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The door slamming behind Darius sounded like a bomb going off in his ears. Every floorboard creak made his face cringe in discomfort as he rushed to his desk, grabbing his noise-cancelling headphones covered in various dinosaur stickers and putting them on as he sank to the floor. Pulling his knees to his chest he tried to take deep breaths, going over what went wrong.
Every month Darius made a trip to the local grocery store to stock up on food for him and his roommates. It wasn’t his favorite chore but no places delivered this far out to his cabin. He had the same routine every time. He woke up early to avoid the rush hour, followed the shopping list, even memorized the layout of the building, but today it felt like everything that could go wrong did. He missed his alarm and by the time he arrived at the store it was packed. The lights were too bright and the sounds of cart wheels squeaking and registers beeping grated his ears. It seemed like everything on his list got moved around with the sale displays. He probably looked like an asshole ignoring the cashier and booking it out of there with his groceries.
Darius had barely put the groceries on the counter before running upstairs and hiding in his room. Kenji and Ben couldn’t help but be a little bit irritated at the mountain of food they were left with to put up. Grocery day was a three person task and he’d just abandoned them! They couldn’t help but be a bit concerned for their friend though, so after making it halfway through their haul they went to check on him.
The group had a three-knock rule before going into each other’s room, bro code of course, but after not getting a response after the first two Kenji slowly opened the door shielding his eyes for a moment before staring at the sight. His brother was sitting in the dark curled into a ball, rocking back and forth Ben-style. “Hey…D, you alright?”
Darius looked up, taking off his headphones and giving them a half-hearted smile, “Y-yeah I’m fine.”
“Well you’re sitting in the dark.” Ben said, flicking on the light switch and flicking it right back off when he saw Darius’ pained expression. Maybe a migraine? He’d gotten them for a while after his accident and the dark always helped. “Are you okay Darius?”
The boy looked away as his friends slowly entered the room, Kenji joining him on the floor and Ben sitting in his nearby desk chair, folding up his cane. Kenji’s eyes locked onto an orange, spiked object in Darius’ hand and the deep red indentations in the boy’s palm. Seeing the concern written in his face Darius said, “It’s pain-stimming, it helps me calm down.” Realizing that didn’t make it sound any better he added, “My therapist recommended it to me. I’m autistic.”
“Since when? Ow!” Ben asked, glaring at Kenji as he nudged him.
Darius shrugged, “My whole life I guess? But I just got diagnosed a few months ago.” The whole thing started when he was on the phone with his mom complaining about how different he felt from everyone when she told him she thought he had autism when he was young. She tried to get him diagnosed but seeing as he wasn’t a white little boy obsessed with trains and could hold a conversation it never went anywhere, she never stopped accommodating him though. That led him on a rabbithole of research and after going to doctor after doctor he finally found one willing to diagnose him.
“But you’re like- high-functioning right?” And now it was Kenji’s turn to get nudged, causing Darius to chuckle.
“Everyone with autism can function, but it’s a spectrum with levels. I’m level one so I don’t need as much support but I still struggle with conversations, change and sensory issues…” He went quiet after a moment, remembering what got them all talking in the first place. Why couldn’t he be normal?
Ben picked up on it first, going to touch his friend’s shoulder, hesitating and then caressing his shoulder when Darius gave a nod. “Did something happen? A sensory thing?” Kenji also gave a comforting smile. While they may not have fully understood Darius was their friend and they wanted to support him.
Darius took a breath, stretching out his hands as he talked, as if he was trying to free each finger from the joint, “I was at the store and everything just got too loud and too bright and I don’t think I even got everything they didn’t have your carob juice Ben-”
“Look, Smoothie pic!” Ben exclaimed, and suddenly there was a picture of an adorable Smoothie doing a backflip in Darius’ face, causing him to chuckle. Nothing an emotional support ankylosaurus couldn’t fix. “It’s fine dude, I swear. It was getting expensive anyway.”
“Yeah, and I can help with the shopping sometimes! I’ve been needing a reason to get out of the house.” Kenji added, standing and helping Darius to his feet, “Doesn’t mean you get out of helping us put everything away dino nerd.”
“Of course not”, Darius chuckled, heading back to the kitchen, “Oh! Did you hear about the new research of Parasaurolophus vocalizations?’