At that message, you stop reading, your blood running cold as a wave of anxiety hits you, and you quickly swipe the notification to call him back. Hands shaking, you bite your lip, standing to your feet and pacing back and forth as the phone rings, unable to keep from wincing when you hear Steven’s voice.

“(Y/n), thank christ, listen, I— I don’t know how to say this, but… fucking hell…,” his voice breaks slightly, and you hear him sniff before continuing, “Parker, he— Parker’s dead, (y/n), he’s fucking dead and…”

You can hear his voice, still talking, still panicking, but your phone slips from your hand, falling to the hardwood at your feet, and you stand there, frozen. You can’t even begin to process what’s happening, your mind repeating the phrase over and over, but still figuring out nothing. Slowly, you kneel down and pick up the phone, your fingers almost numb as you do.

Steven is still going, and you begin to listen again as he says, “...and Cib, he ran off, we don’t know where the fuck he is, but he’s out of his goddamn mind and we— we don’t know what he’s doing.”

You don’t even bother getting up from the floor, slumping back against the couch as you pull your knees to your chest. “Dead… Parker is— Parker— ” you can’t get yourself to say it, the words caught in your throat.

“Listen, (y/n), keep your door locked, alright? If he’s gonna end up on anyone’s doorstep, it’ll be yours.”

You nod numbly, the thought that he has his own key popping up somewhere in the back of your mind, but it went mostly unnoticed amidst every other thought running through your head. “Steve, what do we do, where do we—”

A pair of feet appear in your line of vision, and you freeze, hesitating before looking up to see the figure looming over you. Cib’s eyes are sunken, tired, and he’s breathing heavily as he asks, “Is that Steven?”

Meanwhile, you hear persistent questioning in your ear, all along the lines of, “what’s going on?” but you can’t bring yourself to answer either voice. Instead, you rise your feet, legs trembling and almost collapsing beneath you.

“Cib… what did you do?” Your voice is shaking as you ask the question, a question you really don’t want an answer to. You see the blood on his hands, the look in his eyes, and you can’t help but wince as he takes a step toward you, unconsciously inching away until you hit a wall.

"Babe, listen," he continues to walk toward you, but you cut him off, your hands held out in front of you as you weakly warn him,

"Don't— don't take another step closer."

But he doesn't listen, moving forward, grabbing your wrists and pulling them down to your sides so he can stand in front of you, look you in the eye as he says, "I did this to protect you. I did this for us,” his breath reeks of alcohol, and you’re leaning as far against the wall as he continues, “for you.” "I never asked for this," your voice breaks as you speak, and you struggle to pull yourself out of his grip; but he's far stronger, his grip becoming almost painful, and your continued attempts to escape weaken. “He was my friend, and he was your friend too, wasn’t he?” There’s no response from Cib, not that you were expecting one. “He didn’t—” you close your eyes for a moment, sniffling as you try to force away the tears, “he didn’t deserve this!” "(Y/n), we can just forget about this, alright? We'll just, we'll keep going, like it never happened." His voice is desperate, and he leans down to your level, one of his bloodied hands moving to cup your cheek as he adds, "Please." He’s crying, tears rolling down his cheek, and your chest feels heavy. The moment feels like it might never end, his gaze piercing, his thumb brushing away the tears that streak down your face. Eventually though, you tear yourself away, ducking around him and running to the door with no clue of where you’re going. You can feel the smear of blood on your skin, hear him calling after you, and you just keep running, refusing to turn around.

That is, until you reach your car, and realize you have nothing on you but the phone in your hand. The sound of Cib’s footsteps only get closer, and you take a shallow breath before turning around, shuddering when you see him.

“(Y/n), please— please, don’t be afraid of me. I’m not gonna hurt you, I would never—”

“You killed him… he was your friend and you killed him; Cib, how could you, how could you kill anyone?” You find yourself shrinking in as he moves nearer, your hands moving to wipe away both the tears and blood that stained your cheeks.

“I couldn’t, I— I didn’t,” he runs a hand through his hair, gritting his teeth as he goes on to say, “all I could think about was you, and how he was always thinking about you. The fucker said he loved you, and I couldn’t— I couldn’t fucking stand it. He was trying to take you away, I couldn’t just let him.” His voice had grown to a shout, but at the sight of your trembling figure, his tone softens, “Friends don’t cross each other like that.”

Before you can say anything, he continues, “I just… I just wanted to teach him a lesson, and then— I looked down, and— and there was so much blood and he wasn’t moving and I, I, I didn’t know what to do…” He falls against you, pulling you close against him, and you can’t bring yourself to struggle against him. Sobbing softly into your hair, his fingers cling to the fabric of your shirt and you find yourself frozen in his arms. “I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to,” he repeats it like a mantra, his voice barely a whisper.

Against your better judgement, you wrap your arms around him, your hand rubbing his back as he somehow holds you tighter. The blood on his hands stains your pajama shirt as it had your skin, and you can feel your ribcage shrink around your already straining lungs, crushing your pounding heart.

