Strangers - Lister/Rimmer - G
Feb. 18th, 2009 02:00 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
katouttathebag.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
reddwarfslashTitle: Strangers
Rating: G
Pairing: Rimmer/Lister
Disclaimer: Don't own Red Dwarf. Don't own Lister or Rimmer, regrettably. I do not make any moneys from this but I am paid in my own joy.
Notes: I haven't written fic in a long time. I vaguely remember being a huge L/R fan when I was 14 or so, but finding fic then was damn near impossible. All of my many little plot bunnies have therefore been running free and unfettered for about 10 years. After churning through a goodly portion of the fine fine fic on RDS I decided it was probably time to give some back. After enjoying![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kahvi's wonderful fics for the fanfic100, I decided to use the awesome table as well. Be gentle... I'm new. And smut will be forthcoming in later fics.
Thanks tokahvi to canon/setting help!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Lister pulled his rucksack closer as he gazed out the transport ship window. Mimas was growing smaller and smaller in the viewport and Lister got a sudden sinking feeling in his gut. His new home was out the other window. The red hulking mass that looked like it was assembled by a danishman on a bender loomed closer every second.
Lister's bag was light, as he didn't own much in the way of possessions. His guitar strapped to his back, and in the rucksack, his zero-gee football tapes, rastabilly skank box set, his Marilyn Monroe posters and various curry sauces all rattled about. Rummaging in the front pocket of his jacket, he pulled out a bedraggled looking egg and crisp sandwich and looked at it dubiously.
Picking some lint and pencil shavings off the overhanging bit of egg, Lister took a desultory bite. He glanced over at his new crewmates who were crammed in with him like pickled herrings. They mostly kept to themselves; as he was sharing a wait room with them at the Mimas spaceport many of them were exhausted from their shore leave and simply slept until the transport arrived. Then they had all slunk onto the ship, and with a nod or two from the friendlier ones, they had all drifted off into sleep.
Taking another bite of the cold crisp sandwich, Lister screwed up his face in disgust. With his tongue hanging out, nearly crossing his eyes, he grabbed at his tongue with grubby fingers until they found purchase. Tugging slowly, he extracted a long curly red hair from his mouth. Lister groaned and shook the single hair from his damp hand. He knew he should have avoided the pub just by the name... "The Hairy Scotsman". Shrugging, he popped the last of the sandwich into his mouth and swallowed. No sense in wasting the last real pub food he was likely to see for 4 years.
The red ship was still growing closer, but Lister estimated they wouldn't reach it for at least a few minutes. He turned to dig through his pack for any sort of diversion to keep him occupied, but as he did so he caught a glimpse of a fellow passenger. The thin man was holding a tattered magazine almost in front of his face, but the disgusted eyes peeked out over top, staring at Lister. A patch of wildly unmanagable hair sat atop his head and Lister rather pitied the man for having what looked like a merkin stapled to his noggin.
Lister realized he'd made eye contact and a quick save was neccessary. Showing off a sickly grin, he attempted to make small talk, "So, uh, big ship, innit'?"
The taller bloke lowered the magazine and sneered at Lister. "Yes, well," the rangy man replied, "I assume you'd be impressed with it, being a grunt labourer. It's not the biggest I've served on, but it will do. It's all about putting in your hours. Up the ziggurat....lickety split, y'know?"
"Uhhh, yeah," Lister cast about for topics of conversation, slightly put off by the man's tone, "So, you been with the company long?"
The strangers' nostrils flared insanely, and he laughed a high pitched awkward laugh, "Oh, miladdio, you have no idea. Longer than you'll ever manage....I'm on the road to being an officer in the Space Corps. Just waiting for my astronav paperwork to go through and bob's your uncle! None of this grunt work stuff for me, I'm officer material. Runs in my blood, actually."
Lister nodded. He was finding it hard to talk with the other man. Mostly because the man was coming off as being an enormous smeghead. Lister bit his tongue to stop himself from making an enemy right out of the starting gate. Plus, if this man was going to be an officer as he said, Lister had no doubt that the goit would make his life very difficult. He seemed petty enough to nurse any grudges inflicted, even unintentionally.
"Astronavigation, eh?" Lister mumbled, "thas' pretty complicated stuff, yeh?"
His only answer was a dignified snort and an upturned nose. The man was attempting to look disdainful, but his frantically moving eyes betrayed him.
Lister was starting to think that this man might just be full of it, when the light near the door came on and made a small chime. He sighed in relief. Saved by the bell, he thought.
A nasal male voice came on the intercom.
"You are now arriving at the Jupiter Mining Corporation ship Red Dwarf. Please assemble yourself in an organized fashion and proceed to the decontamination suites after disembarking. Welcome to Red Dwarf."
