A/N: So yes, I am posting something completely unrelated to "Shortman Secrets." xD My kooky, nonsensical reasoning, you ask, O' Pitch Fork Wielders? Well, let's see...

I have a small fanbase on dA now. Like, they made a fanclub... Nope, it's not a joke. o_0 It was a surprise gift from Panfla, AKA the most amazing friend and sister evah, and it's literally been taking me forever just to process that it's there. xD Even now my words are a little detached from the topic 'cause it's the only way I can talk about it without twitching. xD Never expected anyone to shive that much of a git... ._.

But anyway, the entire thing has caused me to freak a little bit, 'cause I want to write something so bad. But the last bit of Zack's chapter has been taking a while (if you haven't noticed xD). I had to do a CRAP-LOAD of revising to make some scenes work and... I don't think I'll ever be the same again. ._. So much edits... Not good for souls... D:

BUT I MADE IT THROUGH XD I'm a survivor! I managed to finally make it work out (sorta), so it's all good now and I've moved on from it. But the thing is that I'm really busy this week because of school, but I still want to write for it, but it's still going to take a lot of writing to finish it up (so many butts, I hope there's not a crack in my logic here), and I just... don't have that time right now. BUT I STILL WANTED TO WRITE SOMETHING ANDKANFLKNAFKLNALKDFNA

And thus this. xD I have a ton of unfinished One-Shots and crap in my files for this story, so I just picked one and worked with it. XD I've wanted to write this one for a while actually. X3 I haven't ever had to seriously write out Bob and Phil's characters before now, though... so I hope it's okay. xD I'll prolly revise later, but that's later.

So, like, uh... there.

I'll list any and all reviews given in Zack's final chapter. :D They're always appreciated~ But never required. -.-

Disclaimer: I don't own "HEY ARNOLD!" but I do own Zack, Phil, Ham, and Amanda. DE' MINE. XP Respect that shiz.

Dedication: Panfla, writergirl97, starrynights1987, FnFiNdOART, metalheadrailfan, and anyone else who's reviewed, but those guys especially.

THANKS FOR MAKING ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE AND LIKING MY CHARACTERS SO MUCH XD I'll rave more about you all in Zack's final chapter. x'D

The Phillip Feud

Phil lay slouching in his giant green chair—his chair—in the living room, dozing off as the last of "Sullivan's Travels" played on the flickering screen of the television set. He was very nearly asleep, his hand gripped so possessively around a black mug—his mug—beginning to slip as he slipped into unconsciousness.

The day, for the most part, had been peaceful and quiet, something Phil really valued in this house due to it's rarity. Zack wasn't running havoc, shooting off cheesy jokes, and giving him the world's biggest migraine, Amanda wasn't peeking her head in the doorway every five minutes to ask him dumb questions or ask him if he wanted to "play," and Ham wasn't bugging him about stealing the remote or anything. Of course, Phil knew why this was, but he was trying hard not to think about it. Instead he just tried to enjoy the present moment in peace.

So it was only natural that when the front door suddenly burst open and his great-grandfather bounded into the room with a, "Hey there, Short Man Junior," he jumped a foot in the air and yelped, bashing his cup against the side of his head.

Stars were exploding all around as Grandpa Phil stood over him with shock indented into his forehead, his twin brother standing beside him, though he was foggy and Phil couldn't remember him ever mentioning he had a brother. His grandfather's voice broke through his haze a little, coming as a far-off echo in his head, "Cheese and crackers, Phil, always so jumpy. We'll have to work on that."

Phil's head swayed, his vision swimming, before he managed to blink himself out of Wonderland and instantly tensed, his knuckles turning a steady white around his mug. He ground out as patiently as he could manage, "Don't… ever… do that again…"

Despite his words, though, the elder's only response was to chuckle, taking a step forward to sweep his bony fingers across his forehead and clear away his brown hair—his hair—and squint to see if there were any cuts or bruises. He pursed his lips as he stared at his forehead, making Phil purse his lips right back. His grandfather winced a bit more visibly then. "Oooh, that'll leave a nasty goose egg. It's a good thing it was on the side where your hair hides your face or people might think you'd gotten into a brawl with the Man Lady." He chuckled again, lifting his hand away to stand up straight again.

