@l-p-r-o-c-k and @unearthlydust YES YES YES to Charles in glasses!
Charles has worn specs for as long as he knows. He barely remembers a time before it. Hypermetropia, the Optometrist had told him when he was little- meaning that he would have to strain his eyes to see anything within arm’s length without his thick glasses.
The upside was that he didn’t have to wear them all the time, only when he had to read or inspect anything up-close. The downside was being chided endlessly by Raven that he had an old man’s problem. Granted, Hypermetropia generally showed itself in the later stages of life in the general population; that didn’t make it an ‘old man’s problem’. Many children lived with it as well.
‘With your sweater vests and specs, I can call you my father and people wouldn’t suspect a thing Charles,’ she would say. ‘And we wouldn’t even have to use our powers to convince them.’
It was all fun and fine. Untill Erik.
The thing is, Charles likes Erik. A lot. He wants Erik’s attention on him. And he’s not going to garner it with his image of an 'Old fart’. Raven’s words, not his.
Meaning to say that he has never worn his specs in Erik’s presence and he wants to keep it that way. It’s juvenile, he knows; but every time he perches his glasses up his nose, he can hear Raven’s imaginary voice in his head mocking him: 'Old man Charles’. Of course, he would pull it out when he had to solve a random cross word or overlook a file, but he would be equally quick to pocket it on sensing Erik’s mind in the periphery. It helped that he didn’t have to read when he could pluck the information from people’s minds.
Untill now. In hindsight, it really was his mistake. He shouldn’t have suggested to Erik to head to the Xavier library to spend an empty afternoon. It didn’t help that Erik readily agreed.
Charles knows the Xavier library like the back of his hand. Any other time, he would have enthusiastically offered to show Erik around, gushing over the vast collection and suggesting some of his favourites. Now, he just lets Erik look while he heads straight for the Genetics section. He easily picks out a book on Mutant Evolution that he had been in the middle of reading (for the third time). He knows the cover too well to pick it out without having to read the title.
So he settles himself against a desk lining a large window, futilely hoping that the light would aid his vision. He opens the book around the bookmark to a sea of muddled black. He holds the book out the a little further and then a little nearer, squinting and straining his eyes to read a word, a letter. It’s too tempting to pull out his specs from his trouser pockets and clear his eyes of the blurred jumble.
No. He can simply pretend that he’s reading.
After a while, he sees Erik bring out a bring out a book of his own and settle two desks across from him. It’s a book on Force fields and their prominence. It’s a little unfair how he can read the title of Erik’s book and not his own.
Charles sits a little straighter, adjusting the book and squinting his eyes to resemble a look of pure concentration.
As time passes, his eyes begin to pain with the strain. He blinks it off the water collecting at the corners, hoping that the stress upon his eyes wouldn’t give him a headache later. When he looks down again, there’s something else between his face and the book. It’s still a blurred black, but its structure is clearer. Two squares. Two sticks probably? The object hovers nearer to his face, and then it hits him. Metal hinges.
He quickly pads his hand over his trouser pocket. It’s empty.
'Charles, you’re holding your book upside down,’ he hears Erik’s amused voice from across him.
Charles feels his face heat up in embarrassment. He fumbles with the book and the glasses in front of his face, sending him into deeper depths of mortification. He’s in the middle of contemplating where to hide his face when a thought blasts his mind. He stills. It’s from Erik.
You should wear your glasses more often. You look adorable in them Charles!
Charles wears his specs almost all the time now. Even when he doesn’t have to read. The upside is that his clothes seem to vanish quickly when he slides his glasses to the tip of his nose. And the downside is… well he can hardly think of one.
