Is It Spring Yet? (Daria/Jane) for proteinscollide
Title: Is It Spring Yet?
Author: dexwebster
Recipient: proteinscollide
Fandom: Daria
Pairing: Daria/Jane
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 1800
Summary: There's always something to look forward to.
It was more relieving than Daria would've thought to know that not only was the house still standing, but no one had changed the locks in the three months she had been at college. She let herself in and deposited her bags next to her bed on the floor--room also intact--before she went downstairs to plop on the couch--the dent wasn't properly formed to her ass anymore, but she'd live--and turned on Sick, Sad World. It was actually kind of nice to come home when she didn't live there.
The feeling lasted only as long as the house was devoid of other human life. The story on a killer sofa was just ending when the front door opened and Daria heard the sounds of her mother arriving home (distinguishable by the lack of footsteps entering the kitchen, which her father never failed to do, and the indistinguishable chatter of her on her cell phone).
"Daria!" her mother said as she entered the living room a few minutes later, still in her business suit. "We weren't expecting you until Sunday."
"Yeah." Daria shrugged. "I was going to carpool with a girl in one of my classes, but that fell through so I caught a ride with Jane a couple days early." Mustering one's courage to say something delicate was even harder when the other person didn't know it was coming. This was all Jane's fault, really.
________
"You know why we broke up."
"Rebecca broke up with you because she wanted a more serious relationship than you did."
"She said I'm a commitment-phobic misanthrope who couldn't even introduce her to my parents for fear of being misinterpreted as being in a serious romantic relationship."
"Aren't you?"
"We were together less than two months and she'd also planned where in our future home my furniture would go."
"I didn't say she's not crazy, I just don't think that negates the valid points she did have." Jane looked out the window. "Part of the reason you didn't want to bring Rebecca home is because your parents didn't know you're gay, right?"
"Yeah."
"So why not tell your parents?"
"I don't want to make a big deal about it."
"Then you shouldn't have any problem telling them."
"I think you're going to tell your parents eventually anyway, and I think it was a pretty lame excuse this time, and it will be lamer next time."
"Hey!"
"Hey what? The more you refuse to do it, the bigger a deal it is. And it's not like you have a habit of making up crazy stories. You've never been invested enough in parental authority to rebel against it.
"I think you should do it." Jane threw her napkin on her plate for emphasis.
"Of course you do," Daria said flatly.
________
The time was evening, the day the twenty-second of December, and three out of four members of the Morgendorffer household were staring across the dinner table at each other. Jake was in the kitchen, singing, as he put the finishing touches on dinner.
"So how are your classes going, honey?" Daria's mother asked.
Daria had admittedly had visions of putting it off for the next three days and breaking it during Christmas dinner surrounded by the extended family, but she wasn't quite sadistic enough for that. Probably.
"My classes are fine. But my girlfriend and I broke up."
"Oh!" Helen said, shocked. She gulped a little, and then said, "Oh honey. How are you doing?"
Daria forgot sometimes that her mother could actually be pretty cool.
"Last week kind of sucked," Daria admitted, "but she was pretty crazy, so it's okay."
"So is this a--long-term..."
"Yeah."
"Dad," Quinn asked when Jake returned to the table with an only slightly charred roast beef, "can I have a car since Daria's gay now?"
"Quinn, your sister being a lesbian doesn't make you any more responsible than you were two minutes ago." Helen looked at Daria. "You are a lesbian?"
Daria blinked. "Yeah, mom."
And that was that.
(For a while anyway. There was a brief two minutes that night where her mother attempted to have another sex talk with her, and had to be assured that, no, there would be no adopted or surrogate children any time in the near future. There was also an aborted attempt at her mother consoling her because she and Jane would work it out, really.
The conversation ended very abruptly when her mother realized her mistake and went to the kitchen for tea.)
Daria answered the ring of the doorbell at 9pm sharp that night. There was a cute redheaded boy wearing black glasses and a little cap at the door. Daria was about to tell him that whatever he was selling they weren't buying, but Quinn magically warped to the door or something, she got there so quickly, and ushered him in.
"Patrick," Quinn told him proudly, "this is my sister Daria. Daria's a lesbian." She looked quite pleased with herself. "Daria, Patrick's the co-chair of the Gay/Straight Alliance at the community college."
"So I get to be your sister in public now that it gets you an in with a cute guy?"
Patrick visibly blushed.
