Trent could hear Jane laughing hysterically
DISCLAIMER: Daria and all characters connected with the show belong to Viacom and are created by Glenn Eichler. They are not mine. Any thoughts, behaviors, or bad habits enacted by the characters in this fic should be viewed as an extrapolation of my own imagination and are absolutely not canon. It's only canon if it comes from the original writers of the TV series. Incorrect grammar within quotes has a 95 chance of being deliberate. Incorrect grammar outside of quotes is 100 the fault of the author.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is set from episodes 206 – 208. (Monster, the New Kid, Gifted) This fits with the continuity of Trent's exposure to Quinn. I am making a one-time exception to a) creating multiple chapters and b) posting a fic in its entirety, because of the way the episode continuity works within my brain.
Trent could hear Jane laughing hysterically. It raised his curiosity. He knew she'd been working on some film project with Daria earlier. He wanted to see where the "hell is other people" thing was headed. He cracked the door open. "Whatcha laughin' at Janey?"
Jane pointed to the TV, tears running down her face. She fell sideways on the bed in a paroxysm as Trent sat beside her. On the screen was some red-haired girl that looked kind of like Daria, surrounded by a pack of those snotty flat-chested waif girls. The redhead was rattling on about shoes. "An open or closed toe says so much about you, like 'I'm open to anything!' or 'Gee, I didn't have time for a pedicure this week!'" She held up two pairs of shoes to the camera, both bright pink. As far as Trent could tell, the one with extra holes was the more desirable pair.
He grabbed the remote and hit pause, waiting until Jane's gasps sounded more like breathing. "Who is she?"
"That's Daria's sister." Trent's eyebrows shot up. He'd pictured Daria as an only child, and he assumed that she spent so much time over at their house because she was lonely, like most only children. He hit play and resumed carnage. "What's her name?"
"Quinn."
Quinn. Daria's sister. Trent settled back and watched the entire tape, asking Jane to rewind. She was too happy to do so. "Daria's feeling guilty and will probably make me cut some of this, so someone else has got to see the whole story."
Quinn was a real piece of work. The video captured her manipulate a guy into buying her clothing, socially engineer a complete stranger out of a dressing room and the way she talked to his sister and Daria made him bridle. There were girls kind of like her when he was in high school, but he hadn't seen anything quite this spoiled and shallow in a long time.
On the other hand, it made some sense of Daria, too. She might not recognize herself as spoiled, but some of her my-way-or-the-highway values Jane had told him about came from that same kind of entitlement. Hell, Jane couldn't even convince her to watch a tabloid show other than Sick, Sad World and Daria had a small tantrum when Jane wanted to visit the waterslide park last summer.
"If you need a new outfit, and you're over your allowance, tell your parents you have a special event at school that they'll be getting a notice about in the mail. They'll forget all about it if you time it at just the right day in their credit card billing cycle," Quinn was saying.
An Asian girl leaned into the shot and said in Quinn's ear, "That weird girl with the glasses, who did you say she was?"
"Oh, that's my cousin – I told you, it's a project I'm doing to get more exposure for the Fashion Club."
"So when will they expose me?"
Quinn "accidentally" elbowed the Asian girl out of the shot. "I'm sure they'll be plenty of time for you to expose yourself, Tiffany."
Trent felt a rush of love for Janey. No matter how he screwed up, she was always there, never once introducing him as her cousin. "Daria's sister is really like that?"
"You don't know the half of it." Jane rolled her eyes. "Daria's been her cousin, her au pair and on one occasion, a member of the witness protection program. Although I think that last one was Daria's idea."
"You know, I can't say I haven't thought of denying relationship to Summer or Wind," Trent admitted.
"Yeah, but if you disowned Summer, you could never take her kids across state lines when she loses them."
"And the last time we tried to leave Wind in jail, the officers threatened to throw us in the cell with him if we didn't bail him out." Trent chuckled. "I love you, little sis."
"I love you too, weirdo. Can you give me a ride to the doughnut shop?"
At the shop, he gave Daria and Jane their space. While the video of Quinn made him glad of his closeness to his sister, he also didn't want to oppress her with too much supervisory sibling care. He could hear Daria's voice from the counter, and he turned to watch.
"Which is my good side?" She said tossing her hair. "I know they're both good." He could see a little bit of Quinn hiding inside of her. He could picture her on a stage, in some 60s outfit. It would look kind of hot, in a jailbait way.
Daria caught sight of him. "Hi Daria." He waved.
She turned bright red. Jane smirked. Show over.
That was fine. Janey had kept her own copy of that tape. He could watch it with Jesse when they needed to write some kind of "heartbreak woman" song.