(The following is a nonprofit work of fanfiction and is outside of the original canon. All names, characters, businesses, places, events, and/or incidents of any kind depicted within this story are being used for entertainment purposes only.)

(The Loud House and all related characters were created by Chris Savino and all rights belong to Nickelodeon.)

- Chapter Fourteen -

A Day at Dairyland: Part Two

"S-S-Sam?"

My teenage crush replied to my surprise with that exact same heart-melting giggle, which also contained a tiny pinch of mischief.

"Sorry, dude," she said, smiling cutely—like she always did. "I couldn't resist."

Almost instantly, both of my legs started to turn into wiggling boneless noodles, coupled together with anxiety-inducing sweat that was now forming around my brow. It was bad enough that Sam Sharp, the teenage girl that I was secretly head over heels in love with was conveniently here in Dairyland. When I got a much clearer view of her, I saw that she had also garnered a sightly new appearance as well, one that nearly sent my beating heart into a frenzy at such a pretty sight.

Sam had noticeably changed her blond hairstyle, no longer appearing like Farrah Fawcett.

Instead, her hair was now slightly frizzled, resembling that of Vince Neil, the lead singer of Mötley Crüe. Her turquoise blue headband was different as well, this time covered in multiple black printed leopard spots and such. She still wore her favorite light blue acid-washed denim jacket with multiple rock band buttons, as well as her burgundy-colored pants with stylized rips at the knees. And finally, she now sported a white T-shirt with the logo for the band Whitesnake on the front.

Somebody please tell me this isn't happening right now! I thought dreadfully. It's Gus' Games & Grub all over again!

"Oh my gosh! Sam?" Luna exclaimed, both happy and surprised to see her closest best friend right here in Dairyland—of all places. Just before my sister could even have the tiniest smidgeon of a chance to do anything, I quickly eyeballed a tall-looking figure who swiftly appeared right behind her. But then, I realized that the figure had in fact turned out to be Sully, Luna's one and only boyfriend. Sully tapped a single index finger on Luna's shoulder, causing her to whip herself around.

"SULLY?!" she squealed right after she saw him. At that moment, I watched as both girlfriend and boyfriend immediately embraced into a tight-looking hug, with Luna's arms reaching around his neck and underneath his shoulder-length mullet.

"Hiya, babe!" Sully greeted warmly, as my rock fanatic for a sister planted a loving kiss on his left cheek. Then suddenly, as if appearing from out of thin air, I noticed from the corner of my left eye that another familiar-looking teenage girl—one with an equally familiar full head of reddish-brown hair and a black denim jacket—jump out from behind Sully for everybody to see.

"What the...? Mazzy?" Lynn and Luan said at the same time. The aforementioned drummer of Moon Goats smiled.

"What's up, everybody?" she greeted, with a simple waving gesture of her right hand. Almost immediately, Luna turned and gathered up all three of her friends/bandmates into a quick little group hug.

"What are you guys doing here?" Luna asked perplexedly, turning back to face her boyfriend.

"Remember yesterday, when you told us that you and your family were going to Dairyland?" Sam asked Luna. My third oldest sister nodded her brown-haired, purple headband-wearing noggin in response. Mazzy then walked right over next to their band's keyboard player.

"Well, it just so happens that lover boy here," she explained, teasingly nudging Sully in his right arm, "thought it would be a very tubular idea if the four of us came to surprise you." I watched as Sully bowed his head a little bit, and then he massaged the back of his mullet-covered neck with a red-tinted blush appearing on his face.

"Aw, Sully," Luna cooed before embracing him into another hug. Luan smiled too, until she furrowed her brow and glanced back over to Sam.

"Wait, did you just say four of you?" she questioned confusingly. Sam's smile was replaced with an unhappy frown. Raising her left arm up, a smaller figure that was about a few inches shorter than me appeared from behind her, wielding a half-finished vanilla-flavored ice cream cone in one hand. The moment I saw the figure's pudgy-faced smile and the full head of blond hair, I instantly recognized him to be none other than—

"Simon?" Lynn spoke, a small tone of surprise in her voice.

"Hello!" Sam's aformentioned little brother chirped good-naturedly, waving a small hand at us before licking his ice cream.

"My folks said that I couldn't go unless I bring Simon along with me," Sam explained.

"Why couldn't your parents look after him?" Luan inquired curiously, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Well, our dad had a business meeting." Sam further went on. "And Mom had to go to the dentist." That was when my little twelve-year-old brain wondered about something.

"Then how did you guys manage to get over here if nobody drove you?" I asked, all the while trying really hard to push my anxiety-inducing lovesickness aside for a temporary moment.

"We all took the bus." Mazzy stated in a rather matter-of-fact kind of tone.

