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He glances at the clock, a very small shiver wracking his body from exhaustion as Specs registers just how late it is (and, by extension, how little sleep he’s gotten; when his brother had left him alone to do his work, he definitely hadn’t meant “stay up until your eyes burn and your gums buzz”. But that was neither here nor there, he decided, pulling his glasses off to press the heel of his palm to his eyes, the legs out awkwardly as he grips one of them between two fingers). He drags his hands down, rubbing his eyes, sighing as he glares at the clock as though it is personally responsible for the hellish hour, his insomniatic tendencies, and his workload. The numbers are still there, only blurry, which is almost worse.
He wipes his glasses on his shirt, then slips them back on, exhaling sharply with displeasure when he discovers that his attempts to clean them have really only made them worse.
Right. Probably time to pack up shop and lie down in bed so he can stare at the ceiling, then. So he packs his pens away, but doesn’t zip the case, leaving them on top of his still-opened notebook. His notes won’t get horribly vandalized, at least.
And then he looks down, being suddenly and violently reminded that he’s in the same clothes he’s been wearing all day, and he’d never changed out of his shoes; but he’s tired, dammit, and his eyes only feel like they’re half-working even with his prescription. He doesn’t particularly want to change.
“I’m a fucking adult,” he says out into the air, to absolutely no one. “And it’ll just be a problem for future me,”
Satisfied with his decision, he manages to trudge himself to his bed without falling, and he goes spread-eagle on it almost immediately with his legs off the side, feet flat on the floor. He stares at the ceiling; it’s not particularly interesting, and there’s still nothing new, so he blinks and pulls his glasses off so he can fold them and put them on the bedside table, feeling around awkwardly as he tries to push them onto it. He moves his hand, unsure if he’s actually got it over the bedside table, but once he’s fairly certain he is he lets them go. It’s when he pulls his hand back that he hears them clatter to the floor, but he’s so exhausted that he can’t bring himself to care too much—or work up the new energy to reach down for them. Instead, he just shifts on his bed, maneuvering so he can lie down more properly and comfortably. He shoves his face into his pillow.
He’s still on top of his blankets, but he’s too comfortable to do anything about it; it’s easy to fall into a doze punctuated with scattered thoughts. It’s comfortable, and hazy, and—
It gets interrupted by the doorbell ringing, followed by a series of rather aggressive knocks.
He is fairly certain that his life has officially reached a level of absurdity that even he doesn’t know how to react to. Tucker’s not even sure how it happened, either; he’s just becoming convinced he’s maybe, just a little bit, stuck in a giant joke that the universe has decided to pull. It’s not even that this is all even that absurd, too.
He just wishes that it wasn’t at three in the morning.
He stares at the door dejectedly. He’s definitely key-less, and he feels kind of bad about the idea of waking his roommate up, but… he can’t just stay out in the hallway all night. Not even including the fact that he’s tired, he can’t just stand in the hallway for upwards of five hours.
And that’s if he’s lucky. He remembers like a slap in the face that it’s also the weekend. It’s only three a.m. on a Saturday; it feels like it’s been weeks.
He knocks on the door to his own apartment, and he waits. There’s no response, so he knocks again—
“Who?” His roommate asks, and even though they’re able to make sense he knows what that voice means: they sound perplexed and unfiltered, mouth made loose and gravelly. They’re either absolutely exhausted, drunk, or an odd mix of both, and he’s willing to put actual money on it being the last one.
“Can you let me in?” He asks, voice level as he fixes his eyes on one specific spot on the door. It kind of looks a little like a dog in a top-hat, but he’s also probably just, y’know, tired.
“Um.” They say. “No, thank you,”
He blinks, registering the words. What?
“What do you mean, ‘no thank you’?” he grits out, feeling his own patience waning quickly.
There’s no response.
“Hello?” he asks. God, what a year this weekend is making itself.
“Hi,” comes an answer.
“Are you going to open the door?”
“Are you?”
He really hates when they get like this. It doesn’t help that he also doesn’t have the means to check himself right now.
“Right, fine, whatever,” he decides quickly. “I’ll just come back tomorrow,”
They don’t say anything back, and he steps away, wracking his brain: he knows that someone he’s vaguely friends with (try more, they’re both friendly, but it’s close enough for him right now) lives nearby, in 139--just down the hall, he’s pretty confident. He’ll just go over there and see if they at least have any ideas.
