The Flies

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.

‘The Flies’:

After the events of the last story the Fashion club hold a meeting at ‘casa del Sloane’ while Daria and Jane go for a walk with Jodie and Mack (they had no choice) finally Tom and Clovis attempt to get rid of a pesky fly in the house and get more than they expected. This story takes place 2 days after One Night is All I Ask.

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Helen Morgendorffer answered the door late on a Sunday morning to find Jane and to her surprise Jodie Landon and a man she had seen before but had never been introduced to. Normally she would be surprised to see any one else other than Jane or Tom at the door for Daria, although after what she had heard happened to Jodie on Friday she was more willing to accept it.

“Hi Mrs M” Jane said in a friendly greeting, “Can Daria come out to play?” She decided to play it safe after hearing how Daria had narrowly escaped being grounded by her mother after not getting home a full 24 hours after she had left on Friday…she had been planning jokes and innuendo and other forms of mockery all night upon hearing this deciding to get her moneys worth from her best friend.

Helen looked a little perplexed as she thought about this and then remembered what Daria had said about agreeing to help Jodie after she was allowed out the hospital.

“Of course Jane, just let me call her” Helen said as she turned away from the door and yelled up the stairs “Daria, Company” she then turned back to the others “Its good to see you out so soon Jodie, I hope the doctors gave you the all clear”

“Yes they did, they just told me to take it easy” Jodie responded, “Thanks for asking Mrs Morgendorffer”

Helen was about to continue when Daria arrived at the top of the stairs looking only slightly more awake than a member of the living dead, at least she had changed from her nightclothes…albeit she had yet to notice her jacket was on back to front.

“Morning Jane” Daria mumbled, for someone who had been asleep for nearly 17 hours she was certainly still groggy to say the least, after a few moments she managed to regain enough clarity to see the others “Mack? Jodie? What are you…” then the memory of the promise she had made Friday night came back to her

“Aw Crap”

…………………………………………………………….

Elsewhere at another part of Lawndale, more specifically at the house of the Sloane family the now extended fashion club was holding a meeting, Elsie was beginning to think her ‘master plan’ of getting back at Tom seemed to be having the effect of making her brains feel like they where going to run out of her ears,

“Doesn’t this girl ever shut up?” She muttered to the girl next to her, after what seemed like a rather long time to process and give a simple answer she replied.

“Nope” Tiffany eventually said.

Elsie sighed in frustration and decided to get put while she could “Anyone else want a drink?” She asked figuring that even the trip to the fridge would be a good reprieve.

“I’ll have a diet soda please,” Stacy said politely.

“Diiieet Sooooda for me” Tiffany drawled.

“Like, I shall also have a diet soda” Sandi said trying to out-polite Stacy, at least it shut her up about fashion Elsie thought.

“I’ll just have a soda,” Quinn said much to the shock of the other Fashion Club members.

“But Quinn what about all the calories?” Sandi said in a mock shock voice “You better have a good reason for this…”

Quinn was about to answer when the words “No Shadow Ki…” where heard but cut off by a sound similar to someone being kicked, shortly afterwards Clovis was seen to come flying down the stairs and landed on the table they where sat around, after a while Quinn spoke

“Is that a good enough reason to put me off diet soda Sandi?” She asked pointing at Clovis as he got up and charged back up the stairs.

…………………………………………………………….

Tom and Clovis had been sparring all morning, and had gotten to a state where something so trivial as getting kicked down the stairs and onto a table would not slow them down. Besides Tom figured that it was best that someone kept an eye on Clovis, he seemed fine after his ‘Friday Freak-Out’ but it was best someone kept him under observation to be sure.

“By the way mate, what was in that package Elsie was trying to give you?” Clovis asked as he used his ‘boken’ (actually it was a cricket bat but try explaining cricket to a Yank he thought) deflected the various strikes Tom made using a triple-sectioned staff he had given Tom for his birthday last year.