Phil rubbed his head, staring dryly up at his grandfather. "Right, and Heaven knows I get into too many of those." He resisted rolling his eyes. His great-grandpa was almost always cheery when he was around him, cracking bad jokes that reminded him entirely too much of Zack to try to bring a smile to his face. Maybe that worked when he was a little kid, back when the world still made sense, but that Phil was long gone and he wasn't about to humor the man who was always trying to train him in the art of "Being Phil." He wondered if he'd like him nearly as much if his name was Wilbert or something, or if he was a blond. Sometimes he doubted that, which meant he was just a rare hair inheritance away from being chopped liver, but other times he didn't care just for the sake of having the attention. Right now, though, he'd just been shocked awake, probably gotten a concussion (which meant no sleeping for him, of course—joy), and was being forced to talk to someone when he wasn't even aware of what year it was yet. The last thing he was going to be was civil.

But his grandfather was no stranger to his sarcasm, and the only thing his joke caused was a smile to light up on his ancient face, wrinkles rising warmly around his mouth like a mocking emphasis that there was literally no way to bring this man down to earth. "Ah, come on," his grandpa teased, picking the mug out of his hands to sit it safely away on the coffee table, "don't be such a party pooper. You know I was only kidding."

"Right," Phil acknowledged, his face dropping it's sardonic charm, which was about all the apology the man was going to get.

Grandpa just chuckled again, before his eyes widened and cleared of amusement as he took in the youth's plain green striped pajama pants and white "Property of No One" t-shirt that hung disheveled over his boyish, eleven-year-old form. It looked like he'd only just gotten out of bed, but it was well into the afternoon. Grandpa's face turned troubled and he crossed his arms unconsciously. "Now, young Phil, don't tell me you've forgotten about our outing today."

Phil's eyes widened, suddenly a bit more alert as he sat up in his chair. "What outing? I didn't think—"

"Hey, hey, hey," a voice boomed from the kitchen that had both Phils grimacing, the owner walking into the room with a big bowl of popcorn and a small army's worth of Yahoos in his arms. Big Bob's face soured at seeing the old dinosaur zeroing in on his goods, and he walked purposely over to lay a hand on the back of Phil's chair, glaring at the old man. "Phillip Bob and I were in the middle of watching some quality television. What are you doing here, geezer? Get lost." His eyes looked pointedly at Phil, before his eyes flickered in taking in the old black and white film flittering on the TV set. He strode forward and dumped the snacks on the coffee table gracelessly, glaring and pointing at the box as if it had offended him. "Whoa now, what is this? I had it tuned to channel nine!"

"You were taking centuries," Phil informed his other grandfather, looking completely uninterested in this situation now, his best poker face in play. He looked like he didn't want to be there at all, as if he couldn't care less for the mix-up that had apparently taken place, and both the elder Phil and Bob bitterly knew in their minds it was of the other's fault that he was uncomfortable. Phil finished simply, "I just thought I'd rewatch some of my favorite scenes while I waited but you didn't come back."

"Bathroom break," Bob informed him casually, patting his exploding stomach.

Grandpa Phil chuckled, pointing a fond thumb at his protégé as he faced Bob. "He gets his taste in movies from me."

"Well he definitely didn't get it from me, I wasn't alive in the Triassic period," Bob stated gruffly, scowling slightly.

Grandpa Phil balked at the unnecessarily rude comment, before he scowled at him, pointing an almost scolding finger at the younger and infinitely more irritating man, "Now just wait a cotton picking minute—"

"You'll lose money that way, you know—"

"Why, you—you—you've got a lot of nerve—"

"You're one to talk, waltzing into another man's territory! I have dibs—"

This fighting went on like this for several minutes, while meanwhile Phil stared listlessly ahead of himself, his green eyes half-lidded. He could have dozed off again, he was so bored with this old, meaningless debate, when Grandpa Phil suddenly grabbed him by his arm and jerked him out of his chair, pulling his stumbling body towards the door. Grandpa scowled at his other grandpa while he yelled, making Phil wince, "He's named after me, I had plans with him first, and we're going fishing today!"

Bob growled a little and with surprisingly quick feet for his age, jumped forward to grab Phil's other arm to keep his other grandpa from pulling him out of the room. "He's named after me too, and he has my brown hair!"

"He has my brown hair!" Grandpa yelled back, tugging on Phil's arm, the preteen's eyes huge, "All you have is that thin, wispy gray hair!"

