i can fix him

my new first run was… tragic. obviously tammy and hal died because it was a first run. i mostly did exploration. i went out and explored the month that tonin died, saw the fight, didn’t have the stats to try to save him so i ran for help, and then held his hands while he died, thinking i was tammy.

i stopped exploring for a while after that, and zeroed in on xenobotany again. i’d already done a little bit, and ended up creating the native hybrid right around the time i turned 13.

…which is also when sol’s mom pulls out the “you’re not doing enough” talk (possibly just if your rebellion is on the higher side? but mine has never not been, so i don’t know). which happened to be the event that triggered right after i made the native hybrid. so i was pissed that i’d just achieved a scientific marvel as a prepubescent child, only to be told i needed to try harder.

so i chose every angry option that presented itself. i despised her after that. i feel so strongly about it that i made it a foundational event to my view of my doctor!sol.

i stopped researching xenobotany, and started focusing on engineering instead. leaned back into exploration, too. until the famine got bad. i thought working on xenobotany might help things, make more plants and solve the problem long term.

…but it didn’t. and fluorescent died. which made feelings… complicated.

i leaned fully into engineering and exploration. managed to get to the ridges before ever fully exploring the valley. made efforts to befriend tangent, too. learned that the shimmer cure might be in the valley, but it wasn’t pollen yet so i wasn’t thinking super hard on it. helped her with some other stuff, too.

eventually, a pollen season hit and i remembered the cure. i went out exploring in the valley, but misremembered where the big event for it was and ended up using most of my stress getting to the wrong spot. i had to go back, relax for mid-pollen, and then went back out in late pollen.

i did manage to get to the glade, get what i needed, and get out. went back to the colony, last missing piece for the shimmer cure in hand.

and walked right into the story event where the shimmer finally kills geranium.

…i helped cure it the very next month. i, as a player, felt so… numb and useless about it. at this point i’d failed to save tonin, flulu, and geranium. not just failed, but tried and failed. tried so very hard.

i threw myself entirely into my relationship with tang. we started dating. i focused back on engineering because i didn’t know what else to do.

i found out what tang was working on. had been working on, for years. what i’d been helping her with, unknowingly.

i could tell she felt conflicted. that this was something she felt she had to do, but something she didn’t want to do.

i told her… i supported her.

i thought it was the first step. that if i let her know that i support her (not her project, but her), then she would know, when i told her it needed to stop, that i wasn’t mad at her. she wouldn’t have to defend herself. that she could lean on the parts of her screaming that this was wrong, and i’d support her in following the path to undoing what she had almost done.

that wasn’t a choice i was given. i just couldn’t read the writing on the walls.

i hoped the chance would come up with time passing. but it didn’t.

i decided i had to tell someone else. the only person i could think of who would be against it, and who could do something about it.

i told dys.

and he just… told me it wasn’t a serious threat. that the gardeners could handle it. i wasn’t close enough with him to make him take me seriously.

he left during the next glow.

i tried exploring again, hoping i might find something out there that would let me stop this. i broke up with tang, because i realized i couldn’t talk her out of it. i’d damned us both with that one choice.

in the end, there was nothing i could do. tangent’s cure came to pass.

i just imagine all those years sol spent sitting in the helios. thinking on the course of their life.

how they chose to run and get help instead of fighting to protect tonin. and he died because of it.

how they chose to try and focus on breeding new plants for the famine instead of working the fields. and fluorescent died because of it.

how they took one wrong turn in the valley of vertigo, delaying curing the shimmer by two months. and geranium died because of it.

how they said one wrong thing, thinking it was a path to redemption. and because of that, cal, and instance died.

…a planet died.

i know how it ends in the story. emerging more than a decade later. surviving, because that’s what humanity does.

but in my heart, it ends differently. sol refuses to stay in the helios. a season after the quarantine starts, they just leave. they venture out into the plagued wilderness to try and save something. some small bit of vertumna. something that can be regrown, like it was thousands of years ago.

Before Vace could respond, he took a heavy drink from the alcohol, coughing on the burn in his throat. He took a second, and tried for a third before a metallic hand snatched his wrist. “Fuckin’ greedy,” Vace growled, prying the bottle out of Solane’s grip. Sol glanced at him, seeing the tenseness in his shoulders, and laughed.

“Quit fuckin’ with me,” Vace muttered, taking another sip.

