A Single Day

Despite his diagnosis, there was little to be done, the kids were well out of reach for a bit of impromptu bonding. While Lincoln was still near enough to Royal Woods that contact with the sisters still living there was feasible, he and his parents were the only ones 'on holiday'.

Everyone was a grown adult at this point and only Lily was still attending university, so all of his sisters were far too busy to make the multi-hour trip to his hotel. Going down himself wouldn't be a problem if he still had his own car, but like most of his pre-parent life it was long gone.

Besides; the girls and their progeny already had schedules of their own. If he just showed up out of the blue he'd only get a few hours with whatever kids were resided in whichever sister's house he appeared at before having to return to the hotel, since no one could really house him for a full month. No, if he wanted a good proper day of together time with as many kids as possible he'd have to arrange things well in advance, and even then a good many of said children would likely get left out simply because their parent lived far flung from their hometown now.

For better or worse Lincoln was for the next month effectively a bachelor once again….

"Well you'll be back with the tykes again soon enough," Dad assured him, vaguely French music echoing in the background of the call. "I know that you've already tried some of your old hobbies, but if you're anything like me and your mother there were probably a lot of other things that you couldn't do and ended up forgetting."

"What, you mean like loading up my old Netfl-"

"No, they've been awful for years," Mom's venom was intercontinental. "But maybe you could renew some of your old friendships, pick up some of your interests from before this all started- didn't you have a webcomic?"

"You mean 'Magician's Mysterium?'" Lincoln had tried that kind of online publishing but… "I shut it down years ago and it wasn't ever really successful anyway. The audience is long gone at this point."

"Well you don't need to publish anything," Mom chided. "Just make something for yourself again, make a routine of some of the things you used to do so you don't just sit there moping about what you don't have."

"… You know, I don't really have anything else to do so I guess there's no harm," The Magician could have a few off the books adventures. Heck, there wouldn't even be that one guy who hated everything but still came back to complain in the comments of every new page!

"Maybe you could give Ronnie a call while you're at it," Dad's voice cut in. "I bet that-"

"Oh hey look at the time, I bet it's really late where you are," Lincoln quickly thumbed the 'end call' button. "I wouldn't want to keep you up late for your big day!"

"Lincoln it's barely eight p.m. where we are-"

"Thanksfortheadvicebye!"

"You two are good for each-" his parent's well-intentioned, but years past welcome persistence in his love life was mercifully cut off by the convenience of a button.

Honestly though; the idea of rebuilding old habits was a good one. He was currently trained to constantly attend to a dozen (minimum) children's needs, while he might be feeling some… tenderness from the separation, living like this was just some extended break left him inevitably falling back into instincts that he couldn't fulfill.

But making a new schedule to distract himself? That could work.

He fished around in his old backpack, a trusty battered thing that had crossed more national borders than he would admit (for various reasons) and pulled free a drawing pad that had been obsolete when he'd bought it- but it was a sturdy thing and for what he paid it was darn good quality. The battery was very dead at this point and the charging port was decades outdated- but it was nothing a (moderately) good power pack and adapter couldn't fix.

And so it was that the old hardware booted up, and with a few clicks opened up on the last few pages that he'd been drawing- mere outlines in panels made in preparation for a monthly update that never came. The comic had already been bleeding views as updates became fewer and fewer, then finally the 'hiatus' began when he'd moved back into the house. At the time he'd rationalised that he could go to a more frequent schedule when he'd adapted- but as his unconscious escapades had proven, he'd never 'adapted'.

Now all that was left were the old notes of the story he'd been working on at the time- and the planning panels that held the basic sketches that would or would not eventually become something. The sticky-taped together stylus was familiar in his hands as he got to work- but the panels…

They were not.

He'd thought that the story was etched into his skull, but across the years details were forgotten; little things like the exact cut of the cape Magician wore and the particular gait that Clarence Conner used after breaking his ankle. Every time he started something, a little niggling detail stood out for some reason and he would need to flip back to the finished panels to see why-

Oh, Magician should have a bruise here from the fight earlier…

Conner's eyes are a different shade of green, just shift the shade a bit for the lighting and…

His style seemed to have changed too. He tried to go draw in the heavily detailed lines, and curves that had developed from his first scribbles years ago. But he found himself using softer, almost liquid shapes and expressions that cartoonishly emphasised the emotions of the characters and atmospheric mood rather than adhere to any hard and fast ideas about biology and architecture.

