Vanilla Turtles

Chapter Ten

Telepathy Or Tomfoolery

Jr swiped his fan brush across his paper to more accurately paint Skittle's tail. Vanellope was next to him making a painting of a piranha plant. Jr peaked at Vanellope's paper and frowned in confusion, after deciding that Vanellope must be doing abstract art he refocused his attention back on his own work and continued to paint. After a few more minutes of amiable silence Vanellope picked up her painting by the corners, Jr noticed and instinctively lifted the other end of the paper to equal height.

"What do you think you're doing airhead?! You almost got paint all over the floor!" Jr demanded angrily, having loose paint run down the paper made for a good effect but it wasn't worth his big fluffy carpet. Vanellope looked momentarily shocked before realization dawned.

"Sorry, I thought you were supposed to carry it like that." Vanellope moved her arms to the correct places while Jr just stared at her with disbelief. Then he noticed that Vanellope had only one brush in her water cup, her paint palette was a mess, and her painting had no background.

"You're a noob!" Jr pointed at his friend accusingly. Then he saw Vanellope's expression, "An art noob I mean!" He held his hands beside his head to communicate he wasn't looking for a fight. Vanellope rolled her eyes.

"What did you expect, I'm a racer not sissy Leonerdo da fishy. And what gives you the right to call me a noob anyways?" She put her painting down on the desk near the window. After hearing the horrible pronunciation Jr realized this is what it must be like for Ludwig to talk to one of his siblings about music… Or Iggy with machines, or Roy with professional fighting, or Wendy with fashion, or Larry with math, or Lemmy with acrobatics, or Morton with storytelling… He now knew what it was like to see someone fail at his passion and not think their ignorance was a bad thing. It was really REALLY annoying.

"He's called Leonardo Da Vinci, it is NOT sissy, and have you not looked at the walls at all?" Jr's room was practically wallpapered with his paintings from over the years. He had began with spray paint but quickly moved to watercolor, oils, and acrylics. Vanellope looked around the room in shock and amazement.

"You made all this?" She continues to stare at the walls with a new appreciation knowing Jr had done it himself. "I thought it was just really cool wallpaper!" Jr had actually begun using his ceiling to hang his art recently, it was working fine but it wouldn't last long. "What are you painting right now?"

Jr moved to block his latest creation from Vanellope's view. "Admit art isn't sissy and I'll show you." Vanellope pointed to a painting of an erupting volcano.

"Did you make that?" Jr responded automatically.

"Yeah."

"Then art definitely isn't sissy, now show me your new one!" Jr stepped aside so Vanellope could see. It was a painting of Skittles baring his fangs and breathing fire while trampling innocent candy people. "That. Is. AWESOME!" Vanellope tried to pick it up but Jr slapped her hand away, she didn't seem to care. "He's all GRAAH, and the candy people are all EEEK, and then backgrounds all FWOOSH!" The background was a flaming candy cane forest. "Could you paint me like that?!" Vanellope asked excitedly.

Jr looked past his new canvas and sniggered at how Vanellope struggled to sit still in her stool. "You're a terrible model." Vanellope scowled.

"Well I'm not used to sitting still; it's boring. Entertain me!" Jr glared.

"Jeez Vanellope, who died and made you- Oh yeah…" Sometimes Jr forgot that Vanellope was an accessory to a king's murder, even if it was an evil imposter with a bad attitude. "But what am I supposed to do? I'm painting here!" Jr held up one of his acrylic paints for emphasis.

"You're entertaining me right now by talking, uh doi!" Jr wished his hands were clean enough for him to facepalm.

"Well what do you wanna talk about?" Jr asked wearily.

"I didn't know you could paint, what else don't I know about you?" Vanellope prompted.

"I used to eat mint toothpaste and… That's all I got." He shrugged, the only secrets he had belonged to other people.

"Oh come on, even I have stuff you don't know about me." Vanellope pestered.

"Oh please, I know everything about you. You're an open book!" Jr snickered.

"Then what's my favorite color?" Vanellope asked to test the waters of knowledge.

"Cerulean." Jr answered.

