Red Dwarf fic: "On the Table" 1/3
Dec. 29th, 2012 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
veronica_richRed Dwarf fic: "On the Table" (part 1 of 3)
Chars: The Boys, a canon guest star, L/R
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I don't own the concept or the boys, just the thoughts they inspire.
Summary: Spoilers for RDX series through "Entangled." Lister has his work cut out for him convincing Rimmer he doesn't think of him as an object to be lost in a poker game. Even though he totally did.
A/N: Inspired by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
missflibble's Between the Sheets, and a sort-of sequel to that; thanks for the inspiration! Non-betaed, but opinions offered by metalkatt and kronette; all mistakes are my own.
“Bet.” The one-word imperative was punctuated by the jab of a flabby finger.
“Bet …” Lister muttered to himself as he poked through the cards fanned out in his hand. He widened his eyes and lifted them away from his face, trying not to think how there’d been a time not too many years ago yet that he hadn’t had to stand across a room just to see a few smegging cards. “Diamonds?” he asked, then remembered the language barrier and put his cards down, forming his thumbs and forefingers into the shape of a diamond. The chief nodded, and he resumed his hunt for the suit.
“If I knew where any diamonds were on that ship, this’d be a whole lot easier,” he muttered. He pulled out two cards and threw them in the middle of the table, shaking his head. “I mean, people had to give gifts, get married, get engaged – you gotta have diamonds to do that. Could be betting those instead.” He watched the garbage munchers shove their cards together and lean their heads in to have a conference in a language he had no hope of understanding; not for the first time, some adult part in the back of his brain wondered if he should’ve asked Kryten to come along.
I don’t need him, Lister told himself. I’m not a green boy who knows nothing about dealing with non-human lifeforms. He’d followed life signs to the planet hoping to find Kochanski safe and sound, and had instead found engineered lifeforms in possession of some rather advanced-looking ship parts still in fair condition – and more of that GELF moonshine. The shine, the chief and his attendants were all too happy to share freely; the parts, not so much.
And so, poker.
He’d pulled out the deck of worn cards he kept in his inside jacket pocket, the BEGGs had looked confused, and he’d heard jackpot bells in his head.
How long he played those hustlers, he had no idea. But when he’d awakened after passing out and then recovering from the speedy-metabolizing hooch several hours after arriving at the BEGG camp, he’d found his family jewels in lockdown and the keys to Starbug confiscated. He’d argued a bit, then dutifully acknowledged his debt-
-and as he was shrugging into the shoulders of his spacesuit, the chief jabbed a finger aggressively toward the testemolester. “Leggy light-man,” he grunted. “Or BOOM!”
As the others laughed, Lister had nodded and dressed, having no idea what was being referenced. It was only halfway back to the Dwarf, just outside the planet’s atmosphere, that he vaguely recalled his drunken wager just before the last hand was dealt. The memory prickled his skin with sudden cold sweat.
He tried to play off Rimmer’s loss lightly with Kryten, but even the mechanoid regarded him with disapproval. When he thought later that Rimmer knew, but was underplaying his reaction … well, that had made Lister feel worse than any amount of yelling or officious directives-citing. Of course, it was nothing compared to Rimmer kicking him out of his bunk later that day, with a tone that could have frozen a pit of lava in hell.
He lay in his bunk, unable to fall quite to sleep despite being absolutely knackered. Last night had been rough, as Rimmer still refused to listen to any apology and still seemed smegged off over the loss of Irene. Lister had only slept for a couple of hours, and not well. Today, finally, the adrenaline from fear had started to soak back into his body and he’d dragged all day, figuring he’d climb the steps and flop exhausted into his bunk in the evening. Yet here he was, staring at his Jets poster and thinking of the time he’d been successful in a fifty-pound wager against one of the other MegaMart baggers.
