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Dave clutched the lightbee in his hand and lifted the chain he’d tied it onto over his head. He was sitting on Rimmer’s bed, he didn’t think he’d make it up to his own bunk. The thought only now occurred that he could sleep in the lower bunk at any time, in fact he could have moved to completely different quarters. It wouldn’t have been the first time, but it would have been the first time alone.
Even after years of being without him, Lister still thought of this as Rimmer’s bunk.
His head swam, he may have had a few too many tonight, but who was there to stop him? He was the only one left. Keeping the ship running all on his own. He deserved a few bevvies.
He’d been staring at the lightbee, running his thumb over it without noticing. He desperately wanted to turn it on, but he had no way of knowing how long the projection would last for. He saved those precious moments for really bad days.
He closed his eyes and imagined Rimmer’s face looking back at him, imagined when he opened his eyes he would be there in front of him, telling him to get out of his bunk. Stop soiling those sheets with his filth, he’d just changed them that morning, when was the last time he’d washed anyway?
“This is so stupid,” Lister mumbled to himself, opening his eyes again to the empty room. To his surprise he was fighting back tears. He shifted further into the bunk, propping himself up on one side and putting his boots on the blankets.
“Come on you smeghead,” Dave told the lightbee, “come out here and tell me to get my boots off your bed.”
The silence was cut only by the faint hum of ship’s engines that Lister had become deaf to over the decades.
“Yeah that’s what I thought,” he huffed. “Always the coward, too afraid to even come and tell me off now?”
Lister reached down, he was sure he brought a can with him- oh there, a bottle. That was fine. He took a long drink and ignored the burn.
“You know I miss it? I can’t believe it but I do… Yeah that’s right you heard me, you smegger. God how many times I wanted to punch you in that smart gob.”
Words started coming out of his mouth, it was no wonder though. He’d talked to no one but the vending machines in months.
“You and your stupid timetables, the way you’d always wake me up acting like you’d been up for hours. You thought you were so smart, I always knew you’d slept just as long as I did you smarmy beanpole. ‘Brrbrbrr, wake up Lister I’ve been up for hours!!’”
Lister laughed at his own impression of Rimmer, and to be fair the whole situation would be hilarious to anyone who was drunk.
“Your uniforms , who were you trying to please with those? Every few years comin’ up with a new one like you were going to win some sort of competition that would make you a captain of your own ship. God Rimmer you could literally wear anything… and you always dressed up like you were head boy of Git School for Officers of the Smeg Brigade.”
He laughed again, hiccupped and fell back onto the bunk’s pillow. He let the hand with the bottle drift back down to the floor and the other one brought the cold lightbee up to his chest.
“We had so much time… I thought it would last forever.”
It was incredibly unfair, in Lister’s opinion. Out of all of them he should have been the first to go.
“I should have told you, I should have-“ Lister found his eyes were wet. He swiped at them with the sleeve of his jacket, which only felt scratchy and spread the tears over his entire face.
“I loved you man,” he whispered, fingers sliding over the smooth metal housing of the bee. “I loved you so much.”
Dave had always been a crier, but this still somehow felt like betrayal. He bit back sobs as he sat up. Being surrounded by Rimmer’s posters and revision timetables was too much. He stood and wobbled.
“You were supposed to be here, you were supposed to stay to keep me sane ,” he told the lightbee, bringing it up to eye level. “Always looking to get promoted, but you never do your damn job.”
He should go to bed, this was painful enough as it was. But he couldn’t help himself. He unhooked the chain from the lightbee and pressed the small button on its side. He held the bee in front of him, then let it go. It hovered in front of him with a barely audible whir.
After a moment it manifested a projection. The image was grainy, in greyscale and fizzing in and out in sections. But there in front of him stood Rimmer, his last few moments before getting corrupted. His mouth moved but there was no sound anymore. His form moved for a few seconds, the action had been burned into Lister’s mind, before repeating. He watched it through teary eyes, the tiny bit of him that hoped Rimmer would fix himself and come back to life still burned holes in his heart.
The bee stuttered, the projection failing for a moment before unsteadily flashing back on. Dave decided that was enough. He grabbed the bee out of the air, pressing the off button with his thumb. He attached it back to it’s chain, with some difficulty. His vision was blurry with tears and drink. He put the chain back around his neck and brought the the lightbee to his lips, before dropping it back to dangle around his neck.
With the last of his energy, he climbed into his bunk and shut his eyes.