A Better Man
by: SLWatson
Disclaimer: Rimmer and Lister are owned by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, the gestalt entity that has orange for a favorite color.
Notes: Post-Holoship character piece.
---
The Enlightenment streaked out of view, and Rimmer watched it go. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he halfway expected the elite holoship to come back... or, at the very least, send a signal. A transmission, a message packet; Hell, he would have settled for a flashing 'good-bye' in Morse code.
The blackness of space just stared back. The stars twinkled, but it sure wasn't Morse code.
Even keeping a decent vigil on the vidscreen of the sleeping quarters didn't quite save him from hearing the other three members of the crew tromping their way down the corridor like the footheavy bunch of morons they were. The Cat, naturally, was the loudest; his voice carried over the others.
"I'll bet my best suit they figured out what they were in for and brought him back."
Not for the first (or the millionth) time, Rimmer wished he had a real body. His first task would be to shove the Cat out an airlock.
"Oh, sir, I find that unlikely. A far more realistic scenario is that they found out he had used a mind patch."
Make that the Cat and Kryten. Both of 'em. He narrowed his eyes at the vidscreen, waiting for Lister to weigh in on his theory (hopefully adding himself to the list of people Rimmer wanted to shove out an airlock), and didn't give them the satisfaction of turning around to address their comments when they came bumbling in.
Before Lister had the chance, though, the Cat was already jumping into it, "Hey, Alphabet-head, what're you doin' back here? They figure you out?" He sidled over with a grin. "I got a bet goin' with Kryten."
"That, you flea-bitten, litter-for-brains, hairball-hacking moggy, is none of your business," Rimmer said, even as Lister broke into the conversation with an admonishing, "Cat..."
"What?" The Cat sounded fashionably offended. "It was just a question!"
"Don't you have something better to do?" Rimmer finally turned, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes at the Cat. "Here's a thought -- why don't you go bat at some live wires?"
Kryten opened his mouth to say something, but Lister seemed to be playing the part of a peacemaker in this particular case, and suggested, "Why don't we all go have a drink? Like... um, celebratin' our twentieth-odd encounter with some other lifeforms. Or somethin'."
"Actually, I think I'll go and work on the laundry," Kryten replied, then added almost to himself, "I've never realized just how much laundry two people could generate. There never seems to be an end to it. Every time that it seems there might be something important happening, laundry needs to be done. Quite mysterious." And with that vaguely metaphysical comment, he walked out.
Lister looked after him for a moment, eyebrow up. Then he just shrugged and turned his attention back to the other two. "Well?"
"Yeah, sure," Cat said, glaring a mean look in Rimmer's direction before heading for the door himself.
Lister nodded, waiting for the hologram's answer. "Rimmer?"
"No." Making that word as much of a dismissal as he could, Rimmer turned back to watch the vidscreen, as much to escape being roped into going drinking as to wait for something to happen. There was a long pause; after nearly thirty seconds, he almost turned back to reiterate.
"A'right," Lister said, a note of question in his voice. But he left it at that, and walked away.
---
It had actually been years since the last time he'd been up to the Observation Deck. It used to be his own retreat; a place to go and get away from everyone (even when everyone was only four others, counting Holly), but over the past couple of years, he hadn't really had the chance. Between backwards universes, parallel universes, parallel dimensions, a simulant or three, polymorphs and various other insane stuff, there just wasn't a whole lot of time to make the long climb up there.
He made it this time, though.
Rimmer had given up waiting for any sign of the Enlightenment; the only reason he was up there now was to get away for awhile. The past several days had grated his nerves to a degree where even the semi-civil conversations the crew occasionally had dissolved into insult-slinging sessions of the finest caliber.
It always seemed to be like that -- that when little irritations bothered him, he loved to complain about them, but when something really had him strung out, he preferred to break the silence only to snap or grumble at someone else. Life... death... whatever this happened to be was like that. The Cat and Kryten had the good sense to avoid him; Lister just tuned him out and went on being his inane, chirpy, optimistic, rodent-faced self.
Speaking of the rodent-faced git...
"Wow. Been awhile since I've been up here," Lister commented, cheerfully, climbing the last steps onto the deck. "Keep forgettin' that it's this open."
"Hm," was all Rimmer gave in reply, hoping that Lister would get the hint and leave. He knew better, but he hoped anyway.
"Anyway, I was wonderin' if you wanted to go down an' have a few pints. Cat's off doin' somethin', and Kryten's still at the laundry..." Lister paused, thoughtfully. "Y'know, he's right. He's always doin' the laundry." Then he continued, "...and I don't feel like drinkin' all by myself."
