Tell a Tale of Hearts

Chapter 1: The Setup

Mollie had just reached into her locker when Girl Jordan arrived at her side, clearing her throat to catch the shorter haired girl's attention.

"What's up, GJ?" Mollie pulled her remaining books out, put them in her bag as she readied to make for home.

The other girl leaned against the locker beside Mollie's, clasped her hands in front of her and, in doing so, made her braided ponytail bounce against her chest. "Mols, could I ask a favor?"

With a smirk, Mollie asked, "Who do you need beat up?"

Girl Jordan just stared at her friend, shook her head. "Why do you have to make me sound like some sort of mob boss?"

"It's a joke, GJ, lighten up!" Mollie chuckled. "So, who's the boy-"

"It's not that either!" Girl Jordan growled, then sighed. "It's an errand, that's all."

Mollie raised an eyebrow. "An errand?"

"Yeah," Girl Jordan started explaining then. "See, I don't know if you heard, but Lincoln didn't show up at school today-"

"Don't tell me," Mollie's smile faltered a bit, "he's planning something again?"

But the other girl shook her head. "It'd go faster if you didn't interrupt, you know?" when Mollie sighed, Girl Jordan took that as a sign to continue. "See, he's home sick for some reason, and none of his sisters were at school today, maybe they're sick too, I dunno. But Ms. Johnson asked me to take some work to him-"

"She couldn't get any of his friends to do that?"

Girl Jordan sighed, shook her head. "Nope. Apparently whatever Lincoln has they have, too."

"Really?" Mollie paused, then got a playful grin on her face. "Please tell me it's mono-"

Girl Jordan cut her off with a hand wrapped firmly around Mollie's mouth. "Don't. Even. Go. There. Got it?" she waited until Mollie nodded to even dare remove her hand. "Good. Now, as I was saying. Mrs. Johnson asked if I'd take Lincoln's work to him, but I have practice after school and I have to be there, no question about it."

"So you want me to take his work to him?"

Girl Jordan clasped her hands, dipped her chin and pleaded with Mollie, "Please, Mols! I'll owe you a favor, guaranteed. I just can't miss practice or my mom might think I'm not interested anymore and make me quit!"

Another sigh, but not even a moment's thought was taken as Mollie said, "Sure, GJ," and was summarily jumped by the other girl, arms wrapped firmly around poor Mollie's neck.

Very firmly.

Very, very firmly.

"Uh, Mols?" Girl Jordan asked when the girl's face started turning blue. "Is something-"

"M-my n-neck," Mollie struggled to say.

Catching herself, Girl Jordan released her grip, let Mollie take a few lungfuls of air before saying, "Sorry," with an embarrassed little laugh, rubbing the back of her head while giving yet another apology.

After taking the homework from her and getting his address, Mollie parted ways with Girl Jordan and made her way outside.

The walk was quiet, though not very comfortable as Mollie found herself watching the dark gray clouds above with trepidation. The last thing she wanted was to get caught in a downpour seeing as she forgot her umbrella earlier that morning.

It was pure luck that, by the time it did start opening up she'd reached Franklin Avenue and was only two blocks away from Lincoln's place.

"At least I don't need to worry about getting the wrong house," she muttered to herself as she spied the disaster zone otherwise known as 1214 down the street. "That's gotta be his place, no question!"

By the time she made it onto the porch and out of the rain, she'd received only a light covering of water on her jacket and hair, so that a quick shake easily freed her of most the excess water. That done, she reached out to push the door bell.

"Come on," she whimpered, rubbing her arms for warmth. "Some one answer-"

"Coming!" the familiar voice called from the other side. Then the door cracked open and a familiar buck-toothed, white haired visage appeared from within, "Mollie?"

"Hey," Mollie said in reply. "Mind if I come in?"

As he opened the door all the way, he said, "Come on in, you look soaked!"

"Trust me," she shook her head once more before entering, made sure she wasn't dripping on the carpet as she came on in, "even if I'm not, I feel like it."

Once she was inside and the warmth hit her, however, any complaints she had were forgotten.

Lincoln, however, was stymied. "So what brings you over this way?" he asked, a blanket wrapped around his body and a mug of something warm in his hand. "Don't you live-"

"Your teacher," she sat her bag down, knelt and started rummaging through it. "She asked GJ to bring you your homework, but GJ had something she needed to do so she asked me, and… well," she stopped, pulled his homework out, got to her feet and held it out for him, "here it is."

He took it from her, grimaced. "Man, first food poisoning, now I have extra school work. This week sucks."

"Food poisoning?" Mollie repeated.

He nodded his head. "Yeah, I got it at Rusty's birthday party. And so did everyone else."

