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Speccy Is The New Sexy

@camelotremix fics have been revealed! as such, i can finally make a tumblr post, so here it is. original art is here on AO3 and here on LJ, go ahead and drop them awesome comments!!

Merthur | Gen | 1.6k | Established Relationship | Fluff | AO3

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Merlin couldn’t stop fiddling with them. The glasses might have been an absolute necessity—his failing eyesight was starting to make things like reading street signs and not walking into walls rather difficult—but they were still too new to be comfortable. Merlin kept catching himself reaching for them, poking at them, taking them off and putting them back on.

They weren’t even sliding down his nose or anything, so he had no excuse. The lady at the shop had spent ten minutes furiously making adjustments to ensure that they wouldn’t be falling off all over the place when he bent over. The spindly little arms were snug at his temples, hooked securely over his ears, perfectly in place. It was just weird.

Seeing clearly was nice, though, so Merlin guessed it all evened out. Walking down the street, he could actually make out the individual leaves on the trees he passed! Glasses were miraculous things, really. He couldn’t believe he had waited this long to get some.

His mobile buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out to see—without squinting, even!—a text from his boyfriend, whining about his lateness, as per usual.

Merlin smiled down at the message, battling fondness and exasperation in equal measure. Some excitement too, as he once more nudged at the bridge of his new glasses. A little bit of trepidation, but mostly excitement.

Arthur didn’t know about this development. Despite having borne the brunt of Merlin’s increasing distress over his worsening eyesight for the last several months, he hadn’t actually told Arthur when he’d finally caved and made the exam appointment. There’d been some sort of lingering shame, a feeling of failure and inadequacy, like he was broken and he didn’t want to admit it.

Not to mention his fear that he would end up looking like a buggy-eyed freak.

But it had been that or the continuous headaches he’d been getting from trying to take notes from a chalkboard he couldn’t fucking see. He could only let his marks suffer so much for the sake of his vanity. He just had to hope that Arthur would like them.

He should like them. Merlin was reasonably confident that he would. Not just because Arthur loved him and was always very insistent that he would love him no matter what, but because the glasses actually didn’t look so bad. At least, Merlin hadn’t thought so, when he’d finally put on the finished product and spent an embarrassingly long time examining himself in the mirror from every possible angle. They didn’t magnify his eyes as much as his nervous brain had thought they would—he’d watched too many mad scientist cartoons as a child, with the comically oversized specs—and the frames weren’t quite thick enough to look hipster-ish.

Judging by the smile and wave he got from a girl he passed on the sidewalk, he might even look good, glasses and all. This was supposed to be a regular date, just like every Friday afternoon, but Merlin may have dressed up a little. He wasn’t sure, really, if he was compensating for the potential of a bad reaction to the glasses by dressing his best, or if he was trying to forge an association between the new glasses and the confidence of his favorite fitted shirt and tight jeans, but either way he found himself walking a little taller. He’d even styled his hair.

Arthur texted again, the impatient git. Merlin wasn’t even ten minutes late yet, and you’d think Arthur would be used to it by now. He knew damn well punctuality was not one of his beloved boyfriend’s virtues.

Merlin didn’t bother answering, just stuffed his mobile back in his pocket and walked a little faster. He was only a block away by now anyway.

He rounded the last corner to see Arthur in all his posh, blond glory, waiting on the corner and scanning the crowd with an urgency like he’d lost his toddler or something. Merlin huffed a laugh, shaking his head. He wended his way through the busy sidewalk, full of people freshly off work and looking to have a night out, just like them. He only knocked shoulders with a few before he came up alongside Arthur, who was so busy looking for Merlin that he didn’t notice him standing right beside him.

Merlin cleared his throat.

Arthur threw a glance in his direction and immediately returned to his search. Merlin wasn’t sure if he should be offended or not.

He cleared his throat again, more pointedly.

Arthur didn’t seem to notice. In the course of his surveying, he actually leaned around Merlin to look further down the street. When that yielded him nothing—unsurprising, considering who he was looking for was literally right in front of him—he turned back with a frown.

With another of those fleeting sidelong glances, he asked Merlin, “Young man, I’m waiting for my boyfriend, Merlin. Have you seen him?”

