It was quiet. Wonderfully, gloriously, unequivocally quiet, which was a much needed change of pace for the sole male Loud. Lincoln's status quo had changed significantly in the previous week, and while this was generally a good thing...matters of evil space entities hell-bent on the destruction aside, it left the boy with very little time to himself. Even now he wasn't completely alone, he had already promised Lori that they'd spend time together, and Lincoln always tried to be a man of his word. Fortunately, Lori eldest sister that she was, had seemingly already read the situation, and had planned accordingly.

The pair sat together on Lincoln's bed, the pale haired boy reclining comfortably against his big sister a comic book in his hand and a smile on his face. There were no words spoken, no noises at all, save for the ambient sounds of the neighborhood wafting through the sunlight-laden window, and the occasional turning of pages. Lincoln had been bothered initially, the girls had tentatively settled on an arrangement wherein they would divvy up time to spend with Lincoln, and apportion specific periods for themselves on a week to week basis. This was supposed to be Lori's time, but upon her arrival the older girl had been very clear that the only thing she expected Lincoln to do was lay down and rest. And so he did, one didn't argue with Lori when she used that tone of voice. For her part, the eldest Loud sibling seemed content with their current state. She had taken her place on the bed, pulled Lincoln close to her, and shoved a comic in his hands and bade him to read it. Lori made no attempts to elicit conversation from him, expressed no displeasure that his attention might be elsewhere. Rather, she seemed content to merely be in her brother's presence. Occasionally she'd playfully flick his turkey tail, plant a kiss on him, or nuzzle her face against him, but otherwise the older girl seemed happy to allow Lincoln to do his own thing. And for that, he was very grateful.

"You're looking a lot better, little brother." Lori observed, finally breaking the silence.

"I'm feeling a lot better." He replied, putting aside his comic and leaning more fully into Lori. "Thanks, by the way, I really needed some time. Sorry it came at the expense of your time."

"Don't you dare." She warned him, some of the sting taken out of her words by the playful squeeze she gave him. "Today, I just wanted to hang out a little. And that's exactly what we did. We'll do something next time."

"Next time." Lincoln agreed, tilting his head upward so he could look Lori in the eye. "Definitely next time."

Lori let out a small giggle, leaned down and planted a quick kiss on Lincoln's lips. Her eyes didn't leave his, as she pulled away.

"Those other girls working you hard, little bro?" Lincoln gulped, sense a slight edge to Lori's tone that hadn't been there previously.

"A bit." He admitted. "There was the thing with Luan..."

BANG BANG BANG

Lincoln awoke with a start, blinking furiously to shake the vestiges of sleep from his eyelids. He peered over at his alarm clock, squinting as he tried to make out the numbers. 6 am on a Saturday, and already someone was trying to kick his door down. Seemed pretty par for the course.

"Coming!" He shouted, sliding out of his bed, and making his way unsteadily across the darkened room.

BANG BANG BANG

"I said I was coming!" Finally reaching his destination, he steeled his nerves one last time, and yanked the door open.

"Lincoln! So happy you came for me." Luan. Of course. Fully dressed, looking fresh as a daisy, and sounding entirely too pleased for how early it was.

Lincoln violently shook his head, hoping to forcibly expel the remaining lethargy from his system. It didn't take, but at least he could see now, more or less.

"Hey, Luan." He mumbled, rubbing his eyes. He noticed that the comedienne was laden with dvds, bluerays, a couple of VHS tapes, and even what appeared to be a laser disc. "We doing a movie marathon, or something?"

"Something like that." Luan replied, shuffled her load around to free up one of her hands. "Got a fresh load of toku straight from Japan! After it was redirected to China, given low quality English subtitles, and unlawfully resold with none of the profit going to the owners, of course."

"Alright." Lincoln shrugged. "Sounds like fun. I was hoping to take it easy today anyway.

"Easy nothing!" Luan jabbed him in the stomach with her now free finger. "I heard all about that special move you helped Sam come up with, so now you're gonna do the same for me!"

