Page 76 of Sugar

“I promise I’m not asking to be a dick. I want to make sure we can get you a good view, and Magnus has been working with a company that creates equipment that helps make astronomy accessible for people with low vision.”

Yeah, Juno was never going to be that guy. He wasn’t going to go home and invent a whole line of bakeware for blind people to make cupcakes or whatever. He didn’t have it in him. But he was at least going to take advantage of the strides that Adam’s obviously amazing husband had made in the field.

“So, my left eye doesn’t have much sight apart from my periphery, and most of my color vision is gone.” He felt Piper stiffen beside him, and he realized he hadn’t really explained any of this to him. Not in detail. “My right eye just started losing vision. I haven’t had it tested, so I don’t know the degree of loss, but it’s all central. I’m really struggling to read.”

“The restaurant,” Piper murmured.

Juno sighed. “Yeah. The restaurant.”

Adam looked between them before realizing it wasn’t a conversation he was part of. “No problem. I have a few lenses we can use, and you can tell me which one is best. Sit tight. This is going to take a good twenty minutes.”

Piper took Juno’s hand and tugged him toward a set of chairs, and they sat in awkward silence as Adam moved to the center of the room and climbed up a small set of stairs. Juno couldn’t see past the little wall, but Adam disappeared, so he assumed there was a chair there.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything,” Juno said after a moment.

Piper shook his head. “I wish you had told me, but only because I hate knowing you’re suffering alone in this. I know I can’t fix it, but I can be there.”

Juno nodded. “I’m…I’m not used to having help. And I don’t want to rely on anyone else to get through this, you know? I mean, logically, I know I’m gonna need to do that more. There’s shit I just cannot do now. I can’t drive. I need to sell my car when I get back, but the rest…”

“I get it,” Piper said, then laughed softly when Juno shot him a look of disbelief. “Okay, you’re right. I don’t get it exactly. But when I thought my heart was going to give out, I put myself on a list for a cardiac alert dog because I didn’t want to get stuck being some, I don’t know, Victorian-era invalid depending on the kindness of my baby brother.”

Juno got a sudden image of Piper all dressed in some Bridgerton-style outfits, and his dick twitched. He swallowed against a dry throat. “Would that have really been so bad?”

“Probably not, no,” Piper admitted. “But I still hated it. I’d spent my entire life being the one taking care of everyone. I wasn’t sure I’d still know myself if I had to give that up.”

And that was it. That was the problem. Who was Juno if he lost even a small piece of his independence? He didn’t know if that was reality, but he did know it was his biggest fear.

“I just need to figure out as much of this as I can on my own, okay? Like, there has to be a way for me to read a menu without your help,” Juno said.

“I’m sure there is. You can learn braille,” Piper said. “You can use your phone to zoom in on the text and make it massive. There’s even these glasses that’ll read things to you.”

“Where the fuck did you learn all this?” Juno demanded.

Piper laughed and glanced away sheepishly. “The internet?”

Juno wasn’t sure if he wanted to hit him or kiss him. The latter was more appealing. Piper had done all of that to be kind, not to be patronizing.

“You might not be able to drive, but you get to pick who takes you places. You might struggle to read, but there are ways to learn new techniques,” Piper said. “You won’t lose yourself.”

“No, I know,” Juno said. “I didn’t say my fear was rational.”

“I think it is,” Piper told him. “Anyone in your shoes would be shit-scared. But I meant what I said before—you can tell me things, sugar. We can figure it out together.”

Together. It was the first time in his life Juno didn’t hate that word. He leaned in and smiled when Piper touched his chin, and they kissed until Adam cleared his throat and reminded them both they weren’t alone.

It took another forty minutes before Juno was able to see anything. He was on the verge of giving up, but Adam was persistent and stubborn. And finally, with the twist of a lens—or whatever Adam was actually doing with it—suddenly, the image in the viewfinder became clear.

It took Juno a moment of blinking and adjusting his eye before he could really see it, but there it was. There she was. Jupiter. The planet was smaller than he expected but somehow bigger too. The view was close enough that he could see the colors—oranges and browns and reds. And there were two massive stripes bisecting the middle. Around her were other images, faintly glowing, and he realized they were the moons.

“Holy shit,” he whispered.

Piper laughed and stroked a hand down his back. “You see it?”

“I see it.” And he could. It was like his blind spot wasn’t even there. Whatever lens Adam’s husband had invented, it was amazing. “How?”

“Prismatic mirrors,” Adam said. “To be honest, even I don’t fully understand how Magnus’s team made it work, but he’s had a lot of success with this lens.”

Juno couldn’t stop staring. He had no real idea what he was looking at apart from recognizing the image from his books in school, but it was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen. He blinked, and his eye began to water, and he knew he needed a break. Stepping back, he swiped at his eye, and somehow, the spot in the center was even more profoundly there.

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