His hand was rapidly cramping up as well, the well trained muscles of his drawing hand having long since gone to seed. By the time he gave in to the cramping in his arm it to was barely forty-five minutes into the session and the drawn panel looked… different from the rest of the comic to say the least.

"Dang it!" He flipped through the comic, reading over his notes and the finished panels from so long ago. Maybe he if he just back into the mindset he had when he first wrote and drew them…

But it was little use. While his notes were clear enough, the real spark of creativity that used to drive him was talking with the fans, going over the ideas with Ronnie or just remembering the weirder parts of his day and reworking them into ideas for the story.

Truthfully, most of The Magician's adventures were exaggerated retellings of his own misadventures from his early twenties onwards. Sure he could try and hammer away at the story until he put something out but the story would be abysmal in comparison to what it could have been. The fuel to the fire of creativity was his own life, and that part of it where he was running around the country (or countries) and getting and in and out of mishaps on a daily basis had come to a screeching halt with the conception of the first five children.

Trying to get back into that headspace of frantically writing, then sketching out some version of his latest escapade wasn't going to work. The last two years were nothing like Magician's usual adventures, the notes weren't enough to spark something from the memories of his last pre-parent 'adventure' and his fans were long gone.

But still… he thumbed across his notes. He had been in the middle of a story, one about Magician finding an illusive man who had stolen a sacred artifact and returning it to its rightful owner before it damned the world. It was kind of fitting that the series had ended there, the webcomic's forums last meme being about how Magician had obviously slipped up and ended the series.

But he didn't really need to continue from here did he?

His mind lit up; this was just something for himself right? Just a little thing to take his mind off his troubles, there was no need to worry about continuity or the overarching plot. He could just start anywhere and see where the story lead.

He drew up his notes document and waited for something to come to him…

Anything at all.

Riiiiight- NOW!

Yeah no; practically any author upon being told to 'just write something' would find themselves frozen in indecision. Sure, they could 'write anything', but without something to start with, or better yet an ending to write to, they'd find themselves seemingly plagued with the emptiness of the page.

Just like how the blank white of Lincoln's empty notes seemed to mock him.

He switched the annoying tablet off and thought again; just staring at a page had never been part of his process. From his early drawings he had always started with something from around him and grown from there, from his fan comics with The Full House Gang to his webcomic he'd always taken something from what he knew.

But neither Ace or Magician sitting in a hotel was his idea of a good story. If he was going to draw something, it had to be something fun. He wasn't going to just make up something about Magician sitting on his arse and binging some old Zombie movies.

In the old days this would be when he went out and found some inspiration, maybe in a bar or sometimes sieving through some local police cases (thefts mostly, no wetwork in his portfolio!). But Lisa's 'all expenses' paid deal didn't cover anything outside the hotel, and after years without a proper job he was very broke.

How much fun and inspiration could he find in a hotel?

More than he would have expected, turned out.

"Is this your card Madam?" Lincoln presented a play card to the slightly overweight woman before him.

"No," the woman raised an eyebrow. "Mine was the eight of clubs."

"Gosh darn it," Lincoln sighed and shuffled the card back into his deck, before fishing out his wallet. "I guess that means I owe you five, but maybe-"

He opened his wallet to reveal a single playing card, and he pulled it free to reveal an eight of clubs before the astounded woman. "-you'd prefer an eight instead?"

"H-how?" the bamboozled bourgeoisie gasped. "I shuffled the deck myself- you would have had to have known before you came in?"

"A magician never reveals their secrets," Linc gave the woman a cheeky wink. "But I might be persuaded to let in on a hint if you give me a tip first…"

She chortled, and handed him a ten dollar note. "Well a bet's a bet, any other tricks up your sleeve Mr…"

"Naranja," Lincoln slipped into his old (admittedly on the nose) alias by instinct. "No, sorry- my name's Lincoln-"

The woman laughed, "well Mr Orange sure fits you just fine." She raised a glass to him, and looked to the side. "Well as much as I would like to stay and see what else you have up your sleeve- my husband is calling and I only have so much small change to lose…"

"I understand," he carefully replaced his pack of cards into the little plastic holder he used to keep them from being bent. "Can I hope to see you some time?"

"Oh my!" She laughed as she left. "A charmer too? You can count on it."

