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CROSSING
OVER
Text ©2008 The Angst Guy (theangstguy@yahoo.com)
Daria and associated
characters are ©2008 MTV Networks
Feedback (good, bad, indifferent, just want to bother me,
whatever) is appreciated. Please write to: theangstguy@yahoo.com
Synopsis: A dystopian Mary Sue crossover Daria metafic ficlet that should not
have been written.
Author’s Notes: This was written as an entry in Erin M.’s
February 2003 Iron Chef contest to “write a brief crossover ficlet between ‘Daria’
and a TV show, movie, book, comic book, what have you that by and large, you
believe can’t or shouldn’t be done.” This was a very tempting contest, and this
story was one of the results. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with
the major characters of the Daria TV
show, so explanations of who is who are not needed.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Erin M. for the contest that
spawned this, and RedlegRick for several important corrections. 8)
*
“About
time,” said a familiar voice. “Thought she was gonna stay out for good. No fun
there.”
“Wha’?”
“Dumb as
the rest,” said another familiar voice. “Maybe dumber.
Hard to believe.”
That
voice. The voice was someone . . .
Daria.
Daria? The cartoo—
Bethany
blinked and tried to focus her eyes. Rocks. Lots of
rocks lay right by her face. She was on her side, on the rocky ground under an
open sky.
“Fix her
up,” said Daria.
Someone
put a dark gray boot next to Bethany’s face and jerked her up to her rubbery
feet with enormously strong hands. The hands shoved Bethany back against a pole
that dug into her back, then reached around and tied her hands behind her. She
tried to fight back, her arms flopping weakly against a tall, thin,
hard-muscled body that stank of cigarettes, old sweat, and alcohol.
“Stop
it,” warned a gravelly, feminine voice by her ear, “or you’ll tick me off.”
“Then
she’ll tick you off,” said the Daria
voice, distant and amused. “Way off.”
“Don’t
rush me,” said the voice by Bethany’s ear.
Bethany
focused on the face before her.
Coal-black
bangs. Teardrop face. Eyes as clear
and blue as a winter sky. She had a stale cigarette odor on her breath
and in her hair.
“Jane?”
Bethany murmured. “Jane Lane?”
“Not as
dumb as she looks,” said Jane. Her silken black bangs swung over her eyes. Her
face was a wolf’s, pressing its muzzle against fallen prey, whetting its
appetite.
“Where
am I?”
“Talkative,”
said Jane with a grin. Her hand came up out of nowhere.
SLAP!
The
ringing in Bethany’s ears soon passed. She sobbed and coughed until the burning
pain faded and she could talk again.
Her arms
hurt and wouldn’t move. They were tied behind her. Her legs were tied, too. The
pole pressed into her back and held her upright.
“We do
owe you an explanation,” said Daria.
Bethany
focused her gaze through her tears. Daria stood about twenty feet away, her
left arm across her stomach, right elbow resting in her left palm, a cigarette
in her right fingers, drifting smoke. She looked at Bethany through her
oversized glasses, her eyes like dark pools.
“You
were writing a story, Bethany, or whatever your real name is,” Daria said. “It
was a Mary Sue fanfic. You know what those are. You put yourself into your own
Daria story so you could be our very best friend, because you like us so much.
But you got tired and didn’t finish it, so you went to bed, and now you’re in
your own story, inside your dreams. You’re in your own Mary Sue story in the
body of your character, just like you wanted. Isn’t that special?” She took a
long drag on her cigarette.
“What?”
cried
“I take
back that part about her not being as dumb as she looks,” said Jane.
“What
are you doing?”
Daria
took the cigarette from her mouth, slowly exhaling a cloud of smoke. “Helping you with your writing career,
Bethany
fought against her bonds. It was useless and hurt a lot.
“You
wanted to meet us, didn’t you?” asked Jane, putting something in her mouth and
chewing on it. She had a large gray backpack on.
“You
know what?” Bethany gasped. “I am a writer, that’s right, but . . . but my name’s
not really Bethany! I swear it!
A moment
of silence passed.
“It’s
not, huh?” said Daria, unimpressed.
“No, really! You know what? This will sound crazy, really
crazy, but I’m not even a girl, really! I’m not! I’m—”
“You’re
a guy, right?” said Jane, chewing gum. A brown beer bottle hung from the
fingers of her right hand. “You’re a guy. A guy fanfic writer, in the body of
the character you created to be our special friend.”
“Doesn’t that get confusing?” Daria asked, deadpan. “Which restroom do you use in the high school?”
