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.
“One Day is all I ask”
Sequel to “One Night is All I ask” revealing the mystery between what happened to Daria and Tom between Friday midnight and 5:30pm Saturday, also a few questions are answered while more are asked…and who is that mysterious man in the tweed jacket?
This story takes place mere moments after the end of One Night Is All I Ask.
…………………………………………………………….
What do you do when the music is over and the dance has ended?
Daria Morgendorffer and Tom Sloane found themselves asking that question, it was midnight and they where dancing on a hillside on a whim. A fitting end to a bizarre night all things considered[1] and now they couldn’t decide what to do now.
“So…” Daria began to say not finding any words to come next.
“So…” Tom echoed…great minds think alike I suppose. Regardless they continued to dance, not doing any specific dance but little bits of anything they could remember.
Eventually the music ended just as Tom tried doing the tango dip…and to his surprise as well as Daria’s he didn’t drop her on the ground.
After a few seconds Daria eventually spoke “You know we’re gonna have to decide what to do soon, all the blood is rushing to my head.” Wordlessly Tom let her back up to her feet and sighed.
“Guess I better get you home, I’m sure your parents are in full panic mode by now” he shrugged “Mind you worse case scenario we tell them the truth about tonight?”
Daria raised an eyebrow at this “What Truth?”
“That you where involved in the explosion earlier tonight where you banged your head, and I took you to hospital where you had your head examined?” Tom answered matter-of-factly.
“Tom, Dr Phillips had a look at it while seeing how Jane’s head was…I hardly call it an examination.” Then the idea caught up with Daria “Of course she doesn’t have to know this does she? Tom you are a genius”
“I have my moments” He responded with a smirk.
…………………………………………………………….
“DAMN YOU ELLENBOGAN…AND YOUR LITTLE MAD DOG TOO”
Indeed Helen and Jake where both going into full panic mode. Although Helen was probably handling things better, instead of ‘flying off the handle’ she was calling around trying to find out where Daria was at quarter past midnight.
So far the Sloane family hadn’t seen her and Tom wasn’t back either…this of course triggers the expected parental panic, especially as then calling the Lanes had only gotten through to an answer machine. Now she was into desperate territory as she dialled.
“Amy? Its Helen…your sister Helen” she sighed remembering where Daria inherited her sarcastic streak “you haven’t heard from Daria at all have you?”
“NO DAD 9 WAS NOT AN ACCEPTABLE CURFEW TIME…”
“Not now Jake” she hissed “Sorry Amy, he’s off on one again anyways are you sure you haven’t heard anything?”
“DAMMIT THEY’RE PROBABLY LYING DEAD IN A DITCH AS WE SPEAK HELEN, WE SHOULD CALL THE POLICE…”
“What did I say Jake?” If this kept up she was going to have to start lacing his martinis with Valium or something similar “sorry to bother you then Amy, call me if you hear anything would you?”
“MAYBE I SHOULD GO LOOK FOR THEM…GAAAH” Jake fell to the floor as Helen moved her foot away.
“Sometimes I find the simplest solutions are often the best.”
…………………………………………………………….
Around the same time the at the moment wayward Morgendorffer daughter was in the passenger seat of Tom’s car leaning against an open window trying to decide what to say, eventually she found the words.
“Tom…where the hell are we?”
Tom looked briefly away from the wheel a little puzzled and then returned his eyes to the road, “I'm not sure the actual area but I think we’re near the turn to get onto the road to Starfield[2], I know that’s what we passed as we drove out here” he shrugged and continued “when you got into the car earlier you gave off ‘just drive’ vibes so I did.”
Daria just sat there looking thoughtful for a few moments until the realisation hit her “Starfield? That’s where my Aunt Amy lives I think…unless there are any other towns with similar sounding names near Boston.” She remembered asking her Aunt where she lived while they dined on a meal of cheese fries after the wedding fiasco although she never really thought about how far it was from Lawndale…or how close to be more precise.
Now it was Tom’s turn to look thoughtful, eventually he looked at Daria and asked, “What is your Aunt Amy like anyways?” He had a faint quiver of anxiety in his voice as he spoke “only I’ve heard how she’s a lot like you and…” he trailed off when he saw that Daria was staring fixatedly dead ahead.
When he look ahead he saw that she had been staring at a car that had swerved onto the wrong side of the road and did not look like it felt like slowing down.
“AAAAARGH” Tom yelled as he swerved the car out of the way and off the road…
…………………………………………………………….
“Gosh darnit Evan…I told you not to drink so much at that party.”
“Sorry Robert” a groggy Evan replied “I’ll pay for a new pair of pants if you need.”
Robert just rolled his eyes as he looked ahead and saw they where on the wrong side of the road, “Oh dear” he said as he moved his hair out of his face “good thing we’re the only ones on the road.”
Evan looked out trying to figure out which road was real and which was not, “Yeah…” he then looked back at his friend and noticed something “Dude I’ve been meaning to ask, what’s with the sudden decision to grow your hair? Since I’ve known you it’s always been pretty short.”
Robert ran a hand through his hair and grinned “well sir I suppose I was getting sick of being the ‘perfect little soldier boy’ my father wanted me to be…not that it matters as I never even see him anymore…but still if I ever do I want to be a son he can be ashamed of.”
Evan grinned while putting a hand on his head wishing they would kill the man with the jackhammer “Robert Buzzcut you will never cease to be a mystery”
…………………………………………………………….
Tom lifted his head from the steering wheel of his car, for a moment he thought he had gone blind until he realised the sudden stop had pushed the hat he was wearing over his eyes, lifting it he looked up to see Daria looking at him concerned, she looked like she was fighting back tears.
“You ok?” She asked quietly after a few moments.
“I’m fine, the steering wheel stopped my face from damaging the dashboard” Tom said with a weak smile, then put an arm around Daria and held her close “you?”
“Fine” was all she said in reply, she then sniffed and started to cry.
“Shush, Daria its ok” Tom said trying to sound soothing “We’re both unhurt.”
“I know” she replied “its just…its just…” she took a deep breath and shouted in a half irritated half amused voice “YOU CRASHED US INTO A FIELD FULL OF ONIONS.”
…………………………………………………………….
At 1am at Lane household Jane finished her paintings and removed her headphones, she had spent the hour or so churning out picture after picture from her photos of Upchuck in a rather embarrassing situation. She would definitely be able to find a few buyers…like say ever female in Lawndale?
Looking at the several empty coffee mugs around her she realised there would be no way of getting to sleep for a long time…
“Hmm, it’s too late to call Daria, and Trent is pretty much catatonic,” she thought to herself “wait a minute, Clove mentioned something about rarely sleeping on weekends, what the hell.”
Picking up her phone she dialled the number of her friends cell-phone, “I wonder if he has changed that ring tone yet?” she thought as it rang “Its bad enough hearing that tune whenever he has us training in class but all the rest of the time…” she stopped when she heard the sound of someone answering.
“Janey what the bloody hell do you want at this time in the morning?” Isn’t mobile phone technology wonderful?
“Yo Clove, sorry if I woke you, I’m just bored as well as wired and wondered if you wanted to come watch some movies for a while or something?”
“Sounds like a plan, besides after tonight’s events I could use some R&R, I’ll be over in 5.” And with that he hung up before Jane could ask what he meant.
…………………………………………………………….
Around that same time in the middle of an onion field in the remnants of a freshly collected batch Daria watched Tom slam the front of the car down, after the two of them had recovered from the crash…if you could call it that, they had tried to get the car working again with little luck, for nearly all of the past hour they had been trying to remove the various remains of shredded onion from the engine of the car.
“You know Tom, all things considered I’m amazed this car didn’t fall apart on impact” Daria remarked “despite the rust on this car I’m beginning to think this thing is indestructible.”
Tom just shrugged as he wiped his hand on his sleeve “who knows, we never did learn what grandma did with this to want to get rid of it…and given her somewhat bizarre past I’m not really sure I want to know.”
Daria raised an eyebrow at this about to ask then decided against it, instead deciding to change the subject “by the way I finished checking the car for stuff to use to fix the car if needed and here is a list of everything I found:” she took a breath before reading from memory “1 empty tranquiliser pistol which you got at the parking lot, 1 large rocket and 3 bunches of firecrackers in the trunk for reasons I cannot fathom, a lighter, a pair of nunchaku, your cell phone and your cowboy hat, a roll of bandages, 3 test tubes of various unknown substances, a pair of chopsticks, several onions, and a packet of marshmallows where all found in and around the back seat…I put them all in the hat and to be honest, words fail me.”
After looking very confused for a while (emphasis on very) at the assorted objects kept in the hat, Tom eventually shook his head and replied “You know I keep telling those guys to check and make sure they didn’t leave anything whenever I give them a ride, well may as well get going.”
“Well lookee what we got here boys.”
Daria and Tom both froze when they heard a voice that sounded like it belonged to someone who had auditioned for ‘Deliverance’ and had failed to get the part of ‘Hillbilly #4’ for being either ‘too realistic’ or ‘too fake’ or both if such a thing is possible.
“Tom”
“Yes Daria?”
“Please tell me that was another one of your bad impressions”
“Hate to disappoint you but I think it’s the young…man and his friends who wish to inquire about the onion crop we may have ruined.”
The two turned round to see about 4 or 5 people who could only be described as ‘rustic’ stood watching them, given that some of them had pitchforks they did not look to be in a friendly mood.
“Well aint that just perfect…buncha city slickers go and crush our crop” the ringleader said…you can tell he is the smart one as he seems to have all his clothing nearly fitting.
“I don’t believe, this,” Daria muttered to Tom “after everything else tonight we now end up facing off against not a bunch of redneck stereotypes…but a bunch of redneck stereotype wannabes…and bad ones at that.”
“City slickers? This place is only half an hour’s drive to Lawndale.” Tom replied slightly missing the point, then spoke to the…well lets call them RSW for now, “Guys I’m sorry about the ‘crop’ but I can pay for any of the onions…”
“We aint talking about no onions here…” the ringleader said in a tone that left you able to practically hear the … it was a tone that told Daria and Tom that tonight was going to get worse before it got better.
…………………………………………………………….
Jane answered the knock at her door at 1:05 thinking, “Damn he doesn’t kid around when he says he’ll be here in 5 does he?”
“Greetings Janey, so what films you got lined up for tonight?” he stopped when he saw her somewhat faraway expression and then looked down at himself and realised he was wearing just his cap, his trousers and an open leather jacket “sorry about my appearance, my usual clothes got somewhat…shall we say ‘indisposed’ so I just grabbed what I could find…its not a problem is it?”
“Nuh-Uh” she managed to get out as he walked past her with an eyebrow raised, after a pause she thought to herself “Sweet Jesus the guy has more muscle than Jesse! How the hell did I miss that?[3]” Then she slapped herself in the face “Snap out of it Jane.”
“So are we gonna watch some movies or what?” Clovis shouted from the living room.
After 10 minutes of arguing and dissecting the entire movie collection the two eventually settled on a decision and began watching.
“Now Clove promise me that if we’re going to watch ‘Withnail and I’ you wont be quoting it for the rest of the night”
“If you insist, do you impose these rules on everyone you watch movies with?”
“Don’t worry its just you, Daria isn’t one for quoting much and Tom is more prone to impersonations…speaking of those two I wonder how they’re getting on?”
“You know how unadventurous those two are, I’m sure their fine, probably at home in bed……their OWN BEDS Jane, stop smirking like that its freaking me out.”
…………………………………………………………….
Elsewhere a quiet night road suddenly became less quiet by way of a certain rusting jaguar bursting onto it by way of a row of hedges, it took off down the road at a fairly impressive not to mention break-neck speed that would not look out of place in a Hollywood movie, the reason for this becomes clear when 3 pickup trucks followed suit and gave chase.
“Well that could have gone better” Daria said in her usual deadpan.
“OK I will admit pulling the gun on them maybe wasn’t such a good idea, but it was better than the alternatives, I mean you heard how much they wanted for that dope we crushed, hell I’m rich and the amount scares me…anyhow at least they didn’t figure out the gun was empty and non-lethal anyways until after we got in the car.” Tom responded as he threw Wasabi’s tranquiliser gun into the backseat.
“So…” Daria said calmly as she hung onto the handle on the top of the car as they pulled a turn that nearly put the car on two wheels, she then looked at the handle in her hand and threw it out the open window “any ideas for how we deal with this? Because there is probably a very high chance they have more gas than us and there trucks may not be as fast but they’re definitely in better condition.”
Tom glanced in the rear-view mirror for a few seconds looking thoughtful and then opened the glove compartment and removed an identical looking tranquiliser pistol to the one he had thrown to the backseat “Take the wheel please while I check how many shots I have in this.”
Daria stared at this for a few seconds before taking the wheel, “your not wearing a Kevlar vest as well are you?”[4]
“Heh, hate to disappoint you, Kevlar is Wasabi’s department, just like this thing here…3 shots only…damn” he responded as he pushed the clip back in and pocketed it in his waistcoat “well if worse comes to worse” he took the wheel from Daria who went back into her seat.
“There are these of course,” Daria said holding up the object-filled hat “given the bizarre nature of your friends I’m sure you can put this ‘Pandora’s Box’ to good use.”
Tom raised an eyebrow as he put his hand into the hat and removed 2 test tubes; one full of red and the other with green liquid, he looked at these carefully “now what was it ‘JD’ told me? Red and your dead but Green and your keen…or Reds keep your head while Greens blow to smithereens?”
Daria took one and looked at it curiously while Tom did the same with his, after a while they looked at each other and said simultaneously “Screw it” and threw both tubes out.
Both of them looking back decided maybe it wasn’t such a wise idea giving the ensuing red adhesive coating on the road stopped one of the trucks and the green gas cloud certainly sent the drivers running for air, the fact that the two substances reacted rather violently when they finally made contact…still it was a rather impressive fireball as a result.
…………………………………………………………….
Elsewhere in a small all-night coffee house in Starfield sat Amy Barksdale nursing a decent sized coffee of some name she couldn’t really be bothered to remember, as it was probably a ‘something or other-chino’ like them all.
