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If there was one thing Tommy didn’t think he would be needing in space, it was glasses. He was sure that with all the alien technology that existed and the things that he’s been through in order to be in a safe place, his eyesight would be something he’d never have to worry about. His vision never even came across his mind, not with all the other things taking precedence up in there.
But of course, the universe seemed to have a cruel laugh that came from making Tommy’s life harder.
The blond human groaned as he draped himself over the arm of the couch he was sprawled against, squinting his eyes as he attempted to read the alien text displayed on the hologram a couple feet in front of him.
For a while, he thought that the slightly fuzzy words were just because he was still learning the language, and getting used to the streaming difference between the quality on Earth and the quality they had on the Syndicate spacecraft. He thought it would be much clearer, but that never seemed to be the case.
Slowly but surely, though, his eyesight began to get worse. It was now to the point where Tommy actually had to do something about it, instead of ignoring it like he did the rest of his problems.
Come to think of it, maybe that was why he ended up in the med bay so often. Or why he was in space. Or why he had insane amounts of trauma.
Tommy didn’t know if his parents ever had glasses, having been thrown into the foster system at too young of an age to form any memories of them, but he cursed them anyway for his bad eyesight.
He would need to find glasses or contacts or the alien equivalent of that shit otherwise things were going to start going downhill fast. And by that, he means that if he has to squint like an old man while looking at something far away for too much longer he is going to go insane.
Come to think of it, did aliens even have glasses? He’s not had his fair share of interacting and seeing aliens, but he wasn’t sure he ever saw them with glasses. Sure, there were eye goggles, which is what he usually wore to hide his human identity, but he’s never seen glasses per say.
There was only one way to find out, then.
—
If Techno was startled by Tommy’s appearance in his room, storming in with an echoing bang as the door slammed into the wall. The alien simply lifted his eyes from the book he was reading, sending Tommy a deadpan stare.
“Can I help you?” he asked, more than used to Tommy’s antics by now.
“You can, actually,” Tommy said with a smile that usually meant something was going to break or catch on fire. Or sometimes both. Usually both. “Do aliens wear glasses?”
Techno looked confused, and Tommy’s hopes dropped, practically resigning himself to the old man lifestyle until he croaks from old age at nineteen.
“I don’t think I know that word, what do they look like?”
Tommy hesitated. “Um, they’re these pieces of glass that help people see better, and you wear them on your face?” Techno continued to look confused, and Tommy resisted the urge to face palm.
“I’ll ask the resident human expert, then,” he declared, before turning sharply and marching out of Techno’s room, leaving the alien to his confusion.
—
“Tubbo!” he shouted, draping himself over the shorter alien, his nose tickling at the pollen in his neck fluff.
Tubbo hummed, continuing to write in the notebook on his lap, documenting the latest update on some experiment he was doing with Wilbur. Tommy squinted to try and read what he was writing, but he was too far away to see the small writing. He frowned.
“Do you know what glasses are?” At his question, Tubbo perked up, abandoning the notebook in favor of turning around to look at Tommy with a face of fascination.
“Holy shit, those are real? I thought that was one of those things that we got wrong.” By this time, Tubbo had turned fully to face Tommy, who had to get off of Tubbo to allow him to turn.
He quirked his head to the side. “Why wouldn’t they be real?”
Tubbo looked confused as well by this, his look dropping a little. “I mean, corrective lenses that you have to wear on your face or else you won’t be able to see? You guys have so much technology and that’s what you decided to use?”
Huh, that made sense. Tommy said as much. “Well what do you guys use if you can’t see well? Surely that exists out here, right?”
Tubbo hummed in consideration. “I mean, I guess. We have some species whose eyes do have the chance of not being shaped right, causing vision deterioration. We can ask Wilbur about it, I don’t know much about it.”
Just like that, his hopes were restored. “Well, let’s go ask the bitch.”
—
“They use what?” Wilbur practically shrieked, staring at Tubbo as if he’d grown a second head.
“That’s what I was saying!” Tubbo exclaimed, raising a few inches in the air. “Can you believe it!”
Wilbur was shaking his head, a trait he picked up from Tommy. “Yeah, here we use a special paste that essentially adheres itself to the cone of the eye and corrects the vision. It’s definitely not something that you can take on and off, and it can morph with age.”
Tommy’s eyes widened. “Wait, it's just a paste that fixes everything? Dude, that would go crazy on Earth. We have contacts, but you still have to take those out or you make it on the news for having like a million lenses stuck in your eye.”
