Dedicated to the first girl who ever said she loved me, my Carrie. She is
my motivation, my inspiration, my soul, my life and the possessor of my
heart. I love her beyond measure and hope that I always will because
nothing I've ever done feels better. (Note to Carrie: Don't worry about the
pain in this being dedicated to you. You haven't hurt me like this. You
probably never will. I just thought you'd like a Red Dwarf fic dedicated to
you and I'm good at angst. Love you always, K xxx)
-*-*-*-*-
Frankenstein watched the slow swing of the mangy plaits above her. She was tightly coiled, ready to spring. As the plait she had chosen as her target seemed to slow above her she leapt. As she was arcing through the air, she snatched at it, batting it with her paw. It drunkenly skittered off; leaving Frankenstein to land happily contented in Lister's lap. Lister smiled thinly at how she had dived so spectacularly off his shoulder and carefully grabbed the plait and stuck it behind his ear. He stroked Frankenstein between her ears and wondered for what must have been the 14th time that evening if this was in fact the stupidest idea he had ever had. Missing out on 3 years work aboard Red Dwarf was an absolutely brilliant bonus but what about the others? I mean, how would Peterson cope without him to shut his stupid Danish mouth when he had had a few too many and would start swearing in Dutch at the senior officers on their way back to their sleeping quarters? OK, he was teetotal now but that was beyond the point. Even the best of people relapse now and then.
He knew what he was avoiding. He could feel it sticking its tongue out at him from behind his head. He knew exactly why he didn't want to this. He screamed inside his head that it was over, that it was time to move on. She had her officer now. 'We could still be friends…' It was over. Completely.
It didn't stop him from thinking about her pinball-machine smile whenever he shut his eyes. Frankenstein looked up at the distracted Lister and clawed his chest. He jumped a bit before rubbing between her ears again.
He was starting to feel like he couldn't cope with this. Rimmer hadn't seemed to have come back from wherever the smeg he went, Peterson had already told him to go alone and 'enjoy' himself, he couldn't find Chen and all the other members of Zed shift had their own drinking buddies and places to hang out after they managed to skive off.
That was it, he'd had enough of being miserable. He was going down to a bar alone and probably end up more miserable but there was a slight chance that he could try and drown her smiling face in alcohol. He stroked Frankenstein with an air of finality, placed her back under Rimmer's bunk and sloped out of the room, her smiling face continuing to grin at him in his head.
-*-*-*-*-
Lister climbed off the lift onto the entertainment deck and was greeted by the chattering and laughter of a thousand people. A few stepped past him to get into the lift, ignoring him. Lister stood alone as a crowd parted around him, all swaying but he expertly wove out of the way of the more frisky ones. He took a cigarette out of the band around his deerstalker and lit up. After flicking close his lighter he looked up along the garish pathway before him. The discos had music pumping a deep bass out into the streets, vibrating around them in waves. The bars had small glows around their entrances, snatches of light music just audible in the one who's doorway Lister now stood. He looked through the doorway into the bar. The music was soothing, the bar had various types of wines arranged in bottles with smiling waitresses putting it into sculpted glasses. There were mainly higher level engineers and administration staff making up the clientele.
It was not Lister's type of bar in the best of times. And this was nowhere near the best of times. He thrust his hands in his pockets and started walking down the arcade, looking for a likely place. A moronically drunk pocket of technicians wandered past, waving at the groups of people to join them for a dance. They spun frantically in the middle of the pathway, some spinning away wildly and careering into walls and bouncing off grinning, leaping back into the arms of their friends. A stocky, short and bald man winked at him, grinning widely, showing off an impressive array of teeth. Impressive in the way that it had several types of metal glinting in the neon glare of 'The Boom Box'. The mandibley enhanced man beckoned to Lister as he swung a tall, thin man into a couple trying to look as if they weren't there. Lister forced a smile as the man stepped up and took his wrists.