She was mildly intrigued by Helen’s call, she was probably just overreacting as usual and given the still surprising fact that it was Daria out late on a date as opposed to the other one it was understandable.
Either way the situation had left her unable to sleep for a while so she had decided to ‘take in some atmosphere’ and read a book with a coffee, although her enjoyment had been slightly dampened by the fact that an Asian looking man in a tweed jacket, matching flat cloth cap and a black umbrella had been looking at her intently on and off again for the last 10 minutes, every time she looked up he had averted his eyes but she knew he was doing it.
“That does it I’m going home” she said to herself as she put down her book, drained her coffee and got up leaving, if she wanted to be gawked at by strangely dressed men she could have gone to a comic shop.
Shortly after she left the place a man in a tweed jacket, matching flat cloth cap and carrying an umbrella walked out and began to follow her.
…………………………………………………………….
Daria sighed as she looked at her watch “1:35 my parents are going to kill me…if ‘Bubba and the boys’ don’t first.”
“At least they probably noticed your not there,” Tom said with a shrug “by the way, if they do catch us and one of them says to me ‘you got a purty mouth’ then please kill me in whatever manner becomes apparent.”
“No Tom” Daria said disgusted “Whose going to kill me?” She smirked a little as she looked out the window “persistent little bastards aren’t they?”
“That’s true I’ll give them that” Tom replied, “What do you think we should use on these ones?”
“Well there is the last test tube, its pink…let me guess, ‘JD’ made a love potion?”
“Close actually, it’s a ‘Lust Potion’ as far as we can guess, it’s a VERY potent aphrodisiac…He once used it to deter people from attacking him by making them very horny and very indifferent.”
“You mean like not caring if its male, female…” Daria said with a nervous look… “Good thing the tube never broke earlier or things could have gotten…interesting.”
“More like animal, vegetable, mineral” Tom said with a look reminiscent of some repressed trauma breaking through “I don’t know how it works but I have an idea…take the wheel again please.”
Daria complied while giving Tom a sideways glance as he took the firework rocket and using a strip of bandages attached the tube to the rocket, “Now to light the fuse” which he did using the lighter “and now for the final step” he said as he opened the door and took his foot off the accelerator enough to slow the car down to drop the rocket on the floor without it changing the way it faced, he leaned back in, shut the door and took the wheel again “thank you Daria and seeing as we don’t have ‘JD’s ‘libido repellent’ spray to go with it we now have to FLOOR IT”
…………………………………………………………….
In a pickup truck two of the RSW watched as the rust bucket they had been chasing slowed down briefly and then tore off at top speed, suddenly there was a trail of sparks on the road and then something exploded in front of them, after swerving the car onto the side of the road and stopping in shock the two looked at each other…they both saw that they had pink shimmers around each other.
“You really do got a purty mouth…”
…………………………………………………………….
Jane and Clovis had been watching the film for half an hour; eventually Jane had to speak as Clovis’s odd tendency of staring at his hands was starting to get to him.
“Clove what the hell are you doing?”
“My thumbs have gone weird…ouch what was that for?” He responded rubbing his freshly punched arm.
“You know what its for” Jane responded to a genuinely unknowing Clovis.
“Stupid sodding diet soda related freak outs” he muttered to himself “probably Wasabi’s tranquilisers working their way out of my system…still at least the burns have healed up”
“Now this I need to know” Jane said genuinely intrigued “Tell me the whole story.”
…………………………………………………………….
“You know Tom its quarter to 2 in the morning and we are being chased by a pickup truck in the middle of nowhere after blowing up another one and possibly pushing a pair of redneck wannabes into an alternative lifestyle” Daria smiled as she continued “You sure know how to show a girl a good time.”
Tom smiled back as he looked at Daria “well it was either this or go and read greeting cards out loud…you want to decide how to deal with the last one?”
“With pleasure” she responded with a grin Tom found both unsettling yet also alluring…
“My God listen to me” he thought to himself “I sound like one of those romance novels Elsie thinks I don’t know she reads.”
Tom glanced from the road briefly to see Daria tip everything out of his hat, open the packet of marshmallows and tip a quarter of the packet into the hat, she then broke a few firecrackers from one of the bunches and put them into the bag tying it shut with a piece of bandage and lastly twisting all the fuses into one.
“What are you…” Daria taking the lighter and turning in her seat to be lying on his lap looking up at him with a mischievous grin as she lit the fuses cut off Tom.
“Tom be a dear and slow down so their right behind us would you?” She said still with the grin on her face and now a homemade ‘mallow-bomb’ in her hand.
Tom was slightly confused by her change from her usual stoic self “whatever you say” he replied as he slowed down enough so the truck was practically right behind them.
“Thank you,” then she threw the bag out the window “Fire in the hole…always wanted to say that.”
…………………………………………………………….
The final pickup driver looked at what appeared to be a pink plastic bag flying towards the windshield, suddenly the bag exploded with a loud BANG and the entire front of the trunk was coated in what looked like the remains of Mr Stay-Puft.
…………………………………………………………….
“Well I don’t know how you got that idea but it worked” Tom said impressed as he watched the final truck swerve off the road.
“But of course” Daria replied still grinning and looking up at him, Tom was beginning to feel a tiny bit nervous at this.
“You know you can come up from there now…”
“Huh, most guys dream of having a girl down here in their car” Daria replied with a grin Tom never knew she could manage.
“WHAT?” If he hadn’t been wearing a seat belt he would have no doubt gone through the roof of his car literally and given the level of his blush he would have been mistaken for some sort of police light. Although this was cut short by the car suddenly making an unsettling sound somewhere between CRUNCH and CLUNK. He managed to keep control of the car as it went off the road into the middle of a clearing of trees.
“I really should take a look at that,” Tom said more than a little shaken up.
“But first” was all he heard as a hand shot up and grabbed his collar and dragged him down.
After a minute or two Tom was released back up for air, Daria sat up next to him her grin not as obvious as it was but still very apparent, after a moment of getting his breath back Tom eventually managed speak.
“Wow…we should get into car chases more often.”
…………………………………………………………….
Amy Barksdale was getting ready for bed when the phone rang, “Hello?” She asked mildly annoyed.
“Hello Aunt Amy?” She recognised her niece’s voice, it sounded like she was calling from a cell-phone, and she could hear the various sounds of the outdoors in the background.
“Daria?” She was more than a little surprised “It’s nearly 2 in the morning, what do you want?” Amy wondered if this was in some way connected with her sister Helen calling around midnight asking if she had heard from her daughter, Amy couldn’t really make out what she said as Jake was busy yelling about ‘Mad Dog’ and ‘Corporal Ellenbogan’ as usual and had stopped her hearing most of the conversation.
“I kind of need some help…” Daria said slightly nervously while in the background Amy heard someone slamming a car bonnet shut “It’s a long story, but can you come pick us up? We kind of need somewhere to stay…sorry cant say much more this phone only has a little credit left, we’re on the route to Lawndale…trust me you’ll know where.”
…………………………………………………………….
Jane rolled her eyes as Clovis’s cell phone rang, it was bad enough with Daria’s mother phoning 20 minutes or so ago asking if Daria was there, she had told her no and that if she wasn’t at home she was probably still with Tom…given the time she realised it was probably not the wisest thing to say but at least it will make things interesting.
“You’ve gone and bloody done what? Bit of a bugger there then…hello? Either the Goit hung up or his phone ran out of credit, I told him to refill it but nooooo.”
“Clove what the hell was that?”
“It was Tom, it seems him and Daria have…well…they’ve gone on holiday by mistake…OW”
…………………………………………………………….
Amy Barksdale got into the drivers seat of her convertible and started the engine, she had called Helen and told her that Daria was fine and to sedate Jake and get some sleep, she would explain more to her in the morning.
Right now she was more concerned with picking up Daria and…oh wossname she was dating at wherever they had set up camp, she certainly had a few questions to ask this young (at least she hoped he was young) man what his idea of a date was.
“But still” she said as she pulled out of the driveway, “She sounded like she had been enjoying herself…if such a thing is possible.”
As she drove off a man in tweed walked up to the house and looked at it for a few moments quickly checking the windows, then he looked and saw the car driving away and began to walk after it.
…………………………………………………………….
At 2:30am the various RSW where all stood around the two trucks that they still had in working order, 2 of the group seemed to be keeping considerable distance between each other.
“Awright boys…” The ringleader’s accent dropped down to less stereotypical and became a more annoyed yet still faintly like a hillbilly[5] “Oh for crying out loud; Mike, Vincent stop doing that, I don’t care if we did find you making out in the truck, I told you whichever way you swing is fine by us, Ain’t that right?”
The other two nodded in agreement meaning the ‘couple’ looked relieved; one was about to speak before the ringleader cut him off.
“Now I reckons those two can’t have gotten far as their hunk o’junk seemed as ready to drop as someone who drank papas moonshine…”
“Donald I thought your dad didn’t drink?” A muscle head with a blonde ponytail interrupted.
“Not now Kim…and I told you its MacDonald, anyhoo those two have no doubt set camp further up the road, they obviously don’t know the lay of the land like we do, Louis have y’all de-creamed the windshield yet?”
“Almost, give me another 5 minutes then I can start work on fixing up the engine…who would have thought marshmallows could do so much damage?” The skinny one henceforth to be known as Louis replied.
“Like I care, anyways I’m gonna catch some Z’s for a while, wake me when we’re ready.” With that MacDonald the ringleader walked off leaving Kim to look at Louis confused.
“Think he’s taking this a little to serious, all for some weed…heck that wasn’t even real anyways, maybe we should tell him we’ve been growing oregano for the past year.”
This caused Louis to look up confused “How did you know it was oregano? I never told anyone.”
“I’m a catering student, its what I do”
Elsewhere Vincent finally stammered out what he was trying to say, “Thanks but we’re not gay…”
Mike just cocked an eyebrow and walked away smiling “What do you mean WE?”
…………………………………………………………….
“3AM and alls well.” Daria muttered looking at her watch, over an hour since she had made the call to her Aunt Amy, now they just had to wait for her to arrive, shame the phone had run out of credit, her mother must be through the roof by now. Still at least they had got a fire going and had been killing time by roasting marshmallows.
“You know I laughed when my parents told me I should get a better car, they said I was mad, MAD they said…is there any feeling more depressing than learning your parents where right?” Tom sighed as he loaded another marshmallow onto a chopstick and held it over the fire.
“Hmm…learning you’ve begun thinking like them I suppose.” She replied leaning against his side with a yawn.
“Tired?” Tom said as he raised an eyebrow, he then shrugged and slid arm round her shoulders “I suppose its to be understood, not only is it late I guess the adrenaline rush must have worn off at last…at least your behaving like normal again…well normal for you.”
“Now what are you on about?” Now it was her turn to rise an eyebrow “what do you mean behaving normally?” She decided to let the ‘for you’ to slide, besides it was true.
“Well don’t take this the wrong way but I don’t think I’ve seen you so…giddy I suppose…not to mention enthusiastic about anything before, at first I thought you must have inhaled some of the ‘potion’ but that stuff wears off after 5 seconds” now Tom started to get a mischievous look “and I KNOW that you where like that for at least 2 minutes, you practically drained the life out of me.”
Daria had to fight to keep the blush on her face from becoming too apparent “Well…anyways” deciding a change of subject was the wise choice “I hope Aunt Amy can find us, I don’t want to spend any longer here than necessary.”
“Well if the fire doesn’t get her attention then the burnt out remains of the pick-up will tell her she went to far,” he paused as he ate the half melted marshmallow “worse case scenario we set off the firecrackers to attract attention…although the way things have been going it wouldn’t surprise me if it caused her to crash into us.”
…………………………………………………………….
At the same time Jane and Clovis where in the process of trying to find another movie to watch, eventually Jane held up a film
“Clerks?”
“Clerks.”
“Clerks it is.” She put the movie in and sat back down on the couch then noticed something at the end of Clovis’s braid, she carefully took it and held it up to get a closer look, it seemed burned at the end.
“Janey are you messing with my hair?”
“I haven’t touched it.”
“Then why has my head gone numb? OW…what? It’s a psychological thing.”
“Fine” Jane said rubbing her hand, “anyways I’ve got to ask as the pressure is killing me, how did you guys dates go? Seems all 3 of you managed to make it without going crazy…well 2 out of 3 isn’t bad.”
“Well I can’t remember much of mine, ‘JD’ no doubt wound up making out with whoever it was in the alleyway…he’s good at that, and strangely enough Wasabi and Daria’s sister seemed to hit it off pretty well.”
“Really?” Jane said with a look of extreme interest, maybe if she could no longer play matchmaker with one Morgendorffer girl another would do “maybe we should…”
Remembering that Tom and Daria had warned him about this Clovis quickly interrupted her “Janey before you go on with whatever Yenta-ish scheme you have…(whatever the bleeding hell a Yenta is) I would like to ask a question”
“Shoot.”
“Do you know the 5 pressure points required to make your heart explode?”
“Not really…”
“I Do.” (The way he said it you could actually hear the full stop)
Sensing a change of subject was required Jane decided to ask something she had been meaning to ask “Clove seeing as the explosion practically incinerated your outfit I think it’s high time we got you a new one, if you want I could help you with the clothes shopping?”
Clovis looked down at himself, “Well I guess it couldn’t hurt, besides if I keep going around without a shirt I could be mistaken for a third Moreno brother.”
Jane grinned and drummed her fingers together “Excellent.”
…………………………………………………………….
Amy stopped her car at near 4am when she saw in her headlights the remains of a fire in a clearing as she turned the corner. Getting out she saw her favourite niece and a young man sat in front of the fire and leaning against a rusted jaguar, they had both fallen asleep on each other’s shoulders.
With a faint smile Amy removed the camera from her glove compartment…if there was anything she had learned from Helens husband it was:
1: Never send any kids she might have to military school.
2: Not to touch the brown acid.
