RD Fic: "Therapy" - 9/9
Sep. 8th, 2011 03:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
veronica_rich(Final part of a Red Dwarf fic - description, disclaimer, and the beginning is back here.
For better or worse - yeah, it's done now. :-)
And so this is how Rimmer found Lister a little over an hour later in the cockpit, balancing on a stool in a back corner of the little room, a screwdriver in his mouth and a can of lager balanced on a nearby high-up shelf. He sensed the hologram watching him a moment before he heard, “All right, I’ll bite – what are you doing, Lister?”
“‘M disablin’ duh skurty karra,” Lister muttered around the tool, fingers trying to finish unscrewing the last screw he’d loosened.
“You know that’s expressly against Space Corps regulations and can be prosecuted as a serious crime, under Section-”
Lister took the screwdriver from his mouth halfway through the spiel. He was not in the mood. “You do know the amount of a toss I give is inversely proportional to the string of letters you’re about to rattle off?” he countered. “Anyway, it’ll be the wrong subsection,” he muttered, pulling the camera housing free and stepping forward, down onto the floor. “Probably have to do instead with the protocol of blowing aliens while they’re invading the arboretum or something.”
Instead of correcting him or arguing, Rimmer pressed his lips together tightly and stared at Lister, eyes narrowed. Surprisingly, it passed in short order, and the taller man uncrossed his arms and let them hang to his side. “Kryten told me you’ve had a barking mad shift.”
“Life is such,” Lister shrugged, still irritated with the day, other creatures – everything. What business did Rimmer have not protesting?
“What are you going to do with that?” He nodded toward the disabled camera in Lister’s arms.
“Space junk. Why?”
Rimmer peered over the mess, brow furrowed. “Could come in handy sometime. Maybe you better just put it in storage or something?”
Why was the man being so obstinately conciliatory? “What on Earth do you imagine we’re ever going to do with a three-million-year-old security camera?”
“If it didn’t still work, you wouldn’t be making the effort to take it down, would you?” Rimmer folded his arms. “There’d be no need.”
“Maybe I just thought it was taking up room.”
“Your dirty socks take up room in the sleeping quarters. So do your dirty cups and your worn underpants. You don’t seem to care much about those.”
“Ohhh, now we get at it, eh?” Lister dumped the camera junk into the back chair Rimmer usually took. “This is going to be a treatise on my slovenly habits.”
“Well, wonders don’t cease.” Rimmer arched a brow. “You know a couple of complicated words.”
Lister’s grin was feral. “Oh, I know lots of things.” He eyed Rimmer slyly. “Maybe even some you don’t.”
Rimmer exhaled suddenly, nostrils wide. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What do you think?” Lister threw back, cryptically.
“Here we go!” Rimmer threw his hands into the air. “You still have to put me down and take the piss out of anything good!”
Lister widened his eyes innocently “What? What’d I say?” In the back of his mind, he knew he was being a pugnacious shit, but it hardly mattered. This just felt right; clearly he and Rimmer had never been meant to have a peaceful, normal, typical life together.
“Quit implying I don’t know what I’m doing in bed!”
“I’m not saying you don’t know what you’re doing in bed!” Lister snarled. “I’m saying you don’t know when to back off! I wanted to be left alone! I’ve had a really horrible day, dealing with those two, and I knew you wouldn’t help at all!”
“Well, excuse the hell out of me!” Rimmer shot back. “I’m such a lousy date because I come in trying to show some sympathy and asking questions about your day just because I don’t know how to say I love you, and you smegging well scream at me for it! You want alone time, you’ve got it, bucko! I don’t need to stick around and be told I really am terrible in bed, next!”
“Why are you so fixated on how you are- Hold up, what?” Rimmer was halfway across the midsection to the metal staircase when Lister stuck his head out the cockpit door. “You just say you love me?”
Not stopping or turning, Rimmer waved him off with one hand. “What did you say?” Lister demanded again, louder.
Rimmer paused a few steps up and turned halfway, crouching over the rail and glaring at him. “What do you think?” he spat, smacking the rail and straightening, resuming his quick ascent.
Lister made it to the bottom step as Rimmer neared the top, where Lister could see his back was ramrod stiff, fists clenched at his sides. “Tell me again!” he called up the dimly-lighted steps. “Say it right!”
“What do you mean?” He hadn’t turned around, but he’d stopped on the penultimate step, head facing sideways.
“I mean,” Lister said, one hand on the rail, taking two steps up, lowering his voice to a normal pitch, “say it normally. Tell me properly.” He took two more steps, breathing harder, but it wasn’t from climbing or arguing. “Don’t yell it at me in the middle of a fight.”
“You started the fight, I didn’t!”
They hadn’t had a tiff in two or three weeks, nor a row in longer than that. “Yeah,” Lister admitted, taking two more steps, halfway up now. “It’s habit, y’know? It’s just … what we do, what we’ve done, for so long.”
“I think I should leave you on shift and get some sleep,” Rimmer said in his old imperiousness.
