Fic: Savior - PG-13 - Part 2/2
Dec. 12th, 2009 08:38 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
kahvi.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
reddwarfslashTitle: Savior
Part: 2/2 - Part 1 is here.
Pairing: Rimmer/Lister, Lister/Kochanski
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't even own the fictional series IX and X of Red Dwarf. I make no money from this fannish venture.
Spoilers: Takes place between VIII and Back to Earth.
Notes: Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
smaych and roadstergal for their excellent betas, with special thanks to the latter for contributing some fantastic ideas and lines!
“Hey, man…”
Halfway into the cockpit, Rimmer lowered his shoulders, too tired to even sigh. “What?” He asked, not bothering to turn around.
"I just wanted to say... I just wanted to tell ya..."
"That I misunderstood, and that you're not gay," Rimmer interjected, flatly. "Don't worry, your secret's safe with me." Lister's voice stilled for a few surprised moments, and Rimmer, thinking he was in the clear, started to climb further into the ship. Then:
"That's not what I meant." Lister's voice was quiet and small enough that Rimmer turned around out of sheer astonishment. The smegger sounded entirely different when he wasn't shouting or leering.
"What did you mean, then?"
"Him and me; it doesn't mean anything."
Rimmer snorted. "So I’ve come to understand."
"No, really." Lister took a few, careful steps towards the ship, and Rimmer found himself retreating into the relative safety of the cockpit out of instinct. There was no escaping those eyes though, and Rimmer, defenseless and un-Aced, allowed himself to be transfixed. “I just… I just wanted to see you. Make sure that it was really you, like.”
“Of course it’s really me,” Rimmer snapped. At least, with Lister, he didn’t have to pretend. That was more of a relief that he’d like to admit. “Who else would it be?”
“Well,” Lister hesitated, “you might have…”
“I might have been permanently damaged, yes,” Rimmer finished for him, simply. Didn’t think of that, did you, when you threw me out to the space-wolves. “And I will, soon enough, don’t worry.”
“Don’t be like that, man! It’s been ages since I’ve seen ya - can’t we just talk?”
Offended. The little bastard had the audacity to look offended. “Lister. It’s late. I haven’t slept for a fortnight. The last time I did, it was inside the hollowed-out carcass of a whale-GELF that was still in its death-throes. Since you forced me into this ridiculous outfit, I’ve seen humanoid GELF children torn apart by Aganoids for fun; I’ve traversed entire planetoids made out of corrosive mucus; I’ve seen my own guts when my body gets shot, or exploded, or ripped into pieces so quickly that my bee can’t keep up with the repairs. I’ve been sexually propositioned by things that looked like sentient hairballs, and believe you me, they don’t always take no for an answer. And yes; rather often, I’ve rescued some pretty young thing and rutted the night away with them. Sometimes their parents don’t even try to kill me the next morning. Sometimes, people buy me drinks. Sometimes, they call me a hero. And that, Listy, is my death right now, though I suppose you’d call it a life. Anything else you’d like to talk about, or can I get some rest, now?”
Dumbly, Lister nodded.
Rimmer closed the Wildfire’s hatch, and ignored the sound of heavy footsteps as they echoed away.
His tiny cot in the Wildfire’s bosom was dark, damp and familiar. Rimmer pulled the thin blanket around himself, and tried not to think of anything in particular. His brain wouldn’t let him. Images of Kochanski and Lister, of Lister and the other Rimmer, of everyone, all looking to him for something he couldn’t give, all ran together in his mind until they became one huge, colorless blob.
Sighing heavily, Rimmer turned in the darkness. Life as Ace wasn’t quite so bleak as he’d made it sound to Lister, but Rimmer had never really understood the appeal. Yes, you got treated as a hero, and yes, there was plenty of ass to be had (though it helped if you had an open mind when it came to looks and genitalia), but none of it was really for you. Ace was a role; a character you played; a mask you could never, ever take off. And, Rimmer realized with annoyance, that was what had lured him here, wasn’t it? With Lister, he didn’t have to pretend. He could be himself, every twatted inch of himself, as much as he liked. After years of posing as a flight suited hero, it was an alluring thought indeed. No matter what other diffuse hopes he might have had with regards to Lister and himself, that one had been the cincher. That one he knew to be true. And now?
