#rimmer and lister need to discover cabin pressure flight deck games

[doctors-star]

hi its me im back again #43 for lister/rimmer? (a non-cowboy alternative)

“I’ve never met a more stubborn person in my life.” “You like it.” “Do I?”

-

Lister taps his fingers against the iron girder. It’s painted the same red as the Dwarf, but chipping and loose - probably also like the Dwarf, only he’s not been out to have a gander in a while. Always seems to be something else to do these days.

He sighs heavily. Picks a flake of paint loose. Resists the urge to fidget.

“I spy-”

“Oh, Christ, we’re not that bored already are we?” Rimmer whines, and Lister allows his head to loll to his right. It puts his face within inches of Rimmer’s cheek, and though it makes him go a little cross-eyed to do so he can clearly see that yes, Rimmer is that bored.

“Well, we’re trapped for the foreseeable future in a pile of rubble and girders in an abandoned derelict, with no comms and no hope of rescue until Krytes and Cat can be bothered to come lookin’,” Lister points out calmly. “We can play fortunately-unfortunately instead if you want, but I don’t think this is going to get less boring quickly.”

Rimmer sniffs and glowers at the ceiling of their weird rubble igloo. It had, of course, been heart-stoppingly terrifying for a while; Lister had smacked the door release idly with the side of his fist, the doors had opened, and he and Rimmer had entered, bickering all the while so enthusiastically that what had happened after that was still a mystery to Lister. The upshot, crucially, had been that the ceiling had fallen in in a shower of sparks and trailing wires and laid them both out flat under slabs of metal panelling, chunks of what looked like concrete, and a few girders for colour. One is neatly pinning Lister’s hips to the floor, there’s a large amount of concrete on his ankles, and Rimmer is buried in metal sheeting up to his sternum, but on the bright side they can both breathe and nothing seems to be broken. Not that Rimmer could break, anyway, being as he is entirely made of solid light.

This had not stopped Lister from being apocalyptically terrified for a good thirty seconds after impact.

“Is it rubble?” Rimmer asks at last, with a tone of deep dissatisfaction.

“I didn’t even tell you the first letter,” Lister says, trying not to grin at Rimmer.

Rimmer shifts his head to gaze, unimpressed, at Lister.

“It was, though, yeah.”

Rimmer looks as though he wants to laugh, and also to despair of him; it makes his face twitch like a ferret in a sack. Lister presses forward an inch to drop a kiss on the end of his nose, because that usually makes the twitching worse. “Menace,” Rimmer says, flinching back to glare, cross-eyed, down his nose at Lister. But, you know, affectionately. Lister beams. “I can’t believe we’re stuck here waiting for two mentally-incompetents to rescue us,” Rimmer sighs. He fidgets his shoulders, shifting the panelling, and winces.

“Stop moving, man,” Lister says in a voice which he hopes is calming.

It isn’t; Rimmer thrashes about a bit like he’s being electrocuted, which makes the whole rubble pile shake in a deeply worrying fashion. He does, however, manage to work his left arm free and shake it triumphantly in the air. “Dead arm,” he says in explanation - and then, very casually, so subtly that the motion occurs in neon with bells on, he rests the hand on top of Lister’s girder. Next to Lister’s fingers. And then Rimmer doesn’t look at his hand, the girder, or in Lister’s direction at all, so Lister takes the hint.

“Dead everything, mate,” he says helpfully, sliding his fingers under Rimmer’s palm and giving his hand a squeeze. Rimmer’s frame relaxes ever so slightly, as though that threatened slight rejection had worried him more than the whole mild peril of their situation. Neurotic bastard. “Speaking of,” Lister adds, rubbing his thumb over the back of Rimmer’s hand, “you don’t have to wait for Kryten and Cat. You could go softlight, wriggle on out, and go get ‘em.”

Rimmer’s hand tightens briefly on his before carefully relaxing. “No-o,” he says with forced casualness, “I’ll wait.”

Lister nods. “Very helpful. You just wait here to avoid the walk. Can’t have you tirin’ yourself out. If I starve to death, I want the lightbee every two weeks, alright?”

“I am not arranging a timeshare with our afterlife!” Rimmer objects sharply.

