Fic: The Power Of Balance - PG-13 - R/L (imp)

[kahvi.livejournal.com]

Title: The Power Of Balance
Pairing: Rimmer/Lister (implied)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: It's been years, and I still don't own Red Dwarf, or make money off of it. Honest!
Spoilers: Balance of Power.
Notes: Thanks to the wonderful smaych for her enthusiastic encouragement, kind words, and quick and efficient beta!




Freedom. The certainty of it burst out like happy fireworks in Lister's mind the moment he woke up. He'd passed. He'd actually passed! Though he'd seen the printout himself, he could hardly believe it. He was his own master. No more being bossed around by Rimmer. No more having to earn his cigarettes, do inventories and unnecessary maintenance, or having to follow stupid rules and regulations most of which had been pointless even back when the rest of the crew had still been alive. If Lister had known that his ticket to Paradise was as simple as taking a chef's exam, he would have done it while Rimmer was still alive. Then again, it hadn't been so bad back then; he'd had other people to distract him.

As he rolled around in bed leisurely, glancing at his wristwatch, he realized Rimmer had not even woken him for his usual noon-time lecture on the benefits of rising early, and why Lister, with his sloth-like sleeping patterns, would never amount to anything.

Come to that, where was Rimmer?

Leaning out over the edge of his bunk, Lister scanned the room. "Rimmer?" There was no reply. Shrugging, he jumped down to the floor, laced up his boots properly – they had come undone during the night - and started rummaging around for breakfast. He knew there was some left-over lager from last night he could strain through one of his cleaner socks. Without the cigarette butts, it was a nice little morning pick-me-up. He was almost done threading the sock over one of Rimmer's old mugs when the sound of someone pretending to breathe quietly through their nose made him aware he was not alone.

"Mister Lister, sir." Lister looked up with a frown. Rimmer was standing just inside the doorway, pointedly not looking at him. His arms were folded, and his nostrils were vibrating rapidly, as though they were trying to make up for the lack of animation in the rest of his body.

Lister couldn't remember the last time anyone had called him 'sir.' The sound of it, especially coming from Rimmer, was absurd. He stifled a giggle. "Eh?"

"Just wondering what your orders were, sir." Rimmer looked stubbornly at the wall opposite, still refusing to look at Lister.

"You don't have to call me that, and all. We're still..." The word 'mates' disappeared in a giggle, which Lister promptly tried to disguise as a cough. He cast about for a more suitable description of their relationship. "You know," he settled on with a shrug, giving up. "I don't stand on protocol."

Rimmer didn't budge. "As you wish, sir."

Lister rolled his eyes. "Whatever, man." When Rimmer still didn't move, he sighed, scratching his head. "Are you just going to stand there all day?"

“Pending your orders to the contrary, sir."

"Yeah, well, consider these my smegging orders to the contrary, then!" Lister got up, staring at the near-immobile hologram. What the smeg had gotten into him?

"What, sir?"

"What'cha mean; 'what?'"

"I mean, what are your orders, sir," Rimmer mumbled, seeming to force the words out through airtight lips.

About to hurl an insult back at the annoying smegger, Lister paused. Hang on. What was he thinking? Here was Rimmer, ready to do his bidding; exactly what he'd taken that stupid exam for in the first place! He straightened up, crossed his arms and looked Rimmer straight in the eyes. Or rather, he would have, if Rimmer had been looking at his face, and not some point just above his left shoulder. "Oi," Lister yelled, fed up with that, "look at me, would ya?"

Rimmer flinched as though struck, his head jerking up to meet Lister's gaze. His mouth opened as if to reply, but no words came out. Lister grinned.

"That's better. Now give me Kochanski."

"I'm afraid I can't let him do that, Dave."

Both men, one angry, one startled, turned towards Holly's face on the monitor. "What?" They said as one.

Holly raised his eyebrows in a non-committal gesture. "JMC regulations. Holograms of enlisted personnel are to be revived as determined by the needs of the ship and crew."

