Fic: Ever Vigilant - PG - R/L

[kahvi.livejournal.com]

Title: Ever Vigilant
Rating: PG
Pairing: Rimmer/Lister
Disclaimer: I do not now, nor have I ever, owned Red Dwarf. Nor do I make any money from this fannish venture.
Notes: A short follow-up to Not Like Howard.



"And then she just left, without another word." Rimmer's brow was furrowed with the effort of remembering. And I told myself that, from that day on, would do anything anything, not to end up like Howard.

Lister shook his head. "Yer mum was a bit of a bitch, wasn't she?"

"A bitch queen from hell," Rimmer replied, without a moment's hesitation. "Anyway, since you asked, that was probably my best summer memory."

Over the top of his steaming plateful of what could charitably be referred to as 'curry' - Kryten had done his best, but without access to meat, vegetables or spices his options were limited - Lister watched Rimmer carefully. He seemed calm enough, like he always was when recounting one of his childhood horror stories. Lister never knew if it was forced detachment, fake bravado, or simply numbness; either way he always found it a little creepy. You shouldn't be able to relive stuff like that without so much as a flicker of some emotion or other on your face. As always, Rimmer noticed him staring, and glared back. "What?"

Behind them both, Cat sauntered in, recoiling as the smell from Lister's dinner hit his nose. "Urg! How can you eat that, bud? It smells like it died twice; once before you cooked it, and then again just before it hit your plate."

Lister shrugged. "It's better than nothing." As Cat shook himself, bringing a small make-up mirror out of a secret pocket to groom himself back to calm, Lister turned back to Rimmer. "Don't you feel nothing, though?"

"What do you mean?"

How could he possibly explain? Lister wrung his hands, sucking in his top and bottom lip in turn. "Something like that... it has to affect ya, right? But yer just..." He gesticulated, helplessly, nearly knocking over Rimmer's now cold mug of tea, "sitting there."

Rimmer raised a single, unamused eyebrow. "You expect me to jump up and do a rumba of despair? What's there to fret about; it was eons ago. There's nothing I can do about it now."

That sounded unusually sensible, coming from Rimmer. Lister nodded, forcing another fork-full into his mouth. It tasted vaguely of turmericed cardboard.

"I never found out what it was, though."

Lister looked up. "Eh? What what was?"

"What it was Howard had done." Rimmer picked up his cup, sniffed it in distaste, then put it down again. "No one would ever tell me."

It couldn't be. Then again, Lister had learned not to take anything for granted when it came to Rimmer. "You mean you don't know?"

"Of course I don't know," Rimmer snapped, crossing his legs angrily, which was a feat, but Rimmer could make pretty much any action seem aggressive. "I just said no one ever bothered telling me. I tell you; it was hard work trying to not be like something you have no idea what is. I had to keep track of everything Howard did, and do the opposite."

"Yer taking the smeg." Not even Rimmer was that obtuse.

"Lister; what exactly are you babbling on about?"

Laughing, Lister put his plate down, waving his fork about for emphasis. "Arn, yer brother brings home a guy in the middle of the night, takes him to his room, moans and groans about a bit, and then the guy comes out naked. And you have no idea what went on in there?"

Rimmer's eyes were dark, his cheeks flushed. He seemed to be closely examining the hull. "Why should I? I have no idea what sort of things my brothers went up to; they never confided in me."

He's actually serious, Lister thought. All these years, and he's still a clue short of clueless. "Arn," he said, quietly, "what did we do today?"

"Why do you ask?" Rimmer narrowed his eyes in distrust.

"Humor me."

"Well..." Rimmer frowned. "This morning, after breakfast, we spent four hours trying to out-run that GELF warship we'd thought was a derelict, and then..."

"Before that."

"Before that, we were asleep. Well, some of us were. Others were listing to those who were asleep snoring." He looked at Lister, pointedly.

Ignoring the look, Lister pushed on. "After that."

Rimmer's left nostril twitched as he seemed to get the idea. "Between the sleeping and the GELF attack?"

Lister nodded.

With a hurried glance to his right, where Cat was now cleaning the hem of his purple suede jacket with diamante trim, Rimmer leaned across the table, grabbed Lister by the collar, and hissed, urgently, "you know what we did. You were there. Expressing yourself quite loudly, as I recall."

Grinning at the memory, Lister nodded again. "And if you had been standing outside our quarters when we did that, maybe leaning up against the wall, what would you have heard?"

Rimmer's eyebrows wiggled, as if unsure what to do with this information. As they gave up, stilling, deciding that task was better left for the brain, Rimmer's pale, hard-light face grew even whiter; close to transparent. His hands grew limp, and he dropped Lister, who fell back against the ancient chair he was sitting on, which creaked in protest. And then, with an incoherent sound, eyes wide and wild, Rimmer fled the room.

Pocketing his mirror, Cat sidled over, patting Lister on the back. "Bad move, bud. Even I could have seen that one coming."

Grunting, Lister pulled his shoulder away. He'd lost even the tiny hint of appetite he'd had left after he'd seen (and smelled) the menu for the evening. And Rimmer had been doing so well. Lister had been hoping they'd be able to go public in another six months or so. Now it was back to square one, or possibly minus fifteen. He sighed. Maybe Kryten still had that Psychotherapy For Dummies book?

Comments

[kahvi.livejournal.com]

He really does. It frustrates him to no end...

Me neither! But I was thinking about the story today, and wondering when Rimmer actually figured things out. And the obvious answer was "never." From thereon, it really wrote itself. Thank you very much; glad you enjoyed it! :D