after killing noctilucent’s body to save vace, sol is an absolute nuisance to the night guards of the colony.
exhibit 1: sleeping in the communal barracks after nightmares because it’s comforting
person guarding the garrison tries not to freak out when the doc is walking with intent toward the barracks
(because the DOCTOR being that fucking focused going anywhere? usually not good)
“yo, doc, need help?”
for a second sol looks to walk straight past and in, not even acknowledging them
and then stops.
and backs up a step.
and bobs a finger in their direction.
(and doesn’t look up.)
“…you on watch until breakfast?”
“uh… yeah? er, yes sir.”
(he finally looks up.)
(oh. he looks like shit.)
“i’m sleeping in your bunk. if i’m still there when you’re done, just throw something at me.”
and he goes right in without another word.
and he is still there when they get off watch.
but they’re not going to wake the doc, are you nuts? vace would kill them.
as they’re standing awkwardly beside the bunk, a roll of socks nails sol in the head from across the room
(it was nem)
sol crawls, grumbling, like a goddamn lizard out of the bunk, across the floor, and into the one immediately adjacent while its occupant is still sitting on it, putting on boots
occasionally including bed sharing with nem or vace
nem is game, always
willing to play big spoon and envelope sol as much as he needs
not super jumpy, so sol can literally crawl right into her bed without waking the whole barracks
(she prefers a slight heads up, though, which is fair)
once forgot to tell sol she’d swapped bunks with someone else
the next morning, sol makes certain to reassure his accidental victim that screaming is a perfectly good fear response
no, it doesn’t matter if it was really high-pitched and woke everyone up
if it had been a real threat that would be the ideal outcome anyway
vace is… not the cuddling type.
especially not so soon in his getting better arc.
but sol knows that and does not actually crawl into his bed
because he’s a fucking gremlin, he crawls under it.
vace does not realize he has a monster under the bed until the fourth time it happens.
(condolences to the poor bastards who watch the doctor casually scoot out from under a bed the next morning and are immediately sworn to silence on it)
because sol has another nightmare and jolts awake.
right into the underside of vace’s bed.
sol is cussing and bleeding, vace is awake and foaming at the mouth and has pulled a plaspistol, everyone else has just learned that vace keeps a plaspistol under his pillow, it’s a whole mess
exhibit b: unauthorized night walks
sol straight up tries to leave in the middle of the night like it’s no biggies.
woe upon the poor soldier who had to try and figure out what to do with that one.
“sorry, doc, we’re locked up for the night.”
“how much to get through?”
blink. blink.
“…did you just offer to bribe me?”
ding. 200 credits received from: solaniac.
“that enough to ignore any screaming you hear for the next two hours?”
“…have a nice walk, doc.”
(two hours later, she’s very certain 200 credits is not enough to make up for those screams.)
(next time, she’s charging fucking double.)
exhibit three: sol just hanging out on the walls in the middle of the night
literally just climbs straight up and finds somewhere to sit.
intentionally waits for a gap because he just doesn’t want to answer questions right now.
almost gets shot by a very startled soldier.
rhett has to make sol promise to tell soldiers if he’s going on the wall. it’s a safety issue.
(he has to make him promise three times. the third time is a full sit-down, “if you do this again i’m going to have to assume you’re hoping to get shot and report it to instance and congruence” talk, before sol finally actually listens.)
he’ll just chill in one of the lookout towers, silent. staring off into the wilderness.
sometimes he looks particularly haunted about it, and the soldiers have to shake the urge to talk to him.
(one time, a soldier notices he’s not just looking haunted, he’s physically shaking. when sol doesn’t respond to questions, they send someone to get vace.)
(vace holds sol’s hand in his metal one until sol comes back to himself, and sits with sol until sunrise.)
one time, a soldier switched lookouts at midnight and forgot to tell his replacement that sol was there.
she didn’t notice for hours. sol didn’t realize she didn’t know.
she was scared shitless when sol coughed. sol was scared shitless when she pulled a gun on him. rhett filled a tub with water, dunked his whole head inside, and screamed for a full minute.