Ficlet - The Way. PG.

[roadstergal.livejournal.com]

A sort of a followup to Annoyance. I don't want to tie kahvi's lovely story arc into this angsty thing, though, so maybe think of it as an AU? It's just that Stoke Me A Clipper tugged at my sleeve and cleared its throat after I wrote Annoyance. Thanks to her for one of the images.

Crit is always good. Written for fanfic100. Little Damn Table.

All right, you smegger. If that's the way yeh want it.

I tried, I did. I put up with yer neuroses, yer meanness, yer snidiness, yer stupid smegging anal-retentive ways. I even cleaned up a bit, myself, throwing out the clothes that was too stained to ever get clean. I lost a little weight, since you was always callin' me fat. Who knows why I did, after all. Did I expect yeh to change, if I did? Be a better person, be a real man instead of a steaming, smeggy pile of hangups? Ya showed me but good. I woulda been better off hunting down frog-GELFs and seeing if smooching one of them would turn it inno a prince. You sure didn't turn into anything good after I kissed ya.

There were times, ya know, when I thought you had. When you would come back and lie in bed after you thought I was asleep. You coulda walked out and slept in yer own too-clean bunk - you sterilized it every morning, I swear ya did. But you'd climb into my bunk and hold me close, and it felt so warm and comfortable, like I belonged in the crook of yer arm. I thought I might be happy doin' that for the rest of my life. Yeah, hunt down Red Dwarf, get back to Earth, and I could have all sorts of animals. I'm guessin' you don't like 'em, so I woulda tended 'em, and you coulda rode a horse wearing - I dunno, a white suit or summit. And we coulda slept close at night, when it got cold. Not a bad life, eh?

I shoulda seen it even back then, though. The way you'd get up before I did, not wakin' me - maybe you went to soft-light so I wouldn't. I'd wake up with a dent in the bunk next to me, and when I went to the midsection for brekkie, you'd be there, all snarky and nasty. Actin' like we didn't spend the night before shaggin' each others' brains out. I'd try to catch yer eye and see a little of that, but you'd never look right at me.

And then you stopped comin'.

I came by yer room a few times - you must have heard me knock. And I slowly got the idea that you was sitting on your bunk every time I did, not sayin' nothin', just wishing as hard as you could for me to go away. So what was all of this, eh, Rimmer? Just a lapse? Just a little not-enough-sex bit of frustration you got out, then didn't need anymore? Did you think about alla the stuff your crazy family used to say, and convinced yerself that it was just a hologrammatic glitch? Well, whatever it was, I got the idea. I got the smegging idea. If you could just sit there in yer bunk while the pipes rotutted and squeenookled their way through another cold shower of mine, me tryin' to forget that I was a man with a man's needs, and that you had a body that could satisfy those so well - yeah, if you could just sit there countin' your toes through that, I guess it never really meant nothin' to you at all.

So fecking what. I don't care. I have my AR - yeah, Ahhhnold, my smegging AR. You can go back to Rachel. I have my programs and my cheat codes. Who needs ya, anyway?

Still. I wish I coulda made you change. Sometimes I wonder what it would take to make ya change. For the better, and all. Sometimes, I would see something come through, when we was kissin', before we got to the main event (as it were). Somethin' good. Hell, somethin' lovely. Somethin'... almost like Ace. I couldn't pull that out, but man - I wish I could find what would.

It'd be worth all this heartache, it would.

Comments

[kahvi.livejournal.com]

Well no, I agree with everything you say here.

Yes, they are closer, and there is something akin to trust between them, but the word trust... I'm not sure I'd use it for what exists between them yet. I'll agree that the situation is much better in general, but they have a long way to go still. But they were getting there! They were making baby-steps, and then wham! SMAC. Heh. Fitting acronym. ;)

And actually, I do think this is what Rimmer wants. It's just that, as you say, he's become more aware of both his own limitations and the potential risks. That, and of course the fact that he hates the Aceness of it all. He doesn't want to be a git. But yeah, I think he wants it. But that, as I see it, is not really the issue. The issue is that Lister doesn't give him any choice. He forces his hand. And that is IMO morally wrong. It doesn't matter if Rimmer wanted to do so anyway, because we will never know. This isn't the sort of thing you should be pushed into, even if you really want it. I mean, (I think) it's wrong to push kids into going to certain schools or choosing certain professions, because it's a life-altering choice that they need to make for themselves. Even if you think you know better than them what is good for them, it is just not your choice to make. Even if they end up making the wrong one. I just feel very strongly about that. *shrugs*

[nessaancalime.livejournal.com]

I agree with the pushing and the comparison to a parent is very apt. It is easy to get so wrapped out in knowing what is right for someone that you forget that it is never right unless they make the decision themselves.
But in a way it wasn't Lister that forced him, it was the old Ace by showing up, and then dying. What was Rimmer supposed to say - I chickened out and stayed with you? Maybe a few years back he wouldn't worry, but at this time he had been through "rather dead than smeg" and what would he be if not smeg if he said no to take on the Ace mantle when the old Ace had trusted him to do so?

[kahvi.livejournal.com]

Even if that was his only options - and I'm not entirely sure it is - it still would have been Rimmer's choice to make. Yes, his options might have seemed bad or skewed to one side, but what Lister did was make a choice for him, or attempt to do so anyway. (I will agree that Rimmer could have refused to go along with Lister's ruse, but you could further argue that Lister knew he wouldn't do that, and was counting on it.) And his attempt succeeded - Rimmer went along with what Lister chose for him. And I think that makes a difference, morally speaking. I also think it impacted how Rimmer related to the whole Ace role. Had he actively chosen it himself, he might feel a sense of acheivement; that he chose to do something good. Now? Now he can't even take the glory for that, because Lister was the one who instigated it. I'm no Rimmer-expert, but that's how I would imagine his mind would work.

I think that's an interesting thing to imagine actually; how, if at all, Rimmer-as-Ace would be different if he had come to the role willingly and knowingly, as it were.