Work Text:
Suddenly, it all made sense.
You couldn’t believe it took you over a week and half to figure out what was up with Karkat, and you were a bit ashamed considering you went through something similar every time you needed a new prescription. You’ve worn glasses all of your life, and those couple times you needed them replaced stood out a good amount in your memory.
At first, you thought his eyes were always like that, squinted together because of his ever present angry moods, but then you noticed the times when he didn’t squint, which were far and in between. He had very large and expressive eyes, but whenever he looked at something, they narrowed in strained focus.
He’d never watch movies with you when you asked. You thought it was just because he thought all earth movies would be horrible, but one time you caught a peek at him viewing a movie in secret that you had just finished watching.
Except he was like, really close to the television screen.
After that time, you started noticing how close he leaned in towards the computer screen when he thought no one was looking. Then you saw how tired and strained his eyes were after a particularly long session of reading a book.
How could you have not seen this sooner?
It really hit you when Dave was going around with a hilarious (or what he thought was hilarious) Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff comic he doodled on paper. It earned a light cackle from Terezi, who sniffed it deeply. Kanaya awarded it with a slight chuckle and the movement of a hand to her mouth. Even Rose smiled with amusement, but she had to add a rolling of the eyes to keep up her classy facade. You… you honestly didn’t get it, but it was legible despite how tiny it looked on that scrap of paper.
Karkat didn’t get it either. He stared long and hard at it, narrowing his eyes and knitting his brows together as his pupils twitched back and forth, going over all of the horrible details. You thought he would have have gotten it, but it just took too long to figure out when considering the intentional typos and terrible art. He may have lost the timing. It was also possible that the way Dave was staring at him, with that one eyebrow raised above his shades, made him nervous and give up halfway through before the joke got to seep in. He could’ve brought the comic closer to his face, but that would’ve made it obvious that something was up.
You could relate; People start wondering what the deal is when it takes you slightly longer to read something because your vision wasn’t twenty-twenty, and you get flustered. Some people would think you were dumb, or slow, when you in fact just couldn’t see for shit.
Karkat tried awful hard to hide his short comings. Hiding things about himself was his thing, apparently. It’s been explained to you on several occasions that his blood color was grounds to get him killed, which is why he never visited a doctor on his planet. An optometrist visit was probably on the list of things that never happened.
You made a beeline for the alchemizer room, taking off your square spectacles when you got there. You captalogued them and turned the card over in your hand and holy shit you couldn’t read the back. You literally put the card up to your face, squinting and trying to decipher the warped series of letters and numbers, but still couldn’t make out more than a few symbols.
Goddamn it.
You scratched your head, trying to figure out another way to clone your glasses. Eventually you remembered Dave had a neat little camera thing that made ghost cards of whatever he took a picture of. You decided to seek him out and acquire the handy device, promptly snapping a shot of your glasses. The alchemizer did its thing and a shiny, somewhat new pair appeared on the pedestal.
Excellent.
=====
“Karkat! I want you to try something.”
He turned to you in the hallway leading to a downward staircase and blinked a couple times, bringing you into focus (which was apparent to you now), before responding with a “try what?”
“These!” you answered cheerfully, holding the spare pair of glasses out by one of its arms. He blinked at the frames in that familiar way, and gave you a questioning stare.
“Why are you offering a copy of your stupid pair of glasses?”
Stupid? How rude! These frames were simply the best there were, in your not so humble opinion. You let it slide, however, because you knew Karkat was just being the loveable asshole he is.
“I saw that you were having some… issues-”
“Issues? I don’t know what you’re talking about!” he dismissed while you were mid-sentence.
“Just try them on!”
“No! I don’t want to try on those fucking dorky glasses!”
“Come on, please?”
“Go away!”
He showed you he’s had enough by turning his back to you and starting towards the staircase. Right in front of the first step was an inconveniently placed piece of chalk that he mustn’t have seen, because he stepped right on it and slipped. You reacted and caught him by the arm before he tumbled down the flight.
“You okay?” you asked, genuinely concerned.
“I swear to god, if you make a Sweet Bro and Hella-what-the-fuck-ever it is reference I’m going to-“
“Oh my god, Karkat, I was totally not going to do that!” That was a lie, but he didn’t know that. “Can you just try on the glasses? It’ll only take a second.”
He sighed in frustrated defeat and snatched the things out of your hand. He turned them over a few times in examination before slowly raising them to his face. When the lenses aligned with his yellow eyes, they widened visibly. You smiled.
“How are they, buddy?” you asked, growing a little excited.
The question didn’t seem to register as you watched him glance around with wide-eyed amazement. If he wanted to respond, he couldn’t because his mouth just went slightly ajar with nothing coming out of it.
This was also something you could relate to; That look, that feeling, when you get a new pair of glasses stood out in your memory just as much, or maybe more so, than the memories of having less than optimal vision. That was what Karkat was experiencing for sure.
“Oh my fucking god I can see” you guessed he was thinking.
His gaze snapped to meet yours briefly before you saw how it seemed to dance around, taking in the features of your face. He reached out slowly and started touching it softly with his finger tips.
“Uh,” you stuttered, feeling a little awkward and blushing a little. “How’re they working? They’re probably not perfect because the prescription is made for me but I’m hoping they help just a little-”
“John,” he interrupted in a soft tone to stop your rambling. He retracted his hands and wringed them in front of himself.
“Yeah?” You stared into his eyes, noticing how they opened up more. He looked a lot less angry. It was nice.
“Do you want to watch a movie with me?”
“Of course!”
You knew he was thankful, because he even let you choose what to watch! Score!