For the past couple of years, I've been writing/co-writing a SWR fanfic AU series called Little By Little. In it, Ezra is going blind and was hiding it from the rest of the crew. Kanan finds out eventually, but after Malachor, after Kanan has lost his sight. There's a lot of angst, a lot of pain, as you can probably imagine. I haven't been posting it on here, just because the way this site is set up makes it difficult to post a series, especially one with more then one author. So it's on AO3 and Tumblr, (though there is one story from it on here).
Anyway, this story isn't part of that series. It's an AU of that AU. In the original version, Ezra doesn't tell Kanan what's wrong until long after Malachor. Here, he tells him before, and although that sounds like a minor difference, it's actually not.
You don't need to have read Little By Little for this to make sense, I think it stands on its own, but of course if you want to read Little By Little, please do. I have the same username on AO3, so you can find it on there.
Together
There was no reason to be nervous. None at all. But Ezra couldn't stop the uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach as he fidgeted with the blindfold, running it between his fingers and feeling the texture of the fabric. He was being ridiculous. All he was going to do was walk around his quarters; the room that he had called home for the better part of two years. It wasn't going to be difficult.
The door was locked, so there was no danger of anybody walking in on him. The worst thing that was going to happen was that Zeb would try to open the door and get mad that he was locked out for a few seconds while Ezra took off the blindfold and let him in.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and covered them. He tied the strip of fabric loosely at the back of his head and stood still for a moment, remembering the layout of the room.
He was standing next to the bunks with his back pressed against them. Directly in front of him was an open space between him and the wall at the other side. He had deliberately cleared the floor of any obstacles for this first trial run. He reached out into the Force in an attempt to sense the space around him. It didn't help much; it was difficult to tell whether he was really sensing the room, or just remembering it.
"Here goes," he whispered to himself, and stepped forward.
A hand rose unbidden to hover in the air in front of him, searching for obstacles that he knew weren't there. He took another step, and resisted the urge to feel for the bunk behind him with his other hand. He was probably too far from it to reach now anyway. Or was he?
A slight wave, a ripple, of disorientation hit him. He didn't know exactly where in the room he was. He didn't know how much further he needed to go to get to the other side, or how far it was to get back.
He stopped, stood still, and took a moment to think. He was in his own quarters. He couldn't get lost here if he tried, and even if he did find that he genuinely couldn't work out where he was, he could remove the blindfold.
But that wouldn't always be the case. One day he would be somewhere unfamiliar, or somewhere new. One day, he wouldn't be able to take the blindfold off.
That thought provoked a kind of claustrophobic panic that he tried to push aside. He took another step, and another, both hands reaching out in front of him now, searching frantically for the wall at the other side of the room and not finding it. He was sure he should be there by now, so either he was taking smaller steps than usual, or he had set off at an angle without realizing it, and was walking a longer route than he had planned.
Finally, his fingers brushed the wall on the other side of the room, and he felt himself release some of the tension he had been carrying. He exhaled slowly, leaned hard against the wall and sank down to sit on the floor. He pulled off the blindfold and rubbed a trembling hand over his face.
All he had done was walk across his own room, it shouldn't have been that nerve-wracking. It wouldn't have been, except for that it wasn't the trip across the room that had made him panic. It was the thought of doing it again. Every day. Everywhere.
It felt impossible, but he had no choice. Maybe it would get easier with time.
The only thing he knew for certain was that he couldn't do it on his own. Maybe he couldn't do it at all, but definitely not without help. As soon as he told them, everything was going to change, but he needed someone else to know. He had been waiting for the perfect moment to tell them, knowing that it was never going to come.
He couldn't put it off any longer. It was time.