I've got the same deep wounds as you,

My love can double as a weapon too

Say that you trust it and I'll set it free,

Turn it back on me,

Turn it back on me

Noel sat there at his table alone for once. He felt incredibly relieved his little minions weren't there yet. He needed this reprieve to center himself. His mind had been messy to begin with but in the port seeing the man with such a close resemblance to Nate had been the reason his thoughts couldn't get in order he needed. Also his legs and hand was giving unacceptable jiggles and that wasn't a good thing. His medical was due and so far he's been avoiding it all day long. Now he just had to make it through the night and flee the city the moment event was done and he could use the moment of everyone being tipsy to sneak out. Nobody needed to know that he planned to go off grid until his next mission. He would turn the comm off for his little vacation. After all he wasn't one of the main crew anymore.

After all his Commander days were over and the Lieutenant title was close to go too. It was only question of how long he had to wait until it happened.

He was placed in a position where he felt quite comfortable. He could at least drink as much as he wanted. So far crew were accepting his being on the ship this long. Before he used to jump ships a lot. Even systems as many ships flew all over the galaxy and more. He was okay with most of the dirty tasks as they put it while in reality it was mostly lending a hand in repairs and shipping supplies off from place to place. He luckily had this wide range of academic knowledge that Fleet saw valuable even when his health took a slow nosedive.

That had taken the first title away. It wasn't typical demotion so he didn't worry. But now he feared his position may become endangered in a way. His display at the port was unpleasant enough for them to make judgment out of that alone. And who said he'd be left to his own devices until next shipment was due.

His medical was basically tutting every time they saw his results. And that was another deep concern he usually tries to drink away until he had to face the day and engulf his mind with all the tasks he was assigned to.

Today he wanted to relax some more and endure whatever the great heads had in mind and then leave. He did put it in his log just in case. However he was still relatively free of usual ship ties. He could work on whatever ship. It wasn't uncommon either.

But now he was feeling his spasms starting to bother him again. Damn, he thought as he looked back at his slightly shaky hands. His med pack was there, on the back of his chair inside that backpack his lovelies so thoughtfully hung. And he did pack it fully. Though it seemed they kinda knew what they were doing as he wasn't the only wheelchair user in this place. And so far he believed they were trained to deal with disabled community. To which he still refused to count himself fully in. But he knew there will be time when his legs would give up and his body stop fighting against disability. His mind would crash badly and struggle for a while before he'll accept his fate and give up pretending.

Fake it till you make it, and then till you can't anymore. He's been there, done that, way before. Before he crawled out of that hole once and then for a while it was okay again. Until he crashed again, and again, and stood there still shaky for a moment. Yet he refused to let his mind accept it yet. Because he just knew, from experience and other people stories, that once you allowed just a sliver of a thought it's a lost cause. Yes, accepting and adapting was one way to go, but it didn't work same for everyone. He'd found his pace so for now it was what it was.

So he fished his backpack off the back rest and ransacked it for the special blanket that was to help with his spasms and shit. It was the heating sort from the Captain. He didn't expect it and the least on the date he'd placed as his birthday that Fleet just needed on the paper as he was deemed Earth descendant. And as one he was supposed to go with that.

And their Captain on Enterprise somehow knew what Noel needed at that moment and actually had taken his time to get to know his crew member that was only famous for being well trained and with ability to outdrink anyone. And even what beverage to include in the simple gift. He even couldn't recall the guy's full name aside the fact his last name started with K and that he was famous in his own way since birth. He'd seen the guy clambering about the engine floor and drinking some suspicious liquids with the main mechanic guy who was loud and sometimes worried too much about his ship.

But that was his time on this ship. Even if being in gamma shift meant to rarely meet most of the human population on the ship. There were few faces he'd met more often at times. And to be fair the thing was huge enough for all of them to never meet even if there was so much tech on board.

So he kept the blanket, researched a bit and left a thank you note with some ancient whiskey he'd dig out of an old suitcase that came with him when he once managed to plant himself on Earth the one last time. He'd taken a lot of his old stuff and sold his place for good sealing his space life. So this thing was full of minor things from Earth. While he wasn't friends with the Enterprise Captain he recognized a man who appreciated good old Earth stuff. His med buddy also was sentimental but more openly. That guy was famous for being gruff and cynical while still being best doc on board. His manner lacked some coddling and sugarcoating usually got reserved for Noel and he deeply appreciated it one time he was suffering enough to be treated by Alpha shift doc. Which was a treat itself.

The blanket was worn but well cared for. Kept to it's best and cherished in a special way. Why would he give it away was beyond Noel but he wasn't to look in a gift horse mouth. Besides the thing really helped.