“Actually it was from a certain Ken Wan Ng” Tom replied as he swung the staff down at Clovis who only avoided getting smacked on the head by blocking the staff at the chain joint instead of the wood “lets just say it answered a question that’s been bothering me for a long time…” he said as he grabbed each end of the staff in a hand and prepared to strike again while at the same time Clovis became distracted by a fly buzzing around the room, Tom sighed as he dropped out of the stance “Let it go man” Clovis had been stopping to stare at the interloper for the past hour.

Clovis stared intently as the fly began to descend “It shall die, it shall die” he said as he readied his weapon of choice, eventually the fly landed on his forehead.

Tom had to wince as he heard the inevitable THWACK followed by a THUD…

“And people wonder where I get my ‘superhuman’ reserves of patience from?”

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After making sure Daria was made more conscious than she was through a vital dose of caffeine which despite Jane’s urgings her mother had refused to ‘plug it straight into her veins’…some people where no fun. Now she found herself walking around Lawndale after promising her mother to honour her agreement to help Jodie to relax…she hadn’t expected to honour that agreement so soon. Now if only she could figure out why Jane was staring at her so intently.

“So Daria…” Jane asked obviously savouring every word she was saying, “Where exactly did you and Tom vanish off to yesterday? Only near 2am last night I got a phone call from your mother asking where you had gone…ruined the movie Clove and me where watching”

Now it was Jane’s turn to receive a stare, “Tell you what, you don’t ask about what happened and I wont ask why a certain ‘Mr Lee-Daniels’ was at your house at 2am, deal?” she smirked briefly as Jane nodded annoyed “And that goes for you as well” she said as she looked at Mack and Jodie who where watching puzzled.

“Eh not like it matters to me” Jodie said “I spent most of yesterday in a hospital bed listening to my parents getting verbally flayed alive by the doctor for all the pressure they’ve been putting me through…although I doubt it will make much difference in the end so I’m going to enjoy this break while it lasts.”

“And if that fails then you could just kill them in a suitably ironic way” Daria said in a deadpan tone “Maybe you could crush them with a list of all the extracurricular activities they made you attend?”

Mack worriedly noticed that Jodie had given that idea just a little too much more thought than she normally would have given one of Daria’s quips.

…………………………………………………………….

Elsie was in the kitchen preparing the drinks, they had no diet soda but what did she care? She doubted they would even tell the difference given how caught up in their jibbering about fashion and their jabbering about popularity, she was beginning to understand why Tom often looked like he was about to kill himself with the nearest spoon whenever she was talking at dinner.

“Ah speak of the devil…” She said as her brother entered and headed straight for the fridge, he seemed in a slightly annoyed mood.

“Contrary to popular belief Elsie I am not some sort of devil nor evil incarnate” he snapped as he took a bag of ice out.

“Yeah I guess you are just a conceited spoiled little brat” Elsie retaliated not in a mood for any attitude.

“Do you even know what conceited means?” Tom shot back as he left and headed back upstairs.

“Dammit” Elsie said as she carried the tray of sodas out and set them on the table “I swear sometimes the stick up my brother’s ass is so big you could sculpt the Venus De Milo from it and have enough left for the arms.”

The various fashion clubbers responded differently to this, Stacy giggled nervously not quite getting the joke, Tiffany stared blankly as she tried to catch up mentally, Sandi did not look very impressed as the joke no doubt went over her head, Quinn to Elsie’s surprise had to suppress a laugh and then muttered “I know exactly how you feel” to her.

“At least he’s cuuute” Tiffany eventually drawled after no doubt giving up on the word ‘stick’ and falling back to a pre-programmed response (it was that or “ewwww”)

“That I will agree on” Sandi replied now back on common ground “if you do not mind Elsie I may see about asking him for a date”

“Well I think his girlfriend might” Quinn said quickly “I mean you heard the rumours about what happened to Brittney…”

“Hell I couldn’t care less what happens with him” Elsie said puzzled “and you would know Quinn I mean she is your…” she stopped when she saw Quinn frantically motioning to stop

“Quinn you mean a brain like your cousin or whatever is dating that guy?” Sandi said in that same annoying mock shock voice.

