Work Text:
Mr. Cat had only slept for four hours, so when he woke up to the sound of his alarm clock ringing, he smashed it to bits with a mallet. Being able to do that was one of the reasons he used an alarm clock instead of his smartphone to wake him up. A picture of himself and his family hung in front of him, above the lintel of his door. Sometimes he wondered why he kept that there, because the whole reason he didn’t have any contact with them in the present was because they had abused him horrifically until he’d been forced to leave for his own safety. He’d put it up when he first arrived in Smileyland - if you asked him why now, he couldn’t remember why - and just never bothered to replace it. Fortunately, however, he was barely able to see the picture today.
Mr. Cat was supposed to have worn glasses from the age of five, because he had astigmatism. The thing is, there were several reasons why he did not like to wear glasses, so he pretended that he only needed them for reading. Most of the time, he was just able to get away with straining his eyes to see things properly. However, this approach had taken a toll on his eyes, and his condition was slowly getting worse. He was no longer able to see properly, even if he strained his eyes no matter how hard he tried.
The cat grabbed his phone to check his notifications, holding it up close to his nose and squinting. Nothing of note; a good morning text from Kaeloo, some angry replies from people he'd trolled on Z (formerly known as Tweeter), and some notifications from the online store that they had new products in stock. He stretched, rolled out of bed, and got up to leave the room, grabbing his newspaper from the doorstep on the way out as he exited the built-in cat flap in the door. He may have had a smartphone, but he preferred to get his news the old-fashioned way, just like his father used to. He approached the red couch, where Quack-Quack was eating yogurt as usual and Stumpy was reading a comic book.
"Sup, barnacles?" he asked.
As if on cue, Kaeloo emerged from a nearby bush and leapt into the air.
"Hello, buddies! Let's do something fun today! What should we play?" the little frog asked cheerfully.
"Why don't we go to the beach?" Mr. Cat suggested. The beach would be a perfect place to go without being able to see very well, since he could just lie in the sun all day. Maybe if he felt like it he could splash water all over Quack-Quack, who hated water.
"The beach has been closed since Pretty got eaten by sharks," Kaeloo reminded him. Everyone soberly recalled the moment where the red-haired rabbit had entered the water to go swimming, only to get viciously attacked by sharks wearing tee-shirts that said "PLEASE WRITE THIS HORRIBLE CHARACTER OUT OF THE SHOW IN SEASON 6!" and "SEXUAL HARASSERS HAVE NO PLACE IN SMILEYLAND!"
Oh well. The beach wasn't an option anymore.
"Why don't we read my Mr. Coolskin comics?" Stumpy suggested. "It'd be cool if someone could read 'em to me. I really wanna know what they're sayin'!"
Stumpy, being an idiot, couldn't actually read despite being 10 years old and would simply look at the pictures to understand.
"I know! I'll teach you how to read!" Kaeloo said, clapping her hands. "Let's play teachers!"
"NOOOO!" Stumpy exclaimed, falling dramatically to his knees.
"I'm with Nutcracker on this one," Mr. Cat said. He didn't want to get involved in a game that involved reading and writing - that was a surefire way to expose the fact that his eyesight was poor.
Easier said than done, of course. Kaeloo transformed on the spot, and both Mr. Cat and Stumpy felt the urge to disagree suddenly leaving their bodies. Oh well, Mr. Cat could always try to disrupt the lesson while it was in progress.
Shortly afterwards, after a quick breakfast together, Stumpy, Quack-Quack, and Mr. Cat found themselves seated at desks in a little makeshift classroom. Mr. Cat had positioned himself at the front of the room to make sure he could see the board as closely as possible. Kaeloo walked into the room, wearing black square glasses and carrying a pointing stick.
"Good morning, class! It's time for our daily math lesson!" she announced cheerfully.
"Wasn't I supposed to be learning how to read?" Stumpy asked, confused. Kaeloo ignored him.
The frog started to scribble out mathematical equations on the board. Mr. Cat groaned internally; did she really have to have such small handwriting?
"This is called a polynomial," Kaeloo began to explain, using the stick to point at something on the board.
Mr. Cat couldn’t see what exactly she was pointing to, because it looked really blurry from where I was sitting, so he stared really hard at it and squinted a little.
“Mr. Cat, why are you looking at the board like that?” Kaeloo inquired.
“I think something might be wrong with your calculations,” he lied, getting up from his seat so he could inspect the writing up close, and grabbing a stick of chalk as if he was going to correct it. He read through the equation, and it looked fine to him.
“You’re correct. I must have miscalculated,” he explained as he walked back to his seat.
“That’s weird,” he heard Stumpy whisper to Quack-Quack. “Mr. Cat usually doesn’t make mistakes, and even if he did, he would never admit that in front of everyone… ”
“Quack,” the duck agreed.
He could feel their eyes boring into the back of his head questioningly. A sense of cold dread swept over him as he realized that they knew that something was up. However, they didn’t know what it was, so he could just play it off as something else. He turned around to face them.
“I’m just tired,” he explained. It was one of the most cliched excuses ever, but Stumpy and Quack Quack weren't the sharpest tools in the shed, so he doubted that they'd question him more.
