Fic: Comfort

[virtuesandvices.livejournal.com]

Title: Comfort
Pairing: Rimmer/Lister
Rating: PG
Summary: The late night brings musings and comfort for Lister and Rimmer.
Word Count: 1,869
Disclaimer: I do not own Red Dwarf nor any of its wonderful, adorable, slashy characters. I slash because I love and intend no disrespect to anyone involved with the real Red Dwarf.

The flickering of the television casts a dull light across the sparsely-furnished room. Lister has long since grown bored of the poorly-acted movie that now plays silently and forgotten in the background. His attention is consumed by Rimmer, who has once again fallen asleep at the table. His astronavigation textbook lies open beneath him and an undignified trail of drool has escaped his mouth and is now making its way down his chin. He looks exhausted.

Nights like this remind Lister that beneath the lies, the boasting and the insults, Rimmer is just another poor sod trying to make something better for himself. In the cold light of day it is easy to forget how hard Rimmer tries. Even now, with the rest of the human race long dead, Rimmer is still trying. Lister knows that a lot of that is down to Rimmer’s family, but they are long gone now. Even if Rimmer somehow managed to pass his astronavigation exam there would be no reluctant words of praise from his father; no grudging respect from his brothers. There is only Lister, Cat and Kryten, none of whom give a smeg in the first place. The whole officer thing has never meant much to Lister. He prefers to judge people by their actions, not by how many shiny medals they have to hang off their dress uniform. As for the Cat, Rimmer could pilot the ship blindfolded whilst cooking the perfect duck flambé and Cat would remain unimpressed. Lister is not sure how Kryten really feels about Rimmer but he’s certain that it wouldn’t change much if Rimmer suddenly became an officer.

He’s tried to explain all this to Rimmer but the hologram had merely sneered at him, that awful smarmy sneer that made Lister want to grab him and shake some sense into him. Lister couldn’t understand how Rimmer could still be so hung up on a smegging piece of paper. In the past four years Rimmer had achieved more than most officers did in a lifetime. Sure, they’d had their fair share of lucky escapes and near-death experiences but they were still here. They had survived. They had both assumed more responsibility than either of them could have imagined in the days before Lister went into stasis. They had overseen the day-to-day running of a ship that had previously required a whole crew to keep it operational. And even now, chasing Red Dwarf in the much smaller Starbug, they had been forced to assume roles for which they had absolutely no training. Lister had never aspired to be anything more than a technician but now, piloting Starbug through countless asteroid fields, Lister had come to enjoy the role and, surprisingly, the responsibility that came with it. They were not the most efficient crew. Holly is more idiot-savant than 6000-IQ computer-genius, Kryten is still ridiculously obsessed with laundry and food preparation, and Cat spends more time buffing his nails than actually flying the ship, but it works. They argue and they snipe and they play childish pranks on each other but at the end of the day Lister can’t imagine lasting this long with anyone else.

The introspection is making him thirsty and with uncharacteristic grace Lister slips off the top bunk and shuffles over to the locker. Beer in hand he slides into the chair next to Rimmer.  There is a rare smile on the other man’s face. He must be having a good dream, Lister thinks, probably about saving an attractive woman from certain death or becoming an officer. Rimmer smiles so rarely when he’s awake and Lister feels an awful pang of sadness at that. To have so little to smile about must be dreadful. Lister’s own life is hardly perfect, but he has his optimism to keep him going. What does Rimmer have? Nothing but a head full of self-loathing. Rimmer still has no idea just how much Lister really does want him to pass his exams and become an officer. Not out of any particular affection for Rimmer but because Lister hopes it might make him less of a smeghead if he actually gets what he wants for a change. There’s potential there, Lister has seen it, but he has no idea how to foster it. It’s strange; he doesn’t normally have trouble expressing his feelings but there’s something about Rimmer that makes compliments wither on Lister’s tongue, morphing into insults and jokes before Lister himself realises what is happening. It’s a self-preservation thing, he knows that much, but he’s not sure what he’s protecting himself against.

They are not so very different at the end of the day. Rimmer’s dream of becoming an officer despite being dead is no more ridiculous than Lister’s dream of getting back to Earth and moving to Fiji. It is only in his darkest moments that Lister has the courage to face the fact that he will never make it back home; that he will die out here with only a mechanoid and a hologram to remember him. Same goes for the Cat, and Lister wonders why that is so much harder to face than his own impending doom. He wonders what will happen when he is gone. Will Rimmer go on living? Will he still be trying then? His heart aches at the thought of Rimmer wandering the ship alone for all eternity.

A sudden breeze ruffles Rimmer’s hair and Lister is struck by how human Rimmer seems all of a sudden. His face is turned away from Lister; that damning H is out of sight. Before he has time to check himself his fingers are brushing a stray curl from Rimmer’s forehead. It’s been so long since Lister had the chance or the inclination to touch someone like this without wanting more and he relishes the feeling of the soft hair against his fingers. Growing braver now he twirls one of the curls around his index finger. Back in the good old days, back when he was human and there were girlfriends and boyfriends and one-night stands, Lister used to really enjoy having someone play with his hair. It was soothing somehow. Maybe it would do the same for Rimmer. A night’s worth of comfort that in the daylight would have been thrown back in his face.

