Disclaimer: I don't own The Loud House!

Title: The Summer of Seventh Grade

Summary: The air conditioner is out. Luna's kickflipped into what's best described as a rebellious phase and at worst described as a permanent hobby, Luna and Lori are at odds with each other, and Lincoln and Lynn are fighting over their shared room.

...

Lori sighs. It's not the first time tonight she's done so. She kicks one of her bare feet up, propping it up on her knee for safekeeping. Summer always made the house feel that much smaller. And hotter. It didn't help that the air conditioner had died the day before. They'd all taken to wearing looser, cooler clothing, if only to survive, and the blankets were down in the basement somewhere, rotting. Lori knew she'd have to get to them eventually.

Leni snorts, sniffles, rolls, and eventually sits up, blinking sluggishly into the darkness. "Lori?"

"What?"

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she hisses through gritted teeth. "Just peachy."

"Oh," Leni mumbles, already swaying. "Okay." The plop tells Lori she's gone right back to sleep. She supposes it's the thought that counts.

There's a distant pause where Lori, as oldest, must decide if she's going to wake the whole house up. It's her right, she tells herself. If she has to suffer, everyone else did too. With that in mind, she raised her voice. "After all, it's not my fault Luna's gone all dark and broody on us!"

Luna rolls over a room away. The walls are thin enough she can hear the bedsprings creak.

"Skulls don't equal dark and broody, dude." Her voice is husky and a bit squeaky with age. "In my case, they equal punk."

"I take umbridge with Lori's statement." Lucy's voice cut through the air with a whistle of her teeth. She's roomed much further down the hall, with baby Lisa. It was a fate she'd willingly subjected herself to so the twins could share a space. "It's rude to stigmatize the dead, Lori. They have feelings too."

Lori frowned. Lucy's thought process was nothing new- they'd been dealing with it for five years now- but Luna's 'outlook' was something out of left field, and she refused to believe one good concert changed so much all at once. She hucked her pillow at the wall, wincing when it fell on Leni's face.

Leni sat up once again, this time wrapping her arms around her knees. "Lori's yelling," she reported sleepily, the pillow still firmly on her face. "Does that mean it's morning?"

"It might as well be," Lynn groaned. "Sleep is impossible in heat like this."

"Oh, don't even," Lincoln hissed. Squeaking springs suggest he's sat up. "Would it kill you to wear some deodorant, Lynn? It's too hot to deal with your B.O."

She snorted, rolling her eyes. "I work hard, Linc. Everybody knows that. If I put on deodorant every time I got sweaty, I'd go through the stuff on the daily."

"Normally, we have air conditioning to help handle that."

"Guys, pipe down," Lucy interjected. "You woke up Lisa."

Lori didn't hear any crying. Then again, Lisa had never been much of a crier. "I'm just saying that Luna needs to relax a bit before she does something she regrets."

Luna violently flipped her pillow over. "It's just earrings, Lori. You've got a pair yourself."

She reached up to tough her own ears. That was true, but her's were stylish and fashionable. Luna's reminded her of paperclips.

"Not to pierce your personal bubble, but it's way too late to be arguing." Luan laughs and receives Luna's high-five with a smile. "Get it?"

They all groan. All of them. That's just life in the Loud house; you argue, you fight, you groan at Luan's puns (then tell her they were decent afterwards). Lori rolls away from Luna's room- like she can even tell, right?- and tries to get some sleep.

Lynn Sr. reappears from the basement with a shirt stained at the pits and neck, brow shiny with sweat. There's an unknown substance staining the right side, right around where a pocket would sit, and another smudge on his balding head. His wrench is loosely grasped in his hand. This is the only shirt left that's in decent condition after many attempts to wrangle the air conditioner outside. "It's gonna be another day or two, gang."

Lori groans and falls back in her chair, ignoring the butterflies that pop up in her stomach as it leans. "I'm literally going to die in that time, dad."

Leni slipped out of her seat. "I'll go get us sunblock. We could get burned with all the heat!"