“You’re tired?”
Since he'd turned around, he hadn’t noticed Kaeloo walking up behind him. She had a way of sneaking up behind people without them noticing.
“You had more coffee this morning than usual,” she pointed out, and even though he couldn’t see her face very well, he could make out that she was eyeing him suspiciously.
“Didn’t you go to bed at 3:00 am last night after coming back from a party?” Stumpy asked.
“THREE AM?!” Kaeloo shrieked, and Mr. Cat instinctively shrank back from her.
“Quack.”
(You need at least eight hours of sleep a night, and if you went to bed at three am last night you probably only got half of that.)
Stumpy usually had to go to school in the morning (today was a holiday), so even though the rest of the main four didn't go to school, they still woke up at seven because Kaeloo wanted everyone to have breakfast together. Mr. Cat usually went to bed pretty late, but made up for it by napping through the day. Kaeloo, however, was not convinced.
“I want you to be in bed by 9 o’ clock tonight,” she ordered.
“Technically, according to what duckface said, I’ll be fine as long as I’m asleep by eleven,” Mr. Cat pointed out. In a flash, the toad stood before him, slapping a fist against an open palm.
“Yes, of course, you’ve made that point very clear,” he sighed. He knew from experience that Kaeloo would just catch him if he snuck out and came back, so he could probably just do something else in his room, because there was no way he'd be tired enough to sleep by nine.
The rest of the day was rather uneventful. Stumpy’s mom was letting him have one guest over for a sleepover party at his house, and Quack-Quack was the guest he chose, so they both left after the gang finished a few more math problems. Mr. Cat watched the evening news, had dinner, and then spent some time reading (with his glasses on, giving him a brief respite from his problems). Then, at precisely nine o’ clock, Kaeloo hoisted him off the couch and began pushing him towards the door of his bedroom.
“Well, here we are, Mr. Cat!” she said, opening the door for him. He scrambled into bed to convince her that he was going to sleep.
“Would you like me to read you a bedtime story?”
“I’ll pass.”
Bedtime stories weren’t as fun without Stumpy and Quack Quack there to listen to them with him.
“All right. See you in the morning!”
And with that, she cheerfully skipped out of the room, leaving Mr. Cat to his own devices - and more importantly, WITH his own devices. He’d finished reading the only book he had, his phone was charging, and he didn’t have a TV in the room, but his tablet was fully charged - he'd gotten it recently, because of the large screen size. He didn’t have any games on it, but he did have an internet connection. Maybe he could stream that new anime he'd overheard Stumpy telling Quack-Quack about, with subtitles on so he could watch it on mute. He slipped his glasses on and did a quick search to find it on an anime piracy site. Just as he was getting into it, he heard footsteps echoing down the hall. He turned off his tablet and hid it under his pillow, left his glasses on the nightstand, and shut his eyes, just in case. His suspicions proved to be correct as Kaeloo entered the room.
“Mr. Cat? Are you asleep?”
Obviously, he didn’t respond to the question and let out a fake snore instead. Kaeloo walked closer to his “sleeping” form, and he was afraid that he’d been found out. Fortunately for him, his fears were unfounded. She pulled the blanket up and covered him with it.
“Good night, Mr. Cat,” she said softly as she tucked him in. She noticed the glasses on the nightstand and picked them up.
“He should really clean these better,” she mumbled to herself, and she walked out of the room. Once she was gone, he opened his eyes again, but he realized that his glasses were gone. Kaeloo must have taken them away to clean them. The warm fuzzy feeling inside his heart was rapidly replaced by annoyance and frustration. Well, he could probably keep watching it, it would just be slightly harder. He pulled out his tablet, turned it on, and played the video. He could distinguish the characters due to the bright colors that were so characteristic of anime, though he couldn’t see exactly what they were doing. He also couldn’t read the subtitles very well. Maybe if he brought the tablet closer to his eyes, he could see it. He sat upright and brought the tablet so close it was almost touching his forehead and -
“MR. CAT!”
He startled and dropped the tablet into his lap, and looked up to see Kaeloo glowering at him, holding his glasses. He realized that he had overlooked one detail: if Kaeloo had taken his glasses away to clean them, she would come back to his room to return them.
“I should have known better!” she sighed exasperatedly, climbing into his bed.
“W- what are you doing?” Mr. Cat tended to stutter when he was confused, and this was definitely a confusing situation.
“Since you’re obviously going to stay awake if I leave, I have no choice but to stay here, do I?”
“But -”
She shut off the lights and snuggled into the blanket.
“Good night, Mr. Cat.”
The aforementioned feline turned around to face the opposite direction out of spite.
She wrapped her arms around him like he was a stuffed animal, and even though he hadn’t seen her sleeping with one in all the time he'd known her, he wouldn’t be surprised if she actually did. He'd had a rare stroke of luck in that he'd left his hedgehog plushie inside the closet instead of taking it to bed with him like he usually did, since he wasn't planning to actually sleep. He’d never hear the end of it if his friends found out about it.
“Mr. Cat?”