The metal frame creaked as Rimmer shifted. He didn’t even have the option of exposing his true identity and asking to stay, now. He’d tried living with himself before, and that had ended well, hadn’t it? No, his only option was to cut his losses, leave, and try his best to forget this twice-smegged lander even existed. Which, given the state of it, wasn’t much of a stretch.
Groaning, Rimmer pulled the blanket up over his face. Leaving wasn’t an option either. Ace-ethics aside, he was disgusted to find he didn’t have it in him to leave Li… the crew to rot on a crate that wasn’t likely to make it to next month, much less any planet capable of supporting human life. He would have to save them. Terrific. Not only would he not get anything out of this little adventure, but everyone else would end up pleased as punch. That hardly seemed fair. If Rimmer couldn’t be happy, he would at least prefer for the misery to be spread around a little. He shook his head, willing the annoyance away, and turned his mind to the distracting problem of how he was going to help them. There were several options. He could let Blue Midget piggy-back along to their original dimension; that sort of thing had been done before, his uplink assured him. The Wildfire’s repair-nanos were better than Kryten’s megalomaniacal pests, so they could easily…
Rimmer bolted upright, banging his head on the low, sloped ceiling. He didn’t care; this idea was pure genius! So, Lister thought he wanted Kochanski, did he? Well, he’d soon find out what that was really like. It wouldn’t take much to nudge her into Lister’s arms; what Rimmer had planned would be more than sufficient. And Lister shacking up with Kochanski would both inconvenience his other self and frustrate that annoying bog-bot! He let out a subdued yell of triumph, just as the sound of the ship’s hatch opening registered at the edge of his hearing.
Ace-instincts kicking in, Rimmer tensed, flattening against the cot so he could sneak an arm underneath the mattress, fumbling for the blaster he had hidden there. There! He had a grip on it; now all he had to do was – two iridescent irises, predatory and eager, glittered at him in the dark. A sleek, naked body had been draped across his, vibrating with the purring sound eminating from its chest.
“Glargh!” Rimmer yelled, pulling out the blaster, pushing it in the creature’s face. Too late, he realized two things; this was not some renegade GELF assassin, and two, that brown, oblong object was not his blaster.
“Hey, Buddy,” the Cat purred, “I see you’re ready for me.”
“GET OUT!!!”
As Blue Midget flew reverently into the giant ship’s docking bay, even Rimmer had to admit he was impressed. The viewscreens in the lander’s cockpit seemed too small to take it all in, and the others, jostling for position amongst themselves, apparently agreed. The moment they touched down, a mad scramble for the exit ensued; Rimmer was surprised to see Kochanski winning the race, practically sprinting down the steps and onto Red Dwarf’s familiar deck.
“Oh my god,” she shouted, dropping to her knees to feel the solid metal. “Oh my god! We’re here. We’re actually here!”
Rimmer watched from the doorway as Lister followed, swooping her up in a jubilant embrace. She hardly seemed to mind, whooping and laughing right along with him. “Did she just peck him on the cheek?” the other Rimmer asked, looking over Rimmer’s shoulder. Rimmer rolled his eyes. Ignoring both of them, Cat slithered past, sniffing the air suspiciously. He stalked away slowly, disappearing behind crates that were clearly in need of investigating.
“It worked,” Lister grinned, “it actually worked!”
“I know!” Kochanski’s hands were still around Lister, lingering at his waist. “Ace told me how it was all your idea.”
“It was? I mean,” Lister added hastily, catching up sooner than Rimmer had expected, “he did?”
“It was brilliant; how you figured out that Red Dwarf would be fully destroyed by now, and that all we needed was a way to get there, and a means of reconstructing it.” She smiled, letting her hands rise to the back of Lister’s neck. “Lucky for us Ace could provide both.”
“Yeah,” Lister mumbled, “lucky, that.”
“But you were the one to point it all out to him.” She looked down, almost shyly. Behind him, Rimmer could hear his other self dry-retching. “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I’ve misjudged you horribly.”
