Squashed Shower
There were many problems that came with living in a family of thirteen- but perhaps the most common one for the eleven younger members of the household was the multitude of issues that came from having to share one bathroom. Now, any sane person would find this concerning even before considering that five of those eleven were hormonal teenagers- but what really compounded the issue was a matter of timing.
It was a simple equation; even if the family were to get up at a relatively reasonable six a.m., giving everyone a meagre ten minutes to wash, shave and do anything else a growing girl (or boy) might need- that left the assorted kids a mere hour and ten minutes before the nine o'clock school start. It sounded like a lot, but that hour or so would have to be spent getting ready for school, eating breakfast and simply driving to their schools.
(And sneaking in some cartoons if they could).
Add in the older girls very much wanting to spend as much time as they could in the shower for 'various' reasons and it was a delicate balance that could be easily thrown off if someone took a little too long in the shower, or if one of their parents fell ill.
Or if no one reminded them to put their clocks forward for daylight savings.
That was just a bit of an imbalance.
"Lori, I can't find my loofa!"
Much like the imbalance of eleven people having to share one bathroom because they needed to get ready an hour ago.
The bath was filled to bursting with assorted siblings squirming for even a brief spray of warmish water under the shower even as the semi-soapy bodies dripped their collective residue down into the knee-high (for most of them) waters within the tub. Lori had already been in and out, utilising her oft-abused eldest privileges to get a quick shower with the promise she'd help Dad get ready quicker- but she was sure taking her time in front of the mirror!
"Have you checked your hand?" The sleep-deprived eldest groaned out.
"No, I- oh, silly me!" Leni gleefully started scrubbing. "Thanks Lori, you're the best!"
"Dang it Luna, get your elbow out of my neck!" Lynn winced as Luna's joint kept pocking into her neck.
"Sorry Dude, me pits are getting' nasty." Luna apologised, but sorry or not there just wasn't any better angle for her. "Gotta get 'em smooth or I'll be itchin' all day!"
"Lori, Lana's escaping again!" Lola tattled.
"Aw c'mon Lols!" Lana protested, still a few steps from the door
The Eldest took a second to spot and glare at the dirtier twin through the mirror's reflection. "Lana you'd better be clean or I'm literally going to let Lola clean your room."
"But it took me hours to build up this grime!"
While their argument raged, Lisa Loud lamented her own misfortune as a four-year-old damned to tread lukewarm soapy water and bounce against the legs and lower regions of her elders. As the second youngest, she was just large enough to not need carrying or for other to fear her accidentally drowning- unlike Lily who was being held and carted around between the various older sisters as they attended their needs. Thus; she was situated at the very bottom of the totem pole as it were.
Or in this case, the bath basin.
"I would be most- bleh!" the genius spat out another mouthful of suds and sibling-filth tainted water.
"Could- agh!" Fluffy soap dripped from the sky, right into her squinty eyes. "I say-"
"Hey guys, do you hear something?" Luan looked around the bustling bath as she scrubbed herself. "I feel like the sound's being dampened. Ha! Ha! Geddit!?"
"Unfortunately, yes," Lisa sighed as she resigned herself a state of sudsy sadness.
All in all, it wasn't a good position for anyone. The elders were stuck trying to perform the more advanced hygienic tasks that their teenage biology demanded and the younger sisters were trapped in a box of misery where they were continuously jostled and pressed against the assorted legs and buttocks of their taller counterparts- praying to whatever deity that would listen (or to a wider range of supernatural being in Lucy's case) that none of said elders had had too much of their father's meatloaf last night.
But while there might have been tall and small, there was of course those that stacked in the middle, both in relative height and in stacked in the centre of the bath. Lincoln and Lynn shared a height despite the latter's greater age, and said height put them just out of the zone of misery that was trying to avoid the sight of a teenage sister's unshaven naughty bits or butthole- but firmly right in the awkward position of getting a constant eyeful of boob, elbow or armpit.
Some, being only familiar with the female form through the curated lens of fiction might have envied Lincoln's position. Of course, such fiction presented girls and women as miraculous creatures that never stank, or defecated and certainly never needed to remove unsightly hair from their somehow sherbet flavoured openings that in turn never spewed forth foul substances or needed frequent cleaning to avoid residue clinging to their many folds.
Reality was not so forgiving.
"Dang dude, shark week's starting early." Luna whistled, prompting a sour Luan to curse as she caught sight of the nasty fluid starting to drip down her thighs.
"Dang it," the comedienne sighed. "I didn't even feel it, but I guess everyone's going to-"
"Get out of the bath Luan." Lori death glared through the mirror. "No puns. Out before you get it in the water."
"Ah, whatever." Luan shrugged- having mostly finished already. "Guess you guys get to skip wading the Red Sea this time!"
