Sup folks!
As you can probably tell from the title, this here story's a crossover/fusion/whatever with Courage the Cowardly Dog and Daria for, y'know, reasons (and released after Halloween to boot, ain't it great?)
This idea was partially inspired by wacokid's reply to a short snippet I made in "Scenes No Daria fanfic should have" at the Lawndale-High message board (so thanks for planting the seed of this idea, wacokid!) and also by my need to clear my head for Fate For Breakfast, since that's become a lot more serious and dour than I thought it was gonna be. And since it involves Daria's cat from the "Catching Up With The Gang" new canon, and because I'm incredibly lazy, I just took the characters and workplace situation from The More Things Change. You don't have to read The More Things Change unless you want more insight on why Daria hates David so much, but uhhhhhh I guess that means this story is in the same universe as that story (we'll call it Daria Universe D-5354 since the Ed Sullivan Theatre is located on 53rd and 54th street, if we're still doing universe classifications).
Anyways I'll stop talking now, except to say that I own nothing. Hope you all enjoy!
Godzilla in...
Godzilla: the Cowardly Cat
Daria Morgendorffer had started bringing her cat, Godzilla, to work a few months ago—right around the time her boss, David Wollgreen, decided that homes were things people other than his writing staff got to enjoy. Daria had figured that being left alone for long stretches at night wouldn't be good for Godzilla (especially since Hell's Kitchen and New York City in general had enough random noises to raise the dead), so into her office went a small bed and a water dish that, after some practice, she finally managed to avoid stepping in every time she went to sit at her desk. Godzilla spent more time on the windowsill than in his bed but that was fine; as long as he didn't scratch anything important or only tried to attack David, it was exactly the kind of arrangement that Daria was hoping for.
And for Godzilla's part, he enjoyed being around Daria for almost the entire day. What he didn't enjoy was the absolutely massive building that she worked in. Godzilla never left Daria's writing office, and she'd been pretty clear to him that something called "Immigration Services" would throw him out of the country (into where? A garbage can? Godzilla wasn't sure) if he started wandering around the place where David sat and did that weird smile thing at a crowd of people, but still, it was out there. Behind the door. All that space. And who knew what was lurking there? It was probably dogs, that's what. Dogs with like eight legs and three heads and every time they opened their mouths it'd make a vacuum cleaner sound.
Thanks but no thanks vacuum dogs.
So yeah, Godzilla was pretty happy just sitting on the windowsill, looking out over 54th street and its fairly consistent traffic (well it was pretty light tonight, probably because of the rain and thunder and AH LIGHTNING no wait Godzilla had just blinked really hard) and being a door's length away from the vacuum dogs from Outer Hell Space. Which is what he was doing now, staring on as David was trying to talk to Daria without Daria clawing out his throat.
"Now Daria I know we all want to go home, absolutely I do, and we'll get home quicker if we just go in that writer's room and brainstorm with everyone else. Whaddya say, huh?"
"I say, what's the point?"
"Daria we can't be giving up on the show now, not—"
"Not when, rumour has it, a new ass is going to be sitting in that chair fairly soon?"
"Hearsay, speculation, and just plain-old bad reporting, that's what I say to that. Besides, you can't want me gone that badly, right?"
"I'm not answering that without a union rep present."
"Y'know, I was gonna be President of the WGA-East once, did I ever tell you that?"
"No, but someone else did. Someone who told me how to open the Seventh Seal."
"Cute, Daria," David said, walking towards Godzilla. Speaking to the cat he said, "Your mother sure likes to bust my ba—"
David's arm didn't even get a chance to rise past his hips before Godzilla tried to re-enact An American Werewolf in London.
"I can't control my associate here," Daria said, giving Godzilla a big wink. Ahhh, Godzilla had done good, he could tell. Everything scared him except for Daria and David, and that's only because Daria had said that David would make a really, really good scratching post.
David straightened his tie, pointed to the door, and sighed. "Just come to the meeting so we can all go home. Please?"
Godzilla watched Daria eyed David up and down and then let out a sigh of her own. She was starting to stand up, which meant…leaving him alone in the office. That was fine. He could handle that. He could handle that just fine he definitely surely absolutely…wait she was leaving right away?
"Stay here, little one," Daria said to Godzilla. "We won't be long. Correct?"