Lister brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes. Space, it was revolting. Rimmer forced himself to keep looking, his ears on stalks. “Nah. I’m pretty much hopeless, me.”
Enough. Just watching their cheerful little faces and the eyes they were making at one another was more than enough. Satisfied, if that was the word, Rimmer watched them stroll away arm in arm, then walked out of the ship himself. He watched with disinterested amusement as Kryten hobbled off in confused pursuit of the happy couple. Job well done. The slob got the girl. Everything back in order. He moved a few of the cargo crates a quarter of an inch to the left, brushed a speck of imaginary dust from his flight suit lapels, and started walking back towards the lander.
His other self still stood in the doorway, blocking his access.
“Smegging hell, not again,” Rimmer mumbled.
“And where do you suppose you’re going?”
“Get lost, gazpacho-breath.”
“Off to be a hero again, is it? Just fly off and dock with your fancy ship, and dimension jump the smeg out of here?”
“What’s it to you?”
The other Rimmer grabbed his jacket, shouting in his face. “Take me with you!!”
For a moment, Rimmer was too stunned to push him away. But only for a moment. A violent shove sent his other self flying backwards into a particularly pointy console. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. There’s only ever one Ace.”
Sprawled across the console, the other Rimmer glared. “Make an exception.”
“Why should I?”
“This is all your fault,” the other Rimmer spat, waving his arms in the general direction of newly enamored Listers and Kochanskis. “It wasn’t much, but at least I could pretend I had some human affection now and then. Now that he’s got her, he’s not just going to ignore me, he’ll try to get rid of me so that she’ll never know anything ever happened. One day I’ll be walking along the corridor, then *BANG* - into the airlock and bye-bye Rimsey!”
Rimmer looked at the hysterically wailing man with a mixture of pity and disgust. Was he ever really that pathetic? (Had he ever improved?) “Don’t be ridiculous. Now get out; I’ve got a date with another dimension. Preferably one as far away from this one as possible.”
“No. I won’t let you. You have to take me! It’s not fair that you should get to be a hero while I’m stuck here with curry-breath and Wagner-woman in their little love-nest! I want to rescue princesses and have orgies in Jacuzzis!”
“Let go of the flight controls, you pathetic git! There’s no possible way for me to take you; the Wildfire barely has room enough for one.”
Just as he managed to pry his other self’s hand from the steering wheel, Rimmer felt something inside himself go ‘click’. The pain didn’t even register until much later – even as he looked down and saw the knife stuck into his side, all he felt was a sickening sense of defeat. “That’s just room enough, then,” his other self whispered.
The world flickered, like the turning off of a screen.
The world stabilized.
Rimmer was lying on the landing bay deck. His entire body was aching, but his bee felt fine. Legion knew his stuff; the self-repair routines were impressive. Not flawless, as the destruction of countless other Aces had shown, but rather close to. He was naked, he found, which felt rather ridiculous. His Ace-clothes were real, more for practical reasons than anything else; lovers often got confused when garments disappeared of their own volition. He couldn’t remember anyone removing them recently though… Smeg, he thought, as memories started flooding back. His other self; the knife; the Wildfire!
Scrambling to his feet, he patted himself down for injuries. None. That was a good sign; it meant the bee had not been significantly damaged. When it was, his physical appearance took longer to ‘heal’. Rimmer closed his eyes, running through the self-diagnostic the Wildfire’s computer had thought him. The program whirred through his electronic systems, reporting no errors. Good. Now, what else should he do? Automatically, he reached out through the bee’s uplink… and found silence. Less than silence; nothing. A void; an absence.
“Smegging hell” he croaked. Gone. The Wildfire was gone. And if his ears were not deceiving him, that would be Lister and the rest of the Hardy Boys plus Nancy Drew, off to see what the trouble was. They must have seen the Wildfire take off, and knew Ace wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye. Well, there was a first time for everything.