Solane sighed, gripping his knees tight to his chest. “...I’m not.” He could feel Vace’s eyes on him, but didn’t bother looking back. He didn’t look down, either, where he knew the fields of Geoponics would be visible from where they sat on the Heliopause.

“Geranium and… Fluorescent.”

“Oh fuck. The farm fugitives?” Vace asked incredulously.

Solane snorted, letting the laugh ease the tightness in his chest. “Yeah… Yeah. Those are the ones.”

“The fuck is that story?”

Vace’s inability to keep his mouth shut was a blessing, occasionally. Refreshing, at the very least. Everyone in the original colony knew who his parents were. Knew that, seemingly overnight, they went from being a close-knit, happy family unit to not speaking at all. They’d tracked every movement for a while, waiting to see who would be the first to break the silence, to finally bridge the gap. By the raid that destroyed the original colony, few still paid attention. Afterward? Well… There was too much else to do.

“A few weeks after my thirteenth, she sat me down first thing in the morning. Started going off about how she was watching me, and she didn’t like what she saw. About community, and needin’ to fit in. That it wasn’t some fucking holovid, this is real life, and I needed to get my shit together,” Solane stated, bitterness creeping into the words.

“Yeah? You not like the reality check?” Vace asked, and Solane could hear the derisiveness in his voice.

Solane waved a hand at the fields below them. “You know the Vertumna Carrtatos? Our staple food?” Vace nodded, opening his mouth to answer, but Sol didn’t give him the time. “I created that. I spent months in the xenobotany lab working on the math, on the DNA. Running simulations, and watching them fail, and tweaking them, and doing it again. Learning how to alter DNA. Not just theoretically, but how to actually do it. Because nothing else was working. Because my parents came home from the fields every fucking night, whispering back and forth like I couldn’t fucking hear them. About how our earth crops were failing, and we couldn’t domesticate native ones. About how our colony was going to slowly starve. Trying to figure out how much time they had to fix it before they had to tell Eudicot.”

He snatched the bottle from Vace, swirling what little remained before downing it all. “So I fixed it. I sacrificed time I could’ve used for school, or Sportsball, or making friends. I stopped going beyond the wall, stopped learning about what’s out there. So I could save them.” He stood up, wobbling for a moment as his feet settled into the slightly curved surface beneath him. Vace’s metal arm snaked around the back of his calf, around the inside of his knee to dig the fingers into the front of his lower thigh, stabilizing the doctor.

Solane drew his arm back, and hurled the bottle out towards the fields with a snarl. He tilted forward in the follow-through, but the counterpressure provided by Vace’s hand kept him from tumbling over. They both silently watched the glint of the starlight on the bottle as it dropped into darkness, before they heard the shattering of glass on dirt.

“...And a few days later, I turned thirteen.”

“Fuck,” Vace hissed under his breath, refusing to lax his bruising grip.

“I told her she had no fuckin’ clue what she was talking about. That if what I’d already done wasn’t good enough, then nothing I did ever would be. Then I shoved some shit in a bag and left. Haven’t… Haven’t talked to ‘er since,” Solane muttered, swaying gently side to side.

“Geranium tried, a couple times, but… He always said shit like she shouldn’t have said it so harshly, or we needed to talk it out, that she’s under a lot of pressure, or just trying to help me… But never once did he say she was wrong. Or sorry. Just kept trying to convince me with excuses covering her ass, until I stopped listening altogether.”

Solane shook his leg, easing Vace’s grip as he stumbled toward the overhang where they could climb down onto Command’s balcony. He hopped off, realizing a minute too late that he’d overestimated his ability to make a smooth landing, and lurched into the railing, lashing a white-knuckle grip on it as he steadied himself.

Vace’s footsteps approached the edge and a moment later, he dropped down beside Solane. The soldier seemed more steady on his feet. “We should get you back to your apartment,” he muttered, half-turning toward Solane and leaning just slightly into his space.

With a snort, Solane turned towards the stairs. “Walk me proper or stand there and look pretty, but don’t start that herding dog trick with me,” he cautioned as he took the first step down, clutching the railing as his feet shook.

Vace squeezed beside him on the staircase, wrapping his metallic arm around Solane’s waist at the same time his right arm slung the doctor’s own over his shoulders, letting Solane lean into his broader frame.

Walking down the steps took Solane’s full focus, but as they leveled out onto the dirt track, he murmured, “I think she’s been angry her whole life. Always had someone to fight. The adults who failed her, the world governments, the terrors of space… She was a soldier. But when we landed here, she wasn’t anymore, and… And I think maybe, she was still angry anyway. And she decided it was my fault.”

