Avalon

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Breaking The Habit

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I don't know what's worth fighting for

Or why I have to scream

I don't know why I instigate

And say what I don't mean

I don't know how I got this way

I know it's not alright

So I'm breaking the habit

I'm breaking the habit tonight 

He was once again staring out at the vast space littered with uncountable amount of stars. Well, technically they were almost all some sort of planets or asteroids, for most of the time. There were things actually considered stars. He had to learn that. Study so much for just piloting shuttles or navigating bigger spaceships. He just had to know half of science stuff just to able to tell them all apart.

Now there were not just stars visible anymore. Distinctive shape of the all so familiar space station above the planet he was supposed to call home. Sight he missed for so long he'd almost forgotten how did it feel to return.

Being up in the space for as long as he was sometimes made returning feel weird. As if he was some random visitor popping by to see what's going on only to zoom up seconds later.

It creeped him out to some extent that was hard to process.

Yet he anticipated that moment like parched tree branch in desert sand.

Sometimes it was just him dropping off from ship to ship or station to station, never seeing his bland apartment or breathing in the air of a planet.

So Noel rarely tried to get clingy to the planet.

Home base was what he dubbed it in his mind and kept to that idea. It was just so easier forget he ever had a home.

Well, at least easier to not find thousand more reasons to drink another dozen of bottles of drinks he wasn't even supposed to sniff at. All the while he still managed to find them anyway and then sink into self loathing and depression only to drink those bottles on top of double dozen he already had.

So that's how he ended up in this cycle without a way out. It was a sinkhole he wasn't strong nor willing enough to get out.

As the station grew closer Noel felt that deep anxiety seeping through the cracks of his soul. Like those times he'd never truly gotten out of, mentally. So he happened to be trapped in the darkness and sharing sorrow with his alcohol and often the damn pills he hated but could never stop having unless he wanted to end up splashed against some alien planet's surface or another ship's side. The ones that held him back from melting into the abyss his mind was.

The worst, or at least most inevitable, was that Nate had seen it. Even shared in the dark confines of some abandoned warehouse back in their meek tries to escape and when it was just the two of them.

Even now that years have passed and after countless nights spent starting out into the abyss of his own soul and the vast abyss that was the space. It was as if the space and he had this thing in common and they connected over the nights during which both shared their darkness and secrets keeping their loved ones far away and safe.

Even going through paralysis and residual side effects from the incident didn't leave such dark, deep abyss.

Noel never was perfect. Nor even tried to achieve anything.

All he ever did was fought for his loved ones and his own lives. So this was just another day on the job while hiding behind the curtain.

He felt his heart going faster and faster as the station appeared in more detail and the ship he wasn't piloting this time slid silently towards the base from where dozens of shuttles will carry them to the ground dock and finally they'll be landed.

It was so scary and gut wrenching Noel could hardly breathe. The air kept hitching in his throat and choking was an option Noel felt he should put on the list of his anxiety symptoms. Not that it was too directly related.

It was mostly residual issue from the one time he was on a ship with and went to seek out the route and location meanwhile staying undetected.

See, being undetected was the very bottom of the list of worry. Noel could hide himself like a shadow and same could Nate. They used to go around places just like ghosts, hidden within shadows, and occasionally pulling out trinkets from their pockets afterwards.

It wasn't because they were trained to become this good, it was in their genes.

So be it.

And it was logical to feel nervous while stalking somebody's starship without being invited neither was showing it. So that one time he went alone he wasn't just nervous. He was terrified and sensed the danger mile away.

But he was in the moment and couldn't walk away.

Some random guards noticed a teen or something snooping around some storage units and old barracks and they went for blood.

It ended up being one of the most bloodiest fight he ever happened to be involved and one that put him very close to death and actually left mark to remember the experience forever. A single souvenir and his ass handed to himself.

Nasty but quick.

His finger grazed over the scar that jaggedly ran across and nearly around the man's neck. The front above the tracheostomy scar held bold dark pink line that wasn't straight.

But it burst out like lightning bolts did in the fiery thunderstorm sky on the right side. Left side of his neck only was marked by one end of that line and reached down to his collarbone on left side. But the right side was all covered in those jagged lines like the vision left after lightning strike stays behind on a video feed.

It disappeared in his hairline where the rest of it kept hidden.

However not just the outside suffered.

His throat suffered too, especially trachea. Scarring hid on the inside making his voice somewhat raspy and hushed. Well, Nate once stated it made him sound both sexier and also more threatening.

Guess in a way the man was right. His voice changed a lot and while this scarring nor the following one took his voice away he occasionally had issues to talk as well as breathe.

Yet he was still there. Still drinking more than was humanly possible and hid among shadows like a ghost while equally ruthlessly removed enemies from the skies of new planets and held the escorts safe for all the shuttles.

He made sure the route was safe and in case of emergency or attack always stood ready to protect his ship. Because after all it was his ship as much as anyone's on it. Not just Captain's.

It was the only home for years to majority of lives residing on it. So he stood coiled for attack like a venomous snake.

Sometimes he got to use that title he once earned but sometimes he was placed on different duty.

But neither made the snooping experience disappear. And that's how his unrelated issue happened to become days by more related.

All the while base came face to face with his window and the large starship started its docking process.

It wasn't his shift so he stayed on the dark deck and fought his demons alone.

Until just that- with a small push and groan Enterprise connected with the station gates and hydraulics overtook depressurisation inside the chambers.

They had arrived.