“Wha—yeah! Yeah, that’s funny. That’s pretty good! Isn’t it
crazy? I’m . . . How did you . . . I don’t remember my real name. I can’t
remember my name, but yeah, I’m a guy, and I write stories. I’m from the real
world! Not your world, but the real one! I’m not a girl, honest! I just
. . . I was writing this, and . . . I can’t believe this, that this is all
happening, you know.”
“Do
tell,” said Daria. She took a quick drag on her cigarette, paused, then exhaled the smoke through her nose like a dragon. She
watched Bethany with narrow eyes.
“I’ll
tell you about it, the real world!” cried Bethany. “You won’t believe it! See,
you’re in a cartoon—you’re not real, and I am!”
“I’m a
cartoon,” said Daria, but she looked quite real suddenly, standing there with a
cigarette in her hand. Bethany could see every strand of her auburn-brown hair,
every detail of her green-and-black clothing.
And Bethany could taste the blood in her mouth now, too.
“But I’m
real!” Bethany shouted. “You’re a cartoon, and I’m real! I am!”
There
was a little silence.
“You
don’t know how many times I’ve heard that, Bethany,” said Daria in a tired
voice. “You have no idea how many times I’ve heard that very . . . same . . .
thing.”
“This
can’t be happening!”
“Oh,
it’s happening,” said Daria. She looked down to scuff her right boot in the
dust. “I’m afraid we already know the difference between reality and
not-reality, given my comments about this being a dream, you see? We’re more
than cartoons, Jane and I. We’re sort of . . . out there in timeless space,
floating around in the void, you know, disembodied intellects, but we’re very
aware of fanfic. We know all about the fanfic people write about us, and
sometimes—a lot of the time, really—we see fanfic that catches us wrong, and we
just feel the need to step and help people out with the way they write stories.
Altruism, that’s all it is. You know what altruism means, right?”
“Daria’s
good with stories,” said Jane. She raised the beer bottle and drank deeply from
it.
“See,”
said Daria, waving her cigarette to make the point, “you were writing a Mary
Sue, a really sucky one, and maybe I should be grateful that it wasn’t porn or
a lame ‘shipper or out of character or whatever. I don’t like them, either.
Still, it sucked. You need to broaden your horizons. The kind of story you’re
in right now, for example. It’s called a crossover.”
“A crossover?” Bethany stared at her. “A
fanfic crossover?”
“That’s
it,” said Daria, nodding. “This is a crossover.” She put the cigarette between
her lips and took a long drag, eyeing Bethany all the while.
“It’s a
fun crossover,” said Jane. The wolf look was back in her face. Her gaze ran
slowly up and down Bethany’s figure from face to toes, mostly wandering the
areas in between. “It’s cool.”
“Let me
tell this,” said Daria, not looking at Jane.
“Let me.
You take too long.”
“Screw
you if you don’t like it.”
“You and
your promises,” Jane muttered.
“I’ll
give you a hundred if you let me tell this.”
Jane
sighed, looking Bethany over. “Sure,” she said finally. “A
hundred smackeroos. You got it.”
“A
hundred,” agreed Daria. Her eyes were on Bethany, but she wasn’t seeing Bethany
anymore. “A crossover,” she said to the air behind Bethany. “This is a
dystopian Mary Sue crossover Daria ficlet that should never be written. Maybe
it’s a metafic, too. Yeah, a dystopian Mary Sue crossover
Daria metafic ficlet. Metaficlet, maybe. Got
that? See, that was quick.”
“That
should never be written.” Jane grinned, chewing her gum. “You forgot that part.”
Her ice-blue eyes glittered.
Something
inside Bethany’s head snapped.
“I can’t
believe you’re doing this!” Bethany shouted. “You not supposed to be—this
isn’t—this is just totally ridiculous! It’s just a bunch of bullcrap! You’re
not Daria and Jane! This isn’t Lawndale! It’s not real, it isn’t real at all!”
Daria
grinned at Bethany now. Jane’s own grin was fading, her eyes cold and growing
colder.
“I am
Daria,” said Daria calmly. “Daria Morgendorffer. And this is Jane Lane. We
really are who we are. And this is Lawndale. We’re in the abandoned quarry
outside town, where we brought you after we slipped you that funny little drink
when we were at the pizza parlor. You’re really here. You can even smell my
cigarette, can’t you?”
“You are
not Daria and Jane!” Bethany screamed. “I can’t smell anything! Nothing! This
is a dream, just a stupid dream, and I want to wake up!”
“You
can’t wake up until you remember your real name,” said Daria. “But we took your
real name before you got here. Took it and hid it away.” She shrugged. “Bummer, huh?”
