Rises the moon

Pt 13: Blood red lily

(TW: description of a panic attack)

"Tommy are you alright?" Cypress asked as she walked over to the younger boy, sitting down next to him.

"How did he find me? I thought id be safe here, why does he care where i am, he's not my friend," Tommy said rambling out questions with increasing speed.

His breathing was shallow only adding to his increasing stress. Cypress knew what was happening, a panic attack. She had some before and had learned how to deal with them herself. Unlike Cypress's panic attacks Tommy wasn't alone. He had cypress, and techno, to help him through this, though cypress doubted techno's usefulness in this situation.

"Tommy look at me," Cypress said grabbing the young boys hands. She wasn't the biggest fan of physical contact but situations like these were exceptions.

Tommy looked up at cypress, his chest was rapidly moving up and down as he tried to force air into his lungs, to no avail.

"Tommy you'll be alright, hes gone alright, he doesn't know that your here, techno made sure of that, okay?" Cypress said, her voice cutting through the loud thumping of Tommy's own heart

"I need you to breath alright, deep breaths, can you do that?" She said once again trying to edge the boy out of the state of panic he was drowning in. She finally got some sort of response out of him. Even though it was only a simple nod and an attempt to slow his breathing, it was a good sign. Tommy could hear her and was trying his hardest to calm down.

After a few more minutes of gentle encouragement from cypress, Tommy got his breathing to a normal pace, and didn't look quite so petrified anymore.

"You better now Tommy?" Cypress asked once it was clear the boy had relaxed.

She didn't get a nod in response like she had guessed she would. Instead Tommy latched himself to cypress giving her the biggest, most sincere, and most love filled hug they've had since she was eight.

Cypress can still remember that hug, and the whole day, like it was yesterday. then again being torn away from the one person in the world that cared about you seemed like cause enough for that day to be ingrained in cypress's memory for the rest of her life.

She hugged back with all the love she could muster. Tommy really did remind her of her younger brother, in more ways than one. She wondered, not for the first time, where her brother was and how his life had gone once she was ripped out of it.

Tommy broke the hug muttering a small apology to cypress. She didn't know what he was apologizing for, the hug or the panic attack, but cypress wouldn't have it either way. She pulled the younger boy into a side hug.

"Don't apologize, you did nothing wrong. Other than scaring me half to death," She said attempting to lighten the mood with a joke.

Tommy chuckled and moved closer into cypress's touch clearly calmed by her presence. The two stayed like that for the rest of the day Tommy falling asleep shortly after techno brought the pair lunch. During the time before that Tommy and Cypress had discussed anything and everything that came to their minds.

Cypress asked Tommy about the book he had been holding. He confessed that it was a diary of sorts, and both bonded over their shared love of journalism. Cypress eventually gave into Tommy's pleas and promised to help him finish a book of different mobs he had been writing.

Tommy awed over the little bits of magic cypress showed him, anything from floating small objects to making something glow. And Cypress was thoroughly impressed by Tommy's collection of trinkets asking about certain ones that caught her eyes. However she decided it was probably best to skip over the compass Tommy had been holding when cypress first entered the room.