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reddwarfslashTitle: Spanners Grins And Bears It
Part: 1/2
Pairing: Ace/Spanners
Rating: PG-13, for this part
Disclaimer: I don't own Red Dwarf, or any of the characters thereof. I make no money from this.
Spoilers: Dimension Jump and Marooned
Notes: A re-write of Marooned as it might have happened with Ace and Spanners in Rimmer and Lister's stead. Part 1 of 2. Written for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fanfic100 challenge - my table is here. As always, please bring me concrit!
The loud, clear sirens of Mimas Base rang out, signaling evacuation. The noise was not quite so eardrum-shattering in the hangar bay where Ace and Spanners were loading a few of their belongings on board what Ace referred to as 'his latest crate', but it was enough that Spanners didn't want to stick around any longer than necessary. Of course, the reason why the sirens were going off in the first place would be enough to make any sane person to want to leave.
Having deposited his own, sturdy-looking trunk safely in the meager space available, Ace turned towards Spanners and made a move for his guitar-case. "I'll take that for you, old chum."
"No need." Spanners gave a quick smile, hurrying inside. "I'd rather hang on to this myself, if you don't mind, Ace."
Normally, Ace might have argued with a denied offer to help, but he was clearly aware that time was of the essence. Nodding curtly, he gave Spanners a hearty pat on the back, and hurried towards the small cockpit area. "Might want to strap in, Spanneroo," he called back towards the passenger section, "This little lady is a fast mover."
There was no need to tell Spanners that. He'd done the pre-flight checks for Ace's first test run in the Gemini himself, and had been there during take-off. Although, once the shock-wave hit, he very nearly hadn't been any more. He secured the buckle of the six-point safety-harness, and leaned back in anticipation. They really were cutting it rather close, but that was a risk he'd willingly taken when he volunteered to stay behind with Ace and help with the evacuation. Even after the 'Last Warning' sirens had started, Ace had insisted on taking an extra round to check that anyone wasn't lingering behind in the toilets. "Ready when you are, Ace!" Spanners clutched the arm-rests of his chair.
"Splendid! Won't be a mo'."
Spanners didn't even have time to think, much less react, before the Gemini was out of the hangar and into the freedom of open space, rapidly putting a healthy distance between herself and the base. Despite having seen her move before, Spanners was impressed. Of course, it was quite something different to actually be on board. A small screen on the wall in front of him was showing a view of all sides of the craft simultaneously, their speed and distance from point of departure listed somberly in the bottom left hand corner. Suddenly aware that he had been holding his breath, Spanners exhaled deeply. "Nice one, Ace!" he hollered towards the cockpit.
There came the click of a safety harness being unbuckled as Ace leaned forward and turned on the auto-pilot. At least that's what Spanners assumed he was doing. Ace didn't like to talk while he was following safety procedure, because the safety procedure specifically stated that you shouldn't. Finally, he turned around and grinned in Spanner's direction. "Thank you Spanners, but you know that's utter tosh." Sliding out of the pilot's seat, Ace strolled back into the passenger section, and leaned against the door-frame, giving his head a toss to keep his hair from falling into his eyes. "It's all routine. A parakeet could fly this thing if someone strapped it in and glued some birdseed to the right buttons."
Giggling at that image, Spanners unbuckled his own harness, and got up. "Yer selling yerself short, Ace, as always." He shook his head, smiling. "What's it going to take for you to stop putting yerself down?"
Ace looked away, his mouth quirking slightly. "Ah, quit that nonsense. You know I don't like talking about myself."
Still smiling and giggling a little, Spanners shrugged, walking over to their luggage to check that it was securely fastened. "So what do you reckon it was, then?"
"Not sure I follow you, old boy."
"You know, that caused the quarantine breach. What d'ya think it was? Some daft twonk bringing a pet home for his girlfriend? You know the things they breed down in the entertainment quarter." Spanners gave his guitar a friendly pat. God, he loved that thing. It's what got him through the hard times. If only he knew how to play it properly! He hadn't bothered to learn before, and now... well, there was no time, was there? Spanners enjoyed the busy life on the base, but the lack of any kind of free time to speak of wasn't doing his marriage much good. He shook the thought away.