It was a simple game, but an effective one. Lincoln had a variety of interests, and one of them happened to be magic tricks. While he wasn't quite good enough to perform on stage- or at least to make a living off it, he certainly skilled enough to fool anyone who wasn't trained. All he had to do was go up to mark in a bar, smooze them a bit and then make the bet; five dollars to them if he couldn't pull off some little trick without them figuring it out and five to him if he successfully pulled it off. It was easy, most people had seen how magicians pulled off some of their tricks on youtube- so when he did something in a different way than they knew and gave them a show they'd usually hand over the five without a problem. After that someone from the crowd would pop in and ask if he'd do another trick, and then the cycle would start and continue.

Sure, one or two people would sometimes call him out. But he'd never had a night where he came home with less than he'd come in. The hotel bar was no different- except that the clientele were a bit more loaded than the seedy joints he used to frequent so he got a bit more 'generosity' as demonstrated with his last 'client'.

Lincoln kept up the smile as the woman left, then dropped it a bit when he saw the slightly sour expression on her husband's face. It wasn't like he was trying to emasculate the man, but a bit of… 'charm' never hurt when he was playing stage magician-

Except for that one time in Acapulco.

And then in Carmen…

And Baja-

Actually no; 'charm' seemed to have gotten in him a lot of trouble in hindsight.

To be fair though, putting up a confident, playful persona always seemed to help with the magic tricks. Ninety percent of the magician's trade was convincing the other person you could trick them, and projecting confidence was about ninety percent of doing that.

But maybe… he could work on avoiding anything that could be seen as flirtatious- even if it was accidental. Maybe it was just the guy, after all; Ronnie had been with him on a lot of those 'adventures' and she'd never-

Wait.

Weren't those usually around the times when she called things off-

"Scamming old ladies Loud?" A flat voice cut into his thoughts. "Somehow I never saw you as a conman-"

His smile froze- who?

He found himself turning to see a woman from the crowd addressing him, dressed in a light purple jacket with a black blouse and skirt it took him a moment to realise who she was under the dim lights of the establishment.

"But that would make you a good one, wouldn't it?" Maggie smirked and she took a seat beside him.

"Maggie?" He queried. "You're here?"

"Uhh, yeah?" The woman seemed nonplussed with his silly question. "I'm here for work- why are you playing dancing monkey in a hotel bar? I didn't think you even had time for this kind of thing with the circus you have at your house."

"Well…" Lincoln looked into the drink he had and saw there were a few sips left. "It's a long story."

"I've got time," Maggie shrugged. "But this place is a bit crowded, you wanna talk in my room?"

"… So now I'm stuck here for a good month, probably longer." Lincoln sighed. "It was fun for the first week but…"

"One scene gets old, I'm photographer, I know." The tall woman agreed, sitting on her bed while Lincoln relayed his tale to her.

"Really? My sister does the same-"

"Lucy and I have different specialties," Maggie interjected with uncharacteristic quickness. "I focus more on natural landscapes, Lucy is more…"

"Creepy old houses?" Lincoln shuddered.

"Yes, her ability to capture the beauty of what was lost is… exquisite," she sighed.

"Hmm, you know; she likes your work too." Lincoln flipped his phone open, "I'm pretty sure she follows you on Slap Book-"

"We're in a group together," Maggie bluntly informed him.

"A group?" Well they did seem to have similar interests so-

"Loud Mothers," Maggie's lips twitched.

Lincoln froze. "What Mothers?"

"Loud Mothers," Maggie slowly drew her phone from her jacket pocket and she showed him the page for the group in question.

"A support group for fellow victims of The Log!?" Lincoln read incredulously.

Maggie raised an eyebrow, then turned the screen back to read it. "Oh yeah- your sister wrote it for fun. I'm mostly sure she's joking."

"Mostly!?" Lincoln crossed his arms. "You all- I was comatose!"

"Bring it up with Luan then," Maggie shrugged. "Whatever, the point is that everyone that we know who has a kid by you gets an invite to share tips."

"I didn't get an invite!" Lincoln protested. "And I'm the one who needs help the most!"

"It's Loud Mothers," Maggie dryly emphasised. "If you want in, go talk to your mad scientist sister to install a womb to carry one these things for nine months and then we'll talk."

The man rolled his eyes, "you know, when I was a kid I thought all the 'secret girl club' stuff stopped happening when you grew up."

Maggie allowed a rare smirk- but whatever she was going to say was interrupted as her doorbell rang. The well built woman made her way over to the door and a hotel maid came through, pushing a pram.

Lincoln's world slowed down for a moment, as the wheels of his mind whirred.

"… the creche closed half an hour ago-"

As far as he knew, Maggie only had one child.

"I paid for another four…"

The maid wouldn't have a reason to push the pram into Maggie's room if it wasn't hers.