Unfortunately, in a house both largely held together with duct tape and required to service so many siblings, such group events were distressingly common to the point of inanity. They were sadly comfortable with each other; in the same way a platoon of soldiers grew to accept the sights and stench of one another.
Also, they were siblings, so Lincoln wasn't exactly going to jump for joy upon getting Luna's hip jammed into his side- Lynn's butt pressed against the other and Leni's boob jammed into his face as she jostled for another angle.
"Reenii!" He tried to protest through the human meat squashing his face, her pokey nipple uncomfortably shoving into his tear duct.
"Sorry Linky!" Leni moved forward as best she could.
"AH!" Lisa hissed as Leni's foot nearly crushed her own. "My dextroped!"
"Sorry Lisa!" Leni gasped, and promptly returned back to her previous position. Thus mashing her feminine form right into Lincoln's face one more, much to the boy's utter annoyance.
Thus was the complete state of one Lincoln Loud, smushed into a submarine-esque unwanted closeness with all his sisters while each and every one of them desperately huddled around the pitifully inadequate spray of the shower head.
But Lincoln was far from stupid. Actually; he was infamous for his planning skills- and when he'd woken up to panicked movements and shouts about how late they were going to be that morning, his clever mind quickly brought up the possibility of being sardined with his sisters. He'd recoiled in disgust of course, for what kind of man would enjoy such intimate contact with the gross early-morning bodies of his own flesh?
But his brilliance was not limited to mere foresight, but crafty and inventive solutions to problems that others had not even envisioned! In this case, how to turn a disadvantage- into an opportunity.
You see, Lincoln would have to share a shower with everyone else- that's just how it went when time was short. No one liked it, but they'd been doing it for so long that no one could really use "not wanting to see or be touched by each other's junk" as an excuse. After that that, they'd probably get their lunches and some reheated leftovers to eat in Vanzilla as breakfast, and be off to school.
But while going into the shower was inevitable- when one got out of the shower was not. If some clever fellow was able to facilitate an early escape, that would mean that he would be down before anyone else- and able to get not only the first (or at least second after Lori) pick of the leftovers for breakfast, but be able to claim the second-best seat in Vanzilla (again, after Lori since she would just Pretzel anyone who dared condemn her to a seat beneath her standards).
All he had needed to do was find an excuse that would get the girls to let him out without suspicion, and then;
Oops, looks like everyone's packed too tight for me to get back in- oh well
And like that the man with a plan would skip on downstairs and enjoy not being half-molested or getting the nastiest seat and leftovers!
And as a certain pressure in his bladder built up from the five cups of water he'd forced down before getting frog-marched into the shower proved; his plan was already going well.
"Hey guys?" He called out with a smile. "I need to pee!"
A series of groans and complaints issued from the bath.
"Can't you just hold it?" Lori sighed. "Seriously, we've got literally five minutes left before we have to go down anyway."
"I don't think I can!" Lincoln insisted, and indeed the pressure in his stomach was rapidly building. He knew that he couldn't have exactly faked going to the bathroom when all the sisters were literally in there- and pretending to need to pee and scampering away would mean this trick would never work again, so he'd had to have to actually needed to go. "Please you guys!"
"Dude, just go in the water, it's all good!" Lana grinned. "It's what I do!"
"EW! LANA!" Lola gasped. "You're disgusting!"
"Aww, I mean; I do my best." Lana folded her arm and nodded with pride.
The two of them started arguing, and the focus shifted away from Lincoln's predicament.
"Guys!" He tried to interject, but was ignored again as Lynn tried to shove her way under the shower head, dragging her buttocks against him. "Hey- Lynn I'm trying to get out!"
"Well, I've got a game today!" Lynn snapped back, relishing in what little spray that had been Lincoln's. Meanwhile the boy question was now crushed to the wall by Lynn's body and the rest of the sisters moved sponges to fill what little space had been freed. "I need to get clean now, you can pee anytime!"
"That makes no sense- and you can just get a shower at school anyway!" Lincoln protested, but Lynn was apparently deaf to his pleas- instead opting to scrub away at her body.
And to make matters worse…
That pressure on in his stomach? It was pressing on some other organ.
Men had many advantages in regards to urination; aiming the stream, being able to stand up, not having to worry about bacteria travelling short distances between one hole to another. But one disadvantage they possessed (especially when younger), was that when one needed to relieve their bladder badly enough- a counter-intuitive quirk of the plumbing induced that oh so equally beloved and maligned (at least to a young man whose proclivity thereof was all too high) phenomenon known as an erection.
Much to the annoyance of the owner, since even leaving aside trying to aim the darned thing- the internal valves would be all but closed off. Thus, paradoxically inhibiting the satisfaction of the very need that had prompted the reaction.