It did so he simply laid on the floor beside his chair and put the fluffy soft thing on his body and let it warm him. In about ten minutes he let his eyes open and subtly watch the crowd that still eyeballed him. About that, yes, he made a bit of a show getting down on the floor so naturally some of them were on alert because he looked like he may need medical help any moment.

To their utter shock he simply ignored them and took off the blankie and rolled it up and like nothing packed it away and with a dance move flopped back into the chair. Like nothing ever happened. Then he just as unceremoniously as before dig out some pills from his bag and fished some into his mouth and deliciously gulped them down with some juice.

With packing his bag back he ended his little show that amazingly attracted more attention than the guy on stage droning about their success in disabled community being accepted into flashier ships and actually proving they are no less than abled folks. To that he saluted and rolled out of the table space and with a 360 wheelie rolled out to the hallway.

I am exposed, I am undone,

You tear the walls down one by one

His chair softly rolled out into the slight coolness of the hallway and he was relieved it was empty. The darkness of the place was surprising and welcomed since his headache was slowly developing into something nasty and he needed the dim lights to make it less bad. The pills he'd taken moment ago had to kick in yet. Usually it was no problem for headache curing the second they crawled up in his brain to pester all and everything that was sacred. He had his trusted bar to rely on so this was a rather inconvenience. However it was easing already as he rolled down the hallway towards the men's room. He actually had to take a leak, only he hadn't yet figured out a way to do it. Usually he'd just do it normal way but today was strange enough and his legs just couldn't decide what they wanted to become.

Maybe he'd just locate the disabled one and do it that way since he knew that routine just as well.

The occupational therapist had introduced Noel with few ways he could do and he'd tried them all as well as invented a couple only for him. Sure the therapist was there to see it all going smooth so they added his own ideas to the bucket and called it a day. Same applies for showers and baths. Depending on the state he was in they figured out some new techniques added to the ones they tried first as a standard.

And if he was being honest they all weren't as impossible as one may assume. Because really there was one thing that could affect any of those and it was the level of injury and what came with it.

Since he was a rather special case he had the option of variety to use as a leverage over these obstacles.

So he did. Finding the room was a bit slow going because the building stored so many of those. It seemed that every corner had a room full of more rooms. At least the hallways were quite roomy. Not that his chair was any of the hospital bulk. He had one or two of those as well until he designed his own custom pair. And yes, he had actually two wheelchairs. One he used mostly to roll around the world and rough places and another that actually looked presentable to some events. Like today. But both were really custom and all sleek. He had little meat so it was mostly to stick his skeleton inside one and not fall out.

Finally after five minutes he found the plaque that showed him the way towards his destination. Sometimes he missed the wizard planet Plantoon. They indeed held true magic and used wands to do it. And the most fascinating thing was their photographs and paintings that actually moved and could hold the subject's essence. So their plaques would move too. That would be really funny if they did move here. His brain provided nice pranks regarding those.

But it was not the time and place for that.

He really needed to get there and do his thing and be done with it for a while.

Luckily the room was empty so he locked himself in and went to decide his next move.

It wasn't as bad as he feared it would so he just stood up while holds onto the rail. There was tiny vertigo trying to dance with his brain but that was no wonder. His head was praying for the booze that usually was in his system by this time of the day so he just brushed it off.

After few moments it was all over and he dropped back in the chair and rolled up to wash his hands. This was some that was incredibly important for disabled as he was told at the rehab so he complied. And it was nice to have clean hands after rolling the chair. Of course his bag of goodies held other stuff like hand sanitizers and wet wipes. He even had two types of wheelchair gloves too. Rims were usually cleaned most of the time because Noel hated dirt there. But if the ground was dry he had no worries.

But he did clean his chair a bit too.

He liked this black one. It was cool looking and sleek design. Pretty much going with formal wear. He kept this one as a special case while also having the one he'd used daily.

That one was a bit of a beast. For some funny reason he gave it some flashy color job and even put some stickers on. The castors were customized with movement-glowing small lights in various colors and special tires that were hard to damage. This chair had same tires just without lights. But they did emit soft dark blue-ish glow. Main tires on this were all nice and sturdy while the funky one had them softly glowing purple and also with added traction rubber.

The cushions were same super soft and body measured customized cloud. It was important for his specific condition to have extra layer of soft on the coccyx part to soften the blow on the poor tailbone. His sacrum and lumbar spine got fused eventually as there was noticeable damage done to the bone itself and while tailbone was left the way it was doctors still worried about actual possibility of removing the bone entirely. It didn't hold nerves like sacrum did and while he at first had higher SCI level the only complete injury was within sacrum. Originally he did have few T10 to T12 fractures. So they'd fused the three vertebrae together. Just for safety measures as they yet didn't know how his lower fractures would react to healing and how his nerves would recover.

