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Rimmer excuses himself after they manage lift-off from the Psi-Moon. He has no dignity left to preserve — that ship sailed long ago — but he needs to be alone regardless, unable to stand being around the others for a second longer.
He could understand Kryten and the Cat just telling him what he needed to hear in order to escape the quicksand; it's not like they've ever been particularly pally. They can't stand each other most of the time and that's fine by him. It doesn't hurt one jot, to be disliked by a jumped-up mechanoid and an annoying, self-obsessed feline. At least that's what he tells himself.
But Lister? Lister? Rimmer hates with every particle of his hologram that it cuts so deep to know Lister hadn't meant a word of it.
He lowers himself wearily to his bunk, perching on the edge of it, elbows resting on his thighs. With a sigh, he scrubs his hands over his face.
"Why the smeg should I care?" He asks aloud, even as his fingers curl in frustration into his hair.
He cares because Lister knows him better than anyone, sharing the bond of knowledge on what life was like before, back on the Dwarf. He cares because out of everyone who ever got stuck with him as a bunk mate, Lister was the only one who never asked to swap. He cares because despite how they push each other's buttons, he'd always deep down, secretly believed that Lister did in fact care too, at least a smidge.
Rimmer feels the embarrassment like bile in his throat, stuck there like the remnants of a triple fried egg, chilli chutney sandwich. He's horrified that the sweet talk worked, that the smallest bit of kindness had been enough to save all their sorry backsides from a hell of his own making. It had left him feeling flayed open, exposed in a uniquely horrible way; the others knew how starved he had been of affection and friendship, of tangible proof that he was wanted and liked, and they had used it to their advantage and dropped the act the second they no longer needed to pretend. There could be no denying that he had needed to hear those things, that they had soothed his self-loathing so instantaneously, and so how could he face them again?
He's pathetic. He knows it, they know it, and it hurts despite a lifetime of the same, from his parents and brothers and peers alike. What surprises him when it really shouldn't is that it hurts from Lister more than it has ever hurt from anyone else.
Rimmer wants to be angry. He wants to shout and scream and trash Starbug, kick the panels off the walls and yank wires from their sockets. He wants a slagging match, a blazing row, and he wants the ship to crash and burn, to leave his shame in a charred pile of ashes where it will be unrecognisable to anyone again. Instead, his eye twitches, neuroses bubbling under the surface as they so often do, and he represses the anger enough to lie stiffly down on his bunk and face the wall.
He's as lonely and unloved now as he was when he died, his only real accomplishments being the ridiculous swimming certificates he tacked onto his name as credentials. He's dead, floating aimlessly in space, and he's now pretty certain that the three people he's stuck with would be tickety-boo if his power source ran out one day and he blinked out of existence once and for all. They don't want him, they certainly don't need him, and his feelings apparently aren't of any consequence whatsoever.
He's a joke to them, he's a joke to Lister, and it feels like someone's put his light bee in a vice.
Rimmer feels his nose sting with the threat of tears, eyes hot and sharp. Is he really that bad? That repulsive to others? He knows he's a giant gimboid most of the time, barking orders and reeling off the sarcasm and trying in vain to appear cool and in-control. Despite what others may think, he's at least self-aware enough to inwardly acknowledge his many, many, many faults and short-comings. You don't come to be Arnold J. Rimmer without that understanding, and it's half of the reason he is the way he is. He's been obsessed with pulling rank, of taking charge, feeling confident and capable if only for a fleeting moment before he chickens out like a coward when things get real. But he really thought Lister saw beneath all his bluster and umpteen layers of trauma, thought the goit saw him as a friend regardless of his uncountable amount of flaws — or at the very least, someone who wasn't as dispensable as useless cargo, ready to be jettisoned into space in order to travel lighter.
