“Shut up!” Percy pushed his hands into his ears as hard as he could, wishing he could stick knives in to remove the non-existent things inside making them itch and ache. Deep enough to more than pop his eardrums, probably pierce his brain. “Just shut up! I can’t handle it anymore!”
“Handle what?” Oliver shrunk back a little, trying to remind himself this wasn’t personal.
“Shut up!”
Instead of responding, the blonde handed the other boy his noise canceling headphones as he recognized these as signs of the world being too loud.
Although Percy took them, and even put them, it quickly became obvious that they were not what he needed as he ripped them off his head, throwing them across the room as if they were physically hurting him.
Thank goodness for magic as they certainly wouldn’t have survived hitting the wall like that otherwise.
“Not those then.” Oliver commented, surprised when Percy didn’t tell him to shut up again, but he just couldn’t handle it. Percy’s own voice was hurting himself.
“Stop.” The redhead practically whimpered, near tears.
“I’m sorry.” Oliver whispered, feeling bad when Percy flinched.
Percy wobbly walked across the room to his bed, fearing that each step would lead to him falling on the ground, kicking and screaming, going into full meltdown mode.
He did not want to do that in front of the one person he didn’t have to mask around, his best friend, his…crush.
Falling onto his rough mattress and case-less pillow—he would rather die than touch a sheet or pillowcase, let alone sleep with them every night—Percy struggled to untwist his twenty pound weighted blanket, eventually pulling it over his body, closing his eyes at the same time to pretend Oliver wasn’t here, seeing all this.
Everything changed.
Percy always forgot about how useful his weighted blanket was when he really needed it. Although it was helpful at night for sleeping, the real reason he bought it was to help with both over and under stimulation as well as meltdowns. Yet, this was only the third time he used it for such a purpose—it mine as well not exist most of the time.
“I’m sorry.” Percy whispered, eyes still closed, when Oliver laid on the bed next to him a few minutes later.
“Don’t apologize, you haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I did though. I yelled at you.”
“So?”
“That’s wrong, abusive. I don’t want to hurt you, scare you.”
“You didn’t, I just felt concerned. You’re not abusive, you’re just autistic. You don’t have to apologize for that.”
“Being autistic isn’t an excuse for being bad.”
“It’s not an excuse, it’s a reason. You can’t control being overstimulated or the effects anymore than you can control needing food or air to survive.”
“I should have stopped and thought before I said it. I should have conformed better, hid it.”
“That’s not how autism works.”
“People say—”
“Weird ass things about things they don’t know shit about. I know.”
“I should have done ABA therapy.” Percy eventually responded, eyes still squeezed tightly together.
“You mean autistic conversion therapy?” It wasn’t really a question, Oliver knew all about the connections between ABA therapy and conversion therapy, as did Percy.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t need that. No one does.”
“I would be more normal.”
“Normal isn’t a thing. You don’t want to be normal because normal people are all different kinds of people. You want to be neurotypical.”
“Same thing. I mean: I know it’s ableist to say, but the neurotypicals are the normal ones. Not because they’re inherently better or anything, but because they’re the only ones who can actually survive and thrive in this stupid world. The only ones really represented or listened to.”
“Well, yeah….But, that doesn’t make them more normal, that just makes them lucky.”
“Well, then, I wish I was lucky.”
“If it means anything, I like you better this way.” Oliver promised.
“Why?”
“I don’t know….Why not?”
“This way is harder to deal with.”
“I’m not dealing with anything.”
“I wouldn’t want to be my friend.” Percy protested. “I would hate me—do hate me.”
“Well, then,” Oliver smiled, though Percy couldn’t see it, “it’s a good thing I’m me, not you.”