The world spun crazily round at an incredible rate, the lights above him spagghettifying into a haze. Lister glanced at his partner. The man was concentrating in an effort to stay upright. Lister helped him along a bit by prising his wrists free, watching the man career backward into a post. As the man woblingly picked himself up Lister took a bow, sweeping off his deerstalker and picking up the cigarette that had tumbled from his mouth as he had spun. A few drunken cheers ensued, led by bionic-mouth. He knuckled his forehead as he put his hat back on, a salute to the men around him. He spun on his heel and walked on, his grin sagging then falling from his face as he got closer to the darker area at the back of the arcade.
With his gaze trailing over his shoes as they walked along the non- skid steel plating of the arcade, he only knew what was rushing him when he heard a small whoop. His head flicked up as a small figure clad in a few streamy bits of red and black fabric crashed into him, taking him to the floor. He almost kicked up. Almost.
The first thing he realised was that he wasn't being mauled. Well, not in the conventional, being ripped apart by claws way. A set of hands was busily moving over his body. He was also very aware of the soft yet firm nature of the body pressed into his. And the heavy breathing…
A pair of lips brushed over his cheek and came close to his ear. Wisps of blonde hair were tickling his face as a breathless voice whispered into his ear,
"Hey handsome, you ready for some loving? I'm reeeally ready right now for you to do whatever you want to me."
Lister placed his hands on the shoulders of the woman and lifted her off him. She pouted, her heavily lipsticked lips smudged. He had no idea who she was but she was swaying even with him holding her rigidly by her shoulders and she smelt of spilt alcohol. The amount of spilt alcohol that she smelt of was a definite indication to the fact she was over the limit to do anything except fall over and look stupid. Her eyes were so dilated it was almost impossible to see her natural eye colour. She licked her lips in a manner she probably thought was provocative and raised an eyebrow. Lister was impressed. He couldn't even do that when sober. He was warming more and more to this gift from the Gods.
"Sorry, I'm on my way to get trashed. Maybe another time?"
Smeg. SmegSmegSmegSmegSmeg. What the hell was he doing? Here was a gorgeous, completely drunk woman who was warm and firm and pressed against him on the floor and promising he could do anything to her willing, naked body and he said he wanted to get trashed? Bollocksy damn smeg crap.
She pouted again; looking disappointed and got up with a scowl on her face. She aimed a quick kick to his testicles, missing and driving her toes into his kneecap.
-*-*-*-*-
Lister nursed his sore kneecap with one hand and a triple whiskey with his other. Shot glasses surrounded a tall swirly glass with a purple umbrella, a testament to his first half-hour in the bar. The dark lighting was great for his mood and Film Noir piano music was playing in the background to a few hushed conversations and the giggles and gasps of excited women before their mouths were covered by the hungry lips of their partners.
Lister knew why he was drinking so quickly. He knew why he had denied the woman who threw herself at him. He knew what was depressing him. He just was refusing to think of the reasons.
All of his life he had been the cheerful one. It kept him alive in the rough schools that he was taught at in Liverpool. A fearsome reputation or a valuable or protected position took time to cultivate. Time he never had. The longest he stayed at any school was 4 months. In the short times he had he made himself the clown, the imbecile. The guy that no one hated because there was no point. He was a laugh, he was harmless, he had nothing worth pinching. Nobody was jealous of him. It worked perfectly.
Except now he was an emotional wreck. He couldn't not be happy. He could be bored, he could be slightly irate but he could never feel real sadness, never be enraged, never be miserable. The pain that tore at him, screaming to be released had been choked so many times he was hardly affected by anything. That's one of the reasons Paula had never thought he was being serious at any point in their relationship…
These memories were slowly corkscrewing in his chest, tearing at him. He was drinking to drown them before they could rise up and take control. The pain he had smothered again and again. Paula, Krissie. They had given his life meaning in the times he had known them, elevated him to a completely new level of bliss from every smile they gave him. He had devastated Paula from his fear. His fear to commit. It tore at him for months before he had tried to drown it all once and for all with his 25th birthday celebration on the last night he had ever spent on Earth. Krissie devastated him from the way she hadn't really loved him. Not anywhere near the way he loved her. He would have done anything for her but in the end that mattered precisely smeg-all. She had her Tom, she was happy. For slightly over a month, he had been in love and nothing that could ever happen could touch him. He had found peace after Paula. He would settle with Krissie, they would always be together. He would never make that mistake again.