3: Always know where your towel is.
And 4: Always carry a camera; you never know when you could get good blackmail material or a good laugh.
Turning on the flash she framed a good shot of the sleeping couple and pressed the shutter button.
Daria and Tom both awoke with a start as a bright light startled them into consciousness; Daria was the first to fully recover and looked at her aunt in a look that was equal parts annoyance, relief, and embarrassment.
“And hello to my favourite niece.” Her aunt said as she pocketed the camera.
“Good to see you again Aunt Amy,” she replied, “sorry to have dragged you all the way out here, its been a long night.”
“Daria I think I’m seeing double…” Tom said blinking repeatedly, and then he stopped and actually saw the two standing side by side “OK now I’m freaked out,” He thought.
“Aunt Amy, this is Tom Sloane…my boyfriend and also half the reason we’re out here at this time.”
“What’s the other half dare I ask?” Amy replied with a small rise of the eyebrow.
“Louis Jordan” Tom answered with a sheepish grin “I’ll explain on the way Mrs Barksdale if that’s ok.”
“Sure, and just Amy will do, you better get whatever you have in the car, it’s a long drive and I don’t want to have to come back for anything.”
Tom nodded and started collecting the various trinkets while Amy turned to her niece.
“So handsome, smart, interesting…Tell me Daria what’s the catch?”
“He’s from one of the richest families in Lawndale and I kinda sorta stole him from my best friend.” Daria replied not really wanting to open up old wounds.
“Hmm, I can see that being a slight issue, tell you what if you ever get tired of him let me have him…I always wanted a toy boy.”
Amy shrugged, as her niece looked at her incredulously “What? Ralph Fiennes still isn’t returning my calls.”
Shortly after the convertible had left with its 3 passengers a man in a tweed jacket made his way out of the trees and looked around, he then made his way towards the rusted jaguar and began to examine it.
…………………………………………………………….
“Hey MacDonald I think we found em” Louis stated as he pulled the truck to a stop at a clearing near the road.
Sure enough in the clearing was the jaguar they had been chasing, and there was a figure in black jeans leaning into the car, as a group all five of the RSW circled the figure, then Kim being the biggest grabbed the figure and pulled him out the car.
They where more than surprised to find an Asian man who could be anywhere between 30 and 50 clad in a Tweed jacket and matching flat cloth cap, they where even more surprised when he responded to being dragged out the car by smacking Kim over the head with a black umbrella.
As Kim staggered back the other 4 all rushed him, only to find themselves the victims of various strikes to the head and legs with the side of the umbrella[6] which left them all on the floor groaning.
The man in tweed then proceeded to flip MacDonald over and flip his truck keys out of his pocket and catch them out of mid air giving MacDonald one more smack to the head, as he walked over to the truck he would have been heard to utter (if any of them where conscious enough)
“Great country, free cars.”
…………………………………………………………….
At 4:30 in the morning Clovis turned off the TV and looked at the sleeping figure next to him, “Guess I better get you to bed Janey, don’t want any smart arses finding us in the morning and getting the wrong idea,” he slung her over his shoulder as he headed up to her room.
“You know I’m starting to feel a little…” he yawned “sleepy myself.” Clovis wondered if maybe…just maybe getting blown up and shot had anything to do with that, of course the fact that it was getting near 5am could also be why he added as he walked into Jane’s room and rather unceremoniously dumped her on the bed using his jacket as a makeshift blanket, there was no way he could manage the physical co-ordination to manage something so complex as tucking a person in.
“Okie-Dokie I’ll go and crash on the cou…” he never finished the sentence what with falling asleep midway and passing out on the bed next to her…this would no doubt lead to trouble come morning.
…………………………………………………………….
“Ms Barksdale…I mean Amy, are you sure you don’t want to pull over for a rest? I mean it’s nearly 5am.”
“It is 5am Kid, and thanks but I’m fine,” Amy replied as she sipped from an open thermos of coffee “and don’t ask me again if you want to wake up breathing” she added with a very Dariaesque Mona Lisa smile, “So how long have you been seeing each other?”
“Ah one of the questions I’d been dreading” Tom replied glad that Daria was asleep in the back while he was riding shotgun “Since a bit before summer, I suppose she mentioned how…not my finest hour I admit.” He saw no point in going into further details.
“So you’re trying to make the best of a bad situation eh Kid?”
“I suppose your right, and please, call me Tom” he was starting to feel a little uncomfortable with being called Kid, although he was still quite nervous talking to this woman in general, from what he had gathered Daria trusted her as much as she did Jane so he did not want to get on her bad side “Although if dating your niece is what you call a bad situation then I’d love to know what you consider a good situation.”
“Well you’re honest that’s a start,” she handed him the thermos while a more sterner expression crossed her face but she kept the smile “here’s some advice Kid, you better make her happy…and if you go and break her heart, I will personally break your legs.”
“I give you my word I’ll try my best to and not to.” Tom was going to stop himself but then decided that when you’re at the edge of the abyss you may as well take a running jump “Just my legs? I hope Daria won’t go as soft when she reaches your age.” He took a gulp of the coffee and winced at how strong it was,
Amy was silent for what felt like an eternity before starting a quiet chuckle, after a while it turned into a regular laugh before she stopped and looked at him, “Well I can understand what Daria sees in you Kid, you poor bastard.”
In the back of the car Daria laid spread along the seats wondering if she should let them know she had been awake for the whole conversation… “Nah” She decided, “it’s starting to become interesting.”
…………………………………………………………….
“Daria? Daria? Daria wake up we’re there, there’ll be plenty of time to sleep once we get you to bed” A voice said that awoke Daria, glancing at her watch she saw it was 5:30am,
“That was faster than expected,” she muttered as 2 pairs of hands helped her out the car, one of these pairs seemed to be shaking ever so slightly.
“Well once I found you I decided to put my foot down,” her Aunt Amy explained as she let go and moved to lock the car leaving Daria to lean upon the shoulder of a somewhat twitchy and very wide-awake Tom, “Kid bring her in and I’ll show you to your bedroom.”
“Tom?” Daria said as she managed to wake herself up enough to notice how he looked like someone had hooked him up to a generator “What did she do to you?”
“Coffee…she gave me coffee…at least I think it was coffee…tasted like coffee…” Tom said in short sharp bursts causing Amy to look over her shoulder as she opened the front door.
“Oh don’t worry about him, the stuff should wear off in a moment or two, I just gave him a quick fix to get you out.”
“Oh that’s a relief.” Daria sighed as she and Tom both made their way into the house only to stop and simultaneously say…
“Wait did you just say BEDROOM?”
…………………………………………………………….
Daria and Tom both just stood and looked at the single bed in the small room Amy had let them use, she had told them not to make too much noise as she went to get ready for bed, Daria recalled that she had an expression not unlike Jane back whenever she was making some remark about her now non-existent crush on Trent.
“Guess one of us takes the bed and the other the floor?” Tom said nervously.
“I suppose, I did sleep in the back while you had to endure Amy’s coffee so I guess you should have it.”
“I dunno, I spent more time asleep at the camp fire so I guess that gives you the right to it.”
Realising that neither of them would agree to let the other have to sleep on the floor they came to the only logical decision a pair of mature adults could.
“Toss a coin?”
“Deal.”
“OK, heads you get the bed, tails I do.”
They watched the coin fly into the air and followed it to the ground, after a while Daria had to speak.
“Do you ever get the feeling that the universe is controlled by some kind of hopeless romantic with a strange sense of humour intent on keeping us together?”
“More often than not Daria, more often than not.” Tom replied as the both continued to stare at the coin on the floor balancing perfectly on edge.
…………………………………………………………….
“I still say we should have at least trashed the car,” Kim said as he rubbed his head, those umbrellas can really hurt he had learned, even though it had been around 3 hours since the thrashing and he was still aching.
“Normally I would agree with you Kim ole boy,” MacDonald replied at the wheel of the one remaining truck “But what could we do to that car to make it any more trashed than it already was? The answer, nothing short of sodomising it.”
Louis smirked and was about to say something when Mike stopped him with a glare and a “Don’t even think about it.”
MacDonald continued, “Besides those two are small potatoes compared to that yellow bellied bastard who stole our truck.”
Vincent had interrupted him there, “You know I never had you down as a racist MacDonald.”
“Oh for the love of…it was a figure of speech…” he stopped, as he looked ahead and saw a familiar looking truck parked on a street with a man in tweed and matching cap sat on the top “Hello what have we got here?”
…………………………………………………………….
At7 in the morning Tom was woken by what sounded like a car alarm going off… and possibly a high-pitched whimper, although he dismissed this as impossible almost right after.
He blinked several times as he stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling trying to remember where he was, idly noticing that his left arm had gone to sleep but was not awake enough to care, “5 more minutes” he mumbled as he turned over onto his side determined to have more sleep.
He was more than a little bewildered to feel something pressed against his face, opening his eyes all he could see was the colour auburn, “Mrrf?” he murmured confused as he tried to sit up but found himself unable to as there was something on his left arm.
Carefully lifting his head up he found the reason he was unable to move was because there was a sleeping Daria on his arm.
“EEP” he eeped, then the memories of the past 13 or so hours began to flood back to him, slightly relieved he figured he better be safe than sorry, he patted his chest and legs, “fully clothed…Thank God,” he then nervously put a hand on Daria’s side and felt clothing as well “well at least I don’t have to worry about her aunt crucifying me,” he yawned “may as well enjoy it while it lasts.” He figured as he snuggled in for however longer he could.
…………………………………………………………….
Trent yawned as he half stumbled, half staggered, and half crawled (he was VERY tired) back from the bathroom; it was 7:30 in the morning and the effects of last nights gig had finally caught up with him, still it had been a pretty good performance all things considered, maybe the band should tar and feather some random jerk every night?
He was snapped out of his pondering when he passed his sisters room and saw the door was open…and there was what appeared to be a half naked man asleep next to his sister, Trent immediately went into the state of mind often found in older brothers known as ‘overprotective overdrive’ and walked in determined to teach the punk in there a lesson.
Moments later anyone stood outside the room would have heard Trent give a surprised yelp that trailed off to be followed by a voice with a British accent groggily shouting
“Throw yourself into the road darling, you haven’t got a chance….” Then there was the sound of a thump followed by a thud, then an “OW…ZZZZZ”
…………………………………………………………….
Daria woke up at 8 feeling surprisingly well rested, as she reached around for her glasses she looked down and saw a pair of arms around her, putting the glasses on she looked over her shoulder, she was (pleasantly) surprised to see a sleeping Tom behind her…now if only she could figure out how to slip out of his grasp so she could see about some breakfast.
She walked downstairs a few minutes later following the scent of coffee, as she made her way to the kitchen she saw her aunt sat at the table with a bowl of cereal and a mug of coffee before her, a spoon on its way to her mouth when she saw her enter.
“Good morning, how’s my favourite niece this morning?” Amy asked her as she got up from the table and headed to the kettle.
“As well as can be expected I suppose, although I am a little worried about how my mother is going to react when I get back and as for dad…well I don’t really want to go there.” She yawned a little while watching her aunt make another mug of coffee that she took when offered, “I’m sure I feel a lot better than I look.”
“Tell you what, drink you’re coffee then go take a shower, I’m sure you’ll feel better…and I want you to look presentable while I give you and your significant other the grand tour of Starfield” Amy said with a smirk.
Daria nodded in agreement and drank the coffee as quickly as possible as she made her way back upstairs, Amy sat back down and sipped her coffee, then she took up the spoon again, it was just about to make its way to her mouth when Tom made his way down the stairs in what she wasn’t sure to be a walk or a very prolonged state of collapse, as he made his way to the kitchen she rolled her eyes as the spoon was again returned to the bowl unused.
“Morning Kid, sleep well?” She asked making another return trip to the kettle.
“Uh-Huh” He grunted in response, Amy looked at the teaspoonful of coffee powder in her hand and then tipped the rest of the jar into the cup and emptied the spoon back into the jar, he took the mug without protest, Amy had to admit she was impressed at the speed he downed the contents, he probably didn’t get burned as it never touched the sides.
“Kid do us all a favour and have a shower in the not too distant future, if people see you then they may think I’ve been attempting to raise the dead.”
Tom raised an eyebrow as the coffee had the desired effect of waking him back up “If you don’t mind me using the shower”
“Hey Mi Casa Es Su Casa”
“Thanks much Ms…Amy” Tom replied as he put down the mug and headed back upstairs.
Amy again sat down and was managed to get the spoon halfway to her mouth when there was a knock at the backdoor, sighing as she put it down she got up and opened the door to find standing there a 6ft2 slightly heavy-set (around 230 lbs) young man between 19-20 with a brown ponytail and a goatee which inexplicably had 2 grey streaks in it. He had a shopping bag in his arm and a grin on his face[7].
“Ah Daniel come in” Amy said as she stepped out the doorway “I take it you got what I asked for?”
“Yup Ms B” He replied in a voice with a faint trace of an English accent “wasn’t easy but I got the exact clothes you wanted,” He paused while he emptied the contents onto the table to reveal exact copies of the clothes Daria and Tom had been wearing plus fresh undergarments “Had to come round back as there had been a bit of an incident out front, seems some local yobs ended up getting into a fight and got forcibly inserted into their truck.”
“Fascinating” Amy replied as she took her wallet out “how much do I owe you? Is 20 alright for this job?”
“You know my motto Ms B” He replied grinning, “Any time, Any day, Any work, Any pay” he took the bills and pocketed them “So if you don’t mind me asking, why exactly do you need these clothes?”
“There for a pair of visitors” She replied and nodded towards the ceiling “Their upstairs taking turns for showers.”
“Ah gotcha…” after a pause he asked “You did tell them that you have no lock on your bathroom door right?”
Amy sat there thoughtfully for a few seconds before replying “You know I had a feeling I forgot something” she shrugged “Eh I’m sure they’ll find out” she smirked as if on cue there came the sounds of 2 voices yelling in embarrassed surprise.
…………………………………………………………….
