"How the hell do you know my name?"

One elbow on the stand, he half expected from the sunken side of his pressed cheek that the mare would simply ignore his question, something he had grown accustomed to for the past few years thanks to his friends constantly doing so to fuck with him. Instead, a smile on her face and an honestly-foreseen spring in her step, she answered him kindly as she tightened her apron and adjusted her hat with her magic.

"What, ya think ponies 'round here don't know who you aw yet?"

She spoke with a distinct Bostonian accent. Delirious decided that that was kind of bothering.

He raised a brow. "Not exactly, but like," he looked to his left, taking the time to admire the different flavors underneath the glass frame, "it's not exactly good..."

Vanilla Bean immediately chuckled loudly, slapping a hoof against her knee as she let her head fall to glare at the ground in amusement. Letting out a long breath, she leaned forward to stare at Delirious with a sly expression on her face. Tapping a hoof against her cart, she spoke, "Delirious, like it er not ponies 'round here love ya."

He blinked.

"Yeah yeah, hahd ta believe considerin', but ponies love ya! You can thank Applejack fer most o' that, but after you dealt wit' Banana Split an' all, I guess ponies just started likin' ya." Grinning at him almost sheepishly, Vanilla lit her horn and magicked her silver scooper into the air, "I mean, you'd think they'd be a little more wary a you since you've destroyed the local fast-food chain, murdered yer friends in cold blood, and cursed more times than Noteworthy over there," she stated, pointing her hoof at said stallion standing across the street. Immediately, his ears perked up as if he had heard his name amidst the talkative behavior of a midsummer market day, "but hey! You think that's bad..."

Watching as the Unicorn hovered a cone in front of her—which soon after found a nice helping of chocolate on top of it—Delirious opened his mouth slightly, his eyes narrowed as he rolled his right hoof dramatically, its form ending in a simple gesture that made it look like he was waiting for something to be dropped into it. Emphasizing a front thrust with his head, he bluntly replied, "Yeah."

"Hey now, lemme finish, ya Tookie!" Vanilla said with a glare, raising a hoof to the air as she spooned another scoop onto the waffle cone, "Like I said, ya think that's bad, ya ain't evuh seen how Ponyville was the first yeauh Twilight came. I swear, we got attacked by cute-ass bugs, a flyin' goat hoper, some kinda sexy black shape-shiftuh, a bitchuva magician, whatever th' hell a Tirek is, an' Nightmare Moon came outta the blue to send us ta hell!" A blush forming on her cheeks, she grinned nervously and levitated the ice cream cone toward Delirious, "Sorry 'bout all that, didn't mean ta say that in front of th' little one."

Delirious cocked his head, a soft but understanding smile on his lips.

"Look Delirious. All you've done, good and bad... it's all loads more okay than what this town 's been through in the past few years alone. Just remember that, alright?"

Delirious scratched the back of his neck, letting the hoof drop to reach for the treat. Feeling a sudden bump to his side, he looked down to his right and found a pair of rather hungry eyes staring at him with admittedly adorable annoyance. He quietly called the source a dickhead, then rolled his eyes as he dramatically side-stepped. Falling to his haunches—both to get bits out of his pocket and to cross his forelegs—he watched as Lui Calibre threw his forelegs onto the stand, his rump wiggling around like some kind of lust-ridden dog high on Viagra.

"Heyuh ya go, little guy!" Passing it off to the young colt, who spoke his immediate thanks, Vanilla smiled deeply as he began to furiously lick at it. Chuckling, she waved at him as he began to walk off. "Make shuh ya don't eat it too fast now! Ya might get a brain-freeze!"

Quietly repeating, "Shit," to himself over and over again, Delirious scrambled to his hooves to place the two bits on the ice cream stand in front of Vanilla Bean. Giving him a cocked eyebrow, she took his money with a short huff and shoved it into her cash register. Throwing a few wisps of brown hair out of her eyes, she elbowed Delirious with a wink and said to him simply.

"Don't go doin' anythin' stupid now, alright buddy?"

Flattening his lips and squinting his blue eyes, Delirious replied, "Alright." Turning tail, he began to walk away from the stand, only to stop and glance back at the mare. She still stood there, leaning her cheek into her hoof as she stared at him with an eyebrow toward the sky. Looking to his left and back to his right, Delirious pursed his lips, stared ahead, and finally returned his gaze to Vanilla, nodding his head quickly before jogging away at a steady pace.

Following the backside of his monkey-masked young friend, Delirious growled under his breath and called, "Wait up, Lui!" Going at the same pace as earlier, Delirious stared straight ahead and saw that the young colt had not changed his either. Sighing heavily, Delirious scraped his hooves against the dirt and sped up, his fur beginning to finally find its weight around him. Ultimately reaching Lui's side, he shook his head as he sucked in a breath and pressed his lower lip upward, berating him, "Don't fuckin' run off like that, goddammit." Assuming that he was fully listening, Delirious stared ahead and finished, "I don't want you ta fuckin' do anything stupid."

With a moment of silence treating him as his only response, Delirious narrowed his eyes and glared down at Lui.

"Did you just hear what I said bitch?"

