"How nearsighted are you?"
They are lying on Spirit's bed in a tangle of limbs and skin and minimal clothing. Stein's flat on his back with one arm draped across his forehead while Spirit, propped on an elbow next to him, traces his fingers along the line of the meister's ribcage. The sensation is soothing, and Stein is tired enough that he doesn't process the question right away.
"What?"
"Your glasses. How much do you actually need them?"
Stein's not sure how to quantify vision to someone with perfect 20/20 eyesight. While he's trying to put together an adequate description, Spirit solves the problem by pulling the frames off his face before he has a chance to protest.
"Hmm." Spirit tries them on. "They make things worse for me."
Stein can't help smiling at that. "That's usual. You won't get a good sense of it from wearing them yourself."
"They're giving me a headache anyway." The older boy takes the frames off and stretches over Stein to set them on the edge of the stand next to the bed. For a minute the warm weight of his body presses Stein down into the mattress, and that is pleasant enough that the meister doesn't protest the confiscation of his sight.
"So." Spirit comes back to where he was. "Can you tell I'm me?"
Stein laughs. Usually the world is faintly amusing, but around Spirit everything is easier and lighter and better and laughter comes easy.
"Yes, senpai, I can tell you're you."
Spirit looks crestfallen. "How?"
Stein reaches up to touch the weapon's hair. "This is a giveaway on its own. But I'm not that blind. I can see your features when we're this close, you're just - softer around the edges."
Spirit smiles and even without his glasses Stein can see his eyes drop into affectionate softness at the corners. "You're softer too." He brushes his fingers feather-light across Stein's cheekbone; when the meister shuts his eyes the contact skims across his eyelids and brushes against his eyelashes.
Spirit's voice continues. "I like seeing your eyes." Stein opens the same to watch the other boy's face. "Your glasses are like a wall between you and the world. It's nice to see you without them." The smile twists into a smirk briefly. "And I like being the only one who gets to be this close to you."
Stein is smiling at that too, echoing Spirit's expression. "Who knew you were possessive?"
Spirit's blush is so dark that Stein can see it even with his limited natural vision. "I -"
"There's no point in denying it." Stein pushes himself up until he's close enough to Spirit that he can see the older boy perfectly clearly. "I am very good at observation and you are very bad at lying."
Spirit laughs and closes the distance between them.