He trudges his way down the hallway, eyes catching on the numbers until he’s close, but his eyes feel blurry with sleep. After giving the door an intense look, he finally rings the doorbell, and at the lack of response, he knocks.
He groans as he tries to blink himself into feeling more awake.
Of course, it doesn’t work, but at least he tried. He swings his feet over, planting them on the floor—
There’s a heart-sinking crunching sound underneath his sneakers as Specs remembers, rather violently, that his glasses had fallen and he hasn’t picked them up yet.
“Shit,” he mutters under his breath. He’s going to have to go blind until he can find his last pair of glasses—they aren’t his right prescription, but they’re closer than any others he’s got that he can wear right now. He leans down to pick up the pieces, shoving down his irritation and general upset about stepping on and snapping a leg clean off of his glasses. He squints, but can’t make out what’s wrong with them between his exhaustion, inability to see, and the need to go to the door.
He just puts the pieces on the bedside table properly and goes to the door, tripping over his own feet in his haste and impairment. He catches himself, pausing for just a moment, listening out; there’s another knock. He goes to the front door, then, fully ready to either be incredibly irritated or… he’s not sure, actually, he’s kind of too tired to decide.
He swings the door open, partially leaning on it, and stares at the vague fuzzy shape that he’s assuming is another person.
“What?” he asks, aware of the bitterness lacing his tone and only vaguely regretting it.
Tucker knocks again, already debating on what other options he has left: there aren’t many at all. He may be well and truly fucked.
And then there’s some shuffling and the door opens, and—
Oh.
He looks sleepy, and some of his hair is sticking up awkwardly, and he’s peering up at him blearily, and he just stares for a moment before remembering why he’s here. But this… is not where he meant to be, and not who he’d intended on speaking with.
“What?” he asks, sounding every bit as tired as he looks, and he’s reminded of how late it is even more.
“My roommate is drunk and won’t open the door,” Tucker starts helplessly.
He squints. “Why not?”
Tucker shrugs. He really, for the life of him, doesn’t know why this is a game they’ve decided to play tonight; that’s not something he can just explain, especially not to a stranger.
“I—,” he hesitates. “Do you want to come in?” and then he’s actually stepping to the side, and Tucker ducks in, following after once the door is closed and his host is leading him to the couch. His host taps his foot nervously, arms crossed, as he leans on the arm of the chair, looking down at Tucker where he’s sitting.
“Is it fine if I stay here?” Tucker asks, then clears his throat, looking away.
He stops, thinking for a moment and reaching a hand up before aborting his trajectory towards his face, instead running his hand through his hair and messing it up more. “Are you going to kill me?”
He chokes. “Why would I come here to kill you? That’s kind of dumb, isn't it?"
But he just shrugs. “Do you want a blanket?”
“...why wouldn’t I want one?”
“Well, I don’t know—,” he brings his hand down, leveling him with a look. “I don’t know your personal sleeping habits, and you haven’t even told me your name,”
If everything about this situation were different, maybe he’d answer with a proper quip of his own, but as it is he can’t make the wheels in his brain turn the right way for it. But the situation is what it is, so instead he huffs.
“Right. Tucker,” He says, debating on if he’s supposed to shake hands with him. “I can sleep wherever,”
“Specs,” His host furrows his brow. “You can take one of the beds, I’m home alone for tonight,”
He nods: there’s not many other options, and his host is… oddly familiar. He’s officially decided that he doesn’t have much left to lose.
“So you’ve decided I won’t murder you?” he teases. His host rubs one eye.
“You’re not my biggest concern, no,” he admits, but his eyes are bright and he sounds like he’s caught on. “Right. It’s—follow me,” he pushes off of the couch, looking only slightly unsure.
Tucker’s gonna take that as a win for now.
Specs almost loses his balance because he can’t see. But he does know his own space well, so once he’s caught himself he can make it around without much issue. His impromptu guest follows after, and the both of them stand awkwardly in the hallway in front of the door.
“I’m across the hall, you should be fine,” he says before fleeing, closing his door behind himself. This is ridiculous, he decides. He spares his alarm clock a glance: just as he’d suspected, it’s still blurry numbers. He sighs.
Either way, he can at least get some sleep, and he can figure the rest out tomorrow; he steps closer to the table by his bed and picks them up so he can hold them close and examine them.