Jane awoke at 9 and looked at the jacket on her, she shrugged as she swung her feet off the bed and jumped up, landing on something soft that revealed itself to be a sleeping Clovis who groggily exclaimed
“Quick, Fork it! OW” as he sat up looking at the footprint on his chest.
“Morning Clove, I’m gonna grab some breakfast and go for a run before we go clothes shopping, you’re welcome to join me if you want.”
“Sounds good to me, after that we can hit the shops…think you’re brother can lend me a shirt till then?”
“I’ll go have a check, while I’m doing that mind shutting that window? It’s freezing in here.”
Clovis did so as Jane left the room, he passed the time waiting by doing a few kicks and punches into thin air until she returned and threw him a t-shirt.
“I couldn’t find him, odd that he’s up so early” she shrugged “oh well, lets get moving.”
As the two left the house they failed to see a somewhat stunned Trent in the backyard sprawled out on a mattress amongst the garbage cans, it would no doubt be a long time before he tried a stunt like that again he had decided, he did not feel like getting thrown out a window a second time until after he had released a platinum selling album.
…………………………………………………………….
Amy smirked at the pair of glaring eyes in the rear-view mirror, for the past half hour they had been discussing what sounded like the best way to arrange her ‘unfortunate demise’ and the experience had been…educational.
“Knives?”
“Too cliché.”
“Fire?”
“Too much smoke damage.”
“Acid?”
“Too much hassle…and they could find the teeth.”
“Explosives?”
“Too noisy”
“Ninjas?”
“If you’re not going to take this seriously…”
“OK, OK, a pound of flesh perhaps?”
“Too Jewish.”
…………………………………………………………….
“Man Saturday morning cartoons have really gone down the crapper.” Wasabi Yojiman Takaguchi stated as he turned off the TV.
“Can’t argue with that” ‘JD’ Noone replied, and to think he could have slept in instead of coming down to watch TV “we really need to rethink our policy on not hacking TV stations.”
“So what do you want to do now?” Wasabi asked, “play some videogames, watch a movie, construct some weapons?”
“Hmm, there is always Project S?”
“For the last time ‘JD’ I am not, I repeat NOT letting you install booster rockets on my board…I’d rather wait until we finally get that hover unit to work without exploding before we do ANYTHING to my baby.”
“Fine” ‘JD’ sighed, he had been looking forwards to that, “I guess I could work on the ‘rail gun’ or tweak that special order for Clovis, seeing as he did pay up front…not to mention rendered several baseball players unconscious.”
Wasabi was about to reply when his phone rang; as he picked it up he glanced at ‘JD’ and muttered “Speak of the devil” then returned to the phone “Yo Clovis, what’s up? …Not much…sure I guess I could…no problem I’ll bring ‘JD’…see you there.” He hung up and turned to ‘JD’ “He wants to know if we want to meet him at the mall.”
“I guess, we can get a card for Jeff while we’re at it.”
After a pause a thoughtful looking Wasabi asked his friend “So how do you know Jeff anyway?”
“Me? I always thought he was a friend of yours.”
“No, I have no idea who he is.”
The two looked at each other for a while before shrugging simultaneously and turning the TV back on.
…………………………………………………………….
Amy eventually decided to interject before the two ran out of ideas “Oh come on its not that big a deal, in fact you should be proud, to my knowledge you’re the first teenage couple who have shared both a bed and a shower, and still managed to keep your virginities…” then remembering how dangerous Helen could get she asked slightly nervously “you both still…”
The simultaneous angered yells of “YES” nearly had enough force to blow her through the windshield.
“Just curious.” She replied with her smirk returning, “Tell you what, too make up for the embarrassment I’ve put the two of you through allow me to recompense you by buying you lunch after a trip through a few stores.” Then she thought to herself “Thank God it wasn’t the other one who ended up here…I’d have been bankrupt the moment I left the house.”
Daria shrugged and replied “OK, but you don’t think Mom will get mad about keeping me out here for so long?”
“Opposed to all the other reasons she’ll be mad at us? As the English say ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’ or something like that.”
“Good point, it’s a deal” Daria replied with a shrug.
“What about you Kid?”
“Do any of the places here sell that coffee of yours?”
“Afraid not.”
“Perfect, lets go.”
…………………………………………………………….
“Ah I love the smell of commerce in the morning!” Jane exclaimed as she took a deep breath then turned to look at her accomplice as he hung up his cell phone.
“They’ll meet us in the arcade, those two always migrate there anyways.”
“Whatever, anyways lets get you outfitted” Jane replied grabbing Clovis’s wrist and dragged him to the nearest clothes store.
“Cashmans? You must be off your nut if you think you can get me in there.”
Jane was about to reply when to her surprise she saw Quinn Morgendorffer walking towards them with a desperate look, “Incoming Clove…think we should stand our ground or run for it?”
“I think we should strangle it before it tries to make friends with us…OW”
“Daria’s friend, thank God, I need your help.” Quinn said in a serious tone.
“Daria’s friend? I have a name you know.” Jane responded slightly annoyed.
“Hey I’ll remember your name when your brother remembers mine.”
“You know” Clovis added “She has a point…OW, Damnit what did I do this time?”
“You where right…an unforgivable crime for a man to commit.” Quinn replied grinning “Anyway PLEASE can you help me? I really need to get away from the others and I figured I should tag along with you…”
“Because it would be a cold day in hell before you would hang out with people like us voluntarily and no one would think to look for you?” Jane responded.
“In so many words yes.”
“You know it makes sense when you think about it…” Clovis stopped when he saw the glare Jane was giving him, then began to worry when it turned into a grin.
“Fine Quinn, you can help me pick clothes for Clove here.”
“WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DID YOU JUST SAY?”
…………………………………………………………….
Elsewhere in another mall in another town at 11 o’clock the group of Amy, Daria and Tom walked out of a bookstore, Tom was trying to carry several large bags of what looked like books (well what did you think was in the bag, pineapples?).
“Why am I having flashbacks to my sisters birthdays?”[8]
“Aunt Amy is it really fair to make…I mean let him carry all those books?” Daria asked with an eyebrow raised.
“Just trying to help you out Daria, and you wouldn’t let me make him pay for everything, if having a rich boyfriend bothers you, then you should take every chance you can to make him less rich.” Amy replied with a smirk.
“I’m touched by your consideration for this relationship” Daria deadpanned “Now explain why you seem to be showing such an interest.”
“Don’t you mean Relation-Date-Ship” Amy responded as the smirk changed into a grin “I’m sure that’s what you usually referred to it as.”
“EEP…I mean don’t change the subject.” Daria stammered glad that the bags stopped Tom seeing her blush.
Amy sighed and spoke “Fine if you must know, after your mother learned that you had actually gotten a steady boyfriend she had to phone up both me and your Aunt Rita to brag about it, afterwards the two of us called each other to compare notes, after a while we got talking and it appeared we had a difference of opinion as to how this would work out, lets just say the two of us made a bet on whether it would last or not…”
“And you bet on us not lasting?” Daria interrupted slightly enraged “No wonder you’ve been putting us into embarrassing situations, you’ve been trying to break us up…”
“Actually I betted the exact opposite” Amy responded, “I figured you weren’t the kind of girl who wouldn’t at least make an effort at this, and from what I’ve seen neither is the Kid, and as for the embarrassing situations…well that was partially to give you a break from the overprotective parents, partially accidental” then her smirk returned “And partially the admittedly sadistic fun of watching my favourite niece squirm.”
“Oh” Daria replied slightly shocked “Well I guess I owe you an apology…and thanks for the vote of confidence” then she sighed and continued “Don’t worry about the incidents, the shower incident was at least educational, and as for the bedroom, it was…nice” She couldn’t believe she had uttered that word, who was she and what had she done to the real Daria?
Behind the two Tom looked up from the bags wondering if he should let them know he had been able to hear the whole conversation… “Nah” he decided, “it’s starting to become interesting.”
…………………………………………………………….
“Quinn what do you mean you ‘lost’ Clovis?”
“I only turned my back for a few seconds as I saw some cool looking aubergine jeans for him and when I looked back he had escaped…although given how this store is so bad I can’t find a single recognisable label let alone a designer label I can’t say I blame him” Quinn replied irritated, she only came here as she wanted to avoid all the guys trying to ask her who the green-haired guy she was with last night was…no doubt Sandi had leaked the info.
“Quinn, the lack of labels is the reason we came here, it was the only way to get him to stop yelling what I think where obscenities.” Jane replied trying to remain calm “Now how did he slip his restraints?”
“You mean his braid? I think he cut it off” Quinn replied holding up what looked like a 2 and half foot long black rope, however the grossed out expression she bore hinted at its somewhat more ‘organic’ nature.
Suddenly the changing room door between the two flew open to a certain familiar voice.
“Back in Black honey.” Clovis said with a big grin on his face, Quinn and Jane both looked in surprise at the outfit he wore, he still had his boots on although they where partially covered by a pair of slightly baggy black trousers which obscured much of his feet, with that he was wearing a plain black shirt buttoned all the way up and the collar turned up to cover most of his neck, his hair now was only down to his waist but looked a lot neater as he seemed to have rebraided it, his eyes where looking over a pair of black sunglasses very reminiscent of the type OZZY Osbourne wears but with a small zigzag in the frames, and of course the black leather baseball cap that seemed to be a part of him as always rested on his head, he was indeed ‘Back in Black’.
“You like?” He asked as he pulled on the shirt cuffs of each wrist to straighten them out, “Quinn, I need you’re help to decide if the trousers work.”
Before Quinn could open her mouth he spun round and threw a kick at her face, stopping mere millimetres away from her nose, he held the foot up there without moving as Quinn began to quiver and let out a small whimper.
“Marvellous” He said as he lowered the leg slowly and walked up to the till leaving a shell-shocked Quinn and a surprised yet also impressed Jane, “Ring em up mate, no need for a bag, I’ll take them to go.”
…………………………………………………………….
Wasabi wandered around the arcade with his hands in his coat (Black leather trench coat, cliché but still cool if worn right) pockets waiting for Clovis to turn up, ‘JD’ had stopped off at an electronics store so who knows when he would get back, he stopped and backtracked a few steps to come across a group of kids on ‘House of the Dead 2’
The sight of the youth of tomorrow taking such pleasure in turning zombies into small fleshy chunks brought a smile to his face, although their enjoyment was over soon as they obviously didn’t know much about shooting straight.
Looking around and seeing no sign of anyone else he shrugged as he lit a ‘cigarette’ and took a gun as he put a quarter into the machine…then put another in and took the 2nd players gun.
“Lets Rock.”
…………………………………………………………….
Back in Starfield the trio sat down at a table in a small café, their large collection of books had been joined by a slightly less impressive but still sizeable bag of movies.
“You sure do love your films Kid.”
“That I do…” Tom replied “among other things” he added slightly quieter with a glance at Daria who was either very interested in the menu or trying to hide her face.
“Well I can see a career in the movie industry in you’re future Kid.” Amy paused and was about to continue when Daria beat her to it.
“In a video store maybe?” Daria then looked up shocked that she had said that out loud.
Tom looked at her for a while not saying anything before he began to laugh happily, “Good one Daria” he took Daria’s hand and gave it a small squeeze, “But don’t give me ideas.”
“Ahem, I don’t know about you two but I’m going to order some drinks” Amy said, once more grinning as the two suddenly snapped back to reality and grabbed the menus again, she attracted the attention of the waiter “Give me the strongest coffee you’ve got.”
“I’ll have a soda.” Daria ordered.
“Just an iced tea for me thanks” Tom was last to say, then looked at Amy “I think I’ve had enough caffeine to last a lifetime.”
“What can I say? You lead a life like mine you need to be awake at a moments notice Kid.” Amy shrugged as she spoke.
“Actually Aunt Amy I’ve been meaning to ask, what do you actually do?”
Abruptly Amy[9]
was interrupted by the waiter returning with a tray of drinks and awaiting
their orders.
…………………………………………………………….
Joey, Jeffy and Jamie had been wandering the mall in search of Quinn for nearly an hour, they had tried all the stores she was likely to be in and had come up empty, and so they had decided to kill some time in the arcade, they had learned from Sandi (in an event Quinn would later come to refer to as Griffingate) that Quinn had been seen dating a green haired Japanese guy the previous night and wanted to find out about him so they could ‘meet’ him.
“Hey guys” Jamie said as he grabbed their collars to stop them “I think I see him.”
Indeed the man they where after was stood at the ‘House of the Dead 2’ machine clad in a black trench-coat, both guns in his hand firing away with the remains of what looked like a cigarette in his mouth and a skateboard leaning next to the machine.
Jeffy walked up to a blonde girl who was watching the man make short work of the zombies “Hey Tori, what do you know about this guy?”
“He’s like been playing for like the last hour and hasn’t lost a single life yet…and that’s using both guns. He can’t be that popular amongst popular people but amongst not popular people he must be popular judging from the hair and the coat and…”
“Thanks I get the idea” He replied as he and the other 2 J’s moved in on their target.
“Yo Greenie, we want to talk to you.” One of the three barked (does it really matter which?)
Wasabi turned to look at them, still shooting with both guns “If you’re wanting a game then hang around I wont be long.”
“It ain’t about any game” another replied slightly unsettled that he seemed to be still hitting his targets while looking at them “We just wanted to tell you to stay away from Quinn Morgendorffer, she’s ours.”
“Really?” Wasabi raised an eyebrow as he continued “I was always under the impression that it was the other way round…you know, you where her bitch-boys.”
All 3 J’s where about to lunge at him when he spun into what looked like a dramatic martial arts pose with his coat billowing behind him, the three hesitated looking at each other before deciding to rush him, Just as they turned to do so his expression of confidence faded and he grabbed his board and took off at warp 5.
“RUN AWAY”
…………………………………………………………….
Daria and Tom leaned back in their chairs, a mostly eaten plate of pizza between the two of them, enjoying the brief respite caused by Aunt Amy having to use the bathroom.
