James The Lesser Presents Vinny Lane

Read Not So Different by The Other J-D and loved it. Read his other one that didn't finish that Genderflipped every one. Started reading another that GF Jane but couldn't stand it. Just changed too much. Literally, like, "Hi, I'm J-" Daria jumps on him and starts dry humping while shouting "Date me date me date me!" Couldn't even finish the first season it was just so, so, not Daria. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Jane being a guy would change some things but the author had Daria jumping the GF Jane in less than three words.(Ok, exaggeration, but get my point) But it gave me ideas for my own. But IDK if I want to do each individual episode, or do like three run together at a time, since I would be focusing on Vincent Lane Jr. or Vinny, as he goes by. Or do some Vinny, some Daria, like the show it didn't just focus 100% on Daria it would split off from her. So I'll work on this between other things and hope people enjoy it.

Vincent Lane Jr. walked by a crowd of people huddled around a car. Ignoring them as much as he always did he continued to class.

As he sat down in his history class he noticed a new girl. Wow, that's a ton of hair. Must be a pain to keep up. He subconsciously runs a hand through his short almost crop top hair.

He always kept his hair short as shampoo wasn't always on the shopping list when his brother did do the shopping.

His black shirt was clean, ish. At least there wasn't any paint on it. If there was his other shirt, an open buttoned red shirt, covered it up.

Mr. Demartino stood at the front of the classroom. Vincent was used to his bulging eyeball and wondered what the new student thought of it.

"Hello class, we have a new student today joining us today." How brain dead would some one have to be to not notice? Well, besides Kevin and Brittany. "Please welcome Daria Morgendorffer. Daria, raise your hand please." He sees the new girl raise her hand. "Well Daria, as long as you have your hand raised..." His smirk was normal for Vinny. He couldn't see the new girls face to see her reaction.

Mr. Demartino taps his fingers together as he leans in. "Last week, we began a unit on westward expansion. Perhaps you feel it is unfair to be asked a question on your first day of class."

I would love to see the look on her face. I bet it would make a great sketch. "Excuse me?"

"Daria, can you concisely and unemotionally sum up the doctrine of Manifest Destiny?"

With no hesitation she replied. "Manifest Destiny was a slogan popular in the eighteen-forties. It was used by people who claimed it was God's will for the U. S. to expand all the way to the Pacific Ocean. These people didn't include many Mexicans."

Ok, maybe I should sketch his face. He wasn't expecting that.

DeMartino's smirk changed little. "Very good, Daria. Almost…suspiciously good."

After school, Vincent walked to his self esteem class. It was some thing to do and some times there were interesting faces to sketch.

One interesting face he wasn't expecting was the new girl. After that response... I guess it makes sense. She's too smart to give them the answers they want.

And being too smart meant she didn't understand the babble the teacher, Timothy O'Neil, was spewing. Any one with an I.Q. Over 100 wouldn't get it.

Vincent took pity on the new girl and leaned over. "Just listen to the soothing voice and get some homework done."

She turned a little and for once he saw her face up close. Very interesting structure. The way the glasses frame her eyes... He tried to push thoughts of more sketches as she talked.

"How am I supposed to follow if I don't know what he is saying?"

Vincent tapped his notebook. "I've taken this class six times. I have all the notes right here. I can fill you in later."

The new girl, Daria, moved a little. It was only an inch or two but it was away from him. "Later?"

Vincent notices her reaction. "I mean, if you want. I walk home and if we live in the same direction we could walk together."

"Let me think about it." The new girl turned back so she was facing the front.

As the class finished, Vincent waited at the door for the new girl.

When she walks out he stands out and extends his hand. "Hey, I'm Vincent, Vinny Lane."

She doesn't take his hand. "Daria, Daria Morgendorffer."

He lowers his hand. "Ok, well, are we walking and talking?"

He notices a slight curl to her lips, just barely, some thing only some one like him would notice after years of sketching and painting faces. "I guess."

As they left school grounds Vinny has to slow down a step or two as she fell behind. "What do you think of," Vinny clears his throat and does his best impersonation of the principal. "Lawndale High."

"The teachers hate me because I know the answers. The students are the same as any other school. My sister fit in right away as I figured and you're the first person to acknowledge my existence. Not sure what that says about you."