"Yeah? Well, I've got needs, Holly, and there's nothing Prince Charming over there," Lister jerked a thumb at Rimmer, "can do about them, nor would I want him to, so give me Kochanski!" He paused, waiting for Rimmer's inevitable crack about how Kochanski wouldn't have touched him either, even if she could, but nothing came.

"Sorry, Dave. Based on your psychological profile and history I can't allow it. You'd waste away with her around. Having the love of your life hanging about without being able to touch her? A man of your appetites? It'd drive you up the wall in less than a week."

"Less than a week?"

"Four point three five nine days, actually. I calculated it."

Lister snorted. "That's a risk I'm willing to take. Now go on; swap disks, or whatever it is you have to do to make it happen." He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. Rimmer still hadn't said a word. Lister didn't want to look at him – why, he wasn't quite sure – but that deafening quiet was starting to get to him.

Holly shook his head. "No can do. It's in my programming. I'm hard-wired to consider the best interest of the crew. Mind you, most times I wish I wasn't."

Lister's smirk slowly faded as the truth started to sink in. He leaned back against the wall, frowning. "Oh, eh..." Rimmer would enjoy this. All of this, and for what? Not having Rimmer boss him around? He ignored that anyway. And he'd found the stash of cigs, so the rationing was a moot point. Yeah, Rimmer would have a right laugh... except he wasn't. He was still standing very still, not looking at anything, just like he had when he'd entered the room.

"Will that be all, sir?" Rimmer mumbled, as Holly blinked out of existence.

"No!" Lister pulled at his locks in exasperation. "I mean; cut that out!"

"Cut what out, sir?"

"That!"

"Begging your pardon, sir..."

"There you go again; I don't want any of that 'sir' smeg, all right? It creeps me out!"

Rimmer looked at him now, briefly, frowning. "What else should I call you?" His lips kept moving, and Lister could tell he was trying hard to keep another 'sir' from slipping out.

"Don't call me anything; just leave me the smeg alone!" Lister stalked back towards his bunk, not really tired, but wanting to get away from what he knew about turn into another pointless argument. But when he looked up, safely tucked underneath his blanket again, the room was empty.




He found Rimmer in the drive room, monitoring the damage report machine. There was no real need for anyone to do that, but Rimmer had often voiced the opinion that someone should, just in case it stopped working. Lister took a step inside, and opened the tab on his can of lager. Rimmer flinched at the sound, jumping out of his seat, and saluting, anger and loathing written in every line of his face. Lister rolled his eyes. "Fer smeg's sake!"

"What seems to be the problem, sir?"

"Look at ya!" Lister gestured with his open can, spraying droplets over the computers, which normally would have had Rimmer screaming at him in falsetto. "Yer hating every second of this!"

Rimmer's eyes narrowed, but he didn't reply. Instead, he turned his eyes on his boots, as though he could polish them with his gaze.

"Come on! It's obvious. You despise the idea of having to take orders from me, don't ye?" He began to circle Rimmer, looking him up and down. The hologram didn't move, though a vein on the side of his head had begun to throb in a manner that would have been dangerous, had he actually been alive. "Not good enough for ye, am I? Not officer material?" Lister leaned in as close as he could without breaking through the barrier of light that passed for Rimmer's skin, and grinned in his face. "Well tough! Yer just going to have to suck it up. I outrank you, and there's nothing you can do about it!"

Rimmer swallowed, the simulated muscles of his throat moving around his adam's apple. "I know, sir."

Lister took a step back. There had been loathing in those words, yes, but a hint of something else, too. Fear? What could Rimmer possibly be afraid of? Well, no; that was right out; listing the things Rimmer wasn't afraid of would take some significant amount of time. But the way he flinched when Lister spoke; the way he jumped to attention; the way, even now, he was leaning slightly away from him and trying not to be obvious about it... it was as if he were afraid of Lister. And that made no sense at all.

Rimmer swallowed again. "May I be excused, sir?"

"Yeah... yeah." Lister waved him away, sitting down at one of the consoles. As Rimmer practically ran off, he leaned back, and took a sip of his beer. Getting to order Rimmer around should have been fun. He sighed into the empty room, and rummaged around in his pockets for a cigarette. Realizing he didn't have a lighter, he stuck the cigarette behind one ear, and got up again. Yes, endless hours of smegging fun, this was.