And for a Loud boy? Even for one as young as he there was not a chance of hiding such a thing behind his hands as the floppy snake awoke and arose, all he could do was try and adjust himself so that the thing rested against his tummy rather than touching Lynn or the others. That and hope no one was looking right-
"Aw Dude," Luna apparently chose that exact moment to look over. "Did ya' really have to?"
Like sharks in water trailing the scent of blood, the eyes of every sister suddenly turned to their brother apparently having screwed up.
"Hey-!" Lincoln desperately tried to cover himself. "It does this when I need to pee too!"
Alas for him, such facts as the full functions of a penis were things that the sisters were not intimately aware of- or at least they if they were, they were keener to forget in favour of roasting him.
"Ugh! Why are boys so gross?" Lola gagged as she scrambled to get out.
"I dunno, maybe they're just prone to sticky situations." Luan snorted, spying Lincoln's log from the sudden gap as Lynn pulled away with disgust.
"Lu, that's our bother you're talkin' about." Luna flatly replied.
"I wasn't doing that- I told you I need to pee!" Lincoln insisted, waving his hands best he could as the various bodies around him drew away in a mixed blessing.
"You can hold it either way!" Lori snapped from behind the wall of bodies. "Lynn- make sure he behaves himself."
The Sporty Sister nodded and cracked her knuckles. "Will do."
"Oh, come on!" Lincoln whinged, feeling his bladder worsen.
"Sorry Lincoln," Luan laughed. "Looks like you're getting the short end of the Dic-"
"Shut. Up. Luan." Lori demanded. "Everyone just get clean so we can go-"
"EVERYBODY HURRY UP!" Dad's voice came from downstairs. "YOU'RE ALREADY LATE!"
"Oh- screw it." Lori gave up on giving herself the finishing touches and turned to the moist mob of misery. "Everyone, get out and dry before I get detention for tardiness!"
There was a collective murmuring of appreciation, or at least acceptance of the end to their predicament. The mass moved almost as one, the many legs dipping the now brown water line from Luna's knees to her mid shin. Lincoln took a brief advantage of the sudden space to get a sibling free rinse under the shower head before Lori's murder eyes convinced him to shut the tap off and get dry with the others.
And how the others dried themselves, Lynn was a blur of towel and girl, Luna was all but dancing in as she drew the cloth over her body- Leni was carefully but quickly patting down her body to absorb as much moisture as possible and Luan was-
Lincoln averted his eyes as Luan took care of her monthly visitor.
But the point was, they were all quick- and as a freshly clothed Lynn happily threw her towel in the general direction of the laundry hamper and darted out with a cry; Lincoln remembered why.
"First out first serve, last one out sits in the spiky seat!" The Tomboy laughed, racing down the stairs as fast as she could.
There was a moment of silence as her words settled into the remaining occupants of the bathroom. The realisation of the race that they were about to get into sunk in, as they all knew too well the rule of push and shove that dictated the actual terms of conduct in the Loud House.
"Everyone, j-just hold it for a second." Lori raised her hands as if to try and slow the inevitable. "We can deal with this like adul-"
"Sorry Sis," Luna interrupted with a sad shake of her head. "We all know it's every Loud for 'emselves!"
And like her words were a bell in an arena, the battle began. A rapid rustling of many cloths over skin filled the air as the desperate siblings dried and clothed themselves as quickly as they could manage.
Lana was the first, simply throwing her clothes over skin without a care so she could dart out after Lynn.
"No dang it, just wait a-" Lori groaned, but the sight of everyone else rushing to get theirs broke her façade of maturity. "Oh whatever."
And like that, she finished pulling on whatever clothing she hadn't already in her time out of the bath and followed Lana.
Lisa was next, rather than using a towel and putting on a fresh set of clothes however; she simply pulled a watch like device from her discarded coverings and clamped it on before looking upon her siblings with her characteristic smugness;
"Condolences Sibling Units, but as Lucy would say; 'all's fair in love and war'!" The genius pressed a button on her 'watch' and gave a victorious smirk. "See you on the other si-"
Pop.
She suddenly vanished to be replaced by a green orb that itself flickered away to nothing but the wall and floor where Lisa had stood. But simultaneously…
PRAKKKSSHH!
"My plates!" Their father gasped from downstairs.
"I'm okay!"
"No, you're grounded."
Lincoln rolled his eyes at another of Lisa's inventions gone wrong. But even if Lisa was getting roasted downstairs, there were six sisters (five if you counted discounted Lily being held by Leni) to beat downstairs.
He was using his best pat-down technique to absorb as much moisture as possible, so that he wouldn't stay damp for the next hour in school, and thanks to his short(er than the sisters anyway) hair needing less time than any of the sisters, plus his smaller body and skin surface giving him an advantage over the older sisters, he was looking like he'd be out next-
As long as Lola didn't beat him out first anyway. The usually calm and collected Pageant Princess had whipped out a seldom used, miniature pink blow-dryer and was using it to dry out her long hair. Normally she would have eschewed it in fear of split ends, but evidently today was going to be a lost cause either way so why not?
