Resident Stupid

You are sitting on the ground, working on learning how to sew. The trip has been long and the only clothes you and Grace have are the ones that were packed, but now they are slowly gaining holes and becoming ragged from use. Rocky is in front of you, engineering a pseudo-sewing machine for you.

"No, Rocky, I don't have a mate." A laptop is open in front of you, a book on "Sewing for Idiots" open in a PDF.

"Friend have mate in past, question?"

"No, Rocky, I've never had a mate."

"Why friend not have mate, question? Friend is smart. Friend is fun!"

You smile at Rocky, endeared to his compliments.

"Thanks Rocky. Uh, I don't know. Just never felt like I needed one."

Rocky tilts their body slightly, an indication you now know means they are confused. "Not need mate, question? Explain."

You blow out a breath, already bracing yourself for the conversation you know is coming. It's never easy explaining human things or culture to an alien, especially something that is… well, not well known among humans even. You put down your needle and cloth that you were practicing with. Leaning back on your hands, you relax into the conversation.

"Well, I'm sure you understand feeling close and all the things that comes with a mate." Rocky nods at this. "I'm sure you also know that what you feel for Grace and I is different from how you feel toward Adrian, right?"

"Yes."

"I've never felt that way towards anyone. I've never…wanted a mate before. I've never felt the feelings associated with that."

You don't notice it, too focused on explaining all this to Rocky. Grace is still, too still behind you. He's hyper focused on the conversation, his pencil resting on the page, not moving.

"Not want a mate. No understand. Need word."

You blink, thinking. The word is escaping you, just on the tip of your tongue. Perhaps being in a medically induced coma isn't so good for your word recall.

"Hmm. Hold on a second. There is a word for it, but I'm having trouble remembering. Ask me something else about it. Maybe that will spark my memory?"

"Hmmm. Feel bad bad bad without mate, question?" Rocky taps twice on the xenonite of his ball, concerned about you. "Rocky miss Adrian. Rocky want Adrian even when not know Adrian. Friend feel this way, question?"

"No. Not at all."

"Who were you being brave for, coming on this trip?"

You startle slightly at Grace's question, the sound waves coming from behind you. You sit up, looking back at him. "What do you mean?"

Grace taps his pencil anxiously on his paper, little flecks of graphite falling onto the white page. He rubs the back of his neck with his other hand. "I mean, well, Yao told me back on Earth that you have to find someone to be brave for to come on this trip. Who was your person?"

You tilt your head at an angle, closing your eyes. Grace waits patiently, knowing when you are searching your memory for who you were and how that applies to you now. Despite being a whole person before this trip, Grace understands that sometimes the memories not only have to rise to the surface, but have to be fitted in place with the person that is being created now on the Hail Mary.

"Me. Strangers. No one." Your eyes flutter open, looking up at Grace. His face is contorted, and you know you have lost him as well.

"Oh, boy."

"How are you able to throw your life away for no one?"

"The Earth was dying, Grace. Not just humans, but the animals. The plants. Everything would change! If I could do something to help out with allowing sunlight to still filter through tree leaves, I was going to do it."

Grace looked at you as if he was seeing you for the first time. Awe and sadness equally reflecting in his eyes. The awe was something new to you, when sharing this information, but the sadness was a familiar pain. One that caused you to throw up a wall, to stiffen immediately.

"I'm not some poor lost cause just cause I don't want a partner, Grace."

Grace's eyes widen and he drops his pencil onto the lab table, opting to throw his hands up in a placating matter, as if to say "here's my hands, I mean no harm".

You would have laughed were you not still waiting for his response. Waiting for the inevitable "Wait until you find the right person".

"I know that! I don't mean to imply that at all!" Grace pulls his glasses down, hanging them as he always does under his chin. He pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing. "This isn't going how I wanted it to."

"How did you want this to go?"

"I don't know! I, uh, I just want to know more about this. It's interesting. You're interesting!"

A scoff leaves your lips.

"Rocky agree with Grace. Topic is interesting. Friend save Earth. Save Erid. Life is reason, question?"