“Wake
up!” Bethany screamed. “Please, wake up!”
“We got
a rag to stuff in her mouth?” asked Jane, looking around the rocks.
“Let her
talk,” said Daria. “Him talk. Whatever.” She took a
last pull on her cigarette, then leaned down and crushed it out on a rock. “You
got the tools?”
“If
you’ve got the time,” said Jane. She carefully set her beer bottle among the
rocks near her feet, then shrugged off her backpack and set it on the ground,
unzipping it.
“If this
is a crossover,” Bethany shouted, toeing hysteria, “which is the most stupid
dumbass idea I can possibly imagine, the stupidest most idiotic thing I’ve ever
heard of, then what kind of book or movie or other crap are we crossed with?
What is it?”
Jane
glanced at Daria, then shrugged and looked inside the backpack, rummaging
around for something.
“What
are we crossed with?” Daria said. “Our little metaficlet?
We’re crossed with the ‘dee ess em four are’.”
Breathing
heavily, Bethany looked from Daria to Jane and back. “The
what? What is that?”
Jane
pulled two small cardboard boxes from the backpack. The small boxes had orange
covers. Jane set one box down and opened the other, peering inside. Metal
clinked on metal within.
“It’s an
abbreviation,” said Daria. “
Bethany
stared at Daria, who coolly stared back. “What in the hell is that?” Bethany
yelled. “What are you talking about? What in the hell is a DSR-whatever the
hell that is?”
“Potty
mouth,” said Jane. “I ought to slap you until your pea brain falls out.” She
put down the orange box and reached inside the backpack again.
“Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual,” said Daria. “It’s the main reference that
psychiatrists use to diagnose their patients. That’s what we’re crossed over
with in your dreams, Mister Guy Fanfic Writer in a Schoolgirl’s Body.”
Bethany
stared for a moment longer—then broke into a high-pitched laugh. This was too,
too funny now, much too funny to be real. “A psychiatrist’s manual? I’m in a
crossover in a . . .”
Jane’s
hand came out of the gray backpack with a large black .357 Magnum.
The
laugh died.
“Sucks
to be you,” Daria said softly, looking at Bethany. She glanced at Jane. “Did
you bring mine, too?”
“Yeah,”
said Jane, opening up the pistol to look into chambers of the cylinder. “Even cleaned it for you. Thought we could alternate, you me
you me etcetera.”
“Okay,”
said Bethany with a dry mouth. Her eyes were fixed on the gun that Jane held.
“Okay, okay, no problem. I apologize. You win. I’m really sorry I said what I
said. That was stupid, and I didn’t mean it. I’m serious, okay? I—I didn’t mean
it.”
Jane
reached for the beer bottle beside her, took a short drink from it, and set it
down again. Her fingers went back to loading coppery bullets into the black
cylinder.
“I said
I’m sorry! I’ll stop writing fanfic, if that’s what you want. I promise. No
more. It’s stupid anyway. Let’s be friends and let this go.”
“‘Let’s
be friends’,” said Daria. “I like that.”
“I like
friends,” said Jane. She snapped the cylinder shut and looked the pistol over.
“They’re fun.”
“Wait
for me,” said Daria. Jane handed her the other pistol, a silver-plated .45
Colt.
“Use
both hands, okay?” said Jane. “You almost shot my freaking block off last
time.”
“Do I
make you nervous?” Daria ejected the magazine from the handle and looked
inside. “Hollow points. Thanks.”
Jane
grinned. “Anything for you, amiga.”
Daria
jammed the magazine back into the pistol and clicked off the safety. “You first.”
Jane’s
grin deepened. She stood erect, her arms loose, chewing her gum, looking back
at Daria.
“Jane
and I are Conduct Disorders right now,” said Daria to Bethany. “When we turn
eighteen, we’ll be Antisocial Personality Disorders, just like the DSM-IV-R
says. Sociopaths, you would say. My kind of crossover.”
“We all
need our own special goals to aspire to,” said Jane. She sounded as if she was
quoting.
“That’s
O’Neill,” said Daria. “Feed the ego, split the infinitive.”
“I’ll do
anything you want!” said Bethany, looking from one to the other. “Anything! I swear I will, I swear it! Anything
at all!”
Daria
tried to stifle a smile. Jane giggled.
“Scream
for us,” said Daria.
Jane
turned. The pistol came up so fast in her hands there was no time to—
*
Original: 02/19/03; revised 08/04/03, 06/18/06, 09/22/06, 11/08/07, 11/29/08
FINIS