"Sure, yeah," David said. He reached into his jacket and pulled out an opaque jar. "Caffeine pill?"
Daria took it from his hand and said, "It's empty, David."
David paused. "Great, absolutely terrific," he said.
And then Daria gave Godzilla one last wave and then closed the door and then…then Godzilla was alone, and that was fine, totally, absolutely. Just breathe in, breathe out, hey, why not nap! Naps were good and fun and AH LIGHTNING no wait the lights just flickered BUT WHY WERE THE LIGHTS FLICKERING?
Godzilla jumped down, grabbed a toy from under Daria's desk, and then hoped back up onto the windowsill. It was a tiny rubber chicken—white with red eyes—and while it'd scared the crap out of him the first time Daria gave it to him, whenever Daria squeezed it this funny little squeaky noise came out and the red eyes bugged out, and then Daria would make a clucking noise and dance the chicken in circles around Godzilla with it's eyes all buggy and weird. And if that wasn't the funniest thing Godzilla had ever seen, he wasn't sure what was.
He gave the chicken a squeeze and mimicked Daria's clucking noise, and chuckled to himself as "Little Annie Aneurysm's" eyes bulged out of its head.
Hehe, chickens were funny.
The rain was coming down harder now, and while Godzilla didn't know if water could break glass it'd…well it'd probably be better to check. He just had to turn around and look out through the second story window and…
…uhhhhhhhh what was the shape in the middle of the road?
Godzilla squinted through the waterfall that was flowing over the glass. The shape was definitely weird looking—not like an eight-legged dog but definitely off in some of its angles. And there was this weird pointing tube thing at its side, like it was carrying something really sharp. The more Godzilla looked at it, the more he was pretty sure it was a person, but the shape was still so wrong for a person. Where the head should've been it looked like half of it had been sheared off and…
…and…
…and there was a flash of lightning and it absolutely was a person and they absolutely did have half their head sheared off and they were just standing there in the middle of the street for no reason and…
…and…
…and the streetlight next to the studio was growing brighter and brighter—way too bright—and now Godzilla could see the person much more clearly. Their skin was in tatters, torn apart like drapes, and it was grey, horribly horrible grey. Dried and blackened brains stuck out of the gaping hole in the side of this person's head. That pointy thing Godzilla saw was a long yellow tube with a jagged end, it…Godzilla recognized it from TV, it looked like a football goalpost…
…and…
…and…
…and as the streetlight grew brighter the person's head slowly looked upwards until it was looking directly at Godzilla and it was SMILING WITH A MOUTH FULL OF DECAYING TEETH AND NOW THEY WERE WAVING, THEY WERE WAVING AT GODZILLA AND SMILING WITH TEETH THAT LOOKED ALMOST LIKE THEY HAD RUSTED THROUGH.
AND NOW THEY WERE FLIPPING GODZILLA OFF THAT WAS RUDE AND EXTREMELY EXTREMELY TERRIFYING.
The streetlight exploded and up went Godzilla, screaming as only a cat could scream and trying to sink his claws into the ceiling. When that didn't work he bolted for the door and tried to scratch his way through to the other side. When that didn't work he tried to jump on the door handle and turn it with his paws, but all he managed to do was slam his stomach on the handle and knock a hairball three feet into the corner of Daria's office. He had one last shot, one last foolproof plan to get out of the office and away from that half-headed pointy-goal post wielding creep out there in the streets.
He threw Little Annie Aneurysm at the door with his mouth. It bounced off the door and smacked Godzilla in the face.
Oh no he was gonna die.
Then the door started opening he was definitely going to die like immediately.
"You don't need your wallet for a writer's room meeting, she says to the man who claimed we could all go home."
"Daria you may not know what it's like to carry a lot of money around but I—"
"Am teetering on the precipice of having a rodent mailed to your penthouse."
Daria's leg entered her office and that was exactly the one place in the universe that Godzilla wanted to go. She yelped a bit when his claws dug into her skin but all Godzilla cared about was making sure she knew something was outside the studio and that something looked really creepy and probably wanted to kill everyone in worse ways that the vacuum cleaner dogs from Space Hell.
"Godzilla?" Daria said. "What's wrong? What are you—"
Godzilla hoped off Daria's leg and started running around in circles. Then he pointed at the window with one of his paws and started shambling towards Daria like a zombie. He completed his performance by stabbing at the air and making Psycho noises out of meows and then flopped onto the floor holding a chest wound.
