I pull the glasses out of their weathered leather case and sigh, sliding them onto my face. These things make me look so stupid. Unfortunately, not being able to read the tiny print in the hard copy book before me would make me look even more so.
It's been three weeks since my birthday and I'm embarrassed to say I haven't even started reading this gorgeous book of Elizabethan poetry Spock gave me, because I couldn't make sense of the artistic swirling print without some kind of vision corrective. And since I'm allergic to Retinax V... Because I'm apparently allergic to everything...
Good thing Bones has connections among collectors of medical artifacts. I don't want to think what he paid for these, but they do the job. Despite making me look ridiculous.
I thumb carefully through the book's cream colored pages, and stop at a Shakespearean sonnet, reading aloud -
"From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory..."
I pause at the sound of a door wooshing open behind me, and shift on the couch to look over my shoulder. It's Spock.
"Hey, what is this? You think you're too good to knock before entering?"
In response, that eyebrow shoots for the sky and I can't help but laugh. He's out of uniform, which I still just cannot get enough of... Dressed in black from head to toe, right down to the velvety soft house shoes he'll inevitably take off as soon as we settle down to the game.
He's silent, just sort of staring at me in what I can only interpret as shock.
"Uh, Spock?"
I'm feeling a little like a bug under the microscope, and I'm lost as to what he's so interested in.
"Captain, what is that on your face?" He says finally.
"Oh shi-" I all but bat the glasses off my face and scramble to put them away in their little pouch.
"Uh, nothin', just uh... Hey, who's ready for chess?" I'm off the couch and halfway to the table we always use for our games, but he reaches out and grabs me by the shoulders on my way by.
"Jim, what is that object you were wearing over you eyes?" He says, and he reaches to take the pouch from my hand. I let him have it, rolling my eyes and going to set up the chess board. Great. The last person I wanted to see me looking like a weirdo in these things...
"They're called glasses, Spock. Or... spectacles. Anyway people used to wear them to improve their vision back before Retinax was invented. And, I'm allergic... so..."
I gather up all the chess pieces and start setting the board. Spock's gone quiet again. I turn around, and am struck with the hilarious vision of Spock, cautiously sliding the glasses over his eyes. But he's doing it wrong - the arms are under his ears instead of on top of them.
"No, Spock-" I laugh, "Like this." and I reach forward to help him.
"Ah-" He says. "Yes, I see."
I chuckle again. "Well, that's kind of the point."
He winces, and his eyes almost cross before he closes them, reaching up again to remove the glasses. He hands them back to me.
"Captain, do you have difficulty seeing well without these?" He asks, concerned. "I have never seen you wear them before now, surely all of these years..."
I shake my head. "No, no. I just started needing them recently. Getting older, I guess... Actually," I say, going back to the couch and picking up the book I'd left there. "I was trying to read this book you gave me. Bones got me these cause I couldn't read the small print without them."
I shrug, trying to laugh it off. But Spock must be able to tell I'm embarrassed, because he follows me to the couch and takes the glasses in his hands again. He raises them before my face and gently slides them over my ears.
"Heh. They make me look pretty weird, huh?" I say, looking at the floor. He's staring at me, and it's making me feel even more awkward than I already did. I haven't felt this uncomfortable with Spock in years.
He reaches out and lifts my chin in his hand, forcing me look at him.
"Jim, you are beautiful as always. In fact," he steps closer and wraps one arm around me, "These, glasses, as you call them - they are striking. They are but frames for your perfectly blue eyes, Ashayam."
Well I don't have anything to say to that. He smiles, and takes the book from my hand, opening to the same sonnet I'd been reading before.
"But thou," he reads, "...contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel..."
He pauses there, and his eyes meet mine. He leans forward, kissing me lightly at the corner of my mouth.
"You are, as always Jim, too cruel to thy sweet self. You are more beautiful to me now than ever before, and in all possible ways."
I keep the glasses on for the remainder of the evening.