reddwarfslash | Fic: Roboner by Portponky age 26

Fic: Roboner
Author: Portponky, who has asked me to post this on his behalf
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Read to find out!
Warning: You might not like what you find.
Summary: Carrying someone is the most romantic act you can perform on them.

On the mining space ship Red Dwarf, not all was hunky hippo. Dave Lister was being a drunken fool again. Despite the fact that Red Dwarf had enough lager to last him for the next four hundred and thirty one years, he had decided to make his own lager using a fermentation vat built from some old pairs of trainers. He called this his 'shoe brew' and after a month of hiding it in the cupboard it was ready for consumption. Except it wasn't, because it was missing!

"Where's me shoe brew?" Lister whined out to his bunkmate.

Rimmer was unimpressed. "Shoe Brew? You can't possibly mean that vile frothing mess was intentional? I thought some of your athelete's warts had vomitted themselves to death in there."

"No man, that was me show brew," Lister explained, with tempo, "me and the Cat were gonna go down to C-Deck and have a barbeque with that. What've you done with it?"

"I did the only thing I could when faced with every possible violation of every health, safety and sanitation law ever written or thought of. I got the skutters to take it down to the hazardous waste disposal unit, irradiate it and flush it out in to the relative safety of space," Rimsy explained, waggling his fingers through the air to represent the shoe brew scattering off in the ship's wake.

"But I told you man! I said what I was doin'! If you'd had a problem with it I could've moved it meself. You never listen."

"And for that, I am very glad," Rimmer said with a smirk, as he left to do his routine systems check in the flight deck.

Lister slumped in his chair. "He's such a smeg head. Such an utter, total, absolutely, smegging..." Lister's expression changed from frustration to a blanker sort of thoughtfulness, as he looked down as his bare feet. "Holly?"

Holly's face appeared on the viewscreen. "Alright dude, how's the brew going."

"Forget about the brew for just now. Can I get an inventory count on shoes, size nine. Trainers, or anything like that."

"That's easy. We've got zero," Holly replied, happy to help.

"Zero? What about size ten?"

"Zero."

"Size eleven? Size eight and a half?"

"We have absolutely no shoes of any kind."

"I don't mean to be rude here Holly, but are you even doing the smegging inventory? How can we have no shoes?"

"Well, the thing is, during the last three million years, the cat species who were living out their civilization in the ship's hold managed to exhaust the entire supply of shoes from our supplies."

"Smeg," said Lister, "I'll have to scrounge a pair from somewhere."

***

Rimmer was in the flight deck, running all systems checks to make sure everything was hunky bumble. Holly's face sat on the screen but was unresponsive.

"Holly. Holly. Hollllly. Hooooolllllly. Hello. Hello you dimwitted excuse for a computer. Holly."

"Alright, alright, don't get your face in a twist. Radiation deteced within background levels. What's next?"

Rimmer put a big tick on his holographic pad, and went to the next item on his list. "Scan and count all known life forms on the ship."

Holly went unresponsive again, and then clicked back to attention. "The answer is three."

"No you nitwit. The answer is two. I don't know why we bother doing this every week if you can't even count."

"Like I said, the answer is three. Dave Lister, human, in his quarters. Cat, felis sapiens, F-deck, second level. Unidentified creature, deck 48. That's three."

"So what you're saying is that there's another creature on board. That's not human. And it's two decks below us."

"Yep, that's pretty much the short of it."

Rimmer paused for a moment. "Smeg. Seal the flight deck, red alert, you smegging idiot!" he screamed and ducked under the chair.

***

Kryten stood there, holding Lister's legs and turning his face to the side. Lister was upside down in his own cupboard, up to his waist in laundry the likes of which no-one had ever seen. He began to kick so Kryten pulled him from the laundry, toppling backwards in the process, and Lister fell on to Kryten's lap gasping for air. He had never noticed how strong Kryten was before. It seemed almost to make his heart flutter. The viewscreen clicked to life, and a slightly more composed Rimmer appeared.

