Work Text:
“It was all baloney wasn’t it?”
“What was?”
“All that hugging stuff back there. It was just a way of escaping, wasn’t it? I mean you didn’t really feel that deep down I’m an OK sort of bloke; that I’m not such a bad old stick once you get to know me. You didn’t really mean any of that, did you?”
The others turned, briefly, to look at each other, a singular connected thought passing silently between them before they turned back and responded together, in cold, earth-shattering honesty:
“No.”
Rimmer didn’t know what he’d expected. He didn’t know why or even how he could have ever expected anything else. Of course they hadn’t meant it. Why would they? Right before they’d all come waltzing back through the door suddenly singing his praises they had just been dragging him through the muck, reminding him in excruciating detail of all the little reasons he had good cause to hate himself – why they all surely hated him.
It was no surprise then that after all that sweet talk, all that nonsense about how great he was and how they actually liked him really, it had just been a means to an end, a little white lie to get them off that infernal psi-moon. He knew better than to believe any of it, to let himself fall for it for even a moment.
So why did it bother him so much?
Lying on his back on the lower bunk in the still quiet of the otherwise empty bunkroom, accompanied only by the endless background hum of the ship all around him, Rimmer heaved a heavy, tortured sigh.
He had been safely back on Red Dwarf for hours now, the terrifying ordeal of being tormented by a physical manifestation of his own mind far behind him and yet as he lay there quietly, trying fruitlessly to will his body into a state of blissful unconsciousness, he was being rudely, miserably reminded that he could never truly escape from any of it. His mind would follow him wherever he went.
He hadn’t said much of anything to anyone in the aftermath of breaking free from the planetoid’s gravity. Even though he had fully expected and even pre-emptively anticipated their answer, somehow hearing it delivered so matter-of-factly, as though it were blindingly obvious and there could be no other alternative answer, had rendered him utterly incapable of speech.
He hadn’t even been able to summon the energy to fire back a retort. Instead he had dropped rather despondently into his seat in the cockpit and spent the rest of the journey back to Red Dwarf staring miserably into the middle distance, absently massaging his right knee and wishing fervently that he just hadn’t asked.
When they’d finally reached Red Dwarf he had taken off like a shot, stealing away to some quiet, deserted part of the ship far away from the others whereupon he had largely busied himself with pacing the empty corridors briskly trying to find anything that would work well as a distraction.
After a while of wandering aimlessly he had ultimately decided that in all honesty he was quite done being conscious for the time being and had wanted nothing more than to crawl into his bunk and fall asleep and put the whole mess behind him but that was easier said than done when you shared a bunk room with someone who had effectively just pulled the rug out from beneath your feet, who had lied brazenly to your face about giving a single solitary smeg about you, made you think foolishly for half a second that maybe for once there was someone on your side, in your corner, who cared about you, and then crushed that tiny burgeoning seed of hope underfoot before it could even have had so much as a tiny chance at taking root.
Maybe they should have just left him behind. He was at the mercy of his own inner demons even at the best of times so what difference did it really make if they had become something physically real and threatening?
He shook that thought vehemently out of his head. He was just being irrational now. Of course this was still better than that alternative. At least he was used to this, the constant waves of negativity and self-loathing, the swells of doubt and anxiety, the hopelessness coupled with a doomed determination to try to keep pushing on trying for a life that seemed to be against what the universe itself had in mind. He could continue to live with that, had already lived the entirety of his life with it up to this point. At least like this he was safe in the familiarity of it all.
One thing, however, was very, very new.
Hovering an aggravated hand over his right leg again for what felt like the billionth time that night, he lowered it down and rubbed vigorously, desperately, at a spot just above his knee, digging the nails of his fingers into the hologramatic fabric of his trousers, willing the memory of warmth and weight against it to fade, but as with every other attempt he’d made at it thus far, it made no difference whatsoever. No matter how frantically he scrubbed and clawed away at it, the ghosts of one single little moment of physical contact seemed to have burned themselves into every particle of his being, indelible and utterly inescapable.
