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At the time, he didn’t react. Something, debris of some kind, collided with his visor, shattering it. And he knew it hurt, but it just didn’t really register at the time. At the time, he had to fire back, and run after Havve. Get on the ship after him and run for the pilot’s seat while Havve shut the door.
He got them out, away, and finally calmed down enough to feel it. Feel the pain come in waves, timed with his pulse, blood rolling down his face, vision blurry, not right.
It had to be bad, the way Havve balked when he saw him. Didn’t yank him up, move him. He just left, quickly, almost jogging. He came back quickly too, first aid kit in his hands. Usually it stayed in the cockpit, but he cut himself shaving the other day and just left it in the bathroom.
Or maybe it wasn’t too bad, if Havve just grabbed that.
Havve crouched in front of him, tilted his head, looking. Touched the visor, then something that made Sung suck a breath in through his teeth and curse. Havve stood, grabbing Sung’s wrist on the way and pulled him along behind him. He dripped blood all the way to the med bay.
He didn’t even sit all the way down on the bench before Havve started taking his helmet off for him. Carefully. Angling it away from where he got hit, shoulders slumping in relief when it was finally off.
The right side of his visor was practically gone, a crack going across to the left side, jagged edges.
None of the glass from that side was in his visor. Nothing fell on the way over here, so Sung hoped maybe it was scattered somewhere before they got on the ship.
Havve held his head still, hand around the back of it, bringing a large pair of tweezers to Sung’s face. He held his breath, hopes quickly dashed.
The best part about getting all the shards of glass out was also the worst; Havve didn’t have an expression to read, so Sung had no idea how bad it was. His face stayed blank, no matter how many shards he pulled out, as Sung’s blood mixed with sweat, all he could hear was his pulse and the occasional clinking of bloody glass dropped in a tray. He could feel his left eye blinking, tears forming and rolling down his cheek, and nothing of the sort from his right. It just hurt, throbbed, his blood starting to dry and getting tacky.
It all seemed to be out, and they both breathed a sigh of relief.
Havve started cleaning his face off, making Sung wince and clench his jaw at the sting of alcohol, rasp of cotton. But it was fine, they were all in the clear.
While gently swabbing off his eyelid, Havve stopped. Tilted his head. He held his hand up, finger out, moved it side to side, up and down, and Sung watched it. Another head tilt, and he brought his hand under his chin, turning on his voice box.
“I’ve gotta take it out.”
Sung reached up to touch his eye, and Havve grabbed his hand before he could, shook his head.
“Can I see it?” Sung asked, and Havve hesitated. Let go, stepped away to find a mirror. He grabbed a double sided one, made sure he wouldn’t hand it over and let Sung look with the magnified side.
His eye looked deflated. The top lid was mostly cut off, jagged flesh, tears welling because he couldn’t blink. Which was fine, because glass had stabbed into his eyeball, the fluid supposed to be contained inside oozing out. He could still move it, look around, but he felt the gash rub against his eyelid, felt the eyelid flutter uselessly.
He held his hand up in front of his face, and shut his good eye.
Darkness.
“Fuck,” Sung muttered. He handed the mirror back to Havve, rolled his shoulders. “I’m ready when you are.”
All things considered, getting an eye taken out of his head wasn’t the worst thing Sung had to do. All they had was a local anesthetic, and he insisted Havve be light-handed with it rather than risk half his face freezing up. But it went off without incident; the biggest mishap was when Havve couldn’t save his eyelid, leaving Sung with an obvious hole in his face.
Even under the helmet, the visor, he wore an eyepatch. And he replaced the broken visor with plastic, not glass this time.
The scar lining the back of the socket was a funny pink shade for a long time. He’d slip a finger under the patch, rub it like he was wiping sleep out of his eye, feel how it was smooth but bumpy.
It was Havve’s idea, the cyclops thing. He said it once, joking, a little sarcastic, and it bounced around Sung’s brain for a while before he just ran with it. He ran with it so well, that Meouch and Phobos accepted it, no questions asked. The first time they saw him without the helmet, Meouch did a double take. Neither said anything.
The first time they saw him without the eye patch, they pretended not to look. Meouch came to him later, asked if it hurt, how it happened. Phobos just wanted to know why he bothered with the eye patch; when he had the helmet on, no one could see the top half of his face anyways, and he only ever took the helmet off at home where there was no point covering it up since they all knew now.
He started wearing the patch less. Spent more time glancing at his reflection in glass, in the dark TV. He was blatantly staring at the hole in his face, reflected poorly in the glass on the microwave, and Havve caught him. A snort, not stifled laughter but the closest he could get anymore. Sung stood up straight, startled. Hand up, rubbing the scars closer to his nose.
“I’m still not used to it,” he admitted. Havve stared, silently urging him on.
Sung went to the fridge, bare feet softly scuffing the tile, back facing Havve. He fussed, reaching to the back, opening drawers and compartments.
“Thanks,” he said finally. “I never thanked you for it, I realized, so.” He looked over his shoulder, blindspot sliding over Havve. He wasn’t a hundred percent certain he was even there. Still, he smiled. “Thanks for doing that for me, Havve.”
The floor creaked, the only indication Havve was there long enough to hear it.