My take on what might be one way to fulfill a potential that the show created. I don't own these characters, but after all these years, they are still near and dear to my heart. Thanks for reading, and feedback is always welcomed. :)
"Daria? Hey, Daria. Wake up."
"Don't wanna…" What was left of the sentence was lost, muffled by whatever her face was pressed up against. The whatever-it-was happened to be moving and rumbling dully under her ear.
"It's 3 AM. At least, that's what your watch says." The rumbling swelled and subsided again. "Let's get you to Janey's room. I guess she turned in earlier…" Plate tectonics. Magma. Words.
"Mmh... Huh?" Daria's cheek was damp. It was too warm. "Damn volcanoes…" Shit, something wasn't right.
"Uh, yeah. I guess Pompeii was pretty bad, wasn't it…" She knew this voice. DAMN it Morgendorffer. She was awake. Her eyes were open, and in an instant everything blared into life. The remnants of the incense burning sharply in the corner of the room, the violent light of the muted TV thrown in blurred patterns across the wall, the sticky drool pooling on her cheek, and the worn soft fabric of a t-shirt that smelled like old car and home and…
"T-Trent?"
"Yeah. Here—" She heard a rustling, scraping sound.
Daria's stomach flew into her chest as something snaked shamelessly down the length of her back around her waist and quickly hoisted her upright. She felt her wrist enclosed in cool fingers and then—yep, those were her glasses. His fingers were gone and her familiar frames were clamped tightly in her own.
"Thanks." She didn't put her glasses on. She didn't want to see anything. "Um… what—" she closed her eyes tightly and scrubbed a hand into her forehead. She quickly changed tack and whipped her face towards the TV in an embarrassingly awful attempt to casually wipe the drool off onto her shoulder.
"We fell asleep. I think Janey just decided to let us rest or something. Don't worry," Trent's voice smiled, "you're safe."
"Oh. Well, you know how my destructive alcoholism tends to flare up. It's the damn Ivy League party scene, can't get away from it." Trent's short laugh and subsequent cough were low, and she felt it was getting easier to deadpan. "Most times I wake up in random places, no memory of the days or weeks of the reckless binge behind me. How old am I now? Did the damn commies finally get us?" Daria winced. "My neck is killing me…" She bit her lip and mechanically jammed her glasses on her face.
There he was, sitting inches away from her on the floor, one leg jutting out in front and the other bent, a thin slice of knee exposed through a hole in his jeans. He spoke softly, "Whatever, Daria. From what I hear from Janey, all you do is write and read and study." Apparently this seemed to spur the thought, "Sleeping doesn't sound like it happens too much."
Trent spread the fingers of one hand wide and gestured vaguely to the position of their bodies, leaning quietly up against the foot of his bed. He let his arm fall where it may across the edge of the mattress. Daria felt her face flush, and a wave of panic traveled like lightning down to her toes. What did Jane tell you, Trent? She stared at her socks with a grim determination to compose herself. She realized they didn't quite match and for some reason it seriously irritated her. Where had she left her shoes?
"That's what I get for having such stupidly high personal standards, I guess. What's your excuse?" It was out of her mouth before she realized how harsh it sounded, and she almost winced again. What is wrong with me? Ever since she was able to blurt her mind around him back in high school, it kept coming out of her. Trent surely had feelings, whether they were obvious or not under his cool exterior.
"Hm." Embarrassed, Daria snuck a glance out of the corner of her eye at his face. Trent was looking at the ajar bedroom door. Thinking. "Janey keeps telling me to go to a doctor. She thinks I'm an undiagnosed narcoleptic or depressed or something. Maybe she has a point."
Daria looked at the door too. "Do you think that's what it is?" Her mind was in a ridiculous debate with itself. Why am I so nervous? It's just Trent. Why didn't he affect me so much the last time I was here? Well, let's see, maybe it's because you're caught way past the witching hour alone in his room and it's been eons since you've felt so—oh shit.
"Probably." Trent was talking. "I can't afford it though. Making just enough to move out in a month or so, finally get out of this eerie house." Trent shrugged.
"From personal experience, I can tell you moving out will feel as great as a herd of wild ponies running free across the plains. Or at least you'll have a nice fresh place to gradually trash."
"Ponies. Cronies. Phonies…."
"Bolognas?"
"Ha. Good one."
"Oh. Um, by the way, sorry about the Spiral."
"Mm." Trent shrugged. "There was too much discord in the band to get anything done. I've been meaning to go solo for years anyway."
"Yeah. Um, for what it's worth," Daria paused, weighing her words, "we're going to miss it." She hurried, "Jane told me you've been writing jingles again. What changed your mind about deadlines?"
