(Untitled)

[ajrimmer_ssc]

WHO: Rimmer, Lister. MAYBE OTHERS Joey and Terry? :D?
WHERE: Lake Placid house.
WHEN: Tuesday, 6 July, midnight.
WARNINGS: Smegging angst. Seriously. This is the reaction of the biggest emotional cripple ever. EVER.
SUMMARY: Welp. Not happy stuff that's for certain.
FORMAT: Solo-fic, written with GM rights from Lauren who's still on hiatus,

Comments

holy crap i'm gonna max out the character count orz

[battothefuture]

Terry had been in the city when it happened, so he missed everything. He missed the screams and the sharp cracking of the mirror, the room of silent shock that was too thick for any other emotions to penetrate. He missed the shrieking non-sound of Rimmer breaking like sugarglass and slowly crumbling into fragments and sand. He'd been catching criminals.

It had been a slow night, mostly. There'd been a few muggings, a few druggies, a gang being stupid, but Terry was beginning to miss Gotham and Bruce and everything connected more and more - he missed where Batman was needed... or at least where there was always something to do. It happened on nights like this, when there was such a lull, when there wasn't that frantic too-much-happening that always happened at home. Because, though it was nice to have free time, it was nicer to be needed, and to be able to make a difference. Now, in the City, with superheros practically staking out territory and everyone there to catch things before he could, he was starting to feel downright useless

I love your teal deers.

[ajrimmer_ssc]

Silence. The same silence as a tomb, really, only much more tastefully decorated. The cats were nowhere to be seen...but Lady was. She was lurking under the coffee table in the living room, doggy chin on paws, with the big soulful eyes of a doggy that has been through doggy hell. She only glanced up briefly at Terry's entrance, and then went right back to her defeated posture.

The house was mostly dark. The kitchen lights weren't on, a very unusual state of affairs. Somebody was always in the kitchen, even at odd hours of the morning. Lister grabbing a midnight snack. Rimmer having a bout of insomnia and going bananas and cleaning everything he could get his mitts on. Something.

The only light in the house seemed to be coming from upstairs. That was the only other sign of life.

they are the tealest of deer that have ever been seen

[battothefuture]

Terry took a moment to look around, while his sense of something horrible slowly went up and a shudder seemed to run up and down his spine. Because something was wrong, hideously wrong, it was like everything was screaming that at him-

Terry noticed Lady shivering under the table, and worrying more than ever, he walked over and crouched next to her, running his gloved hands over her back and through her fur.

"What happened, girl?" he muttered under his breath, then stood back up again. And oh he was hungry and oh he was thirsty but something felt like acid in the air, maybe, this feeling-

There was a light on upstairs, at least. And for a minute he wasn't sure he wanted to go up, not now, he was so tired already. But there was nothing else he wanted to do either, except maybe run away but he didn't want that either (for some reason all this was bringing back when they'd found his dad's body) and so he slid up the stairs silently and down the hall to the lit room.

[ajrimmer_ssc]

The door to the master bedroom was wide open. There was no attempt at privacy, another unusual feature. The nights that Rimmer and Raven closed themselves away from the other housemates were...numerous. Ahem.

And from the hall, there was a clear shot of the bed. It was mussed. There was precisely one occupant. He had his back to the door, and he was just curled up on his side on top of the covers. Whether he was awake or not was anybody's guess. But it was clearly Rimmer; nobody else in the world had hair that looked like that. And nobody else in the world wore that bright blue JMC uniform, even in bed.

And Raven's pillow was missing.

[battothefuture]

And just like that Terry's fear spiked.

He pulled his mask off - it seemed like there wasn't much point in keeping it on, and maybe there was something wrong with his video set anyway - and just moved into the room, his steps long and fast and almost a run, except not. But the view didn't change, and so he just came in closer, right up to the bed almost, and nothing changed.

There was something wrong.

"Rimmer? What's going on? What happened?"

[ajrimmer_ssc]

Even from behind, now, it was obvious that Rimmer was awake. Sleeping men jerk up and about when somebody calls out their name, startles them. But there was no movement, no nothing. His ribcage wasn't even rising or falling. Of course, he didn't need to breathe, but he liked to keep it up on the pretense that he was at least vaguely human.

And the mystery of Raven's pillow became clear; Rimmer was holding it in his arms, clutching it to his chest, like a particularly poor choice in the field of security blankets.

Static. Nothing but static. For all of him, Terry wasn't even in the room. This was probably not the most mature, even-handed response in the world, but he was trying to keep the mental fog in place, and Terry was cocking it up. Go away, Terry. You're the second generation and replacement of the greatest detective ever to exist in any reality. Figure it out for yourself.

[battothefuture]

There was a pause as he took the pillow in, the whole scene. And he spoke again, voice tighter and had as diamonds.

"What. Happened?"

Bruce was the World's Greatest Detective, Terry was still working on that bit - and even if he was starting to become obvious what had happened, obvious enough for anyone, he wanted someone to come along and prove him wrong.

[ajrimmer_ssc]

Damn it, McGinnis, you're making him think about it. You're pulling him back into the now and that's the last smegging place he wants to be.

A shudder ran through Rimmer's body, a dim thought registering that if he just kept quiet, maybe the pest would leave...or perhaps just get even worse. There was no helping it. His shoulders heaved once, a spasmodic jerk, and then fell still.

"'Ported out," was all he said, and then let the static invade his brain once more.

[battothefuture]

There was a frozen moment of forever as this little confirmation seemed to sink through every part of him.

Then-

"No way."

A sharp breath, almost a laugh and almost a gasp in reverse, like trying to convince himself it was a joke.

"No way, you're scamming me- really, what-"

It couldn't be it couldn't there had to be some alternate explanation - megavillain had her captive, something, he didn't know, something-

These were lives, they were their lives that they were trying to live, and the Porter just-

"No slagging way."

And he was so tired in so many ways that he almost just wanted to throw up, but what he wanted more was for the joke to be revealed. He couldn't look away from her pillow though, that Rimmer was just holding like it was his last tie to anything.

[ajrimmer_ssc]

When are you going to figure out, o Batman my Batman, that this wasn't a conversation? Rimmer didn't even have the mental capacity to scream, to yell, to rant, to cry, to do anything but lay there like a man already dead...

...Well, he was already dead, but deader. Less alive and moving about than usual for a hologram composed entirely of light.

He didn't even have the decency to turn around, or adjust his position, or fidget like there was another living presence in the room with him. He didn't even tighten his hold on the pillow. He just descended into thoughtlessness again, letting memories drift away like fog in bright sunlight. Letting his brain's engine grind to a shrieking, oil-spewing, rod-throwing halt. Letting himself just...not really exist at all.

[battothefuture]

Oh, he figured it out. But Terry liked to talk, it was what he was good at, and he talked to distract himself as much as anything else.

And he needed distraction now. So he talked. It didn't matter that Rimmer wasn't listening.

"Something else has to have happened," he said, because that was the only way things were allowed to be, and just slid out of the room again. And wow, he must not be thinking clearly; for a moment it was like he could teleport himself, he almost couldn't remember moving-

First he moved through the house, from the attics to the basement, and then he was back outside again, he didn't want to go to sleep but he felt fuzzy with exhaustion at this point, everything was already a dream maybe.

Raven just couldn't be gone. Not just like that, surely there'd be something more. Because that couldn't just happen.