She did some mental arithmetic, then smirked. "You know, hearing that makes me realize how few friends that guy must have."

Lincoln gave her a look. "Why's that?"

"Because," she put one hand on her hip, grinned. "Besides for you and your pack, I don't recall anyone else getting sick."

Realizing what he'd said, Lincoln shook his head, corrected himself. "I meant my friends, Mollie! I don't know if anyone else got it!"

Poking fun at him, she chuckled. "Oh, so you're the guy with only a few friends?"

He sighed. "Must you do this to an ill person?"

Mollie let out a laugh. "Oh, come on, Loud, it's fun!"

Hearing that, Lincoln raised an eyebrow. "Loud?"

"Yeah," Mollie gave him a look now. "It's your name, right?"

But Lincoln shrugged. "You can call me Lincoln, or whatever. You don't-"

"Okay, Whatever," she started laughing when Lincoln gave her a mock glare and growled. "I had to do it, Lincoln, seriously!"

Once they'd calmed down, Lincoln looked out the living room window, saw how hard the rain was falling now and said, "You know, maybe you should stay over for a while."

"You don't mind?" she asked, her coat sitting on her bag now.

He smirked. "It beats being home alone in all this."

Seeing an opening, she said, "Yeah, where is everybody?"

"My mom took Lucy, Lana and Lola to the dentist earlier today, then came back for a few hours before having to take the three of them plus Lily to their check ups which were rescheduled for this afternoon, and…"

Mollie just blinked, stared at him in amazement as he continued on and on. When he finally stopped, she asked, "Is your family normally that hectic?"

"You better believe it," then a thought hit him. "You want something warm to drink? We have hot cocoa."

"Oh, that sounds great," and with that, the two made their way to the kitchen where Lincoln went about getting her own mug ready.

But as they drank their respective beverages and watched the weather, Mollie noticed Lincoln shiver despite his blanket and elbowed him. "You cold?"

He shrugged. "Kind of. I was in bed up until I came down for a drink and heard you at the door."

"Then why not go back to bed?"

"What about you?"

Mollie didn't miss a beat. "You asking me to go to bed with you?" when Lincoln didn't respond, simply stood there, jaw hanging, she broke out in a loud, long laugh-

Then snorted.

"You tell anyone I just did that," Mollie leaned in, looked him dead in the eye, "and anything I've done up to now to you will pale in comparison. Got it?"

He grinned despite himself, and Mollie had to repeat her words verbatim very slowly to get him to finally agree.

"Now that's over with," Lincoln said when they'd both calmed down. "I know!" Mollie looked over at him as Lincoln snapped his fingers. "Why don't we go up and play a game or something? We can wait until my mom or dad get back and maybe they can drive you home if the rain doesn't let up by then."

"Are you sure-"

But Lincoln was already leading her upstairs. "I'm sure it'll be no big deal, just let me text them and ask."

Leaving her stuff near the door, Mollie followed him up to the second floor, looked at the family pictures along the wall and even got a quick rundown on the sisters' names, then peeked around as he ducked into his bedroom.

"Why's your room so… small?" she asked when she finally looked inside after spotting the bathroom down the hall. The entire room was messy, which was a given seeing as it was a boy's room after all, she was sure of that, but the bed was especially rumpled as proof that he probably had been laying down before she came over.

After he finished belting off a message to one of his parents, he waved her in and said, "Oh, it used to be a linen closet."

"You sleep in a closet."

He was impressed; her voice actually got the fact it was a statement, not a question, right across. "Y-yeah-"

"Omigod," she shook her head, grinned slightly. "You're a wizard, Linc-"

"Like I haven't heard that one before."

She frowned, then grinned again-

"I've heard that one, too, Mollie."

And again, she frowned.

He invited her to get comfortable, then after a few moments but before they could decide what game to play his phone lit up with a message.

And a new thought occurred to her.

"Okay, my mom said either she or my dad can drive you back after dinner, if you'd like to… what?" he asked when he saw Mollie's face.

"You said this was a closet?" he nodded, unsure of where this was going but certain she was gonna make a joke one way or another. "So, I guess you could say you're rather clothes-minded-"

"Alright, Luan!" but he started laughing despite himself. "What's gotten into you?"

When Mollie stopped laughing herself, she said, "You really thought I'd not say something about you living in a freaking closet, Lincoln?" then, remembering what he'd said, she replied, "But sure, that sounds good if it's alright with them. I'll let my mom and dad know. They'll be a bit late themselves so it shouldn't be a problem."

After they both sent messages off to their respective parents, a crash of thunder and lightning made them both jump slightly.