"Our overnight caretaker fell ill…"

Therefore….

"Fine. I can take her, but let your boss know I want a refund for those hours." Maggie sounded grumpy for some reason. But Lincoln wasn't worried about that, he was busy creeping over to the pram. Inside was an infant of around six or seven months old, clothed in a purple-grey onesie and semi-swaddled with a little black blanket. She had a tuft of black hair and a pale complexion that reflected her mother, but as he crept up to her she opened her eyes and her mouth opened into a yawn that became a sort of open smile.

It was her.

And Lincoln felt the enthusiastic need to let the room know;

"There's my Gloomy-Goo!" The suddenly cheerful man reached forward and scooped up the infant with both arms, startling the maid and prompting Maggie to sigh.

"Just go- I'll talk to him in the morning." Maggie shut the door the moment the maid sheepishly drew the pram out.

Lincoln meanwhile was happily continuing to ignore everything besides the coddled infant in his arms as he held her up and gave a little twirl. "Oh I missed you, yes I did- did you miss me!?"

Gloom let out a happyish gurgle as she stared at the white haired man presently spinning on the spot. Grinning, the man drew her close and gently squeezed her little body into a hug, prompting the infant to blow spit bubbles into his ear.

"If you keep spinning her she's going to hurl." Maggie pointed out.

Lincoln snapped out of his happy spin as he regained his senses. Sure enough the little face currently nestled into his neck was staring at him with happiness, but from hard earned experience he could feel that he was squishing her cartilaginous body a bit too much. As a now battle-worn parent he knew that giving in to the urge to cuddle as much as the child could seemingly handle was a trap.

Babies after all are apparently helpless, being both cute and too immobile to escape an overly-enthusiastic hugger. But they are also little more than a head and limbs attached to a digestive system, and thus prone to reward over-squeezing with a suitably large excretion from both ends.

Look back at the smirking woman he flushed as he realised that not only did Maggie- a woman he barely knew, but also a maid who would probably blab to the rest of staff saw him go completely silly. "Ahem, ahh…"

"It's fine, just sit her on the bed before you drop her." Maggie pointed, and Lincoln sat down where she indicated, sitting the infant in between his crossed legs and giving her a firm (but not 'cover me with your dinner' firm) hug so she couldn't crawl away. "Believe me, I can appreciate a Dad who cares"

"Oh…" Lincoln realised he had never seen Maggie's father.

"Just sit there, and try not to squeeze her too much." Maggie sighed, sitting down across from him. They remained silent for a minute, Gloom making vaguely pleased sounds and the occasional bit of baby babble.

"… Has she said her first word yet?"

"No, but I think she's close," Maggie smiled a little as she stared down at the infant. "She's been making all kinds of sounds lately."

"Really?" He stared down at the head below. "She's always quiet when she over at the house."

"She's not really comfortable with strangers," Maggie shrugged. "Your house is filled up people she doesn't know."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Gloom was a rare visitor to the Loud House, Maggie traveled for work but she usually took the child with her. When she was there, she was stuck with an ever changing-roster of siblings, and Lincoln had never seen her really reach out to any of them (as much as a baby could), preferring to stay in a corner with one of the adults. "I don't ever really get much one on one time with any of the kids either, but I'm glad we got this at least- right Gloomy?"

The child looked up at his face promptly, but blinked uncomprehendingly.

"Yeah she likes me." Lincoln declared with confidence.

"I think she likes you too," Maggie sighed. "Not that I'm sorry to have you together but-"

"Oh- did you need to get some sleep?" Lincoln looked at the clock- it was still early but if her job needed her to go hiking to get a specific spot…

"No, that's not it." Maggie frowned. "I was going to say; since the creche isn't open we're not going to be… doing 'that'."

"That?" Lincoln repeated in confusion.

"That." Maggie insisted. "That 'thing' we did to make Gloom."

Lincoln blinked, and flushed. "Se- sleeping together?" He hissed.

"Why did you think I invited you into my room alone?" The pale woman looked at him like he was stupid.

To be fair, Lincoln certainly felt like it, but still; "you could have just wanted to talk!" He protested. "Catch up like on things."

"We barely know each other, and the main reasons are between your legs." Maggie bluntly pointed at the infant, and presumably the thing that had seeded her tucked away in his pants.

"You could have just been being friendly," Lincoln contested.

Maggie stared at him flatly, and Lincoln felt his blush felt start to travel down his neck. "… Lincoln Loud, be honest with me; how many women have been 'friendly' with you like this?"