“You smegging well are,” Lister corrects cheerfully. “If you kill me through inaction, you owe me at least some of your time. You promised, remember-” he says smugly, pressing as close as he can until his nose is pressed into Rimmer’s cheekbone. “Spend the rest of our time together, forever-”

“Exactly,” Rimmer sputters, face turning a very impressive red at the reference to their little...agreement. “Together - which we won’t be, if only one of us exists at a time.”

“You’d better go an’ fetch us some rescue then, eh?” Lister says, smiling into Rimmer’s jaw to make him squirm. “Or else.”

He can feel the muscles in Rimmer’s face twitch slightly with the effort not to turn into Lister’s ministrations and give up on the argument - only that would mean losing said argument, and that usually requires more attention than Lister can give with his body pinned to the floor. By something that isn’t Rimmer, that is. “Ah, but you said we’d stay together,” Rimmer points out firmly, voice only ticking up half an octave when Lister starts kissing at the hinge of his jaw. “Death do us part, you said.”

Lister grins and picks up their joined hands, nudging them towards the small gap in the ceiling that a lightbee, and corresponding intangible human shape, could easily fit through. “An’ you’ve already kicked it, so off you pop,” he says brightly.

Rimmer sputters indignantly for a bit, but makes no move. After a moment, the grumbling resumes, and Lister can’t help a sigh. “Where are those two, anyway? Even they ought to have noticed by now-”

“Rimmer, mate you literally don’t need to be here,” Lister says, impatience bleeding into his tone as he pulls back slightly. He doesn’t miss how Rimmer shifts minutely into his space before reversing quickly.

“Well, I’m not going,” Rimmer says, fingers tightening around Lister’s.

He shakes his head and lies back, staring at the ceiling. “I’ve never met a more stubborn person in my life,” he says.

“You like it,” Rimmer retorts immediately.

“Do I?” he replies, voice tired and dry. But he rolls his head back to face Rimmer. He knows Rimmer better than anyone in the entire universe; of course he had caught the wheedling note in Rimmer’s voice, the flash of insecurity, the minute increase in the grip on his hand. And sure enough, Rimmer’s eyes are wide and slightly worried, and then his face turns quickly away, schooled into something snide. He wishes Rimmer wouldn’t do that; has no hope that he’ll ever stop. Lister picks up their joined hands and gently knocks their knuckles against the girder three times. “Well, it’s still annoying,” he says eventually. “But as long as I don’t starve here, I’d still rather have you with me than not. So.”

Rimmer waves a hand idly. “Eat your own leg, or something.”

Lister gives him a thumbs-up. “Will do.”

They lie quietly for a while, listening to the rubble creak and groan, and to a mysterious dripping sound which, every third drop, fizzes with a decidedly electrical sound. There’s a lump of something digging into his spine, and his foot is rapidly going numb, but Rimmer’s hand is pleasantly warm and solid in his own, his breathing regular and steady in the half-light, and it is - god help his standards for living - not half bad. Lister is, despite himself, quite glad that Rimmer is more stubborn than a bull-headed pig when he wants to be.

He’s glad, too, to be something Rimmer gets so stubborn over.

He is quite bored, though.

“I spy-” he begins again.

“It’s girder this time, I know it,” Rimmer says quickly. “I am not playing this with you.” Lister closes his mouth. “It was panel, actually - and look, what do you want to do? Arguing didn’t take up as much time as I had hoped-”

“You picked a fight to pass the time?!”

“Yeah, only, it was a really rubbish argument. Unfortunately.”

“Well,” Rimmer says, sounding as self-important as a man can when being crushed by sheets of metal, “fortunately, we love each other far too well to ever argue.”

“Unfortunately,” Lister says, grinning at the barefaced lie, “no-one with an IQ over seven would believe that.”

“Fortunately, I know my audience,” Rimmer says smugly, eyes dancing and smile so cheerfully obnoxious that Lister has to laugh, he just has to, not least for the way it makes Rimmer’s whole face soften into something gentler, and more fond.

He squeezes Rimmer’s hand and feels it squeeze back. “Unfortunately, you’re stuck with him,” he murmurs, eyes dropping helplessly to Rimmer’s lips.

Rimmer smiles, small and genuine. “I’ll survive,” he says.

#rimmer and lister need to discover cabin pressure flight deck games #only they would both be dreadful at them #can you believe! i've emptied my inbox of prompts. holy shit. #they've been there so long. #i am compelled to obtain more. #red dwarf #arnold rimmer #dave lister #lister/rimmer #this is your captain speaking