Wager. He let his mind drift, nearly asleep. Wager he’d be angry if he knew I was gambling …
“See now … here’s a pitshure.” Lister smiled in what he hoped was beguiling fashion at the BEGGs as he fished through the worn leather wallet he’d never been quite able to give up despite going to a cashless system once joining the Space Corps. The spaces had been converted entirely to useless old membership cards from Earth, the long-defunct JMC pay card, and a few small, carefully-handled photos. There was one of Gran and another of his parents’ wedding (and thank the stars he’d had enough foresight to carry the wallet into stasis for three million years!); there was the tiny passport-sized headshot of Krissie – the first Krissie he’d known and whose smile he’d fallen in love with – a somewhat larger photo of Kochanski – the second one, whom he’d never quite been able to start thinking of as “Krissie” so much as occasionally “Kris” when pressed; and in a fit of nostalgia one night while drinking a few years ago, he’d coaxed the others into letting him use almost the last of the Instamatic film to photograph them. Cat had insisted on posing in front of a mirror for four hours to get just the right outfit and grin, Kryten had gone on for nearly as long about how he was just a mechanoid and not a suitable subject for a personal photo, and Rimmer … he’d been the strangest about it. “Why do you want my photo?” he’d asked, suspicious.
“I’m getting the others, too. Just rounding out my collection, man.”
His frown had deepened. “What are you going to do with it?”
“Same as the others – put it here.” He’d held up his battered wallet.
Rimmer had eyed it for a moment, then asked, “So you’re not going to use it on a dartboard, right?”
“I’m not going to throw sharp things at it,” Lister repeated, sighing. “It’s- it’s a picture. Didn’t you ever have photos made when you were in school?”
“Once,” he’d answered. “Frank and Howard stole them from the mail and went to the grocery, and pasted them all on milk cartons before Mother and Father came home.”
Okay, that wasn’t a bad prank, Lister thought. “For missing children, yeah? That’s not … too horrible, Rimmer.”
“On goat’s milk cartons, Lister. They drew these little horns out of my forehead on each one.” Rimmer mimed this with his forefingers. “And under it, pasted the words HAVE YOU SEEN THIS KID?” Lister just managed not to laugh. “Everybody saw it! That’s when everybody at school started calling me Bonehead.”
If I’d been you, I’d have been grateful a bunch of preadolescent boys were distracted from making something out of “rimmer,” quite frankly, he’d privately thought.
Their three photos had gone into his wallet, but even intoxicated, something told Lister to hold back the picture of Kryten – a mechanoid, especially a cleaning droid, might be seen as something of value to be traded for. He hadn’t given quite the same cautious thought to the practical value of a one-of-a-kind practically indestructible, indefatigable hard-light hologram light bee, mainly because he usually forgot there was one buzzing around inside his …
Well. Not his anything, since he’d been kicked out of Rimmer’s bunk and even his daily conversation now. But that was just since yesterday, and the night before yesterday, he’d gotten progressively drunker and sloppier at cards with a bunch of BEGGs and – to the best of his now rapidly returning memory – had chatted incessantly about Rimmer this and Arn that, and how good he looked in blue and how long the hologram could go without sleep and probably some of his best smiles, to boot. At one point, stupidly drunk, he was certain he could faintly remember having gone on for a good ten minutes about the smeghead’s woodsy green eyes.
In the present, Lister covered his face, rolled to his side, and barely managed to suppress a groan at his own thickheadedness. He was the one who’d given the BEGG chief that ammunition; he had made it abundantly clear not only how practical and attractive such a unique hologram could be for assorted tasks (he was too horrified to plumb his memories deeper to see if he’d defined those “tasks,” but from the way the chief had eyed Rimmer in person, he didn’t have to), but also of what value said hologram was to him, personally. He remembered being puzzled when the chief had suggested he play another hand to try to win back Starbug and use Rimmer as collateral. Buzzed beyond good sense and thinking it was a joke, since people couldn’t be property, he’d readily agreed and figured he had nothing to lose.
The BEGGs had obviously picked up on this and outfitted him with a directive he couldn’t refuse. Lister gulped as he remembered the feel of that ridged metal collar around his neck, the exploder bit gradually warming his happy sacks as zero approached, and the fear of leaving it all in the hands of a woman who only knew what she didn’t know as being correct – raising the process of elimination to a life-threatening art form.
Fine. He’d figured out how this likely happened in the first place; well done, Dave. So how did he go about fixing things with Rimmer? “Arn-” he stage-whispered in the semi-dark room, rolling to his other side to aim it down below before he remembered the guy had moved out to officers’ quarters last night.
