Lister awoke to a familiar brown fuzz and a pair of enquiring eyes.
He realised, in that moment, it had apparently been Rimmer who had just jabbed him awake with a hard poke between his ribs. It wasn't the first time he had his precious sleep time interrupted so rudely. Though he knew there was little use in attempting to ignore the man, he still rolled over and grunted what might have been a verbal indicator for Rimmer to bugger off.
He curled beneath his sheets. It was good and warm. The electric blanket's temperature was spot on, and he made a mental note to praise the JMC Mainframe later, even if it wouldn't be able to appreciate it like Holly would have.
He almost drifted off, quite content, but before he could, the sheets were suddenly ripped from his foetal form. With a whine, the poor technician brought himself into a ball as the cool air of the sleeping quarters struck his flesh. Well, now there was no doubt about it. He'd have to sit up, look at Rimmer and actually communicate with the smegger, which was, in all honestly, the last thing he wanted when trying to get a good night's sleep.
"It's the middle of the bleedin' night!" he rasped, his throat dry from lack of lager. He reached for the can that was half crushed in the corner of his bunk and drained the remnants of the stale, frothy fluid within. He knew that when he turned he was going to receive a look of total disgust from his roommate, but he had long since learnt to enjoy such moments. One of the rare times Rimmer wasn't complaining was when he was focusing all of his energy into flaring his nostrils magnificently.
"It's ten o'clock in the morning, you rancid pile of unwanted dregs," Rimmer shot back, still peering at Lister over the edge of his bed. Frankly, the proximity was somewhat disconcerting.
"The hell do you want?"
"To talk."
"About wha'?" Lister rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands and forced himself to clamber down from his bunk. Stuffing his hands into his armpits, he gazed up at the hologram and attempted to focus on him, but it made his eyeballs ache. It was the same kind of pain that looking at a screen with tired eyes induced, and he supposed looking at a hologram was the same kind of thing. Any excuse not to look at the smug git.
Rimmer's lips pursed and he straightened his uniform smock.
"About the fundamentals of … being an agreeable individual."
Lister laughed out the cigarette that he had just clumsily placed between his lips. Enjoying the other man's expression of affront, he patted his chest with mock affection.
"Rimsy, if there's anythin' you are not, it's an agreeable individual. Are you feelin' okay?"
The hologram pulled a face and moved away to sit at the table, picking up a book that was already there and waiting. He found the marked page and resumed reading the self-help book, which was one of many. The following ten books from that particular series, named Your Super-ego and You, were neatly stacked and arranged in rainbow-colour order under his bunk.
That was probably Lister's cue to get back into bed and sleep away the day again. Instead, and perhaps against his better judgement, he became interested to see just how far the guy was willing to go with this sudden decision to better himself.
"Well, what d'you want for brekkie, then?" he asked, shambling over to the dispensing unit whilst trying to rub the chill from his hands. "Bit o' toast? Y'know, I think the scutters loaded the dispensers with bread that actually isn't stale. It tastes heavenly with a bit of raspberry jam. You want some?"
Though he could only see the back of Rimmer's head, he just knew that an eyebrow would be arched as the hologram pretended to appear submerged in his nonsense non-fiction.
"I can't quite recall the last time you offered me breakfast, Lister. I can't remember the last time you were awake for breakfast, actually." The book lowered, and then Rimmer turned to face his roommate, smirking like he had just cleverly deciphered some sort of code. "I see. You're trying to be nice."
"Exactly," Lister responded good-naturedly, prodding some buttons on the dispensing unit. He received in return a slightly burnt vindaloo and a fresh can of lager.
"Well, it isn't nice if you're just pretending, is it?"
"Exactly. You're only ever nice if you're pretendin' 'cause you want somethin' or other. Y'know, it ain't just to get stuff out of people. It's just decent. Respectful. I don't think you'll grasp that part, Arn, to be honest."
Joining his roommate at the table, he opened his can of lager and covered the hole with his thumb. Then, he used the small gap between flesh and metal to sprinkle his vindaloo with lager like a finer-cut man might have cast dressing over a salad. Fully aware that he likely appeared completely repugnant, he happily delved into his breakfast, splattering his vest with sauce and rice bits without a care in the world.
"I know respect, you goit," Rimmer said in a slightly strained tone, his eyes fixed on Lister's abhorrent chewing.
"Nah. I don't mean respect like you idolise Napoleon or whatever. I mean just general respect. Y'know, like praisin' someone for somethin'. Respectin' their opinions. Just holding 'em in high regard 'cause you care about them. Know what I mean?"
The hologram made to reply, then stopped. His cheeks expanded as he began to make physical effort to restrain his words. His fingers gripped the table, his temple throbbed, and so Lister began to mentally time the seconds until a flurry of insults headed his way – not because of the subject of conversation, of course, but because of the Scouser's eating habits, which he had exaggerated just slightly to grate on the other man's nerves.
"Hold it in, Arn," he warned. "We're bein' agreeable individuals, remember?"
He landed on five seconds, which was, to be fair, probably some sort of record.
"I can't! You're a disgusting blight on humanity with all the elegance of a bloated bull terrier!" Rimmer blurted. Composing himself, he furiously picked up his book and shoved his nose back into it, his ears turning an angry pink.
Lister found himself smirking. Winding up the man was one of his favourite past-times, and he often got the feeling that it was quite mutual.
"And what do we say to someone after we insult them?" he asked, dipping his papadum into his mound of malty vindaloo.
Rimmer glared at him over the top of his book. "Sor-ry." The word was spoken as if laced with pain. At least he was trying.
Though he wasn't entirely sure where the odd behaviour was coming from, Lister found it interesting, to say the least. If the tetchy hologram was beginning to think of ways he could be a good person, he wasn't about to stop him. It was almost endearing, actually. Like watching a kid sharing his toys because he had just learnt about the importance of being he doubted anything would actually come of Rimmer's quest, Lister was amused enough to urge him onwards.
