," she said. "I stopped at 7-11 but the coffee smelled funny." She tossed back her cup and smacked her lips. "So, we're waiting on some Ace Savvy, huh?"

"We sure are," Clyde said.

Lynn spread her legs and rested her forearms on her knees like a construction worker taking a load off. "Cool, cool, Ace Savvy's alright. We saw that movie about him the other day, right, Linc?"

"Yeah," Lincoln said.

Three days ago, Lincoln was sitting up in bed watching a bootleg of the new Ace Savvy movie Forces of Justice when Lynn threw open his door and came right in like she owned the place. She sat next to him, asked what "we" were watching, then made him scoot over and sat next to him. His room and his bed were both very small and thus he spent most of the movie pinned against the wall. Lynn, true to form, fidgeted the whole time and talked. Who's that guy, Linc? What's that woman's name? Why did Doc Brown build that giant robot Ace? Why doesn't Ace just use his super punch? I thought he had a super punch. Doesn't he have a super punch? Finally, she got bored and fell asleep, head lolling on his shoulder and drool dribbling down her chin. Getting out from between her and the wall took almost ten minutes.

Oh, and then there was the day before yesterday when - nevermind, getting off track here.

"Doc Brown was pretty cool," she said now. "I still don't know why he built that robot instead of just using a bomb to destroy the city. I mean, it was kind of convoluted. All you gotta do with a bomb is press a button and BOOM, mission accomplished." At boom, she threw herself back and kicked her legs in the air. The cooler on which she perched rocked and almost tipped over.

"Well, he didn't want to destroy it per se," Clyde said, "he wanted to enslave it. He needed to paralyze its infrastructure bring the people to heel, so he built the robot -"

Lynn cut him off. "He should have just blown the place up." She shrugged. "Easy."

"But if he did that -"

She waved him off. "I didn't see what happened in the end 'cause I fell asleep, but I bet he lost. Did he lose, Linc?"

Lincoln crossed his arms and gazed into the dusky morning. Komix Kingdom didn't open until ten. There was no way Lynn would last until then. All he had to do was wait it out. In an hour, maybe two, she'd leave and he could buy his copy of Ase Save in peace.

It didn't go down that way. Lynn stuck around like her butt was made of Gorilla Glue. She and Clyde debated every scene of the movie she could remember; she drank all the coffee and then started downing Monsters from the cooler; she got bored, grabbed her football, and tried to get Lincoln to play catch with her - when he begged off, she recruited some fat guy in Buddy Holly glasses and a beanie, then drilled him in the face by accident (you gotta work on your catch, she said as his buddies lead him away, blood gushing from his swollen nostrils). She jogged in place, dropped to the ground and did fifty push-ups, ran from one end of the parking lot to the other, and had Lincoln hold her feet while she did sit-ups. By the time she was done, sweat glistened on her face and arms, and dark patches dampened the armpits of her white tank top; her face flushed from exertion and her chest heaved for air.

"You wanna try, Linc?" she asked. "I'll spot you."

Ew, no. "Nah, I'm good."

"You sure?" she asked, then looked at Clyde. "McBride, you're up."

Clyde froze like a deer in the headlights. "Uh...I dunno, I'm not very physical."

"Yeah," Lynn said, "I can tell. Get over here."

Clyde hesitated, then got up and did as Lynn said. He laid down in front of her, laced his hands behind his head, and propped his legs up in an M. She pressed down on his feet. "Alright...go!"

He did five before flopping back, winded and sweating. "C'mon, Clyde, I know you got a few more in you."

"I...can't...do it," Clyde huffed.

She looked over her shoulder at Lincoln. "Can you beat f -?"

"No."

At nine'o'clock, the line stretched all the way to the sidewalk, all flannel, zits, and anime T-shirts. A fat guy with greasy hair clutched a SVTFOE body pillow to his chest and a tall, lanky black person (Lincoln couldn't tell its gender) was decked out in a sleeveless silver suit and platform boots that made them look like a race swapped Gary Glitter. A butchy woman with close cropped pink hair and a nose ring stood next to a feminine man with long hair and soft features, and closer to Lincoln a white guy who looked like Jesus on meth wore a shirt with an anime girl on the front. Lynn squinted at his chest and turned to Lincoln. "What's a loli?"

Lincoln gulped. "Uh...lollipop. Why?"

"Those guys over there are talking about how much they love little lolis," Lynn said. "It sounds kind of sexual." She snorted. "That'd be a weird fetish."