"What the hell's wrong with your cat?" David said.
Daria ignored him and picked Godzilla up instead. "What's wrong, little one? I'm not sure what you're saying." She paused. "Or how you did all that in the first place, but one thing at a time."
Then the lights went out. Godzilla started whimpering, and Daria's gentle stroking wasn't helping in the slightest.
"This is what we get for hiring migrants to do the wiring," David said.
"And this is why we should all be spitting in your coffee in the morning," Daria said.
"Should but don't, right?"
"Miiiiiiiiiiiiiisery Chiiiiiiiiiiick," said a voice from somewhere in the building. "I'm baaaaaaaack. Hey, don't worry about the rest of the losers here. Theeeeeeeey can watch if they waaaaaaaaaant."
"Oh god," Daria said.
"What in the goddamn?" David said.
Godzilla made a noise that sounded like a screaming monkey crossed with a malfunctioning trumpet. Oh and he also managed to go about five feet in the air before landing on Daria's head and digging in for dear life. Daria left him on her head as she sprinted for the phone on her desk.
"Is the line dead?" She grabbed it and then tossed the phone aside. "Of course it is."
A rustling noise behind Godzilla turned out to be David rifling through the pockets of his suit and throwing whatever he could find that was vaguely pill shaped into his mouth. "You'll tell me when the voices stop right? Right?" he said.
"David, I hate to say this, but I really don't think you're imagining things."
David looked at the pills in his hand and then tossed them back. "What do you even know, crazy friggin writer you're all insane!"
There was a crash and a scream and someone from the writing staff yelled "LOOK OUT HE'S GOT A GOAL POST" and, to Godzilla's immediate relief, Daria grabbed David by the wrist and yanked him out the office, down the hall, and towards the stairs. Godzilla kept shivering and jerking his head from side to side, figuring that if he saw something he could at least warn Daria before he got his head turned into a pancake. But the fact that the only lighting in the area was the red from the emergency exit signs and the occasional bright flash of lightning made every shadow seem like a sinister shape.
"Miiiiiiiisery Chiiiiiick," the voice called out again. "C"mooooooooooon. Nothing to be afraid of, Tommy Sherman'll be geeeeeeeentle."
"I think he's lying," David said.
"Brilliant deduction Mr. Holmes," Daria said.
They rounded a corner that—thank the cat gods—led directly to the doors to the main lobby, which mean being outside and in a large enough space that they could run away really fast and hide somewhere, like a dumpster or at Jane's house. Jane was cool she had trapped a whole bunch of horrifying monsters in her canvases and could use them to protect him and Daria. And the scratching post, maybe.
And then somebody bumped into Daria and nearly knocked Godzilla from her head. It was one of those other writers, Godzilla recognized him, and as he and Daria picked themselves off the floor Godzilla couldn't help but hiss.
"Ahhh ffff—Jesus Daria, can ya watch it please?"
"Run now, bullying later!" Daria said. "Trust me Brett, we really don't want Tommy Sherman to catch us."
"Hey he's only after you," Brett said. "I just don't wanna be here when he shish kebob's you."
"What makes you think he's only killing me?"
"Duh, he's keeps saying 'Misery Chick'?"
"Brett's got a point," David said.
"Thanks boss! Now both of you out of the way!"
Brett pushed past and just barely avoided Godzilla's swiping paw. And just as Brett reached for the door, it was ripped off its hinges and a very decaying-looking Tommy Sherman—buried in his Lawndale Lions uniform, because of course he was—stood revealed with a dead man's smirk.
"Oh shit," Brett said.
"Oh shit," Daria said.
"Not my Head Writer!" David said.
"AAAAYEEEEEE!" Godzilla (somehow) said.
"Heard some loser mention shish kebob," Tommy Sherman said. "Stomach's pretty empty right now, so I could go for some."
Tommy raised his goalpost. Brett started to cower. Godzilla and David both started shaking. And Daria looked on with a pale expression until that little sparking thing her eyes did, whenever she got an idea, did their…well, sparking thing, Godzilla didn't know the words for what it was.
She reached down and yanked off her shoe.
