This was kind of like the Twilight Zone; for once Zach wasn’t the sibling ‘checking up’ on someone. As tired as he was, he still had a strong urge to just brush it all off with a ‘I’m fine’ or ‘I’ve dealt with worse’, the latter was true while the formed would be a boldfaced lie. He wasn’t really fine, his head was pounding and he was fairly certain Talia was mere minutes away from kicking his ass out of the infirmary for a while. Still, as the older brother he preferred to do the checking up on, not to be checked up on.
He was relieved though when Dillon didn’t ask him how he was doing and instead focused on the comment about April. “Isn’t she?” So maybe Zach had just assumed that something was going on between his brother and April. “I mean she asked you to come see her here, right?” He paused for a moment. “And I’m fairly certain she’s been living in your sweatshirts, which at least when I was your age that was a fairly good sign a girl liked you.” Zach just smiled at the comment about coming to see him, it was nice that Dillon was seeking family out again.
Quirking an eyebrow up, Zach had to admit he didn’t believe that head shake for one moment. Maybe it was his older brother senses or something, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out something was eating at his kid brother. Before he had a chance to open his mouth and push for an honest answer, Dillon was already talking. “Confused?” He didn’t wait for his brother to answer before he was adding. “I’m going to assume about April, right?” Women had a tendency to be confusing and his kid brother had very little experience in that department.
The whole advice giving thing was something Zach didn’t suck at, at least not when it came to the topic of women. But he was well aware that this wouldn’t be like giving Gordy advice, because Dillon was far more quiet than either of them had ever been.
“Don’t worry about me,” Zach replied with a half-smile. “And I don’t think I ever called you creepy.” Okay, it was easy to ignore the workaholic thing when nobody was pointing it out to him, but it was hard to brush it off when even his younger brother was calling him out on it. “Can I still be considered a hermit if I’m working with people daily?” He asked honestly, trying to gloss over the amount of hours he spent in the infirmary. Maybe if they had a couple more capable medics he wouldn’t feel so compelled to spent ninety-nine percent of his time here.
Was Dillon serious? Zach gave his brother a bit of a surprised look. “Wow, you’re threatening me now,” he began. “In that case I’ll stop working for the moment and talk to you.”