Except he had screwed up. He had fallen too deeply. Too deep to prepare any way of dealing with it if anything screwed up. He had no safety nets. None. His life was pointless without her. Why did he bother?
His glass chinked as it hit the bar, empty of the San Francisco Earthquake he had slung back in one hit. He looked perplexedly around him at the number of glasses he had arranged around him. He vaguely remembered a nice bar-lady coming over and taking a few of them away but there still seemed to be hundreds of the buggers.
He heard a voice. Then that tantalising, teasing laugh. He swayed on his stool, trying to get that laugh out of his head. He staggered up and stumbled towards the door. He heard a voice call him back to pay for his drinks. He ripped out his wallet, threw it at the general direction of the bar top and ran before he saw if he had hit. He was at sprint mode when he reached the door.
He heard her voice speaking quietly even with the bass of the discos still thumping out their bass vibes. He ran full pelt to catch up to her, to explain. He couldn't do this. He couldn't cope with this pain. He had a thousand things to confess, a million things to explain and only one person who he could ever tell them to. He ran, straight for her.
As he reached the pole he had inadvertently thrown the drunk, metallically toothed man into, he swung his arm round it and caught his balance. His momentum drove him into the pole, forcing the air from his lungs. He raised his head as the only woman he had ever wanted to spend forever with turned. She slowed down the man she was with by putting her hand on his chest, stopping him in mid sentence. He turned with her, their hands linked, their fingers intertwined.
Lister's mind exploded at that point. His thoughts ran screaming, his mind cowered in the corner. Kristine Kochanski, the woman who wouldn't leave his dreams, who tortured him when awake with thoughts of her, the vision of a thousand dreams and fantasies stood hand in hand with her officer. He gazed dumbly at her as she smiled her pinball smile and waved. Lister's hand rose and wiggled its fingers, no one in the driving seat. She beamed more brightly and turned and walked from him, her gaze fixed on the face of the man on her arm.
Lister's vision blurred. Whatever strength he had left flowed out of his body. He fell to his knees, his head sliding along the pole as he wept silent tears into the metal. She never looked back.
-*-*-*-*-
Frankenstein watched the slow swing of the mangy plaits above her. She was tightly coiled, ready to spring. As the plait she had chosen as her target seemed to slow above her she leapt. As she was arcing through the air, she snatched at it, batting it with her paw. It drunkenly skittered off; leaving Frankenstein to land happily contented in Lister's lap. Lister smiled thinly at how she had dived so spectacularly off his shoulder and carefully grabbed the plait and stuck it behind his ear. He stroked Frankenstein between her ears and wondered for what must have been the 14th time that evening if this was in fact the stupidest idea he had ever had. Missing out on 3 years work aboard Red Dwarf was an absolutely brilliant bonus but what about the others? I mean, how would Peterson cope without him to shut his stupid Danish mouth when he had had a few too many and would start swearing in Dutch at the senior officers on their way back to their sleeping quarters? OK, he was teetotal now but that was beyond the point. Even the best of people relapse now and then.
He knew what he was avoiding. He could feel it sticking its tongue out at him from behind his head. He knew exactly why he didn't want to this. He screamed inside his head that it was over, that it was time to move on. She had her officer now. 'We could still be friends…' It was over. Completely.
It didn't stop him from thinking about her pinball-machine smile whenever he shut his eyes. Frankenstein looked up at the distracted Lister and clawed his chest. He jumped a bit before rubbing between her ears again.
He was starting to feel like he couldn't cope with this. Rimmer hadn't seemed to have come back from wherever the smeg he went, Peterson had already told him to go alone and 'enjoy' himself, he couldn't find Chen and all the other members of Zed shift had their own drinking buddies and places to hang out after they managed to skive off.
That was it, he'd had enough of being miserable. He was going down to a bar alone and probably end up more miserable but there was a slight chance that he could try and drown her smiling face in alcohol. He stroked Frankenstein with an air of finality, placed her back under Rimmer's bunk and sloped out of the room, her smiling face continuing to grin at him in his head.
