Work Text:
Clutch Powers wiped his forehead, looking up at the midday sun, high in the sky. He was on a dig in the middle of the bloody summer, in twenty five degree weather. Ridiculous, really. He bent back down, brushing dirt off some fossil he’d found. “Dr. Powers!” a high voice called from behind. First fucking Master. Not again. He stood up and turned on his heel to face his colleague, whose name he purposely forgot. She ran up to him, her shirt tied up and two buttons undone. “Heya Dr. Powers! It's really hot out, right?” she giggled, twirling her hair around her finger. Clutch glared at her.
“Sure thing.”
“Mhm. I was thinking, we should go get ice cream later, or something. Hang out?”
She looked up at him, trying to be seductive. Clutch groaned.
“For the last time”, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I do not want to date you. I have no interest in doing anything with you. Now, please go away.”
She pouted. “Do you have a girlfriend or something? Or a crush on someone else?”
Clutch stared at her incredulously. “W- girlfriend? Crush? No, of course not.”
She narrowed her eyes and lowered her voice. “Are you gay then? Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course…” she trailed off.
For once in his life, he was at a loss for words. No, he wasnt gay. Or… was he? Shit, he’d never had a crush on a woman… but then again, he'd never liked a guy like that either… Wait what the fuck, he was supposed to be working. Leave the identity crisis for later, Clutch, he thought. He shook his head.
“Im not gay. Now piss off, don't you have something more productive to do?”, he snapped. She gave him a strange look and flounced off to bother someone else. Clutch grimaced and got back to his fossil.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Clutch opened his laptop. Right. Back to that identity crisis. He opened the default search engine, and typed “ am i gay ” into it. The results were mostly shitty quizzes, presumably made by thirteen year olds. He sighed. Might as well.
Several quizzes with frankly awful grammar and a lot of lyric questions later, Clutch had come to two conclusions: one, he wasnt gay, and two, he wasnt straight either. Right, back to the drawing board. He furrowed his brows. He clicked on the search bar. He typed in “ Lgbtq ”. Hed heard the ninja talk about it, and that there was more than just gay and straight. HE hummed, scrolling through artical after article. “Ah, here we go”, he muttered, clicking onto a website. “ LGBTQ explained ”
“Oh for fucks sake. This is all bullshit.” Clutch kicked the wall behind his desk, sending his spinny chair across the room. He sighed. He had spent hours looking through labels, growing increasingly frustrated. Out of everything he had looked through, he couldn't relate to one single thing. “Right, I’m going the fuck to sleep.” He unplugged his laptop and stomped out of the study.
Clutch wrapped his duvet around him, laying on his stomach, and propped his laptop up on the pillow. He opened Youtube, and began to scroll through the recommended videos, until one caught his eye. “ Coming out as aromantic.” Huh. He clicked on the video and let it play. When it ended, he closed the computer and rolled onto his back. Shit.
“aromantic
[eɪrə(ʊ)ˈmantɪk]
ADJECTIVE
- having no interest in or desire for romantic relationships.
"I identify as an aromantic asexual" ·
NOUN
- a person who has no interest in or desire for romantic relationships.
"both asexuals and aromantics face a lack of understanding"
“Aromanticism is a spectrum of romantic orientations characterised by experiencing little to no romantic attraction.”
“The term aromantic uses the Latin prefix a- which means 'without' or 'not'. In a literal sense, it means 'a lack of romance'.”
He was aromantic.
“I'm aromantic.” he whispered it aloud, like it was a secret. It was a strange feeling, but his experience with romance made a little more sense now. All the times when he was a kid, picking a classmate to lie about having a crush, feeling left out when he watched all his friends get into relationships, or talk about who they liked and just… not wanting it, wishing there was a book or show that wasn't romance centred… why he had rejected every girl who had shown interest. It was freeing, just knowing there was a word for what he was, that there were others like him.
But truth was a double edged sword. He felt..lonely? It wasn't quite the right way to put it, but it was the only way he could think of. In a world where every piece of media and almost every person pushed the idea that “love” was the only way you could live a full life.
He loved his family though, right? And his friends, and his job, and sweets, and his childhood pets (rest well suzie thee fishy, he thought, grinning at the memory of his long dead fish) and… well, there was quite a lot of stuff he loved. So… it doesn't really matter.
Hm. He grabbed his phone from the other side of his bed and pulled up his mothers contact.
Clutch- Mom? U awake??
Mother -Yes, i am, but what are you doing up
at this hour??
Clutch- i need to tell u smth
Mother- Go ahead…
Clutch- i'm aromantic
Mother- What? What's that?
Clutch- basically i don't want to date n e one
Clutch- like ever
Mother- … ok… how did you come to this
conclusion??
Clutch- uhhhh
Clutch- google?
Mother- is that the same as being gay?
Clutch- no but it's not like st8 either
Clutch- gay people like the same, straight people like
opposite, aromantics like none
Mother- So you don't want to get married? Or have kids?
Clutch- nah, don't think so
Mother-...
Mother- Ok, well I love you no matter what, because you’re
my son, understand?
Clutch- yeah, love you mom
Mother- I love you, darling.
Clutch sighed happily, gently throwing his phone down on the bed. That was easy. Now that he'd told his mom, it felt more real. More solid.
“I'm aromantic.” he said, a grin spreading across his face as a surge of euphoria overcame him.
“I'm aromantic! Fuck you, girl-from-work-whose-name-i-cant-rember!”
He laughed at that, rolling onto his side. Damn, that was one effective identity crisis. And plus, no awful haircuts or dodgy makeup! He sighed, once again cocooning himself in the warm duvet, and falling asleep with thoughts of shocking work-girl-who-wouldn't-leave-him-alone with the news of his newfound identity.