"You'll be wanting to go ahead of me to the decontamination suites, I assume," the stranger's voice sneered behind Lister, "Judging from the smell."
"Now, wait just a smegging minute-" Lister began, but it was too late, the ships doors had opened and the other man was scurrying off to the next closest door.
'I was totally totally right about that git,' Lister fumed silently to himself, 'I swear, if I see him again there'll be no punches pulled. That's what I get for trying to be nice. What a weasely little smeghead.'
The rest of Lister's day was spent filling out infinite forms, filling up infinite cups of infinite bodily fluids, and waiting in infinite queues. As he gave his fingerprint and voice ident code for the last part of registration, Lister let out a huge sigh. His intake officer smiled at him and said, "Been a long day, has it?"
Lister rolled his eyes and grinned, "You have no idea!"
"Yes, well," the young man handed him a stack of papers,"you're all done now. Feel free to go check out your quarters. The skutters will carry your things. Get some rest, okay?" The officer smiled as Lister glanced down at the odd mechanical dog things who were picking up his bags.
Lister grinned and saluted, "Yessir".
Strolling down the corridor, Lister examined his papers. Third technician. Nice. It sounded like a respectable job title. Not like trolley parking boy, or bus boy, or any job with boy at the end, really. He arrived at the room specified as his and smacked the entry panel.
He leaned in and said "Hello?"
The tall man had been in the middle of hanging up a pair of underpants on a coathanger in the closet. He slammed the closet shut, and whipped around in an almost guilty manner.
"What on Io are you doing in my room!?" the man screeched.
Lister was holding back a snigger. It was possibly the biggest snigger he'd ever had to hold back, and when the reality of the situation hit him he let it out. The man had claimed to be an officer, but here he was in engineer's quarters. Sharing David "Third Technician" Lister's quarters. The bloke had totally been takin' the smeg. He was a bloody engineer, no better than Lister, who had signed on for the position that required no qualifications whatsoever. The skutters set Listers posessions down on the floor by the entrance and left.
Smirking, Lister crossed his arms and asked, "Were you, uh...hangin' yer underpants on little coathangers?"
The man fumed, twitching, as his mouth was drawn into a tight grimace.
"NO!" the stranger practically shouted, "I was most certainly not. I was...uhhh....well, it doesn't MATTER what I was doing, the important question is what you're doing intruding on my personal, private, personal quarters."
"These are your personal, private, personal quarters, then?" Lister was nearly about to burst into laughter, "because I've just been assigned as your bunkmate."
The horror creeping into the tall fellow's face would almost have been pitiable if he hadn't been acting such a git earlier. "No, you-" the man sputtered, "I requested no roommates after...last time." His face went dark.
Lister blinked.
"You..you're not going to hold a grudge about this morning then," the stranger clasped and unclasped his long hands nervously, "because I was just kidding you know, just a bit of joshing, we're mates, we're lads, eh? Eh? Just a bit of sport..."
The man trailed off, and gulped, causing his enormous adams apple to convulse in his thin neck.
Lister got a sudden surge of pity, and assured the man, "It's fine, water under the bridge, man. Name's Lister... Dave Lister."
He held out his hand for the man to shake, and after eyeing the hand suspiciously, the stranger instead elected to do the most ludicrous salute Lister had ever witnessed. The scouser looked on in disbelief.
"Arnold J. Rimmer, BsC, SsC. Most people call me Duke," with that last comment, the man called Rimmer stood at attention and shot him a nervous sideways look.
"Sure they do, Rimmer," Lister rolled his eyes, grabbed a magazine from his bag, and hopped into the top bunk.
*****
Rimmer stood awkwardly in the center of the room for a few seconds, before he decided to continue unpacking his bags. It would be less awkward if he looked like he was busy. He could always request a transfer away from this fellow. 'This is the type of guy that drags you down', Rimmer thought, 'the kind of guy who doesn't care about rank, who's nice to even the scummiest scum that ever scummed.'
'No,' Rimmer thought, 'there's just something wrong with people like that.'
Rating: G
Pairing: Rimmer/Lister
Disclaimer: Don't own Red Dwarf. Don't own Lister or Rimmer, regrettably. I do not make any moneys from this but I am paid in my own joy.
Notes: I haven't written fic in a long time. I vaguely remember being a huge L/R fan when I was 14 or so, but finding fic then was damn near impossible. All of my many little plot bunnies have therefore been running free and unfettered for about 10 years. After churning through a goodly portion of the fine fine fic on RDS I decided it was probably time to give some back. After enjoying
kahvi's wonderful fics for the fanfic100, I decided to use the awesome table as well. Be gentle... I'm new. And smut will be forthcoming in later fics. Thanks to
kahvi to canon/setting help!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Lister pulled his rucksack closer as he gazed out the transport ship window. Mimas was growing smaller and smaller in the viewport and Lister got a sudden sinking feeling in his gut. His new home was out the other window. The red hulking mass that looked like it was assembled by a danishman on a bender loomed closer every second.