Trent's hand landed lightly on her shoulder and squeezed gently. Daria looked at the floor, forgot about breathing. "Still hate 'em. I still let it come to me, you know. Go with the flow, let things just happen. I see something I think needs an ad," his hand gently pushed her one way, "and I write what comes to me," and back the other way, "and then I send it to them. They pay what it's worth."
"Hm. Play to your strengths. I like it." Daria noticed his hand continued to rest where it was. The weight of it was comfortable. She leaned back into the bed frame and crossed her arms and legs, willing her face not to blush. "What happens when people start to seek you out for a commission or something?"
"It's happened before. Probably will happen again." Trent sounded resigned. His hand slid off her shoulder and she heard it land softly on the worn carpet behind her. Daria felt emptier. "But for now, there are way more companies out there who don't know about me than do. The odds are pretty good."
"Trent, you can't hide how smart you are forever, you know."
"That's what you and Janey are for. To be the intelligent ones."
She tried to change the subject. "Your room is pretty empty." Either he had decided to learn how to pick up after himself or—
"Sold a lot of my stuff. It was getting kind of… oppressive."
She nodded once. "Minimalism. It's got that special something that screams 'I can't afford shit, but it's not like I wanted it or anything.'"
"Ha, Daria. You're funny. Now all I need is padded walls and some handrails. Be right at home."
Daria felt another wave wash over her with the magnitude of where she was. Jane had lured her to stay over for spring break during their senior year of college with the always-effective proposition of watching an all-night TV marathon. Quinn was off at some beach with her Middleton friends and Daria's parents were taking a much needed cruise themselves. Trent was still living at home, albeit Jane claimed he was more often out of bed than in it these days, apparently being productive. It hadn't stopped him, however, from borrowing Jane's TV and hooking it up in his room. "You moved out. I figured you didn't need it anymore…" he had shrugged as Daria and Jane stood in the doorway of his room, duffle bags in tow. All was forgiven once Trent ordered a pizza. Daria looked at its remnants on the worn carpet next to a half-empty case of cheap beer. She remembered saying, "What the hell, it's the holidays," as she'd popped open a tab to Jane's sly smile and Trent's practiced indifference. Eh, gross. Sick Sad World flashed onto the screen. Let the marathon begin.
The natural lull in the conversation persisted for a few more seconds. Did they have to stop talking? Like a car ride, she didn't want it to stop for sheer irritation of having to get out of the car and continue life at the end of it. Couldn't they for once cruise around the block again, just to enjoy the mindlessness of driving? Oh that's right, I'm a terrible driver…
Trent picked it up again. Maybe he realized Daria didn't know what to say anymore. She suspected Trent knew too much about that side of her. Daria felt incredibly exposed. "It's been good for her, you know. College. Thanks for making her go."
Daria shook her head slowly. "I didn't make her. She decided for herself. I'm just another pawn in the system."
"Nah, Daria. You don't think you lead, but you do."
"What do you mean?" Daria had no idea what Trent was getting at. She was usually a step ahead or right there with him. Trent reflected while Daria's wheels turned.
"Janey talks about you a lot."
Daria waited for more. What does Jane say about me… When Trent didn't continue, "…yeah?"
"Remember your summer camp fan club?" Daria squinted at him as Trent emitted a short noise of amusement. "Let's just say you lead by example."
Daria thought about her lifestyle since high school. She had made some friends at college, but still none of them stuck quite like Jane. She had gone on a few haphazard (and, at times, awkwardly uncomfortable) dates, mostly set up by Jane in the form of double date moral support, but none of them really stuck either. Sometimes she went to the bar when Jane groaned too much about needing a break, even when it was snowing in Boston and she'd rather be holed up in the warmth of her bed with a good book. Sometimes she had a drink, and sometimes, despite herself, she laughed.
Sports and the almost rabid enthusiasm of her peers for them continued to baffle her. What she had lacked as a joiner in high school she made up for by creating a fiction writers group—or at least a small email list that blasted out links to not-incredibly-awful self-published short stories and to heated message board debates about Chaucer. She had been published once in the same stupid magazine that had rejected her only a few years before and a not a few times as a deliciously controversial satirist in the school paper under the pseudonym Melody Powers. Her grades were as good as they ever were. She read a lot. She had had one interview with a real newspaper and had been rejected. Before she knew it she mused aloud, "Yep, pretty boring example…"
"Hm. As boring as living in the same house you grew up in? In your twenties?" The air was thicker than before.
Daria hesitated. "Guess it depends."
"You went to Europe last summer. You've been out there, Daria." Oh yeah, the French exchange from hell…. She had tried to forget the painfully incredulous looks of her exchange family as they endured her atrocious accent.