He's a failure, a screw-up, the same useless little boy who had been packed off to school with no faith placed in him to ever pass a thing. He's the same man who wrote 'I Am A Fish' on his exam paper over and over before passing out. He's the same idiot who couldn't even stand to be around himself — as proven by his hologram clone he'd bunked with back on the Dwarf — so how could he expect anyone else to? A few days as roommates and he'd wanted to rip his own stupid H off. He'd resented his own existence.
"Rimmer?"
Oh, fan-smegging-tastic.
He's been so caught up in his little pity party that he completely missed Lister entering their sleeping quarters. The thought of the man coming here to rub salt in the wound, to tease and gloat, makes Rimmer squeeze his eyes shut where he remains. A few tears are forced out as a result, and try as he might, he can't quite conceal the shuddering, shaking breath he takes in an effort to stave off any actual sobs.
"Rimmer, man, are you okay?" Lister asks, and the concern in his voice makes Rimmer want to punch him in his irritating, round face.
How could he possibly be okay, and what does Lister expect him to say here exactly? 'Yes, Lister, I'm actually doing quite fantastic! Remind me to come to you the next time I need an ego boost. The last one really hit the spot. Say, have you considered a career in motivational speaking?'
When he remains motionless and silent, resolutely not letting out even a sniffle, Lister apparently only wants to poke the bruise further.
"Look, what happened back there—"
"Don't." Rimmer bites it out, the repressed anger injected into it. "Just…don't." The second part is more watery, betraying his wobbly lower lip and damp eyes. If Lister hadn't already caught him crying, this would definitely give him away.
It's misery upon misery, and Rimmer is so tired. He's half-tempted to just request to be switched off, anything to avoid whatever this is.
"I wasn't being serious, Rimmer. You know that."
That's exactly the issue, Rimmer thinks bitterly. None of them had been serious when they fed him all the right lines. He can't even bring himself to make a noise in acknowledgement, just stays where he is and hopes a black hole will materialise and swallow him whole.
It's alarming, then, when he feels the bottom of his bunk dip with Lister's weight as he sits down.
"I'm sorry we had to say all that cheesy smeg to get us outta there, but we didn't have a choice," Lister says from above him. "Your head's a right mess, you know that?"
Rimmer's mind jumps to focus on the last sentence, ready to be riled up by the accusation, but he pauses finally. Lister apologised. What on Io is going on? How can he be sorry?
Lister continues. "I'm not gonna lie, I feel pretty rubbish over it. You can be a total pain, Rimmer, but I really hated seeing all that stuff. D'you hate yourself that much, honest?" He sounds…sad? He does, Lister sounds sad, remorseful even, and try as he might, Rimmer can't detect any deception from the other man.
"You know what they say, Lister. If you can't beat them, join them." It's as good a confession as any. It's not as if Lister needs confirmation of his self-deprecation anyway after their experience with it first-hand.
Rimmer hears rather than sees the look of confusion on Lister's face when he speaks again. "Ey? What's that supposed to mean?"
It's this that breaks him. Rimmer flips suddenly, turning on Lister like a cornered animal. "What's that supposed to mean, you ask? It means, Lister, that you'd all be better off without. Holly should never have brought me back," he spits, but his voice catches and he hates it. "I know my head's a mess, Lister, I live in it every damn day! I didn't need all of you reminding me just how detestable I truly am."
Lister looks shocked, truly shocked, lips parted as he stares at Rimmer. "You what? How can you say that after everything we've been through, you doink? Don't get me wrong, Rimmer, you get right on my tits most days but that doesn't mean I hate ya."
"Really!?" Rimmer laughs hollowly, its bitterness echoing around the small room. "Because I seem to recall you having to lie and humiliate me in the process just to make me feel good enough to be able to escape. You couldn't even find a single honest, nice thing to say. Because there aren't any, are there?" He throws his arms up in defeat, shaking his head before hanging it. His head hurts, his eyes are still leaking, and he just wants to sleep for maybe a good millennia or two. "I don't know why he did it. I don't know why he brought me back. To keep you sane, he said, but what about my sanity? It doesn't matter if our crew is four or four thousand, there's still nobody on board who can stand me. Not even you."