"You're forgiven, Rimsy."
He swiftly regretted humouring him.
Rimmer was adamant enough in his attempts to be nice that it proved more damaging than anything. He was so determined and yet so clueless that his niceties were overly forceful. When he offered to help Kryten with his chores, he ended up driving the mechanoid away with his sheer desire for everything to look perfect. When he offered to pilot Starbug so that Cat could go for a mid-afternoon nap, they had somehow ended up crashing on an asteroid despite the small, lonely rock being the only thing within miles they could have possibly crashed on.
He even began knitting. He knitted scarves, hats, the lot. It was around that time that Lister began considering that Rimmer wasn't being nice because he wanted to be, but because something was probably wrong. Rimmer wasn't nice, he wasn't good at being nice, so the reluctant technician was eventually forced to heed Kryten and Cat's pushing to make the hologram stop whatever it was he was doing.
With his hands shoved in his pockets, he sullenly headed to the laundry rooms. After all those times he had demanded that Rimmer try to be a good person, he could hardly believe he was about to tell him to stop trying and carry on being a complete smeghead.
He missed it, bizarrely. The arguing and petty remarks. Most of all, he missed communicating with someone who challenged him on a daily basis, even if it was over the way he ate or the way he flicked his nail clippings in every direction. Something about snapping at his roommate just always made him feel better, no matter what.
As expected, Rimmer was stringing up clothes on the laundry line – using tongs, of course, because some of Lister's long-johns were there, too, stark white and clean but apparently still necessitating hazard equipment.
"Good evening, Lister," the hologram said pleasantly, spraying the long-johns several times over from a bottle that was marked 'industrial decontaminant'. "How has your day been, then, miladdo?"
Caught off guard, the Scouser hovered by the door for a moment, chewing on the end of one of his dreadlocks. The entire affair was actually making him a bit nervous.
"Um, I dunno. Same old, I guess."
"Ah. Marvellous."
"Well, not really."
Rimmer regarded him for a moment. He seemed to have forgotten that he still had a couple of pegs in his mouth.
"I mean, y'know, every day's just a bit samey really, ain't it?" Lister continued, entering the room to hoist himself on top of one of the washing machines. "And things have just been a bit more borin' recently. Don't yeh think? I mean, we just wake up, and then … what? What do we do, Rimmer?"
He could hear it plainly in his head. A response dry enough to rival the Sahara Desert. Something like, you've never done anything in your life, Lister. Why are you so bothered about it now?
But it didn't come, and he hated it. With a sound of frustration, he slouched over and rested his elbows on his knees, watching the other man as he thoughtfully folded a pair of Cat's purple cords.
"Mate, just throw somethin' at me. Come on. Anythin'!"
"Sorry?" Arnold said cluelessly, his hazel eyes wide with bewilderment.
The expression was, oddly enough, quite winsome, and Lister choked on whatever he was about to say next.
"Throw something at you?" the hologram pressed. "I wouldn't dream of it."
"I don't mean throw somethin' at me, I mean say somethin' nasty! Just let it out, Rimmer, you know what happens when you keep it all tucked up in there. Yeh start getting viruses and whatnot and then yeh start crashing. You must be dyin' to have a crack!"
Rimmer resumed folding. His lips twitched, evidently being denied the chance to purse themselves. Oh, Lister could see it, all right. He could just feel the cutting remark sitting there on the end of the man's tongue. He could see in Rimmer's eyes just how much he wanted to have a go, just from the way they wrinkled up slightly and remained averted.
But the silence went on for too long. With a moan, Lister flopped back against the wall and closed his eyes. God, what was the point?
"Lister?"
"Wha'?" he quickly said back, his tone far more terse than he had intended.
"Look, I know when you're feeling down in the dumps. You don't get out of bed for days, only moving to gobble up some atrocity of a meal. I tried making you exercise with me. I tried making you eat something healthy, for once. I've tried being nice because you're always telling me to be. Honestly, I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to be doing."
Gobsmacked, Lister slowly sat back up again, gaping at the hologram. He was reassured by the ghastly sneer Rimmer was quickly adopting, but only slightly.
"You what? You're doin' this whole nice thing 'cause of me?"
"No. I'm doing it for my health."
Sarcasm. Wonderful, delicious sarcasm. The frail facade was swiftly crumbling, but Lister was too confused to really appreciate it. Confusion then turned to slight embarrassment, so he tried to play it off by pulling his squashed box of cigarettes out of his pocket and lighting one, silently dwelling on his roommate's bizarre insinuation.
True enough, he had definitely been feeling down. Sometimes, it was difficult to ignore the fact he was trapped in deep space within the same ship all the time, and likely would be until he was dead. He tried to be optimistic, but even he knew his optimism was often deluded by fantasy. Nothing he dreamt would happen was ever actually going to happen. They were never going to find Earth – and even if they did, would it even be habitable over three-million years later? Would there be any humans left?
No. He really was the last smegging human alive.
So he slept and drank and smoked to drown the hollow pangs of loneliness and despair. For the sake of the rest of the crew, he had to return several days later a functioning human being.
Rubbing his nose, he tentatively met Rimmer's gaze.
"I'm fine. I'm fine. You don't have to try and help me, Arn. I'm hardly your favourite person, am I? I mean, look at you! Yeh can stop with pretendin' to be somethin' you aren't. I don't need it."
Rimmer looked down at the socks he was pairing together, and then really looked at them, as if he had just realised what he was doing. Judging by the expression he pulled, he had succeeded in disgusting himself.
"All right, then. You can tell Bogs-for-Brains that he can have his laundry rooms back. I'm sick to death of them."
Lister found the pair of socks being lobbed into his face. He willingly accepted the unpleasant act, more than relieved that things could start going back to normal. Tossing the socks onto the side, he slid off the washing machine and realised that the hologram was still watching him, his head tilted almost expectantly and his arms folded.
"Wha'?" he asked reluctantly.
"You do realise it's past midnight, don't you?"