"Um…" Daria struggled for words. Her vocal cords were tight. "Trent, you've taken a risk and done what you've wanted to do." She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "That's more than most people can say. I'll be up to my neck in loans… at least you can say you avoided something you didn't need."
He took a while to consider this. "Maybe you're right, Daria. Studying never appealed to me anyway."
Daria nodded. "Doesn't really appeal to anybody… if they're honest with themselves." She closed her eyes and thought about all the hours she spent holed up in a library. "Plus," she added as an afterthought, "you'd probably hate France. It's too… grossly romantic, in the artistic sense of the word."
She blinked. Trent was standing above her, holding out a hand. "C'mon, Daria." Ride's over. Get out of the car.
"Oh." She blinked again at this proffering for a moment, thinking about how much that stupid hand had done to her over the years. Grow up, it's just a hand. 'It's pretty clean, Daria.' She almost felt herself smile. "Thanks." Her hand moved, impelled by its own volition. She was on her way up. Too fast. She stumbled chest-first into him, but it was over before more mortification could set in. Her face felt incredibly warm.
Trent was moving toward the doorway, his back to her. "You know, it's always good to talk to you, Daria."
"Uh… you too, Trent." Way to sound sincere, Morgendorffer.
"I'm serious. All these years… you still understand me." He stopped and stood very still, halfway between her and the door. Daria wasn't sure how this was helping to lead her out of the room.
"Sure I do. Trent, are you okay—" He turned a sharp ninety degrees towards her, still not fully facing her. His profile was rigid in the hallway light. It was odd, he was normally so calm and unaffected. Daria was transported back to a time she had asked him for a simple favor, when Jane was off on a ride with Tom somewhere. It had been an instance in which she was leading the conversation, not the other way around. Trent had fidgeted then, just once, but it had seemed to give something away.
The intensity in the room was beginning to overpower her. Trent took his time. "We're not that different from each other, you know. You're a writer. I'm a composer. We create things. We have our own… blocks…" his raspy voice trailed off quietly.
A creeping suspicion was growing in Daria's mind—just how much of her life had Jane shared with her brother over the years? She thought only Jane and her mother knew (or cared) about her enduring struggle to write compelling realistic stories. Melody Powers certainly didn't fit into that genre. Powers had infinitely risqué and violent possibilities at her fingertips; Morgendorffer's world had nothing but unsatisfying and unyielding constraints.
She ran a hand self-consciously through her hair. Uh oh… "Uh, Jane didn't happen to mention anything involving an homage to Jane Austen, did she?"
"Huh? Like Pride and Prejudice? Don't think so." 'Comparative literature'—check—
"Well, in any case," she pushed on, "thanks for the reminder. I've forgotten how shitty my writing can get…" Daria tried to smirk but it fell flat immediately.
"Your writing isn't that shitty. Mostly."
She fought to keep her composure. "Since when do you read my writing?"
Trent shrugged. "Like I said, Janey talks about you. A lot." He jerked a thumb towards the corner of the room. Daria could barely make out the cover of a crinkled, but familiar, magazine.
She remembered how something had broken between her old teenage self and Trent due to—triggered by—the turmoil of her hormonally charged mess of a life. Tom, the catalyst. That change seemed to open the door for Trent to temper her self-righteous indignation with the slightly mellowed wisdom of a young man who had already been through his own whirlwind of disappointed expectations and fleeting bouts of meaningless infatuation.
"Daria."
"Mm," she could barely mumble, "Yes, Trent?"
"I have to ask you something."
The darkened room was on fire. Daria wished he would look at her. Then she wished he wouldn't. Trent was still halfway facing her. "Okay." Where were her limbs? She could have sworn she had limbs.
"Do you remember when we said we should never have—" he hesitated.
Oh God. Say something. "—collaborated, yeah... Yes Trent, I remember." Her voice was a feeble whisper.
"That it would never have worked out… collaborating."
Why couldn't she speak? "Mmhm." Her only strength was her words—dammit words, don't abandon me now.
Trent's black eyes suddenly fixed on hers. They were mere feet apart. The door wasn't an option anymore, not until she gave him another response.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I—We—might have been full of shit, Trent. Hell, it was like six years ago…" Daria felt Trent staring carefully at her. She had to blink and look at the wall.
Trent started to smile, but it flickered quickly and was gone. "Or… we might have been wise beyond our years?"
"Oh, I don't know. Sometimes I change my mind about things two or three times a day. Sometimes I don't even know what day it is at all." Daria tried her best to be sarcastic, she had no other ideas how to cope with the bizarreness of it all. "You can't take what somebody says seriously when she's just an idiot teenager who has no idea who she is or what she wants or—"
"What do you want, Daria?" He was fully facing her now. There was no room for circling around it. "Now?"