Ace chewed his lip, thoughtfully. "Could be anything, really. No point trying to place blame. Somehow, something got into the base that shouldn't have – some animal, maybe just an insect – and now they have to flush the place with radiation. A blasted bore, of course, but you can't be too careful." He sat down on the large, sturdy wooden chest, and flashed Spanners a smile.
That chest had been poking at Spanners's curiosity ever since he saw Ace drag it from his quarters. Of course, it hadn't looked like dragging. Ace had a way of making the most labor-intensive tasks seem effortless. Spanners was dying to know what was in it, but of course, it wasn't his business. He turned his thoughts back to the conversation. "I just don't get it, you know? How people can risk other people's lives like that, bringing an un-quarantined animal into a closed environment. Don't they know the risks? Well, no; they must know, unless they'd slept through all the training vids on the subject!"
His eyes flicking quickly from Spanners to the chest and back, Ace smiled softly. "Ah, don't be too hard on them, Spanners, my man. I'm sure it was all a misunderstanding that will be cleared up in no time. Meanwhile, let's you and I get some chow, yes?"
They ate in silence – the kind of comfortable, amicable silence that really close friends can enjoy, if they're lucky. And Spanners did feel lucky. He had a fulfilling, meaningful job, he had married the
woman of his dreams and regardless of their recent problems, they had two wonderful children together. And then there was Ace. Could a man wish for a better, more caring friend? It annoyed Spanners to find that his eyes kept moving to the chest in the corner of the room. It wasn't his business, after all! Spanners kept his fingers crossed that Ace wouldn't notice, but of course he did.
"Something the matter, Davey-boy?" Ace cocked a well-plucked eyebrow.
Blushing, Spanners picked at his food. “Nothing gets past you, eh?” He smiled, carefully.
“Spill it, old bean!” When Spanners just shrugged, Ace jerked a thumb towards the chest. “You're curious about that old thing, aren't you?”
“Well... yeah. Now you mention it. None of my business, of course,” Spanners added hurriedly when Ace got up and started to cross the room.
“Pish posh! We're mates, you and I.” Before Spanners could react, Ace had picked the sturdy thing up, carrying it with no sigh of strain. Plonking it down right in front of Spanners, Ace produced a key from somewhere in the recesses of his flight suit, and opened the lock. “There we are,” he mumbled, lifting the lid, and secreting the key somewhere about his person again.
His cheeks burning with curiosity and a little bit of embarrassment, Spanners leaned forwards to take a look. His eyes widened. “Smegging hell,” he exclaimed, mentally chiding himself the moment the words left his lips. He was really trying not to swear; it didn't set a very good example for his kids.
“Well now,” said Ace, unstirred by the choice of words, “I wouldn't go as far as all that. It's just a lot of old junk, really.” Seating himself on the edge of the open chest, he peered casually at the contents.
“Old junk?” As carefully as he could manage, Spanners reached inside, picking up a small, wooden figurine. He was almost afraid to touch it; it felt so fragile in his hands. The paintwork was detailed, though faded, and there wasn't as much as a mark of wear and tear on them. “These look really, really valuable!”
Ace waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, nonsense. Only a bunch of silly toy soldiers. Who wants to play war, anyway? Ghastly business; not at all suitable for children. If you ask me, those generals,” he pointed at the piece in Spanners's hand, “were all a bunch of basic, natural cowards.”
“So you don't like generals, then?”
A strange, smile played at Ace's lips, and for a moment, he seemed lost in thought. Finally, he turned those intense hazel eyes towards Spanners again. “I'll tell you something. Something I've never told anyone.” Spanners shifted in his seat, sensing the importance of the story Ace was telling him. He felt privileged, like he'd been allowed to eavesdrop on the Prime Minister's meetings with the Cyber Queen. “When I was fifteen, I went to Macedonia on a school trip, to the site of Alexander The Great's palace. And for the first time in my whole life, I felt ... I felt I was home. This place was where I belonged.” Ace chuckled, dismissively. “Silly, wasn't it? The sort of fantasy a young boy indulges in. But then, years later, when I was transferred to Mimas Base, I had a chat with the staff hypnotherapist.”