Lincoln and Clyde looked at each other. "Yeah," Lincoln said, "it totally would be." He glanced at his phone. In less than an hour, Komix Kingdom would open its doors. If Lynn didn't get lost, she'd see the Ase Save comic, and the cover was graphic. It depicted Ase on his knees with a ball gag in his mouth and the members of his harem standing around him in leather dresses. He was part of the Ase Save fan club and they emailed their members the cover in advance. Lincoln wasn't really into fem dom (being dominated by women) but Ase sure was: In every other issue he got into some freaky BDSM stuff. Last time, Squirrel Girl whipped his ass with a paddle until it was red and covered in welts.

Man, if Lynn found out he read stuff like that, she'd roast him harder than Fat Man roasted Nagasaki.

Maybe she'd leave.

Nope. Wrong. She was still hanging around when the doors opened. "Alright," she said, "Ace Savvy, here we come."

She butted ahead of them in line and followed the crowd toward the door. Clyde leaned close to Lincoln's ear and lowered his voice. "She has no idea what Ase Save is, does she?"

"Not one," Lincoln said. "And I really don't want her to find out."

Clyde hummed. "Alright. Give me your money and I'll buy your copy so she doesn't see. Just..,distract her for me. I don't want her thinking I'm some kind of henati loving weirdo."

Whipping out his wallet, Lincoln handed Clyde a twenty and a ten. "Thanks, dude."

"No problem."

Insde, wire shelves lined the walls and cardboard end caps crammed with Popko figures and other sundries bookended narrow aisles. Posters of famous heros and comic book covers kept watch over the store like Gods over unfaithful and smite-worthy servantes, and a cut out of Spider, the cloaked Spider-Man inspired antihero, stood in a corner, his archenemy OC Man peeking over his shoulder, a cow skull headband holding back his girlish platinum blonde hair. Lincoln liked Spider: In Issue 347, he choked the pedophile rapist Lemee to death with his bare hands, then dipped out of the room like it was a Discord server. In issue 350, he and his sidekick Heat-Man took on Liel and the Harem of Doom in an all-out brawl in the streets of Citytropolis. When it was over, fifty blocks were destroyed and 10,000 people were dead, but at least that trap bastard Liel, his big tiddy goff gf, and their abominable allies were vanquished.

The Ase Save inventory was kept in a special adults only room off to the side. Beads hung in the doorway and a sign reading NO MINORS ALLOWED warned away the kiddies. Everyone streamed in, and Lincoln broke from the pack. "This way," he said.

Lynn followed him to the Ace Savvy aisle and he looked at Clyde, who nodded.

"There's not much going on over here," Lynn said. "Everyone's going in the porn room." She craned her neck to see better.

"Yeah, they're all pervs," Lincoln said. He picked up a copy of Ace Savvy Number 59 at random. "Well, this is it. We can go."

Lynn didn't reply.

He looked around and his stomach clenched.

She was gone.

Damn it.

He found her in the porn room trying to break through the crowd ringing the Ase Save display. She managed to pluck a copy out and gaped at the cover, her cheeks turning red. "Oh…"

Lincoln slipped out and waited in the main showroom, embarrassed and kicking himself in the ass.

A few minutes later, Clyde and Lynn came out and they left. An awkward silence held sway between them, and without looking him or Lynn in the eye, Clyde packed up his things and left, head ashamedly down. When he was gone, Lynn snickered. "You know what he bought?"

"No," Lincoln lied, "what?"

"Okay, get this: There's a comic called Ass Save and it had this dude being degraded and stuff by women."

Okay, that wasn't all it was about. Ase was a sado-masochist, which meant he gave back what he got. He just had to be in the mood. Aloud: "Ew."

"Right? That's total simp territory. Like, who wants to be dominated and controlled?"

"I don't know."

"Anyway, he bought two of these things." She laughed. "What an incel."

They were on their bikes and pedalling across the parking lot now. "You wanna hit up Burpin' Burger for lunch?" Lynn asked.

No, he wanted to go get his copy of Ase Save and find out if the bank foreclosed on Ace's house or not. "I'm not hungry."

"You sure? I'll buy."

He didn't notice the hint of creeping desperation in her voice.

"Nah, I'm good."

She sighed. "Alright. You wanna swing by the park and -?"

"Can't, sorry."

He pedaled faster and Lynn fell behind. She opened her mouth to speak, but cut herself off. He was obviously preoccupied. She'd give him some space and hit him up later. They still had weeks and weeks and weeks before she'd leave for Florida. They could hang then. In the meantime, she should probably be practicing for her team's big exhibition game against Elk Park. It was next Sunday and a week seemed a lot closer than it did when she was a kid.

Mind made up, she followed Lincoln home.