"I don't mean to alarm you gentlemen in... what on Earth are you doing? In fact, I don't even want to know. I felt that, being as generous as I am... capable of being... I should warn you that there's an unidentified creature two decks... sorry, one deck below us and it's not really human. I've managed to seal the blast doors in the flight deck, so if we don't make it at least I will... uh, make it. If you would be so kind as to kill this critter, preferably A.S.A.P., well, that would just be great. Thanks, bye bye!"

"Wait a smegging moment. Rimmer! The bazookoids are in the flight deck! Why'd you seal the smegging blast doors? It takes a week to open those!"

Rimmer turned back to face them. "Ah, well, yes. That. About that. Well, you see, when the decision was made to seal the blast doors, I was thinking fast, and as I've always been a strong decision maker, I made that decision, and, well, good luck. And also, before I go and hide, I thought I might mention that it's now on the same deck as you. Bye!" The viewscreen went black.

"That spineless, idiotic, gimboid. When I get my hands on him, I'm going to kill him so hard, he'll be dead. Deader than dead."

"Sir," said Kryten, "whilst re-killing Mr. Rimmer is a noble and very worthy cause, perhaps we should, as you might say, leg it."

They made haste from the quarters and down the corridor towards the docking bay. However, Lister was running quite slowly, slower than Kryten. His feet were covered with small cuts from the harsh metal floors and he was already beginning to hobble a little bit. "Kryten! Krytie! This is killin' me!" he yelled.

"Sir, we must go!" Kryten insisted, "Sir, pardon me for doing this, but in the circumstances, it's probably our best hope."

Kryten reached under Lister's body and lifted him up in to the air. He began to run, picking up speed slowly but gradually. Lister put his arms around Kryten at first, but then took the liberty of stroking one hand across Kryten's metallic chest. It was so angular. He couldn't believe what he was doing so he shied away.

They reached the docking bay, which was empty, and tried to shut the door. It wouldn't close. Kryten tried to explain "When you close the blast doors, the entire computer system goes in to lock down. Nothing works." Lister couldn't concentrate on what Kryten was saying, and just kept staring at his beautiful, mechanical lips. "Sir, what do we do?"

Without missing a beat, Lister replied, "Hope that it's friendly?"

Kryten thought about this. "Of all the plans and ideas you have ever had, Mr. Lister Sir, that has to be the single stupidest one of all. Has experience taught you nothing? Oh sure, some creatures we encounter might seem friendly at first, but that's only because they secretly want to make a liver hat out of your liver and they're trying to get on your good side so you don't hold it against them."

"Shut up, and kiss me," Lister said, and gripped Kryten in a tight embrace and a passionate kiss. It was a strange, unusual kiss. A bit like kissing a car exhaust, only a lot more pleasant. Kryten tried to push Lister away, as he was programmed to, but he didn't manage it. Lister knew that he could have, as he had so recently felt Kryten's strength with the carrying and the laundry dangling. They unlocked from each other and felt an awkward moment.

"Sir," Kryten said.

Just as Lister was formulating some sort of explanation, a large mass of shoes and steam rolled in the doorway and stopped next to them. They both looked agape at it, as it wobbled and leaned and then fell to the ground with a splash and a scream, throwing shoe brew and shoes across the docking bay floor. Also in the mix were four skutters, confused and overturned. Lister picked one up and got it to face Kryten.

"It says they tried to take the shoe brew to the disposal, but it became sentient en-route and wasn't allowed entry. So they brought it back to us," Kryten explained.

Lister was trying on one of his soggy pairs of trainers, "You know, I think these are actually cleaner than when I started this."

After he had put on his shoes, he turned to Kryten and motioned that he was leaving, to return to his quarters, before walking out the bay. Kryten watched him go, thinking about the way he walked, and how his muscles worked together much like those of a mechanoid. Could they ever truly be compatible?

He followed along. "Sir, shall I tell Mr Rimmer that everything is safe?"

"Why bother?" Lister said, with a cheeky grin, "he's got a week to figure it out."