Considering how bad men are, it is wonderful how well they behave. - Salvador de Madariaga

~lalaLAlala~

"Honey, I'm home," Daria called in a monotone, tongue firmly in cheek, as she let herself into Casa Lane by the back door.

"Hey Daria," Trent answered with a smile. The trip to the zoo had been a success for recovering after the band break-up, Trent claimed that it had also helped him get passed a block with a song he'd been working on. "Jane's upstairs with Tom," he added.

Daria smiled happily. "Wouldn't want to interrupt them then," she said, and set her bag on an empty part of the kitchen table.

Trent groaned as Daria settled lightly onto his lap and laced her fingers up behind his neck.

"Dammit," he said tensely as his own hands settled on her hips. "How long until you're eighteen?"

"You must wait until after the fall," Daria informed him. "On the bright side, summer is practically upon us."

"I really can't wait for when it won't be illegal for me to kiss you," Trent declared lowly.

"I don't think anybody who would report you is about to walk in on us," Daria offered softly.

Trent shook his head. "Oh Tom would," he insisted. "Jane has him distracted for now, but he's into you too."

"And we don't put anything past the jerks who come from old money," Daria agreed with a slightly frustrated sigh of her own. "Damn living in one of the few states where eighteen is the age of consent. If we were in Texas, I'd be legal right now. Hell, if we were in Pennsylvania, I'd have been legal when I turned sixteen." She unlaced her fingers and wrapped her arms around Trent's back, like a more normal hug, and curled up against his chest.

"As trying as it is," Trent offered softly as he rested his face against her hair, "I think it's a good thing that we're taking time to ease into being in a relationship before we try getting physical about it. It's not like you've got any experience with being in this sort of relationship after all, right?"

"Right," Daria agreed quietly, and snuggled a little closer. "I get to have all my firsts with you."

For a few minutes, they just sat like that. Daria content in Trent's lap, and him happy to have her there as he absently stroked her hip with his thumb, not even aware of the action.

"Want to go out to the gazebo and jam?" Daria suggested after a while.

"Yeah," Trent agreed. "That would be good. We'll need to grab our guitars though," he pointed out.

Daria stood from his lap, and Trent led the way out of the kitchen. Daria had most recently left her twelve-string at Casa Lane, and her six-string at her parent's house, so she followed after him to get her own guitar at the same time.

"Aha!" Jane yelled from the top of the stairs when they were just about to ascend.

"What's up, Janey?" Trent asked.

"I hope you don't mind Trent, but I'm going to steal Daria for a bit," Jane said with a triumphant smirk.

"Do I dare ask for what?" Daria queried.

"Come on up and see, both of you," Jane instructed with a wave and headed to her room.

The couple exchanged glances, shrugged, and followed Jane.

"Ta-da!" Jane declared as she presented her latest canvas with a grand gesture.

"It's very nice," Daria allowed, "and yet I wonder if it's a cry for help."

"I'd have to go with both," Tom quipped with a smile.

"The lady? Or the tiger?" Jane asked, with a bit of a growl added on to the end of 'tiger'. "Now you don't have to choose," she explained.

"Does this mean you're gonna be ordering the pizza with entrails?" Daria asked.

"If you are, then I'm not sharing a pie with you," Trent added.

"This is gonna be my new look," Jane answered. "And you're assisting in the procedure," she informed Daria happily.

"I have a couple of conditions," Daria consented, recognising that Jane was in a mood she would not be talked down from.

"What?"

"We get Quinn to help too," Daria said firmly. "I have no experience with this sort of thing, and I don't want to mess it up. Quinn's the hair expert, she'll make sure it turns out right."

"And it adds a sisterly element to my teen-girl-bonding ideas," Jane said, then shrugged. "Okay," she agreed. "I'm glad you're not trying to wiggle out of it, and I accept that you genuinely don't want to screw this up for me. We can call in the fashionista."

