A Step Too Far.

A Fanfic by DJW, all Daria Characters are © of MTV, Viacom and…what the hell you all know how this goes, the show belongs to who it belongs to, same with the characters except mine…they belong to me.

A Step Too Far

An idea for an Iron Chef on PPMB,

…………………………………………………………….

“Listen Upchuck…do you mind if I call you Upchuck? Or would you prefer Charles?”

“No, No, Upchuck will be fine sir…” Upchuck replied, he did not want to appear disagreeable to the person in front of him.

“That’s great” said person replied with a calm smile spreading on his face, for some reason this did not seem to make matters better “I just thought we needed to talk about a few things…I assume you know what?”

“Yes Mr Sloane…” Upchuck began to say,

“Please call me Tom if you prefer” the other person interrupted.

“Right, Right, Tom, is this about what I said to…”

“Daria?” Tom finished Upchucks sentence for him, “No that’s not what I wanted to talk about.” The wind blew his hair around while he paused for a moment or two “What I wanted to talk about occurred slightly after that I do believe, what was it you did again?”

“Ah, you mean when I said ‘RRRRR Feisty’?” Upchuck replied giving a somewhat weak rendition of his usual repose to the snubs his come ones usually faced, when the only response from Tom was a nod he continued, “And then proceeded to…touch her?”

“If by ‘touch’ you mean groped then I suppose that’s about right, let me tell you something Upchuck as a friend” Tom replied, for just a split second it seemed like his calm expression was about the change but remained however he did remain silent,

Upchuck gulped with some difficulty, this was partially out of fear, but mainly because Toms other hand just happened to be wrapped around his neck.

“Daria does not like being ‘touched’ like that, it makes her uncomfortable, now I’m sure you know who I am?”

“D-D-Daria’s boyfriend?”

“That’s right…Daria’s boyfriend, now what does that mean?”

“That no one ‘touches’ her but you?” Upchuck said quickly and almost instantly regretted it as Tom pushed his arm out fully, he would have felt a lot less worried if he had found himself pressed against a wall, but there was nothing behind him…

“Wrong answer my friend, I am Daria’s boyfriend meaning I respect her wishes not to be ‘touched’ until when or if she no longer feels uncomfortable, now normally she tolerates your lets face it rather futile advances, but I’m afraid your lack of decorum in this instance has led to you going just a step too far, you made Daria very upset and very angry with your little shenanigan, understand?”

Upchuck nodded furiously before speaking/stuttering “l-l-listen Tom, I didn’t mean to upset D-D-D-Daria…I didn’t mean any harm with it and…”

“Do try and make this quick, my arm is starting to get tired here…” Tom replied calmly, this caused Upchuck to stop frozen with fear for a few seconds, there had been nothing behind him…but there was nothing beneath him either, although this should be expected when someone is holding you over the edge of a roof, “And by the way Upchuck, this is my weak arm.  Tell you what, just say that you are sorry and will never do anything like this to Daria again and I’ll let you go…don’t look at me like that I’m not the sort of guy who would drop you, ok?”

Upchuck nodded and then managed to get out “I promise I will not do anything like this again to Daria and I am very sorry for what I did…is that ok?”

“Very good Upchuck,” Tom replied, “oh and remember when I said I wasn’t the sort of guy who would drop you?”

Upchuck nodded nervously, having a vague impression of where this was going.

“I lied.”

As he let go Tom turned and put his hand back in his pocket, he was glad he had stood over the dumpster full of…actually it was probably best not to think of what was in there, but at least he had something to drop him into, his arm was starting to ache and he didn’t want to have to go through the effort of putting him back on the rooftop.

Daria watched as Tom climbed down the fire escape back to the ground, he looked like he was resisting the urge to burst out laughing from the looks of things

“I’m sure nobody will hear you, let it out before you explode, I don’t want to spend the rest of the night with bloody chunks on my clothes.”

Tom obliged by bursting out laughing for what seemed like forever, leaning on his car as he got his breath back.

Daria rolled her eyes as she walked past him “You know you didn’t have to go through all this just to make me feel better,” she said as she got into the passenger side.

“I thought about that, that’s why I got Jane to record the whole thing from near the dumpster,” he neglected to mention his little surprise he had given Jane as well.

“Run off a few copies, we could clean up selling them…” after a few moments she finally asked, “What happened to Upchuck?”

“I let him go.”