"Plenty!" He declared.

"Plenty of women have asked you go to their bedrooms?"

"Yes!"

"At night?"

"It sounds weird when you say it like that," he countered. "But they just wanted to talk!"

Maggie's eye narrowed. "Loud, did those women ever lock the door when they talked with you?"

"How am I supposed to remember that?" He tried to draw his memories to the forefront. "… A few times I think- but that was usually in a hotel room, you don't want random people just barging in by accident-"

"You're hopeless." The woman sighed. "You know that half of the school was interested in you right?"

The man snorted. "You mean back in middle and high school?" The woman nodded. "That's dumb, most of those girls could barely stand me- they'd get creeped out just because I was nearby!"

"They were nervous because they liked you." Maggie insisted.

"Oh please, I-"

"Rejected dozens of girls?" Maggie rolled her eyes. "Without even knowing it either apparently."

"You're teasing me." The man flatly replied. "None of those girls ever did something that was-"

"Women don't come out and say these things," Maggie leaned forward. "We have to be more subtle about it, or we get a reputation. Trust me Lincoln Loud; as the mother of one of your many children, those girls wanted you for something and it wasn't to play on your Gamestation."

Lincoln regarded her; she didn't seem to be lying, but she was nearly as hard to read as Lucy. Well not really, but still hard to read on a good day. "… Well even if you're serious, it's way too late now- and how was I supposed to know the difference between a girl being friendly or 'friendly'? If I got it wrong I'd get labelled creepy again!"

The pale woman leaned back. "Well 'Girl Guru'-"

"That was years ago, please let it go-"

"Sometimes you need to try and read between the lines to get the full story," She reached forward and gently plucked the now dozing infant from between Lincoln's legs. "Think about that while I put Gloom to bed."

Lincoln did indeed think while the woman took the sleepy child to a cot in the corner. But not on the silly theory she'd presented. Lincoln Loud knew the score for his High School self and prospective playboy he had not been. But the line she had used, 'sometimes you need to try and read between the lines'…

That was something his old critic from the Magician's Mysterium used to use, usually about some clearly villainous character he had written apparently having some secret redeeming motivation behind their antagonism. Of course Lincoln himself had known better, he wrote the characters after all (even if he based them on people he'd had the misfortune to know), however his polite but persistence corrections had always fallen on deaf ears.

But now…

"Hey," Lincoln called, quietly so to not wake his sleepy baby. "Do you know about an old webcomic called Magicians Mysterium?"

Maggie tucked her child away, then turned to him with a blank face. "Yeah? What about it?"

"Um…" how to approach this… "you wouldn't have happened to leave comments-"

"Oh yeah…" the women gave a little smile. "I used to try and get the author to pull his head out of his ass- half the time the 'bad guys' were just misunderstood and…."

She kept talking after that, but Lincoln tuned out as he realised that he was facing his old nemesis. The reality; he had (unwillingly) had sex with, and borne a child with….

"You're Sicko68!" Lincoln declared- as loudly he dared with a sleeping baby in the room.

"Yeah," She smirked. "Did my old catchphrase tip you off?"

"Yes, you used to argue with the author about everything!"

"Well, the story needed work," she folded her arms and looked off in remembrance. "The stuff he was writing had potential; but he never really reached it-"

"Hey!" He protested. "I bet he worked really hard on it- I liked it!"

"Well it was okay," Maggie dismissed. "But he never really improved. It's a shame- but it was cancelled after a few years anyway-"

"It's just on hiatus!"

"It's dead." The woman shrugged. "Trust me; if he wanted to keep going then-"

"I have kids now!" He pointed at the sleeping infant. "It's not my…. fault…" Lincoln trailed off as he realised that he'd given the game away.

Maggie stared at him, and whatever lie he could come up with died in his throat.

"…. Blackhat?"

Lincoln numbly nodded, knowing the game was up.

Maggie closed her eyes, and then approached the bed. Instinctively Lincoln scooted back, but the woman knelt onto the bedspread and approached him, now with open eyes and-

A full smile.

"Well, well… well," the woman's eyes twinkled with something. "It's seems like we have more than Gloom to talk about tonight-"

Lincoln's eyes darted to the door, "I should really get-"

"Let's start with why Magician and Mayhem never got to together despite the clear attraction-"

A bitter moan drew up through his mouth as he remembered one of many reasons he'd spend literal nights arguing with this woman. "Oh sweet Christ you're a shipper."

"I am the Maghem shipper," Maggie corrected. "And just so you know- I did lock the door."