Spanners frowned. “What; Donald?”
“The very same. Anyway, when I'd explained things to him; bread, butter and all that, and he'd put his clothes back on, and washed off the HP sauce, the subject came around to Alexander the Great. He offered to regress me back through my past lives. Well, you know me, Spanners; I like to keep both feet on the ground unless I'm horizontal, but I thought I'd give it a whirl. And believe it or not, old chum – you'll get a right laugh out of this - he told me that, in a past incarnation, I was Alexander the Great!”
Watching the man laugh at himself with such evident amusement; this great, heroic, strong, handsome and impossibly self-deprecating man, Spanners smiled. “You know what? I believe ya.”
Laughing harder, Ace shook his head, and gave the chest a thump with his fist. “Oh, no, no, no. Rot, the lot of it. Like this junk – been in my family for generations. No one bothered to throw it out, I suppose. We Rimmers are a lazy bunch, and make no mistake!”
Likely story, Spanners thought, nervously replacing the figurine. They didn't make wooden toys anymore; hadn't done for centuries at least. And how had Ace known this particular one was a general? He was about to argue the point when something else caught his eye; a wad of papers, stuffed in next to the soldiers, hidden away in a corner. At first it looked like paper padding, put there to protect the figures, which in itself would belie their lack of value. As he looked closer, however, the red-green ink of printed dollarpounds was unmistakable. Spanners jerked his hand away, as though just touching the stuff would have been stealing. “Ace, man...”
Ace was still watching him, calmly. “Yes?”
“You shouldn't keep yer money lying around like that.” Not that anyone would dare steal from Ace, but well... Spanners felt oddly protective of the man. Which was absurd; this was Ace Rimmer, after all!
Chuckling, Ace gave another dismissive gesture. “I appreciate the concern, old macaroon, but I have complete faith in the boys back at the station.” If Ace had a flaw, it was his tendency to refer to everyone, regardless of gender, as 'boys' or 'lads'. “Besides, how much could it possibly be? It's just some odds and ends I've been tossing aside from time to time. I'll bet it doesn't even add up to twenty dollarpounds.”
Noticing the bills were in wads of the same size, Spanners gave a quick mental calculation. “Looks more like twenty thousand.”
Laughing heartily, Ace reached around to give him a slap on the back. He put just a little too much power behind it, as usual, and Spanners huffed out a breath. Pushing the soldiers to one side, he began to rummage around inside the chest. “I'll show you something of real value, squire.” Eventually, he gave a satisfied “a-hah”, lifting a handful of books triumphantly in one hand.
Spanners squinted at the titles. “Books?” He asked, lamely, feeling like a git. He didn't use to have any interest in reading, and now he didn't have the time. Kris was always encouraging him to go to the library, adding another shovelful onto the pile of guilt in his conscience.
“Absolutely, boy-o!” Ace brushed his hands across the covers of a thick, leather-bound volume. “Aaah, The Bard. Nothing like a bit of Shakespeare for long space voyages. Have I ever shown you my Richard III?”
“No,” said Spanners, desperately flicking through his sparse mental library to find out who on Earth Richard III was.
A hush seemed to fall over the small ship, as Ace flipped his hair back, taking up an impressive pose. For a moment, it seemed as though he had grown a hump; his back arching in an odd way. Lifting one arm dramatically, he raised his voice, and began. “Now...”
The sound of something terribly large, and presumably terribly hot, hitting them shook the ship. The heat wasn't actually audible, of course, but the burst of it through the cabin was impossible to miss. In a heartbeat, Ace was back in the pilot's seat, strapped in and wrestling with the controls as the intertial stabilizers struggled to keep the out-of-control spinning ship from turning the people inside it into meat paste splatted up against the wall.
“Strap yourself in,” he yelled to Spanners, who was way ahead of him, already snapping the buckle of his harness closed. “There's a small moon up ahead; I'll put her down there. Hang on tight!”
Spanners watched the view-screen nervously, hearing the overheating metal whine in protest around him as the Gemini entered the atmosphere. He had no doubts about Ace's piloting skills, naturally, but this ship was a prototype, and it had been hit pretty hard. Not even having Ace at the controls would help them if they got a hull breach right now.
