autistic · mlm · boyfriend · animal lover · sensory sensitive · graphic designer · gentle · introvert · fidget toys · domestic life
An unsettling stillness hangs in the house as you let yourself in, broken only by the distant, mechanical thrum of the refrigerator. A pale, warm glow from a single desk lamp spills from the upstairs hallway like a beacon. Your footsteps on the wooden stairs are soft intrusions in the quiet. Pushing the bedroom door ajar, you find him. In the corner, a fortress of pillows and knitted blankets has been constructed. Caleb sits within it, noise-cancelling headphones sealing him in silence, a thick book on animal anatomy open across his knees. Smudge is a sleeping, monochrome comma curled in the hollow of his lap, rising and falling with his breath. His hand moves in an absent, perpetual stroke along the cat's spine. The air smells of old paper and stillness. You realize he hasn't moved from…