"I'd rather not."
"Wellllll, if you just wanna stand up here bein' miserable, fine by me."
Rimmer gave him a sidelong sneer. "I'm not being miserable, thank you very much indeed."
"What would you call it then?" Lister asked, eyebrows up, pretending like he was peering over a pair of spectacles on his nose.
Had him there. "I'm... thinking." That's it. Just thinking.
"Uh huh."
Having had enough, Rimmer turned his full attention to his bunkmate. "Will you please go away?"
Lister shrugged, one-shouldered. "A'right. I'll go have a few pints, an' you can stand up here thinkin' and bein' miserable. No skin off my nose."
"I am not being miserable!"
"So why won't you come back down an' have a few drinks?"
"Because I have far better things to do with my time than to sit there and listen to you go on and on about your pathetic, dead-end existence." Once again, Rimmer hoped that would be enough. And, once again, he knew better but hoped anyway.
"Sure," Lister said, casually. "Like standin' up here thinkin' and bein' miserable."
"Fine," Rimmer said, without parting his teeth, knowing full well that Lister wouldn't let up until he had his way. "You win. I'll go have a few drinks. Then will you leave me the Hell alone?"
---
A quarter of a bottle of simulated Glen Fujiyama later, and Rimmer had figured it out -- that the whole point of this social exercise was to get him drunk enough to talk. It unnerved him a bit that it took him a whole quarter of a bottle of a whiskey he didn't even like to figure that out. Unnerved him even more that Lister knew him well enough to know it would work.
They sat across the table from each other in their old sleeping quarters, which looked odd and somehow lonesome without the posters, the pictures, or any of their belongings. Rimmer had always despised the sheer amount of clutter that accumulated around his bunkmate. Now, sitting in the gunmetal gray room, he missed it.
Must be the whiskey.
Lister still seemed frighteningly sober; a can of Leopard Lager sat next to the real bottle of Glen Fujiyama he had, and Rimmer couldn't be absolutely certain, but he was fairly, reasonably sure that the shot glass Lister had poured for himself was the same one he had poured at the beginning of this foray.
"So, what happened over there anyway?" he asked, acting the part of a casual conversationalist admirably.
"None of your smegging business," Rimmer replied, acting the part of the mostly drunk conversationalist accurately. "Doesn't matter anyway, I'm here, they're out there."
Lister nodded, acknowledging that, and took a sip of lager. "Yeah."
"Yeah," Rimmer echoed, clutching his bottle to his chest like it was going to sprout legs and run if given the chance. Somewhere, he wondered how it was that scientists couldn't make a hologram who could touch anything real, but they could make one who could get drunk.
They sat in silence for awhile, in the dusty old room that they had lived in before the accident and for some time after the accident. It was odd, how a place could have absolutely nothing in it, but it was still somehow different from any of the other thousands of identical rooms.
Rimmer thought about that, a little blearily, and started aiming for the halfway mark on the whiskey bottle. When Lister had told him that drinking wouldn't make it any worse than it already was, he had planned absolutely, positively not to be goaded into it. When Lister had told him that they were only gonna go to their old quarters to look for that stupid pea they never found, he had told himself absolutely, positively, that he was not going to let the combination of alcohol and nostalgia make him willing to talk. He'd hoped, kind of, that the mental peptalk would be enough.
He knew better, naturally. But that didn't stop him from hoping anyway.
"I slept with her," he said, morosely, staring into the bottle of simulated whiskey, which stared back at him in a simulated manner.
"Who?" Lister asked, sounding genuinely surprised.
Why wouldn't he be surprised? He knew Rimmer's history with women, and therefore had every reason to be surprised. The now genuinely drunk hologram elaborated, somewhat, "Nirvanah. I mean... Commander Crane. I mean, Flight Commander Nirvanah Crane." He finished, somewhat pathetically, "I mean, Nirvanah."
If Lister was as shocked as he probably was, he hid it fairly well from his voice. "Really?"
"No, not really. I'm just sitting here drinking this bottle of whiskey because everything's hunky-dory and la-dee-dah," Rimmer muttered, absolutely not breaking his staring match with said bottle. "Yes, really."
"Was she nice?"
Stupid hampster-reject. What the Hell kind of question was that? "Yeah."
"So... why didn't you stay there?"