"It says I noticed the new girl has an interesting face." She stops and he does too. "I meant, I'm an artist. I do sketches and paintings, sculptures, sometimes clay, and any thing else I can do to release my creativity."

She gives him a suspicious stare but continues walking. "Would I have seen any of your stuff?"

"Not unless you've been in my room." Vinny stops and slings his book pack off digging out a sketch book. "These are incomplete but all I have on me right now." He hands her the sketch book.

Daria recognizes the teachers, and students, the sketches were of even if he changed their heads to various fruits other food. "These beat any of my sketches."

"You draw too?" She shrugs her shoulders. "Any thing I would have seen?"

He sees the slightest curl of her lips again. "Nothing you would have seen unless you've been in my room."

I better not comment on that. "So, uh, where are you from?"

"A hellhole named Highland. The water was poison and the people were worse."

Sounds fun. "Why did you move to Lawndale?"

"My mother got a job with a new law firm."

"Law firm? She's a lawyer?" She nods. "Wow. What does your dad do?"

"Business consulting. What do your parents do?"

That's a little difficult to explain. "Technically they travel for work. My dad does a lot of photography and my mom... Does what she does."

He was taken aback by the look of concern on her face. "Travel for work? Who do you live with?"

"Oh, my brother, Trent. He's old enough to be considered an adult supervisor."

"That sounds, different." She stops again. Did I say some thing wrong? "This is where I live."

Vinny turns to the red brick house. "Not bad. The red brick covers up any blood spatter."

"Is that why you wear that red shirt?"

"For the most part." Vinny smiles. "If you get a hold of me tomorrow before school we can go over the self esteem stuff."

She rolls her eyes. "His speech was memorized from some book that was put together by million dollar professionals and was still insipid. Why you keep taking the class over and over..."

Vinny shrugs his shoulders. "I see different faces and it gives me time to work on new stuff."

She turns towards her house. "I guess I can use it to get most of my homework done before getting home. More time to watch Sick Sad World."

Vinny lets out a short laugh. "I was about to go home and watch that myself."

"It will give us some thing else to talk about after we go over why our self esteem is so important." Vinny gives her another short laugh.

"Why don't they understand we don't have low self esteem for ourselves, just every one else."

Daria replies with a curt nod and walks towards her house leaving Vinny to walk alone to his.

Vinny walks in the house and opens the fridge to find a half eaten pizza. "Good enough for breakfast good enough for dinner." He takes it out and puts two slices on a plate to warm up in the oven.

His brother walks up from the basement and sees Vinny. "Yo. You're late."

"You're always late."

"How I know you're late."

Vinny couldn't argue with that logic. "Just took longer walking home after class."

Trent makes a grunt noise and opens the fridge grabbing a beer before heading back down to the basement.

The next morning, after a great struggle, Vinny woke up a few minutes earlier than normal. He wanted to get out and meet up with Daria before school.

When he got to the Morgendorffer house he was surprised to see a bubbly redhead. Wow. She's cute. And knows her color coordination. Would be interesting for a painting... Must be the sister Daria mentioned yesterday. Can definitely see the family resemblance. Even if the sister is... Better not think about that right now.

The redhead ignores him and walks by him on the sidewalk.

A minute later Daria walked out. "Oh, uh, hey."

"Hey." Vinny looks back at the retreating redhead. "Who was that?"

She gives him a look. He wasn't sure what to make of it. "My sister, Quinn. Why?"

"She ignored my existence. I could have been a serial puppy kicker and she wouldn't have known any better."

"She probably already knows you aren't part of the It Crowd so has zero interest."

"Like my checking account. If I had one." He notices no reaction from Daria. "So, self esteem stuff?" He holds up his notebook.

"How hard could it be?" She takes the notebook and opens it.

As they walk she shakes her head and mumbles. "Asinine. This class is even stupider than I thought it would be."

"Can any thing be that dumb?" Now he notices the slight curl that he figured was as much as she gave for a smile.

"Hmm. From what I saw yesterday maybe Kevin and Brittany."

"Hey, he's the QB. He's taken so many blows to the head I'm sure he has trouble remembering his own name."

"As long as he can throw the puck down the court for the home run he'll get to college."

Vinny says nothing as they get to Lawndale High. "Well, I'm off to science. You?"

