Lincoln Loud didn't lead a very easy life.

He did at one point, when he was younger. Back then, back before the snot had cleared from his nose and when it was still okay to sleep with a stuffed rabbit, Lincoln had it all: a warm bed; nice meals; a family that he loved. There were no responsibilities beyond doing your homework and helping out with the dishes.

Lincoln, sitting on a lumpy couch in his small hovel of an apartment, glanced over at the pile of dirty dishes in the sink, and frowned. Things were so much easier back then, he thought.

Maybe he made a mistake running away…

He shook his head, dismissing that thought. He knew why he did it, and while there were flashes of regret from time to time, he didn't agonize over his choice too much. He had to do it, after all.

Still, if he hadn't run away, maybe he would remember what food cooked by a loved one tasted like. Because despite what their advertising insisted, KFC and Mars Inc. and all the ramen cup producers didn't give a damn about him, and somehow he could taste that in every Snickers bar and Zinger he ate.

Sigh. Oh well, shit happens.

"You know what I need?" he declared to his empty apartment. "Some fresh air!"

With that, he stepped into the bathroom and stared at his reflection in the cracked mirror. He rubbed the side of his face, the thin hairs of his shaved sideburns scratching his fingertips, and he scowled slightly. Definitely need to shave soon, he thought. Or maybe I can just pass this off as No Shave November. At least the barbershop won't get to shave off my wallet.

He chuckled lightly. Even after all these years without talking to her, Luan's punny sense of humor was still ingrained in his psyche.

He washed up a little, combed his hair to the best of his ability (Go down, cowlick, go DOWN!), then put on some outdoor clothes – his usual orange shirt and slack jeans – and went for a walk.

Memories of his latest case flooded him as he marched down the sidewalk. Like a noir detective novel, it all started with a dame in red coming to his "office" and giving him his case. It was the same as usual: she had a hubbie that sometimes smelled like other women, so she needed Lincoln Loud, Private Eye, to check it out. After several nights of stake-outs – which mostly consisted of Lincoln in his car, listening in on all the bugs he had planted while he wiggled uncomfortably in his seat and tried not to doze off – he found that the guy hadn't been cheating… he just worked at a perfume store.

When Lincoln confronted her about it, demanding to know how she didn't even know her husband's job, the woman fired back with "Well, it took you a week to find out his job, Mr. Sherlock Detective Idiot, so cut me some slack!"

Touche.

Meow.

No, not meow. Touche. Wait, what?

Lincoln was pulled out of his thoughts by the soft cries of an alley cat, leaning and stretching on the wall he was walking past. Lincoln stopped and smiled; the cat was mostly black, with a few splotches of brown on its face. It reminded him of his childhood cat, Cliff.

He bent down, getting on one knee, and reached towards the feline. It hissed, more out of fear than hostility. Before the cat even knew it, Lincoln's hand was running all over its inky black coat, stopping only behind the ears to scratch.

The hissing quickly turned into pleasant mewling.

Lincoln let out a soft laugh. "Sorry I don't have any food with me," he apologized, "but I hope this'll make up for it."

He had heard from his old buddy Zach that cats didn't really like being touched, and that they mostly put up with it because they expected food in return. Looking down at the cat playfully squirming underneath his hand, Lincoln knew he was just full of it. How could a cute little thing like this be a scheming manipulator?

His hand stopped then. The cat stopped writhing and looked up at Lincoln's face. The smile disappeared, leaving behind a stony, thoughtful expression. The kind a man only gets when he's contemplating the theories of existence… or his own life.

"Stop thinking about the past, Lincoln," he ordered himself. "You got things to look forward to in the future."

That he did. What he had to look forward to was a reunion with Stella and Girl Jordan.

Lincoln was pretty wary of detectives and law enforcement (having had to evade them for so long as a runaway) but since he picked up his new gig as a PI, he found himself having to work with them more and more. He'd heard through the grapevine that some chick detective named Jordan was working on the serial killer case with a Filipina, and Lincoln couldn't believe his ears. C-Could it really be...?

It was. Before he knew it, he found himself confronting a wide-eyed Jordan Taber in front of the police station, who stared at him like she was staring at a ghost. He weakly smiled, raised his hand, and croaked, "Hey Girl Jordan."

