Chapter Text
In the end, it was Lister who brought him back to himself. Wasn’t it always? At first, he’d wondered if it was because the other man couldn’t stand not being the center of attention anymore. After all, that’s how he would have acted. But David Lister was nothing like Arnold Rimmer, a fact of which he was constantly (acutely) made aware. Even Lister, however, couldn’t live up to the allure that Ace Rimmer carried with him naturally—producing it like some sort of entrancing, toxic fog as easily as Lister transformed curries into tear gas.
It was no secret that “Ace” was the most popular member of the crew. He was charming, brave, selfless, and brilliant with repairs. That was why they had let him stay that way for longer than the twenty-four hours he had originally requested, after all. Cat loved him because Ace knew just how to flatter his ego. Kryten adored him, trailing after him like a simpering, lovesick puppy, because he built up the value of the mechanoid’s duties and even helped with them on occasion. Even Lister had liked him better, for a time.
Something twinged—unsettled and hesitant—in Rimmer’s gut as he remembered nights spent in joyful camaraderie, the pair sharing a couple of drinks as Ace regaled the other man with stories. Rimmer didn’t know who the man telling those stories was. Somehow, from him, those tales of awkwardness and misery took on a new, spectacular, funny form. He could still remember Lister’s face from those nights: that rapt expression of wonder and respect twisted something inside him uncomfortably, while the image of the man throwing his head back in hysterics—undiluted joy radiating from his every pore—filled him with a curious warmth. He had enjoyed those nights. He had thought Lister did too. So why had he come to him weeks later, serious and nervous, wringing his hands awkwardly, to ask him to change back?
Rimmer stared down at the table, glaring at his hands. He rotated them slowly, mapping every line, wondering how the same body could contain such drastically different people. He placed them back down.
Why had Lister wanted this version?
He glanced around the bunkroom, staring at Spartan grey walls with the few mementos of his lackluster existence. His revision timetable, dictator biographies, a “No Smoking” sign, and “Astronavigation for Dummies” spoke volumes about his neuroticism, inflated ego, and eternal failure to become someone worthwhile. Sparse detritus of a mediocre life, dull and inconsequential—just like him. But before, mere days ago, he had been so much more. He sparkled with life and wit, oozed charm that drew others to him like flies, and felt filled with a confidence and contentment that he had never known. When he was being honest with himself (and he rarely ever was), that version of him had been exactly the sort of person he’d always fantasized about being in his daydreams: effortlessly cool and desirable, capable and wanted. Not the invisible refuse that was Arnold Rimmer.
His eyebrows drew together in confusion, lips puckered in thought. The others had liked him better that way; he knew it. He had been right all those nights spent wishing to be someone else: this brave, heroic adventurer. It had been everything he’d imagined.
Lister’s eyes had sparkled with the warmth and acceptance he had always expected, with the respect he had always sought. But it was Lister who had wanted him—the original him—back again. And for reasons he still couldn’t understand, he had complied.
After all, it was always Lister who brought him back to himself. Somehow, despite everything, it was always his opinion that mattered most.