"Fine, fine!" Lincoln grumbled, pushing her arm away with no small amount of effort. "Just let me take a shower, and I'll—"

"Nope!" Lincoln let out a short yelp as Luan grabbed him by the collar and began dragging him down the hallway. "We've got 80-some hours of material to go through, and I only have you booked for 12. So we don't have any time to spare!"

"Alright." Lincoln let out a sigh of resignation. So much for taking it easy.

"Oh, and one more thing." Suddenly, they stopped moving. Lincoln opened his mouth to ask what the holdup was, but before he could Luan hoisted him up off the ground with her free hand, then held him against her, taking special care to shove his face between her breasts.

"Sam said you were feeling her up while you guys did your thing." She leaned down and gave him a peck on the forehead. "So I expect the same treatment."

"You were half dead when you came down to dinner that night." Lori observed.

"Turns out Luan's very...uh, enthusiastic about the material."

"Hmm." Lori replied, pursing her lips in thought.

"A-anyway..." Lincoln replied hurriedly, "Then there was that other thing with Sam and Luna..."

Lincoln fidgeted in his stool as he anxiously looked over the drum kit before him. "Luna, I'm not sure I can do this."

The rocker paused her inspection of her own instrument and dashed over to the younger boy.

"Chill, little bro." She said, pulling him into a side hug. "We don't need you to play anything, this is just a photo op. All we need you to do is sit there and look awesome."

Luna touseled Lincoln's hair. Then, after a moment of hesitation, leaned over and kissed the pale haired boy on the cheek. "And if there's one thing I know you don't need any help with, it's looking awesome, bro."

"T-thanks, Lunes." Lincoln stammered, returning the gesture even as his cheeks flushed with embarrassment. "But that's not what I'm worried about. I'm mostly concerned about my—"

Lincoln was cut off as the ground beneath them began to wobble, causing both siblings to sway precariously.

"—balance." He finished with a nervous gulp, once they'd stabilized once more.

"I get ya." Luna grumbled, rolling her eyes.

"Sam!" She called out, tapping her foot on the ground. "This was your idea! So hurry up and hold her steady!"

"I'm trying!" The blonde called out as the ground wobbled again. "But I didn't count on how wacky the weight distribution would be!"

Lincoln sighed. In theory, Sam's vision of an album cover depicting him and Luna rocking out atop a van held aloft by the blonde girl herself, sounded pretty awesome. In practice, it was more scary than anything else, as one wrong move from Sam could easily result in his small, squishy body being buried under several tons of steel.

"Are you sure we couldn't just do this with Photoshop?" He asked for the umpteenth time. "Its not like anyone's going to know!"

"I'll know!" The blonde growled, planting her feet as she tried to balance her load. "Samazon is the album that's gonna put our band on the map! And it deserves an authentic, and totally awesome album cover! Now both of you hold still already!"

"Yeah, uh...just one thing, love." Luna said, reaching out and dragging Lincoln's drum kit back towards the center of the roof.

"What is it now!?"

"Linc and I are up here, and you're stuck down there. So who..." Luna said slowly and emphatically. "Is actually going to be taking this photo?"

"...Dangit."

"Tell me Sam didn't take Chunk's van. Again." Lori replied, dryly.

"Turns out it's a lot easier when she can literally just pick it up and walk away with it."

"Literally." Lori repeated, letting out an amused giggle.

"And that's nothing." Lincoln continued. "Then I had my day with Leni, and she wanted to—"

Lincoln's tale was interrupted as Lori forcibly spun him around. "Little bit of advice for you, now that you seem to be feeling better." She purred, leaning forward so that her face was only millimeters away from his own. "When you're spending time with a girl, try to limit how much time you spend talking about other girls."

Taking the hint, Lincoln closed the distance between them and kissed Lori, the act of joining his lips to hers eliciting a delighted squeak from the older girl. Taking this as a good sign, Lincoln leaned more fully into the kiss, soon finding himself directly atop his now moaning sister. He broke away, just for a second to catch his breath, and noticed a pleased smirk on Lori's face.

"Well aren't you the bold one." Lori cooed happily.

Lincoln didn't take her meaning at first. Then he noticed that, at some point during their exchange of affection, his right hand had crept underneath Lori's shirt, seemingly of its own volition, and was currently wrapped around one of the busty blonde's glorious globes. The second thing he noticed was that Lori was very much not wearing a bra today, possibly in anticipation of this.

