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Lister always gets hot while he sleeps. No matter what he does — kicking off all the blankets, sleeping shirtless, sleeping pantless — it’s never enough. It’s something he’s just sort of come to terms with over the years, something he’s figured out how to navigate. The right position, the right level of aircon, everything is perfectly suited to his needs.
Adding Rimmer into the mix… now that became a whole other problem. Rimmer, unsurprisingly given his hologramatic status, sleeps like the dead. His whole system, Lister learns, powers down, and he’s nearly unmovable until his supposed ‘internal clock’ wakes him up in the morning. Minus unexpected interruptions (case in point, fishing trips he isn’t invited on) nothing can wake him. And Rimmer has been used to sleeping alone for years . So when he finally gets in bed with another person, he’s clingy . And not in a cute, endearing way. Lister’s always loved the idea of someone holding onto him in his sleep, two people being nearly intertwined in their most vulnerable states, feeling protected from the world simply by the other’s presence. But it isn’t like that with Rimmer. His lightbee emits a low-level electric current that tends to overheat even in sleep-mode, his too-long limbs wrap around Lister’s smaller frame like creepers, and he grips too tight. And yet, despite the discomfort, Rimmer is unmovable.
Lister ends up shoving him off the first few nights, which Rimmer doesn’t know about, other than questioning how they ended up as far away from each other as possible on the tiny mattress. Then, finally , Lister decides to just be honest with him. After all, hurting Rimmer’s feelings has always been the least of his concern.
“You are the worst smegging person to share a bed with,” he says one morning, bending over to crack his back loudly on his way to the sink. “I get hot at night, you’re like a weighted blanket.”
Rimmer glances up at him, frowning, as he finishes pulling up the sheets and fluffing the pillow. “They make weighted blankets with cooling functions, for that very reason,” he remarks.
Lister, with his back to Rimmer still, doesn’t resist the urge to roll his eyes. (Rimmer can see it in the mirror, but doesn’t mention it.) “That’s not — the point , Rimmer, is that you’re messing up me sleeping habits. I have a system , and you make it nearly impossible to be comfortable.”
Rimmer straightens up and crosses his arms. “Well, what about my comfort? Hm? Did you ever consider that , Listy?”
Lister throws his hands up, and some toothpaste goes flying out of the tube and hits the wall. “What d’ya mean, your comfort? You’re dead to the world when you sleep, man, you can’t feel anything!”
Rimmer scoffs. “Yes I can!”
A beat. “Oh.”
“ Oh? Is that all you have to say for yourself? Oh? That’s so typical of you Listy. You know what you sound like? ‘Rimmer’s just a hologram, he can’t think, he can’t even feel!’ That’s what you sound like, Lister. Unbelievable.”
Lister spits into the sink, wipes his mouth on his arm, and turns around. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“Oh yeah? Then what did you mean? Because it sounded an awful lot like what I just said.”
“I just meant…” Lister searches for the right words. “I know your lightbee has a sleep mode, I figured it was like putting a computer to sleep or something. Like, powered down, unaware of everything going on around you. Not actively processing.”
The one thing Rimmer hates more than anything about being a hologram is being seen as nothing more than a computer program running independently of his own free will. Lister knows this, which is why he finds it so strange that he’s engaging in this idiotic debate now. “Well you’re wrong,” Rimmer says stiffly. “I’m... processing .” He abruptly turns his back to Lister, who’s starting to look guilty for even bringing it up. “But if you don’t want me in your space while you sleep, you can just go back to your own bunk, miladdo!”
Lister has to count to ten in his head before he feels confident he can speak without losing his smegging mind at Rimmer. “I don’t wanna do that,” he says, as patiently as he can. “I like sleeping with ya. Just, maybe you can loosen your death grip a little, that’s all I’m saying.”
“Everything is a death grip with me, Lister, I’m dead.”
And thus ends their argument. It’s always like that nowadays. One of them gets in a (not-so) scathing last word, the other gets bored of fighting, and they just stop.
Lister assumes that’s the end of it.
And to Rimmer’s credit, he actually does ease up somewhat. Neither of them have to say a word; Rimmer lies on his back, Lister uses his chest as a pillow, and Rimmer’s arms envelop him lightly . For the first time since they started this… whatever this is… Lister sleeps through the night, and only wakes in the morning with mild heatstroke. They don’t address it, but Rimmer walks around looking smug the whole rest of the day. Lister decides to just let him have this one.