"Hey Mr. President!" she said. And Godzilla watched as it sailed through the air and struck Tommy Sherman right in the blackened bit of brain that was sticking out the side of his face. He yelped and clutched at his head and that gave Brett just enough time to sneak through Tommy's legs and be absolutely no help to anyone at all.
But she'd hit him! She'd done it! Wow, she'd just reached down and grabbed that shoe and took charge, and that's something Godzilla could never do, not just because of the lack of thumbs. He'd never be able to handle a situation like that and…
…and…
…and oh no Tommy Sherman was getting back up!
"I lied," he said, keeping part of his brain from falling out with his hand. "Tommy Sherman's not gonna be gentle at all."
He started shambling towards them and…and oh no, oh no okay Daria would…no Daria was backing up slowly and David was too. Um um um um um uhhhhhhh okay okay what could a cat do? What could a scared lonely cat—no not lonely, just scared, he had Daria—but okay what would Daria as a cat do?
Well she'd probably know how to control her own body well enough that she didn't accidentally trip anyone while they were walking around their apartment but—
Wait that was it! Godzilla leapt down from Daria's head and avoided her grasp as she tried to pull him back and started dancing around this Tommy Sherman person's feet, not really thinking but just trying to make sure his body was somewhere that Tommy Sherman wanted to step. And it seemed like it was working because Tommy Sherman was unsteadily lifting his leg and trying to stomp Godzilla now uh oh it'd worked a little too well.
Another shoe flew through the air just as Tommy was going to take a step, and that was enough to knock him backwards through the door. Daria rushed over and grabbed Godzilla, giving him a massive squeeze, and then reached over and grabbed the back of David's jacket before he could step through the door.
"Horror movie rule number 5: never walk over a fallen enemy. Ever."
She placed Godzilla back on her head and started dragging David down a different hallway until it seemed like he understood where they were going. And Godzilla had an idea of where they were going: the main studio, the theatre, the place where the vacuum dogs from eight legged Space Hell lived and…and…
"It's okay, little one," Daria said, taking Godzilla down from her head. "There's an emergency exit in the theatre—we won't be there long."
"That stupid cat can't understand you," David said.
"You're really not in a position to judge who can and can't understand me," Daria said.
"Oh get off the cross!"
"I will when you stop nailing me to it!"
They burst through the doors to the theatre and yep, yep it was big. It was really really big but Daria had a plan, and that was fine, Godzilla just had to trust her and that'd be fine. And hey, the spotlights were working at least, so there was actually light. That was a nice change of pace.
But okay where was this emergency exit Daria was talking about?
"C'mon Misery Chick," Tommy said, his voice coming from behind them. Somehow he'd caught up with them. "That anyway to treat a classmate?"
"You're five years older than me," Daria said, then paused. "Were five years older than me."
"Do you really want to remind him that he got held back?" David said.
"Hey! Tommy Sherman did not get held back!" the zombified former QB shambled forward until he was on the main stage with Daria, David, and Godzilla. "In fact, Tommy Sherman probably got better grades than you did, geek."
"Geek? GEEK? Oh that's it young man, that tears it!" David unbuttoned his suit jacket and jabbed his finger towards Tommy. "Now I don't know if you realize this, but the studio you're standing in? It's mine. I own this building—that's my name out front there—and neither you nor the network nor the parent's groups will ever take that away from me again! Not with names, not with campaigns, not with the constant, never-ending reminders of how little your hopes and dreams matter when geeks control the world, when geeks leak your transcripts to the school paper to get them the lead role in the big production of Phantom of the Opera, WHEN GEEKS SEND A SWAT TEAM TO YOUR BIRTHDAY PARTY BECAUSE OH NO, THEY DIDN'T GET THE MOST POPULAR GIRL AT SCHOOL BUT DAVID DID! DAVID DID AND WE CAN'T HAVE THAT SO WE'LL MAKE HER HAVE A PANIC ATTACK AND NOT BE ABLE TO STAND THE SIGHT OF DAVID ANYMORE, NOT FOR THE REST OF THE SCHOOL YEAR!"
David took a deep breath, straightened his tie, and crossed his arms. "I may be a liar, a workplace tyrant, a user of women, and an on-and-off again mescaline addict, but I'll never be one of them. I'll never be a geek. Not ever."
Silence in the theatre, long enough that Godzilla noticed they were all fairly close to the host's desk and the set of stairs that led up to rafters.
