Okay, I'm very positive I know what you guys are thinking.

"Seriously, Exotos135? You have a billion other characters to write about, and you pick Chandler? The jerk that made Lincoln work Lori's job to repay her debt? And who got scot-free from it?! Forget him! He doesn't deserve a story! All hail the lord and-"

No, wait, Lincolnism is a thing I just made up with CoR, sorry! XD

Well, I primarily am taking the time resting from CoR to work on other stories that would be interesting. And I have a couple reasons:

1) Chandler is one of the few characters I haven't really used as much, if at all.

2) I found out an interesting detail I don't think many others have seen: From what I remember (I haven't watched the episode since, and in fact I don't watch The Loud House on nick anymore, 'cause I'm not going to suffer through the rest of that channel's nonsense just to watch one good episode), Chandler's party was taking place in a sewage plant or something, so that Lincoln would get "crappy treatment" regardless of what he did.

However, what about the kids that were invited to the party? What about Chandler, the birthday boy himself? What about the fact that for some unexplained reason, the party's taking place in one of the worst locations you could imagine, and nobody even minds?

So, how about we explore what could've happened after Chandler left?

After all, deconstructing episodes seems to be a thing nowadays (Looking at you, That Engineer) so why not deconstruct one specific detail about the episode, rather than the episode as a whole?

But I've rambled on for long enough (and much longer than I'm comfortable with these authors notes) so let's move on.

Lincoln Loud, only son of the Loud family, was walking towards the kitchen in a boring-yet suitably loud-Saturday morning. On his way there, he came across a very peculiar sight: His eldest sister, Lori Loud, not on her phone-an oddity on it's own-but reading the newspaper. Not only that, she seemed to be legitimately disturbed by whatever she was reading.

"What's in that newspaper, Lori?" the boy asked, catching his eldest sister's attention as he walked to her. "You usually never even touch a newspaper unless it has news about phones, so what gives?"

The young woman looked away, seemingly hesitant to tell the truth. Nevertheless, she took a deep breath and answered, "Well, the top article is about how a birthday party taking place at a sewage site or something was abruptly ruined thanks to a malfunction in the system."

She looked at the ground somberly. "Several kids wound up injured, including the birthday boy."

This, naturally, shocked Lincoln. "Wait, a birthday party in a sewage site?!"

Lori sighed. "See for yourself."

The young woman handed Lincoln the newspaper, and as he read about the news, he grimaced in shock. The article basically talked about how, in a birthday party at a sewage plant, there was a malfunction. What sort of malfunction wasn't specified, but it ended with a lot of sewage waste falling on the visitors, the birthday boy, and even the cake.

You could say the party was "wasted," in a sense.

But nevertheless, alongside the mention of how most of the victims wound up injured-but none killed-Lincoln couldn't help but frown in sympathy, specially when the article confirmed soon afterwards the identity of the birthday boy: Chandler. Yes, he had been a jerk to him, but he didn't deserve... That!

He got so worried, Lori took notice and asked the obvious question, "Lincoln, do you know the birthday boy?"

The kid hesitated, since despite the fact he did knew the boy, he also knew that, seeing how things came down-getting free stuff from Lori, which made her have to work overtime, which in turn made Lincoln work in her place to pay the debt-the young woman would most likely, best case scenario, be upset and disappointed in the guy, and at worst, go completely bonkers.

But then there was also the fact he did need to tell her about it sooner or later, and she seemed to be in a good, understanding mood. It probably wouldn't hurt to tell her the truth, right?

"Well, remember that time I asked a lot of free stuff from you at Gus' Games and Grub when you were working as a waitress?" he nervously asked, earning a stern nod from his sister. Sadly enough, she still seemed to be bitter about that whole thing. "He's the main reason that happened: I asked all of those favors in order to get him

Lori took a deep breath and rubbed her forehead, making her brother think she may be a bit upset about the revelation. "Are you angry?" he worriedly asked.

"If you had told me that stuff back then, I probably would've been quite angry, at both you and that Chandler boy," Lori answered. She rubbed her brother's hair as she calmed his worries with what she said next, "But now that I find this out after reading the news, I believe we can safely assume karma did the job for me. She may have done her job a little bit too rough, though."

Lincoln lowered his head as Lori got an idea. "Hey, how about we go look for him, and you try to cheer him up after his disastrous birthday party?"

"Are you crazy?!" the boy snapped. "After all the free stuff he made me get him, which in turn made you work overtime because of debts, which in turn made me work your overtime just to get you to go out do your stuff, you want me to cheer him up?!"

"Look, I know literally my plan isn't the best idea, and I probably wouldn't mind beating him up back then," Lori put a hand on her brother's shoulder. "But this is the perfect chance to turn this enemy into a friend. Now that this birthday party's ruined, he's definitely going to need somebody to comfort him. And who better to do it than the cutest little pretzel in my life?"

"How's Bobby going to cheer him up if he's living with the Casagrandes?" Lincoln pondered.

"I'm talking about you, Lincoln!" Lori gently jabbed her brother's shoulder.

"Oh, okay then," Lincoln frowned. "I'm not sure if this is going to work, though."

Lori smiled and brushed her brother's hair. "Only one way to find out."