"Yeah, and?"
"My god, you really are woebegone, aren't you? I have long since accepted you conveniently forget my birthday every year, but your own?"
It was only at that point Lister realised he didn't even know what the date was. When was the last time he had bothered to check? More disturbed by the way the other man was looking at him, he quickly shrugged to try and give the impression that he had known all along and he hadn't wanted to make a big deal out of it. Besides, birthdays weren't entirely a cause for celebration anymore.
He almost felt ashamed of himself. Every other year had involved copious amounts of booze and banging headaches the next day. This time, he just couldn't be bothered.
"You forgot, didn't you?" Rimmer pressed, smirking. "I think you need a drink."
"I think you need to smeg off. I don't care, Rimmer. What're we gonna do, throw another sorry excuse for a party and get off our faces on the Captain's rum like last time? All I want is for you to naff in this stupid nice guy act. I'm gonna go to bed and I don't wanna be surprised by you guys pretendin' to be a mariachi band again."
The hologram dropped his arms in surprise. "We learnt It's Now or Never for that, Lister. You couldn't get enough of it!"
It was true. Last year had been a blast. He hadn't entirely expected it to end with a drunk hologram demonstrating a surprisingly capable Elvis impression. Despite himself, he smiled slightly and dropped the remnants of his cigarette to extinguish it.
"I wanted to bash that guitarrón over your head," he muttered, though not without a small degree of sentiment in his tone. "Look, I've told yeh to stop bein' a git, so now I'm gonna go to bed. Don't bug me for a few hours, aight?"
"But – Lister -"
He left before he could hear whatever his bunkmate was going to say next. Rimmer thankfully had the sense not to go after him, whether to criticise him or otherwise. Truth be told, he'd had enough of the conversation. He'd had enough of a lot of things. Maybe the guy was right, maybe he was in a bad way, but weren't they all? They were all stuck in the same situation. Now that things were somewhat in perspective, he couldn't believe that for a few days, their biggest problem was that Arnold Rimmer had been obstructively nice.
He knew he'd feel compelled to force out some sort of apology later. The guy had tried to do some good, only to be shut down for it. There was goodness in handling somebody else's ancient underpants with tongs, even if it displayed a magnificent misunderstanding of what real kindness was.
Lister retreated to the sleeping quarters. He undressed, save for his shorts, and then clambered up into bed.
He wasn't sure why, but he had come to hate silence. Silence reminded him of Space. The biggest trap in existence.
So he turned on the small radio on one of the shelves nearby. The JMC Mainframe sported its own station, influenced by the preferences of its crew and interrupted occasionally by annoying ads. Lister settled down to the cleansing tune of Three Little Birds and hugged his pillow to his chest. Bob Marley's positive vibes reached three-million years into deep space, and for a time, Lister thought of home. He thought of his district in Liverpool with its crud-stained streets and stinky canals. Hell, he even thought of Mimas, where he had ended up stranded after a humongous bender. All of that had led to Red Dwarf, his crimson cage.
Would he have gone back to change anything if he could? No. He wasn't a fan of fiddling with the past, and besides, changing it only ever did more damage than good. He wouldn't have met Cat or Kryten, and they were his mates.
He wouldn't have met Rimmer, who was … something else. He wasn't quite sure what, yet. Rimmer often called him an associate, so maybe that's what they were.
Thinking of those three unsettled him again. He was worried about something, anxious about things he wasn't usually anxious about. It wasn't like him, was it? He was usually so good at looking at the bright side of things and keeping a positive outlook. What had changed?
He didn't sleep all night. That wasn't anything new. Rolling over and going with it seemed to be the only solution. That, or drowning himself in some sort of alcohol.
So that's how he spent the day. In bed, and drinking.
Some time later, and he wasn't sure exactly what time it was, he was too busy cradling his bottle of rum to notice that Rimmer had finally come back and that the hologram was gazing at him perturbed manner. With a sigh, Rimmer stuck a movie on quietly in the background and sat down to read.
The movie slowly got louder. And louder. It got so loud that the walls started vibrating.
Lister was finally roused from his drunken haze.
"Turn it off!" he shouted, pulling his pillow over his head. "Rimmer!"
"You turn it off!" Rimmer shouted back.
God, everything about the guy was smug, even from behind. The curves of his neck. His fluffy hair. All so damned smug.
Furious, Lister flung his blankets off himself and clambered down from the bunk to snatch the remote off the table. After some fiddling, he managed to turn the blaring volume down again to a reasonable level.
"I'm gonna shove this so far up your rear end, you're gonna be changin' channels with your teeth!" he promised, flinging the remote at the other man. Wobbling unsteadily, he grabbed the closest chair and pulled himself into it with some difficulty. "Well, go on then, tell me I'm a mess, yeh twonk! Tell me like I don't already know it."
"You're a mess," Rimmer agreed. "What's the matter with you? You're ten hours into your birthday and you haven't once asked me to give you the beats."
"Fine. Give me the birthday beats! In the skull!" Rapidly standing again, he grabbed his metal bat from the side and held it aloft. "With this!"
The other man watched him almost dreamily. "I will treasure this moment, Lister. When I want your rotting brains splattered across my bunk, I'll let you know."
His complacency was nauseating. Or was it the lack of sleep combined with three-quarters of a bottle of fine, aged rum? Lister wasn't quite sure. He wasn't quite sure about anything, all of a sudden. Holding onto his bat for dear life, he succumbed to the dizziness and found the floor greeting his head with a dull thud. Finally. Sleep.
Sleep he did, and for several long hours. He was awoken by a pleasant scent of white lilies, familiar with it only because he knew Rimmer insisted on having his blankets and pillow cases washed with that particular powder. The sheets were warm and the pillows plush, and Lister had never been more comfortable in his entire life. With a content sigh, he rolled over and curled into a ball, inhaling more of that nice scent and comparing it to his own bunk's lager-y odour.
