Author: Roadstergal
Title: Irritation.
Censor: PG.
Commentary: Please. roadstergal@gmail.com
Disclaimer: They don’t belong to me, and I make no money off of them.
Notes: Takes place after Emohawk. Spoilers up through that episode.


"I think you're yourself again, Mister Rimmer."

Rimmer ignored the resignation in Kryten's voice and ran to the filthy mirror on the wall of the medibay. Memories were fresh in his mind, of blonde hair that Duran Duran would have scorned, of a pretentious voice, of a far too kind and generous attitude towards Cat and Kryten and, for the love of all that prances, Lister. He peered into the small reflective square. Yes, he was himself again. Hair back to normal. "Righto!" Ah, voice back to normal, as well. Rimmer smirked, stepped back, and straightened his uniform. "Well and good. No more of that nancy prat, eh, Kryters?" Kryten's square over-eye shelves raised, and he remained silent. Metal git. Rimmer strode out of the room, heading for the midsection.

Rimmer spied Cat, unDibbleyed, in the cockpit, and so sat down across the table from Lister. "Everything tickety-boo now," he announced, planting his elbows on the table and his chin on his fisted hands.

Lister looked up from the comic, his expression blank. "Yeah, man. Cheers."

Rimmer sighed. Nobody seemed to appreciate the magnitude of what he had escaped. "Just glad everything got back to normal, is all. You can never tell, with this cross-contamination going on."

Lister tossed the comic down on the table, puzzlement trying to settle into the blankness of his expression. "Wha? Cross-comtamiwha?"

"Yes! You saw what it turned me into." Rimmer shook his head and leaned back in his chair. "It must have been contamination from... some other poor sod the Emohawk sucked from. Some nancy git. Like mosquitoes, transferring remnants of other emotions while it's sucking."

"Rimmer..." Lister leaned forward and tapped a forefinger on the table. "That was you. Ace. All that. You without your bitterness and negativity."

Rimmer frowned. Was Lister actually implying... "Lister, that smegheaded goit of a self-centered jackoff..." he poured a generous helping of disdain and disgust into the next word, "Ace - he is not a smegging part of me."

Lister shook his head. "Neh, man, he is. He's everything that you could be - if you'd only let yourself."

Rimmer leapt to his feet. Too much. He had not expected Lister to feel an appropriate degree of appreciation and relief at the safe return of his own personality - after all, he was Lister - but this smeg? Regret? Implications that this ponce lived inside of him? "Let myself? Let myself? Let myself wear brassieres? Let myself," he affected an exaggerated Ace swagger, "nance into a Mimian mining bar and strip on the tables?"

Lister sighed and picked up his comic. But Rimmer could see the tension around his eyes, and could tell what that goit was thinking. "You wish I had stayed like him, hadn't you?" Lister pretended to focus on the comic. "Yes, that would just have made your day, wouldn't it? Have a little hard-light totty around to be the bun for your kielbasa? Well, I'm not buttered that way, miladdio."

Lister tossed the comic back on the table, swinging around and jumping to his feet, closing in on Rimmer. "I don't get what's up with you. He is you, and he's a good guy, so why won't you just let yourself be him? Why are you so set on being such a goddam smegheaded jerk?"

Rimmer crossed his arms. "Oh, wouldn't that be perfect," he sneered. "Get out the holo-whip and play Last Man Alive Ranger and High-ho Silver. Such a nice guy he is, he'd even let you play the girl sometimes. Or maybe let you swap out his disk with Kochanski's, now and then, just for variet..."

A meteor must have hit Starbug, Rimmer thought, so why weren't the alarms going? The ship had certainly jerked around like it was a big one. He stumbled back, tripping over his own feet, and landed on his arse with a thump. Something hurt in his nose. He looked up and saw Lister glaring down at him with a fist upraised. Like he had just hit something.

Lister had hit him!

Rimmer put one finger to his nose, feeling a sticky wetness. It hurt slightly - not as much as the grenade, of course. An annoyance. An extreme annoyance. The little twat had hit him! He grabbed the table and hauled himself back to his feet. "Not a word about her," Lister growled.

"Oh, not going to bring her back because you decided you like boys better? Well..."

Starbug jerked twice more, and Rimmer stumbled back into the wall. He put his finger to his nose again, and it clicked nastily. Blood was dripping off of it, disappearing in a blue glow before it hit the deck. It definitely was starting to hurt. Rimmer looked up at Lister, and matched him glare for glare, noting out of the corner of his eye that Cat had poked his head into the midsection, and was grinning like a maniac. "You smegging grotty little..."

Lister stepped forward and delivered a punch to Rimmer's solar plexus. It would have knocked the wind out of him, Rimmer reflected, if he had any wind. As it was, it was certainly painful enough to make him double up with a wheeze. "You shut yer smegging filthy mouth," Lister yelled.

Rimmer had to keep one hand clutched to his aching viscera. He looked up at Lister, enraged that the man had dared... but physically and mentally unable to retaliate, and furious with himself on both counts. He let Lister have every iota of that fury right in the eyes.

Lister stood for a moment, his fists trembling as if he had the desire to use them again. Then, abruptly, all of the fight seemed to drain out of him. He sighed, lowered his fists, stared at Rimmer for one more moment, and then exited the midsection with a heavy tread.

Rimmer let himself slide to the ground. He worried at his broken nose for a moment, wondering if and how hard-light healed something like that. It hurt abominably every time it moved, and he gave it up as a bad cause, staring in disbelief at the blood smeared across his fingers.

Cat walked out of the cockpit once the coast was most definitely clear. He danced over to where Rimmer sat, and bent at the waist to look curiously at Rimmer's face, cocking his head through a number of angles. "You know, bud," he said, finally, "I think red really is your color. Awwwwww yeah!" He danced back into the cockpit.

Rimmer seethed.


Back to fanfiction