He got slapped for calling her that. And then he got slapped again for running away without saying goodbye to anyone.

Eventually, they got to talking at a local diner. Lincoln watched as her soft features, bathed in the pinkish glow of flickering neon lights, slowly morphed from an upset glower to a relieved smile to a somewhat excited grin. "Stella's really missed you, you know," she had told him, "so you coming back is really going to make her day. Especially if you've brought clues to help us out with this killer."

"Oh, Stella," he said. He shifted uncomfortably on his stool. "Did she ever… talk about me?"

Lincoln had to admit it: he had a real strong crush on her back in the day. The really embarrassing kind that made otherwise functioning people turn into gibbering retards. Even now, though the raging inferno of his attraction for her had died down, the embers were still warm.

Girl Jordan, at that point, blushed and shifted her eyes to the side. "Yes," she had answered, weirdly formally. Lincoln was hoping for something more than a monosyllabic answer, but it was great news regardless of how it was delivered.

Speak of the devil, his phone began to ring. He pulled his hand away from his new feline friend, and before he even checked the caller ID, he knew it was Jordan. "Yo yo yo." He delivered that line completely and utterly deadpan.

"You trying to sound like a rapper?"

"Been thinking about a career shift," he sarcastically responded.

"Honestly, go for it. I'd have fun throwing you in jail for drugs," she teased.

"Just wait until the Democrats win next year. My main man Fidel Hassan Nguyen Goldstein's going to legalize all of them."

"God, I still can't get over his name. Anyway, I'm not calling to talk politics. I'm calling to tell you to be at my place tonight."

"Tonight? Why tonight?"

"Why is anything anything? Just be there."

With that, the call ended just as abruptly as it began. Lincoln glanced at his phone's screen, flashing the CALL ENDED message, and shrugged his shoulders. He stuffed his phone back into his pocket. The cat purred, and Lincoln whispered, "Listen, next time I see you, I promise I'll have something for you."

The cat, as if it understood what he said, got up and started walking away, tail high in the air. Lincoln rolled his eyes. "And now the cat's mad at me," he grumbled. "Typical. Just typical."

Guess Zach was right after all. I wonder what happened to him?

He continued on his way, though he found it less relaxing and more frustrating. He walked past rows of stores that he didn't have the money to buy anything from. Lincoln never liked window-shopping; as a kid, if he wanted something, he'd come up with some zany scheme to get his greedy little mitts on it. Schemes that always backfired, granted, but somehow produced a desirable result anyway. But thinking about that didn't help his growling stomach when he passed by a bakery and was hit in the face with the warm, buttery scents that flowed from the ovens within.

Then again… maybe try one out for old time's sake?

He stopped in his tracks. The bakery was owned by a man named Loni Lionel, a strongly pro-cop man who gave steep discounts to law enforcement. He was also pretty dumb. Pleasant, but dumb. Lincoln scratched his chin, but deciding Fuck it and walking into the bakery.

"Good afternoon!" Loni shouted from behind the counter, a beaming smile on his face. He reminded Lincoln of Leni (and not just because of the name and disturbingly similar appearance) which did make him pause for a moment. He felt twinges of guilt over what he was planning to do.

Then his stomach growled.

"Good afternoon, I'm, uh, Officer Loud," Lincoln said. Leaning on the counter, he reached for his thin wallet and showed Loni his private investigator ID, conveniently covering the word "private" with his finger. Loni's eyes widened, and he began nodding his head rapidly, like he was at a rock concert.

"Hello Officer. I've never seen you before. You must be new to the force. Anyways, I'm Loni Lionel, a man who proudly serves the boys in blue just as you serve us. I offer discounts on what I sell for police, which I admit isn't much, but hey, we all know how much you guys love your donuts."

Lincoln chuckled politely. "It's more than enough, thank you. It's good to see not everyone's all 'Fuck the police' these days. I, uh… I'll have a box of donuts. All chocolate."

"Coming right up~"

Lincoln did feel a little bad when he took the box and paid only half of what he should've. But then again, he would be, as of tonight, on the trail of a serial killer, so maybe he could cut himself a little slack.

He took a bite into his first donut, and grinned.

The Man With The Plan's still got it.