It looks like he’s managed to keep the leg itself intact, but there’s a very small piece of the hinge that’s been snapped off entirely—he’ll either have to tape them back (unideal on multiple accounts, and he’s tried it before, he knows it’ll drive him up the wall) or get a new pair. He puts both pieces back in front of his clock and sits on the bed. He is never getting wire-frames again.
This time, he actually does take his shoes off, kicking them away and in the vague direction of his closet, and after a very brief moment of mental debate he decides he has the energy to change into something more comfortable before finally forcing himself to bed.
He wakes up in a bed that is not his own, with a poster he doesn’t recognize staring at him from the opposite wall. It takes an almost embarrassing amount of time to remember what had happened last night—but once he does, he throws an arm over his eyes and wills the knowledge away.
It doesn’t work, but he’d be lying if he said he’d expected it to. After a minute he huffs before standing, doing the mental calculations—the clock on the bedside table tells him that it’s a little before nine, which he decides is good enough for him, especially being in a stranger’s room. Onto breakfast, maybe, then? At worst, he can use it as a way to thank him.
But first, he has to see what his host has available.
He steps quietly as he makes his way to the kitchen, and then he starts rifling through all of the foodstuff that’s available. He’s really not entirely sure what he expected, but there’s some toaster waffles and eggs, which are going to have to be good enough.
Tucker doesn’t have to make anything fancy, he just has to make it.
…if only he could find a pan—he shifts and goes to accommodate everything else so nothing falls in the cabinet once the only pan inside catches his eye. He tugs it out carefully, giving it an appraising look once it’s in his hands, held up by the handle.
It’s fine. It looks like it can cook eggs without combusting. That’s all it has to do; he can figure out something better for the long-term later, because truth be told he’s concerned about this guy’s entire kitchen even though he barely knows him. But what can you do.
He drops the eggs completely into the pan to break the shell, shifts to plug the toaster in and puts the waffles inside, then flicks the stove on and starts messing with the eggs.
Specs has to look through old glasses cases ( seriously, when did he get so many?) to even find his old pair, and he’s fairly certain that he’s only lucky in that respect because he wasn’t entirely sold on his new pair. He stares down at the familiar plastic frames, folded carefully into their small box, and worries his bottom lip with his teeth. Whatever strain these will put on his eyes is almost definitely better than going without, and at least he’ll be able to see.
With a pair of glasses on his face now, he puts his broken pair in his shirt pocket, he leaves his room with the resolve to try to get them fixed once Tucker’s gone. And—
His guest is in the kitchen, and he’s making something on the stove. As far as he can tell, it smells fine, but—
And then his guest turns around, and the thought gets cut off as he thinks about what to say, and oh.
Tucker can hear something scuffling over wood behind him before he looks over. And when he does, he can’t help the words that slip out.
“I do recognize you!” he almost accuses, and. Okay. He hadn’t meant for it to come out like that, but it’s out there now. And he does; he can remember those thick-framed glasses, and the face peering at him from behind them, because this is the same person that had almost gotten himself into an actual fight because of a heated debate about Star Trek. It’s hard to forget him.
Specs looks actually suspicious of him . “What do you mean?” he asks blatantly, shifting on his feet as his eyes dart around. They eventually land on the stove. “What are you doing?”
“You’re the one who got into an argument with someone about something in Star Trek, wasn’t it?” he pauses, and Specs squints before nodding. He doesn’t say the part where he mostly agreed with him—he was objectively wrong on some parts, but he was more right than whoever he’d been debating. “And… I’m making breakfast,” Tucker says, gesturing at the pan and the stove like it’s obvious. To be fair, it kind of is, but he’s having fun watching Specs look kind of like he’s debating on if he should go through multiple stages of grief.
He settles on something that looks vaguely like Acceptance. “I can see that,” he answers easily. “May I ask why you’re making breakfast?”
“Because it’s morning?” Tucker asks back, and Specs is well aware of the way his face starts to feel hotter. It’s so stupid.
“I know that,” he snipes. He may not be wearing his exact prescription, but he has eyes. “Why are you making breakfast in my kitchen?”
Tucker, very conveniently, doesn’t seem to hear him as he returns to the stove. Specs just stares, because he’s really not sure what he’s expecting here. Once it’s abundantly obvious that Tucker just isn’t going to answer, Specs steps closer and to the side so he can use the coffee pot as the toaster dings.
