The roaring tell-tale sign of a hangover punched me in the schnoz and into consciousness, and continued to laugh remorselessly at my cringing and pained groaning. Or maybe that was just the loud, nasal snoring of the pony lying behind me.

I could feel her leg draped over my shoulder and her warm barrel pressed against my back so I knew every time she inhaled. In addition to feeling her hot, alcohol-laced breath cascade against the back of my head, that is. Or at least, I hoped to high heaven that it was a mare behind me. It wasn't like I could feel a set of balls pressing against me. Or a pouch. Whatever it was that stallions kept their wangs in. I couldn't feel much of anything besides the blanket of shittiness draped over me.

"Oh man..." I grumbled and mumbled out in protest, then resigned myself to never drink again, lest this happen a third time. "I'mneverdringingagin..." My body felt sore and aching. My head throbbed. I just wanted to go back to sleep but my bladder had its own agenda, alerting me to its need.

And so I resigned myself to staying awake, with heavy, half-lidded eyes, unable to recognize the arrangement of the furniture within my field of view of the darkened room I found myself in.

After a good ten or so ticks of an unseen clock punctuating the silence I turned over to look at my second equine partner since arriving in Equestria, only to see Giselle's slobbering mug less than an inch from my face.

"...well, shit."

Author's Notes:

To Be Continued In: "Self Actualization"

I've been debating with myself a lot about the direction of this fic. Months and months of debate. It's quite obvious to me that the way I've written Matt's character has led to a very great veering from my original story conception. I've scrapped more potential endings than you'd care to know and ultimately I feel that unless I heavily rewrote the characters and scene (as some of you have logically asserted that I should to regain your original interest in this fic), I pretty much locked myself into a linear path - not unlike how the so-called "protagonist" has done within the story.

But I became drawn, no...mesmerized by just how flawed a person Matt is, and how that really contrasted with how I originally conceived the progressive nature of Maslow's hierarchy.

In any case I'll be drafting up "Self Actualization" while putting up a few oneshots/short fics of the other aspects of the Gentlemanverse that I've started. Ones that are, y'know, more thematically related to the 'verse that DEL started.

I fully understand if disappointment in how I've decided to continue leads to your un-faving or un-watching. I never said I was a good writer, and if I didn't want criticisms I wouldn't have shared what I've written with y'all. If anything I'm just being experimental, even if it means I'm throwing away logic and sensibility for the sake of seeing what others think about it. I can afford to do that much in my efforts to improve, after all.

Why do I love to spout bullshit? Jeez. Maybe I just wanted to see a "complete" on this...yeah...