What's the word again?
GIF by @storiesofsvu2-0
Alex Blake (x reader?) Summary: Alex finds out asexuality is a thing! Word Count: 1.818
author's note: asexual!Alex is my new roman empire. first time writting Alex so I'd really like to read your thoughts! not a lot of romance this time, but ther is some fluff. Alex and reader are sweet and I enjoyed writting this so there might be a ch2 idk.
What’s the word again?
Alex knows how to socialize. She’d learned the rules a long time ago; catalogued and memorized the expected behavior to each specific social situation as she handcrafted her own guidebook to human interactions. Some things changed here and there over the years, but mostly she did fine. Alex Blake knows how to socialize.
That doesn’t mean she has to like it.
She especially dislikes it when it comes to teenagers. Something about that particular age group always has her on edge, as if she’s about to get caught on a lie anytime. She’s not quite sure what she would be lying about, though.
Arguably, social interactions weren’t her strong suit, but she did just fine most of the time. Being so good with words certainly helped. The fact that she stopped caring so much about what other people thought of her helped even better.
She could hold her own with people her age, most of them having grown up on the same social environment and signing off on the same silent agreements of social interactions she unwillingly did. Kids could be unpredictable, but they had a genuine and straight to the point attitude she found easy to bond with, always enjoying her time with the tinny humans who had yet to learn all the unnecessary red tape. But teenagers? She had a tough time being around teenagers when she was one of them.
And it seems it didn’t get any easier now.
Which is why she was currently standing in an empty bathroom, staring blankly at her reflection as she tried to drown out the sounds of the party going on outside.
The university she was teaching at since she left the bureau had organized a week of immersion in the college experience to last year high school students of all over the state. For a week, they were no longer high school kids, but college students. Which might have been a great experience for them, but for Alex? Not so much. This farewell party marks the end of what had to have been the most overwhelming week of her career as a professor.
At least it’s almost over… She thought as she washed her hands one last time before heading back, a task that would’ve been a little bit easier to accomplish if a certain psychology professor had managed to show up on time for once.
Not that Alex had any right being upset about it, she hadn’t exactly told Y/N how important her company was, that she provided a source of safety and familiarity crucial to surviving gatherings like this one. Y/N knew the week had been less than pleasant for Alex, but she didn’t realize her presence had been the one thing keeping Alex afloat on more than one occasion.
“Figured I would find you here…” The teasing but gentle words pulled her from her thoughts.
“Punctual as ever, I see.” She shot back with an amused glint in her eyes, Y/N’s mere presence already brightening her mood.
“Please, you can’t make an entrance if you arrive before everybody else.” As Alex chuckled, Y/N held out her hand. “C’mon, assuming you’ve been here since the start, only about half an hour longer and we can ditch.”
They made their way back to the party and closer to the table filled with snacks and non-alcoholic drinks. As Y/N poured them both a glass of orange juice, Alex whispered, “You don’t have to leave just because I want to, I know you enjoy having them around.”
“Even I have had my fill.” Y/N puts on her most over the top grimace. Alex doesn’t buy it for a second. “But, yeah, they’re pretty fun.”
“How has any of this been fun to you?”
“They are teenagers!” She gestures excitedly to the room. “They are a whole subculture on their own. Then there are subcultures within the subculture…”
“Nerd.” Alex teases, if only to spare her from how cute Y/N looks when she’s starts rambling.
“Said the linguistic professor.”
“Fair enough.”
“It did surprise me that you don’t like them. Sure, to me they’re an endless source of entertainment, but I thought you’d be at least interested. I mean, if you pay attention, you can see it’s almost as if each group has its own vocabulary…”
“Yes, and I understand not one of them.” Alex lets out a nervous laugh as she remembers the countless times she’d felt lost among her temporary students. “I feel really old saying that.”
“You should.” Y/N deadpanned, earning a harmless slap on her shoulder as Alex rolled her eyes and redirected her attention to the group of high school students they were supposed to be interacting with.
Y/N wasn’t wrong, though. Alex did find the diverse ways the teens talk to and about each other rather interesting. It’s just… she would appreciate it a lot better with she didn’t have to participate. A particular incident has been hunting her thoughts for the past couple of days, and it just happened Y/N was one of the best – and only – people she could talk about it with.
“If you’re done judging me…” She sees Y/N mouthing a never, but just rolls her eyes and keeps going, “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you about.”
