Fic: Peanuts - R/L (imp) - PG

[kahvi.livejournal.com]

Title: Peanuts
Pairing: Rimmer/Lister (implied)
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own Red Dwarf. I don't make money from this. Don't act surprised.
Spoilers: Stoke Me A Clipper.
Notes: For kirke_novak




The funny thing was, Lister didn't even use to like peanuts. Before... well, before everything; the explosion, everyone dying, years of boredom in space, GELF and simulant attacks, before all of that, he could remember eating them, oh, maybe less than five times in all. He'd eat them in food, just like he'd eat sultanas in curry but not on their own, but on the whole, he avoided them. Now he couldn't get enough.

He'd picked up the habit when he was pregnant, and that was a time he'd just rather not think about all that much, so he didn't. But that was when the craving had started. He'd heard that they tended to stop well before you actually gave birth, but his hadn't. Maybe peanuts tasted different in space. Maybe lying around all those millions of years had changed them, even though most of them had been in stasis? It didn't matter, he supposed, but it was still funny. It was funny, because now they were out, and here he was, missing something he used to hate. Funny that.

Lister would have thought he'd feel better without Rimmer around, but the thing was, he found himself noticing all the little annoying things he hadn't had time to notice before, because he'd been too busy bickering. The way Cat would blather on and on about nothing whenever they had a cockpit shift together for example. When Rimmer was the alternative, anything seemed like a relief in comparison, but without him, all the feline's flaws stood out in sharp relief. He was getting on Lister's nerves. So was Kryten, come to that. Lately, Lister had gotten the impression that he was spying on him in his quarters; sneaking in and standing by his bunk while he slept. He tried to stay awake, pretending to be asleep, but the problem was that pretending to be asleep was too much like actually being asleep, and soon you seeped from one and into the other. In the end, all Lister was left with was that vague impression of unease.

You wouldn't think that three people stuck together on a small lander could gossip about one another, but they did. Frequently and maliciously, perhaps for lack of anything else half-way interesting to do. No longer united in their dislike of Rimmer, cabin fever struck hard and fast. Cat and Lister would spend entire days not talking, before gradually coming to some unspoken agreement. Kryten never voiced any dislike of Lister, but he would nag. Nag relentlessly, like some mechanical mother substitute, urging Lister to stop throwing his dirty socks about, to send his longjohns off to laundry more often, to let Kryten starch his underwear, and stop eating all those sugar-puff sandwiches in bed. And Lister, because it was the only way to stop the flow of admonishment, was forced to comply.

Time seemed to have slowed to a crawl. They still followed Red Dwarf's vapor trail, but more and more, Lister found himself waking up seeing the day stretch out endlessly ahead, and want to go straight back to sleep. Nothing ever happened. Just the little things, the petty, small-minded arguments, that somehow managed to be dull and stale even as they were annoying. They were stuck in a rut on a barely-hanging-together old lander, and they were out of peanuts. Lister couldn't help but feel that if there had been any, things wouldn't have been quite so bad. Just one or two. Now and then.

But there was that about a good thing; you often didn't know you had it until it was gone.

Comments

[cyber-moggy.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. Kryten would be the most dreadful nag.

It reminds me instantly of being unemployed with no money and nothing to do - except without the hope that someday, something will come along and make things better.

This is great!

[kahvi.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

And yes, I think Lister has that optimism, but by VII, he's slowly losing it. By VIII, it's all but gone... :(