"Ha!" Bob scoffed, smirking aggressively as he gripped tight on Phil's arm and yanked him back towards him, making Grandpa stumble slightly. Bob chuckled a little deeply, a gravelly tone to his voice that had come with age, and his face viciously smug, "At least I have hair."

Grandpa gasped, letting go of Phil in his shock and causing him to spring back into Big Bob's lard-like body. He pointed a demanding finger at him, his eyes giant. "You take that back!"

Big Bob laughed smugly, steadying Phil and wrapping his fingers tight around his shoulders to keep him close. "Give it up, old man, I had him first. Helga and that Arnold boy have been out all day and they left me in charge of him, along with, uh… Zack and that… that… deli boy or whatever crap he wants to call himself."

"Ham," Grandpa corrected him with a disdainful sneer, putting his hands on his hips and standing to his full height. Since Bob had been getting shorter in his old age, the elder man had long decided to take advantage of this in these arguments, and he half-towered over the hulking midget who so prestigiously coined himself "Big Bob Pataki." His face lost some of it's intensity then, and he sighed out, trying to be reasonable, "Look, Big Bob, we're both grown ups here, let's act like it." He took a couple slow steps forward to reach a hand out towards Phil. "He's my protégé, he has my name, I'm the one who asked for it and waited years for the opportunity—"

"I've been waiting too," Bob yelled, gritting his teeth as he yanked Phil back again, flopping a mop of brown hair over all of his face and making him huff.

"Not as long as me!" Grandpa yelled, leaning forward to cut his green eyes at him. "I already lost my chance with Arnold, and I didn't even think I'd be around for the next bunch, so don't you dare try to take this away from me! Wait another fifteen years for when the youngens are fully grown with kids of their own. Philly here can name his son after you, then you can lord over him—"

The room burst into flames.

"I will be doing no such thing," Phil suddenly exploded in a scream, pushing himself roughly out of Bob's hands and looking like he wanted to throw up. Both men instantly slapped their foreheads, knowing what was coming despite their many attempts in convincing him otherwise.

His back firmly to his grandfathers, the preteen growled, before snapping his head around to glare fiercely at them, his teeth chattering as they tried to clench tighter without shattering themselves in the process. His voice shook, "I won't be having any sons, or daughters, or anything—that requires the aid of a wife, and I have no interest in being under the thumb of a manipulative wench." He turned around then, his shoulders stiff with his eyes burning with contempt. His voice raised an octave and he flittered his hands in the air with an annoyed, dramatic flair, "I have said this copious amounts of times! Again and again and again, and yet you keep your ears glued shut to my wishes, too caught up in your own petty insecurities and obnoxious, egomaniacal needs! I am no one's pet! Do you see this face?" He pointed to his cold, unfeeling, palely tanned face. "It's mine." He grasped at his hair. "My hair is mine." He grabbed his t-shirt, spreading the wording out so it could be clearly red, and growled, "See this? 'Property of No One.' I don't care who I'm named after—I am my own person. I could be named after Edgar Allan Poe, Neil Armstrong, William Shakespeare, and I still would not care! A name is a name is a name." He bared his practically foaming teeth at them, his hands shaking as he held them up to them, fingernails posed upwards. "Do you understand yet?"

Both formally brunette men blinked, as if he'd just been speaking tongues for the past two minutes.

"Now, boy," Big Bob was the first to speak, using the years of family counseling under his belt to try to be reasonable with him, considering that had seemed to work with Helga, "you don't want to have a son who can inherit all your prized possessions and keep on the Pataki name?" He took a small step forward as if this was very important, and reminded him, "You did say you wanted to change your name to Pataki-Shortman." He pointedly didn't bring up that he wanted a long winded, crazy name to go along with it that excluded his own. He'd been spending more time with him like this to try to change his mind, and he was dead set on doing so. There was no question on whether or not he would succeed—he would.

"I did," Phil acknowledged, his face calm for a moment before it inflamed again. "And of course I do," he snapped in response to having a son, his entire body like an angry rod waiting for lightning to strike. "What sane man doesn't want his legacy to continue?" His eyes went dry then. "But a minute of pride in the interest of carrying on a name that will already be carried on with or without me isn't worth a lifetime's worth of degradation and dread." He was really glad Zack wasn't here to hear that. He would have cut in with a, "But you're not sane nor a man," and that wouldn't have gotten his point across very well. Phil was quite proud of himself for his intelligent explanation, and he stood a bit taller before his grandpas, crossing his arms.

