"Where the fuck have you been, guys?! You know how many fucking readers we lost in that desert?!"

The deathly quiet that met his ears was the only answer he was to receive, though it was shortly followed by his four friends all turning their heads slowly toward him, eyes blinking and mouths set in silent frowns. Even Wildcat, situated underneath the smoking Cargobob, rose from his seat on the ground and glared at him, wrench in his teeth, underneath his mask, under his helmet. He studied Delirious for a second or two before spitting his tool out next to him, wiping his pig snout, and reaching for the bottle of water next to him. Wrestling it open amidst a flurry of very choice words, he proceeded to chug away at it for three whole seconds, then put it down, capped it, and simply glared at the others when they gave him odd looks back.

"Could someone shut him the fuck up?"

"You shut up!" Delirious shot, taking a step forward and pointing a hoof at the pig.

Wildcat quietly rolled his eyes, mumbled something, then softly placed his back onto the desert sand and resumed his fiddling away at the underside of the chopper.

"Seriously though, where the hell have you been, man?" Delirious spun on a hoof, finding Vanoss looking up at him with a foreleg propped against his masked forehead. The owl face stared wide-eyed at him stoically, but Delirious could tell that the Canadian was waggling his eyebrows at him sarcastically. Seemingly searching him for anything of use, Vanoss observed, "You're dressed up like some fucking Fallout character or something."

"Yeah, we haven't seen you for like a month," Nogla chimed in, the rustling of his paper bag catching Delirious' twitching ear, "been waiting for your ass in Appleloosa the whole fockin' time."

Delirious straightened his posture; a quick hoof flashed to steady his flowing, tattered robes.

He held an answer on his tongue, but in the heat of the blistering sun, it stayed where it was to allow Lui his shining moment.

"He went southeast."

"Fucking idiot," Wildcat called from underneath the chopper, his wrench doing very much the exact opposite of its rather quiet job, "I'm pretty sure we explicitly fucking said that we were meeting up where you got your bounty." He cranked a few bolts, cursed when they refused to cooperate, and shook his head as he added under his breath, "Had to go fuckin' play Mad Max while we hid from guards and shit."

Delirious, his lips turned in a frown, looked at what the pig was doing, narrowed his eyes, and pointed up at the ass rotor of the Cargobob. "You do know the engine's on the other side, right?"

Wildcat presented his tool of choice—an odd lovechild of a wrench and a hammer—and resoundingly thumped the bottom of the chopper. "Didn't stop me in Battlefield, did it?"

Blue eyes shrank. "Wait, they're still chasing us?" Delirious asked, retaining eye contact with any that met him in anticipation of a swift answer.

It was Vanoss who gave it to him, simply and bluntly as he trotted toward where Lui sat on a large rock. "I mean, we robbed a bank, stole a shit ton of cash, shot a guy, scared the town..."

Delirious' ears splayed back against the sides of his head. His eyes darted to the floor and roamed about for awhile. The sun-blasted rocks looked nice today.

"...plus I think that guy we killed the other day was a bounty hunter..."

One of Delirious' ears flew upward, the same side of his head as the brow now raised toward the sky. Sucking on his teeth, he raised a hoof up to his mouth and cleared his throat.

Vanoss was now taking a delightful swig from a bottle of Pißwasser. Putting it back down again with a swift wipe of his mouth, he continued, "...and the bartender has been giving us the stink eye for the past week too..."

He coughed again. Fuck, he knew this feeling.

"...still surprised we haven't been haaanged..."

Delirious practically fell to the floor, but, with shaky hooves, caught himself before he could fully collapse on the sand and rocks beneath him. His sudden descent caught the attention of the others, who instantly reacted with soft, caring, lovable, "Did you just fucking trip, you dumbass bitch?"

Opening his mouth, he shut his eyes and, very simply, vomited green onto the floor.

The guys laughed speedily thereafter. Nogla lifted his chin and began to drink out of a bottle of eCola.

"You pussy."

"What, did you get airsick or something?"

Delirious lifted his mask up off his face and rubbed at his right eye. Groaning as if he'd just been woken up in time for school, he weakly regarded the others. "Fuck you."

They burst out laughing. Delirious shook his head and ran a hoof through his mane, then lifted a hoof to walk toward a nice looking rock sitting as far away from the others as was possible.

"Oh c'mon man! Cheer up!" Delirious spun around. Nogla excitedly waved a hoof over at him, cola in hoof. "You're goin' home soon!"

"Or as much of a home as you could call that shit pile," Wildcat called.

"You know what I had to do for those fuckin' drapes you ungrateful asshole?"

"We've all had to look at Vanoss' mom's Polaroids, dude; nothing to be ashamed about," Lui quipped, earning a plastic scowl from Vanoss' trademark mask. Monkey and owl stared at each other, but both chuckled it off like it was absolutely nothing. The sounds of hooves clip clopping against rocks pittered out to Delirious, and so he only sucked in a breath when he felt a hoof on his shoulder.

"Lighten up man! We'll have a few drinks and kick back like old times!" Lui beamed, patting Delirious like some kind of dog. "Just gotta be quiet if we hear any guards again. None of us brought silencers, so, y'know..."

"Do we really wanna dig ourselves a deeper hole here?" Delirious asked.

Lui guffawed. "Who do you think we are, man? Some kinda fuckin'–" He gave the Pegasus a light, friendly bump and instantly recoiled with a shout and a fervent studying of his now apparently injured appendage. "What the fuck? Your leg is like a fucking stone, dude! The hell did you do out there?"

Delirious raised a brow. His friends, rising out of their prior seated positions, did so in kind. Looking down, he brought a foreleg up, paused, and knocked on the other across from it.

A dull thudding noise rang in his ears, like a balled-up fist rapping on a log.

Author's Notes:

We've hit the two year mark since, like, a month ago.

Coincidentally, it's been more than three months since the last update.

My laptop is, as I've as of five minutes ago found out, is about six or seven years old. I've been trying for the past weekend or so trying to boot this shit up. Had to publish some of my other things from my damn phone. What a hassle that was.