Nightmares~Drumbot Soldier
The Toy Soldier can’t actually sleep. It can, however, pretend to, and with that pretending, comes other sleep things, like nightmares. It started to ‘sleep’ because it passed time, made it seem more like the other crew, more involved, and helped it feel closer to Brian, who also didn’t need to sleep but pretended to. Pretending to sleep, for Brian, was actually recharging and processing his mechanical brain. He didn’t actually need to, but it helped him function better, if only just a bit. So, Brian has a room. And since The Toy Soldier does not have a role on the ship, it does not have a room. So, they share, both room and bed. TS warned him about the nightmares early on. It told him they started with memories of the Widow, then the War, and then the Angel, and TS often woke up screaming. Brian had waved it off with a “A little nightmare screaming won’t hurt me,” So they shared a bed for the first time, and things went okay. TS didn’t even get nightmares. It instead had cute dreams of soft animals, beautiful scenery, and Brian. As this went on, they got more and more comfortable with each other. TS rarely had nightmares, and when it did, Brian was always by its side to comfort it. Then, one morning, Brain was gone. No one knew why, or where he had gone, but the Aurora did register the airlock opening in the middle of the night. TS stopped sleeping after that, and stayed by the airlock in wait of Brian’s return. After a lot of coaxing, someone finally got TS to try sleeping with the hope that Brian would be there when it woke up. It slept by the airlock with Brian’s pillow and blanket. It awoke screaming an hour later, having had a nightmare of Brian coming back only to be killed by TS just like Angel. It did not try to sleep without Brian again.