“I still feel kind of bad about letting her pay for everything,” Tom said while he looked at the pile of bags “I would have been willing to pay for my stuff…and yours if you wanted” He added nervously.
“Tom, you know I don’t like you spending money on me,” Daria replied looking at him “maybe if I was dating you for you’re money which I’m not, I just don’t feel comfortable taking advantage of you that way, its not the zeroes I like, it’s the one their behind.”
“Say you don’t want no diamond ring and I’ll be satisfied,” Tom said in a sort of singsong voice with a soft smile “Tell me that you want the kind of thing that money just can’t buy.”
“You’ve been listening to the Beatles haven’t you?” Daria looked a little surprised at this.
“Yup.”
“Huh, I always imagined you as more of an Elvis man.”
Amy smiled to herself as she watched from the other side of the café as the two took advantage of her absence to steal a quick kiss.
“I love it when a plan comes together…shame I don’t smoke as a cigar would be really fitting right about now.”
…………………………………………………………….
‘JD’ Noone looked around the arcade, he was mildly annoyed as neither of the people he had agreed to meet where there.
“Figures” he said as he switched the bag of electrical components round to his other hand, he might as well have some fun until then.
He stopped and looked at the machine next to him, one of the veritable swarm of dancing games that had begun to flood arcades with music he and his friends could not stand.
When there was no one looking he slipped behind the machine and flicked his wrist, a screwdriver on a spring-loaded clip shot into the palm of his hand, “Groovy” he whispered as he begun to open up the machine, he worked the tool like a surgeon works a scalpel as he began to gain access to the inside of the machine.
Opening his backpack he let out a sinister sounding chuckle as he took out a laptop which he plugged a lead into the machine, he then reached into the bag and removed another device which he put into the arcade machine next to an identical looking component.
“Time for a little Mosh-Mosh Revolution” ‘JD’s fingers flew across the keyboard, he may not have as much in the way of natural IQ as his friend (Wasabi was a mathematics prodigy) but he was still pretty smart as well as the fact that he was a geek amongst geeks and proud of it, so uploading a patch into an arcade machine was nothing to him.
“Was it good for you too?” He asked the machine as he shut the laptop and put it back in the pack, he strolled inconspicuously away from the machine as a pair of ‘teeny-boppers’ stepped up with quarters in hand.
‘JD’ began counting down as the two began to select a stage “7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…Boom” he smiled evilly as the sound of some very loud heavy metal blared out of the machine. He wondered how his friends would react to this, Clovis would no doubt congratulate him for a job well done, whereas Wasabi would probably call him a sick twisted evil bastard and offer to buy him a burger. He then shrugged as he spun the screwdriver in his hand before the clip retracted it back down his sleeve.
“Good…Bad…I’m the guy with the tools.”
…………………………………………………………….
“Bored.”
“Well its not my fault they wont let you into the art store with that burger Clove,” Jane said a little irked “and if you hadn’t shell shocked ‘Pretty in Pink’ then you wouldn’t have had to keep an eye on her, we’re heading to the arcade now anyways, how does that sound?”
“Bored.”
Jane stopped behind Clovis and was about to yell at her friend when he suddenly said “Incoming” and stepped sideways grabbing something, Jane was aware of a green blur and suddenly a skateboard heading towards her until a black clad foot kicked it to the ground where it lay there, Jane just looked up in surprise.
“Told you, warned you twice.” Clovis replied, “I mean if a guy keeps saying ‘Board’ then what do you expect? Wouldn’t you agree Waz…Waz?” Clovis looked at the empty black trench-coat in his hand, “Huh…hey where’s Quinn?”
“Found him.” Jane said looking down on the floor and smirking “And he seems to be making a lot more progress than he did on his last date.”
“Wasabi please get off me, you’re creasing my clothes.” Quinn said matter-of-factly to the previously unaccounted for Wasabi.
Jane watched on in amusement as a nervous looking Wasabi quickly got to his feet as Quinn’s fan club chose that moment to turn up.
“There he is, he’s taking advent…advancement…avant garde…he’s copping a feel.” One of them shouted; they then grabbed Wasabi as two of them held him back “this will stop you fighting back while we teach you a lesson.”
“Guys leave him alone, he doesn’t even know kung-fu.” Quinn pleaded, she did not want to lose one of the few intelligent guys who she saw as potential boyfriend material to a trio of obsessive fan boys.
“On the other hand…” Clovis said from behind the three J’s, he had one hand behind his back while the other held a half eaten burger in it, his head was lowered so the peak of his cap obscured his face “Please boys…don’t make me have to quote ‘The Matrix’”
“Who the hell are you?” One of the J’s asked irritated, the three all turned to look at the unfamiliar figure in black, Wasabi took advantage of this distraction to run and hide behind Jane and Quinn.
“I claim right of sanctuary,” he whimpered as he cowered behind the two.
“You like this guy?” Jane whispered at Quinn who just shrugged.
“He is kinda cute” she replied, “and I guess after you’re boyfriend smacked him in the jaw he’s having second thoughts about being heroic.”
“I guess I can understand that…and Clove is not my boyfriend.”
“Whatever.” Quinn just shrugged as she went back to watching the confrontation.
“I’m Mr Lee-Daniels the martial arts teacher, but my mates call me Clovis.” He replied as he looked up, he bore a smile akin to a cat whose scent had been found and chased by dogs only to turn out to be a tiger.
“You know Quinn,” Jane spoke “I remember way back when you said it was kinda funny when those guys fight over you, I think we’re about to get a refresher course.”
The three J’s looked at each other and one muttered “there’s only one of him and three of us, we can take him.”
Just as the three where about to attack; Clovis quickly kicked the two outer ones square between the legs, as they sunk to the floor he locked onto the middle one and took a bite of his burger.
“Run Bitch, Run.”
Failing to heed the mans advice the remaining J grabbed a trashcan and yelled “Screw You Freak” and with that he swung it at Clovis, who threw the burger in the air as he ducked the trashcan and swept the guys legs out from under him, then with one arm he grabbed the guys neck and another his shirt and swung him over the side of the walkway above the fountain on the floor below.
Clovis let go of the shirt and caught the burger, he took another bite out of it, which was enough to finish it off, he then removed his sunglasses to reveal somewhat mad eyes behind them coupled with a rather worrying smile, “Foolish, FOOLISH words my friend…OW.”
Jane rolled her eyes as she again punched him on the arm, then Quinn eager to avoid having to answer questions about the incident to any of the three J’s parents quickly walked next to Clovis.
“Clovis let him go………THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT!”
…………………………………………………………….
“The phrase ‘over my dead body’ springs to mind.” Daria stated as she looked at the place in front of her.
“I’m afraid I have to agree with Daria on this one Amy, I’m not too keen on going into a clothes shop.” Tom added.
“Kid you’re her boyfriend, you don’t really have a choice when it comes to agreeing with her…unless you don’t mind losing the odd limb.” Amy paused for a few seconds looking thoughtful before speaking again “Tell you what, you come in here with me and I’ll cancel the debt of those new clothes you’re wearing now.”
Tom and Daria turned away from her to negotiate.
“Is she saying that if we let her buy us clothes then she won’t make us pay for the clothes she has already bought for us?”
“More like she will no doubt make us undergo intense humiliation to fulfil a moral obligation.”
“Wow, that’s warped…I can see the family resemblance.”
“Flattery gets you everywhere as they say.”
“Try telling that to airport security.”
“Excuse me?”
“Long story, so do we go in or not?”
“I don’t know, its still not something I’m comfortable with…”
“It will really annoy Quinn.”
“Lets go.”
As the trio walked into the shop a figure got up from a bench nearby, it appeared to be wearing a tweed jacket…
…………………………………………………………….
Robert Buzzcut and Evan Farmer looked down at the two figures on the floor; they both had their hands over their crotches and looked to be in some pain.
“You two ok?” Evan asked as he and his friend helped them to their feet.
“Owwwww” Jamie uttered in a high-pitched whine.
“What happened to you sir?” Robert asked in his usual over-polite manner.
“We did something quite stupid” A voice from behind answered, as the two turned around to see Jeffy stood soaking wet, as he walked towards them there was a constant *SQUISH* *SQUISH* sound from his footsteps.
“We let our ‘interest’ in Quinn Morgendorffer go a little too far when we went after the last guy who dated her,” He continued “only it turns out the guy had a friend who was downright psychotic.”
Evan looked at the still dripping Jeffy and then over the side of the balcony at the fountain below them, “I think I can guess what happened…all this over a girl?”
“Well it was Quinn Morgendorffer” Robert answered, “She does seem to have a way of switching guys brains into obsessive mode. Hell I should know I’m a recovering Quinnaholic.”
Evan looked at his friend as he remembered how much he had changed, back during that school dance where he had gotten into a fight with Kevin the QB Robert had made himself a little unpopular, he hadn’t hung out with as many people as he used to especially on the team, although Kevin had invited him to his dads BBQ to show there where no hard feelings (Kevin may have been an idiot but he wasn’t a bad person by nature Evan had noticed) although Robert had left shortly before Bach had torn into Mr Thompson.
After that Robert seemed to start taking more of an interest in subjects (especially current affairs for some reason) and begun to be little less ‘popular’ although he had begun to become more ‘cool’ and had begun hanging around people like that guy with the eyebrow ring whose name Evan couldn’t remember or Christie the ‘Burnout Chick’ as people called her. To his own surprise Evan found himself still staying friends with Robert despite him not being ‘one of us’ anymore, this confused him but after that incident with that Jane girl he had begun to question some of his values, besides Robert was always a good friend…albeit he could do with learning to loosen up a little.
“We better get you dried off sir” Robert said to Jeffy “Don’t want you catching cold before we play Oakwood next time…and maybe I can help you with your ‘obsession’”
Evan watched his friend head off before he shrugged “Come on guys” he said to Joey and Jamie “lets get you some ice.”
…………………………………………………………….
“Daria I’ve been meaning to ask you a question” Amy said as she and her niece waited outside a changing room, earlier on Tom had gotten an interested look in his eye and had wandered off, they had then heard him call them from a changing room asking them to wait and give their opinions on something.
“What is it dare I ask?”
“Whatever happened to that necklace you used to wear all the time in Highland?”
“Ah,” Daria replied hesitantly “I assume you mean the one I bought when I first started school? I guess I just lost it in the move, I never really thought about it till now, it was the first…and only piece of jewellery I bought with my own money…shame I really liked that pendant.”
Amy nodded and shrugged “These things happen” then she turned to the changing room “Hey Kid, what happened? You find yourself in Narnia or something?”
“I’ll just be a second” Tom replied as the sound of someone hurrying to do various things at once was heard from inside, after a few seconds the door opened and he stepped out “Be honest, what do you think?
He stood nervously in the silence wondering if this was such a good idea, he was wearing what amounted to something similar to a formal ‘penguin’ suit, only instead of the usual colour scheme it was inverted and everything was white except the shirt.
“I figure if I have my own suit for formal occasions my family will stop trying to make me wear my grandfathers old tuxedo…which just plain freaks me out.”
After a while Daria eventually spoke “well its different, and certainly fits the bill, honestly I think you’re parents wont be too thrilled, so I say go for it.”
Tom grinned as he went back into the room and walked out a few minute later dressed normal and with the ‘suit’ over one arm.
“OK Kid keep a hold of that and we can ring it up with everything else” then she turned to Daria who looked at her with a vague feeling of impending doom.
“Now its your turn.”
…………………………………………………………….
“As amusing as it was Clove don’t you think dropping him in the fountain was crossing the line just a little?”
“Aren’t we the high and mighty one all of a sudden?” Clovis replied, “Is this sudden interests in the well-being of the local oafs the sudden appearance of a conscience? Or maybe just a way of hoping to distract me from the fact you’re about to lose…again.”
“Hell No, this hadoken shall secure my victory, this is me reclaiming my honour, this is my turning the tables…” she stopped when the words ‘K O Player 1 wins’ rung out of the machine. The four of them had found ‘JD’ ‘upgrading’ the flash on the photo booth just outside the arcade and the 5 of them had been killing time by fuelling the arcade industry with a seemingly endless supply of quarters.
“And that’s me kicking you arse.” Clovis replied with a grin, “I told you, so long as I play Chun Li I’m invincible,” Clovis paused for a few seconds with a nostalgic look on his face “I was actually gonna dress as Chun Li for Halloween last year but Tom stopped me.”
“What is it with men and wearing women’s clothes?” Jane thought to herself before her morbid curiosity forced her to continue “Let me guess, you where too scary looking in drag?”
“Actually it was sort of the opposite, he told me I was too convincing and that I didn’t want to spend the night dodging the advances of drunken guys all night…I guess that time spent with the Beijing opera really did pay off.”
Sensing that she was now in the ‘too much info zone’ Jane decided to change the subject “Best of 30?” This time she would be victorious…if not then at least she had managed to move out of disturbing territory.
…………………………………………………………….
“Kid put the chequebook away I don’t want you paying for this stuff,” Amy said as she saw Tom reaching into his jacket pocket, in his hand he held the various receipts from their shopping journey.
“Please Amy I insist, I don’t like people spending money on me” he had a trace of bitterness in his voice as he continued “after all if I can’t take advantage of my family throwing money at me whenever they miss something important then what’s the point?”
Amy waited for a few seconds to see if he would continue but when he seemed to not want to say anymore she shrugged and responded “I let you pay for those movies, and only then because you insisted so strongly I thought you would had have put me in some sort of Shaolin death lock…” the way he was raising an eyebrow at this made her decide to stop.
“Anyways, I still don’t feel right, I mean I know you have that bet with your sister but is that really worth…” he looked at the receipts for a while “$80! That can’t be…all those books…”
Amy laughed lightly as she explained “Most of those books I had you lugging around where pre-orders or ones I had already paid for but couldn’t carry home on previous trips…I suppose I’m a literature addict, and if can’t make use of my nieces boyfriend as a luggage monkey then what’s the point?” she nudged a smaller bag “This contains the few things Daria bought as well as the book on English slang and colloquialism that you bought for reasons I have yet to comprehend.”
