veronica_rich (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
veronica_rich) wrote2011-09-06 02:40 pm
veronica_rich) wrote2011-09-06 02:40 pm
RD Fic: "Therapy" - 8/9
(Continuation of a Red Dwarf fic - description, disclaimer, and the beginning is back here.
Almost to the end, one part left ....!
Troi-7 blinked steadily as it processed and whorled and judged. Finally: “Did you believe your mental and emotional problems would disappear because you began a relationship with someone you have been saying you did not love?”
“No, I don’t guess … so,” Mr. Arnold stumbled out. “I thought it would help, though; that I’d broken one of my family’s taboos, so maybe the others would sort of fall off, too.”
The telepathic machine smoothly replied, “If I may, that was hardly the first taboo of your parents that you broke. You have never conducted your life quite as they intended or planned for you, have you?” The human-hologram furrowed his brows at Troi-7, radiating tendrils of confusion. “Conversely, you still cannot quite break this one.”
“What does that mean?” The patient was chewing at his thumbnail, nostrils flared at the 6000.
“Regarding Mr. David, of course.” Mr. Arnold blinked, and his tense, confused thoughts briefly parted to make way for a warm, pleasant, glad memory of some sort. It was the same feeble glow Troi-7 had detected when the Starbug crew first reactivated it, only not quite so feeble now. “I want you to say out loud how you regard him.”
“What?” It was short, irritated, snappish, and high. “Why do I have to tell you? I’ve told him already.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I-” Mr. Arnold bit off the words. Troi-7 kept silent but if it had been installed with the simulated eyebrows feature, one would be cocked loftily right about now. He took a deep breath. “Well, obviously, you know, you can read my bloody mind, I toldhimIlovehim.” More thumbnail-chewing, legs crossed tightly, shoulders trying not to hunch.
“That is not what you said to him. What did you say?”
“I did! I said to the walking curry stain, I said, ‘I lov-” Mr. Arnold paused again, frowning to himself thoughtfully. “Oh. Maybe I didn’t say that in those exact words. But I said close to it.”
“Engaging in homosexual sexual activity is clearly not the problem any longer,” Troi-7 pointed out. The man fidgeted, but didn’t object. “The issue appears to be your ability to emotionally connect with someone in an equal capacity without the buffer of sarcastic defense and verbal jibes.”
“To be fair, that last part’s gotten kind of fun,” Mr. Arnold muttered, not low enough.
The machine beeped as it examined the hologram’s inner algorithms further. “You are really not so different from what you were as a child.”
“That supposed to be a compliment?” His tone said it wasn’t.
“You were a sensitive child, more interested in drawing and singing and playacting than in the militaristic endeavors of your father. You have said as much, in a previous session. I can play it back if you-”
“We’ll stipulate it, okay?” Mr. Arnold sounded peeved. “Get on with it.”
“You tried very hard to make friends with other children, but the companions you chose were not the ones your parents deemed suitable for, as I believe you put it, ‘A budding Alexander.’ So you had few or no friends. Eventually, you shut down in any emotional-positive manner. I believe this is what allowed you to seek your juvenile emancipation.” It paused, modulating its voice softener. “For what it is worth, Mr. Arnold, I do not believe that decision was a mistake. You are perhaps better off than you think yourself to be, or than you would otherwise be, as a result of that legal action.”
“A reanimated dead first technician who barely lost his virginity before the Big One,” he muttered again, louder this time. “At the age of thirty-one.” Troi-7 was silent. “Well, go on; you like when I admit how pathetic I am, don’t you? When I say out loud what’s in my head. Your raisin d’être, miladdo?”
Had Troi-7 been installed with the deep-breathing option, it would have sighed mightily at this juncture. (There seemed to be a lot that had been left uninstalled. Apparently the JMC had been one cheap corporate bastard.) “I was going to explain that in my estimation, you possess a very deep well of willingness to show affection, friendship, and love to those who are able to coax you to tap into it. You were injured emotionally at quite a young and formative age, and are still in recovery from that.”
Mr. Arnold’s mouth was set a very tight, thin line, his eyes pointed at the seat of the chair the mechanoid occupied. Troi-7 expected him to deny and bluster and generally verbally slice and dice as usual. “Lister is … patient,” he finally said, softly. “He listens to me, even when he doesn’t want to. He listens to all of us, probably mostly when he doesn’t want to. He’s messy and all over the place, and all that – but he’s good. He goes by his heart. I … like that he’s like that, even when he skitters over my last nerve.”