The only sibling that is even mildly pleased with the situation is Lynn, who gleefully stretches and puts her hands on her hips. "Well, no point hanging around inside if it's gonna be just as hot as it is outside. I'm off to do my usual routine."

"Take a helmet!" Lincoln yells from the bathroom, between brushing his teeth.

"Quit being such a worrywart!" she returns, shaking a fist at nothing. Lynn lowered her voice. "Honestly, he's such a nag. I know better than to run into anything head first."

Lana stumbles over to grab her knee. At three, the twins were coming out of the toddler stage, and it was becoming more and more apparent that one enjoyed dirt more than the other. "Take me! Take me!"

Lynn ruffled her blonde hair. "Heck yeah, rookie!"

The duo are long gone when Lincoln walks into the kitchen, deadpan, asking if he was ignored once again. They all nod. He sighs and joins Lucy and Luan on the floor, hoping to suck some of the coolness out with his skin. "She doesn't take me seriously. It drives me up the wall."

Lori takes that comment a little too personally and finds it in her tired body to turn her head and glare at Luna's seat. It's empty yet again. She's probably off with that Chunk fellow, lounging in cool air while they peruse old cds like it's the early 2000s all over again. The pool was closed for renovations, and Mr. and Mr. McBride were off on another one of their little vacations. It wasn't fair, honestly.

Luan opens her mouth, considers it, and finally shakes her head. "It's too hot to make puns."

"That's it," Lucy decides with a little nod to herself. "We've reached the breaking point. We're all going to die." She stands and tells them she's going to work on their wills. The lights flicker for a second and she's gone.

Luna reappears around dinner time, looking worn out despite not doing anything of note, or so she says when Leni asks. Lisa manages to vanish for a good half hour, until finally their mother finds her trying to open Lynn Sr.'s toolbox with her underdeveloped baby hands.

"We should really put up more baby gates," Rita says, ignoring Lisa's attempts at kicking her belly. How she got down the stairs and into the basement without hurting herself is a mystery. Lynn Sr. nods and they put it on the budget list.

The real treat of the night is when Lynn accidentally tosses a dodgeball too hard and it hits Lincoln square in the face. There's a long, perhaps overdramatic pause in which Lucy hesitantly approaches, bends down, and pressed her thumb to his wrist. She shakes her head. "He's alive."

"Of course he's alive!" Lori snaps, torn between apathy and frustration. "Is his nose broken or what?"

"Not broken..." Lincoln wheezes, slowly sitting up. The left side of his face is beginning to puff up. "Definitely bruised."

Lynn twirled a soccer ball on the tip of her shoe. "We really gotta work on your reflexes, Linc. Ah, well. No pain no gain, amiright?"

"You are not right!" The boy yells, shoulders shaking. Lori acts accordingly, scooping Lisa up off the floor, watching while Leni and Luna do the same with Lana and Lola- it's the most organized they've been since this debockle started. Lucy and Luan are old enough to carry themselves up the stairs and to the upper floor. Full blown arguments are best left between those interested. Lucy takes Lisa and they all tip-toe into their own rooms for the time being. It's mostly quiet, downstairs, until Lincoln's voice resonates throughout the house.

"That is it! I'm moving out!"

Lincoln's shoes thud up the creaky stairs, followed closely by Lynn. "And where do ya' think you're gonna go, huh? The basement? Or maybe we can drag your bed into the living room with Charles and Cliff?"

"I'll... I'll..."

"You'll what?"

Lincoln snapped his fingers. "I'll take the closet!"

Lynn stared at him, unamused. "You're joking, right?"

He crossed his arms. "Absolutely not. I'll clean it out tomorrow. As it stands right now, I'm more than happy to sleep on the floor if it means getting away from you." Lincoln stomped all the way down the hall, opened the closet door (complete with folded towels), and shouted, "Good night!"

"Oh." Lynn floundered for a response. "Well, good night to you too, you coward!"

Lori waits until the bedroom door is slammed shut to peek out into the hallway. The closet door is tightly closed; Lincoln probably wasn't planning on coming out again tonight.

"How long do ya' think he'll last?" Luna asks, eyebrow raised. It's the first non-confrontational conversation they've had since the Mick Swagger concert.