Closing his eyes, he sighed and tried to work out how this was going to happen.
*****
Attempt #1:
It was a simple, but poor, apology the next morning; Lister realized it as soon as it was out of his mouth. Just: “I’m sorry, Rimmer. I didn’t mean it.”
It didn’t even warrant a look from the recipient, who kept writing whatever it was he was writing in whatever stupid notebook he was holding at the main console. Lister would have tried again, but decided to retreat and regroup.
Attempt #2:
He let a few hours elapse. He was relieving Rimmer on watch, and as soon Lister took his seat, the other man capped his pen and moved to get up. “Rimmer,” Lister said, swiveling to stop him. “Arn. Please listen; I remember what happened, and I can explain what I did, why it happened.”
“I don’t care,” was the flat reply. He didn’t even make eye contact.
But, Lister reflected a little later, he had spoken. It was the tiniest of cracks in the door, but there it was. He relaxed a little.
Attempt #3:
That night as the three of them sat around with dinner in the sleeping quarters and Kryten tidied the grill, Lister swallowed a bite, wiped his hands on his jeans, and decided to try something new. “Rimmer, look – I’m really sorry I wagered you to those BEGGs. I thought it was a joke when they suggested it, ‘cause I don’t think of you as a thing. I didn’t think they were serious about betting a person.”
Cat and Kryten looked mildly interested, but kept eating and cleaning, respectively. Rimmer kept his eyes on his food, his neck flushing. Lister, still hoping to force him to listen in the presence of company for the sake of appearance if nothing else, stepped it up. “You know I wouldn’t try to get rid of you; not with what you mean.” The flush was creeping higher into his cheeks, and Cat glanced between them, frowning as he licked his sharp teeth clean. “I wish you’d come back to-”
“Lister.” Rimmer cut him off sharply, finally looking him in the eye. “Cut it out.”
“Look, they already know we’re together,” he snapped, letting frustration get the better of him. “You’re the only one trying to pretend different.” He started to slide off his seat as Rimmer tossed his napkin onto the table and got up. “Listen to me, man!”
“Shut up, Lister.” He paused and turned back to the Scouser, pointing. “We are no such thing. You are definitely not my kind of tottie; you’re YOU. Look at you!” He made a cutting motion with his hands to indicate being finished with it. “Leave me alone and go find the person you really want to say you’re sorry to!”
“What’re you talking about? You’re the one I lost in the bet!”
“You wouldn’t have ever lost Kochanski in a bet!” Rimmer’s face was red, but Lister realized with the beginning of a horribly sinking feeling that it wasn’t out of embarrassment. “Oh no, you would’ve made sure all the rest of us BUT her got traded first, including yourself! You wouldn’t have even joked about THAT!” He scrunched his nose and launched into a frighteningly accurate parody of Lister’s accent. “Is it Kochanski? Where’s Kochanski? I can’t live without Kochanski! Of course, I don’t have the bollocks to DO anything about it when she’s here, but when she leaves, I can’t smegging shut UP about her! Kochanski, Kochanski, KOBLOODYHCHANSKI! I HOPE YOU FIND HER AND HAVE FIFTEEN SMEGGING SETS OF TWINS ALL NAMED AFTER THE ENTIRE GODDAMN ZERO-G LEAGUE!”
The hologram took quick, shallow breaths at the end of this, nostrils wide enough for spelunkers and narrowed eyes wild with what had to be indignation or anger. Or both. Cat was perched perfectly on his stool beside Lister, not even twitching. Utensils clinked as Kryten washed them for the third time, unnecessarily, his back to the rest of them. Lister barely managed not to sink down and hide under his side of the table. He didn’t know if he was ashamed or angry, and didn’t want to risk being seen or speaking in case the opposite of what he wanted to express came out.
But Rimmer wasn’t finished. “Maybe then,” he finally managed, dropping his voice back halfway to its usual register, “you’ll be so smegging happy.” And he left the quarters.