"Oh, ey, come on," Lister starts.
"I said don't," Rimmer repeats.
"Will you stop the self-pity whinging for two seconds and listen to me, Rimmer?" Lister asks, setting his jaw sternly.
"Charming. Sorry to be a bother."
Lister just rolls his eyes and sighs. "Look, I said I'm sorry for having to exaggerate, but if we hadn't laid it on heavy like, I don't think we'd have been able to shift Starbug. Just telling you we're mates and we like having you around wouldn't have been enough to scratch the surface of ya self-loathing, Rimmer. You saw the crazy smeg your brain created. Don't take it personally."
"Don't take it personally? How can I not take it personally? It's as personal as it gets!" Rimmer cries, feeling like he's conversing with a brick wall.
"It wasn't all total lies, y'know? Yeah, we pulled your leg at the end, but c'mon man, we've been through too much together for me not to like ya. You must know that?" He stares at Rimmer for a moment, sees the vulnerability and anxiety there, and swallows. "'Course you don't know that, you're Rimmer. Smegging hell. You're me friend, and it wouldn't be the same if you weren't around. Have I gotta start being mushy more often to get it through your thick skull?"
Rimmer sits up with a huff and crosses his arms tightly across his chest. He and Lister are side by side now, but not close enough to touch — which he can do now, amazingly enough. They'd encountered a ship not long back containing a maniac called Legion who'd upgraded him to hard-light. It's been exhilarating, having a real body again, getting to touch and feel and taste. And if his fingers twitch with the urge to reach out to Lister, or if he wishes the stupid goit would just reach out first to save him the pain of having to do so, he blames it on going space crazy after years of being composed solely of soft-light.
Lister frowns at him, Rimmer can see it out of the corner of his eye.
"I'm not lyin'. There's no quicksand now, is there? I don't care how much you wind me up, or how many smeggin' arguments we start. I've never meant any of it, not really. I've never actually wanted you gone—"
"Poppycock, Lister!" Rimmer interjects, pointing a finger. "Has it conveniently slipped your mind when you wanted to switch me off and bring Kochanski back? You'd never have switched me on again."
Lister sighs, rubbing the corner of his eye. "I need a smoke," he mumbles to himself, then looks at Rimmer and tries again. "That was then, okay? Everyone had only just died, I had all these…these feelings, and I hated that all me chances had gone."
"So had mine! I died too, in case you hadn't noticed! My future went up in radiation just as much as everyone else's. At least you kept your pulse, Lister," Rimmer says, tightening his arms around himself further. He wishes, not for the first time this evening, that the quicksand had just taken him with it.
He almost jumps out of his projection when Lister's hand touches his arm tentatively, just above his elbow. Rimmer stares at the hand first, then at Lister, eyes wide.
"I would never ask that of you now," Lister insists. "It wasn't fair, and you had every right to refuse and fight me on it, man. I would have done the same thing. Probably would have twatted you, to be honest."
"As a soft-light hologram?" Rimmer quirks a brow at him.
"You know what I mean," Lister says, and actually laughs, a soft thing that Rimmer can feel where Lister is still touching him.
Silence falls between them for a few moments. Rimmer is acutely aware of Lister's thumb rubbing casually, idly, over his jacket sleeve. It makes thinking about anything other than that very difficult indeed.
But eventually, Rimmer speaks, clearing his throat before he does so. "I'm not stupid. I know the effect I have on people; I was the least popular crew member on Red Dwarf. It just feels like nothing's changed. If Holly could no longer power me, if my light bee got damaged or my personality disc became corrupted, you'd be fine without me."
"Nah. You're wrong."
