reddwarfslash | Imperfect Circle (Part 1/?) (Reply)

Imperfect Circle

Part 1/?

Pairing: our!Ace / holo!Listy

Rating: So far PG

Warnings: mpreg! (though in part one there’s just the…um…catalyzing incident ;)

Beta: the magnificent, beautiful, wonderful dauphkantus

Notes: Because I can write something other than angst. Because of course our!Ace would visit holo!Listy’s dimension. And of course they would shag each other senseless. And of course they would create a magic!holo!baby.

What’s that I hear you yelling? That it’s crazy? That it doesn’t even make sense? That it goes against at least four Space Corps Directives? Ha. Maybe. But I bet you’re intrigued. ;)

“Another dimension is within range, Ace,” the computer announced, breaking the monotony of his thoughts. Staring into deep space for weeks on end did funny things to the mind. Made one forget the present, and relive the past over and over. Made one reassess past actions and brood over things that should have been done differently. Made one lonely.

“Got a lock on another Arnie, I take it?” He asked, torn between excitement at the prospect of something interesting about to happen and dread at meeting another damned version of himself.

“No, but there is a Jupiter Mining Corps vessel with the same identification code as the one in your home dimension.”

Ace’s eyes widened.

“It’s not my dimension, is it?” He asked, unsure what he wanted the answer to be.

“No, Ace. You programmed me to keep that off limits. Should I cancel that order?”

“…Erm, no. I just…forgot.”

The computer regarded him silently. He was sure she was judging him.

“So, let’s take a look, shall we? No time like the present,” he decided, trying to regain some the aloof persona he often fell short of achieving.

The computer bleeped approvingly and engaged the dimension drive.

In an uncomfortable, jarring moment, he was thrust through the reality barrier and into view of something he thought he’d never see again: Red Dwarf.

~~~

“Hey, bud, a ship is nearby, asking to dock!” The Cat alerted Lister, then skidded out of the corridor again. Lister followed him to the console room.

“Is it GELFs?” he asked, punching up details on the screen.

“Looks like a single-person fighter jet from a 1980’s movie, only more sexually-ambiguous.” Holly declared.

“You’re one to talk,” Lister mumbled under his breath as he read over the ship’s handshake data.

“Oi. I heard that,” the mainframe computer chided in his original, male voice. He had switched back to that form about a year ago, out of respect for Dave’s loss. It wasn’t fair to taunt him with a female voice after…what had happened.

“You were meant to,” said Lister with a cheeky grin.

“Just because I’ve switched the look of my face several times, doesn’t mean…”

“Can I interrupt with something more pressing?” The Cat said, turning to face the other two from next to a data panel across the room.

“What?” They both asked.

“This guy’s a hard-light hologram. Can we even let him on board?”

“Holly?” Lister questioned.

“What are you asking me for, I don’t know,” he responded.

“Would Kryten know?” he followed up, avoiding the urge to roll his eyes.

“Doubt it. Besides, he’s doing that cache-download thingy, isn’t he?”

“He’s right, bud. The bot’s out of action for a few more hours,” the Cat agreed.

“Well, what could happen if he comes on board?”

“It’s hard to know exactly. It could mean you switch off. It could mean he does. It could mean we all die instantaneously as the ship’s power grid overloads and explodes us into a million pieces. Or, nothing.”

“Nothing?” Lister asked, skeptically.

“Yeah, I mean it’s sort of a bad idea to have two running hard-light holograms on board, innit? But it’s not well documented. At least, not in my data files, which are, admittedly, 3 million years out of date.”

Lister sighed.

“Does this guy have his own power source at all?” he considered.

“Let me check,” Cat responded, and punched some buttons on his screen. “Whoa. Looks like this dude’s craft is seriously decked-out. We’re worrying about nothing. His ship can power him, no problem.”

“Even once he leaves it and is walking around the Dwarf?” Lister decided it was best to ask now, before they jumped to conclusions.

“Bud, with these specs, this thing could power him even if he got pulled dimensions apart from his craft. It’s an insane piece of machinery. And check out its name! The Wildfire.” Cat was impressed.

Silently, Lister was too. Hard not to be, really, when the comparison was Holly’s sporadic maintenance of the Dwarf. Maybe this bloke could pass along some upgrades.

“Alright, clear him for landing. Let’s go down and meet him there.”

Cat pushed some more buttons and got up to leave the room. Lister moved to follow him. Upon exiting, he was sure he heard Holly mutter, “I still say it looks a bit sissy.”

Lister grinned.