“No.” Lister jogged up the last several steps. He waited; with a heavy sigh, Rimmer finally placed his feet to turn around. He planted himself on the top step, and Lister moved to sit next to him. It was a tight fit on the narrow stairs but he took Rimmer’s closest hand, threaded the slender fingers through his own, and covered the back with his other hand, letting it all rest on Rimmer’s thigh. “I shouldn’t have bitten your head off.”
“Listy …” Rimmer looked away, then directly at him. “Just don’t treat the other one that way.”
It took a couple of seconds to sink in, and then Lister started laughing. Rimmer kept his straight face, only tiny wrinkles around his eyes giving anything away, for at least another five seconds. “Yeah,” Lister nodded, squeezing his hand. He was getting used to their newly-complicated signals. “I do, you, too, Arn.”
*****
A few months later, Troi-7 went missing. Every nook and cranny of Starbug was searched, to no avail. It wasn’t with Kryten’s spare heads, it hadn’t rolled under any shelves or tables, it wasn’t stacked with the Cat’s other shiny hoard, Kochanski hadn’t smuggled it out in her skintight suit when they met back up again with her Starbuggers for her to return, and it wasn’t in anyone’s quarters. It just wasn’t.
At last, Lister hypothesized it had accidentally gotten in with the compacted refuse and probably been jettisoned one Tuesday night; this nearly led to Rimmer and Kryten in a grudge match over Kryten allegedly not checking the garbage well enough, stopped only by Lister threatening to bolt his used underpants to the deck and make them impossible for either to pick up to throw out an airlock or to launder.
As it happened, at around the same time the Series 6000 disappeared, the Cat did find something new and shiny and jingly. He looked around to make sure nobody else had spotted the key ring with all manner of smaller silvery key rings hooked to it, then sat in the middle of the corridor shaking and batting at for a full three minutes before pocketing it and striding back to his hidey-hole to keep his new treasure safe.
But he needn’t have worried; those key rings didn’t intend to be found for a long while. The elderly telepathic polymorph, which had taken its long-lived shape millions of years ago before hibernating in a self-imposed energy-saving stasis after its crew’s deaths, could only ingest one strong negative emotion at a time – and had finally remembered how to shift again out of necessity, having eventually run out of Mr. Arnold’s angst and bitterness. The polymorph needed steady nourishment, and the stream from his “patient” had been waning progressively, with only occasional spikes, for months.
But, Mr. Cat! The felinoid’s vanity had a smooth, lovely flavor the polymorph had been craving for a long while now. Best of all, it was seemingly limitless and easily available for the small price of shifting into something different in Mr. Cat’s pile of Small Shiny Things every couple of days. All it had to do was avoid the furious cleaning of that damnable service android.
Then again, the former Troi-7 considered while resting with only a faint jingle, guilt is wonderful comfort food, too …
For better or worse - yeah, it's done now. :-)
And so this is how Rimmer found Lister a little over an hour later in the cockpit, balancing on a stool in a back corner of the little room, a screwdriver in his mouth and a can of lager balanced on a nearby high-up shelf. He sensed the hologram watching him a moment before he heard, “All right, I’ll bite – what are you doing, Lister?”
“‘M disablin’ duh skurty karra,” Lister muttered around the tool, fingers trying to finish unscrewing the last screw he’d loosened.
“You know that’s expressly against Space Corps regulations and can be prosecuted as a serious crime, under Section-”
Lister took the screwdriver from his mouth halfway through the spiel. He was not in the mood. “You do know the amount of a toss I give is inversely proportional to the string of letters you’re about to rattle off?” he countered. “Anyway, it’ll be the wrong subsection,” he muttered, pulling the camera housing free and stepping forward, down onto the floor. “Probably have to do instead with the protocol of blowing aliens while they’re invading the arboretum or something.”
Instead of correcting him or arguing, Rimmer pressed his lips together tightly and stared at Lister, eyes narrowed. Surprisingly, it passed in short order, and the taller man uncrossed his arms and let them hang to his side. “Kryten told me you’ve had a barking mad shift.”
“Life is such,” Lister shrugged, still irritated with the day, other creatures – everything. What business did Rimmer have not protesting?
“What are you going to do with that?” He nodded toward the disabled camera in Lister’s arms.
“Space junk. Why?”
Rimmer peered over the mess, brow furrowed. “Could come in handy sometime. Maybe you better just put it in storage or something?”
Why was the man being so obstinately conciliatory? “What on Earth do you imagine we’re ever going to do with a three-million-year-old security camera?”
“If it didn’t still work, you wouldn’t be making the effort to take it down, would you?” Rimmer folded his arms. “There’d be no need.”
“Maybe I just thought it was taking up room.”
“Your dirty socks take up room in the sleeping quarters. So do your dirty cups and your worn underpants. You don’t seem to care much about those.”
“Ohhh, now we get at it, eh?” Lister dumped the camera junk into the back chair Rimmer usually took. “This is going to be a treatise on my slovenly habits.”
“Well, wonders don’t cease.” Rimmer arched a brow. “You know a couple of complicated words.”
Lister’s grin was feral. “Oh, I know lots of things.” He eyed Rimmer slyly. “Maybe even some you don’t.”
Rimmer exhaled suddenly, nostrils wide. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What do you think?” Lister threw back, cryptically.