*

Rimmer awoke to the sensation of fingers running through his hair. Still half-asleep, he sighed and pressed back against the nimble digits now twining themselves around his curly hair. It was a good five minutes before he realised that he was still in deep space, and that those fingers were therefore unlikely to belong to the statuesque blonde he had been dreaming about. Fearfully he opened his eyes. Lister had fallen asleep on Rimmer’s shoulder and was currently snoring softly as his fingers traced soothing circles on Rimmer’s scalp. Half of Rimmer’s brain screamed at him to get away and demand a thorough cleansing from Holly. The other half pointed out that Lister’s fingers were surprisingly soft and, seeing as Lister was asleep and completely unaware of what he was doing, why shouldn’t Rimmer take advantage of a rare moment of physical comfort? 

The gentleness with which Lister’s fingers moved through Rimmer’s hair were just another facet of a man that Rimmer found alternatively fascinating and repulsive. His mind returned to his rather drunken chilli-chutney-sandwich analogy all those years ago. He was not an expressive man but on that occasion Rimmer couldn’t help but feel that he’d hit the nail on the head. Every time Lister did something so disgusting that Rimmer didn’t know how he’d ever be able to face the man again, he countered it by doing something so good, so noble and even, on an extremely rare occasion, charming, that Rimmer wanted to tear his hair out with jealousy. Yes, that’s right, he envied Lister. More than he’d ever envied Toddhunter, or Captain Hollister or even smegging Ace Rimmer. He envied Lister’s easy-going outlook, his willingness to make the best of any situation and his ability to make friends. He used to claim that the only reason that Lister had so many friends was that his standards were so ridiculously low. He’d stopped all that when he realised that, as Lister took great pains to remind him that they were not friends, he apparently did not meet Lister’s low standards.

He couldn’t say when exactly Lister’s opinion had begun to matter to him. The first few months of them rooming together he couldn’t care less what Lister thought of him. He hadn’t cared when Lister had gone into stasis. But now he couldn’t deny that the scouser’s opinion had come to mean more to him than anything. He was desperate to prove to his roommate that he was worth more than the calculated insults Lister hurled at him. Not that he didn’t hurl his fair share back at Lister. What else was he to do? Lister wasn’t likely to react well to Rimmer sitting him down one day and explaining that despite all the insults he actually thought that Lister was the finest man he’d ever met and he wanted to be his friend more than he’d ever wanted anything in the whole world. Lister would probably laugh in his face.

That fact therefore remained one of a number of things that Rimmer would never tell Lister. Like how amazed he was at the way Lister had dealt with the news about the death of the crew. True, he had badgered Rimmer about Kochanski’s file for weeks but considering the man was the only survivor of a huge radiation leak that had wiped out his livelihood, his friends and sent him 3 million years into the future, he had dealt with it remarkably well. Watching Lister piloting Starbug Rimmer often wondered how far the man could have gone if he’d had the drive. He was clearly not as stupid as Rimmer always claimed; he had the personality skills that made the likes of Kryten and Holly bend over backwards to make his life easier, and he had the kind of fearlessness it took to captain a ship. It’s been months now since Rimmer admitted to himself that he really does think of Lister as the captain of their admittedly tiny crew. The fact that this does not bother him is cause for a great many sleepless nights, none of which have provided a satisfactory answer.

A nose brushes his neck and Rimmer tenses anxiously. Lister sighs but soon settles again against Rimmer’s shoulder. Rimmer breathes a shaky sigh of relief. He has no desire to explain to a no-doubt horrified Lister how they came to be in this position. Come to think of it, Rimmer isn’t entirely sure himself. He could have sworn that Lister was in his bunk, watching some sappy movie on the television whilst Rimmer studied. He shrugs slightly and pushes the thought from his mind. For once he is determined not to worry about the whys and the wherefores. He can feel his eyelids drooping again as Lister’s fingers lull him back to sleep. He smiles again and closes his eyes, surrendering to the comfort that daylight would never offer.

Comments

[tits-teapot.livejournal.com]

Aww, this story is so true. I really enjoyed it. Wonderfull description of their feelings.
By the way, I so love these things with the hair in stories. I'm glad I'm not the only one:).
Great<3.

[erinptah]

Oh, fantastic.

Total feel-good lovefest about two characters who are so much more impressive than they generally get credit for.

[tsukinobun.livejournal.com]

I just love this. It's bittersweet and real. I adore Lister's wish for Rimmer to become an officer, and his pang of concern when he thinks about Rimmer wandering the ship alone when he dies. I love that Rimmer is *jealous* of Listy, which seems so obvious now you point it out (I'm kicking myself for never seeing it before).

Well written and full of insightful musings.

Incidentally, I like the use of "daylight" in the closing sentence. Especially since, in deep space, daylight won't come at all...which puts a slant on this that's almost, *almost* hopeful. :) At least for me.