#extremely tired old man has to wrangle thirteen gremlins over dinner. details at eleven!

[purpleturtle9000]

reality check ficlet 2: dinner edition

A metal three-fingered claw shoots out, landing on a bread roll and retracting just as quickly to its housing on the back of Leo's wrist.

"Hey, who taught you to do that?" Leonardo asks, appalled.

"Tello, duh," Leo says around a mouthful. He didn't even take it from the hook first, he's just biting pieces off between the fingers.

"Don't talk with your mouth full."

He doesn't expect to be listened to, and from the eyeroll he gets from Leo, it's clear his words are forgotten as soon as they're said. He'd be honestly surprised if Leo was paying attention long enough to realise what was said the first time.

Across the table, Hamato's disapproving expression clearly says what an uncontrollable gremlin. Currently, he's Leonardo's favourite, since he cuts food into precise pieces with a fork and knife before eating them one at a time.

Unlike the wannabe anaconda sitting at Leonardo's left.

"Alpha gets to eat with his hands," Leo mutters.

Well, that's because Alpha bites, and Leonardo has enough scars from his bastard twin without adding any by his bastard child. He's not going to say that, though, because it's definitely going to give Leo ideas. And Leonardo is not going to be responsible for that.

Instead he shrugs. Fortunately Alpha doesn't talk much over food, and there's little chance of him being the one to bring it up. There's also the chance that he doesn't want to encourage Cobalt to keep biting, even though Cobalt has never tried biting Alpha, as far as Leonardo can tell. Why would he?

"If you use a spoon, you can launch food at people," Baby Blue says, and promptly demonstrates with a piece of broccoli.

"Don't do that," Hamato says, and takes the spoon away from him, to replace it with his own fork that he hadn't yet used.

Leonardo's pretty sure that Blue could find a way to do the same thing with a fork, if he so chooses, but apparently Hamato is a good influence. The little guy seems to look up to him. And apparently Blue could use some positive role models.

All things considered, Unicorn's habit of reading at the table is now less aggravating than it was last week. Sometimes Leonardo swears that there was a blue-purple mind swap before they found her, with how often she's got her nose in books. At least she's getting an education. Although she doesn't seem to realise the argument going on just two seats away from her, so they might have to work on how much situational awareness she has.

"I don't think it's that rude," Lee pipes up. They shoot a grin at Leonardo, then get up, one knee on the tabletop, to reach across and grab Leo's wrist for a better look at his prosthetic. Leo lets him.

"Not rude," Echo agrees, though he makes no further contribution. At least one of them is eating his hamburger quietly. For the most part, anyway.

It's better than the time Lee hollered a swear word at the top of his lungs and Echo repeated it even louder. Twice, in fact. And neither of them had gotten in trouble for it, because the rest of them agreed by popular vote that neither of them had done anything wrong.

Heiwa, for their part, is staring at them all like they're a set of exotic animals that were air-dropped into their bedroom. They eat a broccoli floret with a fork every so often, chewing slowly, but for the most part they're just staring at one of them.

Must be the consequences of growing up as an only child. Leonardo finds all this strange enough, and he grew up with three siblings. All things considered, Heiwa is doing pretty well, adjusting to a sudden family of seventeen.

Right now Tello's being awfully quiet, and Leonardo wonders how long it'll be until they try to make a break for their lab. They know Leonardo won't yell at them in front of the others, but it's only going to be so long until the blueberries disappear and Tello is left to his mercy.

"Who wants dessert?" Sunflower asks, glancing around. They've got a sweet tooth, and a set of sunflower-themed dessert plates to go with it. Most of their dishes and cutlery are mismatched, picked up one or two at a time, but Leonardo hadn't been able to resist surprising them with the plates when he'd seen them.

They'd hugged him for a full two minutes, and made him (and only him) cinnamon rolls. Leonardo had been the envy of the entire family, and had only been a little bit of an ass about it.

Now there's an idea.

"Whoever misbehaves, from now until the end of dinner, is going to be forbidden from Sunflower's desserts for two weeks. Am I clear?"

There's swearing from Leo, and a collection of politer objections from other turtles. Even from Alpha, although Leonardo thinks that Sunflower might just object to being barred from giving Alpha treats. Sunflower is one of exactly two people who can get him to smile, and considers their bond extremely important.

Leonardo agrees, but he does wish there was some way he could get Sunflower on his side when it comes to keeping Alpha in check. Then again, Alpha doesn't ever misbehave, that he can tell. The biting isn't actually a problem, considering how many of them have that habit.

"If you behave, you have nothing to worry about," Leonardo says, and grins to himself at how the vocal objections have been reduced to a couple quiet grumblings and one equally quiet hiss.

Good enough.

There is no more claw use during dinner, and Leonardo considers that a total victory.