“Cousin? What the hell is going on?” Elsie thought until Stacy leaned over and whispered to her,

“We’re just being polite, we really know she’s her sister…well us two anyway”

“Yeah, just smile and nod” Tiffany said with a fraction more intelligence than normal.

…………………………………………………………….

Back upstairs Tom was trying to wake up Clovis by slapping his face,

“Clovis you ok Buddy?” he said as his friend finally began to show signs of life.

Clovis opened his eyes groggily and looked up as he regained focus, eventually he managed to utter a coherent sentence,

“My God you have a big head”

“Your fine” Tom said rolling his eyes, he stood up and dropped the ice-bag onto his forehead “You know for a supposed ‘master of the mind and body’ you certainly do some stupid stuff, think before you act and all that.”

“Heh, that’s funny coming from a man who is a master of the technique of putting his foot in his mouth” he got to his feet and rubbed his head with the ice “Still I think I must have annihilated the little git as well.”

When Tom heard the buzzing again he put his face in his hand awaiting the initial onslaught.

“It mocks me Thomas” Clovis said as he grabbed the cricket bat, which Tom had forgotten to hide “This means WAR!”

Tom looked first at the tiny pretty-much harmless insect and then at his much larger and heavier armed friend until he eventually spoke

“The gulf war maybe.”

…………………………………………………………….

“Correct me if I’m wrong Jane” Daria said slowly “but isn’t this a ‘laser-zone’ centre?”

“I wish I could Morgendorffer, I wish I could.” Jane responded grimly “You have no chance to survive make your time”.

“Oh come on,” Mack said trying to sound enthusiastic “it’ll be fun…” He stopped when he saw the looks Daria and Jane where giving him.

“Forget it Mack” Jodie said “Those two’s idea of fun is an autopsy”

“That depends on whose doing the autopsy…” Daria nonchalantly.

“…And on who the autopsy is being done on as well” Jane finished the sentence; both of them had somewhat unsettling smirks.

Mack sighed and turned to leave “I guess this was a bad idea” he glanced at Jodie and winked before he continued “I hear the lasers in these places can give people seizures if you shoot them in the eyes anyways…”

He barely had time to finish before both Daria and Jane each took an arm and began to drag him into the place.

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“Yeah…you’re paying”

Jodie rolled her eyes in amusement as she followed thinking to herself “If only everyone could get so easily motivated with just the prospect of causing someone bodily harm” then after a pause thought “Actually I wouldn’t mind seeing if these things caused seizures as well” and grinned evilly.

…………………………………………………………….

“You seriously have a potentially fatal allergy to macadamia nuts?” Elsie said in surprise, while Quinn and Sandi had continued to argue about things she had decided to try and get to know the other two a little better

“That’s right, I have no recollection of Christmas 1991 and 94” Stacy said with a nod.

“Whys that?” Tiffany asked intrigued (although I doubt she knew what that even means)

“Can’t remember” Stacy replied as she shrugged, she was enjoying having someone to talk to who would/could actually listen.

“What about you Tiff?” Elsie said turning to their other companion “You got any interesting medical problems you want to share with us?”

“Welll, the doctors gave me these after Friday” She said as she removed a small bottle of pills from her bag “they said they will stop me getting fat…”

This received a stunned silence until eventually Stacy spoke

“Tiffany, every day I wake up glad I’m not you.”

“Meeee toooo” Tiffany eventually said after processing this.

…………………………………………………………….

Tom had now decided that there was no stopping his friend from hounding this fly into oblivion, once Clovis got an idea into his head it would only leave if dragged kicking and screaming, and a crowbar may possibly have to be involved.

“You know I never thought I would end up spending my Saturdays tracking a fly through my back yard with only a raving lunatic for company”

“I am not a lunatic” Clovis said, “I have the psychiatric report to prove it” he said the next bit with pride “A slender majority voted in my favour.”