Suddenly, the screen turned white, showing a vista of jagged peaks covered in snow. They were flying through a snow storm, and heading, despite Ace's best efforts, straight for one of those mountains. “The steering is shot,” Ace shouted, “this might be a bumpy...” A deafening thud and the feeling that someone had hit him in the stomach signaled the end of their journey. Spanners leaned forwards in his harness, panting and swearing under his breath. He'd get some choice bruises from this!
“Ace,” he shouted, “are you all right?”
“Tickety-boo,” came the hesitant reply, sounding somewhat nasal. “Just got the old nose-bone broken again, nothing I can't handle.” There was a sickening crack-y sort of sound. “Ah. Much better.”
Shaking his head and smiling, Spanners struggled to free himself. They would have a long wait ahead.
Part: 1/2
Pairing: Ace/Spanners
Rating: PG-13, for this part
Disclaimer: I don't own Red Dwarf, or any of the characters thereof. I make no money from this.
Spoilers: Dimension Jump and Marooned
Notes: A re-write of Marooned as it might have happened with Ace and Spanners in Rimmer and Lister's stead. Part 1 of 2. Written for the
fanfic100 challenge - my table is here. As always, please bring me concrit!The loud, clear sirens of Mimas Base rang out, signaling evacuation. The noise was not quite so eardrum-shattering in the hangar bay where Ace and Spanners were loading a few of their belongings on board what Ace referred to as 'his latest crate', but it was enough that Spanners didn't want to stick around any longer than necessary. Of course, the reason why the sirens were going off in the first place would be enough to make any sane person to want to leave.
Having deposited his own, sturdy-looking trunk safely in the meager space available, Ace turned towards Spanners and made a move for his guitar-case. "I'll take that for you, old chum."
"No need." Spanners gave a quick smile, hurrying inside. "I'd rather hang on to this myself, if you don't mind, Ace."
Normally, Ace might have argued with a denied offer to help, but he was clearly aware that time was of the essence. Nodding curtly, he gave Spanners a hearty pat on the back, and hurried towards the small cockpit area. "Might want to strap in, Spanneroo," he called back towards the passenger section, "This little lady is a fast mover."
There was no need to tell Spanners that. He'd done the pre-flight checks for Ace's first test run in the Gemini himself, and had been there during take-off. Although, once the shock-wave hit, he very nearly hadn't been any more. He secured the buckle of the six-point safety-harness, and leaned back in anticipation. They really were cutting it rather close, but that was a risk he'd willingly taken when he volunteered to stay behind with Ace and help with the evacuation. Even after the 'Last Warning' sirens had started, Ace had insisted on taking an extra round to check that anyone wasn't lingering behind in the toilets. "Ready when you are, Ace!" Spanners clutched the arm-rests of his chair.
"Splendid! Won't be a mo'."
Spanners didn't even have time to think, much less react, before the Gemini was out of the hangar and into the freedom of open space, rapidly putting a healthy distance between herself and the base. Despite having seen her move before, Spanners was impressed. Of course, it was quite something different to actually be on board. A small screen on the wall in front of him was showing a view of all sides of the craft simultaneously, their speed and distance from point of departure listed somberly in the bottom left hand corner. Suddenly aware that he had been holding his breath, Spanners exhaled deeply. "Nice one, Ace!" he hollered towards the cockpit.
There came the click of a safety harness being unbuckled as Ace leaned forward and turned on the auto-pilot. At least that's what Spanners assumed he was doing. Ace didn't like to talk while he was following safety procedure, because the safety procedure specifically stated that you shouldn't. Finally, he turned around and grinned in Spanner's direction. "Thank you Spanners, but you know that's utter tosh." Sliding out of the pilot's seat, Ace strolled back into the passenger section, and leaned against the door-frame, giving his head a toss to keep his hair from falling into his eyes. "It's all routine. A parakeet could fly this thing if someone strapped it in and glued some birdseed to the right buttons."
Giggling at that image, Spanners unbuckled his own harness, and got up. "Yer selling yerself short, Ace, as always." He shook his head, smiling. "What's it going to take for you to stop putting yerself down?"