The thought of the smell of lager made him want to vomit. Thankfully, a bucket had been placed strategically nearby.
Kryten must have caught wind of his predicament and swooped in to save the day, as he often did when it came to mess and hangovers. Lister didn't like that the mechanoid's programming meant he felt the need to serve the crew by mopping and cleaning their clothes, but that didn't mean he wasn't grateful for his assistance.
To one side was a glass of fizzing water. Lister sipped precariously at it, and it tasted like death, but he knew this particular concoction. He'd be feeling better in no time.
As expected, Rimmer appeared. Again. He knelt down by the side of the bed with such a repugnant, gloating expression that Lister almost heaved a second time.
"Go away," the poor Scouser managed, closing his eyes and hugging a pillow to his face. "Smug git."
"Ah. I thought you wanted me to kill you with a rounders bat. Did you change your mind? Pity."
"Have a heart, man. I just wanted to forget where I was for a bit. Y'know? I'm never gonna drink ever again."
"You always say that, Listy, but five minutes later, you reach for the next can. Well, out with it, then."
"Out with wha'?"
"Well, whatever's bothering you!" Rimmer retorted, as if it were obvious. "Kryten's found another derelict and seems absurdly excited about this one. We need you in the best frame of mind once we're in Starbug. I might be a dab hand at piloting Wildfires, but Starbugs are too … ancient and clunky for me to even consider it again."
Lister smirked into the pillow. "You're just sayin' that 'cause you crash-landed us on some psiren-ridden asteroid. Took us ten hours to dig our way outta that one, remember? The whole time, I was getting taunted by that classical actress – what was her name? Angelina Jolie."
"Ah, Angelina," Rimmer replied reminiscently. "Convincing, that one. It was only because of the cutlery she carried around with her that I knew she was going to go for your brains."
"What, and not 'cause a 21st Century actress suddenly appeared on an asteroid in deep space? Give me a break, Arn. Look, I'm not goin' to some smeggin' derelict. We'll sit this one out."
The hologram shook his head. "We? We're more than capable of going without you, me old boy. If you want to sit around here moping then be my guest. I'll bring you back a souvenir. How about a small ornament? A keyring?"
Finding himself alarmed by the idea of the crew going without him, Lister quickly sat up and narrowly avoided smacking his head on the top bunk.
"You ain't goin'!"
"Yes, we are. We need supplies. I'm your commanding officer and what I say goes, comprende? Now, I can see you're not feeling yourself so I'm more than happy to let you stay here."
The smegger was up to something. He knew the idiot better than anyone, and he knew when he was plotting. He could see right through him.
Rimmer knew exactly why Lister was feeling down, and was using it to his advantage, trying to get him up and about and doing something rather than lying around. Why, exactly, Lister had no idea, other than his supposed superior's lack of tolerance for what he might have been perceiving as laziness.
Lister felt responsible for the crew. He was terrified of the future because what the hell were they going to do once he was gone? Rimmer would be switched off by the Mainframe. Cat would succumb to old age or whatever else, too. And Kryten? He'd be on his own. He had been thinking about it an awful lot, lately, and it made him feel so miserable that he didn't know what to do with himself.
Rimmer knew it. He knew Lister couldn't bear the thought of the guys endangering themselves for supplies when he wasn't there to be responsible and keep them out of trouble.
Lister hated him for it. Reaching forwards, he held onto the hologram's shoulder.
"Arnie, please. Don't be a smeghead. I know it's askin' a lot."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Frustrated, Lister rolled onto his back and flopped an arm over his eyes. "Arnold!"
"Do you know what your problem is, Lister? You don't think about yourself anymore. You're too busy fretting over Lieutenant Laundry and Mush-for-Brains. Well, I have some news for you, chap: you're human. You can't protect them all the time. Let them make their mistakes and learn from them. You're always pushing them to expand their horizons, after all."
"What are you sayin'? That I've become the mum?"
"I'm saying that you need to stop worrying. You're making yourself ill."
"That's rich, comin' from you. Supreme worry-lord of the Universe."
"Different thing altogether. I worry mostly about myself."
Becoming irritated, Lister took another swig of the medicinal liquid and then swung his legs over the side of the bunk, reluctantly relinquishing its comfort. With a grunt, he grabbed a pair of his now clean socks – which also smelt like white lilies – and began tugging them onto his feet. It was time to turn the tables a bit, as far as he was concerned.
"Are you coming?" Rimmer asked hopefully.
"No. Maybe you're right. You guys should go and do this on your own. I'm gonna go catch a few movies, maybe go to the library. You can handle the mission without me, right, Arn? With you leading the way, they'll be fine."
As expected, the hologram squared his shoulders and adopted an overtly proud and indignant air.
"Of course I can handle it, you pipsqueak. I am First Officer A.J. Rimmer!" he said, standing in order to perform his garish salute. "That derelict won't know what's hit it. Nope. No sir-ee. I'll leave that blighter reeling."
"All right, then, First Officer," Lister said with mock encouragement. He made a shooing gesture with his hand. "Go and do your job. Leave me alone for a bit, ey? Oh, and tell Kryten thanks for cleanin' me up."
"Kryten?" Rimmer asked, looking confused for a moment. "Oh. Right, well, I'll go and do that. Right now. And then we're going to the derelict. You already knew that, didn't you? Forget it. Look, I'm going. Watch me!"
Lister sighed and rubbed his eyes wearily. "I'm watchin'."
Clearly anxious, Rimmer hovered there for a moment, stood perfectly at attention. After an audible swallow, he turned and marched out of the room.
Alone again, the hungover Liverpudlian tried to convince himself to be thrilled with the prospect of having the entire ship to himself for a few hours. It would be fine, he told himself as he ventured down to the cinema a little later that day. They would be fine, he thought, trying to concentrate on the horror film he had dug out of the dusty old cupboard.