“Believe me you’d understand if you ever met my friend” Tom responded with a shrug “and I suppose I can understand the book fetish…makes Daria’s literary inclinations make some more sense…I never really pictured her parents as big readers…” suddenly his eyes widened “Oh dear…her parents must be really worrying about her…they are going to kill me.” He sighed as he put his head in his hands.
“Relax Kid, I phoned Helen and explained things while the two of you where in the shower…or running out like a bat out of hell in your case…by the way if you don’t mind me asking, how did you get that scar on your chest?”
“Freak katana incident…I don’t want to talk about it.” Tom quickly replied trying to stop his brain from asking itself how she had known about both the running and the scar “I’ll take your word for it as to the explanation…but why if I may ask are you dragging Daria around like this?”
“Two reasons I guess, first is that I see a lot of myself in Daria and having no kids of my own and not being desperate enough to own several hundred cats I need someone to vent my parental tendencies on…not to mention too often I’ve seen Helen and Jake pamper Quinn while unintentionally pushing Daria to the sidelines, I suppose I thought she deserved to at least once be the centre of attention and be treated similarly…I got a similar impression off you Kid but I can respect you having you’re reasons not to want to be treated like that…even if I don’t quite know what they are, but this means you have to pay the whole price of the suit.”
Tom nodded “Thanks…and the second?”
“Well I guess its kind of stupid but…have you ever had that feeling that you had been followed…”
Amy was interrupted by the sound of the door behind them opening and Daria’s voice.
“There, be honest and tell me how bad it looks.”
The two turned around and just stood there, after what seemed like a few minutes Amy put her hand under Tom’s chin and pushed his somewhat dropped jaw shut.
…………………………………………………………….
“JACKPOT!” Wasabi grinned as he proceeded to mark his place on the high-scores list on the pinball high scores list.
“Wow Waz” Quinn said while stood next to him (she had decided that it would be safer hanging around the most normal of the group) “You’re pretty good at this.”
“Simple geometry” he replied, “I have a knack with videogames…well pinball and shoot ‘em ups anyways.”
“Probably because you’re a repressed paranoid gun nut.” ‘JD’ said as he turned up behind the two, “how else do you manage to memorise the exact timing and location of every enemy in those things?”
“I am not repressed.” Wasabi said as he turned from the machine, “anyways what do you want? Has Clovis broken another ‘Hyper-Sonic Blast Man’ machine? Because I told him before that triple point kicks do more harm than good.”
“Actually I wanted to know if you had change for a dollar…”
“God why do you two hang out with that Clovis freak?” Quinn eventually asked, the tension of not being the centre of attention was too much and she felt like she would explode if she didn’t say something.
“Because all us freaks have is each other,” ‘JD’ said in a mocking voice.
“Yes, sworn to protect a world that hates and fears us.” Wasabi continued seeming that the two had no doubt rehearsed and performed this routine many times before.
“What are you talking about? ‘JD’ apart from being a little geeky you seem normal, and Wasabi is the same…”
“Quinn would a normal person be able to do this?” ‘JD’ responded before turning to Wasabi and very quickly asked “what is 257 plus 2000000 divide by 6408 times 7 minus 2000.05 to the fourth decimal point?”
Wasabi almost instantaneously replied with “184.9998”
“You see, he’s a living calculator, the guy has an IQ of nearly 300, the only reason he hasn’t already graduated is because he keeps calculating the odds of conspiracies and its made him completely paranoid.”
Quinn just stared in shock for a while, the old her would have ran from this ‘brain’ in an instant, but the way she was now found this quite appealing…and it also explained the shotgun.
“But what about you?” She asked ‘JD’ who just shrugged.
“I used to be a woman.”
As the two watched Quinn run screaming Wasabi eventually turned to his friend and asked nervously
“You didn’t really be a girl right?”
Again ‘JD’ just shrugged as he walked away.
“Probably?”
…………………………………………………………….
“Best out of 100?” Clovis asked.
“Damn right.” Jane replied quickly, she had gone from determined to flat-out hell-bent fanaticism when it came to winning this game.
Clovis rolled his eyes as he resumed the game, as it drew on he grinned as he saw victory come within his grasp once more, Jane had been getting better at this but now…
Suddenly he found himself playing the part of a pinball bumper as Quinn ran into him and bounced off onto the floor, as he turned he heard ‘K O Player 2 wins’
“What the Bloody hell?” Clovis asked surprised, this hadn’t happened to him in a long time…
“Quinn Morgendorffer I could kiss you” Jane said as she helped the somewhat dazed redhead to her feet “If I wasn’t afraid of the risk of contagion.”
“Likewise” Quinn muttered as she shook her head then she looked at the black clad figure looming over her like a spectre of Death…or at least severe discomfort, weakly she managed to utter out a small “Sorry.”
“Eh you win some you lose some, accidents happen, who wants some noodles?”
…………………………………………………………….
“Customers.”
Stephen Alberts looked up from the table he had been wiping down seemingly endlessly for the past hour as he heard his co-workers voice; indeed they had customers at last, about 5 guys had entered, they all seemed to be in their early twenties except one who looked to be about 15/16 who looked almost identical to a large framed guy in a leather vest and a dazed expression who looked very familiar to Stephen.
“Hey babes, what can I get for you and your friends…what the hell happened to him?” He asked as he looked at the one with black hair and goatee.
“Don’t ask man.” Trent groaned, he felt like he had tried to crowd surf and the tied had gone out, he had been laying dazed in the yard until Nick had arrived for practice.
Stephen shrugged and led them to the bar, “I assume you’ll be needing a quick stop here before ordering…better be a quick stop though,” He then glanced at Jesse and winked “I’m sure some of you have dates to go to tonight.” And with that he walked off.
“That was weird” Nick said after a few moments “seemed like he knew something.”
“Yeah” Max replied as the barmaid came up to take orders “I don’t think he’s being entirely straight with us.”
The band all looked on as the barmaid had to put down the glass in her hand as she tried to avoid going into hysterics, after a while Maggie calmed down enough to say
“Hah, Stephen has never been straight with anyone.”
…………………………………………………………….
“Everyone buckled in?” Wasabi asked as he turned the ignition key,
The various affirmations from the passengers where given as he pulled out of the mall parking lot and began to drive to the ‘Millionaires Express’ as the prospect of free noodles had proved too hard to resist to any of them,
“Actually Clovis I’m amazed Stephen lets you back into that place over and over considering the number of fights that break out whenever you go there” ‘JD’ said from the backseat trying to make conversation “not to mention its been less than 24 hours since you…well did whatever it is you do whenever diet soda is concerned.”
Clovis just shrugged as he leaned out the open window on the other side, Jane was sandwiched between the two as Quinn had called shotgun…an ironic statement to make considering the driver, but Jane didn’t look like she was complaining.
“I suppose he figures its good for business, I mean they draw more customers than the Good Time Chinese restaurant, mind you I have heard rumours about that place…”
The 5 sat in silence for a while until Wasabi spoke up
“Anyone want to hear some music?”
“OZZY?”
“Sonic Death Monkeys?”
“Bloodhound Gang?”
“Guyz 2 Guyz?” Quinn suggested then shrunk into her seat from the glares from everyone else.
“…How about we just see what’s on the radio?” Wasabi said after a long pause.
…………………………………………………………….
“Its terrible isn’t it?” Daria asked after getting a little uncomfortable with the long silence and stares she was getting, “I don’t know why I chose it,” the thing in question was a red form-fitting jacket with an image of a rose stitched into the right hand side and loose sleeves which ended midway along her hands (if this is intentional or because of her slightly short stature is unknown) along with an elegant looking green dress that came down to her ankles and while not showing anything it did show a little more of the figure she always tried to hide, albeit it did do a good job of partially hiding her boots which poked out from under, “I guess I should just stick with my usual clothes if I look like thi…”
She found herself unable to speak as Tom stepped forward gently putting a hand on either side of her face and planting right square on her lips a kiss worthy of being in the finale of a (well made) romantic comedy, Amy watched with a smile, then started looking at her watch as it seemed like it didn’t plan on ending and motioning with her hands for them get on with it, after it had finished Daria blinked several times before managing to speak,
“What was that for?”
“Hey it shut you up didn’t it?” Tom replied smiling fondly as he let his forehead rest against hers, “You don’t give yourself enough credit you know, personally I think you look gorgeous no matter what, but the way you look now…you’re positively magnificent” he then got a sly grin on his face “Besides you where starting to talk like your sister.”
“Oh dear God” Daria replied, “If you tell ANYONE about this I will be forced to kill you…of course I promise to make it quick and painless.” She would no doubt have said something else if the mood hadn’t been spoiled by her Aunt Amy suddenly dragging her into the changing room, then an arm shot out grabbing Tom and hauling him in as the door slammed shut.
A very surprised looking cashier who could only think of one thing to say given the situation witnessed from the till.
“Lucky Bastard.” (Obviously a slight misinterpretation had occurred)
…………………………………………………………….
In the parking lot of the Millionaire Express Tea House a metallic green GT Cruiser pulled into a space, out of the car stepped 5 figures, they all seemed to have their hair in a state of disarray, as they walked to the restaurant one of them eventually spoke…
“What is it that’s so special about Bohemian Rhapsody that causes everyone to do that?”
…………………………………………………………….
Trent put down the empty beer glass and looked at the bowl in front of him, “Is the white stuff edible?”
“Probably” Nick replied looking at the contents.
“Good enough” Trent replied as he began to eat “Hey where’d Danny go anyway?”
“He heard about the explosion last night and I think he said he wanted to go see if he could find any shrapnel…or even some charred remains if he was lucky.” Max replied as he tried to figure out how to hold a pair of chopsticks before giving up and just stabbing bits of meat onto one of the sticks as a kebab.
“That’s my bro” Jesse said with a smile “They grow up so fast.”
Trent laughed and then coughed like always and then looked at the empty glass again “Does anyone else want another drink?”
After receiving the various yes and no’s from the others he got up and headed to the bar, as he made it there he saw a figure dressed in black turn around to reveal a familiar face…
“I say,” Clovis indeed said as he watched the screaming figure retreat “now that was just plain rude.”
…………………………………………………………….
“Aunt Amy” Daria said matter of factly “far be it for me to question your logic but…why are we in this changing room?”
“There is a man in a tweed jacket…Don’t look!” Amy said slightly nervous “and I swear he seems to have been following me since late last night…don’t ask me why but I just keep getting this feeling I’ve been followed, and every now and then I’ve been getting a glimpse of a sudden flash of tweed out the corner of my eye…you probably think I’m crazy.”
“You share a genetic link to my mother, that’s a forgone conclusion.” Daria said then began to sound slightly more serious “if this is the case then its probably best if we leave without being seen.”
“We would need some sort of plan for that though” Tom replied a little confused.
“Wouldn’t you know I have exactly that in my head right now” Daria replied as she looked out the door to see 5 familiar figures walking past, “Tom are you up for another ‘bonus lesson’?”
…………………………………………………………….
“What can I get you lot this time?” Stephen asked as he walked over to the table, notepad in hand.
“We want the finest noodles known to humanity and we want them…OW”
“5 Bowls of noodles and 5 sodas please” Jane replied as Clovis rubbed his arm once more, hopefully he would either get this quoting out of his system or die trying.
Quinn was about to say something but found herself unable to before Stephen walked off, “OOOH, I wanted to change to a diet soda” she squealed in frustration.
The other 4 all removed their hands from their ears when she had finished her latest attempt at breaking the syllable barrier on various words.
“Sorry Quinn but Stephen has decided that no one sharing a table with Clovis is allowed diet soda” Wasabi replied “he doesn’t want to have to drive anyone to the hospitable again.”
‘JD’ then stood up and excused himself for a few minutes while Jane decided to continue the conversation.
“Yeah besides you’re gonna start needing the extra calories to burn off in the after-school sessions” she then got an evil little smirk “if you want to survive one of Clove’s workouts anyways…”
Clovis simply grinned and cracked his knuckles at this.
Quinn began to look slightly similar to when she had one of Clovis’s feet millimetres away from her face again, seeing this Wasabi rolled his eyes and began to speak,
“Lay off her you two, I mean Tom was no different when you started teaching him…speaking of which I haven’t seen him since last night, any idea where he’s got to?”
“A few” Jane replied as she and Clovis exchanged looks that suggested they where the only 2 in on a joke.
“God what is it with you two?” Quinn replied rolling her eyes, “actually Waz I remember mom got a call this morning from my Aunt, she said something about Daria and Tom had been in some sort of ‘incident’ and have wound up with her” Quinn looked thoughtful for a few seconds “she also mentioned something about a shopping trip…now there’s a case of the blind leading the blind.”
At this Jane and Clovis burst out laughing, partially at Quinn’s surprising insight but mainly at the image of their two best friends stuck in a mall with no means of escape.
‘JD’ looked at this as he returned the table before shaking his head before speaking “There appears to be 3 guys in the bathroom trying to convince a friend to come out of the cubicle…something about a man in black wanting to kill him, Clovis you wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with this would you?”
…………………………………………………………….
Tom walked out of the clothes store quickly, holding his hat over his head to avoid anyone seeing his face, Daria had told him to leave on his own and wait for her signal before doing what she wanted.
Knowing that it would take at least 10 minutes he looked around trying to kill some time.
Suddenly something caught his eye and he quickly walked to the shop…
…………………………………………………………….
Daria walked up to the till with her purchase, Amy was hidden behind the mountain of bags they had accumulated to avoid being seen, she did seem to be struggling slightly.
“How did the Kid manage to carry all these?”
“The youth of today aren’t as weak as we appear” Daria deadpanned as she idly tapped a bag back into place as it began to fall, she then took the bag the salesperson handed her and added it to the pile along with the suit Tom had bought as he left 10 minutes ago.
“I guess I have no one to blame but myself” Amy replied with a shrug that nearly dislodged the bags if Daria hadn’t been surprisingly quick enough to push them all back into place, “Is he still there?”
