Work Text:
Mary had warned her countless times.
“Your face is too close to the screen.”
“Take a break, you’ve been sitting there for hours.”
“You need to stop working when your eyes start to hurt.”
But Riri was stubborn. This was something she did since she attended St. Dominic’s. Sit in front of her laptop, do her work, and not get up until it was done. It was a sort of flow. If she stopped, she’d be thrown off her rhythm and it’d take her a long time to gain it back, making her work eat up more time than it should. Her habit blended into adulthood. Mary, her now wife, hated it.
One day she’d eventually thrown a pair of blue-light glasses at her and demanded she wear them. They lasted a week at best before Riri got tired of them. They were distracting. They slipped down her nose, had a glare, and weren’t ideal to wear with the mask.
But her wife was a force to be reckoned with. Riri always woke before her, her job starting earlier than Mary’s. She’d made the stupid mistake of letting the abandoned glasses sit atop their bathroom counter.
When she got home from work that day she found Mary sitting on the couch, waiting, glasses in hand. She’d been given a stern lecture on how she’d go blind if she kept this up, how she wouldn’t be leaving the house without the glasses anymore.
Riri loved her wife, she would do anything she asked of her.
Except wear the glasses, because she really didn’t want to. Not only because of the previous reasons she stated, but she also disliked the way they looked on her.
They made her look less intimidating than she should be. She may have not been Riri Timurov anymore, but Riri Davis ran a company. A company that flourished because she held a vice grip over it and intimidated her employees with just her glare. The glasses just made her look like the nerd she was on the inside, and she would absolutely not have that.
She intended on just putting them somewhere in the house Mary wouldn’t notice. Perhaps in her dresser under her ties, or in one of her jewelry boxes.
But Mary was smart, and rose early the next morning to ensure Riri left the house with them perched upon her nose. And she continued to do so from there on out.
It was after maybe a week that Riri realized she could leave the house with the glasses, then remove them during work. She’s not sure why she continued to wear them throughout the day, knowing her and Mary wouldn’t see each other until they reunited at home.
So she did exactly that. She was quite pleased with herself, managing to outsmart her self proclaimed all-knowing wife.
Well, she thought she did.
Mary stomped through the building like a raging bull, her destination being Riri’s office. Riri spotted her as she walked down the hallway, the one that led directly to her. Oh, and did she mention the walls of her office were glass, allowing for a clear view of her? Mortified, she scrambled for the glasses. But it was no use, Mary had seen her—nose practically touching the computer screen—without the glasses.
“Adrianna Davis,” she’d practically growled as she pulled Riri by the collar. Riri almost fell out of her chair, having been pulled to the very edge of it to meet Mary’s eye level. “Where are your glasses?” The entire floor could see her being manhandled by her wife embarrassingly easy. She was just grateful her office was soundproof, the use of her full name would’ve been used against her no doubt.
“Mary- my love,” she started, attempting to soothe her anger.
“I knew it! You haven’t been wearing them this whole time.” Mary cut her off with an exasperated laugh. “I’m telling you Riri- this will come back to bite you in the ass, and you don’t get to complain when it does.”
“I’ll make it up to you,” she planted her hands onto Mary’s waist, something she knew would make her wife melt.
As expected, Mary's grip on her collar loosened. “..How?”
“I’ll call out, right now, and I'll go home and make dinner. Whatever you want,” she said, closing her laptop as evidence that she intended to do exactly that.
Mary thought for a second before releasing her collar. “Fine, but that doesn’t mean I'm letting you win, or forgetting about this.”
“Of course.” Riri said, standing. “I wouldn't dream of it.”
“Hurry up or I'll change my mind.”
—
Even though she had become successful in convincing her wife she’d try and stop her bad habits over dinner that night, Mary was absolutely right. It did come back to bite her in the ass.