It had been such a bizarre experience, being in possession of a physical body again, solid and warm and human, after so long stuck as a hologram with all the limitations that usually entailed. He had found himself filled with such a deep sense of longing for something he had almost forgotten he’d missed. It had been so long since he had been able to indulge in even just the simple sensation of being able to press his hands against an object and have his digits connect with it instead of gliding eerily through like some sort of technological ghost.
Over the course of that whole gruelling experience he had found himself feeling acutely, excruciatingly aware of every last sensation down to the finest details, the chill of the air against his exposed skin, the tickle of warm oil trickling down his bare chest, the thrumming, pulsing rush of blood flowing through his veins and the relentless thudding of a heartbeat – his heartbeat – hammering away frantically behind his ribcage.
It had been almost too much after all this time, too real in a way that even his experiences on the holoship The Enlightenment hadn’t managed to be.
There was a stark difference, he now knew, between two holograms composed of soft-light interacting and two real, solid, flesh and blood human beings doing the same and the latter was proving to be so much harder to shake from his brain.
Lister’s hand had been so warm…
Clenching his eyes shut, he shook his head furiously and let out an anguished groan, enraged at himself once again for failing to keep the memory from resurfacing. Why was he fixating on it so much? It had all been a smegging act, a false, empty gesture intended to help bolster a lie. Lister hadn’t meant anything with it. And yet…
“I’m just tryin’ to say that whatever happens here, I want you to know, I really care about you.”
Rimmer’s hand stilled where it was, resting tentatively over the place Lister had placed his, the memory blooming, unbidden, behind his closed eyelids again. If he had still had an actual heart in his artificially projected chest it would be racing.
He’d wanted him to mean it then, hadn’t he? In spite of everything else he knew that warned him not to, everything that told him this was nonsense and that he knew better, he’d still wanted to believe him, wanted to believe that at least from Lister maybe there was a chance for some small shred of truth to exist there.
Kryten and the Cat he hadn’t believed for a minute. Rimmer knew very well, after all, what they thought of him and largely felt the same about them in return but Lister was a little bit different. He couldn’t be quite as sure about him.
Even now as the scene played out in vivid detail in his mind he could picture the earnest look on Lister’s face, the warmth of his eyes and the unwavering steadiness of his stare. He could recall the way he’d held his gaze evenly as he’d lifted his hand and moved it carefully, deliberately, to settle it down upon Rimmer’s leg and leave it there, hot and heavy and real.
The mere memory alone sent an involuntary shudder rippling its way all the way down Rimmer’s hologramatic form, making him feel a little light-headed and dazed and more than just a little winded.
It made him feel peculiar, antsy in a strangely nervous way, his fingers twitching reflexively where they lay, throat suddenly tight and tense just as it had been then.
He hadn’t known what to do or how to respond. In that moment his whole body had felt as though it were on fire, as though something not entirely unlike a jolt of electricity had sparked through him like lightning from the point of contact, setting every nerve in his body ablaze.
His heart had been beating so hard it could have burst.
Rimmer swallowed thickly and tried not to think about it, tried to pretend the persistent tingling sensation over his thigh was simply that of his own hand resting there, that it wasn’t anything else. He tried to pretend that the fact it wasn’t working didn’t mean anything.
It was unfair. Why was this what his mind had decided to latch onto and remember? Why was that the physical memory his body chosen to retain? Couldn’t it at least have chosen to fixate on the handmaidens and their ministrations instead? Hell, even Kryten’s pathetically insincere attempt to mimic Lister would have been preferable to this, paradoxical as it sounds. Why did it have to be Lister and his stupid warm, soft, tenderly placed hand making him feel inexplicably confusing things?
Even now, hours after the fact, the mere thought of it still filled him with an insatiable, anxious energy to do… something. He didn’t even know what that something was but he wanted to do a lot of it, whatever it was. God, what was happening to him?
He opened his eyes and stared helplessly up at the empty bunk above him. He felt feverish, as though something was gumming up his lightbee and making him malfunction.