The footsteps were getting closer now. He had to think fast. There was an obvious solution - tell all. Would they even believe him? And if they did, what a glorious return that would be; old Rimsey, unable to hack it as a hero. Couldn’t even protect his own ship. All that, and a deathtime of Lister and Kochanski’s dysfunction to look forward to? There had to be an alternative. Something at least marginally less depressing… there was Lister’s voice, agitated. Just seconds now.
Hating himself possibly more than ever, Rimmer concentrated, and made the necessary changes.
“So yer foot got caught in the landing gear, and ye fell and broke yer spine?”
Rimmer grit his teeth. “For the last smegging time, yes.”
“I always said he was spineless.”
“Shut it, Cat. We’re trying to work out what happened.”
“I told you. I slipped. I fell. I died. Ace got a hard light bee, and brought me back to death. Hey presto. All cheer.”
Lister looked at him suspiciously. It would take some time to convince him of this ridiculous story, Rimmer knew, but in the end, suspicion was better than pity. He had only himself to blame for his current situation – literally. Perhaps that was as it should be.
After all, who else but Arnold Judas Rimmer would lose out to himself?
Part: 2/2 - Part 1 is here.
Pairing: Rimmer/Lister, Lister/Kochanski
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't even own the fictional series IX and X of Red Dwarf. I make no money from this fannish venture.
Spoilers: Takes place between VIII and Back to Earth.
Notes: Thanks to
smaych and roadstergal for their excellent betas, with special thanks to the latter for contributing some fantastic ideas and lines!“Hey, man…”
Halfway into the cockpit, Rimmer lowered his shoulders, too tired to even sigh. “What?” He asked, not bothering to turn around.
"I just wanted to say... I just wanted to tell ya..."
"That I misunderstood, and that you're not gay," Rimmer interjected, flatly. "Don't worry, your secret's safe with me." Lister's voice stilled for a few surprised moments, and Rimmer, thinking he was in the clear, started to climb further into the ship. Then:
"That's not what I meant." Lister's voice was quiet and small enough that Rimmer turned around out of sheer astonishment. The smegger sounded entirely different when he wasn't shouting or leering.
"What did you mean, then?"
"Him and me; it doesn't mean anything."
Rimmer snorted. "So I’ve come to understand."
"No, really." Lister took a few, careful steps towards the ship, and Rimmer found himself retreating into the relative safety of the cockpit out of instinct. There was no escaping those eyes though, and Rimmer, defenseless and un-Aced, allowed himself to be transfixed. “I just… I just wanted to see you. Make sure that it was really you, like.”
“Of course it’s really me,” Rimmer snapped. At least, with Lister, he didn’t have to pretend. That was more of a relief that he’d like to admit. “Who else would it be?”
“Well,” Lister hesitated, “you might have…”
“I might have been permanently damaged, yes,” Rimmer finished for him, simply. Didn’t think of that, did you, when you threw me out to the space-wolves. “And I will, soon enough, don’t worry.”
“Don’t be like that, man! It’s been ages since I’ve seen ya - can’t we just talk?”
Offended. The little bastard had the audacity to look offended. “Lister. It’s late. I haven’t slept for a fortnight. The last time I did, it was inside the hollowed-out carcass of a whale-GELF that was still in its death-throes. Since you forced me into this ridiculous outfit, I’ve seen humanoid GELF children torn apart by Aganoids for fun; I’ve traversed entire planetoids made out of corrosive mucus; I’ve seen my own guts when my body gets shot, or exploded, or ripped into pieces so quickly that my bee can’t keep up with the repairs. I’ve been sexually propositioned by things that looked like sentient hairballs, and believe you me, they don’t always take no for an answer. And yes; rather often, I’ve rescued some pretty young thing and rutted the night away with them. Sometimes their parents don’t even try to kill me the next morning. Sometimes, people buy me drinks. Sometimes, they call me a hero. And that, Listy, is my death right now, though I suppose you’d call it a life. Anything else you’d like to talk about, or can I get some rest, now?”
Dumbly, Lister nodded.
Rimmer closed the Wildfire’s hatch, and ignored the sound of heavy footsteps as they echoed away.