-*-*-*-*-
Lister climbed off the lift onto the entertainment deck and was greeted by the chattering and laughter of a thousand people. A few stepped past him to get into the lift, ignoring him. Lister stood alone as a crowd parted around him, all swaying but he expertly wove out of the way of the more frisky ones. He took a cigarette out of the band around his deerstalker and lit up. After flicking close his lighter he looked up along the garish pathway before him. The discos had music pumping a deep bass out into the streets, vibrating around them in waves. The bars had small glows around their entrances, snatches of light music just audible in the one who's doorway Lister now stood. He looked through the doorway into the bar. The music was soothing, the bar had various types of wines arranged in bottles with smiling waitresses putting it into sculpted glasses. There were mainly higher level engineers and administration staff making up the clientele.
It was not Lister's type of bar in the best of times. And this was nowhere near the best of times. He thrust his hands in his pockets and started walking down the arcade, looking for a likely place. A moronically drunk pocket of technicians wandered past, waving at the groups of people to join them for a dance. They spun frantically in the middle of the pathway, some spinning away wildly and careering into walls and bouncing off grinning, leaping back into the arms of their friends. A stocky, short and bald man winked at him, grinning widely, showing off an impressive array of teeth. Impressive in the way that it had several types of metal glinting in the neon glare of 'The Boom Box'. The mandibley enhanced man beckoned to Lister as he swung a tall, thin man into a couple trying to look as if they weren't there. Lister forced a smile as the man stepped up and took his wrists.
The world spun crazily round at an incredible rate, the lights above him spagghettifying into a haze. Lister glanced at his partner. The man was concentrating in an effort to stay upright. Lister helped him along a bit by prising his wrists free, watching the man career backward into a post. As the man woblingly picked himself up Lister took a bow, sweeping off his deerstalker and picking up the cigarette that had tumbled from his mouth as he had spun. A few drunken cheers ensued, led by bionic-mouth. He knuckled his forehead as he put his hat back on, a salute to the men around him. He spun on his heel and walked on, his grin sagging then falling from his face as he got closer to the darker area at the back of the arcade.
With his gaze trailing over his shoes as they walked along the non- skid steel plating of the arcade, he only knew what was rushing him when he heard a small whoop. His head flicked up as a small figure clad in a few streamy bits of red and black fabric crashed into him, taking him to the floor. He almost kicked up. Almost.
The first thing he realised was that he wasn't being mauled. Well, not in the conventional, being ripped apart by claws way. A set of hands was busily moving over his body. He was also very aware of the soft yet firm nature of the body pressed into his. And the heavy breathing…
A pair of lips brushed over his cheek and came close to his ear. Wisps of blonde hair were tickling his face as a breathless voice whispered into his ear,
"Hey handsome, you ready for some loving? I'm reeeally ready right now for you to do whatever you want to me."
Lister placed his hands on the shoulders of the woman and lifted her off him. She pouted, her heavily lipsticked lips smudged. He had no idea who she was but she was swaying even with him holding her rigidly by her shoulders and she smelt of spilt alcohol. The amount of spilt alcohol that she smelt of was a definite indication to the fact she was over the limit to do anything except fall over and look stupid. Her eyes were so dilated it was almost impossible to see her natural eye colour. She licked her lips in a manner she probably thought was provocative and raised an eyebrow. Lister was impressed. He couldn't even do that when sober. He was warming more and more to this gift from the Gods.
"Sorry, I'm on my way to get trashed. Maybe another time?"
Smeg. SmegSmegSmegSmegSmeg. What the hell was he doing? Here was a gorgeous, completely drunk woman who was warm and firm and pressed against him on the floor and promising he could do anything to her willing, naked body and he said he wanted to get trashed? Bollocksy damn smeg crap.
She pouted again; looking disappointed and got up with a scowl on her face. She aimed a quick kick to his testicles, missing and driving her toes into his kneecap.