Saw 3000. Gory enough to put anybody off their lunch. Probably not a good idea when hungover. Probably not a good idea when stone-cold sober, actually, Lister realised as the film's hero had all his limbs hacked off by an android. It only served to remind him of the rest of the crew. What if they ran into simulants? GELFs? What if they got themselves captured and he had no way of going to get them back?
No. Against his better judgement, he had to follow Rimmer's advice. He couldn't be there for them all the time. It was impossible.
Trying to forget his lonely situation and the aberration he had just witnessed on the big screen, Lister travelled to the library. He could count on one hand the amount of times he had been there in the past. He could count on one finger, could to think of it. And that once was now.
The place was dusty from lack of use. He had the awful thought that most of the dust was probably remnants of evaporated crew members. Putting that out of his mind, he reluctantly searched for something that might give him answers, because he was starting to hate feeling the way he was. He found books on psychology and emotions and sat down to skim through them. A small while later, however, he found himself growing quite invested.
The human brain was fascinating, really, wasn't it?
… In a similar vein, in the early 21st Century, the emotions of love and hate were discovered to come from the same part of the brain. Both invoke impassioned responses from subjects, which leads us to the question – can the two properly exist without the other?
On second thoughts, maybe he didn't care for psychology, after all.
Lister quickly closed the book and checked his watch. The others had been gone for at least four hours.
They were fine. They were absolutely fine. That was what he told himself, again, as he returned to the sleeping quarters and tucked into some dinner. He half expected Rimmer to walk back through that door at any moment, smugness levels at their very limits, with a derogatory remark in tow. Did you find yourself with all that soul searching, Lister? Or did you give up after twenty minutes?
There was no Rimmer. Pushing aside a half-eaten tikka, Lister went over to the small console unit built into the wall and requested the Mainframe to give him the location of Starbug. It was times like this he sincerely missed Holly, who would have provided company and some degree of knowledge as to where the others were. Alas, it was his own fault that the AI had gone bust.
Seeing that Starbug was back in Red Dwarf's hangar, he grabbed his leather jacket and made a beeline for the drive room. It was where they would typically gather after a mission so that they could fill out the paperwork. Or, rather, it was Rimmer who filled out the paperwork while the others played with all the fancy devices they had found on board other ships.
His knees almost gave out from underneath him when he saw Cat and Kryten sat together at the main console unit.
"You're back!" he greeted enthusiastically, lunging himself into a nearby seat. Trying to reign in his apparent relief, he rubbed the back of his neck. "Are you all right?"
"We're fine, Mister Lister, sir," said Kryten, turning his attention to the human. "I thought that the derelict might have been something known as a knowledge-station. There were four of them that roamed the Universe, but they all vanished. You see, they all boasted highly intelligent computers that were able to answer any questions in science related fields. Unfortunately, these computers grew tired of heeding the demands of mankind and set off on their own. I thought we might have been able to ask it whether returning you to Earth is possible. It turned out the life sign I discovered on the psi-scan was really just a GELF stuck inside the mainframe's circuits."
Cat shot Lister a terror-stricken look, pointing at Kryten. "Y'know what this dude did? He actually pulled it out! 'Cause it asked! That thing was chasin' me like it was the cat and I was the mouse! I've never felt so dirty in my entire life!"
Indeed, the feline looked like he had been dragged through a hedge backwards. Lister had the decency not to comment.
"Well, did yeh find anythin'?"
"Some decent supplies, sir. The craft served as some kind of forge. We managed to find some weapons that still worked, too. I put them with the rest of the equipment."
"Nice," Lister said, relieved that everybody was all right and that the mission had been a success. Was it a good thing that they had done so well without him, though? He wasn't quite sure how to feel about that one. "Is that how you shook off the GELF?"
Kryten nodded, his rubber lips pressed together.
Oh, god. Something was wrong. Lister leaned on the console and covered his face with his hands.
"Kryten?"
"Sir?"
"What's happened? Where's Rimmer?"
The mechanoid made a pathetic whimpering sound and began wringing his fingers.
"Kryten!"
"Oh, Mister Lister, he begged us not to tell you! He beseeched me to lie and tell you he heroically defeated the GELF at the cost of his own life, but I can't lie on behalf of that pompous, overbearing smeg- that idiotic, cumbersome smeeee- that smeeeeg-"
"Neither can I!" Cat interjected, thankfully ending the mechanoid's attempts to curse. "There was some blasty-lazer cannon thing he tried to use against that stupid, hairy GELF monster. Goalpost Head had it back to front! He shot himself down some hole and now he's lodged in the ship's engine like some kinda pebble. We spent forever lookin' for him, then he had the nerve to blame it all on me and Chewed Pencil Head."
Lister gaped at the other two in silent disbelief, looking between them and waiting for them to announce that it was just a joke.
"You are kiddin'?" he asked weakly. "He's still on that bleedin' thing? Why didn't he want me to know?"
Why was he asking? He already knew. Rimmer hadn't wanted him to know that the mission, though it had produced some decent supplies, was a failure.
Kryten shifted uncomfortably, his guilt trip clearly in overdrive.
"I'll be damned if I know. We couldn't get him out, so he told us to come back and pretend he saved our lives."
Confused and furious, Lister's face returned to his hands. He never should have let them go without him. More specifically, he never should have let Rimmer take charge. What the hell had he been thinking? Putting any kind of responsibility on that guy's shoulders usually resulted in some sort of nervous breakdown, wherein the hologram did something incredibly damaging and idiotic and left himself in a worse position than before.
Hadn't that halfwit told him to stop worrying so much? He was certainly making it difficult. Although, if Lister remembered correctly, he had only told him to stop worrying about Cat and Kryten.
"Well, we have to go back and figure out a way to get him outta there," he said, but only after a minute or two of trying to comprehend the amount of sheer exasperation that he felt.
"What?" Cat shot back, spinning dramatically in his seat to face his crewmates. "Go back to that hellhole? You weren't there, gerbil-face! Just look at me."