Normally, Lister would have taken the next few days of silence from Rimmer and subdued communication from the other two as an indictment to try to find a way to counter the accusations, albeit as coolly as he could manage. But this time, he was thinking far too often about what Rimmer had said – and how not even Kryten had tried to defend him, as the mech often did whenever he and Rimmer got into some row. In point of fact, Kryten hadn’t even tried to verbally comfort Lister since; the closest he’d come was bringing him an extra-sugared coffee that night on watch, the way he knew he liked it, and asking if he would like a snack with it. But no words of support. Somewhere deep inside, Lister was sure he didn’t deserve any.
On the fourth afternoon after the blowup, he and Cat were both in the drive room. “So do you think I talk too much about Kochanski?” he asked partway through the shift.
“Buddy, I don’t care if you talk about every girlfriend you’ve ever had,” Cat answered very frankly. He was filing his nails. “So long as you keep in mind if we ever run across a colony of desperate women that need me to make love to them, we’re stopping for about a week. Maybe two.” He stopped filing for a few seconds. “Maybe just one; don’t want them getting too attached.”
“It’s just that I thought she was dead, and then I found out-”
“Don’t you think you need to be having this talk with Alphabet-Head?” Cat cut him off.
“And how would I set that up, do you imagine?”
“Do I look like Dr. Ruth or Phil?” Cat shrugged. “Take a watch with him. It’s about time you two did again. While we’re on the subject, I’m tired of extra shifts to keep you apart; it’s really cutting into my naps.” He licked a finger and smoothed down an eyebrow, not taking his eyes from the small mirror he held. “You two monkeys not taking responsibility for your stuff’s forcing me to be responsible. Cats don’t do responsibility. When’s the last time you heard ‘tomcattin’ around’ to mean ‘working extra shifts and looking out for others?’”
Lister sighed. “I know. But I need to work out what I say to him before I say it. If I don’t say it right, he’ll never listen to me.”
“Doesn’t sound like he’s listening to you either way. I don’t think he’s gonna buy some slick, jazzed-up version of whatever you’ve got to tell him. You just got to say it.”
“Weren’t you the one lecturing me about thinking ahead?” Lister reminded him. “As in, last month?”
“Sure; but this ain’t for supplies, man.”
On to Part 2
Chars: The Boys, a canon guest star, L/R
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I don't own the concept or the boys, just the thoughts they inspire.
Summary: Spoilers for RDX series through "Entangled." Lister has his work cut out for him convincing Rimmer he doesn't think of him as an object to be lost in a poker game. Even though he totally did.
A/N: Inspired by
missflibble's Between the Sheets, and a sort-of sequel to that; thanks for the inspiration! Non-betaed, but opinions offered by metalkatt and kronette; all mistakes are my own.“Bet.” The one-word imperative was punctuated by the jab of a flabby finger.
“Bet …” Lister muttered to himself as he poked through the cards fanned out in his hand. He widened his eyes and lifted them away from his face, trying not to think how there’d been a time not too many years ago yet that he hadn’t had to stand across a room just to see a few smegging cards. “Diamonds?” he asked, then remembered the language barrier and put his cards down, forming his thumbs and forefingers into the shape of a diamond. The chief nodded, and he resumed his hunt for the suit.
“If I knew where any diamonds were on that ship, this’d be a whole lot easier,” he muttered. He pulled out two cards and threw them in the middle of the table, shaking his head. “I mean, people had to give gifts, get married, get engaged – you gotta have diamonds to do that. Could be betting those instead.” He watched the garbage munchers shove their cards together and lean their heads in to have a conference in a language he had no hope of understanding; not for the first time, some adult part in the back of his brain wondered if he should’ve asked Kryten to come along.
I don’t need him, Lister told himself. I’m not a green boy who knows nothing about dealing with non-human lifeforms. He’d followed life signs to the planet hoping to find Kochanski safe and sound, and had instead found engineered lifeforms in possession of some rather advanced-looking ship parts still in fair condition – and more of that GELF moonshine. The shine, the chief and his attendants were all too happy to share freely; the parts, not so much.
And so, poker.
He’d pulled out the deck of worn cards he kept in his inside jacket pocket, the BEGGs had looked confused, and he’d heard jackpot bells in his head.
