Title: Perhaps
Characters: Arnold Rimmer/David Lister
Prompt: If (2/100)
Word Count: 474
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: Written for fanfic100
Anyone asked to describe Arnold Judas Rimmer, would almost certainly use words like 'smeghead', 'asshole', 'git', 'freak' or 'goit'. Probed further, the commentator would most likely concentrate on the man's obsession with ranks, his totally unlikable character and back-stabbing nature, and sooner or later all of them would at least stumble on the following subject: Rimmer simply loved his 'ifs'.
It seemed that for him, everything was a matter of a more or less important 'if'. If he had the right parents… If his father wasn't a military-obsessed psychopath and his mother a cold slut straight from hell… if he went to the right school… if his background was better… if, if, if, this guy built a whole life resolving around this single world.
That, undoubtedly, would be the opinion of anyone more sentient than a beer bottle, the problem was, that everyone were either dead or totally unobtainable (being, like, 3 million years away and all) and there was nobody to ask… except for Lister, Cat, Kryten and Holly but their view didn't really differ from the others.
Being trapped in a hologramatic body, on a mining ship, a very long way from home didn't change Rimmer's way of thinking at all, he still spend most of his days musing 'what if' but as his life had changed abruptly, so did his priorities. He no longer cared about his career (what career anyway?) or commands, he wanted to be accepted… and so much more.
As he had plenty of time to think, given that he had no body and was entirely composed of light, he started to wonder what would had happened if Lister hadn't be put into stasis. What, if Lister helped him to fix the damned plate and there was no 'accident' that wiped out the whole crew? What if Lister started to treat him a bit better than an unavoidable nuisance? What if they spent more and more time together and the younger man would start to see a human being behind the uniform and uptightness? What if he taught him how to relax, how to have fun, to forget about the regulations and training and to just live? What if they became closer, started to hang out even when it wasn't necessary, what if they became friends? What if Lister smiled at him or laugh with, not of, him, pat his back and call him a good buddy? What if his eyes lingered on his slightly longer than necessary? What if they suddenly became silent and hold their breaths, waiting for the inevitable to happened?
Perhaps, just perhaps then, Lister would bring their lips together, slowly, kissing him oh so sweetly for the first but not for the last time…
… perhaps then they could be happy, he could be happy…
…but those were perhapses, and Rimmer hated those.