"Hey, check this out."

Dave looked up from the tv screen briefly, glancing to where Bro stood hunched over a box on the kitchen table. The elder Strider's body obscured most of the small brown package and what it contained, igniting his interest. Curious, Dave humored him.

"What is it? A new sex toy for your smuppets?"

He heard Bro snort as he flit his eyes back to the screen to resume his game. The buttons clicked out an odd beat as he depressed them beneath his fingers, expertely directing his player around the course.

"Not even. If it'd be used on anyone, it'd be used on you."

"What."

Dave stopped in the middle of his sick grind to pause the game and look over the futon. Bro was still concealing the package on the table with his body, filling Dave with a a wary sense of curiosity. He could hear Bro laugh at his reaction and knew that his brother was purposefully blocking the view of whatever mystery item he'd gotten in the mail to either annoy him or set him on edge.

It did both.

"What is it, asshole?"

"You got eyes, twerp; get over here and use them."

With a scowl, Dave cast the controller away and got up to (cautiously) make his way to where Bro was still standing over the box. As he got closer, he noticed that Bro hadn't removed whatever it was from the packaging it had arrived in. Dave tensed as he got closer, narrowing his eyes at Bro and trying to read his relaxed posture for any sign of a surprise attack. Seeing none, he stood beside Bro and stared blankly at the wrapping in the box. He quirked his brow.

"So? What am I looking at here?"

Bro said nothing; only grinned broadly as his gloved hands shoved apart the wrapping to withdraw what looked like a tazer from out of the box. Dave stared at it openly as his brother tossed it from hand to hand casually.

Oh it was definitely a hand-held tazer.

"So what do you think?" Bro asked, striking various action-type poses with the tazer in hand. The movements would have made anyone else look ridiculous, but Bro managed to look cool even through his dorkier moments. "Think it'll spice up our fights some?"

"Are you serious?" Dave found himself asking.

The littlest Strider knew about tazers; he'd seen and been bemused at the fools on the internet who'd had the misfortune of slipping into a tazer's line of fire and ended up on youtube as a result. He knew enough to realize that being tazed was no laughing matter. Bro couldn't be serious.

"You can't be serious." He repeated when Bro said and did nothing except widen his grin in response.

"Why not? If you kept up with your training you should be able to dodge this no prob."

Bro was right, of course, but as things were Dave was living the teenage dream. As soon as school let out he'd started shirking his training responsibilities in favour of lounging around the apartment to play Halo on Xbox Live.

It was summer for fuck's sake; he'd be damned if he wasn't going to enjoy it in a typical kid fashion. Besides, it was far too hot to be up on the roof of their damn complex swinging around heavily bladed swords like they did. No way in hell he was doing that in this sweltering Texan heat; no way in hell Bro could expect him to keep up with that.

All the same, Bro looked fucking serious.

"Bro."

Bro quirked his brow.

"Bro no."

Bro grinned.

"Don't taze me Bro."

Bro lunged.

"Shitshitshit."

Dave cursed as he immediately dodged, jumping to the side to avoid Bro's outstretched hand that had been thrust toward him. Dave's mind raced with profanities as he ran; damning Bro for reaching an all time low with his deranged behaviour.

Bro's laughter reached his ears as Dave pulled out all the stops, desperate enough to get away from the hand-held electric chair that he went so far as to flip the kitchen table on it's side to deter the man from reaching his target.

The fear of being tazed (hell he didn't even know how high the voltage was on that thing) kept Dave oblivious to the fact that Bro wasn't even trying all that hard. He was so focused on keeping distance between him and his brother by running complicated circles around the apartment that it hadn't even occurred to him that Bro could have easily over-come him at anytime with that fancy flash-stepping ability of his.

It was harmless teasing on Bro's part, but full-blown fear on Dave's.

The apartment only offered so many patterns to run through, and soon Dave was out of breath and full of loose footing. It didn't take long before innocent puppet lives became involved.

One large-rumped, purple smuppet in particular became engrossed in the action in ways that it was never meant to handle. Bro had constructed it with sexual intent, but it's slippery fabric served a duel purpose.

Dave stepped and slipped on the poor purple bystander, twisting it's cloth spine violently as he was propelled forward onto the ground. The smuppet flew into the air as Dave's momentum landed him in front of the television, and it wasn't long before Bro was upon him with his tazer at the ready.

"Bro oh my gog I swear to gog I'll call child services on your ass if you OH FUCKING CHRIST."

Dave shrieked loudly as Bro brought the tazer into his side. He writhed around for a second, his poor heart just pounding away in his 13 year old chest before he realized that he hadn't been electrocuted. He stared incredulously into Bro's elated face as the man broke out into laughter and began to tickle the helpless teen beneath him.

"OhmygodIhateyousofuckingmuch." Dave cursed around involuntary laughter, his face turning as red as his eyes as he tried to fight back against Bro's onslaught of tickling fingers.

"If I hated you nearly as much as you hate me, I would've tazed you, bro." Bro said as he grinned at his victory, using his legs to keep Dave pinned beneath him as he assaulted him mercilessly with his fingers. "Too bad I love you so fucking much."