It's said with such casual self-assurance, like Lister couldn't possibly be anything other than correct, that Rimmer stops avoiding eye contact like the plague and looks at him searchingly. Lister is smiling idiotically, like he's in on a joke Rimmer isn't privy to, and it would set him on edge if the spark in his eyes didn't feel so private and familiar. In this one moment at least, Rimmer doesn't feel mocked or threatened. Lister exudes warmth and an open friendliness, inviting him in.
"I am?" Rimmer asks, perplexed.
"Yeah. Now for God's sake, Rimmer, c'mere," Lister says, then uses his grip on Rimmer's arm to pull him in for a hug.
A hug. He's hugging Lister. Lister is hugging him. It's so out of left field, so completely unexpected. Rimmer feels like a JMC training video trying to buffer as Lister's arms come around him and hold him steady. His own arms hang uselessly at his sides, and Rimmer just blinks.
"You're the only one that really gets it, man," Lister mumbles, chin resting on Rimmer's shoulder, and Rimmer's heart lurches whether it beats or not. "If I didn't have you here, I genuinely don't know what I'd do. I can't even imagine it, and I don't wanna." He pauses, then says, "You can hug me back, by the way. Feel a bit daft like this."
Rimmer won't cry. He won't he won't he won't. After all this time, all this time…
He brings his arms up at once, at first gingerly returning the hug before he settles into it. The feeling of solid warmth combined with Lister's words replaces the lump of shame in his throat with hope. He's careful not to choke on it, barely able to believe what's happening.
"You don't hate me, then?" Rimmer asks meekly.
Lister laughs against his shoulder. "Give over, will ya? 'Course I don't. Neither do the others, for the record. They know as well as I do that there's no Boys from the Dwarf without ya. You're part of the team whether you like it or not. Might as well accept that you're stuck with me."
Me. Not 'us'. Stuck with me.
"Okay," Rimmer accepts quietly, because he doesn't have a clue what else to say that won't make him more pathetic than he already is.
"Okay?" Lister echoes, and he pulls back from the hug enough to look at Rimmer directly, smiling as he does. His gaze roams over Rimmer's short curls, the gleaming H on his forehead, his nostrils that flare slightly under the close scrutiny. It even flits over his lips, just for a blink, and then he meets Rimmer's eyes again.
Rimmer swallows. "Yes. Okay."
If he's honest, he's still half-expecting the other shoe to drop, but it turns out he's anticipating a punchline that will never come, because what Lister does next will stay with him for the rest of his un-life.
Lister kisses him.
It's nothing spectacular, just a simple press of lips at an admittedly pleasing angle, yet to Rimmer it's everything. Lister even lifts up a hand and cups his jaw lightly, a touch that has him fizzing with electrical energy.
Lister breaks the kiss after another rather lovely few seconds and brings their foreheads to rest together. His H presses into Lister's skin and Lister's hand finds the back of his head, fingernails scratching lazily over the cropped hair at his nape. It renders him pliant, almost trance-like, caught in Lister's orbit like always. They sit like that, breathing in each other's space, and Lister is still smiling that same smile when Rimmer dares to peek out of one eye.
"I really did hate seeing all that stuff out there, y'know. Hate the thought of you seeing yourself like that." It makes Rimmer shiver to hear Lister's voice so close, and the sentiment only doubles that reaction. He doesn't even wrinkle his nose at the vague remnants of curry and lager, because it's Lister.
Rimmer plucks up the guts to open both eyes properly, looking down his nose into Lister's waiting gaze.
"Well, it certainly helps knowing that…perhaps there's someone who doesn't think I'm a total tit," he says, and finally, finally feels like it's safe enough to offer Lister a smile in return. Then he adds, bravely, "You could probably pull us off a thousand Psi-Moons at the moment."
It's worth it for the way Lister's smile blooms into a full, shining beam, eyes crinkled. "Yeah?"
A nod and a hum is all Rimmer manages in response, having used up his current quota of bravery.
"Glad to head it, smeghead," Lister says, drawing him back into another hug, tighter this time. "Glad to hear it."