The two men simply stared at him, though, dumbfounded. After a second they both shot vicious glares at each other and yelled over each other, "This is all your fault!" Phil slapped his forehead.

"I finally get sons out of that weird football headed kid and here he doesn't even want to have kids," Bob yelled into Grandpa Phil's face, snapping his jaw. "He definitely didn't inherit that from me!"

"He didn't get it from me," Grandpa Phil yelled, the backs of his wrists still resting on his sides and his eyebrows furrowed straight down. "If he got it from anyone it was your side of the family! I saw the way you treated your wife before you got all that fancy counseling—you have no respect for women!"

"Oh, and like I didn't ever hear about that car show where you tried to cheat on your wife!" Bob sneered, methodically cracking the bones in his fingers at his sides. "I may not be the most attentive but at least I'm faithful!"

"I never did anything of the sort," Grandpa raged, almost beastly offended now at the accusation. "It was the Jolly Olly Man, for prune's sake! And I wasn't ever going to do anything! I love Pookie, we've been married for longer than I can even remember—"

"I remember my anniversary," Bob huffed smugly, crossing his arms across his chest.

"Ohhh, no you don't." Grandpa Phil rolled his eyes. "You can't even remember your own daughter's name half the time, or your grandsons.' The only reason you remember Phil's is because he has your name as a middle name."

"I remember Zack—" Bob protested, before Grandpa cut him off with a, "Because he has your unibrow!"

"Amanda Faith!" Bob smugly assessed like he'd just listed the first hundred digits of pi in perfect sync, but Grandpa just scoffed out with a, "She reminds you of Olga. That's the only reason you remember."

Bob growled, looking like he wanted to strangle the old man. "Joshua Abraham—"

Grandpa cut him off before he could even finish, "Oh, of course you remember his real name, but not his preferred name, not the thing that actually means something to him, because you don't like it. You don't care about his feelings, you just care about the trophies lining his walls. You're a selfish, proud man and no therapist can ever change that!" He waved his finger furiously in his face.

Bob stood gobsmacked a moment, before he growled, slapping his bony hand out of his face so he could scowl properly as he snapped back, "I'm selfish and proud? At least I wasn't begging on my knees to have my grandson be named after me!"

"Oh, we all know you were in Helga's ear about that—"

"Whoa, whoa, that's enough!" Bob put his foot down, his teeth clenched at the old geezer's audacity. "Fifty bucks richer or poorer, it doesn't change anything! He still has my name, and that is that!" He pointed his finger commandingly in his wrinkled, raisin of a face. "Now look you old bat, he's inheriting Big Bob's Beeper Emporium whether you like it or not! He's the only one with the name to uphold it!"

Phil huffed, leaning back with his arms crossed, simply amazed at the other man's stupidity. He responded with furrowed brows and a firm, strong tone, one used to scold little boys and yell hoodlums away from his property, "No, he's inheriting the boarding house! He's the only one with the smarts and devilish good looks to do it!"

"I don't want to do any of these things," Phil suddenly interjected once more, flailing his arms about. "I want to be a famous actor, director, and writer! I want to appear in inspirational, high action films that change the world and stand the test of time! I don't want to waste my days keeping some run down little beeper store afloat or a century-old boarding house full of crazy people—"

"You and me both," Grandpa Phil commented, looking a tad agonized and nodding his head in sad relation. He looked back to Big Bob, putting a hand to his chest in an almost touched fashion. "He got that from me."

Bob slapped him with his eyes.

Phil's eye twitched, his stiff body shaking for a few tense seconds before a star exploded into a black hole somewhere in the universe and he suddenly relaxed and a careless expression appeared on his face. He turned away from them to sit back in his chair, waving his hand at them. "Okay, I give up, carry on."