Lori considers starting up a fight again, just to make a point, but it's late and they're all tired. "He'll be back to the creature comforts of home by the end of the week, max."

Lincoln is not back in his room by the end of the week. Coincidentally, the air conditioner isn't up to proper working form by then, either.

"I swear, I've never seen her act up this much!" Rita grumbles as she picks up Lisa yet again. This time, they find her halfway out the door, crawling with determined strides. "She's been one of our more well behaved babies!"

"I've had to lock the door at night," Lucy informed them, looking particularly bedraggled. "And the window."

Rita sighed and pulled the youngest child closer. "I know, sweetie, I know. Your father and I are fixing this just as fast as we can, okay?"

Lisa sniffs. It's a very pointed noise from a baby.

"It could be worse," Lynn interjected from the comforts of the couch, Luan and Lola crammed in next to her. "She could be hiding in a closet."

"I'm not hiding anywhere!" Lincoln shook his fist at her. "I'm just trying to figure out how to work the space, okay?"

The brown haired girl regarded him with a smirk. "What space? It's a closet."

"For now," he conceded, pouting.

"Hey, dad?" Lana shuffled up, her overalls clinging uncomfortably. "Can I help you fix the air conditioner?"

Lynn Sr. grunts in exhaustion, sitting back on his heels. "I dunno, kiddo. There's not much any of us can do right now."

She kicked a stone. "Yeah, but I wanna learn how to fix stuff. It looks like fun."

"In that case..." He shifted over a bit, smiling ear to ear. "Sit down, little lady, and I'll teach you the ropes."

It's near one in the morning when Luna casually tip-toes out of her bedroom and down the hall, knocking quietly on the linen closet door. There's a muffled 'ow!' as Lincoln sits up, striking his head on the bottom shelf, before it creaks open. "Yeah?"

The older sister crouched down so they were on level. "Be real with me, bro. How serious are you 'bout this?"

"Completely serious," he answered immediately. "One hundred percent. All the way."

"You sure?"

Lincoln nodded, then glanced at his feet, mildly ashamed. "It's not that I don't love Lynn. I do. But we just weren't meant to share rooms, y'know?"

Luna nodded soulfully. "Respect." She glanced around a second, wary of anyone interfering, then leaned in close. "Alright, I'mma help you out."

The boy's face lit up. "Really?"

"Really. I'm no pro, bro, but I know my way around a screwdriver." Luna tapped her chest with her fist. "First thing tomorrow, Linc. We're gonna clear these ol' shelves out and get you moved in proper."

"That sounds amazing!" he blurted out. Lincoln slapped a hand across his own mouth. "Sorry."

Luna shrugged. It would be silly to assume someone wasn't listening in on them anyhow. The walls were too thin, the nights too hot to sleep properly. "I can't help you out with the whole bed sitch, though. Sorry."

"Actually..." Lincoln drew out the word thoughtfully. "As long as mom and dad don't mind, we could make a basic bed frame outta these old shelves."

Luna ran a hand over the shelf above them. "Yeah, that could work."

"Luna!" Lori's voice cut through the quiet air, making them both jump. Luna stood, hands limp by her sides. "Leave Lincoln alone and go to your room before we all get grounded!"

Lincoln's raised an eyebrow. "We wouldn't really get in trouble for this, would we?"

She shrugged and physically waved him off. "Lori and I are on thin ice right now, dude. S'best not to press."

"Why?" His eyes stretched wide; confused, maybe a little concerned. "You didn't do anything."

Luna opened her mouth, then shut it, finding she had no response. That hadn't occurred to her before.

Lucy pitter-patters down the stairs, into the living room, and promptly collapses on Luna's lap, sprawling her legs out on the couch. She slowly lifted her chin off her knees to grumble. "Wherever you go in your free time- take me with you. I don't care where it is."

"Oh, don't even!" Lynn smacked the younger girl's head. "We're all suffering here."

Lucy looked up at her with a frown that bordered on a scowl. "That might be true, but I'm the only one in this house who wears all black. The darkness draws in heat. While you are steaming, I am frying."

