Disclaimer: No one Laird and Eastman own the TMNT although with a couple of hackers…nah to easy. Joanovarc however is the Co-Created character of Aaron Smiley and innocent-rebel
A/N: Hi all, Aaron Smiley here. I bet your wondering what I'm doing in innocent-rebel's account huh? No. I'm not causing mischief, I'm the Co-author. Hope you guys like it.
"Dinner!" Mike's voice reverberated throughout the lair.
Joanovarc continued to lay on her bed absently chewing on the two tails of the white bandana that encircle her head. Subconsciously, she heard the noise of several pairs of green feet padding past on their way to the table. She continued to twirl the two bits off cloth with her three green fingers and bit at the carefully hand-sewn hems along the sides that kept the cloth from fraying and falling apart.
She sat their staring into space. Heedless of the noise and clamor the rest of her family was making.
Joanovarc was the youngest of five mutant turtles, or at least that seemed to be the rest of the family's expressed belief. Regardless of the fact that they'd all been in the same jar, at the same time, and were crawling in the same glowing ooze when Master Splinter found them. Somehow or other, she'd been dubbed the baby of the family, which seemed rather and insult to her maturity after living the past sixteen years with Mikey.
Of course, being the smallest of the five, didn't help things much. As if being a mutant turtle didn't make her tiny enough already, she still had to deal with Mother Nature's rule about females being smaller than males.
"Stupid Mother Nature...you'd think, being a girl, she woulda been on my side,"
Joan grumbled under her breath.
"Joanny! Get those out of your mouth."
Joanny jumped and hastily whipped the ends of the cloth out of her mouth. She blushed sheepishly, but relaxed when her eyes focused on Donatello's head peering in at her.
"Why?" She said, trying to hide her embarrassment with a playful comeback, "I know where they've been."
"Yeah," Don nodded, "the sewers."
Joanovarc rolled her eyes and smiled. Then her eyes darkened and she looked back at Don sternly, "You won't tell, will you?" It was an old habit she developed as a turtle tot and had supposedly dropped years ago. Mike would never let her hear the end of it if he found out she had been sucking on her bandana. Come to think of it, Raphael would probably give her a hard time. Between the two of them, the teasing would never cease.
Don grinned and shook his head, "Your weakness for gross childish habits is safe with me."
Joanny's grin resurfaced.
"So, you coming, down to dinner?" Don asked raising an eye-ridge at his sister, who still hadn't budged from her bed.
"It's dinnertime?" she exclaimed, prompty jumping off her bed, "I'm starved! Why didn't Mikey shout?" She shot past Don out the door, through the hall and galloped down the spiral staircase.
Don continued to stand in her doorway, absentmindedly scratching his the back of his head in a confused manner as he watched Joanovarc dash off to the dinnertable.
She'd spent the better part of the day tucked in her room, as she did nearly everyday, now, emerging only for meal, the bathroom and practice. He wondered to himself what she did in there, she had a computer and her own shell cell, but there was really no one besides April or Casey she would really want to contact via email or phone call. He'd noticed Master splinter expressing some concern on her new hermit-like lifestyle, only to get defensive responses and little other information. Quite frankly Don was worried about his baby sister. He sighed and started on his way back to the table.
&&&&&&&&
The table sat six. Master Splinter sat at the head, Joanny and Leo on his left and right, respectfully. Mike sat on the other side of Joanny and Raph on the other side of Leo.
When Don arrived the normal family chaos had already begun. Mike and Raph were arguing over who'd get the first warm, mushy bread roll while Leo reached in between them for the bread basket and offered a roll to Joanny and Master Splinter before taking one for himself and replacing the basket between his two arguing brothers, who hadn't even missed it. Master Splinter was attempting to start a dinner conversation that only Leo seems to be listening to. Either that or he'd finally caught on to the 'just smile and nod' trick. Mike finally gave up on Raph and began to stuff his face with as much mac'n cheese as he could fit on his plate, most of it falling out of his mouth and back onto his small mountain of orange colored noodles. Joanny wrinkled her beak in disgust;
scooching farther down the table. Don couldn't help but grin at his zanily bizarre family as he took his strategically placed seat between Raph and Leo.
Don glanced across the table at Joanny, she was pushing her steamed broccoli around her plate with a dented fork, one of the products of his early years in the engineering of robo technology. Let's just say that forks don't work well as robot arms. Not when the robot is trying to shake hands at sixty miles an hour.
Joan began glancing around at the members of the table, her darting eyes quickly met Don's stare. Joan glanced away just as quickly but again quickly decided against that and stared back at him.