"I'm introducing you to people you'll be comfortable with," Quinn insisted. "I'm being supportive."
"You're being exploitative."
"What's the big deal? It's something we have in common. Patrick's best friend is gay, my sister is a lesbian. We're bonding." Quinn put her hand on Daria's shoulder in a way that was very sympathetic and mildly terrifying. "I understand that you're new to this whole world of having a social life, but a key to successful romantic relationships is sharing common interests with your partner."
"I will tell mom to put you through sensitivity training."
"Well it was nice meeting you, Daria." The first and only thing Daria had heard him say and he was getting away. Smart boy. "I'll be sure to have Quinn home by midnight." And the door shut with them on the other side of it.
At two o'clock the next afternoon, the phone rang. Daria heard her mother's voice through the bedroom door. "Daria, it's Jane."
By Daria's crude calculations, Jane had survived roughly seventeen hours in the intact Lane household before she called for help. Not a record, but it was a noble effort. Her mom met her halfway up the staircase and passed her the cordless phone. Her face was still in professional mode, so the little wrinkle between her eyebrows was the closest she got to frowning.
"Hey," Daria said into the phone.
"Get me out of this house," Jane said, very quietly and carefully, like she was trying not to attract the attention of the large predatory animal in the corner. Daria supposed that was a fair analogy for Jane's family.
"Pizza?"
"Perfect. I'll be out front."
The entire conversation took the other half of the stairs, and Daria put the phone back in its cradle as she passed through the kitchen and took the car keys from the hook by the door. "I'm going out with Jane."
"Of course you are," her mother said.
"What?"
"Nothing, dear. You go have fun."
"And cheer up about Jane, honey. I know you two crazy kids will work it out somehow."
"Dad, Jane and I," Daria said, and stopped. It occurred to her that this was an attempt on Jake's part to be a good father, active and offering helpful fatherly advice in his daughter's life. She looked at the painfully cheery smile on his face--oblivious to Helen standing beside him and wincing--and she sighed. Damned sense of filial responsibility. "We're talking about it."
He hugged her. "That's great."
Jane sidestepped a pile of slush on the sidewalk as they made their way to the bookstore Jane worked at. "So why did I get an email from Jodie telling me that we can work it out?"
"There's been a slight misunderstanding among the Lawndale populous." Daria kept her head down and metaphorically heard Jane's eyebrow raise.
"I'm assuming it doesn't involve Beatles' lyrics."
"I came out to my parents and told them I'd just broken up with my girlfriend, and they assumed it was you. Quinn, obviously, has told everyone she knows, mainly because she's garnering some kind of hipster social cachet for having a queer sister."
Jane was quiet for a long minute. "So hey, your sexuality's been commandeered for political gain. You're officially a repressed minority now."
"Help," Daria said dryly, "I'm being repressed."
"And now you need a champion to defend the blossoming flower of your sexuality?"
"My blossoming flower, huh?"
"Definitely blossoming. Possibly even budding."
"So what kind of champion does this involve?"
"Someone with fewer hang-ups than me. Oh look. We're here," she said, and made a face like she was genuinely surprised that the building they'd been standing in front of for two minutes had just appeared. "I have to go to work now. See you later," and Jane darted into the building without so much as giving Daria a chance to say goodbye, let alone, "What the fuck?"
Jane didn't answer her phone that night when Daria tried to call her. She did however, wake Daria up at 9am the next morning banging on the door to her dorm room.
(Daria would almost have cared about whether it would wake her roommate up, but she had one of those roommates who was in the room so little that Daria couldn't have picked her out of a lineup. "I think she plans her entrances around my being out of the room," she told Jane once. Jane had suggest she was scared--Daria didn't look homicidal most of the time, but she looked she could choke a bitch if she had to).
"So," Jane said as soon as the door opened, "My hang-ups mostly involve me being jealous while you were dating Tom. I thought I was jealous of you. Hypothetically, if I wanted to kiss you right now, would you say A, 'Yes'; B, 'It's flattering and thank you but no', or C, 'get out of my sight, you big freak'?"
"The middle part of B and the last part of C," Daria said finally. "But mostly A."
They were laying in bed three weeks later, watching the snow fall. There was already a foot and a half on the ground. Jane was wrapped around Daria, covers pulled to their shoulders, attempting to keep in the last of the warmth they'd trapped under the covers.
"Hey, just for fun, can we tell Tom he turned us both gay?"
