In a perfect world, creativity wouldn't exist.
That's the mantra Lincoln Loud lived by, no matter how bad things got, he could always get by with his creativity. But right now, he wanted to throw all that out the window & just live a normal life. Maybe have a desk job. Not live deadline to deadline in a desperate hope to get noticed in the world of the graphic novel industry.
He needed a hobby.
Right now, he was slumped in his armchair, lazily watching Lemy play video games, slowly drifting into a tender slumber…
Knock.
What was that?
Knock knock knock.
Oh god please no.
'Lincoln, someone's at the door' his daughter called from her room.
This was the last thing he wanted.
To deal with people.
Hoisting himself from his comfort area, he left the loungeroom to answer the door. Whoever it was, was in for a severe tongue lashing. Well, they would be, if he wasn't such a nervous wreck.
He should be more assertive.
He opened the door, preparing his passive-aggressiveness in advance, only to be immediately assaulted by a tirade of words he couldn't understand; & being further pushed out of the way by a youthful woman in a lab coat holding a small child.
Lisa.
Shutting the door, he moved towards said woman with a depressive pace; he was too tired to deal with his sister's nonsense. It was hard enough trying to understand the lady let alone talk to her.
Recently, she had been involved in a pharmaceutical lawsuit which some of her patents were revealed to have slight doses of radiation. Not that it really held any issues to her financially.
Still… she hated that her name was tainted by the idea that her products were somehow futile.
Her child, however, just sat & stared at her mother with an observative yet passive gaze, switching between Lisa & Lincoln.
This was Lulu.
It felt odd that Lulu even came into being. One minute, Lisa disappears for a year, the next she has a two-month-old baby daughter.
Oh, how she dotted over that child.
It reminded Lincoln of the way Luna would watch over Lyra. She would always talk about teaching her the ways of the musician though. Music never left her mind.
He assumed it was the same with Lisa & science.
'I can't stand it Lincoln! They don't understand that radiation does more good than it does evil!'
Shit, how long had he been daydreaming?
'They're worried about you Lis'. I mean, you do tend to go a bit far with things; wouldn't you agree?'
It was the reason he had so many clocks around the house. Sometimes hours could go by like seconds on a watch, & the next thing he knew, it was 3am & the entire day had left him.
How he managed to keep his job & even excel at it baffled him, even to this day.
'It's just not fair!'
She had placed Lulu on the couch next to Lemy, whom, at this point, had resorted to button mashing, his machine gun having ran out & needing to use the pistol. Lulu seemed to enjoy it though, laughing at his misfortune at every chance she got.
He liked her laugh, so he died a few more times to humor her.
Lincoln, on the other hand, had resorted to massaging his sisters' shoulders, a position she found most comfortable since the lawsuit began.
Three weeks.
They'd been living with him for three weeks now.
Lincoln had been on thin ice with Lyra ever since the ice cream incident, & although she'd all but given up on running away, she still couldn't truly bring herself to like the man.
Not yet anyway.
Besides, if she were to really run away, she'd conspire with Lemy to do so, & the boy had pretty much accepted his new daddy.
The man was the textbook definition of introvert & Lemy was the exact opposite.
How in the good Lord's name did they manage to bond so quickly?
For a split second she considered it had to do with Lincoln being a Satanist & Lemy being an inbred freak.
Only for a split second though. Lemy may be a bit ignorant, but he definitely didn't have anything wrong with him. Nothing she knew about anyway, & she could say she knew the boy better than he knew himself.
And no one could take that away from her.
This was how she found herself sitting next to Lulu & Lemy, watching him play video games.
He was driving a car, very poorly, might she add, across a fantastical terrain filled with ultra-futuristic buildings miles in distance.
Her mind kept on bringing up the Devil.
'If you worked for me you can make over ten times what you do now. You know that right?'
Lisa was worried for her brother. She knew he was smart & hated seeing him squander it through a passion that pays lower than a high school janitor.
'You'd be working alongside me, so even if you did mess up, you'd have me cleaning it up'
There was his sister. Even in her most compassionate moments her urge to satisfy her ego still remained. It was his favorite characteristic of hers.
It made him smile.
'I do what I love'
That always shut her up. She couldn't bring herself to take her brother away from what he loves. It'd be like taking the intelligence away from Charlie Gordon in Flowers for Algernon.
It'd be inhumane.
So… she just smiled. She smiled at her brother. She loved him despite his wrongdoings. Despite his quirky behavior. It was why he was the perfect candidate.
She left him pleased with herself. She'd get him to come eventually. It was just a matter of time.
She was never one to shy away from the inhumane.