Daria looked around the pile of bags quickly and pulled back “There is a man in a tweed jacket and matching flat cloth cap yes…proper Harris tweed as well so at least you attract stalkers of a higher calibre than the usual weirdo.”
“Ha Hah Daria, anyways what is this plan of yours anyway?”
“You’ll see Aunt Amy” Daria replied as she looked out to see Tom walking out of a store putting his hand into a pocket, he looked towards her as she gave a quick thumbs up before turning back to her Aunt as he ran off somewhere “By the way…would you mind not being allowed back into this place?
Amy looked perplexed at her niece who just gave the typical Mona Lisa smile while at the same time there came the sound of running feet approaching the shop.
…………………………………………………………….
After seeing the signal Daria gave in a thumbs up Tom ran towards the food court, looking at his watch he saw the time as being somewhere around quarter past 3 meaning his targets couldn’t have gotten far.
Coming to a stop he scanned the court and saw them, the same 5 Redneck Stereotype Wannabes that had helped get him and Daria into this whole situation getting up to leave from a table, he noted that some of them seemed bandaged in certain places, steeling his nerves he ploughed on ahead and managed to knock into the leader,
“Hey watch where you’re going,” He said trying to sound tough as he made eye contact with the ringleader who showed signs of recognition “Hey I remember you” he said before turning and running at full tilt back towards the store.
“Daria owes me for this” he thought to himself as he skidded to a halt outside the store and turned to face the group with an arm outstretched, holding open his palm he did the traditional ‘lets go’ hand gesture at the group.
The two he would have learned where named Mike and Vincent if he had bothered to ask their names rushed him first, he dodged the first ones punches and then flipped his hat off his head pushing it into his opponents face causing him to stop in confusion long enough for Tom to get a clear shot at his solar plexus with a fist, he dropped to his knees winded as Tom used him as a springboard to flip behind the other one as he tried to grab him.
The other one spun round and swung a punch at Tom but stopped in surprise when he found his fist caught in someone else’s hand,
“You weren’t going to have all the fun yourself where you?” Daria said as she pulled down on the mans arm while at the same time she swung the shoulder of her other arm into the guys throat causing him to stagger back gasping for breath.
“Of course not dear” Tom said jokingly as the two both went into their respective stances,
Daria being very flowing and controlled in her movements as she held one arm away from her body with the hand hanging loosely downwards while the other arm was held towards her opponents with the palm of her hand flat and facing upwards, the leg facing them was stretched forward while she leaned back into the other one,
Tom on the other hand held up his arms near his chest, one in near his stomach with the forearm parallel with the ground while his other was vertical with his elbow to the ground and a clenched fist level with his neck, his legs where both evenly spaced apart approximately a foot and a half between them.
The skinny one known as Louis looked at this and yelled “They know martial arts, lets run” and did so…stopping after a few steps and walking back with his head held in shame to his friends who hadn’t budged an inch.
The leader MacDonald slapped him along the head before looking at Kim and grinning, “Looks like they want to dance, we can’t disappoint them can we?”
Kim nodded and the two of them both went into martial arts stances while the two on the ground got back up and joined them.
“Ah” Tom said watching “I assume this wasn’t part of the plan?”
“Can’t say it was” Daria responded “I was hoping they would have all ran.”
“So…”
“So…”
“Any more ideas?”
“Just one.”
“And that is?”
“RUN!”
…………………………………………………………….
Amy had crept out of the store while the two of them had incapacitated the two people, she would have to ask Daria where she had learned to fight like that she thought as she tried to move quickly carrying the bags hoping to make it to the exit without being seen.
Suddenly a pair of fast moving blurs passed her grabbing most of the bags between them, then a familiar voice shouted to her as they both turned the corner “Aunt Amy, get the car and meet us at the front in 5 minutes.”
Amy looked over her shoulder to see the man in tweed that had been following her stood outside the shop looking in her direction, thankfully a group of 5 youths who she recognised as some local prep school and college boys who for some reason liked to pretend to be rednecks for reasons unknown to anyone came ploughing into the man.
Breathing a sigh of relief she quickly ran to the exit and headed to the car park.
…………………………………………………………….
MacDonald ran after the 2 people determined not to let them get away, this time nothing was going to stand in his way,
Or so he thought until a figure stepped out of the clothes store and he hit him at full tilt, the first thing he noticed was that the man didn’t budge an inch and it felt like running into solid rock, the second thing he noticed was that the other 4 hadn’t stopped either, he made various OOF and UMPH sounds as they all piled into him one after another and they dropped to the ground.
“Dagnabbit you are going to pay for that” He said as he jumped to his feet along with the others who surrounded the man, “You shall feel my Lethal Dragon Claw…oh” He went from yelling to cowering in terror as he recognised the man who had beaten him and his friends into the ground on 2 separate occasions in the past 24 hours, he watched as he took a hand from his pocket and punched Mike, Vincent and Louis who all dropped unconscious as he put his hand back into his pocket, this took about 1 second.
MacDonald quickly dived behind Kim and screamed, “DO something ‘Tons O’Fun’ I’m to young to die.”
Kim just stared in terror as a tweed-clad spectre of death or at least severe discomfort approached him.
…………………………………………………………….
“Did you just hear an ear splitting cry of terror?”
“No Tom, your headphones must be damaged” Daria replied, the two had wound up hiding in the back of a small music store listening at the headphones trying to be inconspicuous.
“What is yours playing?” Tom asked looking over what was practically a barricade of bags
“Kissed by a Rose” Daria replied looking at the name, “You?”
“Strangely enough the same.”
“From now on it shall always be our song” Daria said jokingly with a smile, then yawned, “I guess the day is starting to catch up with me at last.”
“The coast is clear, we can get out and you can get some rest in the car” Tom replied as he picked up most of the bags, Daria took the rest and followed him out, as they began to walk down the corridor to the door she looked over her shoulder and her eyes widened.
“Tom, RUN” she said sharply as she broke into a run, Tom didn’t argue with her and began to pick up speed, he quickly glanced back and saw a figure in tweed at the other end of the walkway that had been heading in their direction at a walk but upon seeing them started to run surprisingly fast.
The two didn’t look back a second time but ran as fast as they could at the exit, their hand so tense they couldn’t even try to let go of the bags, they where unable to see the figure approaching them at speed, jumping over other shoppers or objects with ease.
The two burst out through the door to see Amy’s convertible waiting for them, she was at the drivers seat with the engine running and the top down,
“GO GO GO” Daria shouted as the two threw their bags into the passenger side and jumped over the door into the backseats, Amy didn’t need to be told a second time and floored the car at full speed
“Next stop Lawndale.” She said as they pulled away from the curb just as the man in tweed came out the door to see the car leave.
He began to calmly walk in the same direction of the convertible and began to pick up speed, and then as another car heading the same way passed him, he leapt…
…………………………………………………………….
“More noodles?” Clovis asked as he put down his 7th bowl, the various groans gave him somewhat negative vibes as to the odds of anyone else wanting more.
“Fine, I guess I’ve had enough.”
“Clovis I swear in the name of Akira Kurosawa you have a second… and third stomach just for noodles” Wasabi said with his head slumped onto the table.
“I can’t believe how much I’ve eaten and drunk,” Quinn wailed from an identical position next to him “you may as well start teaching me sumo Clovis, I’ll have ballooned up so much I’ll definitely make Yoko Ono.”
“Don’t you mean…ah forget it.” Jane said staring at a half empty bowl as it dared her to eat it.
“Can I get any of you anything else?” Stephen asked as he walked up, “Like perhaps some cyanide to end your suffering?”
“Gin and Tonic, hold the Gin.” Clovis said cheerfully “Everyone else is fine I think…what about you ‘JD’?”
“Uhhhh…” the aforementioned ‘JD’ groaned from the floor, he had learned the hard way that you should never take advice about the spiciness of food from a man who was named after one.
“One glass of tonic water and one stomach pump, got it” Stephen said as he walked off.
“After this I guess I should go home” Jane said as she struggled to finish the remains of her noodles “I really want to find out where Trent has gotten too.”
…………………………………………………………….
“If the two of you want to be breathing heavily and getting all hot in the back seat, use your own car, I have to ride this to work.” Amy said with the grin Daria and Tom hoped to have seen the end of, the two hadn’t moved since they had landed in the back as they where still out of breath from the mad dash to the exit they had made, consequently Daria had ended up on top of Tom and they had both been easy targets for Amy.
The two of them both sat up in record time, Amy couldn’t tell if their faces where red from blushing or being out of breath, although a combination was more likely,
“You may as well get some rest you two” she said as her hair blew in the wind “I’ve got this baby going at twice the speed it was last time I took this route, we should be back in Lawndale before five.
The two nodded and leaned back in their seats, Amy put the roof up and looked ahead at the road, she was sure she wouldn’t have to worry about being followed to another town.
Up in the trees someway behind the car a silhouette proceeded to move from tree to tree in a manner reminiscent of a monkey, at one point a flat cloth cap began to float down only to be caught by an umbrella.
…………………………………………………………….
“Wake up Kid, don’t make me break out the coffee.”
Tom opened his eyes and blinked a few times, he was still in the back of Amy’s car but it was parked near to his home, he was leaning on the shoulder of a mostly awake Daria.
“Normally aren’t our roles supposed to be reversed?” She said with a smile as he got out the car and shook his head to clear it as he collected the bags that belonged to him, she got out after him and walked with him to the door while Amy stayed leaning against the car, “Guess I’ll see you when I see you.”
“Sure, I don’t suppose you want to do this again some time?” He said nervously.
Daria looked thoughtful for a few moments before speaking “Tom, in nearly the last 24 hours I have; watched TV, witnessed the victory rituals of a high school football team during pizza, watched a movie that was entertaining until someone couldn’t keep their mouth shut, been tackled off the hood of a car, witnessed an explosion, gone to hospital, danced in the moonlight, been in a car crash, gotten into a car chase, blown up a pick up, discovered a new and quicker way to roast marshmallows, gotten stranded in the middle of nowhere, used the traditional method in front of a campfire, had my photo taken at 4am, slept with my boyfriend in the literal sense of the term, seen him naked and been seen the same, gone on a shopping trip with my Aunt that got me a few good books, got a new outfit and in the process had what may be the best kiss I’ve ever had, been dragged into a changing room, gotten into a fight that may have stopped us ever setting foot in that mall again, narrowly escaped being chased down by a potential stalker, suffered countless innuendoes that surprisingly where not made by Jane, and I still haven’t dealt with my parents yet.” She paused to catch her breath while Tom begin to look down at the ground disappointedly, “I have the whole thing survived, and I loved every minute of it, come here.”
Now it was her turn to grab Tom and give him a kiss to remember, eventually the two had to pull away from each other when the sound of Amy’s car horn interrupted them.
“I guess you better get going,” Tom said, somewhat sad to see her go, “Good luck with your parents, and I hope this can make up for some of the embarrassment” with that he took a small plain box out of his pocket and handed it to her before giving her one last embrace before going she started to walk back to the car.
“Goodbye Daria my love” he said softly to himself, then shouted to the car “Bye Daria, Bye Amy, thanks for everything.” He waved to the car before he went into the house.
…………………………………………………………….
Daria waved to her boyfriend as he went into the door, then she looked down at the box, opening it she found inside an exact replica of the quartz necklace she once had, along with it was a small piece of paper with the following written:
Say you don’t want no diamond ring and I’ll be satisfied
Tell me that you want the kind of thing that money just can’t buy.
Money can’t buy me love – The Beatles.
My sentiments exactly, Tom
Turning the paper over Daria had to smile at the inclusion of the price sticker, obviously Tom hadn’t paid much for it, but then that was no doubt the point.
“Goodbye Tom my love” she said unheard by anyone but herself, then spoke to her Aunt “OK Aunt Amy, take me home.”
…………………………………………………………….
Tom shut the door behind him as he looked around at the dark and empty looking house.
“Mom? Dad? Elsie? I’m home. I’m sorry about not calling.”
He sighed as he didn’t hear a response and went into the kitchen, he took a glass from the shelf and headed to the fridge, opening it and taking a carton of milk out, pouring himself a glass, as he shut the fridge he saw a note stuck to it.
_____________________
|Elsie
|
|Had to go out at 3 |
|Business.
|
|If Tom turns up |
|Tell him we will be |
|Back tomorrow evening.|
|See about your own |
|Dinner, Mom & Dad. |
He sighed as he sat down at the table and took a drink, “Figures.” He said to no one in particular, “Still can’t complain, no one likes a poor little rich boy…”
His train of thought was derailed as he heard the front door open and saw his sister walk in with a pizza box, she stopped as she turned on the light and looked at the table.
“Tom?”
“Hey Elsie” he said looking up.
His sister doing something very out of character by running up took him aback by hugging him, and then she promptly returned to normal by punching him on his arm, his left arm as well.
“Where the hell have you been? You left nearly a full day ago I…we’ve been worried sick.”
“Sorry Elsie, it’s a long story and has been a really long day, mind if I explain later?”
“I suppose,” she said as she shrugged “I’m glad you’re not dead.”
“Thanks Elsie” he said as he mussed up her hair with one hand “Its good to know someone cares.”
Elsie looked at her brother and then at the note on the fridge and showed a hint of understanding, “hey I think I ordered too much pizza, you want to split it?”
“Sure Elsie, that would be…nice”
Elsie put the box down then slapped herself on the forehead “Oh before I forget, you got a package from somewhere, I put it in your room with the rest of your mail, better hurry and check it before this gets cold.”
Tom nodded and headed up to his room, looking on his bed he saw the pile of letters and began sift through them.
“Junk, Junk, Fan mail, Junk, Junk sent to Wrong address, Bromwell propaganda, Junk, Fan Mail, Junk disguised as Fan Mail,” he gathered it all up “Nothing, Nada, Zero, Zilch, figures” he said as he put them all through a paper shredder in the corner.