“Want some?” he offers, like an olive branch, and Tucker finally acknowledges him again.
“Yeah, sure,” he agrees. And it’s like he looks at Specs properly, now, as he sets the pot up and puts grounds in so that it can brew before grabbing the waffles, then goes to sit at the counter so he can take out his actual glasses and examine them again. It’s becoming almost obsessive, and Specs knows it. “What happened?” he nods vaguely in the direction of Specs’s hands.
“They’re broken,” Specs says obviously. Tucker snorts as he stirs the eggs, and Specs shifts and stretches slightly so he can see—he’s scrambling them.
“Wouldn’t have guessed,” Tucker rolls his eyes, but they still linger on the thin frames Specs is practically clutching. “Mind if I have a look at them?”
It’s weird. But oddly enough, as Specs regards him with his hackles raised, he doesn’t detect anything to prove he shouldn’t trust him.
But then, never let it be said that he has fantastic self-preservation instincts.
Specs hesitates before nodding. “Yeah. Uh—a part snapped off, but if you can do anything besides taping them…?”
Tucker scoffs, then turns his attention back to the stove. “I’ll fiddle around with ‘em,” he decides, stirring the eggs around one more time before deciding they’re done and moving the pan, reaching into the cabinet for another plate to put them on. Specs stares.
He grabs at the glasses as soon as he’s finished his breakfast, Specs sitting right next to him at the counter and practically hovering as he watches Tucker work. It’s a little unsettling, if he’s honest, but he can work under this kind of pressure. They’re a pair of glasses, for fuck’s sake. It’s not like they’re the hardest things he’s ever messed with.
He manages to at least screw the leg back on, even if it’s imperfect, and when he holds them out to examine his work he can see that it’s very loose. It’ll work for now, but it’ll have to get properly fixed eventually—sooner would be best. He’s willing to say so, too.
“Right. Here. But go take them somewhere,” he says, setting them on the counter and sliding them the very short distance so Specs can grab them. He does, and switches his glasses out, blinking rapidly before widening his eyes momentarily.
“Shit,” he mutters, eyes darting around the room like his sense of sight is a newfound gift before landing on Tucker again.
Tucker raises an eyebrow. “Your other ones are better,” he says bluntly, and Specs blinks at him before one corner of his mouth quirks up into a smile, flushing slightly.
“Yeah, well. Maybe I’ll just get them to put the new lenses in the old frames,”
Tucker leans back slightly and crosses his arms. “Right,” he nods, and then the two of them just sit there, which is awkward as hell.
“Did you want to…” Specs trails off: he has no idea what he’s thinking about offering.
“Gimme your phone,” Tucker demands instead, and Specs gives him the device without question. “I need to go—but I want to know if you actually get them fixed,”
Specs doesn’t look like he believes him all that much, but he doesn’t argue as he watches Tucker put his contact information in.
“Right, okay, then,” Specs agrees. “And then, uh, also let me know if you make it back into yours,”
Tucker huffs and nods, doing something reminiscent of an eye-roll. It feels like the sparkling flavored water version of an eye-roll. Like a La Croix eye-roll. “Yeah. I’ll keep you posted. Otherwise I’m moving in permanently, and your couch is mine,”
Specs snorts, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Surely you have better taste than that,”
“We make do,” Tucker shrugs, then pushes his seat back and stands. “At worst, I’ll just hang out somewhere until I can get in,” he says seriously. Specs follows him up, grabbing his phone back easily and slipping it into his pocket.
“If you’d kept track of your key in the first place…”
“Oh, I never had a key,” Tucker teases as they walk to the door. Specs balks and stares at him.
“You what?” he asks, and he looks for all the world like he can’t wrap his head around it entirely.
“I do. I just forgot it yesterday,” Tucker clarifies, taking quick pity. Specs opens the door for him but doesn’t respond to that verbally, so… yeah. It’s weird. “Well, er, I’ll be seeing you around, then,” Tucker says as he steps out into the hall. Specs leans in the door frame and nods almost imperceptibly.
“Yeah. Good luck,” he says with a very small wave of his hand. They just stand there for a moment instead of actually moving, though, before Tucker decides to just break it and go. So he does; he turns around to go back down the hall, and pulls his phone out of his pocket.
FROM: Tucker
Hey it’s your unofficial housemate
Put your glasses somewhere safe this time