"You've gotta be fuckin' kidding me man."

"Ah'm sorry, Delirious, Ah really am," Applejack replied solemnly, her head lowered to the ground and her green eyes barely able to look up at him, "but y'all basically murdered yer friend, and seein' as how that's a crime.... well..." she continued, suddenly lifting her head and looking through the cell bars, "y'all are gonna be here for a few days-"

"That's fuckin' bullshit!" Delirious suddenly yelled, throwing a hoof into the brick wall next to him with anger, "He fuckin' started it."

"Y'all should be happy, usually you'd have been executed by now."

Delirious' head darted toward Applejack in silence, throwing his hoof lightly against the wall a final time before he straightened himself, "Fuck me, that's fucked up-"

"Well, like Ah said, y'all did kill yer friend here in the middle of the town..."

"Yeah, but-"

"...and it's really confusing considerin' y'all're still here even though yer supposed to be, well, dead."

Delirious stamped a hoof on the floor, glaring angrily, "But I'm not, bitch! I'm right fuckin' here!"

Applejack reeled a bit from his outburst, gritting her teeth and shutting an eye as if she had been smacked, "Ah guess that's the thing, Sugarcube," she said, glancing toward the wooden door leading to the owner's office, "Ah guess the Mayor doe'n't really know what ta think about all that."

The mare rubbed the back of her head involuntarily, a guilty look plastered on her face. Listening to nothing but the stallion's low breathing, Applejack looked at the clock, watching as the small hand clicked onto the 6 at the bottom of the circle, the large hand remaining over the hidden 5.

Suppressing a yawn, she turned her tired attention back to Delirious, finding the Pegasus preoccupied, his head slamming into the wall audibly, a groan emanating from his open mouth with each hit.

"Delirious?"

"What- ow- do you- ow- want you fuckin'- ow- bitch?"

"First of all," Applejack replied, stamping a hoof into the ground and raising her voice slightly, "stop callin' me that! That just ain't nice to say to somepony who saved yer life-"

"I coulda- ow- saved myself- ow- if that fuckin'- ow- root wasn't there..."

Applejack raised a hoof off the floor, Delirious noticing this and deciding against interrupting her as he continued to head-butt the wall in boredom.

"Second, y'all seriously need an attitude check!" she watched as the stallion continued his act, unfazed.

"An' stop doin' that!" she added, pointing an accusing hoof at him.

"Fuck off. Delirious does what he wants, bitch."

Applejack frowned, glaring at Delirious as he bluntly ignored her in favor of the steel gray wall in his cell. Giving a long sigh to the ground, she looked at Delirious out of the corner of her vision, the wall now appearing to have a small amount of blood on it. Her eyes widened as she suddenly threw herself against the cell bars, shaking them like a lonely prisoner.

"Delirious! Yer bleedin'!"

He slowed his action, finally settling as he raised his head from the wall and stumbled back in wooziness, feeling his lightly bleeding head with a now-stained hoof. Falling against the wall across from its affected cousin, Delirious curved his forelegs like a puppy, grit his teeth, and slid down the brick until he plopped onto the floor, tilting his head in an effort to stop the bleeding.

"Ah, fuckin' hell man..."

"Delirious, y'all're gonna hurt yourself!"

Delirious only groaned in response, feeling the back of his head with a shaky hoof, the blue appendage coming back stained red.

"You're such a fucking dumbass, Delirious."

"Fuck you," Delirious replied almost faintly, moaning audibly as his head involuntarily hit the wall behind him, "I still don't see why the fuck you're here too."

"Well, considering I kicked your ass at least four times-"

"Bullshit. You weren't fucking counting."

Vanoss laughed, lifting his head up from the mattress he was lying on, his shades no longer covering his brown eyes. Looking over at Delirious with a grin, he saw his friend staring back at him in kind, his forelegs raised like a praying mantis and a glare on his eyes almost hidden underneath his mask.

"Still don't understand why the fuck they let you keep your mask on, clown."

"Well, bitch, I'm glad they took your glasses off so I could see your ugly ass face."

Applejack stepped back uneasily, beginning to grow wary of what could very easily lead into another fight. And as she eyed the various pipes in the sink, the light fixture hanging above their heads, and the chains holding the beds up from the floor, she gulped. Loudly.

Which neither hooked nor sunk the two stallions, one of which began to shakily get off the floor, stumbling slightly as he reached his peak with a snarl. The red Earth pony on the bed raised a brow as the low, animal-like sound of growling began to reverberate in the cell, the owner beginning to trot slowly toward the cell's other occupant.

Delirious stepped toward Vanoss slowly, his brow gradually narrowing until his eyes were near-slits. Vanoss moved not an inch, curiously watching Delirious walk over to him menacingly. And then suddenly, without warning, Delirious leaped with a cry, "You fuckin' bi-"

Vanoss shifted on the mattress, allowing room for his friend and the chains now surrounding his neck, not even a drop of sweat rolling down his forehead as he looked at Applejack through the cell bars. He grinned politely, telling her, "Don't worry, he'll be okay."

He turned his attention back toward Delirious, who was weakly punching and kicking the air in a struggle to breathe. Vanoss pouted his lower lip, a feign mother-figure voice creeping into his advice, "Shh, shh, just go to sleep now Delirious. Just go to bed. Roooock a by baaaby oooon the treetoooop-"

Delirious could only sputter out a barely audible, "Fuck you," before his legs stopped moving and his body twitched one last time.

Vanoss put on his best soldier voice, whispering a gently calm, but incredibly deranged and fucked up, "Good night."

Vanoss slowly got off the bed, careful not to disturb Delirious' body, and looked to Applejack.

