68 Danny's POV
Tom seemed to just... stop, or at least slow right down once he'd finished thinking. I mean, he just... he was so robotic. Or not robotic at such, but he wasn't okay. Like he was last week, but even more so away with the fairies. He wasn't paying attention to anything, lost completely inside his own mind, working everything on autopilot. It took a huge amount of noise, or one of us directly touching him, before he actually responded to us.
Even when he did respond, it was only to say that he was getting things done, that he was absolutely fine. But it was clear he wasn't. He was stressed. And scared, and clearly didn't know what to think of anything. My heart broke for him, actually shattered for him. I couldn't... it must have been awful, to realise all this, and to not know what to do with the information. Tom's whole world had been flipped upside down, I couldn't imagine how that felt for him.
"Hey, Buzz wants to have a jam, fancy joining in?" I suggested, hearing Buzz call for 'Drums! Sticks! Harry!' from the front room. Tom was, again, cleaning the kitchen, despite the fact that it was spotless.
Tom jumped in response, stopping his frantic scrubbing of the kitchen surface, whirling round to face me.
"N-No, no, it's fine. I-I'm... I need to get on with, with cleaning." Tom spun round again, getting back to work.
"Tom, the kitchen's scrubbed, come and have some fun." I tried to encourage him, unsure whether to touch him or not. He was starting to get stressed again, and I wanted to hug him, to calm him down, but would that make him worse? Would that cause him to freak out? It had before, simply touching him, or being too nice, had caused tears. I didn't know how this would play out.
"I need to get on, there's, there's things to do." Tom shook his head, "I need, I need to prove myself." He muttered, that... that didn't make sense.
"You don't need to prove anything, you're doing great," if this was about him not wanting to show us 'weakness' or something, then he needn't have worried, he was doing so well, so damn well. Considering everything, if I had been him, I would have been rocking in a corner by now. The fact that he was still standing was a good sign in my books, even if he was a bit robotic by most standards.
"No, it's... just, please, let me get on, I need... I need to get on." Tom's scrubbing got faster, more frantic.
"Hey, it's okay, no need to get stressed," I put a hand on his shoulder.
"No it's not! It's not okay!" Tom whirled around again, his face was screwed up with so much pain, "I-It's not okay, it's not. it's, it's all wrong." His bottom lip started quivering, "I, I'm not okay." He whispered, before suddenly bursting into tears.
"Whoa, whoa Tom, what's wrong? What's happened?" I rushed to grab hold of him before he fell over, feeling his entire body shaking.
I eased us to the floor, letting Tom sob into my chest, his cries soon becoming hysterical. He was so upset, what the hell had happened? What brought this on? Was it me?
"I'm sorry Tom, I'm sorry if I upset you, I didn't mean to. I was just suggesting a break from doing some jobs. I didn't mean to hurt you." I honestly hadn't, I'd just, I'd just wanted to get him to have some fun. To take his mind off everything that was going on right now. I hadn't meant to make him cry.
But Tom just sobbed, he didn't reply at all. He just cried, and cried, and cried. Whole body shaking, hands clutching at me like he was desperate for comfort, like he'd been bottling everything up for a long time. How long had he wanted to do this? To cry and let it all out? He'd been so stoic for days, keeping it all in, carrying on as best as he could. Was this the result of holding it all in for so long? It must have been. And I had no idea on how to help him through it.