Later, at the park...

The siblings hid behind a bush and watched Chandler, now with a visible arm cast, try to get a watermelon bar from a vending machine one-handed. Naturally, this wasn't as easy as it looked, and he simply threw his arm up in the air and sat on a bench in defeat. Seeing this was the perfect opportunity, Lori and Lincoln exchanged nods before the boy walked forward and sat next to Chandler.

"Hi, Chandler," Lincoln nervously greeted. "How are you doing?"

The redhead's furious glare and ensuing refusal to look at the white-haired boy made it clear he wasn't very happy to see him.

"Well, as you probably remember, we didn't have the best first impression," Lincoln said, immediately earning another glare from the redheaded boy. "I mean, you used me to get free stuff, I only hung out with you to be invited to your birthday party-"

"That was a mistake."

Lincoln flinched and turned around to see Chandler, his hair covering his eyes, taking a deep breath before adding, "The birthday party... You and that friend of yours shouldn't have tried to get invited. It was a terrible idea to make it public in the first place."

"B-But, you invited everybody, minus Clyde and me!" Lincoln argued, trying to cheer up the redhead. "It should've at least been a little fun-"

"Any and all fun I had was completely lost when the incident happened!" Chandler growled, causing the boy to flinch. "Don't you get it?! Sewage landed on me and those who went to the party! I broke my arm, and several other people got injured as well! And now, everybody hates me for everything that happened!"

After that little outburst, Chandler looked back to the ground and Lincoln scratched the back of his head as he said, "Well, geez, after that reaction, I don't know what to say anymore."

"Perhaps you'd like to add an insult to my injury?" the redhead sternly suggested, rolling his eyes.

Lincoln shook his head. "Chandler, after everything that's happened, that's the last thing I want to do-"

"No, I mean it literally," the redhead showed Lincoln his arm cast more closely, revealing it had several insults written on it. "When I came to school to show my arm cast, several of your classmates came to me and wrote several insults and scoldings and all that on it. I allowed them to do it, since I thought they wanted to wish me to recover, but... Well, they weren't happy with the fact I did such a terrible party."

And the insults definitely showed that:

"You stink, literally,"

"The sewage was no place for a party!"

"Your party sucked, and you suck for it!"

Even Clyde had one: "Look on the bright side: Your ugliness was kept in tact."

Well, at least he was trying to be positive.

And then, Lincoln asked. "Was it really that bad?"

"The party was held at a sewage plant!" Chandler snapped right at the boy. "If that doesn't tell you how bad it was, then I don't know what will!"

The redhead promptly sighed and looked back at the ground as he begrudgingly admitted, "I mean, seriously, you and that dark-skinned geek pretty much saved yourselves from having a terrible time. Too bad I basically dug my own grave and made you two hate me by using you to get free stuff."

Then, Chandler showed his arm cast to the boy. "So go on, write your insult in here. I'm not going to let you waste my time with some chit chat just to get on my good side, then crush that trust."

Soon afterwards, Lincoln was handed a pen by the redhead, who looked away as the boy pondered what to write, if he should write anything at all. But one glance at his oldest sister's hopeful look later, Lincoln got an idea and wrote it down right away. Once he finished, Chandler looked at it... And he was surprised by what it said:

"I hope you get better soon."

No insults, no malice, nothing negative about it. It was a legitimately reassuring statement.

And as Chandler could only look at the message in confusion, Lincoln went back to the vending machine Chandler had so much trouble with before, and got one of those watermelon bars the redhead sought for so long. By the time he came back and showed it to the redhead, Chandler could only ask, in complete disbelief:

"Why?"

"Look, you used me, karma made you pay for it, there's no need to give you more pain than necessary," Lincoln smiled as Chandler took the watermelon bar. "I hope you get better soon."

The boy got up to leave, but then came back and opened the food bar, remembering Chandler would have a hard time doing that too with his condition. Then he got ready to leave again... Only to be stopped by Chandler getting up, blocking his way, then showing him the exposed watermelon bar.

"Do you want some?" Chandler asked. "You did something nice for me, and I wanna do something nice in return."

"Thanks, but I don't really like watermelon," Lincoln shook his head. "If you do want to do something nice in return, however, promise me that you won't trick people into getting you free stuff, and that you will stop bothering me, Clyde, and any other person you bothered before."

The redhead thought about it, and sighed, "Sounds like a lot of work, but... Sure, I promise you that."

Lincoln nodded and walked back to Lori, who hugged him as she said, "That's my cute little pretzel, turning enemies into friends with the power of words! I'm literally proud of you, Linc!"

"Thanks, but I didn't do anything impressive," the boy replied.

"Nonsense; you managed to talk with your enemy without it ending with you two fighting!" Lori replied with a smile. "Lynn couldn't do it, Lola couldn't it, heck, I couldn't do that until mom and dad outright forced me to become Carol's fencing partner. But that's another story for another day. For now, let's go literally home, alright?"

Lincoln just nodded, and as the siblings walked back home, Chandler watched them leave as he took a bite out of his watermelon bar. And unlike any other bar he had taken before, this one didn't had a bitter flavor hidden in it. It was a normal watermelon sweet flavor.

Which brought a smile to his face.