Hands trembling, you try to pull away, but he doesn’t let go, and you can’t find the strength to struggle as he leans almost all his weight against you. “Please don’t leave me,” he mumbles into your hair, his nails slightly digging into your back as he holds you to him, “I can’t lose you.”

“Cib, I—”

“Just let go of her, dude.”

You both hear James’ voice, and while you try to glance over to where he is, Cib just turns away, pulling you with him. His arms are almost crushing you now, and you’re struggling to breathe, trying to push him away as you say, “It hurts, Cib, please, just—”

“No! No, no, no, no, you’re not taking her away from me,” he almost growls, and your panic grows, pulse pounding in your ears as you begin to hit him. “Babe, just calm down, I got you—”

“You’re hurting me, let go!”

“If I let you go, they’ll take you,” he murmurs into your ear, pulling away to look you in the eye. His hands easily grip your wrists, both stopping you from hitting him and holding you in place. “I’m not letting anyone take you away from me.”

Your voice is weak when you respond, holding his gaze as you remind him, “You said you wouldn’t hurt me.”

He freezes at that, looking at you almost in shock, not saying a word, his grip still not loosening in the slightest. However, James makes quick work of that, easily removing Cib’s hands from you and pushing you in Steve’s general direction. You can’t keep from stumbling slightly, your legs shaking as you listen to the chaos behind you, James doing his best to calm, or maybe subdue, Cib.

And then you finally notice Steven’s presence, and how he’s looking at you with sad eyes, and how his arms are open just slightly; and then he’s gently wrapping an arm around your shoulders, telling you something. You can’t process any of his words, but they’re softly spoken, and you lean into your friend’s side as he starts to walk you away from the scene.

“You can stay with me and Alyssa tonight…”

“Don’t fucking do this, man.”

“…we’ll figure this shit out in the morning…”

“Let me go, dude, you can’t— you can’t take her!”

“…hopefully.”

Steve ushers you into the passenger seat, and as he closes the door, you look out the window to see an almost rabid Cib, fighting against James and slowly tiring himself out. Hugging your arms around your torso, you sink into the seat, body still trembling.

“We’re gonna figure this out, alright?” Steve assures you, reversing out of the parking lot as James struggles to push Cib into his own car. You know he’s not sure, though, he’s just trying to make you feel better, calm you down. Somehow, it still helps.

“Hi Y/N, I’m Cib!” He says, placing you back down on the ground. God it was good to stand on flat ground again. “Cib, I thought I told you to be nice and not weird,”

You giggle as Cib pouted his lips, he was kinda cute. You couldn’t deny that to yourself. To distract yourself, your eyes darted over to the desk in the middle of the room where Autumn was working. You and Autumn were friends and you always looked forward to seeing her. “Y/N!” She squeals, jumping from her desk, running and hugging you. You wrapped your arms equally as tight around her. “Hey Autumn,” You smile. 

  Cib stood there awkwardly as you and Autumn talked. The rest of the Sugar Pine 7 crew came out of god knows where and introduced themselves to you. You decided that they were all pretty cool people, especially Cib. You couldn’t take him off your mind, whenever you looked at him, he was looking back and when he noticed you staring, he looked away. 

Love at first sight? Nah, impossible.

   Lunchtime came around and there was a dispute about what to get. “Y/N and I can drive around and get something, I can show her around as well.” Cib stood up and suggested, you gave Autumn a look. She nodded confidingly. She knew.

  “Alright,” You shrug, its not like you were going to say no anyway. Food is food and there’s no way in the world that you’d turn that down. You clambered into Cib’s car, and the first thing you noticed was a vape in the middle console. “Shit, sorry about that,” Cib muttered, picking up the vape and opening the glovebox.

You push his hand away, “Dude, it’s fine. I’m not judging.” 

“You seem cool, y’know, for being Steven’s sister and all,” Cib mentions, his eyes transfixed on the road but you felt his eyes glare back to you ever so often. Your mind wondered to other places, maybe you could take the long way home.. 

   “Yeah I guess, you’re pretty cool yourself,” You say, instantly regretting those words. Your heart began to pulse, you fucked up. You made a fool of yourself in front of this cute guy who just so happens to be your brother’s co-worker. You probably fucked things up for yourself. 

 “Wait, where are we?” You look around, you were pretty much in the middle of no-where with two buildings that stood side by side with an allyway in the middle. It was dark and confined. Cib unbuckled his seatbelt and crawlled over to you, ghosting his hands around your thigh, making you gasp and he sits down in your lap. 

 His hands up your cheeks, he pulls your face in closer and pushes his soft lips again yours. You felt his body move closer into you but there was noway in the world you were pushing him away. You kissed him back, just as passionately, your hands going from being around his neck to his hips. Cib made subtle rocking movements as your fingers ran along the hem of his pants. 

  You felt his warm breath against your lips as he pulled away. You didn’t want him to stop. You were so intoxicated with... him. His eyes stare into yours with a smile forming on his lips as his hands ran through your hair. You looked at him with loving, begging eyes. “Y/N, fuck, I love you.” 