Then Daria sighed.
"Seriously?" she said.
"A man has to have priorities, Daria," David said.
"That sentence does not, and never will, apply to what you just said."
"Are you tryin' to say that geeks have it easy?" Tommy Sherman said. "Are you tryin' to say that it's the geeks keeping us down? Because mister, I've got news for you. If you let a geek take your popularity away, you never deserved it in the first place."
"You take that back!"
"Make me geek."
"Both of you are terrible," Daria said.
David decided to charge at Tommy and that went about as well as Godzilla expected. Tommy ducked the punch and leveled an uppercut so powerful that teeth flew out in arcs onto the surface of the host's desk. And once David was laying on the ground, Tommy stood over him and raised up his goal post, pointing at the blood flowing out of David's mouth.
"Better dead than red," Tommy Sherman said. "No idea what that means but I heard Ms. Li say that once."
Oh no Daria had put Godzilla down and was moving closer to Tommy no no no no no—
"Tommy," Daria said. "You came back for me. Leave the geek alone and tell me what the mean Mr. Goalpost said to you."
Tommy stopped the pointed end of the goalpost inches before it pierced David's chest and started walking towards Daria, and oh no Tommy was walking towards Daria um um um um—
The rafters. The rafters! Godzilla could see those spotlights were right next to the rafters! Maybe he could use them to blind Tommy or or or something. Godzilla sprinted up the stairs and kept his ears peeled on Daria, hoping that he wouldn't hear her scream or die or no don't think about that c'mon you stupid cat FOCUS.
"Did you miss me?" Daria said, backing up slowly. "You must have, crawling out of the grave just to come to New York."
"Too angry to die," Tommy Sherman said. "Why'd you think a little coma never kept me down?"
"Because you need a brain to actually have brain damage?"
"Oh Tommy Sherman's gettin' real angry now."
Godzilla took one step onto the catwalk above the stage and noticed how dark it was up there. T-the dogs a-and other things could be anywhere but…but no, no Daria needed him and all he had to do was leap up onto one of the lights and do…something. So Godzilla leapt up onto one of the lights and then moved down a few until he was on one that was hanging almost right over top of Tommy Sherman. If Daria kept backing up and he kept following her, he'd pass right under the light and then…Godzilla could loosen one of the screws and send the light crashing down onto Tommy Sherman's head!
And he'd go down with the light.
That…that was uhhhhhh less than stellar, if Godzilla was being honest.
"You're gonna like being dead," Tommy Sherman said. "Nice and alone in a box underground. Just like you Misery Chicks think about all the time, right?"
Tommy Sherman was under the light now and…and this was it. Godzilla unscrewed the screws with each of his paws and after a second of hearing sizzling electricity all around him, gravity temporarily stopped working and then falling was happening. The light went down and Godzilla was on top of it.
"AAAAAAAAYYYYYYEEEEEEEE" Godzilla (somehow) said. Tommy Sherman looked up and saw that it was awfully bright for some reason.
"Oh shoot," he said.
The light collided with Tommy's head and shattered the wooden floor of the stage. The light and Tommy disappeared down this newly created hole, while the impact managed to dislodge Godzilla from the top of the light and send him skidding across the floor towards the hosts desk and David. He heard Daria call out his name in a terrified voce but she didn't need to be afraid, cat's always landed on their feet, even if technically this time he'd landed on his back and couldn't really feel anything anywhere but that was okay, not feeling anything actually felt pretty good if Godzilla was being honest.
Well he felt a little bit of something—mostly that Daria had lifted him up into the air and was holding him close to her chest—but that was all right, he wasn't feeling nauseous or anything. Or afraid. He felt peaceful actually, really really peaceful. He'd helped—Daria was safe.
Something wet landed on his face and he realized that Daria was crying…
"Oh god, Godzilla, please, come on, stay with me."
He was gonna stay with her, of course he was. Why would she even worry about that? He just needed to close his eyes for a bit, just take a quick nap and he'd be right back, right back…and…
…and…
…and no wait he was feeling things now and they HURT AAAAAAAAHOWWW HIS BACK FELT LIKE JAKE HAD STEPPED ON HIM AGAIN.
"Meeeeeeoooooohowhow," Godzilla said.
"Godzilla! Oh thank god, thank god I thought I'd lost you!"
"Meooow."