The bar on B deck wasn't Lister's usual hang-out. He'd never been there much before the accident, for a number of reasons; the music was always mind-numbingly boring, the drinks were over-priced with too little alcohol in them, most of the regulars were guys or older women, they got mad if you spilled lager on the tables, and they had caught him trying to sneak in twice, kicking him out for the feeble excuse that it was Officers Only. He liked to go there now, however, because it drove Rimmer absolutely spare. He would come around and stand in the doorway, shouting abuse at Lister from afar, because not being an officer, he couldn't go in. Lister giggled at the thought, downing his ninth beer. He'd been in here for hours, but Rimmer was nowhere to be seen. Lister had thought he'd enjoy breaking all those arbitrary rules the hologram had desperately enforced all this time, but it was no good if the smeghead wasn't around to watch him doing it. He sidled up to the bar, and started to order another pint from the machine when a thought struck. Grabbing his drink, he leaned back against the counter, and grinned.

"Holly? Where's Rimmer?"

"Down in corridor 351, shouting at the skutters. Apparently, they're cleaning the vending machines wrong. Something about using the wrong type of pipe-cleaner."

Lister chortled. "Send him up here, would ya?"

"All right. Might take him a while though; the elevators are out in that section. He'll have to walk over to the port-side banks."

"Tell him to take the stairs." Lister's grin broadened. This was more like it! "Better yet; tell him to run. Tell him it's an order!"

As he walked back to his table, he was almost skipping.





About a hour later, Lister heard the tell-tale sounds of rasping breath approaching. Eagerly, he positioned himself closer to the door, putting his feet up on the table for good measure. Eventually, Rimmer staggered into view, looking half-dead. His hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat, which was the only thing keeping the mass of uncontrollable curls in relative check, the carefully simulated hair-gel having more or less evaporated during his run. Staggering into a parody of attention, he saluted wearily. "You wanted to see me, sir?"

"Heeey!" Lister saluted with his drink, the foaming liquid splashing liberally over the no doubt expensive furniture and rugs. He had polished off another couple of drinks while waiting, and was now quite well on his way towards 'Nicely Drunk'. "Come in, why don't'cha? Have a drink!"

"I'm afraid I can't do that, sir. That is an Officers Only establishment."

Lister gasped, feigning surprise. "Why, so it is! And here's me, lounging around the place. What do you know."

"You have every right to, sir," Rimmer said, his face passive.

"Oh, but I'm not an officer either, am I? I'm just a lowly chef." Lister bit his fist in a pretense of horror. "I shouldn't be in here!"

"Chefs have honorary officer status, sir."

Lister froze. "They do? Why?"

"Far be it from me to question the wisdom of the Jupiter Mining Corporation, sir, but there you have it. You're an officer." The word, coming from Rimmer's mouth, sounded more like 'man-sized pile of smeg'.

Lister frowned, tipping his chair back, and was about to reply when it fell over, taking him with it. His beer spilled out over the luxurious carpet, soaking into it and leaving the foam on top, like soapy water seeping into a sponge. In the distance, Rimmer made a sound like a sort of coughing hiccup.





Much of the twelve pints, the last, lost one especially, had made their mark on Lister's shirt. It was now wet, and smelled comfortably of beer, the latter of which he rather enjoyed. The former, however, needed to be remedied. The moment he was back in his quarters, Rimmer following like some passive aggressive puppy, Lister pulled the shirt over his head, and threw it unceremoniously on the floor. He turned to grab another one out of his locker, and caught Rimmer staring. "What?"

Rimmer flushed, looking hurriedly away. "Nothing, sir."

Raising an eyebrow, Lister rummaged around for something moderately clean and dry, but found nothing. Seeing Rimmer still standing there; mute and stiff like the telegraph poles he read magazines about, face flushed and red, unable to even acknowledge the fact that he was looking at Lister out of the corner of his eyes, whatever thin thread-like material that had been keeping Lister in check finally snapped.