Ace looked away, his mouth quirking slightly. "Ah, quit that nonsense. You know I don't like talking about myself."
Still smiling and giggling a little, Spanners shrugged, walking over to their luggage to check that it was securely fastened. "So what do you reckon it was, then?"
"Not sure I follow you, old boy."
"You know, that caused the quarantine breach. What d'ya think it was? Some daft twonk bringing a pet home for his girlfriend? You know the things they breed down in the entertainment quarter." Spanners gave his guitar a friendly pat. God, he loved that thing. It's what got him through the hard times. If only he knew how to play it properly! He hadn't bothered to learn before, and now... well, there was no time, was there? Spanners enjoyed the busy life on the base, but the lack of any kind of free time to speak of wasn't doing his marriage much good. He shook the thought away.
Ace chewed his lip, thoughtfully. "Could be anything, really. No point trying to place blame. Somehow, something got into the base that shouldn't have – some animal, maybe just an insect – and now they have to flush the place with radiation. A blasted bore, of course, but you can't be too careful." He sat down on the large, sturdy wooden chest, and flashed Spanners a smile.
That chest had been poking at Spanners's curiosity ever since he saw Ace drag it from his quarters. Of course, it hadn't looked like dragging. Ace had a way of making the most labor-intensive tasks seem effortless. Spanners was dying to know what was in it, but of course, it wasn't his business. He turned his thoughts back to the conversation. "I just don't get it, you know? How people can risk other people's lives like that, bringing an un-quarantined animal into a closed environment. Don't they know the risks? Well, no; they must know, unless they'd slept through all the training vids on the subject!"
His eyes flicking quickly from Spanners to the chest and back, Ace smiled softly. "Ah, don't be too hard on them, Spanners, my man. I'm sure it was all a misunderstanding that will be cleared up in no time. Meanwhile, let's you and I get some chow, yes?"
They ate in silence – the kind of comfortable, amicable silence that really close friends can enjoy, if they're lucky. And Spanners did feel lucky. He had a fulfilling, meaningful job, he had married the
woman of his dreams and regardless of their recent problems, they had two wonderful children together. And then there was Ace. Could a man wish for a better, more caring friend? It annoyed Spanners to find that his eyes kept moving to the chest in the corner of the room. It wasn't his business, after all! Spanners kept his fingers crossed that Ace wouldn't notice, but of course he did.
"Something the matter, Davey-boy?" Ace cocked a well-plucked eyebrow.
Blushing, Spanners picked at his food. “Nothing gets past you, eh?” He smiled, carefully.
“Spill it, old bean!” When Spanners just shrugged, Ace jerked a thumb towards the chest. “You're curious about that old thing, aren't you?”
“Well... yeah. Now you mention it. None of my business, of course,” Spanners added hurriedly when Ace got up and started to cross the room.
“Pish posh! We're mates, you and I.” Before Spanners could react, Ace had picked the sturdy thing up, carrying it with no sigh of strain. Plonking it down right in front of Spanners, Ace produced a key from somewhere in the recesses of his flight suit, and opened the lock. “There we are,” he mumbled, lifting the lid, and secreting the key somewhere about his person again.
His cheeks burning with curiosity and a little bit of embarrassment, Spanners leaned forwards to take a look. His eyes widened. “Smegging hell,” he exclaimed, mentally chiding himself the moment the words left his lips. He was really trying not to swear; it didn't set a very good example for his kids.
“Well now,” said Ace, unstirred by the choice of words, “I wouldn't go as far as all that. It's just a lot of old junk, really.” Seating himself on the edge of the open chest, he peered casually at the contents.
“Old junk?” As carefully as he could manage, Spanners reached inside, picking up a small, wooden figurine. He was almost afraid to touch it; it felt so fragile in his hands. The paintwork was detailed, though faded, and there wasn't as much as a mark of wear and tear on them. “These look really, really valuable!”
Ace waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, nonsense. Only a bunch of silly toy soldiers. Who wants to play war, anyway? Ghastly business; not at all suitable for children. If you ask me, those generals,” he pointed at the piece in Spanners's hand, “were all a bunch of basic, natural cowards.”
“So you don't like generals, then?”
