A.N: It's no secret that a lot of plots for Loud House fanfictions take place after certain episode endings *side eyes 'No Such Luck' and 'Brawl In The Family'* But after LITERALLY going through over forty pages of the Loud House section on this website (I get bored, okay?) I have not seen a single one based entirely on the episode 'Get The Message.' This shocked me, because it seemed like such a good opportunity for a prompt! Lori isn't a heartless monster, of COURSE she's going have a reaction to Lincoln's letter besides just rage! I felt like this episode needed an aftermath fic.

I didn't really like 'Get The Message' because the episodes where Lori is written as just the 'nothing but mean sister that has no feelings' are always awful. Over time in the series, we see her explored with more depth as more than just 'the mean one,' and I wanted to do that here.

Now, usually I'm super self conscious about posting new fics so I never say this, but I'm actually really proud of this! It was so much fun to write, and I hope like it too!

I'm babbling, please enjoy!

'WHY LORI LOUD IS THE WORST SISTER EVER'

Lori Loud's back was leaned against the frame of her closet, squinting at Lincoln's handwriting. No matter how long she glared at the scribbly words written in black marker, the words weren't changing. She had her contacts in, and she had read over the note more times than Lisa had ever made something explode. The stupid tree corpse still said the same thing. Lori grumbled, crumpling up the paper and burying it in her pocket.

'It's just a stupid note, made by an immature kid!' Lori's internal voice hissed at herself, 'Stop thinking about it and move on! It's been three days! Lincoln probably forgot about it, so should YOU! You stupid overdramatic monster!' Lori sighed, it felt like a boulder was crushing her chest.

'Worst sister? Me? Out of all ten, I'm the worst?' A more timid and self-conscious inside voice quivered in her mind.

Lori pulled the dreaded note out of her shorts' pocket and read through it once more, despite promising not to. She had been doing this quite frequently, ever since she first found the stupid thing. It was peculiar how attached she was to the crumbled slip of paper, but just couldn't throw it away. She tried to ignore it, but the longer she spent not reading it over, the more obsessed she got.

Sure, she could be scarier than fake pockets as Leni would say (fake pockets confused her younger sister,) but she never thought any of her siblings hated her this much.

If Lincoln hated her, maybe everyone in this house hated her. Slumping her shoulders at the thought, Lori turned towards Leni Loud. The second eldest was currently crocheting a small rabbit with fuzzy purple yarn. It was hard to say if Leni's color choice was intended to be artistic, or if she actually believed rabbits had purple coats of fur. The younger blonde had rosy cheeks, and thin, gloss coated lips that were turned upwards as she fiddled with her creation. Lori loved her smile, it revealed the fashionista's adorable dimples. While the lights didn't always seem on upstairs when it came to her, Leni's electric blue eyes always seemed to sparkle whenever she was knitting, sewing, crocheting, or doing anything else she loved.

Despite her dim-wittedness, Lori couldn't help but admire Leni dearly. Her heart sank just imagining Leni hating her. In fact, if Leni had written a 'WHY LORI IS THE WORST SISTER EVER' letter, her reaction would make her response to Lincoln's note look like nothing. Not that Leni would ever feel that way about her, right?

Feeling her gaze, Leni looked up to find Lori staring back at her. Before she could open her mouth, Leni immediately knew something was wrong just by looking at her. While she normally had excellent posture, Lori's shoulders were slumped down and her bottom lip had stuck out a little bit. She noticed Lori had her signature sadness crinkles under her eyes, and that her big brown eyes were wide and shimmering with sorrow.

"What's wrong?" Leni asked, throwing her crocheting tools across the room to divert all her attention to what really mattered.

"You like me, right?" Lori asked timidly, her eyes on her shoes as she rocked back and forth from heel to toe. Leni scoffed, as if Lori had said top hats were still in style.

"Duh! Of course I do! You're my favorite!" Leni chirped. Lori gave a small smile in return.

"That's really sweet of you, but you're not supposed to have a favorite," Lori gently told her, in case her other siblings happened to be listening, "But Lincoln sure does. He clearly has a least favorite sister," Lori pouted. While normally Leni cheered her up just by being in the room, the eldest sister still felt deflated.

"Lincoln has a least favorite sister?" Leni gasped and jumped on Lori's bed, as if she just saw a mouse scurry across the room. Lori nodded. Leni gasped once more and brought her knees to her chest, "It's me, isn't it? Oh, of course it's me! I should've seen this coming!" The ditzy blonde buried her face in her knees and trembled.

Lori rolled her eyes, "Of course it's not you! You're nice, and funny, and great! How can you even think of yourself as capable of being his least favorite sister?" Leni blushed at Lori's compliment.