"As much as neither of us really want to. My other condition is that we do this bit of art at my parent's house," Daria stated. "Between the bathrooms here, and the bathrooms there, I'm fairly sure that there has more of the appropriate equipment, even if I don't use any of it myself."

Jane sighed. "Agreed."

"I'll call Quinn and ask her what we need to buy on the way," Daria offered tiredly, and reached for Jane's phone. "So much for just relaxing and jamming today."

"Oops," Jane said, and looked between her friend and her brother. "Sorry."

Trent shook his head. "That's okay," he told her. "Another time. I should really be working on that song anyway. I was just taking a quick break after, you know," he said, hesitating on mentioning either his classes or his job in front of Tom.

Jane nodded that she did know.

"Before I got back to it," Trent finished.

"Jane, I need paper and pen," Daria requested. "Quinn's giving me a list and my notebook is down in the kitchen."

"Here ya go," Jane responded quickly and handed over her latest sketchbook to a blank page, as well as a black ballpoint.

"I'll have you know that Quinn is madly excited about this," Daria informed her friend when she hung up the phone.

"Of course she is," Jane stated plainly. "She's been trying to convince both of us to let her give us makeovers since you got to Lawndale."

"Quinn also says that going from black to blonde is a long process, and not something that can be rushed," Daria added. "As such, and here I shall quote, 'it is a good thing you decided to have this makeover at the beginning of the weekend'."

"Damn."

"My thoughts exactly."

It was a long process, with moments of intense horror along the way (always comforted by the fact that if, at the end, Jane still didn't like how it looked, then dying it black again would be much easier, even if she would have to keep it up until the hair that had been bleached for the stripes had grown out), but Jane had her 'lady of the tiger' look in time for school on Monday.

And she was actually quite pleased with it.

For a week.

"I knew I shouldn't have screwed with my natural look," Jane complained as she walked with Daria to the store to buy black hair dye. "I mean, it looks cool, but it isn't something I can live with every day."

"Hey, you tried it, and now you know," Daria stated.

"Yeah," Jane agreed with a sigh. "At least this will be easier than getting it striped was."

"It just has to be done regularly."

"Dammit."

~lalaLAlala~

Daria was returning by foot to her parent's place after having helped Jane dye her hair back to solidly black when she spotted a familiar Pinto parked in front of the red-brick house she was aiming for.

"Hey," Tom greeted with a smile as he leant across from where he was sitting in the driver's seat, so that he could talk to her through the rolled down passenger side window.

"What are you doing here?" Daria demanded flatly.

"I wanted to talk to you. Your sister said you weren't home, so I figured I'd wait out here," Tom answered, oozing charm. "Um... why don't you get in the car?"

"I believe I expressed my opinion of getting into that car, ever, the last time you made that offer," Daria replied, eyes narrowed at him.

"Um..."

"I'm not getting into that car," Daria reminded him.

"Okay," Tom agreed, and climbed out quickly. He then circled around to stand next to her, and leant against his rusting auto.

"And what did you want to talk about this time?" Daria questioned.

"About our situation," Tom replied.

Daria frowned. "I don't know what you mean. We have no situation," she stated firmly. "Leave me alone, I gotta go," she declared, and headed towards the front door.

"Wait!" Tom begged, and grabbed her shoulder. "I don't understand why everyone's mad at me."

"Well, here's my reason," Daria started, gearing herself up for a good tirade. "When I moved to this town, I knew I'd be a total outcast. By sheer luck I met someone who was as much of an outcast as I was. We made a good team. I helped motivate her to put more effort into her academics, and she helped motivate me to be more social, and suddenly we weren't as big a pair of outcasts as we had been. For the first time in my life I didn't feel completely alone, then you came along," Daria expounded. "And now you're screwing everything up."

"All I did was meet a girl I thought was cool," Tom defended. "I went out with her for a while. We started to get bored with each other. It happens all the time. It's nobody's fault."