And that was when Daria really started to look forward to spring break.
Author: dexwebster
Recipient: proteinscollide
Fandom: Daria
Pairing: Daria/Jane
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 1800
Summary: There's always something to look forward to.
It was more relieving than Daria would've thought to know that not only was the house still standing, but no one had changed the locks in the three months she had been at college. She let herself in and deposited her bags next to her bed on the floor--room also intact--before she went downstairs to plop on the couch--the dent wasn't properly formed to her ass anymore, but she'd live--and turned on Sick, Sad World. It was actually kind of nice to come home when she didn't live there.
The feeling lasted only as long as the house was devoid of other human life. The story on a killer sofa was just ending when the front door opened and Daria heard the sounds of her mother arriving home (distinguishable by the lack of footsteps entering the kitchen, which her father never failed to do, and the indistinguishable chatter of her on her cell phone).
"Daria!" her mother said as she entered the living room a few minutes later, still in her business suit. "We weren't expecting you until Sunday."
"Yeah." Daria shrugged. "I was going to carpool with a girl in one of my classes, but that fell through so I caught a ride with Jane a couple days early." Mustering one's courage to say something delicate was even harder when the other person didn't know it was coming. This was all Jane's fault, really.
________
"You know why we broke up."
"Rebecca broke up with you because she wanted a more serious relationship than you did."
"She said I'm a commitment-phobic misanthrope who couldn't even introduce her to my parents for fear of being misinterpreted as being in a serious romantic relationship."
"Aren't you?"
"We were together less than two months and she'd also planned where in our future home my furniture would go."
"I didn't say she's not crazy, I just don't think that negates the valid points she did have." Jane looked out the window. "Part of the reason you didn't want to bring Rebecca home is because your parents didn't know you're gay, right?"
"Yeah."
"So why not tell your parents?"
"I don't want to make a big deal about it."
"Then you shouldn't have any problem telling them."
"I think you're going to tell your parents eventually anyway, and I think it was a pretty lame excuse this time, and it will be lamer next time."
"Hey!"
"Hey what? The more you refuse to do it, the bigger a deal it is. And it's not like you have a habit of making up crazy stories. You've never been invested enough in parental authority to rebel against it.
"I think you should do it." Jane threw her napkin on her plate for emphasis.
"Of course you do," Daria said flatly.
________
The time was evening, the day the twenty-second of December, and three out of four members of the Morgendorffer household were staring across the dinner table at each other. Jake was in the kitchen, singing, as he put the finishing touches on dinner.
"So how are your classes going, honey?" Daria's mother asked.
Daria had admittedly had visions of putting it off for the next three days and breaking it during Christmas dinner surrounded by the extended family, but she wasn't quite sadistic enough for that. Probably.
"My classes are fine. But my girlfriend and I broke up."
"Oh!" Helen said, shocked. She gulped a little, and then said, "Oh honey. How are you doing?"
Daria forgot sometimes that her mother could actually be pretty cool.
"Last week kind of sucked," Daria admitted, "but she was pretty crazy, so it's okay."
"So is this a--long-term..."
"Yeah."
"Dad," Quinn asked when Jake returned to the table with an only slightly charred roast beef, "can I have a car since Daria's gay now?"
"Quinn, your sister being a lesbian doesn't make you any more responsible than you were two minutes ago." Helen looked at Daria. "You are a lesbian?"
Daria blinked. "Yeah, mom."
And that was that.
(For a while anyway. There was a brief two minutes that night where her mother attempted to have another sex talk with her, and had to be assured that, no, there would be no adopted or surrogate children any time in the near future. There was also an aborted attempt at her mother consoling her because she and Jane would work it out, really.
The conversation ended very abruptly when her mother realized her mistake and went to the kitchen for tea.)
Daria answered the ring of the doorbell at 9pm sharp that night. There was a cute redheaded boy wearing black glasses and a little cap at the door. Daria was about to tell him that whatever he was selling they weren't buying, but Quinn magically warped to the door or something, she got there so quickly, and ushered him in.
"Patrick," Quinn told him proudly, "this is my sister Daria. Daria's a lesbian." She looked quite pleased with herself. "Daria, Patrick's the co-chair of the Gay/Straight Alliance at the community college."
"So I get to be your sister in public now that it gets you an in with a cute guy?"
Patrick visibly blushed.
"I'm introducing you to people you'll be comfortable with," Quinn insisted. "I'm being supportive."