His tiny cot in the Wildfire’s bosom was dark, damp and familiar. Rimmer pulled the thin blanket around himself, and tried not to think of anything in particular. His brain wouldn’t let him. Images of Kochanski and Lister, of Lister and the other Rimmer, of everyone, all looking to him for something he couldn’t give, all ran together in his mind until they became one huge, colorless blob.
Sighing heavily, Rimmer turned in the darkness. Life as Ace wasn’t quite so bleak as he’d made it sound to Lister, but Rimmer had never really understood the appeal. Yes, you got treated as a hero, and yes, there was plenty of ass to be had (though it helped if you had an open mind when it came to looks and genitalia), but none of it was really for you. Ace was a role; a character you played; a mask you could never, ever take off. And, Rimmer realized with annoyance, that was what had lured him here, wasn’t it? With Lister, he didn’t have to pretend. He could be himself, every twatted inch of himself, as much as he liked. After years of posing as a flight suited hero, it was an alluring thought indeed. No matter what other diffuse hopes he might have had with regards to Lister and himself, that one had been the cincher. That one he knew to be true. And now?
The metal frame creaked as Rimmer shifted. He didn’t even have the option of exposing his true identity and asking to stay, now. He’d tried living with himself before, and that had ended well, hadn’t it? No, his only option was to cut his losses, leave, and try his best to forget this twice-smegged lander even existed. Which, given the state of it, wasn’t much of a stretch.
Groaning, Rimmer pulled the blanket up over his face. Leaving wasn’t an option either. Ace-ethics aside, he was disgusted to find he didn’t have it in him to leave Li… the crew to rot on a crate that wasn’t likely to make it to next month, much less any planet capable of supporting human life. He would have to save them. Terrific. Not only would he not get anything out of this little adventure, but everyone else would end up pleased as punch. That hardly seemed fair. If Rimmer couldn’t be happy, he would at least prefer for the misery to be spread around a little. He shook his head, willing the annoyance away, and turned his mind to the distracting problem of how he was going to help them. There were several options. He could let Blue Midget piggy-back along to their original dimension; that sort of thing had been done before, his uplink assured him. The Wildfire’s repair-nanos were better than Kryten’s megalomaniacal pests, so they could easily…
Rimmer bolted upright, banging his head on the low, sloped ceiling. He didn’t care; this idea was pure genius! So, Lister thought he wanted Kochanski, did he? Well, he’d soon find out what that was really like. It wouldn’t take much to nudge her into Lister’s arms; what Rimmer had planned would be more than sufficient. And Lister shacking up with Kochanski would both inconvenience his other self and frustrate that annoying bog-bot! He let out a subdued yell of triumph, just as the sound of the ship’s hatch opening registered at the edge of his hearing.
Ace-instincts kicking in, Rimmer tensed, flattening against the cot so he could sneak an arm underneath the mattress, fumbling for the blaster he had hidden there. There! He had a grip on it; now all he had to do was – two iridescent irises, predatory and eager, glittered at him in the dark. A sleek, naked body had been draped across his, vibrating with the purring sound eminating from its chest.
“Glargh!” Rimmer yelled, pulling out the blaster, pushing it in the creature’s face. Too late, he realized two things; this was not some renegade GELF assassin, and two, that brown, oblong object was not his blaster.
“Hey, Buddy,” the Cat purred, “I see you’re ready for me.”
“GET OUT!!!”
As Blue Midget flew reverently into the giant ship’s docking bay, even Rimmer had to admit he was impressed. The viewscreens in the lander’s cockpit seemed too small to take it all in, and the others, jostling for position amongst themselves, apparently agreed. The moment they touched down, a mad scramble for the exit ensued; Rimmer was surprised to see Kochanski winning the race, practically sprinting down the steps and onto Red Dwarf’s familiar deck.
“Oh my god,” she shouted, dropping to her knees to feel the solid metal. “Oh my god! We’re here. We’re actually here!”
Rimmer watched from the doorway as Lister followed, swooping her up in a jubilant embrace. She hardly seemed to mind, whooping and laughing right along with him. “Did she just peck him on the cheek?” the other Rimmer asked, looking over Rimmer’s shoulder. Rimmer rolled his eyes. Ignoring both of them, Cat slithered past, sniffing the air suspiciously. He stalked away slowly, disappearing behind crates that were clearly in need of investigating.