"What?" she mouthed.
Don shrugged and turned his attention to his plate to begin shoveling whatever contents he'd mechanically placed there into his mouth. He grimaced as he bit into a large chunk of mac'n cheese powder that hadn't been mixed to it's full potential.
Across the table, Joanofarc closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and laid her fork down on her plate. She cleared her throat before interrupting the dinner conversation that had somehow sprung into a full fledged debate on the better action hero: Aragorn or Legolas?
"Master Splinter?"
"Yes, Joanovarc?" the old rat turned to her, leaving Leo to fend for Aragorn's sake against Raph and Mike
"I-I'd like to make a request..."
"Ooo, a request," Raph mocked, wiggling his fingers in the air and rolling his eyes. "Geez, Joanny, you're beginning to sound like Leo!"
"Well at least she isn't picking up on any of your foul language," Leo shot back.
"Aww, our little Joann'ys too sweet to swear," Mike said nudging his sis with his elbow, "Ain'tcha Joanny?"
"I'm just as tough as you guys are!" She protested.
"You're such a goody-two shoes, Leo" Raph barked at his brother.
"We don't wear shoes, Raph!"
"That was the stupidest comeback I ever heard, Leo!"
"At least I'm not a shell-for-brains!"
"Suck-up"
"Ninja Dropout!"
"Then if you're so tough how come you didn't fight in the Battle Nexus?" Mike jabbed playfully back at Joan.
"Because I was out numbered by a five to one vote that I wasn't ready!"
Master Splinter shook his head and began to rub his eyes with his hands. He'd wait for the steam to evaporate for now, but if his children got out of hand, he'd intervene.
"If you'd practiced more instead of watching your teen dramas and reading magazines, you'd b able to improve quicker," Leo pointed out, turning away from Raph towards her.
"Arrogant Tyrant," Raph sneered, leaning over Don.
"Wow, Raph," Leo taunted, "I didn't know your vocabulary stretched beyond certain four letter words!"
"Powerhungry pig!"
"Oh and you do those words starting with the same letter thing, too. Clever; for
a hothead!"
Mike turned back to Joanny, leaving Don to deal with the bickering brothers.
"Aww, don't worry about it. You'll improve. Besides, you'll always have us to protect you." He reached out his hand to give her bandana tails a brotherly tug, but quickly recoiled, his hand at their touch. "Eww! Joanny, your tails are wet!" He looked at her suspiciously, "You weren't-"
"I was not!"
"You were sucking on them!" Mike's face turned into a grin as he began to laugh. "Aww, widdle Joanny need a hug?" he teased, talking baby talk. Joan began shouting at him and punching his arm as hard as she could to make him stop, but the orandge-clad turtle just kept on laughing. Then a realization hit him, "Wait if you were sucking on them, then I-EW!" He began to furiously rub his hand with his napkin, that would have normally remained unused on the table.
Meanwhile across the table Leo and Raph were about ready to rip each other's shells off, kept separated only by Donnie who was trying to calmly spoon mac n' cheese into his mouth.
Master Splinter had finally had enough of the ruckus. "Enough!" he said, raising his hand into the air as a signal for all noise to cease.
No one noticed, besides Don; but that didn't help the situation much, as he was the only quiet one to begin with. "SILENCE!" Master Splinter raised his voice. The entire table fell silent. All five turtle zipped their lips and sunk down into their chairs. "I will not tolerate this bickering any longer, tonight." Master Splinter looked sternly around the table. "You will learn to treat each other with courtesy and respect, do you understand?"
Five teenage mutant turtle heads nodded and chorused, "Yes, sensei."
"Good," Splinter nodded. He turned back to Joan, "What was it you wished to
request, my daughter?" Mike began packing any edible substance into his mouth again and Raph busied himself with chugging his, now cold, green tea. Donnie swallowed the last of his meal and Leo sat quietly staring down into his plate.
"I wanted to ask if- if you'd allow me to-- go on a..." Joan subconsciously lowered her voice, "date."
Raph spewed his green tea across the table, Leo's head snapped up with a startled look on his face, Mike started to choke on his food, Don gaped at her with eyes as huge as saucers. Joan glanced nervously around the table and slunk farther down into her seat as ten eyes stared back at her in stunned disbelief.
To be continued…
A/N: OOOOOH! Well ladies and gentlemen, Joany has now just asked a question that most fathers and brothers fear more than…well something really scary itself. Well what'd you think? Please review