She would talk with Lulu about it, not that she could understand her. But as a parent, you find yourself talking to your underage children as a source to vent to. It was oddly pleasing.
Lincoln however, found himself trapped within his mind; with no one to talk to, he just screamed into the unknowing abyss.
Was little Lulu glowing?
Five days until they attended school. Five horrifying days.
What if no one liked him? What if there was someone cooler than him? Would it be a fight to the death?
'Don't be stupid Lemy, there's no one cooler than you' He would say to himself.
Only to fall back into the loop. Cooler, fight, no one cooler. Cooler, fight, no one cooler.
Lincoln had excused himself to attend a meeting with his business to discuss the new look of a lowkey superhero with his team, leaving Lyra to look after Lemy. Apparently, this was a big event.
Why was his dad such a freaking nerd?
It was a question he asked as he dug through his father's belongings, trying to find something to entertain himself with. Either that or find something to finally one up his dad with.
He'd find something, he was sure of it. He could almost smell it.
It was in the form of a bar napkin with a number & a name on it. It looked pretty old.
'R. Santiago' I mean he might as well call it right? There's no harm in calling a random number he found in the middle of his father's junk that he'd kept far away from prying eyes. Right?
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
Voicemail.
He tried again.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
Voicemail.
He tried once again.
Lyra was already angry with Lincoln for the Laptop-Lasagna incident, so when she found Lemy on the phone to a complete stranger yelling at him in Spanish, she found a way to vent her frustrations.
'Who do you think you are? Randomly calling our house & screaming at my brother? I should call the police on you!'
The voice on the other end was taken aback by the sudden barrage of insults thrown their way by this new person. They would give her a piece of their mind.
'Call the police on me? Perra, I should be the one calling the police on you! Calling up a phone number in the middle of working hours! No puedo creer a esta perra.'
Lyra was stunned. She had no idea what a "Perra" was, but she assumed it was nothing good. But she bit the bullet & asked for the woman's side of the story.
'So you're telling me you weren't the one who called us?'
'Of course I didn't call you, your idiot brother called me! You have already cost me three tips, so you better have a good excuse for interrupting my day!'
Lyra wouldn't stand for some random crazy lady calling her brother an idiot, however she was not against apologizing, considering her brother's tendency to get into trouble at the least likely of times.
'Look I'm sorry,' then she got an idea.
'If you want, you can take it up with my father when he gets home'
'I very much would young lady! What's his name?'
Her anger spoke volumes through her voice, & Lyra couldn't be more happy.
'Lincoln Loud miss'
'L-' the woman's voice caught in her throat 'Lincoln L-L-Loud?'
Lincoln was having a field day.
On one hand he was thrilled on the fact Ace Savvy was getting an entire character redesign, considering the fact that for the past three years he's had been, in his own words, a "total pussy-shit who couldn't hold his own against the real Ace Savvy".
However, on the other, he had to talk to people. This was definitely one of his least powerful qualities as a human being. He couldn't hold his own as a presenter.
Which was why he was happy he was working with someone like Clyde McBride.
Clyde was resourceful, being the only one from their youth who'd actually kept that quality. Knowing him, he could turn a room full of Nazis into a room full of Communists within a moment's notice.
It was easy, Lincoln was the Brain, Clyde was the Brawn. The perfect duo.
Like Batman & Robin if Robin was a social outcast.
It was this kind of stress that brought them both outside for a cigarette break. In Clyde's case, it was small cigars.
'I'm telling you Link, if we keep going like this, we'll be in charge of the whole process relating to Ace Savvy, it's only a matter of time'
Their breaks mostly involved them both indulging in being kids, nerd stuff mostly. And by both of them, it's mostly Clyde doing the talking, & Lincoln throwing in his typical one to two worded answers, with the occasional full sentence added for dramatic effect.
They were an odd pair.
'Hair'
'I'm sorry?'
'Ace Savvy's Hair'
'You're right, we should probably make an effort to bring back his pompadour'
They all felt insulted when the CEO called for a total rehaul on Savvy, his hair being the first to go. They were going to bring it back.
Lincoln had done it. He brought back his childhood Ace Savvy. He could just feel the joy emanating from his skin. It was a pleasant heat.
But soon was confronted by a smug Lyra hiding behind a veneer of false empathy & an apologetic Lemy who looked like he was about to cry.
'Hey dad?'
Uh oh.
'Look, don't get mad or nothing, but we called a woman today…'
Lemy made a face that looked like his arm were being twisted behind his back. It was distain towards his sister.
'And she wants to talk to you… she called herself Ronnie-Anne?'
Lincoln immediately threw up on his shirt.