After Cyrus's parents pass away after getting into a car crash, the Sykes take him in and treat him as their own.
He grows up alongside his childhood bestfriend Rosie inside a mansion. Life seemed great.
Well, right up until he fell into a depressi...
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Cyrus had always felt like if he had ever said those three words and truly meant them that the world around him would stop. So maybe he had been wrong and he really was a fan of a few cliche romance movies.
But he didn't expect time to feel like it passed by faster. He didn't expect the kiss to feel like it had ended too soon and he didn't realize how little his lung capacity was until he was begging to feel Rosie's lips back against his and for her to speak those same words again and again to him.
He didn't expect it to feel like the sunshine was casting one single ray down on him and Rosie.
"I love you. I love you. I love you."
Cyrus really didn't expect to see River pass out right into Hayze's arms either.
"Oh sh-" Rosie covered his mouth with her hand and then scrambled off the ground. He quickly followed. "I didn't realize you two were still here? Why'd she just faint like that? Was the kiss that shocking?" he asked with furrowed brows as he accompanied Rosie in fanning River.
Hayze glared at him as he lifted his limp wife's body up into his arms, holding her carefully and supporting her neck as he carried her over to the car. "Rosie, get the door please."
Rosie nodded and went over, pulling the car door opened and watching as Hayze placed her mom down like a precious china doll. Hayze supported River's head carefully before closing the door and jogging around to the other side of the car.
"Where are you going papa?" Rosie asked anxiously as she followed after him.
Hayze stopped her and pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead. "Stay here. Make yourselves some dinner. I'm pretty sure there's a pizza you can put in the oven. I'll be back in a couple of hours. Don't stress about anything. Try and clean up the house before we get back please."
He climbed into the drivers seat and reached across, buckling River in before shutting his door and driving off - leaving Rosie and Cyrus in a pit of confusing and conflicting feelings.
They didn't know if they should be worried about River or kiss each other until they couldn't breathe. Neither seemed fitting enough.
Feelings sucked sometimes.
___
Five hours later after the two of them had cleaned the whole house and stuffed their stomachs full of pizza, they lay passed out on a mountain of pillows, music playing, a dark blue tint casted over Cyrus' room from his lights lining the walls.
"If you could be anything or anyone at all in this world, who would you be?" Cyrus asked randomly as he rolled onto his side to look at Rosie.
Rosie kicked her socked feet up into the air and shook her head. "I wouldn't change who I am. I like being yours."
Cyrus just about gasped at her answer and a small smile pulled at the edges of his lips. Late night talks happened to be the best ones.
"You're so cute, Rosie. I don't think you understand the weight of your words when you say them to me sometimes.." Cyrus said as he rest his chin in his hand.
She shook her head and turned to him, resting her leg over his waist as she looked into his eyes. "I do understand what I'm saying most of the time. But you just still see me as that naïve girl from four or five years ago. A part of you has forgotten that you're not the only one who's grown up. I have too, Cy."
Cyrus knew that what she had just said was the truth. He still saw her, from time to time, as the little girl who had trouble expressing her feelings and didn't catch on to dirty jokes. She was still just so small. And he always felt he had to protect her.
And though he didn't have to, he always would. Always.
"I'm sorry if I've made you feel so.. small," Cyrus said quietly as he affectionately cupped her cheeks, tracing his thumb down the bridge of her little nose.
"It's fine, honestly. My friend, Skye. She made me realize how sheltered I was. And how immature I was because of it. When you've seen someone like that for most of your life; a part of you always sees them like that. I've always seen you as someone that would find a tall, confident, outspoken girl and someone that just protected me because you saw me as a little sister. And I was angry about it at first. So so angry. But then it was okay because either way, I still would have had your love. I realize that now. It's just there was a chance I wouldn't have gotten it as your girlfriend," Rosie shrugged and Cyrus cracked an almost bittersweet smile at the thought of them only seeing each other as siblings.
"You've grown up so much since the time I've left. I don't think I really understand how.. or why," he said with furrowed brows as he ran his fingers slowly through her soft hair, smoothing it down.
Rosie swallowed slowly, as if the very thought drained the energy out of her. "I don't think I'm ready to really talk about it yet. I don't even think I know the answer, fully."
"Well I'm here for you whenever that time is," Cyrus said lowly and Rosie flashed him a sweet smile in response before the sound of a door down the hall shutting was heard. "I think they might be back. I hope your mom is okay.."
Rosie nodded in agreement and then they slowly fell into silence - though only minutes later it was interrupted by cries and wails that seemed to echo around the house and suck the whole house down into a pit of grief.
The fear was shown clearly on Rosie's face when she heard her mothers crying and Cyrus pulled her close, rubbing slow circles on her back to ease the tension. It did nothing to soothe her restlessness and before he could stop her, she was up off the pillows and running over to her parents rooms in a scurry, her sticky feet pattering over the floor.
Cyrus stared up at the ceiling as his brain focused in on the muffled talking and then it slowly began escalating to shouting. Hayze was shouting at Rosie to leave the room and to give them peace and she came running back in, diving back into his arms and the both of them flinched when River and Hayze's door slammed shut.
"Shhh.. I've gotchu Rosie," he said as he sat up with her in his lap. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms wound tightly around his neck as she sought for his comfort - something he didn't think he was quite good at yet.
Cyrus let out a shaky sigh and held onto Rosie tighter. It was then that he realized that he hadn't been the only one in the family to experience grief.