"Don't you ever do something like that again, do you understand?"
"Meow?"
"…yes of course you helped, little one." Daria smiled. "You're the hero of the show."
Daria took a deep breath and Godzilla did too, letting the pain drain out and testing his arms and legs to make sure they still worked. They did—it just hurt to use them.
"David?" Daria said, holding Godzilla in her arms. "David? Everything all right?"
"Mrmmph, no," David said. "Called me geek. Bastard."
"You'll live."
"Don't wanna."
Just as Daria was about to say something, hands burst through the floor and grabbed Daria by her ankles. "Horror movie rule number five!" Tommy Sherman said, dragging Daria part way down. Godzilla leapt from her arms and she managed to grab the edge of the host's desk before Tommy could pull her all the way down. Godzilla hissed towards the hole but the moment he stepped forward, he felt like every nerve in his front paw was on fire.
"Come play with us Misery Chick! Come play with us forever and ever!"
"Damn...writer's…body…!" Daria said as her nails slipped and started ripping out parts of the host's desk. Godzilla stared and tried to move but he knew he knew he couldn't pull her up on his own he knew that and…
…and then David's body flopped next to Godzilla, just as Daria's hands fully tore through the host's desk, and grabbed onto her wrists. A bit more of her waist disappeared into the hole but otherwise David was keeping her from being fully pulled through.
"David…take Godzilla and leave!" Daria said through gritted teeth.
"Shut up," David said through equally gritted (but significantly bloodier) teeth.
"Tommy Sherman's gonna take both you down."
"SHUT UP!" Daria, David, and Godzilla all said.
This was all fine and good but Godzilla knew that David couldn't hold on forever. He needed to do something…but he knew he could do something, he just needed to figure out what it was.
His muscles were still on fire but, all the same, Godzilla wobbled over to Daria, let out a mighty war-cry, and then jumped into the hole and onto Tommy's face.
"Ah! Tommy Sherman's allergic!"
"Choke on it ya bastard!" David said.
"The eyes!" Daria said. "Go for the eyes!"
But Godzilla had a different idea. Taking a really deep breath (oh cat gods protect him this was gonna get nasty), he crawled into the hole in the side of Tommy Sherman's head and clamped down on what was left of his brain. Then he squeezed and squeezed hard. Tommy Sherman's eyes bulged out of his head like Little Annie Aneurysm and he made a noise that was almost like a chicken, but not quite, so Godzilla decided to do the noise himself. Tommy's grip on Daria's ankles faltered and soon gravity was failing again, but Godzilla managed to yank his upper body out of Tommy's head and leap onto Daria's legs just in time. Tommy Sherman dropped to the basement floor, complete with the splat noise that you'd hear in cartoons.
Godzilla climbed up Daria and started helping David pull her back up onto the stage.
"Is…is he dead?" David said.
"Prob…probably not," Daria said. "He was missing half his brain before he died."
"Fire axe. By the…the emergency exit."
"That'll…have to do."
Godzilla clung to Daria's shoulder as her and David and the fire axe descended the basement stairs. They shuffled nervously towards Tommy's corpse, Daria holding the axe out front, as the remaining stage lights glistened off the glass that was sticking out of…well just about everywhere.
"He looks pretty dead," David said.
"I've thought that twice already," Daria said.
There was a cracking noise above, and then a sparking noise, and then a second light fell through the floor and smashed into Tommy.
And then it exploded.
A piece of Tommy Sherman's arm collided with David and he screamed.
"Okay, now I think he's dead."
"Heheheh," Godzilla (somehow) said.
Daria and David and Godzilla found their way up to the main floor and out into the lobby pretty quickly, where police officers informed them that they were holding reports at bay (one of the writers went to the Times and the Post before they tried looking for help, which was about what you'd expect), but that they were only gonna do that for as long as it took to clean up the "disgruntled former employee" that had targeted the writing staff that night. Daria and David exchanged looks and Godzilla hissed at the cop, but Office Phelps wasn't in the mood to entertain alternative suggestions.
So Daria and David sat in the lobby chairs across from one another and stared at the floor, while Godzilla searched for any bits of glass or Tommy Sherman that'd become stuck in his paws.
"So that's the story, I guess," Daria said.
"Figures the press wouldn't want the truth to come out," David said.