The twin smiled as she was down to nearly the last damp locks of hair, but her frown faded as she saw that Lincoln was very nearly down to his last wet leg. The rest of him was still slightly moist but nothing that a few minutes in dry summer air wouldn't fix.
Looks like Lincoln's going to the next out, she sourly concluded. And there was good reason to be, even assuming that Lisa was not going to be able to capitalise on her advantage, there was only one 'good' seat in the whole of Vanzilla (besides the driver's seat of course). The rest ranged from tolerable for a short trip to downright dangerous just to sit on, and acceptable for Lola Loud was not anything under the top three of that 'tolerable'.
Sadly, for her, as he finished drying that leg with a smile it seemed Lincoln would be getting that last reasonably uncomfortable seat.
The sole boy casually shook himself of any remaining droplets and stuffed his orange towel and old clothes into the already overfilled laundry hamper. Lola glared at him, but the boy merely smiled when caught sight of her salty scowl- evidently satisfied with having beaten her as he grabbed a fresh set of clothes, leaving her to do nothing by blow-dry her hair and try to ignore the bobbing of his bulbous boyhood as the gross thing it was.
Not that was easy. The stiff thing swayed and shifted with every movement Lincoln made, drawing Lola's unwanting eye with it's almost pendulous movement like one of those fish that drew in prey by waving around a bodypart as a lure. But Lola wasn't a fish, and Lincoln's pee-pee looked more like an alien or a big tumour than anything she could ever want.
Why do boys have to be so gross and weird!? Lola shuddered.
And to think; Lana said boy animals put their things inside girls to make babies! Lola had gagged when she'd told her that it worked the same way for people too, and that she even heard that boys did 'stuff' to themselves- stuff that thankfully she knew Lincoln wasn't allowed to do because she'd overheard Mom and Dad warning him-
Lincoln's not allowed to do 'stuff'…
Lola's neurons fired at the thought of Lincoln getting warned, and just what might happen if Mom and Dad were to happen to 'catch' him breaking the rules. An evil smile crossed her face as a simple but effective scheme to get that 'acceptable' seat formed in her mind.
That smirk caught Lincoln's attention, and his well-trained sense of sister shenanigans warned him he was about to get the short end of the stick again.
His eyes met hers, and his stomach dropped as he followed their trajectory to his stiff willy.
He had no time to even try hiding the abnormally developed organ, only to regret as Lola took a second to remember the term Lynn and Lana had used to describe a boy's 'alone time'.
"MOOOOM!" His cheeks paled as the Loud girl shouted out. "DAAAAD!"
"No- Lola!" Lincoln gasped he desperately tried to pull up undies in a futile attempt to hide his pale snake.
"LIIIINNCCOOOLN'S WHIPPING CREAAAAM!"
There was a dreadful silence as her cry echoed, leaving Lincoln mortified and the remaining sisters in the room staring on in shock.
Then someone snickered at his horrified expression, and like a dam bursting the room enveloped into laughter at the rapidly reddening boy. It echoed off the tiles and bounced around the small space so much that Lincoln could barely hear the quick thumps that denoted the heavy seriousness of a severely ticked off parent stamping up the stairs.
The slam of the Bathroom door as one Rita Loud barged in and witnesses Lincoln's rod standing to attention was another matter entirely;
"LINCOLN!"
In the end, Lincoln wouldn't have to suffer for his alleged crime- Mom being satisfied by his quick words that even if Lola wasn't lying per se (since the little brat was a nigh perfect deceiver), she could certainly have been mistaken about his pubescent biology. Even so, he still had to spend a solid five minutes weaseling his way out of getting sentenced for a crime he'd not committed, and then another two weeing as best he could before getting dressed and downstairs.
Needless to say, all the remaining sisters had skipped out during his roasting and in turn; every one of the remotely tolerable seats were long taken. So, he was stuck sulking while Lily tossed whatever surprisingly hard toys she had on her out of her chair and a sharp spring dug into his butt.
Note to self, get Lola back somehow… Lincoln resolved as he glared at the back of Lola's head, gripping the worst of ten sets of leftovers in a bag with both hands. Maybe dose her with Lisa's diuretics before a pageant?
No, that's too mean…. But maybe if….
Such was the life in the Loud House, squashed and sharing all too little space with people they loved and battled with on a daily basis.
A/N:
Just a little something that wasn't cursed for once.
Thanks to Nuuo for a Beta-Read.
Also: For those who are unaware: 'weeing' is British/Commonwealth slang for urination, like peeing but funnier. I normally Americanise Lincoln's dialogue and narration as best I can given that he's an American- but I made an exception here because it made the sentence funnier.