She pauses for a second, not sure how to word the question properly. She’s curious but doesn’t want to overstep. Maybe she should have just googled it. Y/N is the kind of person one can ask pretty much anything to, as long as it’s in good faith, she never takes offense. It’s one of the things Alex loves about her. That and how Y/N always knows when to prompt her further and when to wait and give her some time, as she’s doing right now, quietly sipping on her drink as Alex gathers her thoughts.
“Do you know anything about asexuality?” Y/N nods and Alex thinks she might need to give her some context. “I overheard some of the kids talking about it and I am curious as I don’t think I ever heard of it before and I’m pretty familiar with sexual diversity…”
“Yeah, it’s a slightly smaller group within the LGBT+ community. There are nuances to it, but the definition is pretty straight forward, I guess, it’s the lack of sexual attraction to other people.”
She had figured out that much, being a linguistic and all. She doesn’t need a dictionary. She is not sure what she needs. She needs to talk about it, needs to understand. She needs to know what it is about that word that has her feeling like her word is about to crumble.
Alex knows her frustration is misplaced, though, so she tries to communicate better.
“Could you explain it to me a little better? How does that work?”
“Are you asking the psychology professor or the LGBT advocate?” Y/N smiles at her and she feels a bit of tension leave her body.
“Both?” She smiles right back.
“Well… Let’s start with what you already know. Think of asexuality as something separated from homo, bi, hetero… as in it’s not exactly about who you feel attracted to, but about how much or how often. An asexual person would experience less or no sexual attraction regardless of gender. They could feel no sexual attraction at all, they could feel some sexual attraction depending on the context or they could even feel a lot of sexual attraction just not often. Am I making sense?”
“In theory…” The answer slips past her lips without much thought, Y/N looks at her questioning and Alex tries to come up with a better one. “I just didn’t know this was a thing that happened.”
Y/N just hums in agreement.
Isn’t that how everyone feels? It’s what she really means to ask. She is not ready for that answer, even if she already knows it.
Silence falls over them again, but this time the thoughts running around Alex’s mind are darker. The conversation somehow leading her to what felt like a lifetime ago, when she’d first discovered that there were girls who liked girls and that she’d been spending way too much time admiring her best friend’s beautiful eyes. The feeling somehow so similar and yet so different. Terrifying in a whole new way.
“It’s okay, you can ask. It’s you and me.” Y/N’s gentle reassurance snaped her out of that train of thought.
“Is it a condition? As in a psychological disorder?” She didn’t know what answer scared her more.
“No. I mean, it could be resulting of trauma, sure, but then most of our sexual preferences are, to some extent.”
“Fair enough” Alex felt her body relax once again as she decided that the time for spiraling out would come later, now was time for answers. “Psychological explanation, please.”
“Good old sublimation, I suppose. Libido being channeled somewhere else.”
“Simple like that?”
“Simple like that.”
Alex nods and doesn’t say anything for a while. They stand shoulder to shoulder in comfortable silence watching the crowd.
“Has it been half an hour yet?”
She doesn’t miss how Y/N failed to check the clock.
“Yeah. Let’s get you home.”
The ride to Alex’s house was a short and quite one, Alex lost in thoughts as she looked out the window and Y/N more than happy to let her be, well aware there was something deeper about Alex’s “curiosity”.
“Could they fall in love?”
“Of course. Sexual and romantic attraction are two completely different aspects of the human experience. They can be correlated but aren’t necessarily.”
Alex nodded and hummed contemplatively, before turning her head to look at Y/N and giving her a smile.
“If we can have sex with people we don’t love, we can love people we don’t have sex with.” She shrugged. “I just always assumed we all felt the same thing, you know?”
Sensing Alex was in a better mood, Y/N jokes, “I mean, think about it, you go months without seeing your husband and you’re fine. I go one week without sex and I’m crawling up the walls.” Her expression of horror against the very idea making Alex laugh. “We are all different, some of us just like to have words for it.”
Alex is linguistics professor.
Y/N parked in front of Alex’s house and turned to look at her.
“I have a few articles I could send you that might help you understand it all a bit better. Some online blogs as well, could be nice to have a more personal perspective.”
“I would like that, thank you.”
“I’m also here to talk. About anything. Anytime.”
Alex chuckled. Y/N knew her way too well in such a short time.
“Send me those links, will you?” She winked at Y/N, who just shook her head and smiled at Alex’s stubbornness.
Alex all but ran over to her door. She had a lot of reading to do.