~~~

Ace disembarked before allowing himself to look at the crew. He had a feeling he would recognize them, and wanted to be on firm footing before saying hello. Once safely down the ramp way, he lifted his eyes to his hosts.

And his light bee skipped a beat. Lister.

“…Rimmer?” The almost-Lister said, in confusion.

Ace couldn’t bear to start this visit with the false voice and bravado. He knew this wasn’t his Lister, but he felt familiarity in the presence of this man. Enough so that he pulled the wig off to avoid any secrets being divulged down the line. Better to get it all out in the open now. How long he’d wanted to share the burden with someone! How long he’d wanted to be able to be himself. This Lister remembered him from sometime in his own dimension. He wouldn’t expect charisma. He’d expect a smeghead, and that was beautifully freeing.

“Lister.” He greeted, politely. Then, noticing the other man’s ‘H’, exclaimed, “You’re dead?”

“…In the blast that killed the crew, yeah. In the blast that killed you. How is this possible?” He didn’t know what to think. Arnold Rimmer? Alive? Wearing a wig and tight pants?

“Dimension hopping.” Rimmer answered, succinctly.

The dead Lister nodded, like he understood. Then his eyes tightened as though it brought up bad memories.

“I’m dead, though. Just like you. A hologram. Killed in the blast.” He pulled the light bee remote out of his jacket pocket and pushed a button. Suddenly he was wearing the standard 1^st Officer’s blue uniform, and a hologrammatic “H”. Oh, it was so good to be able to say all this to someone. To Lister. Even if it wasn’t the real one.

“Who is this guy?” The Cat asked.

“Arnold Rimmer. My old bunkmate.” Lister replied tonelessly, still in shock.

“Pleased to meet you, Cat,” Rimmer said cordially, quashing his instinct to make a petty, derogatory comment to the feline.

“How does he know who I am?!” The Cat asked Lister, avoiding looking at the strange man in front of them. Lister shrugged.

“You exist where I come from, too.” It was better to talk simply and in short sentences when explaining inter-dimensionality, Rimmer had found. Gave people a chance to process and nod their heads, pretending they understood.

Cat nodded his head.

“Where you come from, Kris saved Frankenstein and went into stasis, then?” Lister reasoned. “But then…why were you brought back to be with her? Were you two…lovers?” His face scrunched up, trying to imagine Kris and Rimmer together. It didn’t seem possible, even in another dimension.

“No. Lister…erm, you survived. And Holly brought me back to keep you sane.”

From what Lister remembered about Arnold Rimmer, this would be a very weird choice for Holly to make. Still, this was Holly they were talking about. And maybe in their dimension, the relationship had been like him and Kris. So strange.

Hold on. A living Lister? A Cat?

“Was Kryten with you in your dimension, too?” He asked, trying to steady his heartbeats. He thought he understood all too well where this hologram was from.

“Yes.” Oh no.

“Anyone else?” he asked, hoping to finalize his theory.

“Not as such, no.” Rimmer admitted.

“And…now there’s only three of them, without you?” He had to be sure.

“…Yes.” Why was this man so keen to verify the numbers?

“Oh, smeg.” Lister said, looking down at the ground to hide the fact that his eyes were watering.

“Hey, we met those guys!” The Cat interjected. “They took Kris with them!” Suddenly he realized he had brought up the one taboo subject around Lister and felt guilty.

“What?” Rimmer was totally confused. They’d met his crew?

Lister pulled himself together.

“Listen, mate. We have a lot to talk about. But I suggest we do so while getting totally blitzed out of our minds. What do you say?”