"We can't just leave 'im!" Lister argued, doing his best to measure his tone. "The further Red Dwarf gets from that ship, the worse his signal's gonna get. His battery'll run out. If you guys aren't gonna come, I'll fly Starbug there meself."
Kicking himself away from the console, he stood and left the drive room to make his way to the hangar. To his relief, he soon heard Kryten and Cat trying to catch up with him
"Jeez. What're you two? Married?" Cat asked from the rear, his objection to the rescue mission more than evident by the manner in which he spoke, but Lister was grateful for his decision to come along regardless. He did, however, opt to ignore the feline's aggravated comment.
Starbug was loaded up and online within minutes. It was odd not having Rimmer behind him in the navigator's seat, prattling on and ordering everyone around. He wondered if it had been strange for the others having him vacant from the secondary pilot's seat.
"Cat, get her in the air. Kryten, get the hangar door open. We've gotta act fast just in case his signal's been severed."
"You say that like it's a bad thing, buddy," Cat remarked, but did as he was told.
The derelict was a mysterious entity called the SFV Sequester. Kryten informed them that he hadn't been able to coax the mainframe into communication, thus hadn't been able to glean any information out of it at all. Judging from the weapon design, however, it had likely been built at some point in the 40th Century, and he suspected that it had once been a top secret facility.
It was definitely a grim kind of place. Then again, so were most of the abandoned vessels they came across. Dark and lonely. Unlike others, it did have breathable air inside and had incredibly stable frameworks, which came as some relief for Lister. He was getting to old to be jumping over broken gaps, or clambering up poles and pipes.
There were numerous dead forges inside. The molten metal had long since turned rock solid, and the production signs had been at a standstill for millennia, untouched the entire time. Lister wasn't there to admire the innards of the ship, however. He made for the transportation centre that connected all of the forges and took the lift down to the engine rooms.
He began to hear a loud groaning. The lift was steadily growing warmer and warmer as the minutes passed.
"The engine is still goin'?" he said in disbelief.
"Well, yes," Kryten responded. "It works much the same way as Red Dwarf, sir. It takes hydrogen from space and is thus eternally fuelled."
"Doesn't sound healthy. Sounds like me belly after Rimmer forced me to experiment with Ionian cuisine that time."
"Probably because he's rammed down there like a disgusting kidney stone, sir. He's stopped the inner works entirely, so to speak, and getting him out is going to be excruciating."
Upon seeing the engine room, it was clear why the other two had been keen to leave as quickly as possible. The place was enormous. Dark, too, barely lit by small, red emergency lights dotted around. Lister could just make out the positively giant machinery that kept the vessel going. Smaller than the Dwarf's engine room, but still remarkable. Again, he didn't have time to appreciate the place. Following Kryten's lead, he jogged over to the ledge that was situated beside the main body of the metal structure.
Sure enough, Rimmer was wedged in between two ginormous cogs from the mid-rift down. When he saw the others approaching, he lifted his head and his eyes lit up.
Lister turned to Kryten and Cat. "You two, see if you can find the drive room. If we get this thing into reverse, it might spit him out. You got your radios?"
The mechanoid held up his radio and nodded, glancing nervously up at Rimmer, who was probably glaring at him from behind Lister's back. Once they were gone, the Scouser turned to regard his rather embarrassed looking bunkmate.
"Rimmer, what the smeg have you gotten yehself into?" Lister berated him. The poor guy was only just reachable. Grabbing hold of his forearms, he gave the hologram an experimental tug and was dismayed to feel just how stuck the man was. "Are you all right?"
"Am I all right?" the other barked back incredulously. "I fell for miles! Worse – I was an idiot. I'm a goit, Lister, that's what I am. I'm a pathetic excuse for a human being. God knows I try to do stuff right, but I can't. There are amoebas with more brain cells than I have."
"Enough of that, eh?"
Searching for something to stand on, Lister quickly came across a metal crate and pushed it over. With some effort, he hoisted himself up and wrapped his arms beneath Rimmer's shoulders to try and give him some more leverage with which to pull him. He pulled and pulled, but the smegger was well and truly wedged.
"I'm a goner, Lister," the hologram lamented defeatedly. "My battery is going to run out and my light bee's going to be squashed into radioactive porridge. I just wanted to ..."
"What?" Lister pushed, trying to keep the man's mind off his predicament. He stopped yanking on Rimmer's shoulders and rested for a minute, holding his bunkmate in a weird kind of embrace unintentionally. Rimmer didn't seem to mind that his face was now lodged somewhere close to Lister's armpit, but to be fair, he did have bigger things to be worrying about.
"I don't know. Prove myself. To someone."
"You're always tryin' to prove yourself. Look, Arn, I know I've been given yeh mixed signals, tellin' yeh to be nice one minute and nasty the next. What I want shouldn't matter, really, should it?"
"Of course it matters," Arnold griped. "My entire existence depends on you hating me. Do you have any idea how that feels?"
Bewildered, Lister shook his companion slightly. "Stop it, 'kay? You're just getting yourself all wound up."
"I just wanted things to be different for a while. Is that so wrong, Lister? But I'm such a toxic waste-of-space, such a foul-brained, fuzzy-haired rodent who always has to die horribly-"
"Oi, I said stop! I don't hate you, yeh gimp. Just stay calm while they find the drive room."
Rimmer's arms flopped pathetically. "Hating me keeps you sane. That's what Holly said, isn't it? If you didn't, the mainframe would just switch me off like the defunct, miserable wretch I am. At least be honest to me in my dying moments, will you?"
"I dunno, Rim! Maybe it's somethin' else that makes it keep you on, now!"
The engine groaned again. Steam hissed out of gaps in the metal and screws pinged out of its various components. Suddenly, one of the cogs screeched and jolted, resulting in a horrendous crunching as it attempted to push against the hologram's body, squashing him down even further.
Worse – with some poor timing, Rimmer's form switched to soft-light for a split second, presumably as his battery began to struggle. It wasn't for long enough that his bee was crushed, but when the hard-light turned back on, he had the smallest gap to force apart. The thick metal bent and cracked to make up for it.