He realized Vace had stopped in front of the door to Dys’s quarters, and Solane wondered how long it had taken him to get that thought out. “It… It wasn’t fair,” he murmured into Vace’s shoulder.

He felt Vace’s words as he quietly murmured back, “It wasn’t.”

The door opened, and Solane beamed a smile at Dys, who seemed barely awake. The scout glanced at Sol’s face and his eyebrows narrowed before his accusatory eyes snapped to Vace, barely-hidden contempt in them. Vace muttered something, but Solane was too tired to hear it now, just swaying to the melody as his two friends conversed quietly, Dys’s posture easing at whatever Vace had to say.

Dys’s arm curled around him then, and Solane felt Vace’s leave. Glancing over his shoulder, he gave a soft smile to the soldier and whispered, “Goodnight, Vace.”

He wasn’t sure if the boy responded as the door shut quietly, and Dys guided Solane towards his bedroom. He was seated on the edge of his bed as Dys undid the laces of his boots just enough to slip them off. The dark-haired boy walked away for a moment and came back with a damp cloth.

“Let’s wipe off your cheeks, alright? Don’t want them crusting over while you sleep,” he said gently, smudging the cloth against Solane’s skin, tracing tear tracks.

“I was crying?” Solane asked, tiredness quickly beginning to sweep him away.

Dys looked up and gave one of his not-really-a-smile smiles. Solane felt a deep appreciation for those smiles in that moment. “I’m sure it was happy crying,” Dys whispered, helping Sol scooch up to the top of the bed.

• solane dgaf. he just lets vace keep trying until he’s awkwardly close

• (he’s a doctor. he’s used to people being awkwardly close to him)

• every time vace tries it on him (and he does keep trying), solane just smirks and calls him lassie

• no one knows when exactly they start dating?

• (not even them.)

• for a while, it’s honestly more of a queerplatonic relationship than anything

• their relationship generally is a different dynamic than most would expect with a “relationship”

• most often, they interact in a way that makes them seem like squad mates? they start to develop that kind of connection and understanding where they can help each other without talking, just vague gestures and subtle body language

• they aren’t lovey-dovey, they both have too many issues for that

• (eventually, they reach a point of being comfortable being physically affectionate with each other. and i’m talking like, hugs, or cuddling, or holding hands. other stuff takes a while longer)

• solane always tries to sit on vace’s left side. he has a tendency to lean into vace when they spend much time anywhere, and noticed pretty early on that he tenses if sol leans against anything but the metal arm.

• they also are completely unafraid to full on hip check each other, metaphorically. and literally.

• their love language is physical touch. but in a “physically bully each other” kind of way.

• sol has bodily tackled vace to the ground in the middle of the colony many times for being a bastard

• (vace did it to sol one time, and broke two of sol’s ribs. he hasn’t done it again, even though sol keeps calling him a coward because “it was only two ribs, it’s not like i need them all!”)

• they are both somewhat territorial, though

• sol actively encourages others to give vace a hard time when he deserves it

• but if he doesn’t actually deserve it? you’re fucked

• sol is better at tearing people down mentally. vace, physically.

• vace is generally more efficient and to the point about it. sol is fucking feral.

• he likes playing the long game. he likes making you think you’re going fucking crazy. he does absolutely unhinged shit. either very subtlely or very obviously, no in between.

• if he has to get physical? he gets some training from vace, but also has a concerning tendency to bite if anything gets close enough

• (distinctly, none of that follows him into doctor mode. no grudges or games when someone needs help.)

• vace also bites. or he did, once.

• after a while, sol felt comfortable enough to introduce vace to sym.

• vace trying to tag along when sol went outside the colony was a pressing factor, but he waited until both were comfortable and informed.

• sym tends to act a bit… naturally flirtatious.

• sol is used to it, that’s just how sym is. he’s an ancient ai being trying to learn how to interact like humans, cut him some slack.

• vace thinks sym is interested in sol

• (sym isn’t, actively. but he wouldn’t say no, if sol asked.)

• vace keeps edging closer and closer to sol over the course of the conversation. until he’s fully pressed up against sol’s left shoulder and back, glaring at sym.

• and then… well, he doesn’t even realize he’s about to do it?

• but he definitely just bit sol on the ear.

• not hard! not damaging in any way. just a… reminder. to the audience. of one.