Merlin had to bite down on his lip to keep from laughing. He shoved his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels, and made an effort to lower his voice when he responded. “I dunno. What’s this Merlin bloke look like?”

“About your height,” came the answer. “Skinny, dark hair.”

“Is that so?”

“He’s abnormally late,” Arthur said absently. “Probably got caught up in his studies again. I swear, the man’s brilliant and I love him dearly, but sometimes he just loses track of everything around him. Drives me mad.”

Merlin hummed. “I know the feeling. If only he had your stunning observational skills, am I right?”

“Exactly! Maybe then he would actually be on time one day.”

“One day,” Merlin said sagely. “Perhaps sooner than you think.”

He only caught a glimpse of the confused frown on Arthur’s face as he turned to examine the other side street, like maybe his wayward boyfriend had chosen to take a different route and gotten himself lost. “What do you mean by that?”

Merlin shook his head, disbelieving. “I mean that perhaps your observational skills could use a little work too if you don’t even recognize your own brilliant and dearly loved boyfriend when you’re talking to him.”

Arthur whipped around, narrowly avoiding getting whacked in the head by a passerby’s purse. His look of wide-eyed surprise was hilarious, but the bright smile that lit up his face a second later was something else. It sent warmth crashing through Merlin’s chest, bubbling up to force an answering smile of his own.

“Merlin! You—” Arthur laughed, eyes raking Merlin over from head to toe, taking in the nice clothes and the styled hair but obviously lingering on the newest addition to his look. He stepped in close, his hands coming up to cup Merlin’s face. “When did you get these?”

“Just yesterday,” Merlin admitted. “Surprise?”

“Surprise indeed!” Thumbs traced over the bottom edge of the frames, slipping down to brush across his cheek instead. “You didn’t even tell me you had the exam. Why not?”

Merlin bit his lip again, a tiny bubble of his forgotten anxiety making a reappearance. “Dunno,” he said. “Just in case they didn’t pan out, I guess. I wasn’t going to keep them if they made me look like a speccy freak or something.”

Arthur gave him a judgmental look, complete with raised eyebrow. “What, so if they weren’t flattering, you were just going to accept your fate and stumble around half-blind for the rest of your life?”

“Maybe,” Merlin said petulantly. Arthur’s eyebrow crept a bit higher. “Okay, no. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t nervous about it.” His hand found its way to Arthur’s wrist, just holding on. “I’m allowed to be nervous, aren’t I?”

Arthur’s judgy look gave way too one of those soft smiles of his, tiny and fond. “There was no need for you to be.”

“So I don’t look like a speccy freak?” Merlin asked.

“Of course not.”

“Mad scientist?”

“Nope.”

“Buggy-eyed?”

“Not a bit.”

“What about—”

Arthur heaved an overwrought sigh. His hands abandoned their positions, falling to Merlin’s waist instead, and Arthur pulled him in close. Merlin didn’t protest—as if he would ever protest being pressed up against Arthur, wrapped up in his arms.

“Merlin, love, you look wonderful,” Arthur said, “and that’s not just my bias talking. I’m sure everyone would agree with me. We could talk a poll, even! That woman over there obviously agrees with me, with the way she’s eyeing you up, let’s go ask her—”

Merlin wrapped his arms around Arthur at once and held on tight, all the better to keep him in place. “Don’t you dare!” he said through a laugh.

Arthur laughed too, content to settle back into the embrace. It was warm and comfortable and familiar, and the way he looked at Merlin now was no different than it had been the day before. Except, perhaps, that Merlin could see the laugh lines around his mouth and the twinkle in his eye a bit more clearly. He couldn’t complain about that.

Still, he couldn’t help but ask, “You really like them?” one more time.

Arthur leaned in to press a soft kiss on his lips, one that lingered far longer than it needed to and yet not nearly as long as Merlin wanted. When he pulled back, Arthur grinned and placed a finger right on the bridge of Merlin’s new glasses, pushing them up where they’d slid down just a little. Merlin’s wrinkled nose made him chuckle.

“Trust me, Merlin,” he said. “I love them.”

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