His L1-L5 was also kind of fused and later another surgery made L5-S5 complete fusion. They managed to place special outlets for the nerves going through increasing his ability to recover at least partial leg sensory and physical movement. Which eventually was how he regained so much control over his legs. And the nether parts.

It was usually a taboo in public to speak of basic human body functions and his brain literally struggled not to scream at that. However that's how world was. Even here on this planet.

Moving on he adjusted his feet on the foot holder and situated himself in the chair to most comfortable position. With everything done and in place he lastly decided to take the fingerless gloves and remove the handles. He knew it was so the kids could roll him but being honest he hated those. It made his back confused about surface and then he had to place the mat in between to save the shoulder blade on his bad side from complaining. He hated that. Luckily the cervical injury was relatively minor in comparison but still his fused C levels were uncomfortable as hell. Only they did glue technique on that one with hopes to save the mobility to highest level. In a way they did.

He was still suffering great deal of thoracic back injury that resulted in massive loss of sensation and muscle on the right side. Basically what happened was the terrible scapula injury that made the bone separate to a level of uselessness and putting it back together made it quite hard as the adjoining muscles and nerves got torn into shreds. Not that he could remember what had specifically caused it to happen.

He just was lucky they removed the broken bone and the destroyed tissue, sew together what was left, joined some pieces together and places screws where needed.

What was left was him loosing the most dexterity of his right hand and arm, diminished his lung function and caused numbness on the side. It affected the spinal part so his front was still finely defined abs and pecs. It less affected the push function so he still was able to move his chair like no less.

Although his face and head mostly was unnoticed sometimes he just plain refused to ever stand in front of the camera. Well, putting it lightly, his smiles became ever so goofy. His right eyebrow naturally held slightly higher arch so now when he did move the other one they were twinning. Which bothered him less.

What did bother him for sure was the hollow out feeling of his right side of head. It made him a bit unbalanced if he forgot about it. There was some seriously concerning damage to the nerves inside his head as some bone shard poked the auditory nerve which basically left him with one ear less. So he once again remodeled his audio systems to his left ear and maybe his brain adjusted to that better than initially was prognosed. Enterprise's medical did one full evaluation and confirmed what he felt was going on. His brain managed to compensate and so far in his daily life he didn't feel lesser human because of that.

Vertigo and minor headaches were what he dealt with on daily basis and thanks to his hard head it was most of his annoyance.

Yet some days he was literally bed ridden and unable to anything due to severe migraines.

His head took a blow and some fractures did more damage internally. His right side of face still held scars to show the fact. But what was one more scar to a man who was supposed to regenerate cells on its own and in a fast manner?

Honestly, nothing. But with one condition- that it actually worked as intended. In Noel's case not so much. While he did recover lots of what he'd lost and some part of the initial prognosis there still were these parts that didn't.

So what was the whole genetic engineering for then? Obviously he'd never know. Valkyrie were supposed to heal super fast and their bodies should regenerate fully after traumas. If he was supposed to go that way should he not be all healed by now? Or did they activated some other gene later on?

These questions came as they were and while he was still partly vegetable it became his most often mused over thing.

It made so little sense he stopped thinking about that.

Less thinking less what if's to go through.

Therefore he almost missed a tiny sound somewhere to his right. It confused him a bit. And there was one of the things he had missed as he rolled back to the main room. Sure he'd just skip off to the balcony to have a cigarette or two while he was out and about. But then his brain took this weird thinking pattern and he lost his navigation at all.

And now he heard tiny sounds that made no sense and nobody was around.

Just great.

He did however quietly rolled towards the noise and soon came upon a curled up body. It was a man in a very pretty suit that somehow resembled his own. Stranger was that he was looking so tiny and also resembled someone Noel held dear.

The figure seemed to be struggling however never made a notion of acknowledging anyone.

It took a minute to recognize what it was and his heart immediately clenched. Panic attack. Possibly some respiratory distress.

So damn familiar!

Why everyone today reminded him of the one and only soul in the whole universe he still lives for?

He slowly rolled up closer to the shaking figure and tried to get him straightened out. But his body was like a wire, coiled up so tightly he only could do one thing.

He grabbed the man by the shoulder, gently, and started to talk to him as soothingly as he could.

His voice wasn't much changed since the incident but he did became sounding somewhat hoarse and maybe softer. And his ability to scream did decrease unfortunately. But that didn't matter, if else it did suit this situation rather well.

But what did completely threw him off was the face he saw once the man relaxed under his touch and uncoiled enough for Noel to see him better.

It just can't be, was his immediate reaction. For fucks sake!

When all the demons come alive

I'll still be under your spell,

This could be heaven or hell,

This could be heaven