Rimmer could only agree.

~~~

Three hours later, after finishing off a bottle of marijuana gin together and sharing their respective tales, Rimmer had decided to revisit his old bunkroom. Apparently Lister and Kris had chosen larger quarters to live in together, but once she had gone, Lister had moved back into his old room.

They unsteadily made their way there from the recreation deck, stumbling and grabbing hold of the walls for assistance.

“You’re not like I remember, Rimmer,” Lister said, affectionately, as they swam along the corridor leading to the bunkroom. He was as drunk as he’d ever been, and recounting the circumstances of Krissie’s departure to this man had made him feel a sense of companionship.

“Aren’t I?” Rimmer asked, while navigating around a skutter and almost falling down.

“No, see, you’re actually friendly like,” Lister continued. “Not like my Rimmer at all. He was…he was just…”

“A smeghead?” Rimmer suggested. He found this all very funny all of a sudden, and laughed, swaying.

Lister giggled, too.

“Yeah! Exactly. A smeghead. But not you.”

“Yes, me.”

“No…no, you’re not like that…you’re…”

But before he could finish his sentence (assuming he would have been able to finish it at all, the state he was in) Rimmer shook his head and pushed him against the wall.

“Oops,” Rimmer laughed. “Didn’t mean to do that. Overshot the mark. Was trying to tap you on the shoulder.” He didn’t move, however, and Lister was not trying to push him off. They were both giggling too much.

Then Rimmer remembered what he’d wanted to say.

“No! You see…you see, I am a smeghead…I’m just…a bit better now…Lister changed me. He did! You…you changed me…”

Lister laughed harder.

“It’s not funny!” Rimmer said in a whine, before conceding that yes, he was drunk enough for it to be funny. He giggled some more.

“You…you sound like you’re in love with him!” Lister said between laughing.

Rimmer pulled back from the man he held against the wall, and promptly fell on his arse.

Lister was now laughing so hard tears were streaming from his eyes.

Disoriented, Rimmer said indignantly to the man he couldn’t quite find in his field of vision, “I am not in love with you!”

“Not yet.” Lister giggled.

“No, shut up! I’m not…I’m not…wait, why am I on the floor?” Rimmer asked.

Lister sighed, smiling.

“Come here, you great ponce.” And pulled him to a standing position. They then helped each other through the door to the bunk.

“Wow, it’s exactly the same,” Rimmer said, surveying the (admittedly spinning) room.

“Yeah, didn’t see the point in changin’ anythin’. Haven’t seen the point in much since…y’know…” He suddenly turned introspective.

There was quiet for a few minutes while they stood there swaying in the room.

Rimmer turned to Lister, with a puzzled look on his face. He, too, had been thinking.

“Lister?” He asked, trying to focus on the other man’s face. “Am I in love with you?”

Lister shrugged.

“I dunno, mate. But it doesn’t really matter anymore, eh? Your Lister’s got my girlfriend. He’s taken something from both of us. That lucky sod.” He said this with no venom, only resolution.

“And what have we got?” Rimmer asked, his mind reeling against the alcohol and drug mixture to place satisfactory gravitas on this moment.

Lister looked at the man standing across from him and, through the drunken haze, saw the lost look in his eyes. This must be what I look like, he thought. Without her. No one should have to look that smeggin’ sad. No one should have to be that alone.

Smeg it. Why not?

He made up his mind to let go of the pain for the moment, and give Rimmer something to smile about.

He kissed him. Uncertainly, sloppily, drunkenly. Rimmer was so drunk he didn’t even resist. It felt wonderful. He let himself stop thinking, and just start feeling.

Hands began to roam. Kisses became more impassioned. Pleading and desperate clothes-ripping ensued.

“But what about…?” Rimmer began to question, as they lay down on the lower bunk, naked and painfully aroused.

“Shh! I want you.” Lister slurred in response.

Those three words drove all questions out of Rimmer’s mind, and he pushed Lister down onto the mattress.

That was the last thing either of them remembered from that night.