Back In The Red
A Red Dwarf FanFiction
A Lister reflection – series 8. Past Rimmer/Lister
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Since losing Rimmer to the persona of Ace, Lister's life hadn't been the same. He had pushed Rimmer into the role in the hope the hologram would finally man up and decide to stay.
Just, of course, he hadn't – leaving hadn't been the first act of the hero Ace, but instead the last one of the coward Arnold. For Rimmer, Ace had been the safer route, safer than…
Well Lister certainly wasn't going to admit to it; it hurt enough without saying it out loud.
A snore from the bunk beneath him brought him back to the present. Lister rolled over and stuck his head down over the side of his bed to watch the sleeping form beneath him.
Rimmer was alive. Sure he was a nanobot version of the man Lister knew pre-stasis, but it was better than nothing. And Lister knew he was going to have to work hard to develop any of the friendship they had had over the last six years, but he also knew it would be worth it. Rimmer had changed already – the fact they were currently sharing a prison cell was proof of that.
He supposed he must have changed to Rimmer too; in the past seven years Lister had matured, if only a little. His clothes were slightly less curry stained, his manners less caveman like. It was some adjustment for them both to get used to.
Lister kept staring into the bottom bunk and, not for the first time, wished that it was his Rimmer sleeping below him: the hologram original instead of this nanobot copy. He wanted to be able to crawl in next to the man without having to explain why.
Because that was the thing, wasn't it? This Rimmer had no notion of the fact Lister knew every inch of his body – the places that tickled, the spots that left the biggest hickies. He had memorised the taste of Rimmer's mouth first thing in the morning, his body ached for the feel of Rimmer spooned against him at night.
It hadn't been love, at least not for Rimmer – Lister knew that. It was why the man had become Ace so easily. Then again it wasn't like Lister had begged him to stay; if he had told Rimmer how he really felt the hologram would have leapt in the Wildfire and zoomed away even faster than he had. Lister wasn't stupid.
Now all he had left were the memories: that first argument after Rimmer had turned hard-light which soon turned into a full blown fight; taking advantage of being able to make contact by punching and kicking until Rimmer had Lister pinned against the wall and the only defence Lister had left was that of surprise.
So he kissed him; leant his head forward and up to plant a heavy, somewhat brutal, smacker on Rimmer's lips. If anything would make the hologram surrender and run for the hills then that would.
Just the surprise had been on Lister when suddenly Rimmer was kissing him back furiously, as if the last three million years of loneliness had banded together and taken the hologram hostage.
Not that the kissing stopped the fight – it just became about who could pull the hardest, bite the hardest. And later, who could hold back the longest.
"It was inevitable really," Lister had said afterwards, running his tongue along Rimmer neck as the man had lain in his arms.
"And it is never happening again," Rimmer had responded, pulling away, summoning his uniform and storming out of the quarters without looking back.
But of course it had happened again barely two weeks later, when Lister was pissed off already and Rimmer was riling him up even further with his pathetic insults and pointed one-liners. So Lister had thrown him against the wall and assaulted him with his mouth to shut the man up, and once again it had been mere minutes before clothes were flying and fingers were roaming.
And then somewhere along the way it became normal – for them to play out their frustrations through each other. Eventually they even stopped running away afterwards, choosing instead to lie there talking, sometimes laughing, and even sharing lazy kisses in the early hours of the next morning.
Lister had just begun to think they were becoming something else when Ace had returned and everything had gone to smeg.
He was dragged back to the here and now by Rimmer's voice beneath him.
"Why are you staring at me?" Rimmer frowned, accusingly. "You're thinking about him aren't you? When are you going to get it into your thick skull milado? I am the real Rimmer, not just some smegging hologram, so forget about him already."
Lister watched as his cell mate turned to face the wall, snuggling into his pillow; an action Lister knew so well.
"I wish I could forget," Lister muttered as he lay back down. But with Rimmer's duplicate sleeping just a mere breath away from him how could he ever get over the man he had come to love?
Unless, of course, this Rimmer was a second chance – one that this time Lister could persuade to stay.