"I thought death was, like, your thing," Leni chipped in.

"It has been five days. Five long, hot days." She slowly sat up, making a point to stay in Luna's lap. "I have decided that there are ways that no human should ever die. This is one of them." She tilted her head back pleadingly. "Save me, sister."

Luna went to respond, but before she could Lori grabbed onto her upper arm with a crushing grip.

"No one is going anywhere," she grit out. "Especially not to some weird twenty-something's house."

The younger girl scowled. "Chunk's not weird, dude."

Lori's nose wrinkled. "A guy who keeps piles of records lying around to look cool is so weird, Luna. And I don't like how much time you've been spending over there. I won't let you take Lucy along for whatever kind of ride that is."

Luna growled and pushed Lucy off her lap, standing up, shoulders squared. "You got somethin' to say about my friend, you got somethin' to say about me, brah. Lay off."

"I've got more than a few things I'd love to say to you," Lori confessed, rising to the challenge. They were nose to nose now, or as close as they could get to it as a twelve and fourteen year old respectively. "Where do you get off just vanishing while we're all suffering?"

"Oh, like you can't hang out with your own friends?"

"I could, but I'm not!" She thrust her hands outward. "This is literally a family emergency, Luna. Somebody's gotta be here to take care of things."

"Somebody is here to take care of things," she insisted. "They're called mom and dad."

Lucy hesitantly raised her hand. "Forget I said anything. I'll die quietly."

They both ignored her.

Lori poked the girl in the chest. "Where have you been going that's so important, anyway?"

"Guitar lessons, dude." Luna leaned back from her snarl, eyes narrow. "This isn't news."

The eldest Loud sister paused, finding her anger to be waning. She straightened her back and pointed an uncertain finger at her. "Guitar lessons?"

"Uh, duh, dude." Luna snorted. "I would've told you if you just asked. You'd rather be mad at me than get your facts together." She put her hands on her hips. "If you're not gonna be supportive, you could at least go back to ignoring me."

"Stop fighting!" Lola demanded, falling back onto the sofa with a particular flair. "It's too hot to fight!"

"No worries, little dude." Luna got one last nudge in before walking around Lori and over to the door. "It's time for this concert to draw to a close. Peace out, yo."

She made it maybe two steps out the door when there was a loud clanking sound. The half-familiar hum of the air conditioner kicked on. Luna gaped, trying to convince herself it was a dream, but sure enough the very slow trickle of cool air began to make its rounds; it wasn't enough to be comfortable, but it was a start.

"Kids?" Rita's voice was pitched with worry as she tromped down the steps, Lynn Sr. in tow. "Have any of you seen Lisa?"

Following a hunch, the Loud family as a whole slipped out of the house and around the side, to the place the once-errant air conditioner sat. Sure enough, baby Lisa was quite complacently sitting beside it, wrench in hand, which she used to tap the metal side once as a sort of gesturing.

"Goo," she said, in a tone of voice that oozed 'I can say a lot more than that, I just choose not to.'

Lynn Sr. gasped and ran over with a happy laugh, scooping up his youngest daughter. "Oooh, somebody's getting their favorite dinner tonight! First things first, however; you need to get inside, out of the heat."

The siblings silently moved out of the way as their parents went back into the house, mouths agape. Lana accidentally swallowed a bug and coughed, then settled with a pat on the back.

"I knew Lisa was, like, smart," Leni murmured finally. "But I didn't realize she was that smart."

"And she's only a baby," Lucy added grimly. "For now, anyway."

Lori shook herself and shoved through the crowd. "Come on, everybody. Let's go show Lisa how grateful we are!"

A sigh of relief swept the Loud home as they all slipped into their usual pajamas for the night, relishing in the ability to do so without feeling like they'd just traded one sticky layer for another.

Lincoln's new room, though still not quite at the capacity to be called as such, had gotten much roomier since Luna had helped him pull out the shelves. They'd managed to fit his old dresser inside as well, through some finagling that may or may not have gotten toes smashed on both sides, which only left making a bed. For now, he was content with a sleeping bag he'd dug out of his camping gear and his pillow.