And carry on they did. The short, hulking monster of a man and the tall, boney goblin sneered and growled every insult in the book at each other. It had never been a secret that the two men didn't care for each other, but the marriage of Helga and Arnold and the birth of Phil had only seemed to put them even opposite of each other. Both Arnold and Helga were always rubbing their temples over it, and made sure to be out of the house as much as possible when either man wanted to come over to visit. Granted Big Bob had been much better over the years, and now his forgetfulness was mostly akin to age alone, but Grandpa Phil still didn't like him, especially not now that he kept trying to claim his protégé. And Big Bob didn't understand why the old fart couldn't accept that he'd had his turn, shut up, and let him have his heir. The old man had had enough grandsons and daughters, Olga had been a failure more than once in that department and now that Helga had finally given him what he'd always dreamed the most of, sons, he'd be damned if he was going to let the old cod steal that away. Middle name or not, it was legit. The papers had been signed and sealed and he'd just have to deal with it.

The debate on where he'd inherited the brown hair had been going on ever since it had been confirmed he was indeed brunette. Out of all their arguments, those were some of the most colorful, the one that invoked the most vicious insults and longest debates, and was the one central argument that all of their encounters inevitably seemed to lead to. Mainly because it was impossible to know. His hair had traits from both of them, and they'd both had the same shade of brown hair as kids. If anything, he had a combination of both of their hair—but there was no way in hell they'd ever accept that.

Phil sat on the couch with the bowl of popcorn in his lap, throwing a piece up and catching it in his mouth every few minutes as he waited out the show.

"You're a gambling, big-headed oaf—"

"Hey now, I have the money, why the heck can't I have a little fun? It's not like I've been trying to teach any of my grandsons how to play poker—"

"We've been betting gumdrops and gummy bears! At least I have sense enough not to wear those giant, tacky white belts—"

"Hey, hey, hey!" Big Bob shouted, actually stomping his foot on the ground to silence him. "Don't you talk about my big white belts to me like that! You're just sore 'cause you couldn't force him into those ridiculous suspenders of yours—"

"Still better than wearing a lead-thick, blindingly white belt—"

"I swear, I could sell tickets," Phil commented to himself, popping another piece of popcorn into his mouth.

"My brown hair was fluffy," Grandpa shot.

"Mine was twice as fluffy, that's why women loved me," Bob shot back.

Stella passed by the hall and overheard them, having driven Grandpa Phil there so she could pick up Amanda for a little girl time. After standing in the doorway staring at them in amusement for a few moments, Amanda clinging to her leg and staring in with slight annoyance at the unnecessary fighting, Stella chuckled and cut in, "Hey, who's to say he didn't get the brown hair from me?"

Both Grandpa and Bob snapped their eyes to her, their faces blank as they listlessly informed her, "Your hair is too light."

Stella sighed, rolling her eyes with a small, amused quirk of her red lips. "Whatever you say, boys." Glancing down mischievously at Amanda, she quietly asked while the two grown men continued with their little slap fight, "You wanna ditch 'em?"

Amanda looked eagerly up at her, nodding her head in frustration. "Yes."

Phil watched in alarm as the two girls disappeared from sight and he heard the front door open and close. In an instant he was out of his chair and racing out of the room and into the hall to yell, "Wait! Take me with you!"

"Good morning!" a voice suddenly called from the top of the stairs, causing Phil's pupils to dilate as he literally threw himself at the door and started twisting at the knob. "No, seriously, come back! I'll go shoe shopping or whatever, I don't care, just take me with you!"

A tall shadow cast over the door amidst his struggle, and Phil froze before snapping around in horror to see none other than his older brother grinning drearily down at him.

"It's hot today," Zack commented in his half-zombie state, still grinning that big goober grin of his that made Phil want to smack him.

"That's because it's the afternoon, Sleeping Ugly," Phil replied as emotionlessly as possible, his tone a tad dry as he tried to appear composed with a frustrated pout. Zack really wasn't that bad a brother, but he was ridiculously irritating and seemed to get a kick out of messing with him. He'd been asleep all day so far, and now that he was awake, Phil knew the rest of the day was going to be ten times more exhausting than it was now with his grandparents fighting.

Speaking of which, a particularly loud bellow suddenly enveloped the house, making both boys jump, "His middle name is Bob!"

"It's Robert, and his first name is Phil! First comes first!"

Zack grimaced. "Oh, criminy, not this again. I thought Grandpa'd left."

"Maybe you should go back to bed," Phil stated, innocently enough. It was possible his Saturday was still salvageable if the remote hog was still incapacitated.

Much to Phil's chagrin, Zack just smirked at him slightly, seeing right through him. "Can't. I told you it's hot, I think the AC's out. I need to get the keys to downstairs so I can fix it." A loud crash sounded from the living room, this time only causing Zack's smirk to strengthen. He threw a thumb back over his shoulder, indicating the living room, and said, "And I assume one of those lugs has the keys, right?"

