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"Grace is leaking. Why, question?"
"Hm?" Grace brought a hand to his eye, wondering if he had been crying and hadn't noticed.
"No, not crying. Grace has blood on pants. Blood is not good. Grace is okay, question?" Fuckkkkk, that's right. He hadn't really kept a schedule or anything, figuring it would be fine to free bleed while he was alone. But he's not alone anymore.
"I'm fine, Rock. Just gotta... take care of something." There's gotta be period products somewhere on the ship. He'd just have to look for them. Hidden somewhere in a nook or cranny or something that he hadn't already seen.
After an hour of searching, Grace can confidently say there are no period products on the ship. No tampons, no pads, hell, not even a menstrual cup or period underwear! Did they really think this through? Even if they had forgot about him, what was their plan for Ilyukhina? Did they plan to just send people to go kill themselves without even having the decency to make them comfortable when two out of three of them inevitably started their periods?
"Hey Rocky?" Grace says, knowing he could hear him from whever he was. Rocky comes tumbling into the room inside his ball not even a second later. Was he waiting outside the door? Doesn't matter.
"Grace is still bleeding. Did not change clothes, question?"
"Do you remember when we talked about human reproduction?" Of course he remembers. Grace knows he has a photographic memory. The question is more of a courtesy than anything else.
"Yes, it was insightful. How is Grace bleeding related to reproduction, question?" Here goes nothing.
"As I'm sure you know, female humans have eggs inside the uterus to be fertilized," Rocky tilts his carapace up and down in a mimicry of a nod, "If the eggs aren't fertilized, the body ejects the uterine lining--"
"New word," Rocky says, leaning towards Grace.
"What, uterine? Relating to the uterus. So the uterine lining is expelled in a kind of bloody mess. This happens over the course of a week about once a month, though it's different for all humans."
"So Grace is experiencing uterus ejection?"
"Called a period, bud."
"Period." Rocky repeats.
"Alright, good job. Are you with me so far?" Rocky once again makes a nodding motion with his carapace.
"Question. Grace says female humans experience periods, but Grace says he is male human. Grace is lying, question?" He knows Rocky doesn't mean it like that, but a pang does go through his heart. He remembers being called a liar back on Earth. It never hurt him much, but that's only because he was never close enough to any of the people who said that to him. He was never close enough to any people, period. That's why he's here in the first place. His life matters less.
"Grace, question?" Right. It doesn't matter if nobody loved him on Earth, he has someone who loves him now. A weird alien-rock-spider someone, but six of one, half a dozen of another, right?
"Sorry, Rock. Just thinking. To answer your question, I'm not lying. What I've just explained to you, the male humans, the female humans, those are the basic human sexes. There are more that are in between the two, but we can talk about those later. On Earth, there's also this thing called gender. It's kind of similar to sex, but different. New word, I know, gender." Rocky shifts, tucking his legs under him to show that he is listening intently.
"Gender." "Yep. So, gender as a concept is kind of difficult to explain, especially to someone like you who has never heard of it. It's kind of just, how you express yourself and how people refer to you. Theres men and women, which are, typically, linked to males and females. Just like there are other sexes, there are other genders, except there are so many of them that I couldn't list them for you if I tried."
"Inefficient way to do things. On Erid, everybody is treated the same."
"I kind of agree with you there. It is very odd, but it's a cultural thing. Anyway, when I was born, I was a female woman. As I grew up, I didn't like the way that made me feel, so I switched. Most humans don't do this, but a few occasionally do. I'm a man now. Since that is typically linked with the male sex, I identify myself as male. But I was born with the female sex organs, so I still have them. Just like a female human does, I get periods. There are more factors to it all, but they are very confusing. We can dive deeper into this another day."
"Grace is happy as male." Rocky is taking this (un?)surprisingly well.
"Yeah. Very," Grace says, simply. He watches Rocky unfold his limbs from under him and roll the ball towards him.
"Rocky thinks Grace is male. Grace is still bleeding. Rocky can help, question?" Grace sighs. Rocky likes to fix everything. Grace doesn't want to tell him that he can't fix this. But he has to, or who knows what types of stunts Rocky would pull trying to help.
"No, unfortunately. Theres no stopping the blood. Most humans put something in their pants, called pads or tampons, to soak up the blood and prevent it from leaking out everywhere. You're right when you say humans are very leaky, so we try to stop what we can. But we don't have anything on the ship like that. I don't know why we don't."
"So Grace must suffer, question? Rocky can't fix, question?" Grace looks away.
"It's not pleasant having blood everywhere, but the blood doesn't actually hurt. Periods can hurt, but its not because of the blood. Having a pad wouldn't help any pain. Best I can do is take some painkillers if need be. Sorry, bud. You can't help." Rocky visibly deflates. Grace loves Rocky's penchant for fixing things, but it does make him feel really bad when he can't actually fix it.
"I hope you don't mind the blood. There's gonna be a lot of it."