You nod again, and hastily make your way to your room, barely closing the door behind you before the tears begin to spill over. The thoughts that were already spiraling in your mind somehow only increase tenfold as you burrow beneath the covers, curling in on yourself as you listen to the faint sound of music playing from the other room. You do your best to stifle the sobs that escape your lips, your hand clamped over your mouth as they rack your lungs, but it gets increasingly harder as the tears continue to fall.

You could only have been there for a few minutes when you hear the door open, music still playing as two sets of footsteps make their way into the room. Trying your best to hold back the sobs and whimpers that shook your frame, you can’t even bring yourself to pull back the covers and look at them. The thought of them seeing you like this, the complete and total wreck that the day has turned you into, it’s overwhelming.

So, you’re grateful when they don’t pull the covers back. Instead, you feel the covers move slightly as Sami Jo slides in behind you, her arms wrapping around your waist as she presses a soft kiss at the nape of your neck. Cib quickly finds his way under the covers as well, though not as gracefully as he fumbles slightly to lie down in front of you, murmuring a quiet “hey” as he comes face to face with you. There’s a smile on his lips, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, clearly only filled with worry as he takes in the sight of you.

“I’m sorry,” you’re quick to tell them, only crying harder now, and he hesitantly cups your cheek, his thumb wiping away at the tears streaking down your face.

“Hey, don’t apologize,” Sami Jo speaks softly, holding you even closer, “everyone has bad days, and you don’t have to hide from us.”

Pressing his lips against your forehead, Cib continues, “We love you too much to just let you cry alone.” He then proceeds to pepper your face with multiple kisses, drawing a small smile to your lips, but those thoughts are still racing in your mind.

“Why— why do you guys even care?” you ask quietly, and before they even have time to respond, you add, “I mean, look at you, you’re both beautiful and perfect and then I— I’m just here… I’m nothing.” Your sobs grow worse, racking your entire frame as you keep spiraling, and you can’t even look Cib in the eye as you tell them, “You deserve so much better than this.”

“Don't say that.”

“Bullshit.”

They speak at the same time, Sami Jo’s response slightly more eloquent than Cib’s, and before you can argue, she continues, “You're our girl, and we want you here, with us.”

“Don't you dare think for second that you don't belong here,” Cib adds, his face only inches away from yours. “Not to be a sappy piece of shit, but, you’re everything we could ever want, probably more.”

“We don't know what happened today, and if you don't want to tell us, that's completely okay. We’re still gonna be here for you.”

“And we’re also gonna cuddle the fuck out of you,” Cib emphasizes by wrapping his arms around both you and Sami Jo, pulling the two of you closer. He nuzzles into the crook of your for good measure, and you can’t help but laugh slightly at that. “See? Works every time.”

“You’re a dork,” you mumble, the tears beginning to slow and the sobs turning to small hiccups and sniffles.

“You love me.”

“Probably for the worst,” Sami Jo teases the two of you, and then you’re all giggling, the thoughts beginning to fade as you focus on the warmth of the two people beside you. “For real though, are you doing okay? I know sometimes a bad day is just a bad day, but you can talk to us about anything, alright?”

You nod silently, not wanting to get into anything now, knowing there would be better times when you weren’t so emotionally volatile. “I kind of think takeout and disney movies would be the best cure right now.”

“I mean, that’s a given,” Cib replies, leaning away so he can kiss the tip of your nose. “But you’re not getting away from these cuddles that easily!” His arms wrap around you and he pulls you out of Sami Jo’s arms, holding you as tight as he can.

“Hey, that’s my girl you’re stealing!” she exclaims in mock offense, suddenly sitting up and throwing off the covers in the process. As she struggles to pull Cib off of you, he just pulls you closer, shaking his head in protest.

“Your girl? Nah dude, she’s mine now,” he fires back, sticking out his tongue, and she retaliates in kind. “You know what they say, finders keepers, losers stinkers.”

You really start laughing at that, specifically at his dumb bro voice, and push him off slightly so you can pull Sami Jo into this cuddle prison. “Well, she’s my girl, so what are you gonna do about that?” you ask him, raising an eyebrow as Sami Jo laughs.

“Touché, madame, touché.”

A few hours later, you find yourself lying on the couch, head in Sami Jo’s lap as she plays with your hair, Cib sitting on the floor in front of you, leaning his head back against your thighs, and Lilo and Stitch playing on the TV. Takeout boxes and plastic silverware are strewn across the living room table, the clock now reading 11:43pm, and though you know you’ll have to get up in the morning, you’re content in living in this one moment for as long as you can.

“Thank you for this,” you murmur softly, and they both turn their heads to look at you, dorky smiles pulling at their lips.

“Of course,” Cib replies, and he takes your hand in his, bringing your knuckles to his lips.

Sami Jo’s hair cascades around you for a moment as she presses a kiss to your forehead, her smile growing as she mumbles against your skin, “Love you.”

“Look at you two, bein’ a couple of dorks.”

You both laugh, Sami Jo sitting up as the two of you glance over to Cib, and you pull your hand away from his to ruffle his hair. “You love us.”