“I believe you should tell him that.” Mr. Arnold cocked his eyebrow at that. Show-off, Troi-7 thought (it had been installed with internal monologue, which was no great feat since it was one of DivaDroid’s few free amenities, along with the religion chip). “It is perfectly normal and acceptable within the confines of an intimate relationship to express fond feelings for positive traits the other partner possesses.” It paused. “But not in front of your other crewmates, perhaps.”
*****
It was the day from ass. Lister had surely put up with worse, but he couldn’t remember everything being such a pain all at once. First there’d been the cockpit console dimming and slowly winking out. “Oi!” he’d demanded as he collared Kryten on dusting walkabout. “You didn’t decide to give the computer a spring cleaning like on the Nova 5, did you?”
“Of course not, sir!” Kryten and wrung his blocky hands. “It’s not reciting French poetry – is it?” He peeked around Lister’s shoulder into the cockpit. “Are there bubbles?”
He hadn’t answered, off to look for the Cat. Lister had rapped loudly on the locker beneath the felinoid, until he opened one lazy eye and glared down at his assaulter. “What do you want, monkey?”
“What’d you do to the console last night?” Lister wanted to know. The Cat closed his eyes and settled in again to purr. “HEY!” Lister beat on the locker twice, sharply. “What. Did. You. Do?”
Now both narrow eyes were open, and fangs were showing in an unamused smile. “Nothing,” he announced quite clearly. “I sat there, and I monitored, and I turned the wheel when I had to. Just like every watch.”
“Then why did it go out?”
“Maybe Magnet Head shook a wire loose when he was yanking it back and forth with you stretched out over it two nights ago.” The Cat’s teeth gleamed.
Behind him, Kryten had followed, still fretting. “Perhaps I was sleep-cleaning again! Oh, sir!”
Lister ignored him and pointed imperiously at the Cat. “That never happened.”
“Buddy, your handprints were smeared all over the top shiny part the next morning, and the air in there reeked of it.” Cat pulled a face. “I know action when I smell it. This nose is in the know.”
“I grabbed it once when I leaned over it to straighten one of the knobs!”
“Perhaps you’d better check the security camera in the control room,” Kryten unhappily conceded. “It may show if I somehow wandered in there when I was supposed to be recharging, and put soapy water in the console, instead.”
“I think the knobs you were looking for were probably behind you,” Cat dryly observed, still watching Lister contemptuously and twitching one ear.
“Oh, here we go.” Lister rolled his eyes and crossed his arms aggressively. “You’ve got a problem with me and Rimmer, just-”
“You could keep your monkey sex in your own cage like any decent Cat and I do not car-”
“Spare Head Three!” Kryten exclaimed, cutting him off. “He’s had it in for me since we came aboard, sirs! I’d stake my remaining battery life on him being responsible for doing-”
Lister had had it. Some distant part of him was grateful this was Kochanski’s sleep period, at least. “WOULD YOU BOTH JUST SHUT THE SMEGGING HELL UP?” he roared, waving his arms between them. “You!” He pointed at Kryten. “Maybe it’s just a bulb, now that I think about it! Could you just check that, please?” He whipped his head up toward the Cat. “You! As long as I don’t make you watch what I’m doing when I’m with- Wait, what camera?” He turned back to Kryten. “There’s a camera in the cockpit?”
“Of course, Mr. Lister. All JMC vessels are equipped with anti-theft and crew training performance recording devices. I thought you knew-”
“What the smegging smeg’s a security camera doing in there?” His voice, which had modulated, was going back up again, and he felt his face flaring hot. “In case you hadn’t noticed, there are only five of us, and I don’t think anybody’s going to be stealing the smegging transport!” He noticed Kryten looked close to committing android seppuku, his mouth widening and his face elongating as much as able in his version of emotional distress. “Oh, wait now, Kryt, no – look, calm the smeg down, yeah? I didn’t say it was your fault, I was just asking a question!” Lister scrubbed at his face and took a couple of deep breaths. “ Badly, okay? I shouldn’t yell at you. ‘S not your fault.”