Oh. Well, that sure explains a lot. I commented in my head, my curiosity now put to rest.

"At first we called Chunk to see if he could give us a ride," Sam explained. "Unfortunately, he had a gig going on over at the other side of town. So, taking the bus was pretty much the only option we had available."

In case you might be wondering who the heck that was, Chunk was Moon Goats' roadie. Wherever the band wanted to go, be it to perform at some gig or just to hang out together, Chunk was always their go-to driver. Fun fact: he was also born and raised in London, England, so to say that both he and Dad became fast friends would be kind of an understatement, considering that my old man was a huge fan of British culture back in those days, even when he was just a little kid himself.

"Still, I cannot believe you actually went out of your way to surprise us like this!" Luna said, wrapping her arms around Sully's skinny waist.

"What can I say?" Sully purred flirtatiously, as he delicately wrapped his own arms around Luna's shoulders. "People will do just about anything in the name of love." With that, the two lovebirds gave each other a quick little smooch on the lips, which I thought was absolutely adorable, and it made me feel very happy for the both of them.

"Ugh, talk about barf-o-rama!" Lynn openly commented in a disgusted tone, rudely dispelling the romantic vibe. "Seriously, other people are watching us right now!"

Sully and Luna separated almost immediately when they realized what they were now doing.

"Sorry about that..." The pair said at the same time, embarrassed smiles displayed on each of their faces. I peered towards our sports-loving sister with an unhappy—and equally disapproving—frown.

Wow, Lynn, I thought. Way to kill the mood. I sometimes kept on forgetting that Lynn was not exactly somebody who was in the least bit interested in romance.

"Hey, guys!" Lana's voice piped up as she easily climbed over the wooden fence of the pen like a little monkey escaping from the zoo.

"Well, now that we have the 'band back together'," Luan punned, not that we could blame her for it, "what would you guys like to do?" Upon hearing the last half of that spoken sentence, Lana glanced around at all of us with a profound level of excitement that was now clearly written on her seven-year-old face. The same level of excitement I was already familiar with, and it made he realize what she was about to say next.

"Have you guys been on the Milk Shaker yet?" she asked. Yep, it was exactly as I had feared.

"The Milk Shaker?" Mazzy replied, closely matching Lana's enthusiasm in an instant. "No, we haven't actually! But I would really love to when we have the chance! Say, how about we go over there right now?"

Sully's face beamed with joy.

"Oh, now we're talking!" he agreed, sending a high five towards Mazzy's way. "I've been totally amped up to go on that ride almost all year long! No way am I going to pass that up! How about it, Sam?"

"Are you kidding me, Sully? Like I would say no to something tubular like that!" Sam also agreed. She then turned her gaze over to her little brother's direction.

"What about you, Simon?" she asked him. "You wanna come over with us and give the Milk Shaker a try?"

Right after she asked him that question, I quickly noticed Simon's little legs starting to wabble like Jell-O, and his eyes nervously shifted left to right. This form of body language told me exactly what he was feeling. At long last. It seemed like I was not the only person in our group, if not the entire world, who feared going on that ridiculous roller coaster. I quickly stepped in, discreetly speaking on his behalf—until I realized that I was now directly talking to my teenage crush.

"A-Are you s-sure about th-that?" I managed to say with a stammer. "I-I mean, the girls and I already saw th-that there was a p-pretty long line." Luna's fellow bandmates became a little bit perturbed when they heard this new information.

"Was there really?" Sully asked curiously, looking at all four of my sisters with a raised eyebrow. Luna, Luan, Lynn, and Lana could not help but frown in disappointment.

"Yeah, unfortunately so," Luan was the first to admit, rubbing the back of her neck. "We were over there just quite a few minutes ago and we saw that there was a fifty-minute waiting period."

"Oh man," Mazzy commented, resting her hands on her hips. "That really stinks."

Normally I would have agreed to such a statement; there was nothing more annoying than having to wait in an exaggeratedly long line to go on a ride in your beloved childhood theme park. And I should know a thing or two about waiting in long lines, given that my sisters and I always made up quite a percentage of it every single morning to use our house's one and only bathroom. But on this special occasion, I was very grateful that the line for the Milk Shaker was long as it appeared to be.

"Yeah, so we've been going around the park doing other stuff," Luna explained. "But hopefully, the line will have gone down when we come back later." At that, Sam smiled understandingly.

"You know, if the line is still there, I'm more than happy to do whatever else you guys are doing," she said to us. But then, she made a face, one which indicated that she now had an idea. "In fact, why don't we just save the Milk Shaker for the very last until then? Sound alright?" A giant wave of relief instantly washed over my entire body when I heard her say those beautiful, life-saving words escape from her mouth.

