I wrote this ages ago and forgot to upload it. I have no clue why I called it Red Panda Eyes but it's cute so it can stay.

“I just wish I was normal.” Keith mumbled, pulling his legs close to his chest. He scrunched his eyes shut as multiple tears bubbled to the surface. Keith’s voice came out as nothing but a whisper, mainly because he wasn’t talking to anyone. He was talking to himself. His brain. The organ that made him abnormal in the first place.

“I wish I was normal.” He repeated, slightly louder that time. He was home alone anyway; it wasn’t like his parents were going to hear his insanity and lock him up. At his sides, he clenched his hands into tight fists, merely for the grounding sensation it created. It reminded him that he was there, on earth. He had a body, a mind, a soul. He wasn’t just a bundle of nothing floating through the air.

“I wish I was normal!” It was a yell that time. The tears picked up in frequency until the bathroom was blurry around him. His entire body was shaking as he breathed in and out erratically. 

If he was normal, someone would be there to hold his hand.

If he was normal, he wouldn’t be sat on the cold bathroom tiles.

If he was normal, he wouldn’t be crying.

He couldn’t even explain the emotions swirling around in the pit of his nauseated stomach. All he knew was that he felt bad. Whether bad meant angry, frustrated, sad, lost, desperate… he didn’t know. It wasn’t even his fault; he could entirely blame his autism. Then again, his autism was him so… could he blame himself? He didn’t ask to have autism.

And, fuck yeah, he was having a meltdown but he wasn’t sure what that really meant for him. Having gone his whole life being told he was “just anxious” meant he was unfamiliar with what a meltdown entailed. He unclenched and clenched his fists again. And again. And again. “Stimming” was what his therapist had described it as. As usual, he couldn’t explain why he enjoyed doing it but it calmed him slightly. It distracted him from the busy, buzzing world around him. In an almost rhythmic way, he moved his head from side to side to the beat of his moving fists. God, he must have looked stupid but he didn’t care. (Maybe he cared a little but no one was around to see him.)

It was the sound of the front door shutting that broke him out of his trance. He stopped in his moments long enough to hear a pair of footsteps climbing the staircase. The second step from the top creaked obnoxiously underneath the person’s weight.

“Keith? Are you up here? I brought food.” Mum. It was mum. Mum was safe. It took Keith many years to trust and open up to her because she wasn’t a biological parent. She had chosen him out of a crowd of other kids at the adoption agency so maybe there was something appealing about him. Or maybe she just didn’t know what she was getting into and was too far gone now.

“I’m here.” Keith croaked out before wiping his fists over his eyes to get rid of the tears. All that remained were red panda eyes.

“Are you decent?”

“Yes, I’m decent, mum.” Keith stood up because it was weird to sit on the bathroom floor. He didn’t know why; it was just weird. With that, the door was thrown open to reveal his grinning mum holding a paper McDonalds takeaway bag. If she noticed Keith’s red eyes, she didn’t say anything.

Without even realising, a frown spread across Keith’s face. “Weren’t we going to have the leftovers tonight?” They had cooked a spaghetti bolognese the night before and Keith didn’t want it to go to waste. Maybe he didn’t want his routine to be crushed too. Wednesday was a leftover night. Plus, he hadn’t told his mum what to get and what if she got the wrong thing? He didn’t want to eat a burger with tomatoes in it. What if she had forgotten he didn’t like tomatoes?

“We can have them tomorrow. We haven’t had a takeaway in ages so I thought I’d surprise you.”

Keith hated surprises so his frown didn’t falter. “Right.”

“Now come on, let’s dish this up.”

Something didn’t feel right about breaking his routine but he hated wasting food too so he ended up following his mum into the kitchen anyway. Before anything else, she flicked on the TV, bringing ITV to life. The Chase was just coming on which was nice. His mum always watched The Chase on a weekday so, even if they weren’t eating leftovers, at least something was right.

As Bradley Walsh began introducing the show, Keith’s mum pulled out a burger from the bag. No tomato. He took a deep breath and ignored the funny feeling in his stomach telling him he hated changes in routine.