Phil hesitated, before forcing out a weak, grim nod.

Zack shook his head, hair swinging. "Then there's no way in hell. Sorry to break it to you, but I'm awake." He yawned, stretching his arms up high over his head. Smacking his mouth a little, he looked down to take in Phil's disheveled pajamas and smirked once more. "And it looks like you're just as begrudgingly conscious as I am." Phil's eyes fell flat.

"Boy," Bob's voice suddenly shouted from behind the teenager, causing Zack to wince, his shoulders tensing, before he ruefully turned around to face the old, balding man. Big Bob's eyes were wide and narrow, and Zack held back a grimace as the man inevitably grumbled before asking, "What's your name again?"

Zack pursed his lips, before a grim smirk overtook his face and he fell into a deep, lazy bow. "Persephone Binglebottom, at your service."

Before Bob could respond to that, Phil scoffed from behind him and commented, feeling the irresistible urge to inform him of his idiocy, "That sounds ridiculous."

Despite his tone, Zack just stood back up straighter and turned his head around to smirk at him. "I kid you not, I heard someone with that name once."

"Oh please," Phil sneered incredulously, "Where? On a cartoon?"

Zack snorted, waving his head to the ceiling as he drawled, increasing in pitch, "Please…" he grinned goofily, turning his body slightly to face him halfway, before his grin turned smirky, "I haven't watched cartoons since I was a week younger. Since they stopped showing reruns of Pop Daddy on Sick at Night." He pouted.

Big Bob looked between the two boys, mentally berating himself for not being more adamant that Helga marry that weird brain boy. He may not have been much to look at, but at least he wasn't a football head, and nerds made especially good workers. Plus the kids would have been much quieter. Which, as these kids grew older, was looking more and more appealing a trait in grandkids. Not to mention he wouldn't have to deal with that old fossilized hunk of bony flesh. He pursed his lips at that last thought. Damn. He sighed, shaking his head at them, "Seriously, what's your name? And no funny business this time, or else I'll invest in having your name legally changed to Persephone."

"Zack," the teenager quickly corrected himself, knowing not to take what his blowhard grandfather had to say with a light heart.

"Right," Bob half-grumbled under his breath, committing that to memory best he could as he rubbed his chin with his forefinger. Putting a fist to his mouth to clear his throat then, he stood up straighter and asked, "Zack, you're good at fixing things, right?"

"Uh—" Before Zack could sputter a decent response, Bob continued with, "That thick-headed toothpick you call your great-grandpa just broke the TV remote." He held up the remote to the teenager, taking a few steps over so he could take a closer look. Zack picked it up reluctantly, taking in with some disturbance how it had broken literally in half down the center.

Grandpa Phil came angrily walking in the next second, glaring at Big Bob as he corrected, "He threw it, I just dodged it. He's the one who broke it, the bad-tempered—"

"I don't wanna hear another word out of you," Bob stated gruffly, snapping his teeth down like a piranha. His voice came out as a deep, almost childish whine, frustrated beyond measure, "Thanks to you now I'm going to miss the big Wrestlemania match between Man Lady and the Systematic Cyclops!"

Grandpa's eyes widened, his mouth falling open in shock. "That was today?"

Bob nodded ruefully, turning his head to look at him. "The last rematch before both of them retire."

A violent gasp ripped from Grandpa's throat, before he flew forward madly and grabbed Zack by his shoulders, shaking him so hard his head spun. "Zack, you have to fix the remote now! This is a once in a lifetime event, bigger than Sally's comet and the Venus transit combined! We can't miss it!"

"Yeah," Bob added on desperately, grabbing Zack by his arm and tugging it, "I'll give you a twenty if you can fix it in the next two minutes! I have money riding on this, uh…" he blinked, before his eyes went huge in their urgency, slightly abashed, "whatever your name is!"

"Okay, okay, okay," Zack yelled quickly, his voice warbling from being shaken back and forth before both men thankfully let go of him. Sighing out in relief, Zack looked up at his two moony-eyed grandfathers, seeing how they were holding their breaths, before he chuckled quietly and shook his head slightly. He took a quick glance at the inside mechanisms of the remote, making sure everything was still in order, before he, quite simply, clicked the two pieces back together and handed it back to them. "There."

