Zach wasn’t surprised that DJ thought being a puppy would be better, that was just like him to think that. “You realize if you’re a puppy you can’t play video games anymore, right?” Plus, he kind of needed his younger brother around to keep the numbers even in their family. As Zach and Maddie quipped back and forth at each other about strippers and g-strings, he couldn’t help but snort out a laugh. “Didn’t think that comment through, huh?” God, it was nice to be able to joke and tease like this again with his siblings, he honestly had missed this.
“Z-dog makes me sound like a rapper,” He pointed out, his expression amused. “Same with Z-Unit,” Teasing generally rolled right off Zach’s back, so he wasn’t really bothered by the listing off of his various nicknames. “So obviously I just missed my true calling.” Zach concluded with a smirk.
Opening his mouth to reply to Maddie’s comment, Zach realized DJ had beaten him to it and had pretty much voiced exactly what he was going to say. “I don’t know, I could think of at least a couple people that could fall victim to her,” not everyone was aware of Maddie’s troublemaking ways after all. “And for the record I would take a John Wayne western over the steampunk version, but maybe I’m just old and boring that way,” He liked classics, plus who wouldn’t want to be in a badass western like True Grit?
It wasn’t hard to miss the way everything seemed to get heavy there for a moment. Zach was certain DJ hadn’t meant any kind of harm with his words, but he caught both the expression on Maddie’s face, followed by DJ’s frown and knew it was time for him to step in and get things moving back to happier things. “And this would be were I tell you it’s my job as the oldest to tell you to suck it up, ‘cause Mads and I are awesome, end of story.”
Zach dropped down onto DJ’s bed as his siblings discussed Nerf gun wars and dominos. He pulled a face that mention of the painful experience of a Nerf ball hitting sensitive areas. “All you need to do is let me train you some and Maddie’ll stop using you and your parts for target practice,” with the conversation shifting over to talk of domino mazes, Zach thought for a long moment about where it would be interesting to do one. “Could drive everyone nuts in the library and do it in there.”