“Don’t sweat it, buddy.” The Cat’s equanimity was never hard for him to recover, and he yawned, showing all his sharpest teeth. “Nobody on this tin can wants to watch the tape of you and Tight Pants doing anything.”
On to the final part
Almost to the end, one part left ....!
Troi-7 blinked steadily as it processed and whorled and judged. Finally: “Did you believe your mental and emotional problems would disappear because you began a relationship with someone you have been saying you did not love?”
“No, I don’t guess … so,” Mr. Arnold stumbled out. “I thought it would help, though; that I’d broken one of my family’s taboos, so maybe the others would sort of fall off, too.”
The telepathic machine smoothly replied, “If I may, that was hardly the first taboo of your parents that you broke. You have never conducted your life quite as they intended or planned for you, have you?” The human-hologram furrowed his brows at Troi-7, radiating tendrils of confusion. “Conversely, you still cannot quite break this one.”
“What does that mean?” The patient was chewing at his thumbnail, nostrils flared at the 6000.
“Regarding Mr. David, of course.” Mr. Arnold blinked, and his tense, confused thoughts briefly parted to make way for a warm, pleasant, glad memory of some sort. It was the same feeble glow Troi-7 had detected when the Starbug crew first reactivated it, only not quite so feeble now. “I want you to say out loud how you regard him.”
“What?” It was short, irritated, snappish, and high. “Why do I have to tell you? I’ve told him already.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I-” Mr. Arnold bit off the words. Troi-7 kept silent but if it had been installed with the simulated eyebrows feature, one would be cocked loftily right about now. He took a deep breath. “Well, obviously, you know, you can read my bloody mind, I toldhimIlovehim.” More thumbnail-chewing, legs crossed tightly, shoulders trying not to hunch.
“That is not what you said to him. What did you say?”
“I did! I said to the walking curry stain, I said, ‘I lov-” Mr. Arnold paused again, frowning to himself thoughtfully. “Oh. Maybe I didn’t say that in those exact words. But I said close to it.”
“Engaging in homosexual sexual activity is clearly not the problem any longer,” Troi-7 pointed out. The man fidgeted, but didn’t object. “The issue appears to be your ability to emotionally connect with someone in an equal capacity without the buffer of sarcastic defense and verbal jibes.”
“To be fair, that last part’s gotten kind of fun,” Mr. Arnold muttered, not low enough.
The machine beeped as it examined the hologram’s inner algorithms further. “You are really not so different from what you were as a child.”
“That supposed to be a compliment?” His tone said it wasn’t.
“You were a sensitive child, more interested in drawing and singing and playacting than in the militaristic endeavors of your father. You have said as much, in a previous session. I can play it back if you-”
“We’ll stipulate it, okay?” Mr. Arnold sounded peeved. “Get on with it.”
“You tried very hard to make friends with other children, but the companions you chose were not the ones your parents deemed suitable for, as I believe you put it, ‘A budding Alexander.’ So you had few or no friends. Eventually, you shut down in any emotional-positive manner. I believe this is what allowed you to seek your juvenile emancipation.” It paused, modulating its voice softener. “For what it is worth, Mr. Arnold, I do not believe that decision was a mistake. You are perhaps better off than you think yourself to be, or than you would otherwise be, as a result of that legal action.”
“A reanimated dead first technician who barely lost his virginity before the Big One,” he muttered again, louder this time. “At the age of thirty-one.” Troi-7 was silent. “Well, go on; you like when I admit how pathetic I am, don’t you? When I say out loud what’s in my head. Your raisin d’être, miladdo?”
Had Troi-7 been installed with the deep-breathing option, it would have sighed mightily at this juncture. (There seemed to be a lot that had been left uninstalled. Apparently the JMC had been one cheap corporate bastard.) “I was going to explain that in my estimation, you possess a very deep well of willingness to show affection, friendship, and love to those who are able to coax you to tap into it. You were injured emotionally at quite a young and formative age, and are still in recovery from that.”
Mr. Arnold’s mouth was set a very tight, thin line, his eyes pointed at the seat of the chair the mechanoid occupied. Troi-7 expected him to deny and bluster and generally verbally slice and dice as usual. “Lister is … patient,” he finally said, softly. “He listens to me, even when he doesn’t want to. He listens to all of us, probably mostly when he doesn’t want to. He’s messy and all over the place, and all that – but he’s good. He goes by his heart. I … like that he’s like that, even when he skitters over my last nerve.”
