AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've had this one sitting on my computer for weeks, waiting for the proper inspiration to edit it to perfection. That never came, so I declared it good enough to post. I generally really like it though, so I hope you do too. Reviews are my candy! :)
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Arnold Rimmer was, if nothing else, an organized man. Everything had its place, and he placed it there very clinically, very professionally. Socks were kept in tight, ordered rows by size and color; underpants hung (nametags in tow) neatly on hangers, spare boots stood lined-up in a spit-polished shine, and chart after chart planned every part of his studious rise to the top. It is therefore no surprise that he also kept lists. Two very important lists in particular.
The first, much larger one was a mental list of every wrong, physical or verbal, that any person had ever done to him. It stretched to include the beyond-boyhood cruelty of his brothers, the betrayal of his once best-friend, the laughter of every woman he had ever approached, and the mocking remarks of his crewmates, all the way down to Lister's dirty socks, which he felt the space bum purposefully left lying about to distract him and thus hold him back from his progression to officer-hood.
The second list was in many ways much more important, though much shorter and held with a greater deal more distrust. It was the list of all the kindnesses he had ever been shown. If it had been an actual, physical list, the paper would long-since have been dog-eared and worn, tear-stained in moments of weakness and torn in fits of anger. But as things stood, it was merely his mental pathways that showed the wear. This list was at the same time paradoxically one of the most visited, and one of the most ignored.
Rimmer marched stiffly into his room and sank, ram-rod straight, onto his bunk. His hands fell limply to his thighs and he stared out blankly. Years of being bullied had taught Rimmer nothing if not this one thing: Never let them see you cry. Never let them know they've hurt you. And it was this painfully-learned mantra of years that kept his face impassive and vacant, while behind it his mind and heart screamed.
He blinked and swallowed, glancing down at his idle hands with a hidden hint of sadness in his eyes. It had happened again. He had tried to get on with Lister; smeg knows he did! But he once again slipped into his old, reflex methods of defense and started another spat, ending predictably in Lister saying something unintentionally cruel that hurt the hologram more than the scouser would ever know.
It wasn't as if he actually liked Lister. Far from it. The man was the slobbiest, least-disciplined, most irritating git that it had ever been his misfortune to come across. But he was also the last git left in the universe that could like him, slobby or otherwise. And when the very last specimen of ones entire species can't stand you, it tends to get a bit depressing.
He knew he wasn't the easiest man to get on with. He even knew why, but all of that made little difference as day after day the two men sniped at each other. Little missiles, like the arrows from a child's toy bow. Lister felt nothing but a small prick, and after a momentary scowl, laughed and brushed them off. But to Rimmer, a man used to a world full of attacks and devoid of affection, every barb stuck like a real arrow in the bruised and battered flesh of a defended heart. He sighed.
His fingers wriggled in contemplative silence as he once again looked over the lists, unsure of which one to turn to in this moment of bitter loneliness. Surely Lister had wronged him. His cruel words should be added in a burning red to the former. But the wound in his heart cried for soothing, and the only balm he had (though weak and sparing) came from the latter. He finally turned to that one, browsing through the sparse and time-worn entries.
There was the one time Susie Janson chose to sit next to him in Maths, though she knew he wasn't well-liked. Although that soon ended when she had to move back to Earth with her family, she had smiled at him, and that had meant the world to Rimmer.
Mrs. Gallagher, the school nurse, always gave him lollies when the older boys beat him up. Rimmer often thought that he could have made quite a good friend of her if she hadn't retired. Though then he reminded himself how truly pathetic it would be to have one's only friend be the eighty-year-old, half-blind school nurse.
Fiona Barrington. Ah, Fiona! Now that was a momentary bright spot in his pitiful existence, though he soon messed that up as he always did. He had even managed to get her to kiss him; and while he didn't fool himself that she had any great love for the awkward, introverted teenager, she can't have hated him too much, at least at first. He ran that kiss over in his mind, mining from it anything he could title 'affection' and holding that dear.
Even Holly, Kryten, and Lister had had some moments of surprising decency toward him. Though Kryten was programmed to simper and serve, sometimes perhaps he saw pity in those mass-produced eyes of his. It couldn't possibly all have been a façade, could it? All those years of service and "How are you, sir?"s and "Can I do anything for you?"s? Well, perhaps they had been, but many weren't outright cruel, and that's all that Rimmer could hope for anymore.
And Holly, dumb git though he was, had shown surprising insight and tenderness on the eve of his supposed deletion by Queeg. "I hope you find everything you think you need to make you happy," he had said. Or thereabouts. A well-wishing was rare and treasured, and he held it close, surprised though it made him.
Even Lister cared, sometimes. He wasn't so bad, really, though Rimmer would never admit it. On rare occasions he'd seem to care for Rimmer. He'd ask how he was, look out for him, even protect him, undeserving worm that he was. But then he'd get angry at something Rimmer said, and they'd be at loggerheads again. He had learned from his "soup-er" comment not to trust Lister with deeper things, though his heart longed for a companion. He tiredly told that part of himself to shut up, though he no longer felt as bad as he had earlier.
His wound soothed as much as was able, Rimmer sighed. He suddenly felt very tired, but more himself. The wound closed over to fester in silence once more as his defenses once again rose. One thing he had learned from all those years: Never let them see you cry. Never let them know you're weak.
Lister walked through the bunkroom door, the hiss of sliding parts announcing his presence. Rimmer plastered a snarl to his face. Never let them see you're weak.
"What the smeg do you want, you slobby git?"
Never let them see you cry.