Lister's bag was light, as he didn't own much in the way of possessions. His guitar strapped to his back, and in the rucksack, his zero-gee football tapes, rastabilly skank box set, his Marilyn Monroe posters and various curry sauces all rattled about. Rummaging in the front pocket of his jacket, he pulled out a bedraggled looking egg and crisp sandwich and looked at it dubiously.
Picking some lint and pencil shavings off the overhanging bit of egg, Lister took a desultory bite. He glanced over at his new crewmates who were crammed in with him like pickled herrings. They mostly kept to themselves; as he was sharing a wait room with them at the Mimas spaceport many of them were exhausted from their shore leave and simply slept until the transport arrived. Then they had all slunk onto the ship, and with a nod or two from the friendlier ones, they had all drifted off into sleep.
Taking another bite of the cold crisp sandwich, Lister screwed up his face in disgust. With his tongue hanging out, nearly crossing his eyes, he grabbed at his tongue with grubby fingers until they found purchase. Tugging slowly, he extracted a long curly red hair from his mouth. Lister groaned and shook the single hair from his damp hand. He knew he should have avoided the pub just by the name... "The Hairy Scotsman". Shrugging, he popped the last of the sandwich into his mouth and swallowed. No sense in wasting the last real pub food he was likely to see for 4 years.
The red ship was still growing closer, but Lister estimated they wouldn't reach it for at least a few minutes. He turned to dig through his pack for any sort of diversion to keep him occupied, but as he did so he caught a glimpse of a fellow passenger. The thin man was holding a tattered magazine almost in front of his face, but the disgusted eyes peeked out over top, staring at Lister. A patch of wildly unmanagable hair sat atop his head and Lister rather pitied the man for having what looked like a merkin stapled to his noggin.
Lister realized he'd made eye contact and a quick save was neccessary. Showing off a sickly grin, he attempted to make small talk, "So, uh, big ship, innit'?"
The taller bloke lowered the magazine and sneered at Lister. "Yes, well," the rangy man replied, "I assume you'd be impressed with it, being a grunt labourer. It's not the biggest I've served on, but it will do. It's all about putting in your hours. Up the ziggurat....lickety split, y'know?"
"Uhhh, yeah," Lister cast about for topics of conversation, slightly put off by the man's tone, "So, you been with the company long?"
The strangers' nostrils flared insanely, and he laughed a high pitched awkward laugh, "Oh, miladdio, you have no idea. Longer than you'll ever manage....I'm on the road to being an officer in the Space Corps. Just waiting for my astronav paperwork to go through and bob's your uncle! None of this grunt work stuff for me, I'm officer material. Runs in my blood, actually."
Lister nodded. He was finding it hard to talk with the other man. Mostly because the man was coming off as being an enormous smeghead. Lister bit his tongue to stop himself from making an enemy right out of the starting gate. Plus, if this man was going to be an officer as he said, Lister had no doubt that the goit would make his life very difficult. He seemed petty enough to nurse any grudges inflicted, even unintentionally.
"Astronavigation, eh?" Lister mumbled, "thas' pretty complicated stuff, yeh?"
His only answer was a dignified snort and an upturned nose. The man was attempting to look disdainful, but his frantically moving eyes betrayed him.
Lister was starting to think that this man might just be full of it, when the light near the door came on and made a small chime. He sighed in relief. Saved by the bell, he thought.
A nasal male voice came on the intercom.
"You are now arriving at the Jupiter Mining Corporation ship Red Dwarf. Please assemble yourself in an organized fashion and proceed to the decontamination suites after disembarking. Welcome to Red Dwarf."
"You'll be wanting to go ahead of me to the decontamination suites, I assume," the stranger's voice sneered behind Lister, "Judging from the smell."
"Now, wait just a smegging minute-" Lister began, but it was too late, the ships doors had opened and the other man was scurrying off to the next closest door.
'I was totally totally right about that git,' Lister fumed silently to himself, 'I swear, if I see him again there'll be no punches pulled. That's what I get for trying to be nice. What a weasely little smeghead.'
The rest of Lister's day was spent filling out infinite forms, filling up infinite cups of infinite bodily fluids, and waiting in infinite queues. As he gave his fingerprint and voice ident code for the last part of registration, Lister let out a huge sigh. His intake officer smiled at him and said, "Been a long day, has it?"
Lister rolled his eyes and grinned, "You have no idea!"