"Whoops." He chuckled nervously, scratching the back of his head with his free hand. "I guess Leni's got me pretty well trained."

"Oh?" Lori fluttered her eyelashes at him. "Come back down here, and maybe I'll show you a few things."

Lincoln! Much as I hate to interrupt your mating ritual, I would be remiss if I—

"Not now, Seven." Both siblings growled in unison, before resuming their trajectory towards each other.

But you seem to have forgotten that you—

"Lincoln!" The siblings flinched as the voice of Rita Loud, specifically honed to command the attention of eleven unruly children, reverberated throughout the house. "You'd better be ready to go! It's a long drive to the city!"

—have a prior engagement today. Seven finished, somewhat unnecessarily.

"...Dangit." Muttered the fully revved up teen and her only slightly less disappointed brother.

"Sorry about that." Lincoln offered, embarrassed, as he scrambled to make himself look presentable. First straightening his polo, then dashing over to his mirror and trying his best to fix his now mussed up hair. "It kinda slipped my mind that we were on a shortened schedule today."

"I'll take that as a compliment." Lori shook her head in bemusement. "But it's fine, really. I knew you had plans for today, its my fault for getting carried away."

"I could have canceled. I could still—"

"Don't you dare!" Lori gently chided him. The older girl stepped behind Lincoln, slid her arms around him and gave him a quick hug. "Ronnie inviting you to come visit means that she misses you. And it's very rude to keep a girl waiting."

"I guess." Lincoln cleared his throat, and glanced sideways at Lori, nervously. "I-if you wanted to, you could always come with—"

"Pass." Lori's flat refusal was immediate, and booked no room for discussion. "The last thing I want to do be around my ex while you're hanging out with your—"

She paused, catching herself. "While you're off having fun with Ronnie."

Lori leaned down and gave Lincoln a quick peck on the cheek. "Just promise me you'll keep your whole...deal under control this time." She warned. "Last thing I need is for you to come back from your little trip with another girlfriend in tow."

"No need to worry about that." Lincoln replied. "Every attack so far has happened in Royal Woods, so I don't see any more, uh, emergency circumstances coming up."

"Besides." Lincoln let out a small laugh, one which was only slightly self-deprecating. "Ronnie's already made it pretty clear that we weren't like that. There's zero reason why my lips should be anywhere near Ronnie Anne Santiago's."

"Ronnie! What kind of lipstick would Lincoln like better, strawberry kiwi, or watermelon lime?"

Ronnie Anne Santiago let out a quiet groan and slid further into her chair. "Watermelon lime." She grumbled, quickly glancing up at the jubilant, expectant face of Sid Chang, before turning her attention back to the skateboard magazine she was pretending to read.

"Noted!" Her best friend chirped, before disappearing into her closet.

Ronnie ignored her and flipped the page, trying to focus on the words in front of her, but to no avail. Her heart just wasn't in it. The periodical might as well have been written in gibberish, for all the distraction it provided. Ronnie had, only a few weeks prior, floated the idea of Lincoln coming to visit during one of their video chats. She had only partially done this at Sid's insistence. In truth, she missed the pale haired boy, and genuinely wanted to see her other best friend in person.

The problem came from the fact that when Lincoln had previously visited, circumstances had contrived in such a way that Ronnie had grossly misinterpreted the boy's intentions, thinking he had made the trip so he could ask her to be his girlfriend. In a moment of panic, not at all helped by how embarrassingly supportive her family was of this hypothetical relationship, she'd done everything she could to torpedo any possible romantic overtures from the sole male Loud. They'd managed to sort things out in the end. However, in a move that had felt right in the moment, no doubt resulting from her frayed emotional state, Ronnie had made it very clear to Lincoln that she only considered him to be a friend, and wasn't looking for anything more than that. Lincoln, thankfully, had taken her declaration in stride, and things between them had quickly reverted to their normal state. And for a time, Ronnie Anne was grateful, because in that moment she had well and truly meant what she had said

But the possibility continued to weigh on the Santiago girl's mind, that this normalcy had only been achieved because she and Lincoln were long distance friends to begin with. Even if she had been right, even if she'd accepted Lincoln's proposal, its not like they'd be able to do couple stuff anyway. At best, they'd be like Lori and Bobby, mooning over each other over a phone or tablet screen.