A strange, smile played at Ace's lips, and for a moment, he seemed lost in thought. Finally, he turned those intense hazel eyes towards Spanners again. “I'll tell you something. Something I've never told anyone.” Spanners shifted in his seat, sensing the importance of the story Ace was telling him. He felt privileged, like he'd been allowed to eavesdrop on the Prime Minister's meetings with the Cyber Queen. “When I was fifteen, I went to Macedonia on a school trip, to the site of Alexander The Great's palace. And for the first time in my whole life, I felt ... I felt I was home. This place was where I belonged.” Ace chuckled, dismissively. “Silly, wasn't it? The sort of fantasy a young boy indulges in. But then, years later, when I was transferred to Mimas Base, I had a chat with the staff hypnotherapist.”
Spanners frowned. “What; Donald?”
“The very same. Anyway, when I'd explained things to him; bread, butter and all that, and he'd put his clothes back on, and washed off the HP sauce, the subject came around to Alexander the Great. He offered to regress me back through my past lives. Well, you know me, Spanners; I like to keep both feet on the ground unless I'm horizontal, but I thought I'd give it a whirl. And believe it or not, old chum – you'll get a right laugh out of this - he told me that, in a past incarnation, I was Alexander the Great!”
Watching the man laugh at himself with such evident amusement; this great, heroic, strong, handsome and impossibly self-deprecating man, Spanners smiled. “You know what? I believe ya.”
Laughing harder, Ace shook his head, and gave the chest a thump with his fist. “Oh, no, no, no. Rot, the lot of it. Like this junk – been in my family for generations. No one bothered to throw it out, I suppose. We Rimmers are a lazy bunch, and make no mistake!”
Likely story, Spanners thought, nervously replacing the figurine. They didn't make wooden toys anymore; hadn't done for centuries at least. And how had Ace known this particular one was a general? He was about to argue the point when something else caught his eye; a wad of papers, stuffed in next to the soldiers, hidden away in a corner. At first it looked like paper padding, put there to protect the figures, which in itself would belie their lack of value. As he looked closer, however, the red-green ink of printed dollarpounds was unmistakable. Spanners jerked his hand away, as though just touching the stuff would have been stealing. “Ace, man...”
Ace was still watching him, calmly. “Yes?”
“You shouldn't keep yer money lying around like that.” Not that anyone would dare steal from Ace, but well... Spanners felt oddly protective of the man. Which was absurd; this was Ace Rimmer, after all!
Chuckling, Ace gave another dismissive gesture. “I appreciate the concern, old macaroon, but I have complete faith in the boys back at the station.” If Ace had a flaw, it was his tendency to refer to everyone, regardless of gender, as 'boys' or 'lads'. “Besides, how much could it possibly be? It's just some odds and ends I've been tossing aside from time to time. I'll bet it doesn't even add up to twenty dollarpounds.”
Noticing the bills were in wads of the same size, Spanners gave a quick mental calculation. “Looks more like twenty thousand.”
Laughing heartily, Ace reached around to give him a slap on the back. He put just a little too much power behind it, as usual, and Spanners huffed out a breath. Pushing the soldiers to one side, he began to rummage around inside the chest. “I'll show you something of real value, squire.” Eventually, he gave a satisfied “a-hah”, lifting a handful of books triumphantly in one hand.
Spanners squinted at the titles. “Books?” He asked, lamely, feeling like a git. He didn't use to have any interest in reading, and now he didn't have the time. Kris was always encouraging him to go to the library, adding another shovelful onto the pile of guilt in his conscience.
“Absolutely, boy-o!” Ace brushed his hands across the covers of a thick, leather-bound volume. “Aaah, The Bard. Nothing like a bit of Shakespeare for long space voyages. Have I ever shown you my Richard III?”
“No,” said Spanners, desperately flicking through his sparse mental library to find out who on Earth Richard III was.
A hush seemed to fall over the small ship, as Ace flipped his hair back, taking up an impressive pose. For a moment, it seemed as though he had grown a hump; his back arching in an odd way. Lifting one arm dramatically, he raised his voice, and began. “Now...”