"Yeah, Rock. Life is the reason I left Earth. Life is what I love!" Your eyes light up, finally, at Rocky's question. Who knew that all it would take for someone to understand was for them to be not human?

"You've never had a crush?" Grace asks you, ignoring your moment with Rocky.

"No."

"You've never gone on a date?"

"Nope."

"How did you know that's who you were?"

"How did you know that you wanted to date?"

Grace's mouth drops open, hangs for a second, and then snaps shut. He looks away from you, running a hand through his hair. He stays quiet.

Rocky rolls closer to Grace, placing a claw on the edge of his ball. "Grace say Grace had mate once. Remember, question?"

"Yeah."

"So, how did you know you wanted to go out with them?" You lean forward, gazing up at Grace, making sure you give him the time to respond.

It takes a while. At first, he seems flustered by the interrogation on both yours and Rocky's behalf. His knee is bouncing up and down, practically shaking. Then, he seems to be lost in thought, parsing through his own memories.

"I don't think I really did want to date."

You blink, your spine straightening, head cocking slightly.

Oh.

"Why not?"

"I got asked out. I had never been asked out before. That's what you should do when a girl asks you out, right? Go out with them. I never really thought about dating as a reality for me, until she came up to me."

"Were you attracted to her?"

"No understand word. Explain." You look up at Grace, darting your eyes between him and Rocky, asking for help on this one. Grace hastily puts his glasses back on, as though that will help him explain this very complicated word.

"Uh, let's see. Attraction is when you think someone looks nice. Or I guess, for you, it would be they sound nice or interesting."

"Attraction only for how they sound, question?"

"No, no. That would be more, like, physical attraction. You could also be attracted to who they are. You want to get to know them. Possibly be closer to them."

"Oh, understand. Felt attraction for Adrian."

Grace looks over at you, one corner of his lip at a crooked angle, showing his lack of confidence in his explanation of attraction.

You shrug back. It's not like you would explain it much better right now.

"So, were you attracted to her?"

"I mean, she was nice. It was nice to have someone around to talk to."

Your eyes softened. "That wasn't my question, Grace."

"I…I don't know. How would one know if they were?"

You laugh, a loud clear sound. The tension in the air is long gone, and Grace smiles nervously, laughing a little to himself.

"What's so funny?"

You take a deep breath, still giggling a little, trying to come down to this serious conversation.

"You think I would know? I just told you I have never even had a crush!"

"Oh, yeah," Grace looks down, a slight blush rising on his cheeks. "I guess I don't know. I don't think I was attracted to her. Not that she wasn't nice to look at." Grace immediately backtracks, shaking his hands out in front of him again, "Not that I mean it like that! I just-I don't know-she was pretty, but I don't think I felt it that way."

"I understand."

Grace folds his arms over his chest, peering at you over his glasses. "I guess you do."

"So you didn't feel the need for romantic relationships?"

Grace leans back, closing his eyes. "I guess I didn't."

"Did you…uh…please don't take this the wrong way. I can answer first, actually. I…don't really want romantic relationships… or even purely physical ones? If you get what I mean?"

You see Grace's eyes open, but he doesn't look at you. All of a sudden, the roof is the most interesting thing about being in space.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Um…no, I don't think I felt the need for those either."

"Rocky no understand."

Both of you jump at the computer program's voice. In the midst of figuring each other out, you forgot about the other person present in this conversation. Who doesn't get how humans tend to skirt around 'taboo' conversations.

You take your turn this time. "Rocky, do you Eridians have a way of making more of you?"

"What friend mean, make more, question?"

"Like how we encouraged the taumoeba to breed?"

"Yes! Eridians make more eridians."

"Well, it's that. Although…not always just to make more. Simply for the act itself."

"Oh. Understand. Humans do this, too. Humans not like talk about it, question?"

You look at Grace, a bit helpless. "Not all humans. You managed to get two who don't really care for it, I guess."

"Interesting. Humans on ship different from humans on Earth."

"Yeah, something like that, bud."

The room goes quiet for a second. Grace seems to be lost in thought, his head in the clouds. You pick up your sewing needle, returning to the task that was at hand before all this tangential information was relayed.

