Bound: 2:45am ficlet written in 10 minutes to someone who has just watched the first 6 series in 2 weeks for the first time ever .
Please forgive any mistakes.
572. That's the number of marks scratched on the wall in chalk that had dwindled down to nothing. Each mark stood for a year, or at least that's what Rimmer let the others think.
Lister is talking now, fast and excited, as he plans their escape. Rimmer stays silent. He hasn't been locked up for 572 years, at least he doesn't think so. Oh it had been a long time, but not quite that long. The marks on the wall didn't stand for the years, they were Rimmer's catalogue.
572. That's the number of times that Lister, Kryten, and that damn Cat had purposely hurt Rimmer just since they had lost Red Dwarf and had taken to following it in the Starbug 2. Not just the usual callings of smeg head type insults, Rimmer simply wouldn't have had enough chalk for that, but digs they made to make him feel pain.
Rimmer knew that he was considered a smeg head by many, that he was used to. He knew he was egotistical and a coward. Comments on these traits rarely phased him anymore. But to constantly be reminded that in a small company of four, three of those people would happily make their group one less hurt.
Years had passed. Years to think about the implications of all his crew mates said, years for the meaning of their words to sink in. They were three million years from Earth, there were few beings of any sort left in existence and hardly any of them could be called friendly. Red Dwarf's crew was likely to be the only company any of them would have until the end came for them.
And no one wanted his company.
Lister, the Cat and Kryten, each of them could get by just fine with each other. He was so hated that they would give up the company of another not-quite-living being.
572 times and almost 600 years to think about it.
All he wanted was one time where someone liked him.
He wouldn't get it.
END