-*-*-*-*-
Lister nursed his sore kneecap with one hand and a triple whiskey with his other. Shot glasses surrounded a tall swirly glass with a purple umbrella, a testament to his first half-hour in the bar. The dark lighting was great for his mood and Film Noir piano music was playing in the background to a few hushed conversations and the giggles and gasps of excited women before their mouths were covered by the hungry lips of their partners.
Lister knew why he was drinking so quickly. He knew why he had denied the woman who threw herself at him. He knew what was depressing him. He just was refusing to think of the reasons.
All of his life he had been the cheerful one. It kept him alive in the rough schools that he was taught at in Liverpool. A fearsome reputation or a valuable or protected position took time to cultivate. Time he never had. The longest he stayed at any school was 4 months. In the short times he had he made himself the clown, the imbecile. The guy that no one hated because there was no point. He was a laugh, he was harmless, he had nothing worth pinching. Nobody was jealous of him. It worked perfectly.
Except now he was an emotional wreck. He couldn't not be happy. He could be bored, he could be slightly irate but he could never feel real sadness, never be enraged, never be miserable. The pain that tore at him, screaming to be released had been choked so many times he was hardly affected by anything. That's one of the reasons Paula had never thought he was being serious at any point in their relationship…
These memories were slowly corkscrewing in his chest, tearing at him. He was drinking to drown them before they could rise up and take control. The pain he had smothered again and again. Paula, Krissie. They had given his life meaning in the times he had known them, elevated him to a completely new level of bliss from every smile they gave him. He had devastated Paula from his fear. His fear to commit. It tore at him for months before he had tried to drown it all once and for all with his 25th birthday celebration on the last night he had ever spent on Earth. Krissie devastated him from the way she hadn't really loved him. Not anywhere near the way he loved her. He would have done anything for her but in the end that mattered precisely smeg-all. She had her Tom, she was happy. For slightly over a month, he had been in love and nothing that could ever happen could touch him. He had found peace after Paula. He would settle with Krissie, they would always be together. He would never make that mistake again.
Except he had screwed up. He had fallen too deeply. Too deep to prepare any way of dealing with it if anything screwed up. He had no safety nets. None. His life was pointless without her. Why did he bother?
His glass chinked as it hit the bar, empty of the San Francisco Earthquake he had slung back in one hit. He looked perplexedly around him at the number of glasses he had arranged around him. He vaguely remembered a nice bar-lady coming over and taking a few of them away but there still seemed to be hundreds of the buggers.
He heard a voice. Then that tantalising, teasing laugh. He swayed on his stool, trying to get that laugh out of his head. He staggered up and stumbled towards the door. He heard a voice call him back to pay for his drinks. He ripped out his wallet, threw it at the general direction of the bar top and ran before he saw if he had hit. He was at sprint mode when he reached the door.
He heard her voice speaking quietly even with the bass of the discos still thumping out their bass vibes. He ran full pelt to catch up to her, to explain. He couldn't do this. He couldn't cope with this pain. He had a thousand things to confess, a million things to explain and only one person who he could ever tell them to. He ran, straight for her.
As he reached the pole he had inadvertently thrown the drunk, metallically toothed man into, he swung his arm round it and caught his balance. His momentum drove him into the pole, forcing the air from his lungs. He raised his head as the only woman he had ever wanted to spend forever with turned. She slowed down the man she was with by putting her hand on his chest, stopping him in mid sentence. He turned with her, their hands linked, their fingers intertwined.
Lister's mind exploded at that point. His thoughts ran screaming, his mind cowered in the corner. Kristine Kochanski, the woman who wouldn't leave his dreams, who tortured him when awake with thoughts of her, the vision of a thousand dreams and fantasies stood hand in hand with her officer. He gazed dumbly at her as she smiled her pinball smile and waved. Lister's hand rose and wiggled its fingers, no one in the driving seat. She beamed more brightly and turned and walked from him, her gaze fixed on the face of the man on her arm.
Lister's vision blurred. Whatever strength he had left flowed out of his body. He fell to his knees, his head sliding along the pole as he wept silent tears into the metal. She never looked back.