Not that it was bad. In fact, it was one of the more productive conversations you had ever had when talking about your orientation for relationships in that way. Having a scientist and an alien who loves learning about culture really was the best way to talk about it. With curiosity. No judgment.

A few minutes pass before Grace comes back down to Earth. Well, back to the Hail Mary, you muse.

"Did you remember the word for it?"

"Hmm?"

"The word. For what we were talking about. Do you remember what it was?"

"Oh. Um. Give me a second, I'm gonna search the files." You pause what you were doing. Mentally scanning through memories and words associated with those memories. "I'm aromantic…and asexual. I'm aroace, you could say. I'm not really interested in a romantic relationship and I'm not interested in sex."

You look over at Grace. Blue eyes stare into yours. Suddenly, they well up, tears lining his eyelids.

"Grace!"

"Grace leaking liquid again. Grace hurt, question? Grace scared, question? What liquid mean, question?"

Grace continues to look at you, tears beginning to drag down on his cheek. His mouth opens, a little sound coming out, before he shuts it quickly. Instead of speaking, Grace gets up from his seat, and practically crashes into you on the floor, arms wrapping tightly around you.

One of your hands go to his back as well, steadying him to you, grounding him. The other attempts to throw the sewing needle you had been holding toward your makeshift pincushion, by the laptop. It misses, rolling out of your view somewhere on the floor.

"Oh no."

Grace practically jumps out of your arms, face showing abject horror at those two little words. "I am so sorry. I should have asked. I didn't mean to-I mean I just got swept up in the moment. It was so nice to hear you also feel that way-Not like that! I mean, you know-feel nothing. Not nothing! I mean-"

"Grace!"

He shuts up, eyes wide and chest heaving. You purse your lips, trying desperately to hold it in, but you can't. You laugh, loud and unabashedly.

"What?"

"Grace! I dropped my sewing needle somewhere behind you. I wasn't mad about the hug. Oh my god, you should have seen your face!"

Grace stares at you for a second, then two, before he starts to laugh at himself. Through little fits of laughter, he manages to get out, "So was a hug okay?"

You give one last chuckle, smiling long after. "Of course it was."

He smiles back, before going in for the hug. As he begins to reach out again, Rocky rolls his ball up to you both, nearly knocking you both over.

"Rocky want group hug! Group hug! Group hug!"

"Jeez, OK, Rocky! Bring it in!"

You shift back, giving space for Rocky to also be a part of the group hug, but make sure that Grace gets enough contact. You feel as though he needs it.

A moment later, you all separate. Rocky clacks their claws together, shifting side to side in a happy dance.

You sit there, picking under your nails, before looking up at Grace. "So why were you crying?"

Grace inhales, then blows out the breath. "Oh boy, well. I've always felt I was…different. It's nice to know there is a word for what I think I am. I mean, I am a scientist, I want to research this a little more, but at least I have a lead."

Grace peers at your over his glasses, a small lifting in the corner of his mouth as he says,"Thanks to you."

You place a hand on his arm, leaning toward him. "I know what it is like to feel different. It took me a long time to realize that it didn't have to mean that I was wrong or bad in anyway. I'm just glad that I could be here to tell you this. It will save you a lot of heartache to know that it's a thing. That you can be different and similar to other people. It's not a bad thing."

You shift back, but still hold his gaze. "It's just you."

Grace closes his eyes, biting his cheek. When they open again, they are glossy with unshed tears.

"You know, I still wouldn't have come on this mission. Even if I had known back then what I know now."

You nod. "I understand. I don't think less of you for it. Just because I appreciate the Earth by saving it doesn't make you a bad person for wanting to stay and experience it for longer."

One last tear drips down his face at your words. You gently wipe it away with your thumb, holding his face after with one hand.

"I know you need time to sit with this, but if you do end up thinking you are AroAce, I want to personally welcome you. You'll always have me, no matter what."

You feel his face shift under your hand, a beaming grin forming on his face.

"Grace have Rocky too. Rocky still not understand, but Rocky always a friend of Grace."