"Math." Vinny makes a face. "What?"

"Well, I'm sure you've never gotten a C in any class but let's just say I celebrate getting a C in math."

"Hmm..." Daria leaves it at that as they split up to go to their different classes.

Walking towards self esteem class they walked past a boy leaning against a wall and talking to her sister.

The boy was clearly infatuated. "So... like, what do you like to do after school?"

She smiled. Any one who wasn't used to painting and sketching faces would think it was the smile of innocence. But Vinny knew it was any thing but. "Oh, nothing special. Go to the movies... or, like, a theme park... or out for a really fancy meal now and then... or maybe go to a concert, if, like, I know somebody's got good seats and is renting a limo and stuff."

Vinny shook his head. "You hear that? He's about to go down in flames."

Daria looks over at the two and sighs. "Unless he gets really good tickets."

The boy pressed on, "So, you've got any brothers or sisters?"

"I'm an only child."

Daria frowned and continued walking.

Vinny looked between the two, clearly seeing the family resemblance. Ouch. Maybe she does have self esteem issues if her sister treats her like that.

Walking home after class, he shows her a new sketch he did. It was of a Quinn Beast tearing the head off of the boy because his concert tickets were only second row and not the first row. "She wouldn't be so nice. She'd humiliate him first."

"Maybe." He closes the sketchbook. "What do you listen to? If you went to a concert."

Daria shrugs her shoulders and names a couple bands. "So Mystic Spiral is out."

"Who?"

"My brother's band. Mystic Spiral. But they're thinking of changing the name."

"Your brother is in a band? What does he do when he isn't playing?"

"Uh," Vinny is a little nervous.

He knew his home life was different. How many teens could say they had free range of the house? Not that his parents didn't take care of him they just weren't always around. Was it any different from a household where the parent's worked a lot and only came home to sleep?

"What?"

"Just, well, our parents send us money to pay for stuff. Trent gets paid when he plays gigs with the band too."

"Oh. Sounds, different."

Vinny smiles. "It works. I can work on my art with out being yelled at for using a blowtorch in my bedroom." She raises an eyebrow. "Hey, some times I need to weld some metal together and can't risk doing it in the garage."

They get to her house and stop. "While you worked on the very realistic depiction of my sister, I was doing my homework. I only have a little bit more to do and then brain drain time."

"Hey, we could watch Sick Sad World together."

"Um," He sees her bite her lower lip. "Maybe another time."

He senses her uneasiness. "Hey, sure. I have a painting I've been working on and don't need any one else to see it until it is done."

The two go their separate ways.

When Daria gets inside she sees her mother and the look on her face. "What?"

"Daria, who was that?"

Daria looks back at the door. "Oh, Vinny."

"And?"

Daria narrows her eyes at her mother. "Nothing. We're stuck in self esteem class together and walk in the same general direction."

"And you walked together."

Daria sighs. "He's just a," Classmate? Friend? Do I have a friend? "Classmate."

The next couple of days dragged on for Vinny. Self esteem class wasn't as interesting as the walks home.

Daria so far hadn't told him to buzz off and he was enjoying having some one to talk with. Sure his brother was cool but his brother wasn't in school anymore. It was nice having a friend.

She walks slower than normal and he had to pay attention to his pace. "What's up?"

Daria shakes her head. "I was just thinking."

"You do that a lot, don't you?"

Daria ignores his comment. "I was thinking if you have all the answers to the class then we can get out."

"And then what?"

"I don't know. I just don't want to be stuck in that class any more. Even if I got to use it as an excuse to make my family go to Pizza Forest."

"I still can't believe you did that."

The two are silent for a minute.

Vinny breaks the silence. "Well, ok, we can get out of class tomorrow. I don't know what I'll do with all of my free time."

"There was that Sick Sad World episode about UFO conventions."

"As long as I get to take my picture with a cardboard alien I'm up for that."

Mr. O'Neill noticed Daria and Vinny after class. "Hi! Did you need clarification on something we covered today?"

Daria said, "We feel really good about ourselves."

Vinny continued. "We want to take the graduation test."

Mr. O'Neill smiled. "Well! I'm glad your self-image meter is on the uptick! But there's still three more weeks of class left. Maybe after,"

Daria interrupted him. "This first week has been a real eye-opener. It must be the way you teach."