“It worked,” Lister grinned, “it actually worked!”
“I know!” Kochanski’s hands were still around Lister, lingering at his waist. “Ace told me how it was all your idea.”
“It was? I mean,” Lister added hastily, catching up sooner than Rimmer had expected, “he did?”
“It was brilliant; how you figured out that Red Dwarf would be fully destroyed by now, and that all we needed was a way to get there, and a means of reconstructing it.” She smiled, letting her hands rise to the back of Lister’s neck. “Lucky for us Ace could provide both.”
“Yeah,” Lister mumbled, “lucky, that.”
“But you were the one to point it all out to him.” She looked down, almost shyly. Behind him, Rimmer could hear his other self dry-retching. “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I’ve misjudged you horribly.”
Lister brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes. Space, it was revolting. Rimmer forced himself to keep looking, his ears on stalks. “Nah. I’m pretty much hopeless, me.”
Enough. Just watching their cheerful little faces and the eyes they were making at one another was more than enough. Satisfied, if that was the word, Rimmer watched them stroll away arm in arm, then walked out of the ship himself. He watched with disinterested amusement as Kryten hobbled off in confused pursuit of the happy couple. Job well done. The slob got the girl. Everything back in order. He moved a few of the cargo crates a quarter of an inch to the left, brushed a speck of imaginary dust from his flight suit lapels, and started walking back towards the lander.
His other self still stood in the doorway, blocking his access.
“Smegging hell, not again,” Rimmer mumbled.
“And where do you suppose you’re going?”
“Get lost, gazpacho-breath.”
“Off to be a hero again, is it? Just fly off and dock with your fancy ship, and dimension jump the smeg out of here?”
“What’s it to you?”
The other Rimmer grabbed his jacket, shouting in his face. “Take me with you!!”
For a moment, Rimmer was too stunned to push him away. But only for a moment. A violent shove sent his other self flying backwards into a particularly pointy console. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. There’s only ever one Ace.”
Sprawled across the console, the other Rimmer glared. “Make an exception.”
“Why should I?”
“This is all your fault,” the other Rimmer spat, waving his arms in the general direction of newly enamored Listers and Kochanskis. “It wasn’t much, but at least I could pretend I had some human affection now and then. Now that he’s got her, he’s not just going to ignore me, he’ll try to get rid of me so that she’ll never know anything ever happened. One day I’ll be walking along the corridor, then *BANG* - into the airlock and bye-bye Rimsey!”
Rimmer looked at the hysterically wailing man with a mixture of pity and disgust. Was he ever really that pathetic? (Had he ever improved?) “Don’t be ridiculous. Now get out; I’ve got a date with another dimension. Preferably one as far away from this one as possible.”
“No. I won’t let you. You have to take me! It’s not fair that you should get to be a hero while I’m stuck here with curry-breath and Wagner-woman in their little love-nest! I want to rescue princesses and have orgies in Jacuzzis!”
“Let go of the flight controls, you pathetic git! There’s no possible way for me to take you; the Wildfire barely has room enough for one.”
Just as he managed to pry his other self’s hand from the steering wheel, Rimmer felt something inside himself go ‘click’. The pain didn’t even register until much later – even as he looked down and saw the knife stuck into his side, all he felt was a sickening sense of defeat. “That’s just room enough, then,” his other self whispered.
The world flickered, like the turning off of a screen.
The world stabilized.
Rimmer was lying on the landing bay deck. His entire body was aching, but his bee felt fine. Legion knew his stuff; the self-repair routines were impressive. Not flawless, as the destruction of countless other Aces had shown, but rather close to. He was naked, he found, which felt rather ridiculous. His Ace-clothes were real, more for practical reasons than anything else; lovers often got confused when garments disappeared of their own volition. He couldn’t remember anyone removing them recently though… Smeg, he thought, as memories started flooding back. His other self; the knife; the Wildfire!