Mollie was the first to speak afterward, her boots sitting by the door as she rested on the bed now. "Thanks for getting your parents to drive me back, Lincoln, really."

"No problem," he said as he started getting his game console ready. "Besides, you're over here because of me, so-"

A crack of lightning was followed by a peal of thunder, and the entire room went dark.

"Well," Lincoln groaned, the console in his hands. "I guess that's a bust."

Flipping her phone out to provide some light, Mollie looked around. "What do you wanna do now?"

"I dunno," Lincoln sighed, then hopped onto the bed and laid back against the wall. "There really isn't much to do-" he considered suggesting they read comics then, but bit his lip, took that idea to a government black site, put it up against the wall, wrapped a bandanna tight around its face and lit it up before he even let that idea reach Mollie's ears.

Mollie noticed his sudden halt, went to give him a look and then remembered he probably couldn't see it without some light. "It's kind of sad we have nothing to do when the power goes out, isn't it?" she said instead.

He thought on that for a minute. "Yeah, it kind of is."

After a few minutes of silence, Mollie started chuckling, and that caught Lincoln's attention.

"What's up?"

"Oh, I think I know what we could do," she said when she regained control of herself. With his urging, she put the phone between them and looked his way. "Okay, seeing as I can't whoop your butt-"

"You?" he mockingly gawked. "Beat me?"

Mollie grinned devilishly. "Yeah, me. But," she continued before he could say anything, "since we can't play games on consoles, why not play a different kind of game?"

His face fell just a tad. "Wh-what kind of… game-"

"Nothing like that!" Mollie realized where his head was going, pulled back ever so slightly, felt her cheeks getting just a bit red. "Get your head out of the gutter, Loud! What I'm saying is," she began to explain, "instead of playing video games and competing, why not compete by telling stories?"

Lincoln considered that. "How would that work?"

Thinking, Mollie spoke slowly to keep her thoughts in order. "Okay, how about this; we each take turns telling stories. Original stories, no books or that sort of stuff. Any genre's okay, it doesn't have to be scary stories, it can be girly stories or whatever. If we pause for too long, maybe a minute, we lose. We also lose if we can't finish the story."

"What happens to the loser?"

Now Mollie made sure there was light enough by her phone so he could see the devilish, too-wide grin that graced her features. "Whoever loses has to obey whatever request the winner makes of them."

Lincoln considered that, then remembered his homework and the fact that Mollie wasn't the worst student in school… "Oh, really?" he dared. "You sure you wanna make that bet with me?"

"Oh?" Mollie feigned shock. Grinned salaciously. "You think I'd be afraid to lose to a boy? Why? What were you planning, Lincoln-"

His mind sputtered. "I—what I mean—you—I mean, that wasn't-"

She started laughing, threw herself down on his bed and kicked her legs in the air at his speechlessness. "You are way too easy, Lincoln!"

Grumbling, he crossed his arms, laid back against his headboard. "Okay, I'm in. And," he smirked, narrowed his eyes in her direction, "just you wait. I'm gonna knock your pants off with what I've got in store."

But she recovered and quipped, "First off, I'm wearing leggings. Second?" he could tell he'd stepped in something, he just didn't know what. "Is that gonna be your request? Seeing me n-"

"Just start the game already!" he practically squeaked as he covered his head with his pillow, screamed into his mattress.

Mollie couldn't help but giggle at his reaction, then gathered her thoughts-

"Oh," Lincoln spoke up, looked at her, "what about bathroom breaks? You know, in case…"

"If you gotta puke," she deadpanned, "you gotta puke. But you're right… how about one bathroom break per player per successful story?"

"Agreed."

With the rules established, Mollie crossed her legs, looked to Lincoln and declared-

"Then let the games begin.

"This is the tale of a Rat in the Hall."

End of Chapter 1

A/N: Well, another Mollie/Lincoln entry from me, and of all things it's yet another seven chapters long. Trust me, that part wasn't planned, and I still don't know how it happened. That said, this actually isn't the story I'd planned to write. The original idea I was playing around with was actually an off-shoot of the Seven Ways' series final one-shot, but I've been on the fence whether to write it or not given they weren't meant to be expanded upon and I don't want to set any precedent that might get peoples' hopes up unnecessarily. Maybe I'll set up a poll or something to gauge interest in the idea, put that on the burner as one of the potential works I consider when next I have time.

But I'm sure nobody wants to read this crap. You want story, and I want to give you it. The updates for this will happen a bit differently, with two chapters each update every other day save for the final chapter which will be its own update. I figured I'd try something different this time around, is why.

Anyways, thank you for reading and have a wonderful day!