Concession (G)

[tsukinobun.livejournal.com]

A little something that started as a 100-word drabble and grew a few hundred words. VERY HEAVY ANGST! Consider yourself warned.

BtE Spoilers!!!!!!

Concession
Rating: G
Pairing: Lister/Rimmer
Notes: angst-core.

           

            Stripped down to night-wear, the squid ink showered off, the two men lie in their respective bunks, unable to sleep.

            “Rimmer?” Lister whispers tentatively into the dark.

            Rimmer sighs. He thinks he knows what’s coming; has suspected it since he heard from Kryten that Kochanski wasn’t dead.

            “Yes, Listy?” he says, gently. His stomach is knotted. He doesn’t want to hear this.

            “It was so weird in there, man.”

            Rimmer gulps inaudibly. “I know what you mean.”

            “Did you know? About…about Kochanski?” Lister asks.

Rimmer closes his eyes. “Of course not. I wouldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t…keep that kind of secret, knowing what it means to you.” He feels guilty, because after he’s said it, he’s not sure it’s true. He might do such a thing. If it meant Listy finally gave her up, he might.

But Lister never gives up, he thinks, and is struck with bitterness. Even he and I becoming…closer. He always kept his heart reserved for her.

“Yeah. I guess not.” Lister replies thoughtfully.

Rimmer wants to ask Lister if he will stop brooding, come down and share his bunk, like they’ve done for the last…what feels like forever. It’s really nowhere near that long. The pattern has broken, and it hurts to breathe past his wounded heart. It feels oddly desolate, lying on his mattress alone.

“Yer…Yer not mad, are you?” the question is asked softly, and Rimmer smiles, imagining the concerned look on Lister’s face as the words are spoken.

He doesn’t answer right away. He tries to think of exactly the right thing to say.

He could admit that this is hurting him. He could just break the façade and tell Listy that he’s been unable to envision living the rest of his death without him. That lying, squashed up against the back wall of this bunk with his arm around the dreadlocked git’s sleeping form is what makes his existence bearable. That he feels like he’s losing the only good thing he’s ever had, and he’ll be too afraid to fight for it.

The silence drags on, and he can feel Lister’s anxiety growing.

He answers by avoiding the deeper insinuation of the question.

“Could never be mad at you, Listy.” The sad sound of his voice shocks him as he hears himself say it. It’s not very convincing.

He hears Lister hold his breath. After several moments he hears the air released in a long, pained sigh. A minute more passes before he associates the jagged breathing and sniffling from above with the fact that Lister must be crying. He must be trying to do it quietly, but Rimmer is not fooled. He has heard soft crying frequently from the other man’s bunk at night through the years. It’s never been for him, before.

His heart breaks more, but there is nothing he can do. Lister is choosing to leave him. Lister is crying about it. What the smeg is he supposed to do to fix it?

What he wants to do is pull the other man down from his mattress and hold him, kiss him until he convinces Listy with the sheer force of his will and devotion to stay with him. He wants to force all thoughts of that woman from his lover’s mind. He wants to be the one that Lister loves across time, space, death and reality. He curses the fact that the seed of this Kochanski obsession was planted before he even died; before he was reborn, and given the chance to realize that he could love deeper than he’d ever known was possible while he breathed.

Lister has given up the pretense that he’s not crying heavily.

“Rimmer…” he sobs, “can I come down? This bunk doesn’t feel right anymore.”

Rimmer really wants to say yes, but instead holds his lips shut.

Holograms can cry, though they don’t do it often. It’s a real secretion that seeps from the particles of hard-light around stinging eyes. The tears are tiny specs of escaped light that hover in the air, barely visible, before riding away on the subtle currents of the air. For a hologram, crying is a painful thing, and a last resort – it means, quite literally, the bonds that hold them together are breaking, and they’re falling apart.

“Rimmer!” Lister cries softly, desperately.

Still no response from below. The hologram has his eyes shut tight, his hands covering his face. It is unbearable. But he has to let him go. For the sake of some woman who doesn’t even care, he has to let him go.

When we do find her, Rimmer thinks, I can officially retire from my post on Red Dwarf. I won’t be needed to keep him sane. I can…leave. Not Ace again, god no, but… I can at least avoid having to watch it all unfold.  I refuse to sit by and watch.

“Won’t you please say somethin’?” Lister whispers, his voice thick with emotion.

Rimmer hesitates, then says gently but firmly, “Good night, Lister.” He feels his entire torso tighten as his body rages against the pain he’s putting it through. Everything hurts. These words wound like no other weapon.

He raises his hand to touch the top of his bunk, imagining Lister right above it. Soundlessly, he mouths the words, “I love you,” then curls in on himself, knowing he won’t sleep tonight. Not while the room is filled with Lister’s crying.

 

Comments

[fearcat.livejournal.com]

OMG this is amazing, I love it!

You made me cry near the end.

[laurenthemself]

WAIL. Poor Rimmer. Poor Lister. Silly boys! Get in bed together!

[sadera992.livejournal.com]

naww! poor rimmer! and silly, poor lister. :S

[neral-idazmi.livejournal.com]

D: Nooooooooooooooooo.

Damn, that was good (painfully so).

[neral-idazmi.livejournal.com]

Also, I really like how subtly you introduced the slash element, building up to a crescendo (as it were), it really fitted, and made it seem so in-character and believable. Actually though, all of it seemed IC, really, and, just well, right. not a single false note struck. So, sorry for all the music metaphors, what I'm really trying to say, is that this was ace :D (no pun intended)

[tits-teapot.livejournal.com]

<3 I want to hug them! Ohhh! You can't do this!
I hope you'll write some fluffy thing soon to compensate them, 'cos this just is so---

[dauphkantus.livejournal.com]

You realize that this is tsukinobun riiight? FLUFF only happens when I get a hold of her plotbunnies and mutate some new ones ;D

[tits-teapot.livejournal.com]

I do realize that :). She likes torturing them - that's good :3. But somebody has to get them back together again; soon!

[dauphkantus.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I'll see what I can do? O_o'

[felineranger.livejournal.com]

Wonderful. Nuff said. :-)

[kronette.livejournal.com]

Beautiful and sad, just what I was looking for.