"Bless you." Once again the urge to facepalm rose.

"Aqua blue." He tried again.

"My favorite food?"

"Cookie dough icecream."

"My best friends?"

"Ralph and I."

"My worst enemy?"

"Taffeta."

"My least favorite candy?"

"Red hots."

"Okay that's pretty impressive, but I bet you don't know the name of my first kart!" Vanellope announced triumphantly.

"The Lickety split, you built it yourself but Taffeta destroyed it which is why she's your worst enemy. Are we done now?" Jr answered annoyed. Vanellope slumped in defeat but quickly became chipper again.

"I know all about you though so we're even." Vanellope confidently reassured herself. Jr grinned mischieviously.

"What's my favorite color?" Vanellope narrowed her eyes at him and delved deep into her memory to defeat the new challenge.

"Orange."

"Food?"

"Cheep and chips!"

"Best friends?"

"Me and your siblings!"

"Worst enemy?"

"Kamek with a lesson plan."

"Least favorite candy?"

"Grape lollipops!"

"Congratulations you win a year's supply of absolutely nothing!" Jr deepened his voice to sound like a game show host. Vanellope blew a raspberry at him.

"I still know everything about you!" she mocked, but then hesitated. "Except for why you paint in the first place. I race because I like excitement but what's so amazing about painting?"

Jr sighed dramatically as if Vanellope had asked him something painfully obvious. "Because I get to do whatever I want, there aren't any instructions or limits. And if you make a mistake, it's not a mistake, it's an opportunity for a different kind of piece. It's not demanding or stressful, it's just me and my brain doing weird things on a piece of paper." Art didn't order you around, or ignore you, or judge. Art didn't have expectations or goals. Art was whatever you wanted it to be, and it relaxed into whatever shape that was.

"That was deep man." Vanellope nodded her head sagely, "So when can I get out of this chair?" She asked impatiently.

"In a minute, I'm almost done." Jr said, Vanellope beamed and sat still again. There was a pause, "Your eyes are a nightmare to paint, I can't tell if they're brown or green." Jr complained, "I would be done by now if you had just stuck with one color." Jr didn't actually care but the silence needed to be filled.

"Not all of us can have weird little black dots for eyes, and thank goodness for that!" Vanellope retaliated.

"At least my eyes don't take up half my face, but in your case that might be a good thing." Jr grins, enjoying the banter.

"Says the kid eyebrows the size of my arms." Vanellope giggles at her own wit.

"Said the pot to the kettle, anyways the paintings done." Jr grinned and stepped back from the art quickly as Vanellope glitched right in front of it. It was of Vanellope Driving her kart and making a harsh turn while looking at the point of perspective and smirking victoriously.

"Cool!" a beat, "Wait a minute how'd you paint the kart and background stuff if it wasn't here?" she asked suspiciously.

Jr looked like he was trying not to laugh, "I can paint from memory."

"Then why did I have to sit in a stool for an hour?!" She demanded in exasperation.

"You didn't." Jr chortled and guffawed loudly at his prank. Vanellope tackled him and they wrestled for several minutes trying to pin the other. Eventually Vanellope was standing on his shell with her feet between his spikes, one hand gripping his hair and the other pulling his tail.

"Say uncle!" Vanellope snapped, but didn't yank enough to hurt him.

"Uncle! Uncle! Just -hehe- let go!" Jr was still finding humor in his trick despite what it had earned him.

Vanellope was going to demand more but caught site of the clock, "Sweet mother of monkey milk I gotta get back to Sugar Rush!" She got off and took the now dry painting off the easel. She held it face up over her head and rant to the doorway before turning back briefly. "I'm keeping this! Smell ya later!" Jr stared after her, processing what just happened.

"Hey wait a second!" He tried to shout after her, his delayed reaction was pointless since she was already halfway out of the castle. Jr rolled his eyes and sat up. He soon heard a loud thumping coming near his room. Bowser had probably heard the ruckus and was coming to check up on him.

"What was all that noise? Where's Vanellope?" Bowser noticed the time, 10:00. "And why aren't you in bed?"