Tom sighed as he continued to follow, “Rosenhan would have loved this guy,” he thought to himself, eventually he got bored of the silence and decided he may as well try and make conversation figuring it may distract Clovis.

“So do you know when your Uncle is coming to visit next?”

“Oh ole ‘Uncle Kenny’ is probably here already for all I know” Clovis responded, “you know how much he likes to wander so he does, wouldn’t surprise me if from Hong Kong he hopped onto a random plane to the states and decided to make his way over here. Mind you he did say he would try and pop round in the next month or so.”

Tom watched the way his friend spoke about ‘Uncle Kenny’ (It was always Uncle Kenny if he took a liking to you, otherwise it was Ken or most likely Mr Wan, he rarely used the Ng as he got sick and tired of sounding like a verb) in the same way Daria spoke about her Aunt Amy…now there was something he had been anxious about, he could handle meeting crackpots like Daria’s parents but from what he had heard about her Aunt he had definitely been scared, after all who wouldn’t be afraid of meeting an older and wiser version of their girlfriend? Still despite everything it had gone reasonably well…

“Thar she blows” Clovis said in a mock pirate voice “I feel just like captain Ahab,” he said as he saw the fly.

“Between the two of you, he’s the whale?” Tom said shaken from his train of thought.

“I’ll go on ahead and catch the little blighter,” Clovis said as he stalked into the bushes, Tom wisely decided to stay put for now.

Clovis approached the fly through the thick undergrowth of the Sloane’s hedge, he could see it in plain sight out on a branch, he readied his bat to strike it, “This will be an easy shot,” he thought.

And then he heard the buzzing.

As he glanced at the wasps nest right besides his head he had time to utter only…

“Clever girl…”

…………………………………………………………….

Daria and Mack walked out of the laser-zone both looking somewhat annoyed, behind them Jodie and Jane followed shortly after bearing smug grins that identified them as the winning teams.

“Look how was I supposed to know neither of us can shoot straight?” Mack eventually said as Daria kept staring at him, “no matter how different she acts she, like everyone else hates losing” he thought to himself.

“Mack just because I know how to use my brain doesn’t mean I automatically know how to do anything else” Daria replied annoyed, after a pause she spoke in her more calmer voice “Still Jodie seemed to be having fun, guess those archery classes her parents made her sign up for paid off…I suppose it was coincidence she ended up paired with Jane when we chose teams” then Daria muttered to herself “Stupid Exacto Knives.”

“Cheer up you two” Jane said as caught up with them still grinning “Tell you what, you can have these as consolation prizes” she then reached into her bag and took out a pair of rolled up sheets of paper “I call it ‘Fall from Disgrace’ and Jodie already has a copy.”

“Yes and I’m a little curious as to where you got the idea to paint a tarred and feathered Upchuck hanging from his underwear on a sign” Jodie said looking at the painting before her, she along with Daria and Mack had decided they where definitely framing these.

Jane just laughed nervously and responded, “Let’s just say I paint em as I see em.”

…………………………………………………………….

“Whoever said that there was nothing funny about the suffering of others clearly had no idea what they where talking about” Elsie said as she watched the entertainment unfold “Pass the popcorn Sandi.”

Sandi said nothing as she passed the bowl over; she had more reason than the others to enjoy watching Clovis getting swarmed by wasps, he had publicly humiliated her, her only regret at the moment was that there wasn’t as many people to watch him. Still she could always get revenge on him some other time…

“Should we, I don’t know, help him at all?” Quinn said after a while. As amusing as this was she felt a little uncomfortable, then again she thought, this was the same person who nearly attacked her two days ago on a Diet-Soda fuelled rampage, she decided she could watch for a little longer.

“Well Elsie’s brother doesn’t seem to be doing anything,” Stacy said recalling that Tom had walked in the kitchen with an exasperated expression and hadn’t been seen since “So I guess we don’t have to do anything…maybe when he stops moving we should check?”

“This is so wrong” Tiffany said slowly, then grinned briefly “We really need a camera.”