Slamming the door to his own locker shut, he violently pulled open Rimmer’s. Rows upon rows of immaculately cleaned and ironed garments greeted him; dunes of shirts, fields of trousers, little rolling hills of carefully pressed socks. Lister went straight for the hanging, long-sleeved shirts; the ones he knew Rimmer preferred, dragging one out so hard that its hanger fell clattering to the floor. Rimmer visibly flinched. Ignoring him, Lister twisted the shirt up like a towel, drying himself off with it quite roughly. The buttons chafed when they dragged across his skin, but that was a small price to pay for the look on Rimmer’s face when Lister finally turned towards him.

“Here,” he yelled, balling up the now wet and beer-smelling shirt, and throwing it in Rimmer’s direction. It went straight through the hologram and hit the wall with a wet ‘slollck. Rimmer’s eyeballs looked like they were trying to escape from his head, and yet he said nothing. Un-be-smegging-lievable. “Right!”

Marching back to the locker, Lister picked out a couple of good-sized socks, and stuck them down the front of his trousers, so they bulged obscenely.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he told the crimson, nearly hyperventilating Rimmer, “it’s not like it’s not familiar scenery to them. Well,” he added, “not exactly the same, mind. They’re probably scared out of their wits seeing my tackle after having to contend with yours. It’s like Land of the Giants to them down there, now!” He pointed to his groin, grinning. Frustratingly, though seeming on the verge of a heart-attack, Rimmer remained silent.

Sighing, Lister unzipped his trousers, letting the socks fall out. He could feel Rimmer’s eyes on him as he zipped himself up again, and the anger came swelling back. In a heartbeat, he was in the hologram’s face, their bodies nearly overlapping. Rimmer was hunched over, shivering, bringing them nearly face to face. It was eerie, being so close; if Lister concentrated, he could just make out the faint electric glow from the holographic projection. “What the smeg are you staring at, goit-breath!”

Rimmer was trying to speak, but his voice was so weak it took nearly three tries before Lister could make the words out. “Nothing, sir.”

Lister leaned forward, pushing his face through Rimmer’s head and yelling inside of it, reasoning that if he got closer to the simulated inner ear, something of the message might get through. “Be a smegging man, Rimmer! Stand up fer yerself!

“Yes, s…”

“And stop calling me ‘sir’, and stop following me around and looking at me like that with yer eyes all…

Rimmer swallowed. For Lister, more or less inside of him, it was impossible to miss. Instinctively, he looked down towards Rimmer’s bobbing throat, which is when he noticed the straining bulge in Rimmer’s simulated trousers.

“What…” Catching his breath, Lister took a step back. Rimmer still hadn’t moved, and when Lister looked back up at his face, it was a mess of shame and anger and confusion, mixed with something Lister had a fair idea what was now, and didn’t want to investigate further. “I lied,” he yelped, thinking quickly.

Rimmer’s voice was thick and hoarse. “What?”

“I didn’t really pass the exam. I just wanted to get a rise out of ya…” Bad choice of words. Rimmer’s nose twitched.

“You… lied…” he said, slowly.

Lister nodded. Smeg, it would never work. It was so easily checked; though the exam score had been calculated by a subsystem, surely Holly had access? Surely Rimmer would ask him to check, and see that Lister was, in fact, lying now, not then.

“You… lied.” Rimmer’s normal, pasty white coloring was returning to him, as though pixel by pixel.

“Yeah, I did. Sorry,” Lister added, incredulous that he seemed to have managed to get away with it.

“You’re not my superior.”

“No.”

A rather complicated maneuver was taking place on Rimmer’s face. His facial features shuffled hesitantly into different positions, slowing changing his expression from ‘desperately mortified’ to ‘calmly superior’. “Well,” he said, “I knew that all along, of course.”

Lister took another step back to keep himself from stumbling in surprise. “Eh?”

“Yes, of course. Did you really think for one moment that I would believe that a pathetic little twat like you could become an officer?”