"You're being exploitative."
"What's the big deal? It's something we have in common. Patrick's best friend is gay, my sister is a lesbian. We're bonding." Quinn put her hand on Daria's shoulder in a way that was very sympathetic and mildly terrifying. "I understand that you're new to this whole world of having a social life, but a key to successful romantic relationships is sharing common interests with your partner."
"I will tell mom to put you through sensitivity training."
"Well it was nice meeting you, Daria." The first and only thing Daria had heard him say and he was getting away. Smart boy. "I'll be sure to have Quinn home by midnight." And the door shut with them on the other side of it.
At two o'clock the next afternoon, the phone rang. Daria heard her mother's voice through the bedroom door. "Daria, it's Jane."
By Daria's crude calculations, Jane had survived roughly seventeen hours in the intact Lane household before she called for help. Not a record, but it was a noble effort. Her mom met her halfway up the staircase and passed her the cordless phone. Her face was still in professional mode, so the little wrinkle between her eyebrows was the closest she got to frowning.
"Hey," Daria said into the phone.
"Get me out of this house," Jane said, very quietly and carefully, like she was trying not to attract the attention of the large predatory animal in the corner. Daria supposed that was a fair analogy for Jane's family.
"Pizza?"
"Perfect. I'll be out front."
The entire conversation took the other half of the stairs, and Daria put the phone back in its cradle as she passed through the kitchen and took the car keys from the hook by the door. "I'm going out with Jane."
"Of course you are," her mother said.
"What?"
"Nothing, dear. You go have fun."
"And cheer up about Jane, honey. I know you two crazy kids will work it out somehow."
"Dad, Jane and I," Daria said, and stopped. It occurred to her that this was an attempt on Jake's part to be a good father, active and offering helpful fatherly advice in his daughter's life. She looked at the painfully cheery smile on his face--oblivious to Helen standing beside him and wincing--and she sighed. Damned sense of filial responsibility. "We're talking about it."
He hugged her. "That's great."
Jane sidestepped a pile of slush on the sidewalk as they made their way to the bookstore Jane worked at. "So why did I get an email from Jodie telling me that we can work it out?"
"There's been a slight misunderstanding among the Lawndale populous." Daria kept her head down and metaphorically heard Jane's eyebrow raise.
"I'm assuming it doesn't involve Beatles' lyrics."
"I came out to my parents and told them I'd just broken up with my girlfriend, and they assumed it was you. Quinn, obviously, has told everyone she knows, mainly because she's garnering some kind of hipster social cachet for having a queer sister."
Jane was quiet for a long minute. "So hey, your sexuality's been commandeered for political gain. You're officially a repressed minority now."
"Help," Daria said dryly, "I'm being repressed."
"And now you need a champion to defend the blossoming flower of your sexuality?"
"My blossoming flower, huh?"
"Definitely blossoming. Possibly even budding."
"So what kind of champion does this involve?"
"Someone with fewer hang-ups than me. Oh look. We're here," she said, and made a face like she was genuinely surprised that the building they'd been standing in front of for two minutes had just appeared. "I have to go to work now. See you later," and Jane darted into the building without so much as giving Daria a chance to say goodbye, let alone, "What the fuck?"
Jane didn't answer her phone that night when Daria tried to call her. She did however, wake Daria up at 9am the next morning banging on the door to her dorm room.
(Daria would almost have cared about whether it would wake her roommate up, but she had one of those roommates who was in the room so little that Daria couldn't have picked her out of a lineup. "I think she plans her entrances around my being out of the room," she told Jane once. Jane had suggest she was scared--Daria didn't look homicidal most of the time, but she looked she could choke a bitch if she had to).
"So," Jane said as soon as the door opened, "My hang-ups mostly involve me being jealous while you were dating Tom. I thought I was jealous of you. Hypothetically, if I wanted to kiss you right now, would you say A, 'Yes'; B, 'It's flattering and thank you but no', or C, 'get out of my sight, you big freak'?"
"The middle part of B and the last part of C," Daria said finally. "But mostly A."
They were laying in bed three weeks later, watching the snow fall. There was already a foot and a half on the ground. Jane was wrapped around Daria, covers pulled to their shoulders, attempting to keep in the last of the warmth they'd trapped under the covers.
"Hey, just for fun, can we tell Tom he turned us both gay?"
And that was when Daria really started to look forward to spring break.