I couldn't have set it better myself, I thought gratefully.

"Sure, why not?" Sully said with an understanding smile of his own. "I mean, it's not like it's going anywhere soon, right?"

"HA!" Luna burst out. "That's almost exactly what I said earlier!"

"Then what are we all waiting for? Chinese New Year?" Lynn spoke aloud impatiently. "Come on, we're already burning daylight as it is! Let's go!"

And so, now that everybody was in total agreement, the gang and I made our way outside of the Friends 4 Udder petting zoo and back out into the park itself. All of a sudden, I felt a gentle tug on the left sleeve of my shirt, grabbing my attention. I glanced to my left and saw Simon. As we walked, he beckoned me to lean closer down to his level and then he whispered a relieved sounding, "Thank you, Lincoln." into my ear. Realizing what he meant, I looked at him with an assuring smile.

"Not a problem, dude," I whispered back to him with a thumb's up. Yep, it really looked like it was all going to be smooth sailing from here on out... That was until I instantly made an eye-opening discovery. I may have spared us from having to go on that ding dang roller coaster, but I had just unknowingly traded one problem for an even bigger one. And that problem just so happened to be walking along with our group, taking on the physical form of none other than Simon's older sister.

So, this meant that not only were we going to spend our quality time here in Dairyland, but now I had to do so along with Sam, the beautiful punk rocking teenaged girl of my dreams, being constantly present throughout the entire ordeal—for the next two straight hours. My skinny arms dangled loosely from my shoulders in misery.

Oh man! I mentally said, my heart pounding in my scrawny chest. Those are going to be the longest two hours of my life!

After having traversed from one side of the park to another, the next ride we chose to stop at was amusingly called the Cheese Wheel.

It was one of those rides where you were safely hooked up into one of the many hanging swings around you, and then it would carefully spin you in a large circle up in the air. It was not at all a fast ride, but it was still pretty exciting in its own respective right. And it was also thankfully not one of those rides that spun you around so fast until your face turned a bright shade of green and then made you throw up whatever you had eaten early in the day.

Or just made you throw up regardless of the circumstance. As we were all waiting in line, I felt my heart pounding more fiercely than ever against my chest as I stood closely next to Sam. A small breeze gently brushed against her blond hair, and as she moved a bit over to one side, her head blocked the full view of the hot summer sun, giving her what I could possibly describe as the most angelic glow I had ever seen in my entire life.

I stared in complete awe at such a heavenly image. As if I hadn't thought that she was quite an angel already. But when she turned around to look in my general direction, I quickly tore my gaze away from her to stare off into something else. I sucked in my bottom lip and closed my eyes as tight as they were allowed to be. I then fiercely shook my head, wanting so badly to slap myself in the face.

Why does this always have to be so ding dang hard? I thought upsettingly. Why can't I just tell her how I feel and be done with it already? And then right on cue, as if some unseen force was reading my mind, REO Speedwagon's Can't Fight This Feeling started playing almost as loud as it could from a nearby speaker. All this did was help in worsening my dilemma. I roughly massaged the bridge of my nose and groaned under my breath when I was forced to hear the far-too-relatable lyrics.

The story of my life, I swear, I remarked in my head. When it was finally our group's turn, we each chose our own respective swing that dangled close to the ground from the giant mechanical cheese wheel situated high above us. Lana sat in a swing that was at a safe distance from mine to my left, while a few feet in front of me, Sam buckled up into hers with Simon, after having finished his ice cream at this point, sitting in one swing a couple of feet from her right. Farther ahead, Luna chose hers as Sully sat to her slightly far left side.

Lynn and Luan chose their own swings from behind me. When we and the other surrounding guests were safe and secure, the ride operator pressed the big red button in the barn-shaped booth, and we were all slowly lifted up into the air within a matter of seconds. And just like that, we were off, flying through the air in one graceful circle, our hair floating around almost like spaghetti noodles. Simon held tightly to the chains of his swing in a slightly fearful manner. This told me that the poor little guy was not exactly a fan of heights. Or spinning around in a circle at the same time.

Sam, however, had both her hands up, letting out a "Yahoo!" and an excited laugh every now and then.

Man, she's so gorgeous, I thought blissfully, smiling like a little goofball. After two and a half minutes of spinning and flying in the summer air, we slowed down and carefully returned to solid ground. After Simon got out, he tried to steady himself for a few seconds on a steel rail, taking a couple of deep breaths to keep himself from hurling his ice cream. Sam could not help but giggle a little bit at her little brother's temporary dilemma.

"Come on, Simon," Sam spoke while gently patting him on the back. "It wasn't that bad, was it?"

I actually thought it wasn't quite bad at all. At least it was better than the Milk Shaker.