"Well if it's not me, then who is it?" Leni lowered her knees and wiped her arm under her eyes.

Lori frowned, and pulled a crumpled up note out of her pocket, and handed it to Leni. Leni took the paper out of her hand, immediately scrunching her eyebrows at the print, "Why Lori is the...w...worp...wor-est? Wur-stuh? Wm-"

"WORST!" Lori threw her hands up in exasperation, "It says 'worst!'" She snatched the letter out of Leni's hand and held it up to her, using her fingers to follow along under the words as she read aloud, "WHY. LORI. LOUD. IS. THE. WORST. SISTER. EVER!"

"Oh my god, Lori I just realized something!" Leni sprouted up, as if she had come up the idea of a lifetime, "It may be a shot in the dark, but I think Lincoln might think you're the worst sister ever."

In a normal situation, Lori would've rolled her eyes at Leni's comment and slapped her forehead. But to Leni's surprise, Lori melted into a smile and put her hands on her shoulders. "I'm glad you actually took something away from this." Lori would never let it escape her lips, and would deny it if anyone inquired, but Leni was her adorable ditzy kryptonite. Sure, Lori had definitely gotten exasperated, and even angry, at her roommate for making a mind bogglingly ignorant comment. And yes, they fight more often than they are proud of. But when her sisters weren't looking, Lori couldn't help but fall in love Leni's caring nature and wanted to give it to her in return.

'Why can't Lincoln and I have a relationship like this?' Lori internally wondered.

Leni shook her head slowly with disappointment, which slowly turned into anger. "That is, like, so MEAN! I am going to march down to Lincoln right now and say a few things that'll-" Leni tried to march out the door to find Lincoln and verbally kick his butt, but Lori grabbed her wrist, hindering her from moving forward. Leni, not realizing Lori was grabbing onto her, kept trying to march forward. "Did someone replace the floor with a treadmill? Cause I don't think I'm going anywhere." She stopped walking and stuck her bottom lip out, "Once someone changes the floor back, I'm going to give him a talk!"

The thought of Leni attempting to stand up for her big sis made the boulder on Lori's chest feel a little lighter. "I don't want to scream at him," Lori said gently, "I did enough of that three days ago when I first found the note. I just want to know why he hates me so much, and better myself. That note really hurt-"

"WAIT!" Leni screamed, earning a wince from Lori. The ditzy blonde sat down on her bed and patted her lap, "Rest your head right here. I've seen people do this on TV shows when they want to say sad stuff, or something."

Lori obeyed without hesitation, sprawling on her sister's bed and allowed her head to sink into Leni's lap. Leni gently combed through Lori's thick blonde hair, a special way to keep Lori relaxed that not even Bobby knew about. If Lori were a cat, she would have been purring.

"CONTINUE," Leni whispered loudly. Lori winced, "Why are you talking like that?"

"I thought it would be relaxing."

"Your normal voice will do, thanks," Lori sighed, "So you're the only one I will admit this to, but his note kind of hurt. I mean, I understand that I'm a bit hard on him, but I never thought in a million years that he'd ever hate me. At first I brushed the note off as something ridiculous. But after I wrestled him as revenge, I used the note as self-reflection and realized that he might be right. And now I feel awful! My chest literally feels like I'm being crushed. I've literally been like a third parent to this family, and now I'm being labeled as the worst sister ever!"

Leni bit her lip and looked to her left, a sign Lori clearly recognized. Something was bothering her. "What's wrong, Leni?" Lori asked. Leni exhaled deeply.

"I don't think you should be talking to me about this," Leni admitted shyly, "Maybe we should have a sibling meeting about it." Lori shook her head, "Too embarrassing. I don't want any of them to see me this vulnerable."

"Fine, how about you talk to just Luna about it." Leni offered.

"Ugh, no way. Luna would just make me feel worse. You're the only one that would make me feel better." Lori confided.

"Oh, I have an idea. You can talk to Lincoln about what to do about Lincoln!"

Lori groaned, "You know I can't do that! What's the problem, do you not want to talk to me?" Lori glared at her younger sister. Leni shook her head, "Of course not. I love talking to you. I just don't know if you are going to want to talk to me. I'm not advice when it comes to smart," She cringed, "I mean I'm not smart when it comes to advice! See what I mean! Maybe you'll be better off talking to Lisa, she'll probably help you more than I could." Leni bowed her head down to her lap, locking eyes with her older sis.

