Title: Stella's Not So Shocking News
Status: Complete
Characters: Stella, Anon
Rating: SFW
Classification: One-Shot
Author: Happy_Birb
Summary: Anon is having a quiet lunch alone, when Stella sits with him to confess a recently learned truth about herself.

Mid March, Volcano High Cafeteria

Anon, the only human student of Volcano High, was sitting alone in the school cafeteria. Thankfully he wasn’t being bothered by the cantaloupe control freak Naomi, who was apparently dealing with some kind of student council bullshit. Personally, Anon didn’t care, he just wanted to get the day over with so he could go back to his apartment and shitpost on his favorite Mongolian basket weaving blogsite. He was eating something which vaguely resembled a sloppy joe, in the sense that it was some kind of meat, sauce, and what could probably be considered bread. It did not help that the texture of everything was just wrong enough that it didn’t feel right, but close enough that he could eat it. It felt more like eating a vague description of a sloppy joe than the real thing.

As he sat alone eating his pseudo-joe, he was joined by Stella, the green stegosaurus with a love of tarot cards and trash anime husbandos. She seemed slightly less cheerful than usual. Not enough that anybody would be all that concerned, but enough that even somebody as socially inept as Anon could notice it. He assumed she was upset about some weird boy-love novel. She had never mentioned reading that kind of thing, but it wouldn’t be much of a shock if it was true. Stella sat across from Anon, holding a cafeteria tray with whatever the school deemed to be a salad, at least this time it was green. Stella looked to Anon and spoke a bit less cheerfully than normal. “Hope it’s ok if I sit with you” Anon gave her a nod. “Yeah, no problem Stella.” He said before taking another bite of his sandwich as Stella spoke again. “So Anon, I have something I wanted to talk to you about.” Anon had many thoughts run through his head about what she could talk about, considering her less than cheerful mood. This was not the time to be an asshole. He would ask her “Something got you in a bad mood?” Stella nodded to Anon, looking around briefly before speaking again, just a little quieter than normal. “So I was looking through some stuff in a filing cabinet at home when trying to find something, and I found some papers.” It took a lot of strength to not joke that Stella just found out she was adopted, not the time Anon.

“Was it serious?” He asked, putting down his sandwich onto his tray. Stella would respond. “I don’t know how I forgot, but when I was little, my parents had me tested for some things, and apparently I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Are you familiar with the condition?” Hundreds upon hours of scrolling through forums baiting posters and arguing pointlessly flashed through his mind. It did not seem like a good idea to mention that to Stella, she was just too pure. “I know a bit about it, yeah. I think it’s more common in humans than dinos.” Stella would nod. “I’m not upset I’m on the Autism spectrum, but I just feel upset that my parents didn’t tell me, you know?” Anon would wipe his hands on the pathetic excuse for a napkin he had on his tray and give Stella a single pat on the shoulder. “Sometimes parents don’t know how to explain that kind of thing to their kid, so they don’t tell them. Kids don’t understand a lot of things, it’s why parents don’t try to explain the family’s financial problems to little kids. Maybe your parents were just waiting for the right time to tell you?” That seemed like the nice thing to say. “You really think my parents would hide it from me? They aren’t the type of people to keep secrets. I don’t know, it doesn’t feel right. Does that make any sense?” It was time for Anon to tell Stella something he didn’t want to actually tell people, partially because he felt it was obvious, and partially because he just didn’t like to talk about it.

“Stella, I’m going to tell you a secret, but you have to promise not to tell anybody. Not Fang, not Naomi, not the Sasuke bodypillow you probably have in your room.” Stella looked both annoyed at Anon making a joke in the moment, but also pleasantly surprised he was opening up to her. Anon would continue “Stella, I was in the same boat back in middle school. I’m autistic too, parents took a while to tell me because my dumbass wouldn’t understand it beyond me just being different from all the other kids. But you know what? They didn’t tell me because they didn’t want me to worry about it, they just wanted me to be a kid, even if I was a bit weird. Maybe your parents had the same idea?”

Stella’s expression turned to a small smile. “Thank you, that means a lot to hear. I didn’t expect you to open up to me like that.” Anon chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. Besides, I knew this whole time you were autistic, it was obvious.” Stella’s smile turned into a concerned, baffled expression “Wh-what? How did you know?” Anon paused for a moment. He considered making a joke about her shitty taste in anime or her obsession with her stupid tarot deck being something only a retard would enjoy. No, he would say something a bit less dickish. “Some people say that autistic people can find each other, we can feel other people’s autism. Some people call it Retard Radar, or say something about Spidey-Sense. Whatever you wanna call it, I could feel we’re a little more alike than people might think.” Stella once again had a small smile on her face. “We can tell others like us are around? So it’s like how Stand Users are better at finding Stand Users?” Anon put a hand on his face at Stella bringing up JoJo of all things. “If that’s what helps you understand it, sure, just like Stand Users.”

The two would eat quietly for a few minutes before Anon would speak. “So why did you tell me about you being autistic? Did your cards tell you to do it?” Stella gives a small, rather adorable giggle. “No Anon, tarot doesn’t work like that. I wanted to talk with all my friends about it. Rosa was supportive about it, but I just felt like you should know. Guess now I know why. I promise I won’t tell anybody about it, your secret is safe with me.”

The lunch bell would ring, and Anon stood up to head to class. “Not even to your Sasuke bodypillow, got it?” As he walked away, Stella mumbled under her breath “It’s not Sasuke, it’s Kirito...” before making her way to her own class.