[Red Dwarf - fic] A Spinning Fan - Part 02 - WIP (discontinued)

Lister/Rimmer, PG.
One day Lister woke up in a psychiatric ward and a doctor told him it was all a dream brought on by excessive drinking.
Written June 19, 2006 by Zekkass.

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Lister woke up the next morning to the sound of someone screaming.

“Help! Help! They’re trying to make me wear it again!”

Oh. He was still in the hospital. The not-Cat was being held down by not-Kryten while not-Holly forced him into a light-green hospital gown.

Lister turned around and tried to go back to sleep, but it was too late. Rimmer had noticed him.

“Ah, our new friend is awake.” He sneered, pleased at the chance to put down Lister. “Let me guess. Not only do you know my name, you also know my age, hometown, and how many people I’ve slept with.”

Lister sighed and put his head in his hands. It was too early to deal with Rimmer, especially here. “Leave me alone, Rimmer. I don’t want to deal with you right now.”

“Ah ha! So you don’t know everything!”

Lister sat up and faced Rimmer. “I don’t know where or when you were born, and I don’t care. Now, have you ever been on the Red Dwarf?”

Rimmer blinked, a bit taken aback at the energy of his new roommate. “No..”

“Good.” Lister nodded. That meant that Rimmer had never met McGruder. “No, you’ve never slept with anybody.”

That got a response. Rimmer started, and Lister knew he would lie in a second, if he let him.

“Don’t lie, Rimmer. I’m going back to sleep.” And he turned over and tried to tune out the sounds of the still-struggling not-Cat.

Rimmer scowled, but he couldn’t stop watching Lister. Not this time.

---

Two hours later, Lister woke up again to the sounds of silence.

He turned over and saw that the not-Cat was gone, but not-Rimmer was watching him. Not-Rimmer jerked back, startled at the sudden movement and then proceeded to stand up and carefully brush his hospital uniform off.

The complete Rimmerness of the motion set Lister to smiling slightly. Even if this wasn’t the Red Dwarf, and even if this not-Rimmer wasn’t Rimmer, some things would always be the same.

“You’re up.” not-Rimmer sneered slightly. “Feeling better?” The sarcasm that leaked into everything almost made Lister feel at home.

“Yes, actually. I’m getting up.” Lister carefully stood up, and waited a second for a dizziness that never came. “Where’s the Cat?”

“Cat?” not-Rimmer looked genuinely confused. Oh. The not-Cat must be known by a different name here, wherever this was.

“…He’s in the bunk next to you.”

“Oh. Dwayne? The nutter who thinks he’s a cat? He’s off getting lunch. He’ll be back soon, unfortunately. He’ll take another nap, and claim that he needs it. Git.”

“They have a lunch room here?” Lister took in the information and easily ignored the Rimmer-style commentary.

“Of course! What, did you think that they’d bring food to us? We aren’t in a fancy restaurant.”

Lister glared. “Where do they keep the clothing?”

“They don’t let us have clothing. Just these uniforms. It’s pathetic, really. They can afford fancy machinery and medicines, but they can’t keep us properly clothed.” not-Rimmer paced a bit. It had been a while since anybody had listened to him rant. All of the other patients had started ignoring him long ago. “And the doctors! They’re incompetent to the point of being useless. We get different medicines every month, but they never do anything. At least, nothing useful. The fellow two rooms down took too many of the purple pills last week and became convinced that we were all dead. He ended up running through the halls starkers. Pitiful sight, really. Nearly bowled me over.”

Lister wanted to tune him out, but with every sentence he knew more about this place. Perhaps he could learn something that he could use to get out of here. However, he was getting hungry. “Rimmer. Shut. Up.”

“Hmm?”

“Take me to the lunch room.”

“Oh, sure. It’s down the hallway and to the left. Can’t miss it. Anyway, as I was saying, one of the doctors cornered the git with a fire extinguisher and nearly had him, but…”

Lister started tuning not-Rimmer out and followed him out of the room.

---

The hallway was brightly lit, and looked exactly like a normal hospital hallway, except for the nameplates on the doors. Names like ‘Petersen’, and ‘Hollister’. Lister recognized those names. He’d been to drinking parties with them back on the Red Dwarf, or gotten yelled at by them because of some prank he had played. Everyone on the Red Dwarf couldn’t be a nutter, could they?

No. Lister shook his head. This place had to be a parallel dimension, or a GELF-created world. He had not been in a coma for the last five years. Not a chance.

Besides, this not-Rimmer wouldn’t stop talking. The real Rimmer did shut up every once and a while.

---

They arrived at the lunch room, only to find a ‘closed’ sign on the doors, and the not-Cat – no, Dwayne, kicking the door.

“Oh, not again.” Rimmer moaned. “Dwayne, stop that.”

“They kicked me out! I was only playing with my food! That pork only got away from me for a second…”

Rimmer moaned again and knocked on the lunch room door. “Dwayne, you know the ladies don’t like that. They like their floors to be spick and span. No grease stains for them, no sir.”

The door opened and Kochanski? peeked out. Lister started and almost ran to her before remembering that this couldn’t be Kochanski. Not here. “What do you want, Rimmer?”

“Ah, see, my friend here,” He gestured to Lister. “Has been in a coma for a while, and now he’s hungry. I know Dwayne might have messed up the floors a bit, but –“

“Not just the floors. He also got the ceiling.” not-Kochanski glared at the sulking Dwayne. “We’re closed for an hour. Come back then.”

“Are you sure you don’t have anything?”

“Not for you. Go away.” She slammed the door, then opened it a second later. “Now, for you…” She grinned at Lister and handed him a sandwich. “I’ll do anything, cutie. A tip, though. Don’t listen to him.” She tilted her head at not-Rimmer. “He’s an idiot.”

“Hey!” not-Rimmer protested. “I resent that remark.”

She winked again and closed the door.

Lister spent the trip back to their room in a happy daze.

---

“I can’t believe she still doesn’t like me! I’ve gone out of my way for her, and what does she do for me? Nothing. In fact, she insults me in front of you! What did I do to deserve this?”

Lister sighed. This brought him back. Way back. Rimmer used to complain about woman a lot when he was alive. Kochanski had been off-limits, but Yvonne and Alice had brought on nights of moaning.

“Rimmer. Drop it.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to hear you right now.”

“You don’t?”

Lister sighed again. He didn’t want to hurt this not-Rimmer. He wasn’t sure if this Rimmer was real or not, but he wasn’t going to break him again.

“Could you talk about something else?”

“Okay…Have you ever played Risk?”

Lister mentally groaned, but he nodded and let not-Rimmer talk.

Maybe he could help this Rimmer.

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