The whole time, Rimmer was clinging tightly onto Lister and shaking miserably, his terror getting the better of him. From his moans of pain, it was evident he was suffering the abuse of the force being inflicted upon him.
Lister didn't know what to do other than silently endure the man's iron grip. Once the worst had passed and Rimmer loosened up somewhat, he awkwardly gave the guy a slight rub on the back, trying to keep the both of them from panicking.
"I can't do it, Lister!"
"Stop," he insisted, reaching to grab his bunkmate's hand. "I'm sorry, all right? I should've been here! I can't stop worryin' about you guys 'cause stuff like this always happens! Someone gets hurt or kidnapped and I can't bear it, man."
"There wasn't anything you could have done if you were here, you utter nitwit! Worse, it could've been you and you could've been squashed instantly. Do you know what would've happened then, Listy? You're … As much as I detest admitting it, you're the one that keeps this crew together. I tried to be nice … for a while, because if you crumble … the entire team crumbles, doesn't it?" The hologram's voice was starting to glitch. He was doing his utmost to keep his bee from reverting to soft-light. "Then I remembered … only one way to stop you from going loopy."
Lister felt emotion bubbling up in his chest. He had been so blind to how he affected the rest of the team, hadn't he? If wasn't looking after himself the way he should have been, it meant he wasn't looking after the team. Maybe that was what Rimmer had meant, before – not to stop thinking about the others completely, but to balance things out a bit more. It was what he should've been doing all along.
It was all right to feel sad and lonely. He was human and he felt human things. What wasn't right was leading the guys into disaster. That's what he had done, wasn't it? He had forgotten that Rimmer was human, once, and he felt human things, too. Perhaps more so than anybody he had ever met.
If there was one thing Lister was good at, it was seeing the good in the bad.
"Stop feelin' bad. I mean it," he insisted, squeezing the hologram's hand to give him some kind of comfort. "You're a worm, I admit. A right piece of work. But somewhere deep down in there is some twisted sense of good. I know 'cause I've seen it, Arn. You don't need to force yehself to be nice. There's an Ace Rimmer in there and he's a top bloke. Just carry on bein' you, stop thinkin' of yehself as existin' for my sake. You're as bad as Kryten."
He was surprised when Rimmer laughed. It was a stressed and breathy kind of noise, but a laugh nonetheless.
"Listy … I always envied you, you know."
Stunned, Lister shook his head. "Wha'?"
"It's the truth. Despite everything, you're … good, all round … easy-going. Do something for me, won't you? Don't … let that go."
He almost choked. Was that praise? From Rimmer? Was that how the guy had felt about him all this time?
From the murkiness of despair, Lister felt a sudden resolve. He felt more himself, more capable. If the worst person in the entire Universe felt like that about him, then surely he had to be doing something right. He had been reminded there was something about himself that he could feel good about.
"Am I dreamin'? That's the nicest thing yeh've ever said," he commended, teasing the other man somewhat.
Rimmer barely managed to glare at him before the metal encasing him began creaking again, pushing and pushing on his torso. His holographic form wavered threateningly, glitching violently every few seconds.
"Gaz … Gazpa ..."
"Don't say it, Arn."
"I'm trying!"
"Think about somethin' else!"
Rimmer looked up at him hopelessly, scrabbling for the Scouser's shoulders.
"Like what, Lister? Like what?"
"Somethin' that makes you happy! Didn't what I just said do anythin'?"
"I'm dying, you bloody gimboid! It's a bit difficult to focus on your blabbering mouth!"
With a groan, Lister hoisted the guy up so that he could look at him dead-on. "I said I don't hate you. I don't hate me for not hating you. Think about that, smeghead, not gazpacho soup."
He wasn't expecting the accusing expression thrown his way. This close to his face, it looked all the more poisonous.
"You said you'd never -" Rimmer stopped. His body suddenly fell pliant. "Lister -"
He vanished.
In that split second, Lister could see what he hadn't been able to see before. The hologram hadn't been the only thing wedged between the cogs. There was the mangled remnants of some ghastly creature, too, slimy and hairy. The GELF, no doubt, probably having been shot down the coolant vent by the others. In the brief time it took for the machinery to crunch its way past the cadaver and resume spinning, Rimmer's light bee fell past the gap and into Lister's waiting hand.
It had been close. Too close. He resolved that nobody was being left behind on Red Dwarf unless absolutely necessary. They all brought something useful to the team, and in the drowning isolation of space, they all needed each other.
Relieved and thankful for their stroke of luck, Lister fell back on the crate and held the powerless light bee to his chest.
A few days later, the two found themselves falling into their usual rituals. Lister didn't mind any more. Rituals kept him going. They gave him things to think about, things to do, and he got some entertainment out of it because one of his rituals involved winding up Arnold Rimmer.
He was lying in the hologram's bunk and biting his nails. He stared at Rimmer unblinkingly, trying not to smile when he saw the man desperately trying to focus on his book, nostrils flaring extravagantly.
"God, you must make the girls go crazy when you pull faces like that, Rimsy."
Two seconds. The book slammed down onto the table and Rimmer clasped his hands as if to keep them from wrapping themselves around Lister's throat.
"Lister, might I ask why you're gnawing on your fetid paws in my bunk?"
"Yours is comfier. Smells nice."
The hologram rolled his eyes. Lister smirked and gestured at him.
"Oi, c'mere. There's somethin' I wanna say."
"Do I look like an idiot? Last time I fell for that one, you broke wind and held my face under the sheets. I vomited for days on end."
Lister snorted with laughter, sounding pathetic in his attempts to hold it in. His companion's evident disgust caused him to break, and he guffawed involuntarily, fuelled by Rimmer's complete lack of humour regarding the incident.
"Nah, for real, man!" he insisted once he was capable of speech. "C'mere! I promise I'm not up to anythin'."