Lui suddenly jumped, looking up at his friend for a single second of his life, only to stare back to the area in front of him with a simple squeak, "Oh, sorry." Now looking back up at Delirious, who had opened his mouth in preparation for an argument, Lui nodded his head toward his ice cream and said, "I have to eat this before it melts!" Making noises as he licked it as if it were a... mm, never mind... Lui continued his assault. Delirious on the other hand blinked rapidly, then stared upward and tilted his head quizzically.

"Wonder why the sun's so fuckin' hot lately..."

"Whatever it is," Lui began, still eating, "it sure is making eating this amazing ice cream hard!"

"Yeah, well make sure you–"

Lui bit a chunk out of the top-most scoop, "Mmm! Chocolate!"

"Can you just–"

Delirious looked down to find that, in an instant of him talking, Lui had dropped the top-most scoop of his ice cream, and was now staring down at it like it were a dying fish in a dried up lake gasping desperately for air. An assumed look of horror under his mask, he cried, "Delirious...! I think my freakin' ice cream–"

"Why'djy'all bring me along with you?"

Immediately brightening up, Lui sprang up from his previous position and did a heel-turn to his left, sprinting off in that direction with the finesse of a trained professional double his age. Delirious, watching him go, suddenly grew aware of an absolutely horrible sound in his ear. Immediately knowing what it was, he laid his ears back, grimaced, and sank as he stared down at the grass now surrounding what was left of the ice cream after its fall. Melting from the terrifying rays of the unstoppable sun, it sat there and cried to Delirious in the form of high pitched squeals and screams.

Feeling ready to cry, Delirious wiped his eyes and darted off to chase after his friend, his vision having other ideas as it clouded him and caused him to repeat his prior action. Sniffling aggressively, he increased his pace and looked straight ahead, finding Lui still sprinting down the road. Rolling his eyes, Delirious raised a hoof to his mouth and called, "Lui! Lui, wait!"

The response came almost instantly, as if the colt wasn't currently running about ten miles an hour through a pretty crowded street in the middle of a summer afternoon. "What do you want, Delirious?!"

Fighting the urge to roll his eyes, the Pegasus lowered his head and increased his speed, hoping that he could increase his aerodynamics as fast as possible. It wasn't so much that he couldn't leave Lui by himself for too long, but more of the fact that he couldn't leave Lui by himself for too long. Gritting his teeth and grinding them in a white embrace, he opened his eyes and shouted, "Just wait Goddammit!" just in time to widen them and careen into his friend, the both of them falling into the dirt in a moment's notice.

Shaking his head, Delirious rose to his hooves, rubbing his now-sore forehead as Lui got up as well. Watching as the colt brushed himself off almost furiously, he found time to knit his brow and bark at him, "Why the fuck did you stop?"

Lui gave him a good eye-rolling, "Duh, we're here!" Extending a hoof out past his stomach, he smiled and chomped harder on his burning cigar. Raising a brow, Delirious began to mutter curses to himself, thinking that they were in front of a toy store where he'd have to buy something cheap and shitty just to shut him up. Instead of that, Delirious found... something else entirely standing proudly in the sun before him. Its silver and brown exterior seemed completely out-of-place amidst all the old-looking houses and bizarre bakery decorations.

A large, lit-up, green S stood above the main door, a single line going down through it as it shone in the rays of sunlight peeking through the moderate cloud layer in the sky. An even larger sign underneath that began to go through the process of being read by the stallion, only for him to suddenly find a pair of hooves on his shoulders. Now face-to-face with Lui Calibre, Delirious drew his neck back with an annoyed frown and an aggravated expression.

"Delirious!"

"What–"

"Let's play Tag!"

...

Delirious moved his mouth around, trying to formulate a perfect O shape as he narrowed his eyes and glanced this way and that.

Looking down, he asked, "Are you fuckin' serious right now?"

Lui giggled, "Yeah!" He tapped Delirious on the side. "And you're it!"

Delirious gave a light chuckle, rolling his nonexistent sleeves up his forelegs as he reached out to touch the young colt. As swift as a bird, Lui moved an inch from its contact, swung his right foreleg around like a furious windmill, and practically bodied the living fuck out of Delirious, running off with childlike laughter toward the left side of the building. Getting up with a groan, Delirious felt the growing welt on his forehead once more, turning around drunkenly before proceeding to chase after the kid.

Cursing under his breath—and remarking the oddly clean exterior around the sides of the building—Delirious stared straight ahead just in time to find the shadowed figure of Lui disappearing behind the next corner in a hurry. Realizing that he probably wasn't going to win, the Pegasus sunk his neck and glared at nothing in particular, slowing his pace to a light jog. Turning said corner, Delirious walked back out into the sunlight and raised a hoof to his eyes, hissing all the while.

Lowering the appendage, he looked down to find Lui staring up at him with a grin on his face and sweat pouring down his brow. Smile widening at the sight of his utterly confused friend, the young colt cheerily shouted, "Beat you!"

Breathing a little heavier than usual, Delirious groaned, "Why the hell did we just do that...?"

Lui, not wanting to answer him, waved a hoof his way and began to walk away, "C'mon! We gotta hurry and get the others!"

Absolutely fucking perplexed, Delirious stole one awkward glance back at the building behind them before turning back to join Lui as they both returned to the road leading to Sweet Apple Acres.

Author's Notes:

It's scientifically proven that trying to understand people from Boston is basically impossible.

And yes, the chapter name being cut off was intentional.