• and then sol’s face slowly, slowly turns to look at vace. nothing else moves. just his head turning, in a creepy owl-like manner. and very, very quietly…

• “…did you just bite me?”

sol takes him seriously, because that’s what vace is there for. he unholsters his plaspistol (for show, because it’s not like he actually know how to use the thing), goes for a sample of this last plant, and then they’ll get moving back to the transport.

first rule of vertumna: it’s never just a plant.

this plant turns out to be the hook for a creature fairly reminiscent of a snapbladder. and the second sol touches it, the trap springs.

it gets a decent clamp on sol. across his left shoulder and chest. it’s clearly not sized for human prey, but it’s bite is strong enough. it’ll bruise, and its teeth break the skin, but it’s not all that worrying.

it lets go when vace fires some non-lethal shots into it, and scurried away. vace goes to check on the doc, who assures him that it’s all fine.

but they haven’t been unnoticed. all day, noctilucent has been keeping tabs on them. waiting for a good opportunity to strike. and what better opening than worried distraction?

but he’s mean. he aims for the hard hits.

he drops a tree on them.

vace manages to swing the doc out of the way, and takes the full force of a falling tree on himself. not that solane being present would’ve changed that, then they’d just both take the full force of a falling tree. and it would end much worse for one of them.

it’ll leave some bruises on him. might’ve even left a few small cracks in the bones. but this is vace. he’ll be fine.

there’s only one major problem.

his legs are pinned under it. and he’s strong, but not super strong, and it’s hard to get proper leverage when you’re face down on the ground. sol is managed to catch his breath after being thrown to the ground (really just failing to catch himself), and is about to get up and go to vace…

but noctilucent emerges from the bushes. still dripping, like he’d crawled right out of the swamp water.

(he did)

sol hasn’t met noct before, but he knows about gardeners from sym

particularly that there are a number of gardeners who want the whole colony gone. and who think “dead” is good enough.

and in this particular scenario? he doesn’t really get the feeling this is going to be a friendly chat. he wonders if noct was the one responsible for the looming stormclouds.

noct knows how to threat assess. also, he’s been watching them all day. he knows that one of these individuals knows how to use a gun, and the other is a goddamn nerd. so vace presently being stuck under a tree? means that problem can be dealt with immediately.

so noct goes to him.

and stomps on vace’s head with those ugly ass hooves of his.

but, it’s vace. he’s built different. it’ll leave a bump, and left a little split in the skin that bleeds a bit, but it’s probably not even enough for a concussion.

(sol definitely has that brief moment of “i just witnessed a murder” before he remembered vace’s augment)

but noct keeps going. he gets another 3-4 in before sol throws himself on vace, literally wrapping around noctilucent’s leg like an octopus. screaming for him to stop.

and noct backs up a step. mostly because he’s surprised by the sheer audacity sol is showing.

and sol covers vace’s body with his own.

he doesn’t know how to fight. his plaspistol isn’t in reach, he can’t see vace’s plasrifle, the only thing he has is the knowledge that gardeners don’t die when their body is killed. he isn’t a soldier.

but he has to be.

vace is out of it. he seems to be wavering on consciousness, but his legs are still stuck and he definitely has at least a concussion now.

sol is the only one who can help them right now.

he’s shaking and sobbing, pressed overtop of vace. he can see something like amusement in noct’s eyes, and it pushes him that much further.

noct leans down. he wants to meet this human eye to eye, to mock sol for this before he kills them both. he’s absolutely focused on the full-faced misery of sol.

it’s classic, really. a common trick used by magicians in old holovids.

misdirection.

noct doesn’t see sol work vace’s knife free of the belt. he isn’t as guarded with sol. this human has only ventured beyond the colony a handful of times, and has never shown any prowess for combat.

sol isn’t a threat.

and as the doctor, lightning quick, wraps a hand around the back of noctilucent’s neck and slices so deep he leaves a cut across his own palm, he wonders if noct will remember this. feel some primal unease the next time he sees solane. or if, like his recent memories, all sense of threat melts away with his body.

the sprinkling rain is starting to grow heavier. sol uses a thick branch to leverage the tree off of vace, and wishes desperately that he had the time to fully exam the damage.

but he doesn’t. utopia will probably realize something is wrong soon—probably sent a message to the transport when stratos picked up on the storm moving in, and is waiting for a response that indicates they’re heading back to the colony.

when it doesn’t come, she’ll report them as missing. normal protocol is a search and rescue party.