Then one night, Lister wakes up again. Not dripping in sweat, but because Rimmer’s arms are wound so tightly around him that he thinks he might be suffocating. Gasping a little, Lister wiggles around and manages to dislodge him slightly. “Rimmer,” he says, poking him in the side. Huh. Rimmer’s body seems hotter than usual too. Lister listens carefully to his chest. The usually-gentle hum of his lightbee is loud, working in overdrive. “Hey, Rimmer,” he repeats, starting to get just a little concerned. “Wake up.” But Rimmer doesn’t budge. Lister manages to get out from his arms fully and sits up, getting a better look at him. His face, usually expressionless and unmoving when he sleeps, is twitching slightly, and his eyes seem to be darting back and forth wildly behind mostly-closed lids. “Rimmer, hey, Rimmer !”
Rimmer’s hand reaches up and wildly grasps at the air. Lister catches it, squeezing tight. For a moment, nothing happens, and Lister holds his breath, and then slowly, Rimmer’s eyes flutter open. He stares up at Lister with wide pupils, face looking nothing short of terrified. “Lister?” he manages to croak out.
Lister’s expression softens instantly, and he flops back down beside Rimmer in the bunk. This time, it’s he who reaches out, gathering the other man into his arms, and pulling him close against his chest. Rimmer doesn’t resist, seeming to fold up small into his embrace. Lister sighs, giving the slightly shake of his head as he tries to steady his own breathing, hoping it’ll help Rimmer calm down. “Are you alright, man?” he asks quietly after a minute. “What happened?”
Rimmer is quiet for a long moment, and Lister gets the sense that he’s trying to decide if it’s worth lying or not. Finally, he says, “Bad dream. Nothing important.”
Lister’s grip tightens slightly. I had no idea . In reality, he probably should’ve . He knows Rimmer’s been through some real smeg. Not just in the last thirty years, but in his first thirty years, before he died. Before Red Dwarf. Rimmer’s talked about a lot of it, but there’s still so much he doesn’t know. So of course he has nightmares. Why the hell hasn’t he even considered that?
Is that why you hold onto me so tight when we sleep? he wants to ask. When you can’t wake yourself up from your most unpleasant dreams, is a living, breathing person the only thing keeping you grounded?
“Rimmer, it is important,” Lister says gently. “If you’re having nightmares, I wanna know. If you need to talk about it, I wanna listen.” Rimmer makes a noise that Lister can’t determine whether it’s words muffled against him or just a usual noncommittal reaction. “I mean it, man. Whatever you need.”
“I want to be strong,” Rimmer says, so quiet Lister almost doesn’t hear him. “I’m supposed to be strong. It’s stupid, really. You don’t have to worry about me, Listy, I’m fine.”
Lister has to resist the urge to scream. “You know you don’t have to be strong all the time, right?” Even through his frustration, he can’t keep the fondness from his voice. “Even superheroes have moments of weakness. It’s part of being human.”
“But I’m not human,” Rimmer protests. “And I’m not a superhero anymore, either.”
Lister laughs quietly, little more than a huff of air against Rimmer’s neck. “You are to me.”
“...Really?”
“Of course. Now, you can talk about whatever’s going on, or we can go back to sleep. I don’t care. Whatever you need.” He reaches up with one hand, carding his fingers through Rimmer’s hair. He feels the other relax against him a little more, hears him exhale softly.
“Do you remember the psi-moon?” Rimmer asks finally.
What? “You mean the one that terraformed based on your subconscious? Smeg. That was… what, twenty-five years ago? Is that what you’re dreaming about?”
Rimmer’s hand tightens slightly around Lister’s arm. “Not entirely,” he says. “It’s…” Well, what it is is a lot of things all smushed together. The psi-moon. Rimmerworld. His time spent as Ace. All the times he’d had near-brushes with death for a second time. “Complicated. I’m sorry, I…”
Lister has only heard Rimmer apologize sincerely a couple of times before, in all their years together.