How long he played those hustlers, he had no idea. But when he’d awakened after passing out and then recovering from the speedy-metabolizing hooch several hours after arriving at the BEGG camp, he’d found his family jewels in lockdown and the keys to Starbug confiscated. He’d argued a bit, then dutifully acknowledged his debt-
-and as he was shrugging into the shoulders of his spacesuit, the chief jabbed a finger aggressively toward the testemolester. “Leggy light-man,” he grunted. “Or BOOM!”
As the others laughed, Lister had nodded and dressed, having no idea what was being referenced. It was only halfway back to the Dwarf, just outside the planet’s atmosphere, that he vaguely recalled his drunken wager just before the last hand was dealt. The memory prickled his skin with sudden cold sweat.
He tried to play off Rimmer’s loss lightly with Kryten, but even the mechanoid regarded him with disapproval. When he thought later that Rimmer knew, but was underplaying his reaction … well, that had made Lister feel worse than any amount of yelling or officious directives-citing. Of course, it was nothing compared to Rimmer kicking him out of his bunk later that day, with a tone that could have frozen a pit of lava in hell.
He lay in his bunk, unable to fall quite to sleep despite being absolutely knackered. Last night had been rough, as Rimmer still refused to listen to any apology and still seemed smegged off over the loss of Irene. Lister had only slept for a couple of hours, and not well. Today, finally, the adrenaline from fear had started to soak back into his body and he’d dragged all day, figuring he’d climb the steps and flop exhausted into his bunk in the evening. Yet here he was, staring at his Jets poster and thinking of the time he’d been successful in a fifty-pound wager against one of the other MegaMart baggers.
Wager. He let his mind drift, nearly asleep. Wager he’d be angry if he knew I was gambling …
“See now … here’s a pitshure.” Lister smiled in what he hoped was beguiling fashion at the BEGGs as he fished through the worn leather wallet he’d never been quite able to give up despite going to a cashless system once joining the Space Corps. The spaces had been converted entirely to useless old membership cards from Earth, the long-defunct JMC pay card, and a few small, carefully-handled photos. There was one of Gran and another of his parents’ wedding (and thank the stars he’d had enough foresight to carry the wallet into stasis for three million years!); there was the tiny passport-sized headshot of Krissie – the first Krissie he’d known and whose smile he’d fallen in love with – a somewhat larger photo of Kochanski – the second one, whom he’d never quite been able to start thinking of as “Krissie” so much as occasionally “Kris” when pressed; and in a fit of nostalgia one night while drinking a few years ago, he’d coaxed the others into letting him use almost the last of the Instamatic film to photograph them. Cat had insisted on posing in front of a mirror for four hours to get just the right outfit and grin, Kryten had gone on for nearly as long about how he was just a mechanoid and not a suitable subject for a personal photo, and Rimmer … he’d been the strangest about it. “Why do you want my photo?” he’d asked, suspicious.
“I’m getting the others, too. Just rounding out my collection, man.”
His frown had deepened. “What are you going to do with it?”
“Same as the others – put it here.” He’d held up his battered wallet.
Rimmer had eyed it for a moment, then asked, “So you’re not going to use it on a dartboard, right?”
“I’m not going to throw sharp things at it,” Lister repeated, sighing. “It’s- it’s a picture. Didn’t you ever have photos made when you were in school?”
“Once,” he’d answered. “Frank and Howard stole them from the mail and went to the grocery, and pasted them all on milk cartons before Mother and Father came home.”
Okay, that wasn’t a bad prank, Lister thought. “For missing children, yeah? That’s not … too horrible, Rimmer.”
“On goat’s milk cartons, Lister. They drew these little horns out of my forehead on each one.” Rimmer mimed this with his forefingers. “And under it, pasted the words HAVE YOU SEEN THIS KID?” Lister just managed not to laugh. “Everybody saw it! That’s when everybody at school started calling me Bonehead.”
If I’d been you, I’d have been grateful a bunch of preadolescent boys were distracted from making something out of “rimmer,” quite frankly, he’d privately thought.