but the storm would make for hostile conditions. if it raises the water too much, there are parts of the road that’ll flood, and they might not even be able to get a squad to the swamp. unless the storm blows over in minutes (which is possible, if not likely), it’ll be nightfall or later by the time anyone can make it.

and nighttime isn’t a good time for a rescue squad. it just puts more people at risk. in most cases, they’d wait until day. rhett wouldn’t get any sleep over the worry and guilt, but he’d make the choice anyway.

except, maybe, for sol.

he’s a doctor. the only one who knows what to do besides instance. he has more old-school knowledge than instance, and a xenobotanist background. he’s valuable, and he hates knowing that. that someone might consider it worthwhile to risk other lives to save his own.

but others can be trained. medbeds can handle just about any problem, as long as they stay functional. rhett knows that, as much as he knows sol wouldn’t want others to risk themselves unnecessarily for him.

the doctor honestly doesn’t know what choice rhett will make, and doesn’t envy him having to make it.

(he’ll buy something nice for the security chief, if he gets out of this.)

(when. it has to be when.)

vace is conscious enough to move, a little. support his own weight, hopefully. but that’s about it.

sol gets him up, supports his weight on one side. vace has about eight inches and ninety pounds on sol, which is a fucking problem.

sol puts on his best rhett voice, and barks orders at vace. “time to push it, soldier! if you don’t, we’re both dead!”

he can’t honestly tell if it helped. he knows vace can’t do much. he knows he was mostly saying it for himself.

because if sol can’t manage this, they’re both dead.

they might get lucky. rhett might send a squad after all. nem might defy orders to come after them herself. dys might come for sol’s sake, with her or own his own. he might even get word to sym.

but sol can’t act like help is coming. can’t let himself do anything less than as much as he fucking can.

the sun has set by the time he gets them back to the transport, drenched and muddy and shaking. he barely manages to open the sliding door with one hand, and then has to lay vace on the floor from outside, get in, and drag him the rest of the way. he pulls wads of fabric from between his own teeth, put there to keep his teeth from cracking when he clenched it shut.

he can barely get the scraps out, with how tightly wound the muscles are. that’ll hurt in the morning.

(he’ll just add it to the list.)

he locks them inside the transport, and takes a chance to examine vace. he’s semi-conscious, definitely has a concussion. he can talk, a little, and vaguely understand context.

(he swears, mostly. given the context, yeah. sounds about right.)

the bleeding has stopped. there are some cracks in his skull, but nothing that feels imminently dangerous. already bruises and a hell of a black eye, and sol is pretty sure there’s a fracture along his left orbital bone. but those are all things a medbed can handle just fine. as long as he makes it to one.

sol straps vace into one of the bench seats, and gets the transport started. as expected, there’s several messages from utopia, and one from rhett. the storm interferes too much with comms for much to get through, but sol does what he can. a distress signal, canceled after three seconds. three seconds of silence, and then the signal sent again, canceled after three seconds. deliberate enough for them to know it’s a message.

he starts the transport home.

about ten minutes of slow travel down the road, it’s flooded. sol isn’t going to risk it, not after what he just went through. he parks them.

he unbuckles vace so he can lay the soldier down on the seats, and try to get some sleep. sol takes the floor, and sleeps in fits.

eventually, he jolts awake to the sound of a quiet drizzle.

he straps vace back in. he’s relieved to hear the mumbled complaints about ruining his sleep.

the floods come fast in the swamp, but they leave that way, too.

it takes another hour and a half, but eventually he sees the lights of the colony.

utopia and rhett are already at the outer post, pacing and watching the road. they see the approaching transport before the lookouts do, but not before dys and nem.

both of whom are sequestered right next to the security chief, and looking rather dour.

sol can see how much self restraint it takes to wait for the transport to roll in, and not just run to it.

as soon as it’s parked, someone starts trying to yank the door open.

(it’s locked and dead bolted, because sol wasn’t taking any chances.)

he unlocks it, and rhett yanks it open before sol can. all the doctor manages to say is vace’s name, before he’s being unbuckled and carried out in rhett’s arms.

held like a princess, limp and soaked in a way that makes his clothes and hair cling to him, vace looks like the kid he is. barely sixteen, too young to be dealing with this shit.