After a while the appeal of watching a man get savaged by wasps began to diminish so they went back to the table to conclude the meeting, briefly passing Tom who was carrying a can of fly-spray and a roll of bandages.

…………………………………………………………….

“Sometimes I wonder if I have some innate psychological condition that prevents me from being able to have a friend who can be classified as normal?” Tom said as he sprayed down his friend.

“Hah, that’s rich” Clovis said as he flipped to his feet (always the show off Tom thought) “When I met you, you where just a teenage closed off pill-popper, and are you saying the green-haired former chain-smoking conspiracy freak, the slightly amoral ladies geek of choice, and an out of place kung-fu master you call your friends aren’t normal?”

“Yes…and I was not a pill popper, those where prescription anti-depressants” Tom responded offering the bandages, he wished Clovis wouldn’t keep bringing up those pills.

“You didn’t even have bloody depression” Clovis responded slightly irate as he took the bandages and wrapped them around what needed wrapping “sorry if I’m a little tetchy mate but wasp stings bring out the worst in me.”

Tom was about to respond when Clovis heard a buzzing and grabbed his cricket bat and took off…

“And that concludes today’s meeting” Sandi said, after a pause she spoke to Elsie who had a slightly glazed expression “Like, are you ok?”

“Thank you very much, I did not kill uncle Foo” Elsie replied before snapping out of whatever trance she was in “Huh? Oh I’m fine, just a little ‘unprepared’ for these meetings” and then added to herself “Next time I’ll have a fresh supply of anthrax…low calorie of course…”

Elsie’s dreams of glorious homicide where suddenly and rudely interrupted by a Cricket bat striking the table rather suddenly, startling all 5 girls sat around the table who all looked up to see Clovis with a somewhat mad grin on his face.

“I’ve done it…I’ve killed the Queen.”

Tom watched from outside and put his face in his palm “Give me strength,” he then sighed and looked up to hear a buzzing sound next to him, without batting an eyelid he grabbed the fly in his hand and walked away from his house

“Take my advice little guy, don’t come back, I don’t think I can handle the clean up”

…………………………………………………………….

And now we draw a close to this tale as the curtain falls so to speak, for as a wise man once said “All the worlds a stage, and all men are players” And so they make their entrances and their exits.

Daria shall return home, not having learned anything except maybe that she is never partnering with Mack for anything requiring good aim.

Jane shall attack her easel with her brush as always and shall see what she creates.

Tom will look forward to spending the rest of day taking it easy as his friend goes home to lick his wounds.

The Fashion club will have learned an important lesson, that they cannot tell the difference between diet and regular sodas.

Mack and Jodie will go about life like they always do, nothing special there.

And though nothing truly eventful has taken place here, remember that not all stories have happy endings but then not all of these stories have sad ones either. Sometimes people will have a day without major life-changing events or learn an important lesson that brings about a major revelation; this was one such a day.

One where what happened was that things happened.

The End.

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Author’s notes:

Well hope you enjoyed this, I wanted to write a little something short and sweet (I think I got one out of two with luck) which just showed character quirks without a major event that takes place (there will be plenty of those to come later) and one where I just wrote something that hopefully people will enjoy reading.

I will admit that a couple of lines of dialogue in this story where quoted from various sitcoms but what the hell, not all my ideas are original.

Tom’s line about Rosenhan probably needs explaining, he was a trained doctor who was suspicious about the reliability of psychiatric medicine in 1973, he sent himself and 7 other people to psychiatric hospitals and pretend to be mentally ill (simply saying they had heard a voice) to see how many of them would be found as fakes, all of them where believed to be suffering schizophrenia (with one exception who ‘had’ manic depression, apparently the person doing the diagnostic didn’t know what they where doing) and after this experiment told the doctors that over the course of the next 2 months he would send more ‘pseudo-patients’ and they must see how many they can find, they found 19…which is odd because he didn’t send anyone. Hopefully this will shed a little light on Tom’s quip (will not go into anymore detail because explaining a joke ruins it).

As always send feedback of any kind to mechahead@hotmail.com.