When that was over, we then walked over to the carnival games, which was always a fun treat. The very first game Sam made a beeline for was Pop-a-Pig. You know the classic game Whac-a-Mole? This was exactly like that. But instead of moles, there were pigs that popped up in front of you, and you had to hit one or two really fast in the head with a big plastic mallet. Playing this game would have been much easier if Sam wasn't looming right next to me as I tried to keep my focus up.

This really was beginning to feel like Gus' Games & Grub all over again, and that was only two months ago...

Oh, my goodness, I realized. Has it really been two months already? Wow. Time flies pretty fast, doesn't it?

And just like that day, I had huge amounts of trouble concentrating, my fear and anxiety taking off like a rocket, my arms and my brain once again developing minds of their own. And also like that day, I wanted to smack my head against the nearest wall in frustration. History was quite literally repeating itself, much to my chagrin. When it soon became Sam's turn to play, I looked over to my right and saw Luan, Lynn, and Lana trying their hands at playing the classic strongman game.

You know, the one where you hit the lever with a large hammer, shooting the puck up the tall tower to hit the bell?

And far over to my left, I easily spotted Sully and Luna throwing darts at some blown up balloons that were taped to the flat surface of a large dartboard. With great skill, Sully threw each dart at every single balloon on the dartboard, each one of them letting out a loud "POP!". With triumphant smiles, Sully and Luna searched for their prize on the stand next to the game. Sully was the first to pick out a prize, which came in the form of a stuffed, purple teddy bear, and he gave it to my sister.

Luna happily accepted the gift and embraced her boyfriend into a tender hug.

"Lucky them," I muttered under my breath, feeling both happy and jealous for the pair.

But those feelings immediately disappeared when Sam called me up for another round of Pop-a-Pig. And then after that, for the next fifteen to twenty minutes, we went from playing one carnival game over to the next. Only halfway through the entire process, I tried my absolute hardest to keep myself from once again turning into a pathetic lovesick basket case. But then, it started to feel less terrible as time slowly marched on.

I soon noticed that the longer I played these fun games with Sam, the more relaxed and level-headed I became. I was now at the point where I could actually be comfortable in my own skin. Whereas I failed before at Gus' Games & Grub, I found myself doing surprisingly much better right there in Dairyland. And I'm not going to lie, even though it was really just two friends having fun and hanging out at a theme park, but in my mind's eye, it was the closest thing to being on a first date.

By the time the twenty-minute mark had struck, the gang and I were already walking away from the area, with prizes and snacks in our hands as well as with great feelings of accomplishment. I myself, by some great miracle, had managed to win a prize as well, which happened to be a cute little stuffed elephant that was colored all turquoise. I felt very proud of myself for having won this awesome prize, and I did so without even breaking an anxiety-induced sweat.

Thinking back on Sully and Luna winning their stuffed purple bear earlier, this gave me an idea. Why shouldn't I do the same for somebody that I loved as well? I glanced up at Sam and then back down at my stuffed turquoise elephant. A tiny smile began to manifest itself upon my face.

Sam deserves a present, I thought reasonably. It's the least I can do to show her how much I care. Er, without having to reveal my feelings for her, of course. Taking a very slow and deep breath, I steeled myself as best I could and then whipped my gaze back at my crush.

"Hey Sam!" I managed to say.

"Yeah, Lincoln?" she asked, curiously eyeing me. After hesitating for just one second, I at last held out the stuffed elephant to her, all the while trying my best not to make what I was doing appear romantic in any way, shape, or form, as much as possible.

"I... I want you to have this," I openly declared to her. She let out a tiny gasp of surprise before taking the stuffed animal into her own hands, looked at it for a brief moment, and then back over to me.

"Aww," She cooed adorably, flashing me an appreciative smile. "Thanks, dude. That's totally sweet of you." I shyly bowed my head and rubbed the back of my neck.

"Eh, it's nothing really," I said shrugging my shoulders, my cheeks blushing a shade of red. "Just think of it as an esteemed token of our friendship."

And by that, a voice in my head told me, what you actually mean to say is, "A declaration of my undying love for you.", right Lincoln?

Yes... I mentally admitted. Because there's no other girl in the world that are as outrageously tubular like her.

"Well, looky what we have here...," a random voice spoke up from out of nowhere, sounding a lot like Biff Tannen from Back to the Future. A random voice which also happened to be so annoyingly familiar, it made my delicate shoulders tense up and my teeth clench together. Taking a deep breath through my nose, I slowly turned around the face the source of the voice and I came once again face to face with none other than the very last person I expected or even wanted to see.

"Oh..., you," I grunted, frowning unhappily at the weaselly smiling face of Chandler McCann.