“Here we go!” Rimmer threw his hands into the air. “You still have to put me down and take the piss out of anything good!”
Lister widened his eyes innocently “What? What’d I say?” In the back of his mind, he knew he was being a pugnacious shit, but it hardly mattered. This just felt right; clearly he and Rimmer had never been meant to have a peaceful, normal, typical life together.
“Quit implying I don’t know what I’m doing in bed!”
“I’m not saying you don’t know what you’re doing in bed!” Lister snarled. “I’m saying you don’t know when to back off! I wanted to be left alone! I’ve had a really horrible day, dealing with those two, and I knew you wouldn’t help at all!”
“Well, excuse the hell out of me!” Rimmer shot back. “I’m such a lousy date because I come in trying to show some sympathy and asking questions about your day just because I don’t know how to say I love you, and you smegging well scream at me for it! You want alone time, you’ve got it, bucko! I don’t need to stick around and be told I really am terrible in bed, next!”
“Why are you so fixated on how you are- Hold up, what?” Rimmer was halfway across the midsection to the metal staircase when Lister stuck his head out the cockpit door. “You just say you love me?”
Not stopping or turning, Rimmer waved him off with one hand. “What did you say?” Lister demanded again, louder.
Rimmer paused a few steps up and turned halfway, crouching over the rail and glaring at him. “What do you think?” he spat, smacking the rail and straightening, resuming his quick ascent.
Lister made it to the bottom step as Rimmer neared the top, where Lister could see his back was ramrod stiff, fists clenched at his sides. “Tell me again!” he called up the dimly-lighted steps. “Say it right!”
“What do you mean?” He hadn’t turned around, but he’d stopped on the penultimate step, head facing sideways.
“I mean,” Lister said, one hand on the rail, taking two steps up, lowering his voice to a normal pitch, “say it normally. Tell me properly.” He took two more steps, breathing harder, but it wasn’t from climbing or arguing. “Don’t yell it at me in the middle of a fight.”
“You started the fight, I didn’t!”
They hadn’t had a tiff in two or three weeks, nor a row in longer than that. “Yeah,” Lister admitted, taking two more steps, halfway up now. “It’s habit, y’know? It’s just … what we do, what we’ve done, for so long.”
“I think I should leave you on shift and get some sleep,” Rimmer said in his old imperiousness.
“No.” Lister jogged up the last several steps. He waited; with a heavy sigh, Rimmer finally placed his feet to turn around. He planted himself on the top step, and Lister moved to sit next to him. It was a tight fit on the narrow stairs but he took Rimmer’s closest hand, threaded the slender fingers through his own, and covered the back with his other hand, letting it all rest on Rimmer’s thigh. “I shouldn’t have bitten your head off.”
“Listy …” Rimmer looked away, then directly at him. “Just don’t treat the other one that way.”
It took a couple of seconds to sink in, and then Lister started laughing. Rimmer kept his straight face, only tiny wrinkles around his eyes giving anything away, for at least another five seconds. “Yeah,” Lister nodded, squeezing his hand. He was getting used to their newly-complicated signals. “I do, you, too, Arn.”
*****
A few months later, Troi-7 went missing. Every nook and cranny of Starbug was searched, to no avail. It wasn’t with Kryten’s spare heads, it hadn’t rolled under any shelves or tables, it wasn’t stacked with the Cat’s other shiny hoard, Kochanski hadn’t smuggled it out in her skintight suit when they met back up again with her Starbuggers for her to return, and it wasn’t in anyone’s quarters. It just wasn’t.
At last, Lister hypothesized it had accidentally gotten in with the compacted refuse and probably been jettisoned one Tuesday night; this nearly led to Rimmer and Kryten in a grudge match over Kryten allegedly not checking the garbage well enough, stopped only by Lister threatening to bolt his used underpants to the deck and make them impossible for either to pick up to throw out an airlock or to launder.
As it happened, at around the same time the Series 6000 disappeared, the Cat did find something new and shiny and jingly. He looked around to make sure nobody else had spotted the key ring with all manner of smaller silvery key rings hooked to it, then sat in the middle of the corridor shaking and batting at for a full three minutes before pocketing it and striding back to his hidey-hole to keep his new treasure safe.
But he needn’t have worried; those key rings didn’t intend to be found for a long while. The elderly telepathic polymorph, which had taken its long-lived shape millions of years ago before hibernating in a self-imposed energy-saving stasis after its crew’s deaths, could only ingest one strong negative emotion at a time – and had finally remembered how to shift again out of necessity, having eventually run out of Mr. Arnold’s angst and bitterness. The polymorph needed steady nourishment, and the stream from his “patient” had been waning progressively, with only occasional spikes, for months.
But, Mr. Cat! The felinoid’s vanity had a smooth, lovely flavor the polymorph had been craving for a long while now. Best of all, it was seemingly limitless and easily available for the small price of shifting into something different in Mr. Cat’s pile of Small Shiny Things every couple of days. All it had to do was avoid the furious cleaning of that damnable service android.
Then again, the former Troi-7 considered while resting with only a faint jingle, guilt is wonderful comfort food, too …