Lori sucked her teeth, "Don't be so hard on yourself. If I trusted anyone else with this information, I would've gone to them. But I came to you. Because I trust and admire you, no one can help me with this like you can. I could go down the list for each sister, listing infinite reasons as to why I'd rather go to you for advice than them. Want me to?" Lori asked, she'd do anything to make her sister feel worthy right about now.

Leni chuckled, but declined, "No you don't have to. We have thirty sisters, I wouldn't want you to loose your breath explaining why you wouldn't go to them."

"There are ten sisters in the family," Lori said gently. Leni ignored her.

"But thanks for making me feel better. Now it's my turn to do so for you. You trust my word, right?"

"'Course I do," Lori nodded firmly.

"Then you must believe me when I tell you that sometimes you can be a giant yelling godzilla around here," Leni put it bluntly, "And that can make it like...like when you put two magnets...and try to stick them together on the wrong side..." Leni scrunched her eyebrows and and tried to act out two magnets repelling each other with her fingers.

"So, my aggressive attitude repels my siblings, making them less likely to confide in me." Lori translated. Leni grinned. Unlike most of her siblings, Lori understood her perfectly. "I don't know what all those words meant, but I think you get it!" Leni said. She felt like a real therapist, and she loved it.

"Maybe you should make like a popsicle and melt." Leni advised.

"I should stop being so frigid and uptight, and just calm down," Lori translated once again, "I know I can be emotional, but sometimes I can't help it. I feel so stressed! I've had multiple doctors tell me my blood pressure was dangerously high. All this stress piled on me makes me feel like a ticking time bomb. So yeah, I'm short tempered," Lori took a deep breath, not wanting to get all worked up, "But, everything is just so crazy."

Leni scrunched up her lip and nodded her head, "Maybe you turn into a scary yell-y demon because you think it's the only way to get us to listen." Lori widened her eyes, "Oh my god. Leni, that was so smart!" Leni blushed, "Really?" Lori nodded her head, raising her head off Leni's lap to give her an enormous bear-hug! Leni returned the embrace.

When Lori finally released, Leni cleared her throat. "Clearly, you have a lot of stress cause you see yourself as the third mommy of the Louds. So...maybe to help, I can be the fourth mommy." Leni bit her lip and blushed, afraid she had said something stupid.

Lori tilted her head, "You want to help me patrol the kids?"

Leni nodded, "What you told me made me thinky. I've been acting more like a baby than a...how old am I again?"

"Sixteen."

"Yeah, that. I haven't been acting sixteen. I don't want you to worry about me, if watching us turns you into the scary mean boogie man. I'm helping you. Is that a good idea?" Leni inquired timidly. Lori was now sitting upright, sitting on the bed next to Leni.

Lori gave her sister a full toothed grin, nodding her head wildly. "Leni Loud, you are so smart! That's literally the best idea I ever heard. Maybe if I'm less yell-y, my siblings won't hate me! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!"

Leni wrapped her arm around Lori's, "Even when you're a yell-y monster, there is nothing you can do to make me hate you."

Now it was Lori's turn to blush, "Awwwwwwwwww!" Lori wrapped her arms around Leni's head and cradled it. "Thank you. All these years, you, Bobby, and even Clyde have helped me feel so good about myself." Leni giggled, "See! If you're this open with Lincoln about how hurt you were about his note, you'll be buddies in no time."

Lori pulled away from Leni, her expression turning cold. "No way, I'm not talking to Lincoln about this. I poured my heart and soul out to you, we came up with a solution for me to be less short-tempered, and now I feel better! Therefore, I'm never discussing it ever again. The end!"

"But-"

"NO! If Lincoln knows that he made me so vulnerable, it'll go to his head and he'll literally never let me live it down. I can't do that, I could loose my power. He'll no longer take me seriously. The answer is no, one trillion billion million percent NO!"

Leni tisked and shook her head, "Lori. One of the biggie reasons we're so close, is because we open up to each other." Lori crossed her arms at her little sister. "Yeah, so?"

"So, sorry if this is stupid, but I think you'll be closer with Linky if you became the box of my new fabrics I ripped open yesterday!" Leni explained.

"Lincoln and I will have a closer and more healthy relationship if I opened up more to him, like I do with you." Lori translated for the third time. The eldest sister scrunched up her eyebrows, the boulder on her chest returning and her good mood deflating, "So what are you trying to say?"

Leni looked up at her big sister and gave the best advice she could, "If it's bothering you that much, you should talk face to face with Lincoln about it."

A.N: Chapter 2 coming soon!

You read this far? YAYY! I really hope you enjoyed it. Like I said before, I am really proud. Fun fact, this is my first serious Loud House fanfiction! My other two were parodies and satire. If you liked this enough, I hope you'll stay tuned for the next chapter :)

Have a great day!