(they both are. hell, all of them are.)

sol doesn’t need help to move. he knows he looks like shit, but his adrenaline has been running so high for so long that he sprints ahead to prepare a medbed.

instance is waiting, but she knows someone who needs work when she sees it. she’ll be the one who cleans and cares for sol’s own wounds later, in the quiet silence of an active medbed. tang will uncurl from the corner where she’d been watching owlishly, to play the part of nursing assistant.

vace will be under for three days. it’ll heal all the worrying injuries, but sol knows the soldier can’t stand to spend forever in a medbed, even if he doesn’t remember it.

(and he doesn’t remember the medbed. but he does remember a surprising amount of that day. remembers the dissonance of hearing sol sobbing while also feeling deft fingers work his knife loose. knows noct died, and he couldn’t have been the one to do it. gets flashes of the slog back, of sol carrying him when he could only feel frustration at his weak, sluggish legs slipping in the mud.)

they’re different, after that. sol never acts like vace owes him anything, and starts taking self-defense lessons. neither one of them actually suggested it. they just made eye contact across the cafeteria one morning a week after the event, and walked to the garrison together to start.

vace trusts sol to do what’s necessary, and to know what that is. it’s hard not to, when you know the empathetic, xeno-loving doctor willingly killed a gardener. his trust grows from there.

and sol trusts vace to have subtlety, and sympathy. he never says more about that day than what sol himself admits, even after he tells sol he remembers it. he seems to pick up on the days when it’s really bothering the doctor, and finds a way to hover nearby. whether it makes sol feel safe, or reminds him that he saved someone, vace doesn’t know.

seeing the most trusted kids from each ship suddenly get along has a deep impact on not just their peers, but the adults too.

(lum hates it. he never managed to scare them, but he could usually get them to cooperate. now they do nothing less than exactly what they think is right, and the few times he’s tried to control them, they both just fixed him with a stare that said he was a problem they could solve the moment they decided to.)

it’s the start of a new era for stratos-helios relations.

the violent soldier who toughened the kind doctor, and let himself be soothed in return.

(nothing changed in them. not really.)

(they just learned how to balance.)

• there’s a gentleness that kind touch brings out in you

• and he is afraid of it

• for this reason, he naturally tends to lead with his left arm, the metallic one. it keeps other people’s warmth distant, and leaves them with the impression of him as something cold, hard, and made for function

• it’s just easier that way

• (but not better.)

people pleasing

• he used to be a people pleaser.

• it’s an easy habit to develop, when you’ve got abandonment issues and would do anything to get the parent who stayed to stop

• and he wasn’t strong enough to fight back, anyway

• if he got the impression that someone would even bother to look at him twice, he would practically build his whole personality towards them

• he’d pick up shared hobbies even if he hated them

• shared likes and dislikes, attitudes, world views…

• he just turned himself into a mirror, because that’s what he thought he was supposed to do

• this is what led to rex bullying him

• it’s pretty easy to see when someone’s doing this, and even easier to think it’s just them being fake, or mocking you

• after he broke rex’s arm, he stopped

• but he swung like a pendulum in the complete opposite direction

• he started intentionally scaring people off, because they never did him any fucking good

• he’d intentionally become everything they disliked if someone tried to get close

• for a while, it was a total personality shift, too

• he’d make his whole life about making them want nothing to do with him

• as he got older, he became more of a person for himself, though he still tends to mix and match quirks and interests to shrug people off

xenos

• he actually didn’t hate xenos when helios first landed

• he was wary of them, but he found them… interesting

• one of his first days out of the colony walls, he came across a hopeye that was just hanging out, making cute hopeye noises

• vace made sure there was no one around who could even possibly see this

• and then tried to pet it

• but the helios? didn’t really have animals

• so vace? didn’t really know how to handle animals

• and he startled the poor thing, which chomped down on his hand (metallic one) and then bolted

• it didn’t hurt, but it did fuck up one of the finger joints a little, and he had to fix it in engineering

• (but he did fix it himself, because he wasn’t admitting to anyone what happened)

• he admits that to solane one day, after they’ve grown close

• and solane is trying so hard to be proud of him for sharing this, because it’s hard for vace to admit anything

• but he also just desperately wants to tell vace that he’s a dumbass, of course it bit him

• (and is also so glad it was the metal hand. he’s read about rabies. he hasn’t seen anything similar on vertumna, but…)

snow

• vace doesn’t like the cold

• it makes him put on layers, it makes the metal on his arm feel weird, the parts it connects to ache… anytime he has to go into a room where the AC is kept running, he’s grumpy

• but he also used to watch a weird amount of winter holiday movies as a kid

• (he once got lum with a home alone style trap, when lum was a teenager)

• so he’s always found something kind of magical about snow

• but real snow is freezing

• (supposedly)

• (he’s never actually seen any)

• his favorite vertumna season is quiet

• sometimes, when he goes out of the colony during the snows, he just finds a quiet spot to stand and let it fall on him. it reminds him a little of stars

alcohol

• he doesn’t like alcohol. the flavor is awful, and his augment makes him a heavyweight. so trying to actually get drunk isn’t even worth it.

