For northernveil: "Chris/Justin. They're blind in a world of blind people - they've always been blind. One of them suddenly starts to see, but doesn't know what it is."

It was dark, and that was the way it always had been.

Justin's voice was rich and round, slightly reedy, slightly nasal. Chris could feel it down to his bones; he'd spent years learning its every note, its every rise and fall. He could tell when Justin was sick, and when he was sad, and when he was sleepy, and when he was breathy and flowing and just about to come.

Justin smelled like the way fields bloom just after the rain, sweet and damp and sleeping quietly but ready to flower into full life. He smelled like man, and like citrus from the shampoo he washed his hair with, and like the detergent they used to wash their sheets. Chris could smell him across the room, when he walked in, that unique blend carried through the air and seeming to grab him immediately.

Justin tasted like salt and earth, bitter and sweet all at once. His mouth always opened under Chris's and Chris could taste the chocolate he'd just been eating, or the orange he'd had with dessert, or the slight carbonated tang of the soda he'd just been drinking. Justin tasted like everyone tasted, but with him it was always more special, always right there and then and full of promise.

Justin's skin was soft, except for the patch just above the elbow where Chris could feel the skin flaking and peeling, no matter how much lotion Justin tried to use on it. Justin's hair was tight and curly, and Chris loved to run his fingers through it. Justin liked to be petted, arching against Chris's fingers and murmurring indistinct syllables. Chris could do it for hours.

It was dark, and then it wasn't. Chris pressed a hand against Justin's face, ran his thumb over Justin's mouth and felt the confused and tentative smile, mapped the inches of cues and shifts and alterations that had always let him read Justin's expression. "Justin," he said, and Justin's face turned to him. He felt as though he was going to cry, and he couldn't say why.

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