Ronnie grimaced, as a memory came unbidden to her. Well, they'd be like Lori and Bobby had been, she mentally corrected herself. Apparently long distance took a lot of work, even for people as head over heels for each other as those two had been. And when the breakup happened, and she'd sat there, trying to comfort her distraught brother, Ronnie had taken it as a sign that she'd made the right decision.

The problem now, was that...it was entirely possible that she might, under a very specific interpretation of the circumstances... have begun to regret that decision.

Ronnie couldn't quite point to when this hypothetical possibility, only supported by the most circumstantial and anecdotal of evidence, had begun. It might have been when Lincoln had been forced to cancel one of their video chats, and Ronnie had found herself in a consistently terrible mood until they were finally able to reschedule. It might have been when, she'd received that package from him, "Happy Birthday" scribbled across the top in the Loud boy's familiar and terrible handwriting. When it came into her possession, the box was beaten to hell and well over a week late, presumably because of the chaos that plagued the boy's life on a regular basis, but she'd chosen not to hold that against him. The gift was so...dumb, so characteristically lame, she'd have known it was from Lincoln even without the label. A homemade stencil for her skateboard, depicting a crude design of a long-haired girl, presumably herself, dressed like a superhero. She'd laughed so hard that it brought tears to her eyes. And then, later that night, she'd meticulously applied it to her board, not a drop of spray paint wasted. On the bottom of the board, of course, she still had a rep to maintain.

Regardless, it was possible, however unlikely, that she might have developed feelings for her best boy fri—male associate. And having him physically around...looking at her, smiling at her with that bucktooth grin of his...it was only going to make things more complicated.

"Ronnie! Which of these looks better?"

Ronnie Anne sighed and put down the magazine, finally dropping the pretense of being distracted altogether. "And then there's this whole thing." She thought to herself, as she looked over the two identical blue shirts Sid was now frantically waving in front of her...shirts which were also identical to the one the Asian girl was already wearing.

"Sid, they look exactly the same." Ronnie said, trying to keep the exasperation out of her voice.

"Not true!" Sid held up the shirt in her left hand. "This one shows off four extra millimeters of my shoulders."

Ronnie waited for further elaboration, and received none. "Does that matter?" She asked, confused.

Sid shrugged. "Apparently." With that, she flung the garments aside, and disappeared back into her closet. Ronnie shook her head, and wrote the whole thing off as just another one of Sid's wacky antics.

"By the way..." Ronnie looked up to see Sid's head poking out just the barest amount, the rest of her body hidden behind the partially closed closet door. "Thanks again for agreeing to set this up. I know it must be...weird, for you."

"Weird?" Ronnie forced herself to laugh. "What would be weird about my two best friends going on a date? Absolutely nothing at all, that's what!" Ronnie winced as she finished the sentence, that last "what" still echoing in the small room. She may have said that a little more forcefully than was absolutely necessary, a possibility which was further reinforced by the look of concern that came over the other girl's face.

"It's fine, Sid, really." She insisted, trying to reassure the brunette. "I'm okay with you wanting to go out with him. Honest." She breathed a little easier when Sid let out a small sigh of relief, and disappeared back into the darkness.

"Besides." She called out, trying to keep her voice level. "Even if I did want to go out with Lincoln, it's not like I could anyway." It took no small amount of effort to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

"Oh, yeah. Because of your...uh, 'job', right?" Sid called back, half a dozen additional blue shirts flying out of the closet as she did so, each one somehow more identical than the last.

Ronnie winced again. This time as her friend's words brought forth the image of the ominous black trunk that was hidden under her bed back home. Covered with runes, wards, and other symbols undoubtedly lost to time, as well as a pair of strangely out of place pink tassels tied around the handles.

"Yeah." She grumbled, having honestly forgotten to even factor that particular bit of nonsense into an equation which was rapidly growing more complex by the minute. "That's exactly what I was talking about."