The sound of something terribly large, and presumably terribly hot, hitting them shook the ship. The heat wasn't actually audible, of course, but the burst of it through the cabin was impossible to miss. In a heartbeat, Ace was back in the pilot's seat, strapped in and wrestling with the controls as the intertial stabilizers struggled to keep the out-of-control spinning ship from turning the people inside it into meat paste splatted up against the wall.
“Strap yourself in,” he yelled to Spanners, who was way ahead of him, already snapping the buckle of his harness closed. “There's a small moon up ahead; I'll put her down there. Hang on tight!”
Spanners watched the view-screen nervously, hearing the overheating metal whine in protest around him as the Gemini entered the atmosphere. He had no doubts about Ace's piloting skills, naturally, but this ship was a prototype, and it had been hit pretty hard. Not even having Ace at the controls would help them if they got a hull breach right now.
Suddenly, the screen turned white, showing a vista of jagged peaks covered in snow. They were flying through a snow storm, and heading, despite Ace's best efforts, straight for one of those mountains. “The steering is shot,” Ace shouted, “this might be a bumpy...” A deafening thud and the feeling that someone had hit him in the stomach signaled the end of their journey. Spanners leaned forwards in his harness, panting and swearing under his breath. He'd get some choice bruises from this!
“Ace,” he shouted, “are you all right?”
“Tickety-boo,” came the hesitant reply, sounding somewhat nasal. “Just got the old nose-bone broken again, nothing I can't handle.” There was a sickening crack-y sort of sound. “Ah. Much better.”
Shaking his head and smiling, Spanners struggled to free himself. They would have a long wait ahead.
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-23 07:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-23 07:23 am (UTC)Glad you're enjoying it. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-09-23 10:40 am (UTC)These are some of my favourite bits:
Is it the naughty part of me that likes the idea of any Lister strapped down?
He's not our Rimmer - but he's still a Rimmer!
If only our Lister could say this!
LOL!
This sentence just seemed really naughty to my dirty mind!
Rimmer!! What a guy.
Loved the contents of the chest as well, such a contrast to what happened for our guys. It's actually quite sad when you look at it that way.
Can't wait for the rest, it's an interesting spin you've got on it. This is a really heart-breaking episode in the series, and one of my favourites, so I'd love to see how it would play out with Ace and Spanners instead.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-23 10:31 pm (UTC)If only our Lister could say this!
Our Lister doesn't see that Rimmer puts himself down at all. As he sees it, Rimmer is full of himself, and if anything, has an inflated ego. He knows he's got issues, but he's confused about how the whole thing works, and doesn't care to investigate further, because Rimmer's such a smeghead.
I know, communication, right?
Cute!
Date: 2007-09-23 05:18 pm (UTC)Dunno if it was intentional, but I like the undertone of Ace feeling insecure. Nice nice!
Re: Cute!
Date: 2007-09-23 10:32 pm (UTC)I don't think Ace is insecure, but he likes to let other people think he's insecure, so they'll feel better about themselves. He's such a Stu. ;D
Re: Cute!
Date: 2007-09-28 04:20 am (UTC)Re: Cute!
Date: 2007-09-28 06:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 05:42 am (UTC)Oh, man, that's so very impossibly-modest Ace.
*halfway through reading* Heeeey, Spanners has a Frankenstein, doesn't he?
...maybe not. But I really enjoyed the Ace version of the things in Rimmer's past. Helps flesh him out, make him a sympathetic character. (...long story short, I don't like Ace. But I'm enjoying him here.)
no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 09:49 am (UTC)Glad you're enjoying him, and it - thanks for feeding back!
no subject
Date: 2007-09-28 04:21 am (UTC)I do love how "Now is the winter of our discontent..." is interrupted by the meteor. Perfect Ace-ifying of the situation!
no subject
Date: 2007-09-28 06:35 am (UTC)Yeah, I was struggling to find a way of making the crash happen without Ace noticing, because he would, wouldn't he?
The next part has a line you gave me in it. And it's a damn fine line if I say so myself.
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Date: 2007-11-09 04:18 am (UTC)This is my favourite bit: Anyway, when I'd explained things to him; bread, butter and all that, and he'd put his clothes back on, and washed off the HP sauce... LOL!
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Date: 2007-11-24 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-25 09:09 pm (UTC)