Mr. O'Neill looked as if he was flattered. "Oh, well... thank you very much." He looked at Vinny. "You know, you look familiar somehow..."

Daria interrupted him again. "So can we take the test?"

"Well, it's not the way we usually do it, but...I guess so." After picking up the test from his notes, he spoke. "Okay, question one: Self-esteem is important because..."

Daria had to bite back her usual response and give the answer he wanted. "It's a quality that will stand us in good stead the rest of our lives."

"Very good. Now, the next time I start to feel bad about myself..."

Vinny followed Daria's lead. "Stand before the mirror, look myself in the eye and say, 'You are special. No one else is like you.'"

With enthusiasm, O'Neill smiled and clapped his hands together. "You two really have been paying attention! Okay, there's no such thing..."

Vinny cut him off. "As the right weight."

Daria continued. "Or the right height."

Vinny responded again. "There's only what's right for me."

Daria finished. "Because me is who I am."

Mr. O'Neill beamed with joy. "I don't think we have to go any farther. I am really pleased! I think the whole school needs to hear about this at assembly!"

Both looked at each other with the same look. "Assembly?"

Both were amused by the assembly. Daria took the chance to embarrass her sister. Vinny was sure it didn't matter to any one else at the school. His face, and Daria's, would soon be forgotten. He wondered how long it would take for people to forget how Daria thanked her sister.

Of course, with out self esteem class they had to find some thing else to do.

Vinny was nervous as he hadn't made any reference to it after the last time he asked. Her reaction was enough to keep him from asking. But now a few more days had passed and they had talked more. Maybe this time would be different. "So, uh, want to watch Sick Sad World?"

Watching her face he sees subtle changes and is about to say to forget it when she speaks. "I guess. My mom might be home. If that matters to you."

"Why would it matter? What, you think she won't like me? Has your sister brought any friends over yet? I'm sure she's made plenty."

"Not yet." She seemed to look around for some one but there wasn't any one else on the street. "If you want, we can work on homework first. I could help you with that C in math."

"Sure, thanks."

Vinny wasn't sure why he felt nervous when Daria's mother greeted them at the door. "And who are you, young man?"

"Hi, I'm Vinny, er, Vincent. I usually go by Vinny since my father's name is Vincent. Vincent Lane."

"Hmm, that name sounds familiar."

Vinny's head snaps to the nearest pile of magazines and he sees a title he recognized. "My father does photography. You've probably seen his name in one of your magazines."

"Oh, that is interesting. Your mother?"

"Um, art. Works a lot on her kiln in the basement. Also helped create an art commune near Ashfield."

"Very interesting."

Vinny didn't miss the way Helen was looking him over. "I'm an artist too. Paint, drawing, sculptures, any thing I can do to show my creativity."

Daria clears her throat. "We're going to do homework before Sick Sad World comes on."

"You and that show. So distasteful." Helen walks off to the kitchen but keeps an eye on the two as they do homework together.

Vinny and Daria watch television together after finishing homework when Jake comes home from work. "Helen, Daria, Qui, wait, who are you?"

Vinny turns and sees Jake. "Um, I'm Vinny. Vincent Lane."

"Oh, like the photographer!"

Vinny has to fight back a smile. "A photographer? Never heard of them."

"Really! They have the same name as you."

Daria gives Vinny a look before killing his fun. "Vinny is Vincent's son. We go to school together. We were in self esteem class."

"Oh, Neato!" Jake continues to the kitchen ignoring the two.

When the last Sick Sad World ended Vinny and Daria get off the couch and walk to the door. "Thanks for helping me with my homework."

"You got me out of self esteem class. Call it even."

"Sure. I better get home. My brother is probably wondering where I am."

"Make sure he doesn't ground you."

Vinny smiles. "Yeah, that's not some thing that happens at Casa Lane."

Daria opens the door and Vinny leaves.

Jake hears the door close. "Hey, what's up Kiddo?"

"Nothing. Vinny had to go home."

"Oh, then he'll miss out on my pasta zini!"

Too bad I can't.

A/N Ok... Invitation is next. My next problem is a couple episodes like Daria going off to Middleton and stuff focused on her and I want to focus more on Vinny. So maybe skip it? Not sure yet.