Then he picked up the package and looked at the return address “Hmm, Hong Kong,” He said as he opened it and removed first a few small trinkets and then a letter from a slightly familiar name, he began to skim it before stopping and reading the same line over a few times, eventually he looked up grinning while he tried to hold in a laugh, “Reginald? His middle name is Reginald? Clovis Reginald Lee-Daniels? Oh that is going to come in useful.” And with that he began to head downstairs before stopping to look at the picture on his desk, it was a roll of photos from a booth he and Daria had once gone into on a whim,
“I guess you have to enjoy all the good moments you can huh?” He said as he headed downstairs smiling.
…………………………………………………………….
Helen Morgendorffer answered the knock at her door to find her sister as well as a somewhat haggard looking Daria,
“DARIA! AMY!” Helen shouted as she suddenly hugged the two, Amy stood there uncomfortably while Daria seemed struggling to stay awake,
“Now you have some explaining to do young lady.” Helen said, good thing she had managed to finally manage to slip some sleeping pills into Jakes Martini like she had planned otherwise there would be hell to pay now.
“Tom… Date… Interrupted… Explosion… Jodie… Hospital… Leave… Promise… Drive… Dance… Drive… Car… Crash… ‘Incidents’… Call… Amy… Explain” Daria muttered before collapsing on the floor, asleep and completely oblivious to the world around her.
Amy rolled her eyes and looked at her older sister “Lets get her to bed before I explain it more coherently shall we?”
After the two had got Daria changed and properly tucked in, Amy explained what had happened to the best of her knowledge, leaving out some of the more ‘intimate’ details that would no doubt only make things worse.
Amy had just about finished by the time Quinn had arrived home, she decided it was best not to get involved as it at least meant she didn’t have to talk about her day, thankfully she was saved by the phone ringing, she took it as she headed to her room,
“Waz? Hi… yeah I got home fine thanks…what’s that? No, no, it’s not a problem… I think I’m free next on Tuesday, but after today an earlier slot or two may appear, I’ll call you if that’s the case, by the way, do you do tutoring? Because…”
As Quinn conversed upstairs over the phone Helen and Amy finished their talk, and as it approached 5:30 Amy was on her way out.
“Well thank you for taking care of things Amy, and for taking care of Daria, I suppose I should forgo any punishment in light of the fact she actually agreed to do something for the benefit of someone else last night, are you sure you don’t want to stay for dinner? We’re having lasagne.”
“Tempting but I want to get home and take a rest, its been a long day for all involved,” Amy replied as her sister walked her to the door “If you ever need someone to take care or keep an eye on things for a day or so then give me a call, who knows, if I’m in a good mood I may take you up on the offer.”
Helen rolled her eyes as she watched her sister leave and shut the door, maybe she could take advantage of the peace and quiet to try cooking something herself, as she took out the wok Jake always used for his ‘biological weapon research’ as Daria called it she heard her cell phone, she paused looking at it and then at the wok,
“Oh what the hell” she thought, she needed a new phone anyway, then she pressed Talk and prepared to give Eric a message he would never forget.
…………………………………………………………….
Amy walked to her car mulling things over in her head, she should probably get moving, besides there is no way she would have been followed here…
“Ms Barksdale?” A voice said as a hand attached to a tweed clad sleeve appeared on her shoulder.
Amy turned round in shock to find a man of Asian descent who looked to be anywhere between 30 and 50, he was wearing a Tweed jacket with leather patches on the shoulders and elbows, a matching flat cloth cap on his head, his face was framed by a pair of spectacles and he had a black moustache as well as black hair down to the back of his neck. He did not seem as intimidating up close, especially given what was in his hand.
“You left this in the coffee shop” he said holding up the book she had been reading.
Amy stared at him for a few minutes, “You have been following me all this way since 1:30 in the morning?” She shook her head in disbelief as the man nodded “Why exactly?”
“I had nothing better to do” he replied as if it was the obvious answer “Although I must admit Ms Barksdale you are not an easy woman to follow.”
“How do you…” She was stopped by the man opening up the book to show ‘if lost please return to etc’ on the inside of the book, “Ah…but how did you make it down here? There is no way a man can make it on foot compared to this,” she said as she motioned to her car.
“Normally I would be inclined to agree with you, but I have a knack for finding short cuts, and I also tend to ‘hitchhike’ for lack of a better word, like I said, you where quite the challenge.”
Amy finally took the book off the man who continued to stand there, “I guess I should thank you…and apologise for misjudging you, I assumed you where some lunatic stalker although now its obvious you are just a plain lunatic”
The man laughed lightly and bowed “Guilty as charged,”
Amy sighed as she got into her car, “I suppose if you’re not going to kill me or anything like that then the least I can do is buy you a drink, hop in.”
“I would be honoured to oblige Ms Barksdale” the man replied as he slipped into the passenger seat.
“Amy will do, you got any names at all?”
“A few…Kenny is as good as any other.”
With that the car drove off, an interesting day had ended, but more where sure to come.
The End of the Beginning.
…………………………………………………………….
Author’s notes:
Well that’s that finally finished, if ‘One Night Is All I Ask’ was a labour of love then this must have been a ‘Perseverance of Passion’ or some other such analogy, after I wrote ‘The Flies’ I decided to reveal the mystery of what happened to Daria and Tom between the two stories…and given that I had nothing more than an outline I fell into my favourite method, think up some stuff and make the rest up as I go along, I method that has served me well so far.
I ended up yielding to temptation and adding in kung-fu and references albeit in a more discreet form in some cases, also I had been watching ‘Withnail and I’ at the time of writing so needed to get the quoting out of my system, which in turn led to Clovis channelling my obsession with quoting ANYTHING I have seen (I have a photographic memory for fiction) as well as deciding to give him a change of clothing. Lastly I gave into the temptation of adding myself as a character, albeit it was more of a walk on, sadly I couldn’t wear my trademarked leather baseball cap which I am known for amongst my friends because I let Clovis wear it in these stories.
As I reread some of my stuff I remember saying that the new characters will not take over the story, now it seems that Clovis and Wasabi are both becoming major players in my stories…although it could be just that I love writing them, also seeing as I am studying Games Design I figured I could lift and transfer the two into a project and have a pair of fully developed characters (akin to Daria being transferred out of B&B only much less glorious) but for now they shall serve to be characters, Daria’s name shall always be the one in the title but it never stops Jane, Quinn, Tom and the others getting to share the spotlight, and hey Lynn Cullen and AP McIntyre made it…albeit I have a long way to go before reaching Canadabrits level.
This story seemed to turn from my original plan for a madcap screwball farce into a romantic comedy…albeit with my own brand of warped humour which as I recall was quoted as being ‘the quality of warpage we have come to expect’ (which is at the time of writing serving as my MSN handle) and I suppose my humour is a little weird although at certain scenes in this story I let me sentimental side come out, mind you ‘Shaun of the Dead’ was a romantic comedy and most of the cast got eaten by zombies…isn’t British cinema wonderful?
Also for anyone who hasn’t figured it out then the ‘man in tweed’ was Clovis’s uncle Ken Wan Ng or ‘Uncle Kenny’ who I will admit does seem to be able to do stuff a normal human would have trouble with to say the least, but keep in mind if Clovis is as good as he is at the age of 18 then imagine what his teacher who has had a lot more time to practice must be capable of, he will turn up again I can guarantee.
I would like to thank the people on PPMB who gave me the feedback and encouragement to continue with this…all 4 or 5 of you, so Mahna Mahna, RLobinkse, Kirsten Bealer and Lawndale Stalker, and anyone else who I missed thanks for reading and telling me what I did right, and what I did wrong, and sorry for whenever I ignored you completely.
As always I will leave my e-mail address of mechahead@hotmail.com in the vain hope that I shall find in my inbox something that is not offering my ‘young sluts’ or penis enlargements or such spam. Also I shall do some badly disguised pleading for fan art or any other such stuff, so…oh do I really have to continue?
I will leave you with the timeline I wrote like the last one to give you an idea how these things took place.
See you all next time, laters
DJW; “putting the mental back into sentimental”
…………………………………………………………….
ODIAIA Timeline:
00:00 Daria and Tom finish dancing, they decide to go home,
00:15 Helen calls Amy while Jake rants, meanwhile Daria and Tom nearly get run off the road by Robert and Evan (Evan threw up on his lap causing him to swerve by accident) and the crash into an onion field.
1:00 Jane calls Clovis and invites him to come watch movies (she can’t sleep and remembers him mentioning that he rarely sleeps on weekends) while Daria and Tom manage to get the car back on the road but run afoul of some ‘redneck stereotype wannabes’ and get into a care chase.
1:30 Amy has gone for a coffee but leaves when a man in tweed keeps staring at her, unbeknownst to her the man leaves and heads in her direction.
1:50 Helen calls Jane asking if she has seen Daria
2:00 Daria calls Aunt Amy and asks if she and Tom can come round due to an incident (they managed to outrun the RSW by causing their pickups to crash using various objects found in the car) and prepare to camp out as she drives to pick them up.
3:00 Daria and Tom talk about things while trying to get to sleep, meanwhile Jane agrees to go clothes shopping with Clovis ‘later today’
4:00 Amy finds the two and gives them a ride back to her home, shortly after she arrives the man in tweed arrives at the same time as the RSW while he is examining the car, they assume he is friends with Daria and Tom and attack him, he makes short work of them and helps himself to a truck to follow Amy.
4:30 Clovis and Jane fall asleep in Jane’s room after finishing watching movies.
5:00 Amy talks to Tom while Daria pretends to be asleep.
5:30 the three arrive at Amy’s house, Daria and Tom area little unsettled at learning they have to share a room,
7:00 the RSW find their truck and the man in tweed.
7:30 Trent half asleep walks past Jane’s room and sees Clovis asleep on the bed next to her, getting the wrong idea he is about to go into ‘killer older brother’ mode but as he grabs Clovis he gets thrown through the (thankfully) open window, Clovis remains oblivious and falls back to sleep on the floor.
8:00 Daria wakes up and is given coffee and told to take a shower, shortly after Amy tells Tom to do the same, then remembers there is no lock on the door, embarrassment ensues.
9:00 Jane and Clovis wake and go running before shopping. Trent is half conscious on the ground outside Jane’s window.
9:30 Amy offers to take the two on a small shopping trip and then buy them lunch.
10:00 Wasabi and JD get a call from Clovis inviting them to come shopping, they learn that neither of them know who Jeff is.
10:30 Jane and Clovis arrive at the mall and meet Quinn who wants to tag along with them to avoid something.
11:00 at the mall in Starfield Amy reveals her and Rita have a bet as to whether Daria and Tom will last (She bet on it doing so).
11:30 Clovis reveals his new look before Jane and Quinn then promptly traumatises Quinn with a precision kicking test.
12:00 the trio order drinks at Starfield at a café before ordering a meal as well.
12:30 ‘JD’ hacks a DDR game and replaces all the tracks with heavy metal, Wasabi literally runs into Quinn and the others, Clovis proceeds to rather quickly deal with the three J’s
13:00 Amy ‘morally blackmails’ the two into going into a clothes shop, meanwhile Evan and Robert find the three J’s.
14:30 Jane and the others kill time in the arcade until they leave to get noodles, Tom and Amy talk about things while waiting for Daria to put something on, Mystik Spyral go to ‘Millionaires express’ with Jesse’s brother Danny.
15:15 Amy sees the man in tweed and gets nervous, Tom and Daria make a distraction which backfires slightly causing them to run and hide in a music store, then they run like hell to the car and get in while been chased by the man in tweed.
15:30 Amy drives to Lawndale at high speed,
17:00 Amy drops Tom off at his home, he and Daria say their goodbyes, he goes in to explain what has happened only to learn his parents aren’t in and don’t seem concerned, this annoys him a little but he is cheered up by FINALLY opening the package to find a letter from Clovis’s uncle explaining what the R in Clovis’s name is (Reginald).
17:30 Daria has fallen asleep almost right after getting in the house, Amy explains what has happened and as she leaves the man in tweed finally catches her and returns the book she left at the coffee shop, she then agrees to go for a drink with him as he tells her his name “Kenny is as good as any”.
…………………………………………………………….
And now as a treat for anyone who is still reading, one last scene, you will not see any more for this story…until the combined and extended ‘special edition’ I shall release when the time is right (or I need the attention)
…………………………………………………………….
Stephen sighed as he walked into the bathroom, “They don’t pay me enough for this” he thought as he knocked on the still locked cubicle door.
“Look buddy we’re closing up in a few and I have a date in half an hour, there is no one out here that will throw you out of a window or other such nonsense…now are you going to get out of that toilet or do I have to come in after you?”
After a few moments the door opened and an embarrassed looking Trent shuffled out, uttered a muffled apology, and quickly left the bathroom.
“You know something” Stephen asked himself as he prepared to lock up “sometimes that job opening at the hair salon looks pretty good…but then I wouldn’t meet such interesting people, although I could do without the explosions” and with that he laughed to himself as he walked out.
The End
Seriously this time
That’s it
Stop reading there is nothing more.
What did I tell you?
Fine just sit there and stare at the screen.
See if I care.
So read any good books lately?
[1] See ‘One Night Is All I Ask’ to see this, actually if you haven’t read it already you may want to as these are technically 2 halves of one big story.
[2] If the original creators can make up towns like Highland, Lawndale and Oakwood then why the hell can’t I? This town may turn up again in later fics so remember the name.
[3] Way back in ‘Way of the Cynic’ Jane saw Clovis in just a towel and a smile…oh yeah and his cap.
[4] What can I say? I’ve been reading Canadabrits stuff lately.
[5] Throughout this scene imagine the accent fading in and out depending on how annoyed he sounds, as for everyone else they keep switching back and forth between accent and no accent at random.
[6] If you’ve ever seen Iron Monkey then the umbrella fight with Donnie Yen is what this resembles.
[7] Can we say “Self-Insertion” boys and girls? I think we can.
[8] Little tribute to Mahna Mahna of the PPMB (read her fics and figure the reference out for yourselves)
[9] Do I really have to explain this one?