Their three photos had gone into his wallet, but even intoxicated, something told Lister to hold back the picture of Kryten – a mechanoid, especially a cleaning droid, might be seen as something of value to be traded for. He hadn’t given quite the same cautious thought to the practical value of a one-of-a-kind practically indestructible, indefatigable hard-light hologram light bee, mainly because he usually forgot there was one buzzing around inside his …
Well. Not his anything, since he’d been kicked out of Rimmer’s bunk and even his daily conversation now. But that was just since yesterday, and the night before yesterday, he’d gotten progressively drunker and sloppier at cards with a bunch of BEGGs and – to the best of his now rapidly returning memory – had chatted incessantly about Rimmer this and Arn that, and how good he looked in blue and how long the hologram could go without sleep and probably some of his best smiles, to boot. At one point, stupidly drunk, he was certain he could faintly remember having gone on for a good ten minutes about the smeghead’s woodsy green eyes.
In the present, Lister covered his face, rolled to his side, and barely managed to suppress a groan at his own thickheadedness. He was the one who’d given the BEGG chief that ammunition; he had made it abundantly clear not only how practical and attractive such a unique hologram could be for assorted tasks (he was too horrified to plumb his memories deeper to see if he’d defined those “tasks,” but from the way the chief had eyed Rimmer in person, he didn’t have to), but also of what value said hologram was to him, personally. He remembered being puzzled when the chief had suggested he play another hand to try to win back Starbug and use Rimmer as collateral. Buzzed beyond good sense and thinking it was a joke, since people couldn’t be property, he’d readily agreed and figured he had nothing to lose.
The BEGGs had obviously picked up on this and outfitted him with a directive he couldn’t refuse. Lister gulped as he remembered the feel of that ridged metal collar around his neck, the exploder bit gradually warming his happy sacks as zero approached, and the fear of leaving it all in the hands of a woman who only knew what she didn’t know as being correct – raising the process of elimination to a life-threatening art form.
Fine. He’d figured out how this likely happened in the first place; well done, Dave. So how did he go about fixing things with Rimmer? “Arn-” he stage-whispered in the semi-dark room, rolling to his other side to aim it down below before he remembered the guy had moved out to officers’ quarters last night.
Closing his eyes, he sighed and tried to work out how this was going to happen.
*****
Attempt #1:
It was a simple, but poor, apology the next morning; Lister realized it as soon as it was out of his mouth. Just: “I’m sorry, Rimmer. I didn’t mean it.”
It didn’t even warrant a look from the recipient, who kept writing whatever it was he was writing in whatever stupid notebook he was holding at the main console. Lister would have tried again, but decided to retreat and regroup.
Attempt #2:
He let a few hours elapse. He was relieving Rimmer on watch, and as soon Lister took his seat, the other man capped his pen and moved to get up. “Rimmer,” Lister said, swiveling to stop him. “Arn. Please listen; I remember what happened, and I can explain what I did, why it happened.”
“I don’t care,” was the flat reply. He didn’t even make eye contact.
But, Lister reflected a little later, he had spoken. It was the tiniest of cracks in the door, but there it was. He relaxed a little.
Attempt #3:
That night as the three of them sat around with dinner in the sleeping quarters and Kryten tidied the grill, Lister swallowed a bite, wiped his hands on his jeans, and decided to try something new. “Rimmer, look – I’m really sorry I wagered you to those BEGGs. I thought it was a joke when they suggested it, ‘cause I don’t think of you as a thing. I didn’t think they were serious about betting a person.”
Cat and Kryten looked mildly interested, but kept eating and cleaning, respectively. Rimmer kept his eyes on his food, his neck flushing. Lister, still hoping to force him to listen in the presence of company for the sake of appearance if nothing else, stepped it up. “You know I wouldn’t try to get rid of you; not with what you mean.” The flush was creeping higher into his cheeks, and Cat glanced between them, frowning as he licked his sharp teeth clean. “I wish you’d come back to-”
“Lister.” Rimmer cut him off sharply, finally looking him in the eye. “Cut it out.”
“Look, they already know we’re together,” he snapped, letting frustration get the better of him. “You’re the only one trying to pretend different.” He started to slide off his seat as Rimmer tossed his napkin onto the table and got up. “Listen to me, man!”
“Shut up, Lister.” He paused and turned back to the Scouser, pointing. “We are no such thing. You are definitely not my kind of tottie; you’re YOU. Look at you!” He made a cutting motion with his hands to indicate being finished with it. “Leave me alone and go find the person you really want to say you’re sorry to!”