A quiet knock on his door gave him pause. Lincoln stood up and stretched, silently relishing in the space. He'd come to enjoy it, even though it wasn't as open as his old room had been.

He opened the door and found Lynn awkwardly in front of him, holding a wall clock with a fish on it. The arms that pointed at the numbers were muscular. "Uh, hey, bro. I brought you a room-warming gift."

"Um... thanks?" Lincoln accepted the clock, tucking it under his arm.

Lynn wrung her hands. "Are we... cool?"

"We're cool," he agreed. "Sorry about running out on you. I just really like having my own space."

She shrugged, rubbing at the back of her head. "It's okay. I can get that." Lynn hesitated a second, then added. "It's kind of weird to be the first sister with my own room. I always figured it was gonna be Leni, since Lori is the oldest."

"I'll share a room with you."

Lynn and Lincoln both let out a shriek, jumping high in the air. "Lucy?" Lynn spluttered, wiping her sweaty hands on her shirt. "You want to share a room with me? Why?"

Lucy nodded. "I think we all can agree that Lisa doesn't need someone hovering over her anymore. Also, I think she wants to use my side of the room to make a lab. She's been very pointedly leaving graduated cylinders around my bed."

"How did she even get those graduated cylinders?" Lincoln asked, eyebrow raised.

"She has ways," she said mysteriously. "What do you say, Lynn?"

"She can take my old mattress," Lincoln added. "It won't fit in the closet."

Lynn looked between her two siblings, considering, then finally nodded. "Sure. Why not? We can always switch back if it sucks too much."

She spat into her hand and held it out. Lucy regarded with a grimace before walking away.

Luna brings home a guitar the next day. It's an acoustic, well loved from years of prior use. She practices on the porch in the afternoon so the younger half of the family can nap in peace. Lori pushed open the door and sat beside her, pulling her knees up to her chest like she had the other night. She winced at a particularly flat note. "You're getting good at that, little sis."

Luna laughed. "It's okay, dude. I know it's not good yet. But I'm getting closer to being good, which is what I like."

"That doesn't frustrate you?"

"Nah, dude. I'm getting the hang of reading music, and I even got my basic notes down." She pumped a fist. "Luna Loud is on track to getting this down pat."

Lori sighed. The wood on the porch was starting to dig into her rear. "I've been pretty... petty recently."

"I noticed."

"Don't rub it in," she growled, eyeing her. "It's just really hard to accept that one concert flipped your whole life around, y'know? That kind of stuff only ever happens in the cartoons."

Luna doesn't have a response to that. She plucks a few more strings.

"It's hard to explain," Lori said. She looks oddly somber for a fourteen year old who's just spent her first day in over a week with air conditioning. "It's just, like... everything is always changing in this house, yeah? We went from the three of us to the three of us plus a punny gal and a sports fanatic and the only boy in the house; we've got goths and twins and now maybe a genius, and mom and dad've been talking about maybe having another kid in a couple of years." She glanced down at the sidewalk, watching an ant crawl away fast- was it afraid? Did ants feel fear? At fourteen, she should probably know if ants felt fear. "The one thing I never really expected to change was us."

Luna stopped playing. She sighed and set her guitar down. "Yeah?"

"Well, yeah." How to explain something that, in hindsight, sounded rather silly? "We're literally two of the oldest sibs. I thought we were past the whole 'big change' thing."

"You might be," she snorted. "I'm only twelve, dude. I haven't even hit puberty."

"That... helps put things into perspective a bit." Lori cleared her throat. "I know it's nonsensical."

"And?" Luna prompted.

"And I'm taking it out on you."

"S'that so?"

Lori glared at her. Luna was smirking. "I'm trying to apologize here, dweeb." She paused. "I'm sorry."

Luna moved so she was sitting facing her, one hand on the discarded guitar as if afraid it was going to disappear. "'Kay."

They don't talk about it after that, but the tension has eased between them, and they can sit in peace.

Author's Note: IDK where any of this came from, but here it is. I always liked the idea of Lynn and Lincoln having shared rooms at one point, seeing how they're pretty close in ages.

-Mandaree1