He got looks of horror from Tubbo and Wilbur, which was fair.
Now was the part he was a little more nervous about. “Do you think something like that could work on me?” his voice was a bit quieter, betraying his nervousness to those who knew what to listen for.
Wilbur carried the more serious tone. “Hm, I don’t see why it wouldn’t. I would need to look at your eyes a bit more to make sure they’re shaped in a way that would allow the paste to adhere to your eye. Theoretically it should work.”
Tubbo seemed to see what Tommy was getting at. “Do you think we could see if it could work on Tommy?”
Finally, Tommy practically sighed. Wilbur turned to give Tommy a confused look. “I mean, yeah, but why would you need it?”
Tommy sighed, this time out of exasperation. “Cuz my eyesight is getting progressively more shit and I’m tired of everything being fuzzy.”
Wilbur’s shoulders raised, which meant that he was surprised. “Oh, I didn’t know your vision was getting bad. Sorry we didn’t notice earlier.” Tommy shrugged.
“I knew!” Tubbo piped in. Tommy turned to give him a glare, and the boy threw his hands up in defense. “What? You were squinting way too much and kept on asking me to read things for you.” The attention turned back on Tommy, Wilbur staring at him accusingly.
“Anywho!” Tommy started before the blame could be shifted to him and his inability to ask for help. “Can you help me not succumb to the fate of old man-ness?”
Wilbur looked confused at the terminology, but agreed. There was only room for one old man on the ship after all.
—
“And you’re sure this isn’t going to blind me?” Tommy asked anxiously, staring at the paste inside a tube that Wilbur was holding, giving off a slightly blue hue. He was pretty sure it was glowing as well.
He was sitting on the table in med bay, the rest of the crew gathered around him and Wilbur, everyone coming down to watch. Sometimes there was very little entertainment that took place in space, believe it or not.
He was fine getting his eyes checked and tested by Wilbur, but now that the scientist was holding the… sludge… that was going to fix his eyesight, he was a little nervous.
“As sure as I can be. We ran tests and your eye shape is very similar to other species who benefit from the Ocular. It’s just going to feel a little cold, your vision will be blurry for a little while it settles to your eye, and then everything should be clear,” Wilbur explained. He had described the entire process for Tommy step by step earlier, but he was glad that he was taking the time to reassure him.
“Okay. I’m ready.” He laid back on the table, Tubbo’s hand grabbing his, which he squeezed lightly, a rush of fear still going through him whenever he found himself on the table of med bay, negative thoughts creeping in.
Wilbur started talking, driving the thoughts away. “I’m going to use this tool to keep your eyes open, it’ll only be for a couple seconds each eye.” He continued to talk and explain what he was doing as he did so, keeping Tommy’s mind in the present.
As he said, a cold goo filled Tommy’s eye, making him want to rub or blink it out. As soon as the paste was applied to his eyes, Wilbur took away the tool that kept his eyes open. Following Wilbur’s instructions, though, he kept his eye open as long as he could, taking a couple blinks when he could no longer do so.
Tommy was a little panicked when his vision was blurry like a film was put over his eyes, but it slowly cleared away, leaving vision that was better than Tommy ever remembered.
“Woah,” he said, looking around with wide eyes. He could see everything so clearly, none of the fuzzy edges around the now harsh lines. It was something he never truly knew he was missing, until he could see everything clearly again. “Holy shit,” he exhaled, continuing to look around. It was almost headache inducing, with how similar yet different everything looked.
“What? Can you see fine?” Ranboo’s anxious voice asked, and Tommy blinked a couple of times, looking over to Ranboo. He could see the tuft of fur on the end of their tail so clearly, no longer a fuzzy blob. He knew that there were actually hairs on the end, but now it was so much easier to see.
“Yeah, this is amazing. I didn’t realize how bad my eyesight was.” He looked around the room with a sense of wonder and a huge smile on his face.
Tubbo tackled him into a hug, and Tommy closed his eyes, marveling at the fact he couldn’t feel anything different behind his eyelids.
“I’m glad it worked, mate,” Phil said, a hand landing gently on his back.
“I love alien advancements,” Tommy said with a serious nod, thanking the cruel universe for making his eyesight bad when he was in space and it could be fixed so easily. None of the accidentally sleeping or showering with glasses on, like his friend from Earth would do way too frequently.
Wilbur laughed, ruffling Tommy’s hair. “I’m glad it all worked out.”