"Oh yeah?" Daria asked. "Would you still be bored with her if I weren't around?"

"Probably," Tom admitted. "And she'd be bored with me. It's got nothing to do with you."

"I don't believe you, but I'm glad to hear it anyway," Daria decided.

Tom abruptly reached over, grabbed her, and pulled her into a kiss.

Daria brought up her knee sharply and, while he fell to the ground in pain, she stomped on his foot before she marched into her parents house and grabbed the phone.

Quinn wasn't using it – the Fashion Club were all present for a meeting about blush – so there was no conflict issue there.

Daria called the Lane number.

"Hello?" Trent answered.

"Trent, you and Jane need to get over here and beat up a jerk before he manages to crawl into his Pinto and make a successful getaway," Daria informed him angrily.

"Janey! Grab your keys, Daria's got an emergency at her place!" Trent yelled away from the phone. "We'll be right there. Don't let him get away."

"He still hasn't gotten off the ground yet," Daria answered as she checked out the window. "Hurry all the same."

"Trent!" Jane's voice called from beyond the phone.

The dial-tone sounded. Trent had hung up.

Daria set the phone down.

"Daria?" Quinn called, distracted by her sisters distress. "What's going on?"

"I was just forcibly kissed by the boyfriend of my best friend," Daria answered. "I feel violated," she added.

"You stole the boyfriend of your best friend?" Quinn yelped.

"No," Daria corrected. "I violently rejected the scum who doesn't deserve the romantic attention my best friend has given him when he forced himself on me."

"Oh," Quinn said. "The guy cheated, er, attempted to cheat -"

"Oh, he cheated alright," Daria growled. "I just refused to be a participant in the gross betrayal."

"Sisters before misters," Quinn rallied. "Girls?" she called as she turned to her friends. They had, of course, heard the whole thing.

"It's a shame I'm not wearing my stiletto heels," Sandi said as she stood, a look of dark satisfaction on her face. "They really are the best for dealing with jerks like that."

"Really the best," Tiffany agreed, standing also. She wore a delicate sneer.

Stacy, however, calmly collected up the make up that was spread out.

"Stacy," Sandi demanded. "What are you doing?"

Stacy smiled innocently up at Sandi. "Boys seem to hate nothing more than being made up," she answered.

"Oh, you're good," Sandi praised.

By that point, Daria could see that Tom was beginning to slowly pull himself up from the ground with the aid of his car, but Jane's bug had arrived out front as well.

Daria headed out once more.

"Tom!" Jane exclaimed. "What happened?"

"He kissed me is what happened," Daria answered her friend before Tom could come up with an explanation. "I didn't react quite the way he anticipated, I think."

Jane frowned at her boyfriend. "You kissed Daria?" she demanded lowly, both hands curling into fists. She was not, however, questioning her friend's story.

"Um..." Tom hesitated, eyes shifting every which-way as he tried to come up with an answer that might get him out of trouble.

Trent's bejewelled fist connected with his jaw, violently, before he said anything else.

"Which knee did you get Daria?" Jane asked as she watched Tom go down dispassionately.

"Left," Daria answered, not mentioning that she'd actually gotten his groin and his foot, and hadn't gone for the knee at all.

Jane proceeded to kick in Tom's right knee-cap.

"We are so through!" she informed him vindictively, then turned to Daria. "Surprisingly, I feel a lot better now."

"Our turn," Quinn announced from behind the trio.

"Stacy has devised a truly fitting punishment for boyfriends who cheat with best friends," Sandi declared.

"Make-over," Tiffany finished.

"Thank you for making sure he won't run away," Stacy added, and with such genuine innocence that it was actually somewhat frightening.

"That's the girl who blubbered in the Ferris Wheel about her date not calling her?" Trent asked his sister quietly as they stepped back.

"That's Stacy Rowe," Jane agreed, wide-eyed.

"It seems she has hidden depths," Daria observed, just as impressed as the two Lanes she was standing between.