She had a single hoof up to her mouth, her face contorted into one of horror and shock.

Vanoss scoffed, "Oh c'mon, don't act like you've never seen a dead body before. This isn't the first time this 's happened-"

"No, Vanoss," Applejack began, her voice shaken, "it ain't that."

Vanoss' brow flew up.

He turned around, and found a hovering pegasus, a baseball bat in his hooves. He lightly patted the head with a free hoof, a growl escaping his lips.

"It's that."

"Heh heh heh, hiiiii Vanoss. Pleasure to see you again, hehehe hahahahahaha."

"Ah fuck!"

WHAP!

"Fuck you, bitch."

Applejack sputtered. Vanoss was right; it wasn't the first time she had witnessed this, but it still got her every time. Death was death, no matter how many times it happened.

She looked back at Delirious and found the stallion fiddling with the lock on the cell door. Groaning in frustration a second later, he looked at Applejack through the bars and calmly asked, "Do you, uh, do you have the key?"

Applejack lurched backward in disgust, "Of course Ah don't, Sugarcube! An' after what y'all just did, Ah don't think Ah'd even wanna let you out!"

Delirious flailed a hoof in the air, appalled, "Oh come the fuck on, man. It's not a big fucking deal-"

"Murder's still murder, Delirious, an' that's not somethin' Ah take lightly."

Delirious stood there, breathing heavily in silence, before he fell to his haunches, turned, and crossed his arms, lifting his head up slightly to say, "Whatever man. Least Vanoss is fuckin' dead. I didn't wanna be with his ass in prison anyway."

"Hey Delirious."

Delirious turned his head, and found Vanoss, a smirk on his face and a frightened farmpony at his side.

"You do remember we respawn, like, a block away, right?"

Delirious slammed a hoof into the concrete underneath him as he all but screamed, "FUCK."

Vanoss whistled a tune as he turned toward Applejack, smoothing his hair back and grinning wildly, "So, Applejack, what say you and me-"

"No thank you."

"Well alright," Vanoss immediately replied, face never changing as he looked at Delirious. "Boy, lemme tell you, I'm fuckin' hungry right now. I sure could go for a hot dog right now- oh! Or maybe a," he suddenly said, leaning closer to Delirious and peering through the bars with wide eyes, "cheeseburger."

"Nooooooo! Now I'm fuckin' hungry, you bitch!"

"Ha ha ha! Good!" Vanoss said, turning toward the door and raising a hoof.

Delirious tutted, wildly waving a hoof in an attempt to thwart his friend's plan, "Uh uh uh, don't you fuckin' dare."

"I'm darin', Delirious."

The pegasus threw himself against the bars, watching as Applejack flinched in fright at his sudden movement and the loud clatter that accompanied it, "And just how the hell do you plan on getting outta here?! You were in jail too, remember?!"

"Oh shit, that's right!" Vanoss exclaimed, his hooves reaching up to his cheeks in mock surprise. His face shifted to one of boredom, his hoof reaching toward his belly and coming back with a small white object.

"Oh fuck you."

Applejack turned toward Delirious with a look of confusion, "What's he doin'?"

Delirious growled in response, and Applejack looked back at Vanoss, but found nothing but his dead body on the floor. Her breath caught in her throat as she raised a hoof away in disgust, before his body shimmered three times, then disappeared.

"Oh mah Faust-"

"Fuckin' killed himself. What a bitch, leavin' me here..."

Delirious crossed his forelegs, narrowed eyes staring straight ahead with a distinct lack of activity. A voice withdrew him from this stupor immediately.

"Have fun, Delirious! Don't drop the soap!"

Vanoss was looking in through the window bars behind him, a red hoof wildly waving at him in feigned friendliness.

Delirious suddenly flew to the window, coiling his hooves around the rusty iron bars and sneering, "Don't you fuckin' leave me in here you asshole! Don't you fuckin' leave me!"

"Bye Delirious!"

And with that, Vanoss was gone, his figure sprinting across the road and further into the town. Delirious slowly let go of the bars, wings lazily flapping to keep him aloft as his head started to bob up and down violently.

Applejack was breathing heavily, her eyes darting from the left to the right to the left again in panic, "Oh Faust, there's a murderer on the loose-"

"Th- there ain't no fuckin' murderer..." Delirious choked out, falling to the floor as his lower lip trembled. Curling into a fetal position, he raised his hooves over his eyes and sobbed, "that's just my- my friend, Van- Vanoss..."

He sniffled.

Loudly.

And began to wail in despair. Applejack lowered her head in shame, looking away from the sobbing stallion, before she breathed in a large breath and approached the cell. She tenderly placed a hoof on its exterior, peering into the room and watching Delirious cry. It broke her heart, and she soon began to speak, "Delirious, are y'all gonna be okay?"

"Y- yeah, I will," he replied in between choked sobs. He raised a single hoof and pointed at the spot his friend had previously occupied outside of his coop, "you sh- should go see if he drop- if he dropped some money. Dumb fu- fucker usually does when he dies..."

Applejack turned her head toward the suggested spot, finding nothing in particular. Raising a brow, she looked back at Delirious with confusion.

"What do ya...." her voice trailed off slowly. Her face contorted into a large sneer, gritting her teeth in rage as she found Delirious' lifeless body lying dead on the prison floor. Growling, she looked through the barred-up window, and found the noticeably fatigued figure of a blue pegasus with a mask galloping along the road, a faint yell emanating through her skull.

"I'm gonna fuckin' kill you, Vanoss!"

Looking back into the cell, she sighed heavily as the stallion's body disappeared. Looking to the ground, she uttered a simple curse.

"Ah ponyfeathers..."