Stunned, Lister shuffled his feet and clamped his mouth shut. He desperately wanted to defend himself, but that would mean admitting that he had actually passed, which would mean dealing with the situation in Rimmer’s trousers, and that was far worse than any alternative.

“Dumbstruck, eh? Well, I’m not surprised. I knew you didn’t have it in you, Lister. You’re just a bum; a useless little smegging little… little…” Rimmer’s face was flushing again, and he seemed to have remembered what was going on below his belt. With a muttered curse, he turned on his heel and nearly sprinted out, elbowing Cat out of the way on the other side of the door.

Wrinkling his nose, the feline stepped inside. “What’s wrong with him? Some kind of wardrobe emergency?”

Kicking the fallen socks and some of his own underwear out of the way, Lister made his way to the bunks. “Something like that,” he said, sitting down on Rimmer’s pristine sheets. Clean and crisp, though he never even really used them; never got them dirty. Lister’s eyes fell on the wet shirt in the corner, lying in a little foaming puddle. His mind fumbled at what he felt were puzzle pieces that should fit together somehow, but just… didn’t. Certainly not if you forced them. “Something like that.”

Comments

[tronella.livejournal.com]

Oh, Rimmer! So messed up. And Lister was so mean! I loved this.

He knew there was some left-over lager from last night he could strain through one of his cleaner socks.

Ugh, that is so disgusting and yet totally suitable.

[kahvi.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much! :D

Lister's slobbiness surprises me sometimes. I mean, I know it's there, but I sort of don't see it... and then someone points it out, and I go 'gagggah!' Sometimes, that someone is Lister himself.

[sadera992.livejournal.com]

poor rimmer! and bad lister! glad he saw sense and lied to him :P

great AU idea!

[kahvi.livejournal.com]

It's not meant to be AU. :) That's the idea that started it, actually; I always thought it was rather odd that Lister could have fooled "everyone" into thinking he had passed his exams. Surely Holly would have known if he were bluffing? Besides, it seemed odd to me that Rimmer wouldn't check and re-check the results to make sure that Lister had actually passed. With this in mind, I began to consider alternative scenarioes...

Thanks for reading and feeding back! :D

[sadera992.livejournal.com]

i always get confused with AU and alternative intepretation :P ah well, its still awesome!

[beetle-breath.livejournal.com]

I loved your description of Rimmer's locker. It was so apt.

[kahvi.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much! I enjoyed writing it. :)

[nice-girls-play.livejournal.com]

Ahh, more brillaince. :) I knew our boy got off on authority -- but Lister's authority? This early in their interaction? You approached it with a delicacy and a believability I've been trying muster for *months*. Kudos!

[kahvi.livejournal.com]

My beta assured me that the fact that it was Lister would make it even more enticing; it's the humiliation aspect of it all, and the fact that Lister represents all the things Rimmer doesn't allow himself to do or be.

Thank you very much; I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[nice-girls-play.livejournal.com]

Oh it definitely works! It works very well. And I think you're right: it ties nicely into his later speech about all the elements of Lister that should not work together but *do* (and his substextual admiration of that). If he were all that AND an officer.. well..

[hazeltea.livejournal.com]

OMG. This is FABULOUS, first rate! Just absolutely absolutely <3!!!!!

[kahvi.livejournal.com]

Aw, thank you very much, dear! I'm so glad you enjoyed it. :D

[erinptah]

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Poor Rimmer.

And poor Lister, finding himself unexpectedly the focus of Rimmer's crushing dysfunction. You can see all the tics, but knowing how to resolve them...it just isn't happening. (Thus the puzzle metaphor, I suppose. Agh.)

[kahvi.livejournal.com]

I'll tell you how far it is from Lister's mind; I wasn't even aware that Rimmer was getting off on the whole thing until smaych pointed it out to me! Originally, I had planned for Lister to just be frustrated by Rimmer's dysfunction, but smaych showed me that sometimes, characters have other ideas than you...

Thank you for reading and feeding back! :D

[kahvi.livejournal.com]

If he was hard light, he would have probably run and hid, don't you think? For fear of what might happen? Oh, Rimsey...

Thanks you very much - I'm glad you enjoyed it!