That was what led her to sitting in the waiting room of an eye doctor two months later, a disappointed Mary by her side. Mary was filling out her paperwork for her, muttering a bunch of ‘I knew it’s’ under her breath.
Riri slumped in her chair. She should’ve tried to hide it better, or maybe she should’ve just worn the glasses after all. She should’ve known that Mary would notice she couldn’t read the smaller text on the restaurant's menu, or that she’d almost missed their exit on the way home because she couldn’t read the street sign pointing to it.
“Do not even start with me Riri,” Mary said, “I’ll make you do your own paperwork next.”
Mary had made this appointment behind her back. She should’ve known her offering to drive her to work this morning was suspicious.
“My love,” she whined, “is this really necessary?”
“What did I say? I told you that you aren’t allowed to complain when this comes to bite you in the ass.” Mary shoved the clipboard and pen into her hands, “now this is your punishment.”
Yeah, maybe she should start listening to her wife more, because this was the worst.
“Look at you,” Mary said, crossing her arms, “you can’t even read the paperwork!”
“I can!” She protested, self consciously pulling the clipboard further from her face, because it was definitely closer than it should be.
“You lie to me again and you're sleeping on the couch.”
“Mary-,”
“No, shush. I don’t want to hear your protests.”
—
Riri was called back maybe ten minutes later. She went through two tests involving looking at a barn through a device she didn’t quite trust, and having air blown into each of her eyes. She wasn’t quite sure what that second one was for.
Then, she was finally called into the actual eye doctor's office.
“So, Adrianna-,”
“Riri,” she corrected. Of course Mary had put her full name down. She’s abused it since she found it out through Kira.
“Ah, sorry. Tell me Riri, what exactly have you had trouble with seeing lately?” The doctor, Dr. Windsor, had asked.
She briefly considered saying, ‘nothing, I’m only here because my wife has tricked me’. But said wife was in the corner, watching her with a threatening glare.
“I work at my desk most days. Sometimes, when I close my laptop things further away can get difficult to read,” she admitted.
“Staring at a screen for a prolonged amount of time can definitely cause some problems. Let’s see if you’ll need a prescription.”
Another contraption was brought up to her face. She was told to look through it and read letters from a chart containing a variety of them in various sizes.
She didn’t think it would be so difficult.
About half of the letters she had said were incorrect.
Then, Dr. Windsor began flipping through different lenses, and Riri could suddenly see clearer than she ever had in her life. It wasn’t until after she finished did she realize yeah, maybe the world shouldn’t be blurry like this.
“It looks like you’ll be needing a prescription after all,” Dr. Windsor scribbled something down before handing her a paper. “We have a large selection of glasses in our waiting room, or you can consider buying contacts.”
When she looked over, Mary gave her a look that screamed, ‘I told you so’.
“The contacts please,” because Riri would be damned if she had to wear a pair of glasses on a daily basis.
—
“You look adorable,” Mary said, slipping Riri’s new pair of glasses onto her face. She had gotten the contacts as well, but Mary insisted she still needed a pair for home.
Riri grimaced as she saw herself in the mirror. “No, I look.. like a child.” The glasses were plain black, shaped in slim rectangles.
Mary scoffed. “A child? Really? Then what does that make me?” She had worn glasses her entire life, though she usually sported contacts. Her pair was comically large.
“You look beautiful. I look.. not so much.” Riri said, pushing them up as they had started slipping down her nose.
“Hey, I don’t like when you talk about yourself like that,” Mary scolded. “You look beautiful too, with or without glasses.”
“I still believe you tricked me,” she pouted.
“You’re twenty six years old and refuse to make yourself an eye appointment. I had to take matters into my own hands,” Mary laughed, cupping her face. “I’m sorry I was so mean with you, but I don't like seeing you work for so long. I’ve been telling you that you would hurt yourself since we were sixteen. That’s a whole decade of me scolding you.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, “you were right, like always.”
Mary gave her a kiss, followed by a smug smile. "I could get used to hearing that.