Me or Him (Oneshot) (Tyrus)

Me or Him?

When he first expressed an interest in TJ, Cyrus was in his rumpled Captain America pajamas with cheeto dust on the side of his mouth.

Amber had just broken up with Andi for the second time in their junior year and in her post breakup haste, she had dragged Cyrus to her house for a movie night.

In all ten years of them being best friends, Cyrus had learned three things about Amber and number one was the fact that she was dramatic, over the top and always got what she wanted.

That last particular skill set came in handy when it came to convincing Cyrus to sleep over, and driving him to his house so he could grab an overnight bag when he agreed. What was concerning was Amber's need to be excessively clingy this time around like it was really over between Andi and her, and Cyrus decided he just needed to give her a shoulder to cry on.

Cue her bursting into tears as they sat on worn out bean bags in the corner of her room, in their pajamas, surrounded by empty tubs of ice cream, crushed cans of Dr. Pepper and a half eaten bag of Cheetos.

On their ninth straight episode of Gilmore Girls, she fell asleep against Cyrus' shoulder, her tear soaked blonde hair stuck to her cheek and Cyrus' arms still wrapped around her.

And if it weren't for his peanut sized bladder, maybe they would've stayed stuck like that because Cyrus couldn't bring himself to wake up his distraught best friend from a peaceful slumber. Amber would do the same. In fact, she had done the same.

He carefully pulled himself out from under her, grabbing one of the throw pillows on the floor and settling it underneath Amber's head in place of his shoulder before putting a blanket over her.

It was on his way to the bathroom that he saw him, TJ Kippen in the flesh, leaning against his bedroom door and typing furiously into his phone.

The second thing Cyrus learned about Amber was how she absolutely couldn't stand her twin brother, TJ.

It hadn't always been like that, they used to play together and Cyrus rather enjoyed TJ's company but around the age of thirteen, Amber and TJ became each other's worst enemy. The fighting was endless. All that crap about telepathic twins went out the window because these two couldn't communicate for the life of them. If Amber was left in a room with TJ, a screaming match was seconds away.

"Mom had a devil and an angel that day." Amber had once said when her and TJ had a particularly bad fight.

"Which one are you in that equation?"

"Shut it, Cyrus."

But then, there had come a point in Cyrus' life where he couldn't stand the cat and dog fights anymore. It occurred to him in freshman year of high school that they could just avoid TJ by meeting at the mall or the Spoon or anywhere but Amber's house. It wasn't foolproof because TJ occasionally set foot in the same places with his friends -- Come on, it was a small town -- but it was good enough that Cyrus wasn't going completely insane by their constant bickering and yelling anymore.

So, he had gotten pretty good at ignoring TJ because ignoring him meant peace and quiet and he really liked peace and quiet.

It wasn't just Amber and Cyrus doing the ignoring either.

TJ had his own group of friends, he was captain of the basketball team and he was in a much higher league than his sister and her friends. Hence their mutual decision to pretend the other didn't exist at school or at home.

Cyrus had accepted it and moved on, even though there were times when he wished he could talk to TJ like old times.

So it was the same routine as any other day and any other hallway. Cyrus pretended not to notice TJ as he made his way to the bathroom but this time, TJ noticed him, looking up from the bright light of his phone screen and smirking. He flicked the switch next to his door, flooding the hallway with fluorescent light and Cyrus flinched away, blinking wildly to get used to the sudden brightness.