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Ryan traces his finger across the slightly-chapped skin of Jon's full lower lip. Jon's mouth twitches up into a smile. Ryan uses his free hand to lift the sunglasses he's wearing up off his eyes, resting them in his hair, instead. Jon reaches out and finds Ryan's fingertips before he closes his own hand around them. He's smiling with his own dark pair of sunglasses on, a twin to Ryan's.
Ryan lets the hand that was running across Jon's lip move to cup his cheek.
"What would you miss the most?" Jon asks suddenly, his voice a quiet rumble.
"Hm?"
"If you couldn't see anymore, what would you miss the most?" Jon asks, his thumb rubbing circles against the skin on the back of Ryan's hand.
"You," Ryan tells him. Jon smiles and laughs.
"There's a whole world of things that are nicer to look at than me."
Ryan shakes his head, then he remembers, so, instead, he says, "Not to me."
Jon tips his face up to the sky. It's cloudy out tonight and the air is cool around them; Ryan had thought it might rain. "The ocean, the sky, your favorite books, your own reflection, the constellations." Jon raises his hand and finds Ryan's cheek, mimicking Ryan's movements and cupping his face. "Lots of things better than seeing my face."
Ryan scoots closer, his knee bumping against Jon's, and takes Jon's hand from his cheek, twining the fingers of their hands together. He leans in. Jon is perfectly still as Ryan presses his mouth against Jon's own. Jon hums in surprise and Ryan pulls back slightly.
"Sorry, I know you like me to tell you beforehand."
Jon shakes his head. "It's fine."
"Jon?" Ryan asks. Jon makes a noise of acknowledgment. "Can I take your sunglasses off?"
Jon bites his lip. Ryan's prepared to forget the idea – Jon doesn't like it when it's outside their bedroom, the safety of their home. He's about to open his mouth and tell Jon it doesn't matter when Jon speaks first.
"Yeah, you can."
Ryan smiles as Jon's hand trails up the inside of his wrist, up Ryan's forearm, to his shoulder, neck, until he's cupping Ryan's cheek again. He can feel the smile Ryan is wearing. Ryan gently removes the glasses from Jon's face, putting them up in his shock of dark hair, matching Ryan's own pair once again.
Jon blinks and closes his eyes for a long moment before opening them. Ryan knows that Jon doesn't even know what his own face looks like; he doesn't know what Ryan looks like beyond his own imagination, based on the touches he's trailed all along Ryan's body. Ryan suspects that Jon must think there's something different about him, something that visibly proclaims that he's not like everyone else, but there's nothing.
Jon's face is soft, his mouth lax and his dark beard prickling against Ryan's fingertips. Jon's eyes are a soft brown and the only difference between Jon's eyes and Ryan's eyes are that Jon isn't focused on any one thing. He's gazing off somewhere just past Ryan's left shoulder, but, besides that, there's nothing.
"You're so beautiful," Ryan breathes softly. He leans forward and presses a kiss to Jon's stubble-rough cheek. Jon laughs, like he's unconvinced. Ryan brushes Jon's dark curls of hair off his forehead and presses a kiss there, as well. "If you could see one thing in the world, just one, what would you choose?" Ryan asks. He's wondered before, but he's never asked.
Jon is quiet as he thinks, eyes hazy and still unfocused, lashes fanning dark against the pale white of his cheek. Ever since Ryan met Jon, he's learned to watch more closely, to drink in detail after detail, like he's hoping that, if he looks at something long enough, studies it hard enough, Jon will suddenly see it, too.
Ryan's expecting Jon to say that he'd like to see himself, his own reflection, or maybe his mom and dad, maybe the night sky or a sunrise, the ocean or Chicago at night. Whatever answer he thought Jon would give, it's not the one that's actually chosen.
"You." He says it like it’s just that easy, like Ryan's something worth seeing. Ryan presses a kiss to his mouth.
"You don't have to say that for my ego's sake."
"I want to see you," Jon says more firmly, his hand latching around Ryan's wrist. "I want to see your eyes, your mouth after we've been kissing for too long. I want to see what you look like when we wake up every morning or how you look hovering above me in bed. I want to see how you look when you're happy, when you're quiet, and all the other times in between."
Ryan is silent and Jon laughs a little sadly. "See, this is one of those times I'd like to be able to see you."
"You see, Jon? Does it make sense now that, if I had one thing I'd miss more than any other, it'd be seeing you?” Ryan asks. "Nothing else would compare, because anything else would just remind me of you and what I could've been seeing."
Now it's Jon’s turn to be quiet. "I see your point," Jon says, smiling soft and kind. Ryan leans in close and buries his face in Jon's neck, breathing in the scent that clings to the worn t-shirt he's wearing.
"I'd give it up in a second," Ryan whispers, Jon catching every word, "if it meant you could see everything you wanted. I'd give it up."
Jon pushes a hand through Ryan's hair. It's the longest it's ever been – or at least the longest it's been since he and Ryan had met. "But then I'd lose you describing the world to me. Your words, they're my vision."
Ryan fists his fingers into Jon's t-shirt. "I love you, so much," he says into Jon's shoulder.
Jon smiles and rests the side of his face against the top of Ryan's head. "Love you, too."