Driven by curiosity, Rimmer stood and awkwardly hung about by the bunk. When Lister patted the space on the bed next to him, he looked entirely confused, which was understandable. The two of them usually kept as far away from each other as they could.
"I'm sure whatever you want to say, you can say it while I'm here," the hologram pointed out, folding his arms.
"I wanna say it while you're next to me."
There came a hefty sigh, a reluctant moan, and then Lister's larger bunkmate squashed himself onto the bed and rested there with his hands clasped on his stomach.
"What?"
"Well, I was just thinkin'. A lot of things about the Space Corps really blew, didn't they? Did ya ever notice how people with money and influence seemed to climb the ranks way easier than the likes of us?"
"Of course I did," Rimmer replied unsurely.
"But in the end, it doesn't mean nothin', did it? Only that the Corps missed out on a ton of talent. The exams were a load of smeg, really. What does it matter if you can write down how Emma and Reyansh figured out the trajectory of a paper ball they shot with an elastic band? Me and you figured out how to pilot ships on our own. You do all the crap a Navigation Officer does. I've shot planets into black holes. We're no better or worse than any of they were, but we were always spoken to like we were scum."
There was a brief silence. Lister raised his head and rested it on his hand, watching with some amusement as the other man shifted uncomfortably, obviously struggling with their proximity.
"The exams were important, Listy. They showed you had the brains to excel in that field."
"But not everyone was good at exams, were they? You're livin' proof – and I don't mean that nasty, like. Intelligence isn't just bein' able to remember crap, is it? It ain't just bein' able to tick A, B, or C. Sometimes I'm glad the Corps is gone. I mean, I'm not glad humanity's gone, but we were so imperfect with the way we saw things. Sometimes, I wonder if our species ever achieved, like, perfection. In that three-million years."
Rimmer seemed to have relaxed a little by that point. Exactly what Lister had intended.
"Lister, if they ever achieved perfection, they wouldn't have died out."
"D'yeh think?"
"Yes. I think I'm catching your drift. It wasn't a good thing that humanity is gone, but it isn't bad, either. Besides, what does the Universe care? It evolved mankind, saw itself, got bored and turned them all back into stardust."
"Yeah," Lister murmured, sincerity replacing humour. "A lot of good and bad got erased in the blink of an eye, cosmologically speaking."
Rimmer eyed him, biting thoughtfully on his lower lip. It was a rather endearing move.
"Is this what you wanted to say?"
"Nah. I haven't quite got the balls to say what I wanna say."
"Well, it must be a hell of an insult, then."
Lister laughed again. "For you, maybe."
"Try me, Listy. I almost died a few days ago. I'm sure I can handle whatever it is you're blithering about."
The Liverpudlian rubbed his mouth and swallowed, glancing away for a moment.
"All right. I'm confused about somethin'."
Rimmer raised his head slightly. "Confused about what?"
"Not sayin'. 'Cause I know you, Arn, and I wish I could get it off me chest, but it'll just mess you up."
Suffice to say, Lister had been reading some more books, lately. He had an entire library to read to keep him busy. He was already feeling somewhat more open and thoughtful about things, but as he had said, also very confused. He still wasn't sure if his feelings were legitimate, but he was also extremely certain that there was no way of testing the waters.
He still didn't hate that he was feeling this way.
Rimmer's face creased as he thought of a reasonable retort. "I haven't seen Cat in a while. Have you decided to do away with him and store him in a freezer somewhere? I can't say I would be mortified if you admitted it."
"Jesus, Rimmer! Your mind goes down every dark corridor there is!"
"Ah, so it's not quite as bad as murder but still bad enough you can't tell me what it is?"
"It's not bad. I just don't wanna make you feel uncomfortable."
Another silence and more lip biting. If he had to drop anymore hints, the guy would just be figuring it out for himself.
"I have watched you devour your own toenail parts," Arnold began, raising his eyebrows. "I have observed you devouring an entire vindaloo in twenty seconds flat. I've seen the entire crew naked more times than I care to imagine. I've been in your drunken presence and had you vomit all the way down my trouser-legs. My sense of discomfort has been entirely numbed, miladdo."
"You're a right comedian, you are," Lister retorted. With another sigh, he reluctantly began to dislodge himself from their cosy predicament. "I guess yeh want your bunk back." To his surprise, Rimmer held out an arm and stopped him from moving.
"You can't just say all those things about exams and then insult my intelligence. Do you really think I don't know what's going on, here?" A painful pause. "You're going for the astrophysics exam, aren't you? How long have you been revising?"
Both insulted and pleased that the hologram hadn't cottoned on, Lister stared disbelievingly down at his bunkmate.
"No, yeh twonk! Get off. I'm goin' up to me bunk. I'm getting real tired of the smell of flowers."
He was starting to feel awful again. Maybe this had all been part of his low moods, lately, amongst everything else. Realising that the guy wasn't going to move, Lister awkwardly clambered over him and was about to climb into his own bunk when he felt a hand gripping his sleeve. He looked down expectantly.
"Are you?" Rimmer enquired in a mysterious tone.
Well, Lister wasn't quite sure how to handle that.
"Is that what would cheer you up?"
He was lost. "Wha'? I dunno, Arn. I don't need cheerin' up anymore."
"Are you sure? I'm rather good, you know, or so I've been told."
The poor technician thought he was about to go mad. With a hard swallow, he held onto the edge of his bunk and reluctantly met Rimmer's eyes.
"Good at what?" he asked quietly.
Rimmer leaned in a little. There was suggestion in his gaze. A spark Lister hadn't ever seen there before. It burned with promise, and the Scouser eagerly awaited the answer.
"Horticulture."
Oh.
"I know it always makes me feel better, Listy. The warmth. The softness of flower-petals beneath your fingers. The way you can just touch and bend everything to your command. I really think you'd like it. You should come with me to the gardens tomorrow."
"Maybe," Lister croaked. "On second thoughts, I need a long, cold shower. Don't come find me."
Well, smeg.