Fic: Poorly - PG
Sep. 20th, 2007 10:29 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
smaych.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
reddwarfslashTitle: Poorly
Pairing: Rimmer/Lister
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own Red Dwarf or make any money from this.
Spoilers: Confidence and Paranoia; Legion
Notes: I blame it on being ill myself at the moment.
Lister is ill. Nothing serious, says Kryten, if you can trust a medical diagnosis from a droid whose loftiest lifetime ambition is to get Lister's underwear “whiter than white.” Apparently it's a mutated form of influenza picked up from a derelict and he should be back on his feet in a few days, nothing to worry about. And I'm not worried. However, seeing him sat there in the midsection wrapped up in a thick blanket while Kryten fetches him hot lager with croutons and other such revolting “home remedies” does dredge up some memories.
It was back in the early days of my death, or rather my early days as a hologram as technically I'd been dead for three million years by then. I was still getting used to being incorporeal, not that I'd ever been one of those girly touchy-feely types anyway. In fact, with the company I was keeping I wasn't sure that being unable to touch anything wasn't a good thing. Still, it was frustrating when he got sick.
There was nothing I could do. He lay there on his bunk, disgusting and sweaty, completely delirious. Sometimes the sweat would drip across his face, and I would start to reach out to wipe it away before remembering that I was a hologram now.
I have dreams sometimes where I'm soft light again. In them I'm surrounded by goits who won't do what I say and I feel as helpless and impotent as I did back then. I wanted to pull the stained blanket he clutched in his hands up over his shoulders, to make sure he was warm enough. I agonised over wanting to take his temperature again and not trusting the skutters to do it properly.
I could have left, smeg knows the ship was big enough that I could've avoided returning to that room for weeks, but at first I didn't. Holly was rivalled in uselessness only by the Cat, so I thought I should keep an eye on Lister. He'd already proven that he couldn't look after himself. I tried everything to distract myself - salutes, necrobics, but my attention kept finding its way back to the figure squirming around on the bunk and muttering in his sleep. When the solid hallucinations started I gave up, as I think a lesser man would have days before. Would things even have been different if I could have touched him?
It was all his fault. If he hadn't felt compelled to mope around in Kochanski's quarters, rifling through her things and reading her diary, none of it would have happened. Already molested my possessions enough, hadn't he? I suppose that's the worst of it right there: Her. He did this - put himself in danger, became ill, and dismissed it all, just so he could go curl up in her bed like a character from one of those sappy romantic films he watches. Pathetic.
What would we do if he became seriously ill one day? Just because Kryten can sew a patch on an old pair of trousers doesn't mean I'd trust him to perform surgery. Why is it always me that has to worry about these things? Every time I bring up the subject he dismisses it with that devil-may-care attitude, that blind optimism, just like he dismissed his illness two hundred plus years ago as just “a touch of pneumonia”.
Doesn't he think about anyone other than himself for a single microsecond?
Pairing: Rimmer/Lister
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own Red Dwarf or make any money from this.
Spoilers: Confidence and Paranoia; Legion
Notes: I blame it on being ill myself at the moment.
Lister is ill. Nothing serious, says Kryten, if you can trust a medical diagnosis from a droid whose loftiest lifetime ambition is to get Lister's underwear “whiter than white.” Apparently it's a mutated form of influenza picked up from a derelict and he should be back on his feet in a few days, nothing to worry about. And I'm not worried. However, seeing him sat there in the midsection wrapped up in a thick blanket while Kryten fetches him hot lager with croutons and other such revolting “home remedies” does dredge up some memories.
It was back in the early days of my death, or rather my early days as a hologram as technically I'd been dead for three million years by then. I was still getting used to being incorporeal, not that I'd ever been one of those girly touchy-feely types anyway. In fact, with the company I was keeping I wasn't sure that being unable to touch anything wasn't a good thing. Still, it was frustrating when he got sick.
There was nothing I could do. He lay there on his bunk, disgusting and sweaty, completely delirious. Sometimes the sweat would drip across his face, and I would start to reach out to wipe it away before remembering that I was a hologram now.
I have dreams sometimes where I'm soft light again. In them I'm surrounded by goits who won't do what I say and I feel as helpless and impotent as I did back then. I wanted to pull the stained blanket he clutched in his hands up over his shoulders, to make sure he was warm enough. I agonised over wanting to take his temperature again and not trusting the skutters to do it properly.
I could have left, smeg knows the ship was big enough that I could've avoided returning to that room for weeks, but at first I didn't. Holly was rivalled in uselessness only by the Cat, so I thought I should keep an eye on Lister. He'd already proven that he couldn't look after himself. I tried everything to distract myself - salutes, necrobics, but my attention kept finding its way back to the figure squirming around on the bunk and muttering in his sleep. When the solid hallucinations started I gave up, as I think a lesser man would have days before. Would things even have been different if I could have touched him?
It was all his fault. If he hadn't felt compelled to mope around in Kochanski's quarters, rifling through her things and reading her diary, none of it would have happened. Already molested my possessions enough, hadn't he? I suppose that's the worst of it right there: Her. He did this - put himself in danger, became ill, and dismissed it all, just so he could go curl up in her bed like a character from one of those sappy romantic films he watches. Pathetic.
What would we do if he became seriously ill one day? Just because Kryten can sew a patch on an old pair of trousers doesn't mean I'd trust him to perform surgery. Why is it always me that has to worry about these things? Every time I bring up the subject he dismisses it with that devil-may-care attitude, that blind optimism, just like he dismissed his illness two hundred plus years ago as just “a touch of pneumonia”.
Doesn't he think about anyone other than himself for a single microsecond?
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Date: 2007-09-21 05:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-21 08:58 am (UTC)(It never struck me when I watched the show; should I worry? Or am I just Listerine? :D)
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Date: 2007-09-21 10:12 am (UTC)And you are very Listerine (that is to say, like Lister, not like the mouthwash). It probably never occurs to Lister either.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-22 08:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-21 10:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-21 02:16 pm (UTC)Deep down Rimmer really does care about Lister, I think he just has problems convincing himself to show that he does...
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Date: 2007-09-21 05:03 pm (UTC)I agree that Rimmer cares about Lister, against his better judgement!
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Date: 2007-09-24 06:05 am (UTC)I agree about Rimmer caring about Lister...and it's especially obvious in Confidence and Paranoia. He's all frantic when he sees that Lister has fainted, but perks right up again once Lister is awake. ;)
Excellent story!
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Date: 2007-09-24 07:22 am (UTC)I agree that Rimmer seems really lost when Lister faints, I think it's the first time you really appreciate how difficult it must be being a hologram.
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Date: 2007-09-26 05:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-26 08:55 am (UTC)It's very easy to feel sorry for Rimmer. He feels sorry for himself all the time!
no subject
Date: 2007-09-27 06:12 pm (UTC)I was still getting used to being incorporeal, not that I'd ever been one of those girly touchy-feely types anyway. In fact, with the company I was keeping I wasn't sure that being unable to touch anything wasn't a good thing.
Rimmer!
I have dreams sometimes where I'm soft light again. In them I'm surrounded by goits who won't do what I say and I feel as helpless and impotent as I did back then.
*sigh*
I tried everything to distract myself - salutes, necrobics
*giggle*
He did this - put himself in danger, became ill, and dismissed it all, just so he could go curl up in her bed like a character from one of those sappy romantic films he watches. Pathetic.
Rimmer!
Doesn't he think about anyone other than himself for a single microsecond?
Rimmer!
no subject
Date: 2007-09-27 06:51 pm (UTC)I'm glad I managed to get it right in the end :)