Once more we journey into the realms of Angst. Watching Series 1 on DVD (Yayness!!) inspired me to do this a couple of months back. Once again was thinking too deeply about episodes, the gap between 'Balance of Power' and 'Waiting For God' intrigued me. How long does Rimmer think that Lister is in charge? What happens in that gap?
Mild slashy references if you read it like that. Quite possibly this may be my first foray into this. Indulge me, I am yet new to the ways of writing.
Starts immediately after the end of the episode 'Balance of Power'.
For cazflibs; my love and my muse. And Katy cos she likes boys who like boys.
Additional – I actually wrote this fic several years ago, put some of it online, lost confidence, pulled it off and have only decided to finish it and put it online again after having a burst of inspiration watching the "Back to Earth" series. It did some things right but not enough and I will always love the older stuff.
Still for cazflibs, my love, my muse and now my wife. And Katy cos I'm sure she still loves boys who love boys.
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Rimmer held the barely tacked on grin on his face as Lister leapt in the air in triumph; hardly seeing as he landed, threw a casual salute and strode off around the corridor. His vision shook, a shimmery haze covering everything, a layer of brine that refused to be shed.
He felt a tremor go up from his knees and lodge as a massive bout of nausea just above his solar plexus. Never cry where they can see. Or have a massive fit. He didn't need a book on Poweramics to know that, the concept had been drummed into him very early on in the hack and slash world of boy's public school.
Stopping by a vending machine he leant against the wall, using all of his concentration not to fall through it. His entire body shook, his hands grasping and stiff with all of the force he possessed to stop them from clawing everything around him to pieces. His right leg jiggled so violently it threatened his balance. He felt his rage boil within him, as his sense and reason shoved two fingers up at him and wandered off.
Rimmer slipped to the floor and curled up, arms around his head and knees tucked in. A small ball of pain tucked in a corner. He's six years old again. He could almost smell the damp earth under the roots of a huge oak next to the dried up stream that sat in the grounds of Io House. It stood next to the pond dug for the pre-schoolers to go pond dipping in the summer months, abandoned for the rest of the year. His first ever permanent hiding place, alone and secluded from the cruel world that was out to get him. He built a shelter from bits of material scavenged from the fly tipping piles in the woods, sheets of ply and plastic. He stowed a few toys and comics wrapped up in thick plastic amongst the creeping roots to give him some comfort when it became too much. His own little hidden fortress.
It was only a matter of time before Johnny, Frank and Howard had found him there in one of their 'special' visits from the Academy. He remembered feeling like he was going to be crushed into oblivion, ground to powder by their heavy boots that wouldn't stop kicking, the sheltering walls and wooden roof becoming smaller around him as his own kin spat abuse at him. He'd been terrified yet there was no let up, no respite. He'd dragged his tiny frame, all bruised and battered, to the school yard, sobbing his eyes out. In return, he was disciplined for tracking mud across the carpet in the reception and making up stories about the saintly Rimmer boys.
He may be three feet taller and dead but the stinging burn of tears tracing their way across his face and the taste of hopeless defeat, were still the same. It sometimes seemed that he could taste nothing but failure, that all he could smell was the stink of his own crushed spirit, all that he saw was grey. No future, no reason to be kept alive.
The main advantage of hiding all your life is that you learn to cry silently.
*_*_*_*_*_*_*
Lister paced back and forth across the drive room, whiskey can in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He was undoubtedly pleased. His grin would have been blinding if he had a pure-white smile. Of course he didn't, a lifetime of only brushing his teeth whenever the lingering taste of old garlic became too much was not good for general dental health. But nonetheless he was obviously happy.
He was in command! Well, technically he wasn't. Holly still piloted the ship in much the same way, he still had to do anything he wanted doing himself and he still had buggerall idea about how to run a several million ton spacefreighter. Oh, and the fact he didn't technically pass the chef's exam. But the important thing was that Rimmer thought he had. It would have been more helpful if Holly accepted him being in command but when it boiled down to it, Holly still obeyed rank out of habit more than anything else. Anyway, it was a pain in the arse trying to negotiate the finer points of democratic officerhood with a senile computer.
It was surprisingly easy to convince Holly not to tell Rimmer. The Cat wouldn't tell either; he was far too conceited to notice anything happening to anyone that wasn't him or in front of his view of a mirror. It was quite simple to bribe the Cat if he found out anyway. Lister had found a disco ball on a trip down to the supply decks – a perfect 'shiny thing' to keep him amused for a few days.
He stopped suddenly. It hit him how close he was to getting her back. The woman who he had fell so madly in love with, the one he hadn't been able to shake the thought of from his mind in the months since he'd emerged from stasis and found her dead. He felt crushing guilt sometimes; maybe there was a way he could have done something that meant that she could have survived. Images of her being ripped apart by the nuclear wind that had punched through the whole ship woke him up screaming. At times he felt as guilty as if he had ripped off the side of the reactor himself.
One of the only women he had truly loved, and now he had a second chance that he'd previously thought impossible to get. He could woo her again, make her fall in love with him again, they could both go into stasis and go back to Earth. Fiji could still happen. Maybe he could sort out something. Maybe humankind had found a cure for death. He still had to know.
Life was sweet, he thought as he took a drag on his cigarette. It was all going to work and Rimmer couldn't even stop him if at all went right. Rimmer respected that rank crap. All Lister had to do was ask, no, demand that he give him Kochanski. No more pleading, no more having to take any of that 'white card black card' crap. Things would be the way they should be.
He stopped pacing, the cigarette now in his ear; the can just about to touch his lips. Could he do that to Rimmer? The man who had kept him sane, the closest to a human companion he had? If he went through with this, it would be like him dying all over again. He would kill the man who had given him a structure and purpose to his pointless life. Could he honestly do that to him? I mean, what would Rimmer do in his situation?
He grinned wider if it were physically possible without surgical alterations to his jaw and downed his whiskey. Goalpost head would be dead by morning.