"It sounds like the police are just starting a counter-narrative. Whoever blabbed to the Times and the Post probably gave a highly detailed and in-depth account of what happened here."
"You're being sarcastic with that last bit, right?"
"Is the fact that you're asking me finally an admission that our scripts really do suck?"
David sighed. "No comment."
Godzilla watched them lean back in their chairs.
"Thanks for saving my life a few times," David said.
"Um, thanks for helping out at the end there," Daria said.
"He called me a geek—it was personal."
"Was that sarcasm?"
"No comment," David said.
Godzilla felt like hissing at David again, but it sounded like Daria was chuckling, so maybe that was inappropriate. Or maybe Godzilla could just do it anyways—he had adrenaline now!
"Either way, this could be a… 'fun' thing to talk about," Daria said. "People will ask questions. We could head them off at the pass by making a segment out of what happened." She looked back towards the stage. "And maybe discuss the metaphysical implications of zombies with fully realized personalities, despite repeated trauma to the head."
"You think that'll sell?" David said.
"Seems to work for ESPN," Daria said.
Godzilla watched David scratch at his stitches and tap his foot, which apparently meant he was thinking. It wasn't something Godzilla saw often but it had to happen sooner or later. Eventually, David said: "Hell, why not. Why not! Daria, maybe you're right and this is exactly the kind of content that the show needs to reinvigorate itself. Hard-edged discussions about all sorts of unsavory topics—such as zombies."
"Um, okay," Daria said. "Um, really?"
"Yes! I'm not kidding around here Daria—I think you might really be on to something!"
"I guess that's a first."
"It had to happen sooner or later!"
Godzilla hissed and David raised his hands apologetically. "Kidding of course," he said.
"All right, well if you're so intrigued by this idea, then maybe you'd be open to letting someone co-produce the segment. As in, someone else's name is explicitly mentioned as having written and researched the segment, and perhaps is even allowed to provide pre-recorded bits that firmly establish the sort of work this writer has been trying to do for years, but only recently has been allowed to pursue it."
"You're talking about you, right?"
"I'm sure as hell not talking about Brett."
Godzilla watched David ponder this for a while and, eventually, David nodded. "I think you've earned that much, Daria," he said. "I think you definitely, definitely have…"
(***)
David acted on his promise right up until it was revealed that several major studio producers were going to attend the taping of this segment, at which point Daria was informed that there were sound issues with her pre-recorded segments so they were just gonna go with David's live stuff, hope you understand!
Godzilla sure understood, which is why he bit David's leg.
"What the hell is wrong with your cat?" David said
"I can't control my associate, here," Daria said.
"You could at least try!"
"You could also leave my office. It leads to the same effect."
So Daria watched David present the trails and tribulations of the attack of the zombie from some town he'd never heard of seeking vengeance for who knows what, maybe for all the hard hitting stories that had caused offense in all the right places. Godzilla could see her watching from behind the curtain, just out of sight from the studio audience, her usual scowl on her face and her arms crossed in front of her…
…and Godzilla could see David, too. David was right in front of him, and luckily David's body and the host's desk shielded the audience from view as Godzilla crept under the curtain and towards David's chair. Godzilla briefly made eye contact with Daria—he winked, her brow rose, and a smirk formed on her face.
Godzilla positioned himself just next to David's leg's and when a particularly important bit of his speech was coming up…
…he leapt up onto David's lap and belted out the loudest "MEOW!" he could manage. David rocketed sideways in his chair and started screaming for Daria's help and may, or may not have, wet himself, to the sound of the audience's beautiful, beautiful laughter.
Godzilla waited on David's host's desk while the host tried to compose himself, which David eventually did. When David made eye contact with Godzilla his face sank into a deep, ugly snarl.
"Stupid cat! YOU MADE ME LOOK BAD!"
Daria walked onto the stage and scooped Godzilla up into her arms.
"You didn't need his help for that," she said.
"Hehehehe," Godzilla (somehow) said.
La La LAAA La Laaaa…
I sort of get the feeling that there's like half a million Daria fanfics out there that have a zombified Tommy Sherman in them, so I make no claims to originality. But were any of those fanfics also a crossover/fusion/whatever with Courage the Cowardly Dog? I don't know the answer to that either but meh.
Anyways, hope everyone enjoyed this - or at least didn't hate it with all their heart and soul.