Both men blinked, before Bob reached forward and took the remote. Blinking again, he raised half of his brow at him and asked, "That's it?"

Zack clasped his hands together in front of himself, nodding his head. "You think you're the first to throw that thing across the room?" He smirked. "It's easily repaired. Dad's done it a million times."

"Well, I'll be," Grandpa Phil commented, scratching his head. A moment later, he chuckled, a twinkle in his ever-youthful eyes. "You kids are crazier than I thought."

"Yeah, yeah," Bob waved this off, fiddling with the remote to make sure the light was working when he pressed down on certain buttons, "we have a wrestling match to—" He suddenly groaned, grabbing hold of his stomach as he heaved over forward. Clenching his eyes shut, he growled, "Mother scratcher! Darn raspberries…"

The elder Phil's eyes widened, leaning over slightly to look him in the eye as he asked, "You ate raspberries?"

Bob nodded, prying one of his eyes open to look at him. "Yeah, Miriam made me a smoothie last night after dinner, and of all the things she could have picked, it was stinking raspberries." He groaned again, leaning back up as his stomach contents sloshed and disturbing parts of himself roared in protest. He ran his hands down over his stomach, grimacing. "Can never trust fruit nowadays. They always give me horrible gas." He furrowed his eyebrow down, looking in slight bewilderment to the other man. "That and ribs, weirdly enough."

Grandpa Phil nodded his head, patting him on the back. "Same here. I'd sooner eat my foot than I'd eat those little, red devils." Raising a finger to the air, he told him, "My father always said, 'Never eat raspberries.'"

"Smart guy." Bob grimaced, groaning again as it occurred to him, "Now I'm gonna miss the match for sure!"

"Oh, don't worry, since I've gotten older I've started carrying around Gas-X. Also laxatives. You can take your pick."

"Hey, thanks. Some meds would be great right about now." The two men started wandering into the living room, before they stopped and looked over towards Phil, apparently having forgotten about him. Bob asked, "Hey, you coming or not, Junior?"

Phil looked at them humorlessly, his voice flat, "Wrestlemania stinks."

Both men froze in place as soon as those words hit their ears, eyes blinking over and over as if they were having problems processing that that phrase even existed. After a few tense seconds where Zack eyed them with interest, wondering what they'd do, and Phil just held his ground with a discontented pout on his face, the two elderly men exploded with laughter.

"Oh-ho, that's a good one!" Grandpa Phil cackled, making Bob slap a hand on his back as they both practically cried with laughter.

"I know, what a crock that is!" Bob hooted as the two of them continued into the living room, their voices carrying over into the hallway.

"Wrestlemania stinks! Hehe, he's just as insane as Arnold was as a boy!"

"Yeah, our family is a bunch of maroons! Doesn't like wrestling or girls or anything—just wait 'til he hits puberty, he'll have another thing coming."

"Oh, I know, I was a real lady killer in my day! I had them eating out of the palms of my hands."

"I had charm coming out of my ears at that age! I practically had to pry 'em off with a crowbar!"

The sounds of Wrestlemania's staged violence and ringing bells sounded then amidst their hollering, leaving the two boys alone in the hall.

There was a quiet between the two brothers for an indefinite amount of time, where Zack was trying ridiculously hard not to laugh and Phil just didn't care enough to comment. Soon enough, Zack cackled a little quietly and said lowly, "Well that was unexpected." An almost giddy smirk whisked across his face then as he placed his hands on his hips and looked down at his little brother. "Well, I've told you a hundred times, baby bro, things always work out for the—"

"Don't," Phil cut him off with a roll of his eyes, turning around to inspect the front door. His voice came out plain, "You just watch them go back to hating each other the next time someone asks where I got the brown hair from." Noticing the lock clicked into place, Phil reached up and unlatched it.

Zack raised half of his brow at him. "Where are you going, little man?"

Phil opened the door and took a step outside, turning around as he began slowly closing the door behind himself as he answered, "To take a long, hard look at my life…" he scowled, "again."

The door slammed shut.

Zack blinked, a slow devilish smirk taking claim of his mouth. "I wonder how long it'll take him to realize he just went outside in pajamas and bunny slippers."

A/N: Ah, old people... bonding over spandex, sweat-flinging violence and medication... xD Good times...

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