“What?” he snapped, more aggressively than he meant to.
“Are you having trouble seeing?” she asked, apparently not having noticed the tone of his voice, which he was thankful for. He involuntarily drew in a sharp breath of air, which probably gave away the answer.
“You’ve been looking at things up close a lot lately, and the only times it hasn’t happened is when you were wearing your reading glasses.”
Mr. Cat liked to think that he could lie his way out of anything, but this was not one of those times.
“I’ll make you an appointment with the eye doctor, okay?”
“Mhm,” he said noncommittally. Stupid Kaeloo. Why did she have to be so… involved in his life? Making him doctor’s appointments when he needed them… making him go to bed on time… making his breakfast… being nice to him in general…
“Good night, Kaeloo.”
“Good night, Mr. Cat.” Her arms tightened around him.
The following day, Mr. Cat went to the eye doctor, accompanied by Kaeloo. The doctor did a quick exam of his eyes, and then she decided to ask him a few questions.
“Have you been wearing your glasses?” the doctor asked him.
“He usually wears them when he’s reading, but not always,” Kaeloo chipped in as the doctor raised her eyebrows. Mr. Cat internally cursed himself for bringing her with him.
“Those glasses weren’t reading glasses,” the doctor explained. “You were supposed to be wearing them all the time, regardless of what activity you were doing at the time. We spent twenty minutes going over this the last time you came here.”
He expected Kaeloo to glare at him in anger, and it was clear that she was trying to, but the expression on her face was one of confusion and concern instead.
"Your prescription has changed a lot. Since you'll be needing new glasses anyway, why don't you look for a new pair of frames? We have plenty to choose from," the doctor said.
Kaeloo and Mr. Cat browsed the aisles for a new pair of frames.
"Mr. Cat…" Kaeloo started slowly. "Is there a reason you didn't want to wear your glasses?"
He might as well tell her the truth. There was no point in hiding it anymore.
“I have an image to consider, you know,” he reminded her.
“An… image?” she tilted her head a little and scratched the top of it like she usually did when she was confused, which he’d always found adorable.
“You know, an image. All of us have one. Duckface is the goody-two-shoes one. Nutcracker is the dumb one. You’re the cute one,” he told her matter-of-factly as I pinched her cheek affectionately. “As for me,” he said, pointing to myself, “I’m the cool one.”
“Oh, Mr. Cat! You know we’re all much more than those stereotypes!” she said almost scornfully. “Why do you think that wearing glasses affects your status as “the cool one” anyway? You study quantum physics and read classic literature as a hobby! If we didn’t think of you as any less cool because of those hobbies, why would something as little as an accessory make us change our minds?”
“But that’s exactly what I’m talking about! At least now I have something that can distance me from being a stereotype, but a guy who likes science and wears glasses?”
“Aren’t you the one who’s always telling me that I should accept myself the way I am despite what other people think of me? That I’m perfect just the way I am and that I don’t have to change anything about myself?”
“But you were beating yourself up over things you had no control over and holding yourself up to ridiculous standards that nobody could ever hope to achieve!”
“And how exactly is that different from what you’re doing right now? You’ve been subjecting your body to physical harm just so you could look “cool” in front of all of us!” she reminded him, making air quotes with her fingers when she said the word “cool”. “You’re being unnecessarily hard on yourself because of something as small as a vision issue!”
She was right, but he had to admit, it was a lot harder to follow that advice than give it to someone else.
“How about this pair?” she asked, handing him a pair of glasses. He put them on. They looked good; they drew attention to his eyes and enhanced the shape of his cheeks.
“They suit you very well, don’t you think?”
“I guess I’ll take these, then,” he said. Kaeloo clapped her hands excitedly.
The optometrist’s office had an in-house edger, so Mr. Cat was able to get his new glasses almost immediately. He did still feel a little conscious about wearing them, but at least he could finally see again. After they went home, since it was Saturday and he had nothing else to do, he decided to finally get around to watching that anime, and Kaeloo brought some snacks and joined in. A few hours later, Stumpy and Quack-Quack returned from the sleepover, having slept in late.
“Quack!”
“Hey guys!”
They paused and looked at Mr. Cat. He waited with bated breath. How would they react?
“Cool glasses, Mr. Cat!” Stumpy said with a smile.
“Uh, th-thanks,” he offered, too stunned to say anything else. Stumpy gasped.
“We should have a fun glasses party!”
He pulled a pair of googly-eye glasses out of nowhere and put them on, laughing stupidly as the eyes popped out.
“Quack!”
(This is a great idea, Stumpy!)
He turned around to see Quack Quack wearing a pair of Happy Rotter glasses and Kaeloo with heart-shaped sunglasses.
“I agree! Even a stopped clock is right twice a day!” Kaeloo exclaimed.
“Hey!” Stumpy protested, but the others didn’t really listen to him. Sensing that they weren’t going to respond to that, he opened the camera app on his phone and turned it in the group's direction, forever encapsulating the moment with the tap of a finger. Mr. Cat may or may not have had that photo printed out, framed, and hung on his wall where the picture of himself with his family used to be.