"Vanellope got mad because I told her to pose for the picture I was making for her." Jr admitted, not looking his dad in the eyes.

"But you can paint from memory." Bowser raised an eyebrow.

"Exactly." Jr couldn't help but snicker again.

"Jr-" Bowser stated in a stern voice.

"She stopped being mad after winning Say Uncle!" Jr blabbed, then wished he could sink into the floor. He'd just admitted to being defeated.

"That is one tough nine year old." Bowser muses aloud, "Where's the painting?"

"She took it with her when she left." Jr shrugged. Bowser picked Jr up gently by the shell, he often did this with his children. Mostly to carry them to bed like he was doing now, separate fights, and transport them to their rooms if they were grounded. He also picked them up subconsciously sometime when deep in thought, this was annoying until the koopalings started making jokes about it. When they were picked up they'd say things like "Mush!" or "I don't remember hailing a cab." or even "While making his way through the milky way, spaceman Morton was ambushed by the Spiked Planet Eater, terror of the universe!" these earned a laugh and a comeback from Bowser.

"While at least she isn't mad, you make anything else?" Bowser tucked his son into bed, smiling at his youngest child.

"I made a painting of Vanellope's Uni-candy-corn Skittles." Jr free'd his arm from the blankets in order to point at the painting laying on the desk. Bowser automatically brought the blankets around Jr again earning an eye roll.

Bowser stomped to the desk and picked up the dry watercolor. "Why is it breathing fire?" Bowser asked, amused.

"Because that's what he did when I tried to ride him, I don't get how Vanellope can handle that thing. It acts flippin rabid when anyone besides her gets near it!" Jr freed his arms from the cozy confines yet again so he could gesture with his claws.

"Vanellope rides a ferocious monster, can wrestle you to the ground, and call Joker a mime to his face?" Bowser questioned in disbelief. Jr nodded slowly not sure where this was going. "Boy, you'd better marry that girl when you grow up." Bowser said seriously.

Jr went wide eyed in horror, "EW! Dad, gross!" Jr exclaimed, shocked and disgusted. He is a nine year old boy after all.

"Calm down Jr, I'm just kidding around." Bowser ruffled his son's hair affectionately. He also made a mental note to read the kid an extra long story the next night for lying to his face. He would never admit he hadn't actually been joking, at least until after the ceremony. "You do anything else with your little buddy." Bowser tucked Jr in for the final time.

"Well we asked each other a bunch of questions to pass time while she was posing." Jr grinned deviously, why was that still funny?

"Like what?" Bowser asked, turning off the bedside lamp.

"Like what are favorite colors are and junk." Jr yawned a bit.

"What's her favorite color?" Bowser asked absent mindedly as he made his way to the doorway. He put his claw on the main light switch and waited for the answer to the final question.

Before Jr could stop himself he answered, "Cerulean."

"Bless you."

Author's Notes:

Hey everybody! This is the final chapter of the story but I might write a fic where Vanellope and Jr are older. But that won't be for a while.

Jr first appeared in Super Mario Sunshine where he used graffiti to create creatures to fight Mario and cause trouble. I can't imagine Jr giving up art even though he was defeated, he just looked like he was having so much fun!

Calling a video game character a noob is not the brightest idea, especially when they can kick your butt.

I imagine each koopaling has their own passion, they just show it differently.

If I were Vanellope I would never have forgiven Taffyta, and I'm actually a very forgiving person. But Taffyta put Vanellope down in any way she could for no reason other than her own enjoyment. I've been bullied pretty badly but nobody's ever done anything like that to me, and based on how I felt when someone did something much less drastic to me, I was shocked and touched by Vanellope's capacity to forgive.

We got a bit deep with the whole art thing, but it's the final chapter and I wanted to summon The Feels.

Yes, Morton narrates his imaginary fantasies aloud much like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes.

Bowser won't force the kid's together but he will be watching closely and hopeing.

I love making Bowser do fatherly things, it's so sweet! :)

Little boys think girls are gross, it's a law of the universe.

Rate, review, and write about these two! I hate being the only person to write about them! They have so much potential!