Scrambling to his feet, he patted himself down for injuries. None. That was a good sign; it meant the bee had not been significantly damaged. When it was, his physical appearance took longer to ‘heal’. Rimmer closed his eyes, running through the self-diagnostic the Wildfire’s computer had thought him. The program whirred through his electronic systems, reporting no errors. Good. Now, what else should he do? Automatically, he reached out through the bee’s uplink… and found silence. Less than silence; nothing. A void; an absence.
“Smegging hell” he croaked. Gone. The Wildfire was gone. And if his ears were not deceiving him, that would be Lister and the rest of the Hardy Boys plus Nancy Drew, off to see what the trouble was. They must have seen the Wildfire take off, and knew Ace wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye. Well, there was a first time for everything.
The footsteps were getting closer now. He had to think fast. There was an obvious solution - tell all. Would they even believe him? And if they did, what a glorious return that would be; old Rimsey, unable to hack it as a hero. Couldn’t even protect his own ship. All that, and a deathtime of Lister and Kochanski’s dysfunction to look forward to? There had to be an alternative. Something at least marginally less depressing… there was Lister’s voice, agitated. Just seconds now.
Hating himself possibly more than ever, Rimmer concentrated, and made the necessary changes.
“So yer foot got caught in the landing gear, and ye fell and broke yer spine?”
Rimmer grit his teeth. “For the last smegging time, yes.”
“I always said he was spineless.”
“Shut it, Cat. We’re trying to work out what happened.”
“I told you. I slipped. I fell. I died. Ace got a hard light bee, and brought me back to death. Hey presto. All cheer.”
Lister looked at him suspiciously. It would take some time to convince him of this ridiculous story, Rimmer knew, but in the end, suspicion was better than pity. He had only himself to blame for his current situation – literally. Perhaps that was as it should be.
After all, who else but Arnold Judas Rimmer would lose out to himself?
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-12 10:08 pm (UTC)Not like that'd make it a happy ending anyway, knowing those two.
Though that would explain Rimmer's bleating on about "it's always you isn't it! What about me!?" as a bit of the 'couple envy' he'd been under.
Though one slip-up of memory of things he shouldn't technically know would easily distinguish who it really was, huh? =D
no subject
Date: 2009-12-13 01:32 pm (UTC)Thanks for reading and feeding back! :D
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Date: 2009-12-12 11:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-13 01:32 pm (UTC)Thanks for reading and commenting!
no subject
Date: 2009-12-13 10:30 am (UTC)The Cat making a pass at Ace was hilarious.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-13 01:34 pm (UTC)That's one of my favorite bits. :D
Thank you very much - I'm glad you liked it!
no subject
Date: 2009-12-13 12:17 pm (UTC)It's great to have your fics back!
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Date: 2009-12-13 11:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-14 05:48 pm (UTC)I'm loving the deep, character anaylsis. It's so detailed and it helps paint a picture all on its own.
The ending was brilliant...part of me wonders if both Rimmers might be (slightly) happier with the way things turned out...hmmm...
no subject
Date: 2009-12-14 06:08 pm (UTC)The Cat-seduction bit is secretly my favorite too.
I'm really glad the character stuff works; I was a bit worried there was too much of it. I don't want to bore or confuse people with it.
The thought occurred to me too... then again, Rimmers are rarely happy with much of anything. We'll... see. (I want to say something here, but I can't. Suffice to say, there will hopefully be more of this. Soon. *desperate fingercross*)
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Date: 2009-12-14 05:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-14 06:10 pm (UTC)And I think you're right... but then again, he's a busy man. These things will out though. We'll see. ;) ;)
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Date: 2009-12-14 07:16 pm (UTC)S-E-X I think Cat (almost) found it! I loved that part :)
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Date: 2009-12-15 10:15 am (UTC)Thank you so much for reading and commenting - I'm really glad you enjoyed it!
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Date: 2009-12-16 10:38 pm (UTC)I wonder how is the new Ace going to feel after a while always carrying the mask ...
Loved your reference to Wax World, I've always been thinking about what Rimmer thought about it after he came down from his 'military-trip' (= out of Lister) and if he and Lister ever spoke about it again.
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Date: 2009-12-27 07:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-05 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-10 06:26 am (UTC)