“I believe you should tell him that.” Mr. Arnold cocked his eyebrow at that. Show-off, Troi-7 thought (it had been installed with internal monologue, which was no great feat since it was one of DivaDroid’s few free amenities, along with the religion chip). “It is perfectly normal and acceptable within the confines of an intimate relationship to express fond feelings for positive traits the other partner possesses.” It paused. “But not in front of your other crewmates, perhaps.”
*****
It was the day from ass. Lister had surely put up with worse, but he couldn’t remember everything being such a pain all at once. First there’d been the cockpit console dimming and slowly winking out. “Oi!” he’d demanded as he collared Kryten on dusting walkabout. “You didn’t decide to give the computer a spring cleaning like on the Nova 5, did you?”
“Of course not, sir!” Kryten and wrung his blocky hands. “It’s not reciting French poetry – is it?” He peeked around Lister’s shoulder into the cockpit. “Are there bubbles?”
He hadn’t answered, off to look for the Cat. Lister had rapped loudly on the locker beneath the felinoid, until he opened one lazy eye and glared down at his assaulter. “What do you want, monkey?”
“What’d you do to the console last night?” Lister wanted to know. The Cat closed his eyes and settled in again to purr. “HEY!” Lister beat on the locker twice, sharply. “What. Did. You. Do?”
Now both narrow eyes were open, and fangs were showing in an unamused smile. “Nothing,” he announced quite clearly. “I sat there, and I monitored, and I turned the wheel when I had to. Just like every watch.”
“Then why did it go out?”
“Maybe Magnet Head shook a wire loose when he was yanking it back and forth with you stretched out over it two nights ago.” The Cat’s teeth gleamed.
Behind him, Kryten had followed, still fretting. “Perhaps I was sleep-cleaning again! Oh, sir!”
Lister ignored him and pointed imperiously at the Cat. “That never happened.”
“Buddy, your handprints were smeared all over the top shiny part the next morning, and the air in there reeked of it.” Cat pulled a face. “I know action when I smell it. This nose is in the know.”
“I grabbed it once when I leaned over it to straighten one of the knobs!”
“Perhaps you’d better check the security camera in the control room,” Kryten unhappily conceded. “It may show if I somehow wandered in there when I was supposed to be recharging, and put soapy water in the console, instead.”
“I think the knobs you were looking for were probably behind you,” Cat dryly observed, still watching Lister contemptuously and twitching one ear.
“Oh, here we go.” Lister rolled his eyes and crossed his arms aggressively. “You’ve got a problem with me and Rimmer, just-”
“You could keep your monkey sex in your own cage like any decent Cat and I do not car-”
“Spare Head Three!” Kryten exclaimed, cutting him off. “He’s had it in for me since we came aboard, sirs! I’d stake my remaining battery life on him being responsible for doing-”
Lister had had it. Some distant part of him was grateful this was Kochanski’s sleep period, at least. “WOULD YOU BOTH JUST SHUT THE SMEGGING HELL UP?” he roared, waving his arms between them. “You!” He pointed at Kryten. “Maybe it’s just a bulb, now that I think about it! Could you just check that, please?” He whipped his head up toward the Cat. “You! As long as I don’t make you watch what I’m doing when I’m with- Wait, what camera?” He turned back to Kryten. “There’s a camera in the cockpit?”
“Of course, Mr. Lister. All JMC vessels are equipped with anti-theft and crew training performance recording devices. I thought you knew-”
“What the smegging smeg’s a security camera doing in there?” His voice, which had modulated, was going back up again, and he felt his face flaring hot. “In case you hadn’t noticed, there are only five of us, and I don’t think anybody’s going to be stealing the smegging transport!” He noticed Kryten looked close to committing android seppuku, his mouth widening and his face elongating as much as able in his version of emotional distress. “Oh, wait now, Kryt, no – look, calm the smeg down, yeah? I didn’t say it was your fault, I was just asking a question!” Lister scrubbed at his face and took a couple of deep breaths. “ Badly, okay? I shouldn’t yell at you. ‘S not your fault.”
“Don’t sweat it, buddy.” The Cat’s equanimity was never hard for him to recover, and he yawned, showing all his sharpest teeth. “Nobody on this tin can wants to watch the tape of you and Tight Pants doing anything.”
On to the final part