“What’re you talking about? You’re the one I lost in the bet!”
“You wouldn’t have ever lost Kochanski in a bet!” Rimmer’s face was red, but Lister realized with the beginning of a horribly sinking feeling that it wasn’t out of embarrassment. “Oh no, you would’ve made sure all the rest of us BUT her got traded first, including yourself! You wouldn’t have even joked about THAT!” He scrunched his nose and launched into a frighteningly accurate parody of Lister’s accent. “Is it Kochanski? Where’s Kochanski? I can’t live without Kochanski! Of course, I don’t have the bollocks to DO anything about it when she’s here, but when she leaves, I can’t smegging shut UP about her! Kochanski, Kochanski, KOBLOODYHCHANSKI! I HOPE YOU FIND HER AND HAVE FIFTEEN SMEGGING SETS OF TWINS ALL NAMED AFTER THE ENTIRE GODDAMN ZERO-G LEAGUE!”
The hologram took quick, shallow breaths at the end of this, nostrils wide enough for spelunkers and narrowed eyes wild with what had to be indignation or anger. Or both. Cat was perched perfectly on his stool beside Lister, not even twitching. Utensils clinked as Kryten washed them for the third time, unnecessarily, his back to the rest of them. Lister barely managed not to sink down and hide under his side of the table. He didn’t know if he was ashamed or angry, and didn’t want to risk being seen or speaking in case the opposite of what he wanted to express came out.
But Rimmer wasn’t finished. “Maybe then,” he finally managed, dropping his voice back halfway to its usual register, “you’ll be so smegging happy.” And he left the quarters.
Normally, Lister would have taken the next few days of silence from Rimmer and subdued communication from the other two as an indictment to try to find a way to counter the accusations, albeit as coolly as he could manage. But this time, he was thinking far too often about what Rimmer had said – and how not even Kryten had tried to defend him, as the mech often did whenever he and Rimmer got into some row. In point of fact, Kryten hadn’t even tried to verbally comfort Lister since; the closest he’d come was bringing him an extra-sugared coffee that night on watch, the way he knew he liked it, and asking if he would like a snack with it. But no words of support. Somewhere deep inside, Lister was sure he didn’t deserve any.
On the fourth afternoon after the blowup, he and Cat were both in the drive room. “So do you think I talk too much about Kochanski?” he asked partway through the shift.
“Buddy, I don’t care if you talk about every girlfriend you’ve ever had,” Cat answered very frankly. He was filing his nails. “So long as you keep in mind if we ever run across a colony of desperate women that need me to make love to them, we’re stopping for about a week. Maybe two.” He stopped filing for a few seconds. “Maybe just one; don’t want them getting too attached.”
“It’s just that I thought she was dead, and then I found out-”
“Don’t you think you need to be having this talk with Alphabet-Head?” Cat cut him off.
“And how would I set that up, do you imagine?”
“Do I look like Dr. Ruth or Phil?” Cat shrugged. “Take a watch with him. It’s about time you two did again. While we’re on the subject, I’m tired of extra shifts to keep you apart; it’s really cutting into my naps.” He licked a finger and smoothed down an eyebrow, not taking his eyes from the small mirror he held. “You two monkeys not taking responsibility for your stuff’s forcing me to be responsible. Cats don’t do responsibility. When’s the last time you heard ‘tomcattin’ around’ to mean ‘working extra shifts and looking out for others?’”
Lister sighed. “I know. But I need to work out what I say to him before I say it. If I don’t say it right, he’ll never listen to me.”
“Doesn’t sound like he’s listening to you either way. I don’t think he’s gonna buy some slick, jazzed-up version of whatever you’ve got to tell him. You just got to say it.”
“Weren’t you the one lecturing me about thinking ahead?” Lister reminded him. “As in, last month?”
“Sure; but this ain’t for supplies, man.”
On to Part 2
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Date: 2012-12-31 04:38 am (UTC)Glad you like! You see how long it took me to figure out how to follow your story ...
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Date: 2012-12-31 04:40 am (UTC)Thanks!
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