“Hey, no, don’t be sorry, it’s okay. If you can’t talk about it, I under—”
“The psi-moon wasn’t just my subconscious. All of my deepest fears, my biggest nightmares, all came true there, along with… things that have… that already… That’s what he…” he trails off. “Even when you all rescued me, said all those fake-nice things to make me feel better. I still have those nightmares, Lister. Except in them, I’m there. Or on Rimmerworld. Or — and you all don’t come.” His whole form seems to shudder. “You leave me alone, and everything happens again. It’s all so much more… vivid now. Oh, I can’t explain it.”
Lister can feel his heart shattering. “You don’t have to explain it. I hear ya.” He sighs. “We’re not going to leave you behind ever again. I promise.”
He really hopes Rimmer believes him. But something tells him his words alone will never be able to undo sixty some-odd years of abandonment issues. It will probably take the rest of their lives to convince Rimmer that he has people who genuinely care about him. It’s a guilty feeling that gnaws at Lister even at the best of times, and now it feels like a boulder in the pit of his stomach. For so long, not only did he do nothing to support Rimmer through his hardest times, but he played an actively detrimental role in some of the worst things he’s been through. And what makes it worse is that Rimmer doesn’t seem to hold it against him. That’s the trouble with him. Rimmer is so desperate to love and be loved that he can ignore everything awful that a person’s done if they make him feel even the slightest bit validated. Lister saw it over the years in Rimmer’s idolization of the world’s worst dictators and military generals who shared the values he appeared hellbent on modeling himself after, but now it seems that he’s chosen to forget about all the pain Lister caused him in the past because he’s here, now. And perhaps Lister should be grateful that they don’t fight like they used to, venomous insults with nothing but contempt and malice behind them, but he feels in a way like a con. Like Rimmer should be angrier.
Like maybe he would be able to move on if he would just acknowledge the role Lister played in his trauma, instead of determinedly pretending it never happened.
Rimmer says, “I know,” and it doesn’t sound like he knows, but Lister takes his word for it. It’s the best he can do at this point.
So instead he says, “And you know I love you, right?” and Rimmer doesn’t answer but the way he moves even closer to Lister is enough confirmation.
They don’t fit together. Not like this. Lister isn’t the one who holds his hologram tight but maybe he should be.
And it isn’t so bad, the two of them, laying like this.
Yes, Lister’s always loved the idea of someone holding onto him in his sleep. Two people being nearly intertwined in their most vulnerable states, feeling protected from the world simply by the other’s presence. But Rimmer’s vulnerability is a rare gift, when he lets down his walls long enough to show insecurity and not be ashamed of it, long enough to let someone show him the comfort he paradoxically wants and fears. Lister missed out on those opportunities in their younger days, even when he was barely twenty-five, mourning his breakup with Kristine Kochanski, and thinking that his bunkmate would actually be pretty attractive if he wasn’t such a smeghead. And then thinking that maybe his bunkmate is pretty attractive despite being such a smeghead. And then thinking that maybe his bunkmate is pretty attractive despite being such a smeghead and being dead and loathing Lister’s existence.
(Maybe he’s always been a little bit in love with Arnold Rimmer. So what?)
Despite everything that’s happened to him, being the last human, losing everything, Lister considers himself a pretty lucky guy. Good food, good friends, and still alive and kicking at an age he never considered himself reaching when he ended up on Mimas during a drunken pub crawl. But none of his astronomically good fortune compares to this, right here.
His dream of living on a farm on Fiji with Kochanski is long behind him. It has been, ever since she disappeared all those years ago. But even then, he’d known they were living on borrowed time. Even she wasn’t his Krissie. He should’ve known when he came out of stasis that he’d never get her back. He should’ve been able to accept what was right in front of him instead.
“I’m just sorry I didn’t realize it sooner,” he whispers, more to himself than to Rimmer, who doesn’t acknowledge the words anyway.
She was going to come with me to Fiji. She was going to wear a white dress and ride the horses and I was going to take care of everything else. It was me plan. I planned it.
Earth is a distant dream now.
Even the cat people said that Fiji — Fushal, the Promised Land — is not a planet, but a place in your heart.
There are no white dresses. No horses.
And this — all of it — is not something he ever could’ve planned.
But loving Rimmer, taking care of Rimmer, that he can do. That’s the everything else . Because there’s no way of knowing what’s to come, but if he does nothing else for the rest of his life, he is going to hold Rimmer as tight as he can and never let go.
Lister doesn’t feel hot when he sleeps that night; just the warmth of another in his arms, and a promise that he’ll never stop making things right.