"Yes, well," the young man handed him a stack of papers,"you're all done now. Feel free to go check out your quarters. The skutters will carry your things. Get some rest, okay?" The officer smiled as Lister glanced down at the odd mechanical dog things who were picking up his bags.
Lister grinned and saluted, "Yessir".
Strolling down the corridor, Lister examined his papers. Third technician. Nice. It sounded like a respectable job title. Not like trolley parking boy, or bus boy, or any job with boy at the end, really. He arrived at the room specified as his and smacked the entry panel.
He leaned in and said "Hello?"
The tall man had been in the middle of hanging up a pair of underpants on a coathanger in the closet. He slammed the closet shut, and whipped around in an almost guilty manner.
"What on Io are you doing in my room!?" the man screeched.
Lister was holding back a snigger. It was possibly the biggest snigger he'd ever had to hold back, and when the reality of the situation hit him he let it out. The man had claimed to be an officer, but here he was in engineer's quarters. Sharing David "Third Technician" Lister's quarters. The bloke had totally been takin' the smeg. He was a bloody engineer, no better than Lister, who had signed on for the position that required no qualifications whatsoever. The skutters set Listers posessions down on the floor by the entrance and left.
Smirking, Lister crossed his arms and asked, "Were you, uh...hangin' yer underpants on little coathangers?"
The man fumed, twitching, as his mouth was drawn into a tight grimace.
"NO!" the stranger practically shouted, "I was most certainly not. I was...uhhh....well, it doesn't MATTER what I was doing, the important question is what you're doing intruding on my personal, private, personal quarters."
"These are your personal, private, personal quarters, then?" Lister was nearly about to burst into laughter, "because I've just been assigned as your bunkmate."
The horror creeping into the tall fellow's face would almost have been pitiable if he hadn't been acting such a git earlier. "No, you-" the man sputtered, "I requested no roommates after...last time." His face went dark.
Lister blinked.
"You..you're not going to hold a grudge about this morning then," the stranger clasped and unclasped his long hands nervously, "because I was just kidding you know, just a bit of joshing, we're mates, we're lads, eh? Eh? Just a bit of sport..."
The man trailed off, and gulped, causing his enormous adams apple to convulse in his thin neck.
Lister got a sudden surge of pity, and assured the man, "It's fine, water under the bridge, man. Name's Lister... Dave Lister."
He held out his hand for the man to shake, and after eyeing the hand suspiciously, the stranger instead elected to do the most ludicrous salute Lister had ever witnessed. The scouser looked on in disbelief.
"Arnold J. Rimmer, BsC, SsC. Most people call me Duke," with that last comment, the man called Rimmer stood at attention and shot him a nervous sideways look.
"Sure they do, Rimmer," Lister rolled his eyes, grabbed a magazine from his bag, and hopped into the top bunk.
*****
Rimmer stood awkwardly in the center of the room for a few seconds, before he decided to continue unpacking his bags. It would be less awkward if he looked like he was busy. He could always request a transfer away from this fellow. 'This is the type of guy that drags you down', Rimmer thought, 'the kind of guy who doesn't care about rank, who's nice to even the scummiest scum that ever scummed.'
'No,' Rimmer thought, 'there's just something wrong with people like that.'
no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 11:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 12:57 pm (UTC)It's always great to see good new writers, and this is very good indeed! You have an excellent grasp of Lister, and you've done an excellent job of describing the JMC environment - it feels very real and belivable. All very evocative! I did enjoy the ominous implications of the 'situation' with Rimmer's former room mates, and the way you introduce the two of them to one another. Looking forward to reading more!
(I do have some tiny, niggly nipicks - mostly canon/setting stuff - if you'll have them?)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 01:05 pm (UTC)I sort of mixed what I remembered of the books(read them YONKS ago) and the series. I searched up a few reference sites for specifics, but I'm sure this community is far better for that sort of thing. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 01:22 pm (UTC)Nitpicks - and they are quite minor ones, with bits of opinion thrown in:
Footie - I'm not sure if Lister ever refers to Zero G football that way; if he does not, I wouldn't use the term, as it refers to soccer, not the American-style football which Zero G football seems to be based on. (There are references to 'touchdowns' and similar.)
None of this mining stuff for me, I'm officer material.
While JMC is, of course, a mining company, there's very little reference to mining in canon, so I just felt it was a little off that Rimmer would phrase himself that way. It would seem more likely that he would distance himself from the things he was actually doing, such as maintenance tasks and the like.
Disembarking
While the new recruits are disembarking from the shuttle, they're mainly embarking. It seemed a little off to me that there would be a disembarking area for when you entered a ship.
thanks, ever so
Date: 2009-02-18 11:34 pm (UTC)I added thanks to you in the fic. :)