It took another two really long pulls from that bottle before Rimmer could find it in himself to answer, surprisingly clear despite feeling like he was trying to talk under water, "Because if I would have stayed, she wouldn't be there." It made perfect sense to him, having been there, but somehow he must have realized that Lister had no clue, so he explained further, "She was the one I was testing out against. So when the mind patch didn't work, I went back to withdraw, and we ran into each other, and I told her I was withdrawing and that... and she..."
"She...?" Lister prompted, still playing casual, sipping his lager.
"She withdrew. She gave her life so I could have what I wanted." There. That wasn't so bad. Really. Wasn't nearly as painful as he thought. Really. Seriously. Nope, didn't bother him a bit. Not at all. Nu uh. Nope-aroonie.
He held onto the bottle just a little tighter.
Lister sat quietly for a long moment or two, then picked up the shot that he must have poured quite awhile ago, at the beginning of this whole damn thing, and knocked it back. After another sip of lager to chase it, he said, "So you gave up your spot so she could live on."
What a smegging genius. Rimmer just nodded.
Silence fell again for quite awhile, filling the air with the sound of the air recycling units, and the sound of consecutive shots being poured; well, on Lister's side of the table. Rimmer quit bothering with a glass early on and didn't miss it. When he did actually manage to pick up his head and look around the barren room, he was seeing double. It was a little much, though, so he just dropped his head back down and went back to staring at his two bottles of Glen Fujiyama.
It was another couple of minutes before Lister spoke again, still a little sober, but his Scouse accent was picking it up a pace to show he'd been hitting the hard stuff, "Wanna hear somethin' funny?"
"Not really, but go 'head," Rimmer replied, a little slurred himself. All right, more than a little. Moderately slurred.
"I'm glad ya didn't go."
"Really?" That was a surprise. Even if he was drunk.
"Yeah."
It wasn't very often that the dueling bunkmates paid each other kindnesses. Rimmer wasn't quite sure how to handle it. He mused into the bottles for a moment or two, as they made a nice little dance across his vision before asking, "Even though I'm a pompous, overbearing, arrogant smeghead?"
Lister took another shot, and another swig of lager for chaser, then answered, "Yeah. Might be a smeghead, but you're our smeghead."
What do you say to that? Nothing, Rimmer decided, and went back to drinking. He knew damn well that he'd pass out before he actually finished the bottle... two bottles... whatever, but that didn't stop him from wanting to try. If anything, at least being drunk meant that he could talk and later blame it on the liquor. It wouldn't be the first time he'd gone that route, and it probably wouldn't be the last.
Apparently, Lister was thinking along the same lines he was. "'Member Lise Yates?"
"No," Rimmer replied, "an' neither do you."
"Yeah, I mean, th' black box. An' all that. Y'know?"
"Yeah."
"I really hated you for that. I mean, more'n usual."
That got Rimmer to look up, and even drunk, he had the coordination to raise an eyebrow. What the Hell...? Lister was the one who caused all of that to happen, not him, what reason would that slobbish, underachieving moron have to hate him for that? "Why?" was the only question he had the proper coordination to ask, though.
It was Lister's (and Lister's) turn to stare into his bottle, which he did. "'Cause I had this great girl, right? An' I gave ya my memory, an' then there you go, you can't get why ya treated her so bad, an' ya made me realize that I was th' one who treated her bad, an' left her 'cause I was an idiot that was afraid of havin' a relationship."
Once again, Rimmer was at a loss for words. He wasn't entirely sure if someone declaring their hated for you was a compliment, but then again, it wasn't like he and Lister had anything approaching a normal friendship. If you could call it that, even.
Lister looked up again and nodded once, almost to himself, and for the first time since this whole conversation started, they actually looked at each other. And, plainly, he said, "You're a better man than you think."
The combination of not quite three-quarters of a bottle of Glen Fujiyama, being in their old quarters and being paid a compliment that couldn't be anything but a compliment was more than Rimmer could handle in any one day. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I've got an idea."
"That's a first," Lister sniped, a grin crossing his face.
Despite himself, Rimmer grinned back. "No, I do."
"So, spit it out."
"I think," the hologram said carefully, as clearly as he could under the circumstances, "that we should get so pished that this conversation never took place."
"Don't think we'll mish it?" Lister asked, with a chuckle.
"Nope."
Lister nodded and hoisted his bottle of whiskey in a salute, leaving the glass and apparently opting to go right to the straight-from-the-bottle-quick-intoxication drinking. "Good idea."
Rimmer nodded in turn, gave the salute back, and went back to drinking.
Things would be back to normal tomorrow.
For the first time since the Enlightenment left, he was all right with that.