He wondered, distantly, whether the psychological effects of having his mind projected out of him onto the planet’s surface had warped something somehow, given him the equivalent of some sort of hologramatic shock response. Maybe that explained some of the lingering unease, the weird fluttery nervousness that kept washing over him in waves, the aching tension in his chest as though something heavy was weighing down on it, attempting to crush it. He hoped if that was the case that it would pass soon. He wasn’t really sure what he would do if it didn’t.
The door to the bunk room slid suddenly open with a hiss and Rimmer hurriedly snapped his eyes shut and pretended to be asleep, tried to even out the pace of his breathing and relax his face enough to be convincing, inwardly cursing all the while that he hadn’t managed to actually drift off in time before Lister finally decided to turn in for the night himself.
He stayed stock still while he listened to the sounds of Lister moving around, the tell-tale rustle of leather as he slipped off his jacket and let it drop to the floor with a heavy thwump. The urge to snap at him to pick it up and deal with it properly was so powerful he almost had to bite his own tongue to keep from breaking the illusion of unconsciousness. Stupid Lister and his stupid sloppy habits and his stupid leather jacket and gloves and his stupid warm ha—
Smeg. Not again.
He clicked his tongue in frustration and then stiffened immediately in regret when he heard Lister pause, probably to look over at him, trying to gauge if he was awake or not. He absolutely did not want to have to talk to him right now, didn’t want to have to even look at him. The only words he’d said at all in the last several hours had been to brusquely and pointedly inform him and the others that he was going to bed early and did not wish to be disturbed. He didn’t want to change that now.
He held his breath as he waited for Lister to start moving again, not daring to risk cracking open an eye to take a peek.
Heavy footsteps approached and then stopped just shy of the ladder to the upper bunk and Rimmer wished to God that he had had some sort of duvet cover to shield him from view, feeling altogether far too exposed lying as he was without one.
He wondered how obvious he looked, how tense and unnaturally rigid he appeared trying in vain to feign the illusion of sleep with Lister’s gaze surely scrutinising his every breath. He probably wasn’t fooling him for a minute.
“Rimmer?” Lister’s voice sounded out, tentative, wary. “You awake?”
He sounded like he wanted to talk, like he had something he wanted to say. Rimmer wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction, whatever it was. He pretended he hadn’t heard him, schooled his expression into remaining as neutral and blank as possible and waited for him to give up.
Whether he’d believed Rimmer was really asleep or had simply got the message that he was in no mood for conversation, Lister breathed a heavy, defeated sigh and made to climb up the ladder and if Rimmer hadn’t known better, hadn’t been well aware of the fact that Lister felt not a shred of remorse for lifting him up and then shooting him down earlier on, he would have almost thought he’d sounded a little apologetic, a little guilty.
Once he had safely clambered his way up and out of sight, Rimmer waited a good few moments more for Lister to get himself settled, listening closely until he heard his breathing even out and the first quiet little snores begin emanating from him before he finally opened his eyes and glowered furiously up at the underside of the bunk with such intensity his glare alone could have bored holes in the solid metal.
He envied how easily Lister could just drift off to sleep, as if it was as simple as flicking off a switch. That was all fine and well when you didn’t have a loud and obnoxious brain that wouldn’t shut itself up long enough to let you rest, let alone an infuriating leg that still wouldn’t let go of the sensation of one of the last somewhat meaningful physical touches it had ever felt and would ever feel again.
Unconsciously, the thumb of his hand stroked little circles across that same maddening little spot, tracing the edges of Lister’s invisible palm print, mapping it out in his mind, unwittingly committing it more and more to memory as though he was carving its shape deep into his very skin.
He was going to have to get used to this, he realised begrudgingly, beginning to move at last into some reluctant form of acceptance. One way or another he would simply have to learn to adjust to it and live with it moving forwards, and hope that like most of his other distant memories of human touch it too would eventually fade on its own with time.
Maybe it was the emotional exhaustion of the day’s events finally catching up with him after everything, maybe it was something else, maybe he was just lonely and tired of the prospect of never touching – never being touched – again but as he let his tired eyes slide closed and felt his breathing begin to gradually match Lister’s, a distant, traitorous, yearning little part of him questioned quietly whether the warmth of Lister’s touch was actually something he wanted to forget at all.
His hand had been so warm…