reddwarfslash | Fic: Unthinkable (ficlet, PG) (Reply)

Title: Unthinkable
Pairing: Rimmer/Lister
Rating: PG or possibly G
Setting: Sometime after "Legion" but before SMAK.
Author's Note: Just something that popped in my head instead of me going to sleep tonight. Bittersweet is how I felt, so it's what came out in this ficlet.

Rimmer kept busy with revision, though passing the engineering exam no longer mattered. He kept busy with note-taking, graphs, charts, revising his notes, organizing his notes, organizing the textbooks he'd read, alphabetizing the textbooks he still needed to read, rearranging them in order of importance, then rearranging them yet again in order of thickness – the thinner ones going to the front of the queue.

He entertained himself with pestering Lister. He nattered on about everything and nothing, just to see what would get under Lister's skin. Some days, he got extremely lucky and Lister yelled at him, but those days were rare. Lister was so level-headed. So smegging agreeable. He desperately wanted to find out what would flap that unflappable optimism, but he'd yet to find it.

The last human alive? Oh, well, not so bad. Listers in other dimensions were doing better than him, including married to Kristine Kochanski with twin boys? Marvelous! We've lost Red Dwarf? Supplies are low? Starbug's about to go through an ice storm? We can make it through, we just need to pull together!

It was smegging disgusting, it what it was.

Rimmer was not a team player. He wasn't 'one of the guys'. He did not 'pull together' or 'lend a hand' or whatever else the gerbil-faced git always wanted him to do. He did not feel left out when they went fishing or played poker. He did not feel envious when they invented songs for the 'Boys from the Dwarf' with lyrics for everyone but him. He did not care that Lister would talk to him, late at night, about being homesick. That Lister would confide in him his dreams and hopes that couldn't possibly come true, because Lister and Cat would be long-dead before they reached Earth.

He did not feel a pang in his holographic, pseudo-science heart when Lister looked at him with those big, soul-weary eyes. Looking for a human connection. Looking for a link back to what he knew. Looking for – asking him for – something he wasn't capable of.

Those eyes were on him again, the question so thick and blatant that Rimmer felt like he had to push against it to reach his bed. He kept his back turned to Lister as he settled into his lower bunk, making a show of stretching out with his back to their shared quarters, shoulders rigid and hands carefully kept hidden from view. Every move choreographed to scream, "Don't ask me again."

Despite his firm convictions, he found himself murmuring, "Good night, Lister." He'd gotten soft the past few years. Where he'd started out not saying a word; to them going to bed still screaming at each other, now he felt sorry for the git. He felt the change in the air as Lister's hope once again faded to disappointment, but that damnable eternal optimism kept him from sinking into despair. It almost – almost - made Rimmer wish he could give Lister what he wanted. What he so obviously needed.

But, Rimmer was not a team player. He was not one of the guys. And no matter how much Lister wanted it, or how his holographic, pseudo-science heart beat faster as he contemplated what if, he would not permit it to happen. He could not be what Lister wanted. So, he kept his mind occupied with pointless revision and he deflected the friendly overtures by fighting with Lister, because the alternative hurt too much. Him and Lister – together? It was unthinkable.

The End