"I—eep!" her senses were overwhelmed. Trent had enveloped her in his arms. She felt his ear brush her temple.
Did it even happen? He was breathing against her forehead, "Daria… is this what you've wanted? All along?"
Daria could only thinly mumble, "Trent, I don't really know how to do this—"
"It's okay."
Trent let her press her forehead into his collarbone. It didn't seem to bother him so much. She drank in his smell, it was powerfully inebriating.
"I've wanted things too, Daria. For a long time." The rumbling was back again. Meteors. Craters. Countdown to impact…
"Things. Descriptive." She was grasping at something, anything to stay afloat. Her mind felt dumb and pitiful.
"Things that have been missing." Trent's hand rooted its way gently into her hair. She swayed and her toes gripped the carpet through her socks. "We could try, Daria. We're not the same people we thought we'd be."
"Really." Daria could at least converse with shirt-Trent. "Because you thought you'd be a townie who only covered Doors songs. And I thought I would be an emotionally-challenged nerd for life."
"Huh. I always thought your emotions were what made you Daria."
"Well, I guess you seem to have a special talent for perceiving them, Trent. Only you and my mother."
He either didn't catch the sudden shift in her tone, or he skillfully didn't betray that he had. "Mrs. M. She's pretty smart. What would she tell you?"
"Hm." Daria's voice was again swallowed up in the spot between his neck and chest. "I think she would wax misty-eyed over her wild college days and then—I don't know—" she lowered her voice and whispered into his shirt, "—probably tell me to do what makes me happy."
"Will trying make you happy?"
Daria closed her eyes as Trent's fingers drew lazy circles on her neck. She inhaled sharply and willed herself to look him in the eye.
"I—don't know."
"Do you have to?"
Trent waited. Daria couldn't speak.
"I'll walk you to Janey's room." His face was unreadable, his fingers paused. "You can think about it. Maybe you'll change your mind."
Daria shook her head once in the negative, which prompted him to raise an eyebrow at her.
"Trent—you've always known how to—to—"
"Get you? Yeah, we kind of covered that part." He pulled his hand away to gesture widely around them and shrugged.
"No, Trent. You knew how—oh God, I can't believe I'm saying this—" she made an effort not to cover her face with her hands, "—sick I was over you. And you knew how badly I wanted you to notice me, and you knew what you were doing to me—"
"I'm… I'm sorry Daria. We were at different points in our lives. I can't explain it."
"I also seem to recall you telling me once that there's no reason to pretend about something you know is there—" Daria didn't know how she had started jabbing at him accusatorily with her finger, but she was.
Trent tried to back away. "You were cute. You were going through things. You were going to move on eventually anyway."
"Why would you say that?"
"It's just how things happen. It's life. People move on and leave you behind."
Trent dropped his hands sullenly, and she was compelled to reach forward and encircle his waist with her arms. What was she doing? She patted his back awkwardly. "Look Trent, you're a good person. You take care of the people you love. You stayed to make sure Jane was okay."
Trent put both his hands on Daria's shoulders, and her arms could do nothing but fall away from him. "All that was left was Janey, Daria. And Janey can take care of herself. More than before."
"You have to take care of yourself too Trent, as obnoxious as it sounds."
"Yeah." Trent sighed, perturbed, and took a step backwards. "I see. I guess you can't be with a guy who doesn't even know how to do that."
Daria's heart broke for him, for his warped youth. "It's not your fault you never learned—"
"My point. Lane family tradition…"
Her impatience was growing. "But what about Jane? If she can do it, why can't you?" Frustrated beyond words, Daria crossed her arms in anger.
"Hey—I know what you all think I am—" bitter hurt finally seeped through, "—that I'm some kind of stupid failu—"
"No! I never said—"
Daria scowled vehemently at everything and then in one fluid movement lost herself. Her arms were around his neck and their faces were pressed hotly together, and it was blissfully mind-numbing and heartbreakingly painful. And Trent wasn't what she'd always imagined him to be in the dark privacy of her thoughts—he was a real person with real hurt and real lips and real hands, and it wasn't dreamy to kiss him, but it was infinitely better. And she was torn and confused, and she heard his voice in her mind just let it happen, relax and knew she couldn't because she was Daria, dammit.
"Stop thinking—" Trent kissed her again and again, "—Daria—" and gripped her tightly to him—she couldn't win. She kissed him with all she had. Powers, the risk-taker, would have pointed and laughed at her. Whatever. Let the dice fall where they may. They would deal with it in the morning.