• but he refuses to avoid it

• he thinks it’s the only way to prove he’s not as weak as his father

• to stare the same temptation dead in the eyes, and refuse to give in

• and—he doesn’t. he doesn’t experience the change in brain chemicals, doesn’t become dependent on it.

• that doesn’t mean it’s healthy, though. especially not mentally. he’s still letting that ghost haunt him, control him

• and it takes a few years for that to finally get a mention in therapy with congruence. and even when she explains that to him, it doesn’t really… take.

• but congruence and sol share records, when necessary for the good of a patient.

• so eventually, sol sits vace down. in his office, in an appointment, completely professional setting.

• and he lays it all out for him.

• you see, alcoholism is partially influenced by genes. and if vace’s dad had the genes for it, it’s possible vace does too. but the way vace’s augment works, it’s harder for things to affect him. it would take a genuine, concerted effort to get him addicted to something. like, medical intervention.

• but if he ever has children… they might get the genes.

• but it’s not the be-all end-all. it’s also influenced by environment. strongly by the examples they see as they grow.

• and if one of his kids sees his attitude, that alcohol avoidance is some challenge to be conquered, and adopts the same attitude, without the same augment…

• vace stops drinking, then

• it does take a while, because it’s kind of habit at this point. if there’s alcohol, drink it. suffer through the nasty taste. prove you’re better. he doesnt even usually consciously decide to drink.

• but he does get there.

chronic pain

• it’s his arm

• it’s hard to hurt him in a way that leaves a permanent mark

• so to damage his arm to the point that it comes off, or needs to be removed?

• that fucks shit up

• and it was weird to him, for a long time

• he’s not super used to feeling pain, not on a scale similar to other people. he doesn’t know if his pain tolerance is high because he can take harder hits, or if he genuinely feels pain differently.

• (it’s a bit of both, really. he is harder to damage, but pain isn’t nerves being damaged. it’s nerves saying “hey, something dangerous is happening”. but, what is considered “dangerous” to his body is a different level. and that’s the level his nerves are used to. if someone else were given his augment later in life? it would take a while for the nervous system to adjust. and that while would suck.)

• but, chronic pain? it’s his nerves trying to say hey this is wrong, we should fix this, but no one listens because really, there’s not a whole lot more to do?

• phantom pain, too. it’s hard to rewire that, once the path has been made.

• but pain medication?

• well… chemical-altering substances don’t affect him nearly as easily. so they don’t help.

• he just… brute forces his way through it. refuses to let it affect his day to day life.

• he doesn’t let himself have “bad days”.

• which really just means he overexerts himself until something happens that makes him take it easy.

• (for a while, it’s rhett coming up with an excuse. or implementing a rotating system for soldiers to have a week off)

• eventually, therapy helps him start to change that mindset, too

but rhett and utopia aren’t having it. sol isn’t trained in combat, hasn’t scouted more than a few times in the past few years, and is the only doctor in the colony.

so sol pulls the good ol’ dys treatment. he will go check out the swamp. it’s up to them whether he has any support doing it, or if he’s just going to hike it there.

(this… may have been a bluff. he needs to see those plants, and their environment… but he knows the colony needs him.)

rhett finally relents, as long as sol takes a protection detail. sol refuses to babysit a squadron of soldiers who will get spooked and shoot everything that moves, because there will be hands thrown if someone kills something without threat of imminent doom.

they eventually come to a compromise. one soldier.

but it’s going to be vace, because he’s the best they’ve got.

sol hasn’t had many interactions with vace outside of medical events. he’s still got that lasting first impression, so he figures it won’t be a particularly fun excursion. but it’s better than a whole group traipsing all over the wildlife.

vace, meanwhile, has been keeping tabs on sol ever since his first appointment. and he’s figured out that sol radiates kindness, cares about everything around him, is highly empathetic, and always has a little sarcasm to spare.

and he’s also realized that solane is terrifying.

