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Usually, after willing himself to roll out from under the warm covers and trudge into the bathroom, Vince would head out to the kitchen; most days, Durandal would have gotten up first and made him breakfast, but yesterday, Vince had tried feeding himself while barely-cognizant. That was a mistake he had no intention of repeating, so this morning he splashed cold water on his face in the hope he'd be a little more awake this time.
While toweling off, Vince's gaze happened to drift downward, towards the reflection of the scar on his abdomen.
He didn't like the idea of strangers looking at his scars, but if he ever had to, he could explain most of them easily—slashed by an alien, cut with a wine bottle in a bar fight (that he was not the instigator of, by the way), wasn't paying attention and nicked himself. But the round one on his side and its companion on his back...in theory, he could just say that he'd sustained a life-threatening injury in the past, but in practice, the few times anyone outside the crew caught a glimpse of them were followed by conversations coming to an abrupt end.
Sometimes Vince thought he could still feel the sharpened pipe tearing its way through his side; he didn't always have to be asleep for it, either. It wasn't happening now, but only because Vince roughly shoved himself away from the counter and grabbed the first shirt that entered his line of sight. He was absolutely not going to dwell on those events today—that was ages ago, the Controller was dead, he wasn't in med-stasis anymore, everything was fine--
“Vince?”
He froze. Durandal was looking at him in concern, head slightly lifted from the pillow.
Could Vince tell him? Whenever Durandal's hand so much as brushed against one of those damned impalement scars, he'd tear it away like it had drifted too close to a hot stove eye…
“Um...” Vince slowly shut the closet door. “I-it's nothing, dude. Go back to sleep; s'only five.”
To his mild relief, Durandal nodded and rolled back over; Vince walked out into the hallway, hoping he hadn't broken out into a cold sweat. Maybe one of these days, he'd be ready to have this conversation with Durandal, and so would Durandal with him—but not now.