kom pulled vace aside the same month they landed, because vace was already being a shithead. and the talk he gave vace didn’t scare him, but it did make him feel respect for the guy, and set him a bit straight. he realized later that kom knew damn well vace was going to run things one day, and his sister would be working under him. that’s really the main reason kom gave him the talk.

what he didn’t realize, at least initially, is that someone else was giving other troublesome helios kids a very similar talk. he noticed some of them seemed to cool their jets, but assumed it was being planetside. then one kid, about a year older than vace, seemed to have a nervous breakdown practically overnight. seemed suddenly paranoid and timid, like he was afraid to make a wrong move. a couple other helios kids were ribbing him about it, and things went just a little too far—someone broke his nose. an accident, supposedly.

but vace sent someone to get the doc, because this really shouldn’t happen, but goddamnit, they had protocols for this and rhett would shout him up one side and down the other if vace didn’t follow them. frankly, it was wasting less of his time to just comply.

but when doc sol got there, the kid seemed worse. blanched pale fucking white, and barely seemed to breathe while the doctor worked on him. just a broken nose, nothing dangerous. something to stop the bleeding, a few antiseptic wipes to clean him up, and a hard shell bandage to protect it.

and sol is being quietly reassuring the whole time, but this kid seems scared shitless. and vace is wondering if he really did just crack that hard. until sol finishes up, and as vace walks over to talk to the doc and his soldier, solane puts a hand on the kid’s shoulder, gives him a light shake and a smile, and says “you’re doing good, kid. i’m proud of you for turning it around.”

…and this seems to make the soldier more relaxed immediately. and then sol quietly asks who was pushing the kid around, because sol knows when an injury is “accidental”, and that’s what earns you a shovel talk.

and the kid doesn’t even say, but he does glance at them nervously for a split second. and sol stands up, doesn’t say a single word to vace, just walks over to the two soldiers who were instigating, grabs them each by the sleeve, and walks them into a separate room. the door closes, and vace is… not quite concerned. because he hasn’t had enough dots to connect yet. but… perplexed.

and then about eight minutes later, all three of them emerge. and the soldiers look shaken, but the doctor doesn’t look any different from when he went in.

so vace connects some things. and he drags sol into that same room, barking at the two soldiers to get back to training, and then asks sol what the fuck he’s been doing to the helios kids.

and sol says he’s just been talking to them. “the same talk kom gave you. just to the ones who are causing trouble.”

and vace is so confused. kom’s talk was honestly a lot about needing to be better because he’s the fucking example, because neither half of the colony is going to survive without the other, because vace has enough influence over his age group that everyone here might very well live or die based on the image he gives off.

and he did threaten to bury his ass under geoponics where no one would ever find it (and there was such a genuine earnestness there that vace had to believe him, even if kom was still learning how to move a wheelchair around the bumpier outdoor terrain). but none of that should frighten a helios soldier.

and he says as much to sol. or, a brief summary, at least.

and sol just looks at him with a raised eyebrow. and makes a quiet “hm” noise. and then the doctor just replies, “i guess kom and i have different standards.”

and all vace can think to respond is to spit out, “you’re a doctor.”

and solane stares right at him. and there is a coldness there. a bite that he hasn’t seen before. something that feels dangerous. and all solane says is, “yes. and i protect this colony.”

and turns and leaves the garrison, without waiting for so much as a look from vace. which isn’t something anyone does in his barracks. all the soldiers know better, and all the civilians respect him enough not to just leave.

but this doctor. this kid who’s a little younger than vace, who’s on the short side, who doesn’t know much about fighting beyond the basic self defense shit. who is kind and empathetic to every single one of his patients, who has absolutely cried over how damn cute his pet vriki is, and who has just enough sarcasm to keep things light.

has some sort of speech that has straightened up the soldiers he singled out, and scares some of them completely shitless to boot.

vace has been intrigued by solane since that first appointment. he likes to see spine. he’s always known solane has one, because he had no hesitation about squaring vace even when the soldier was the big new shit in the creek. he’s certainly taken himself to the medbay over injuries he wouldn’t normally sweat, just to see solane at work. because he feels drawn to the doctor, and hasn’t known why.

but then he sees the claws. the bite, and the sharp teeth behind it. he catches a snarl, and he realizes this unassuming doctor is a new kind of scary to the helios brats. they haven’t dealt with someone like that before. he’s willing to bet none of the stratos crew have either, because they’ve had no reason to.

and vace realizes he likes danger. he craves a little show of teeth. someone he could show teeth with, who wouldn’t be afraid.