Fic: Fall - R/L - PG-13
Title: Fall
Pairing: Rimmer/Lister
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own Red Dwarf, or any of the characters thereof. I make no money from this.
Spoilers: Stoke Me A Clipper.
Beta: smaych
Notes: Written as part of my fanfic100 challenge. My table is here. As always, please bring me concrit!
Over the years, Rimmer met a lot of Listers, being Ace. That was to be expected, of course; the dimensions he jumped between were parallel, every one a variation on a theme. He met fat Listers and skinny Listers. He met young, gangly teenage Listers, and grey-haired, wrinkled, cane-walking Listers with terrible smoker's coughs. He met several variations of female Listers, which always slightly disturbed him. Long or short, tan or pale or cybernetic, however, they were all the same person underneath; a lazy, disrespectful, vulgar, slobby git. And Rimmer despised the lot of them.
He met a surprising number of gay Listers. Frankly, Rimmer had always suspected what he now reluctantly thought of as 'his' Lister of being something of a fruit; goodness knows he wasn't anything like a real man, but never anything like this. Lister, for example, would never have gone up to Rimmer, bold as brass, and pinched his bottom. Nor would he have left gay porn around suggestively for Rimmer to find, then raised his eyebrows innocently above sinful eyes when confronted. It took all of Rimmer's slowly growing willpower to keep in character whenever he met one of those Listers. It wasn't that he hadn't slept with a man or two, or three. Dozen. He was a space hero now; people threw themselves at him with blatant disregard of gender, and his developing Ace-instincts told him it would be impolite to rebuff all the men. It was expected; part of that whole 'irresistible sex-god' package. No, it was the fact that Lister; any version thereof, would want to sleep with him that absolutely terrified and disgusted Rimmer.
In time, he started to wonder if they weren't all gay. The certainly all made him feel... odd. Rimmer started to analyze every word and gesture of every short, scouser alternate he came across. He was finding it harder and harder to sleep at night, which annoyed him up until the point where he did manage, and the dreams started. After that, Rimmer forced himself to stay awake for almost a full week, until his bee went into emergency shut-down, and left him in a state of blissful, dreamless sleep for almost 48 hours.
Clearly, this would not do.
Slowly, Rimmer managed, if not to forget, then to push his churning, disturbing feelings aside; lock them away, like his father had always told him to. Best place for unwanted feelings, that; deep inside the farthest reaches of his soul with the key thrown away. He avoided the dimensions he had learned were similar to the one he had been born in when he could, and stuck to the outskirts of familiar reality. He rescued a sentient cornfield from the tyrant rule of mutant combine harvesters. He made love to beautiful monsters after rescuing them from evil princesses. He fought and shagged and grit his teeth, and kept pushing back until the throbbing, festering boil of emotion inside him burst, and he was forced to face the fact that smeg it all - he wanted Lister! He was fighting a rabid aganoid at the moment of realization, and its confusion at his sudden hysterical sobbing ended up winning him the advantage of surprise.
Safely back in his ship, Rimmer thought long and hard about it. He had fallen for Lister. Was he mad? Had he gone space-crazy? Probably not; the ship's computer ran all sorts of invasive tests on his bee almost constantly. What, then? What had come over him? Maybe... Maybe, it was a matter of potential. If he could become Ace, perhaps Lister could become something more than a lazy space bum. Rimmer thought about the myriad dimensions he had been to, and the multitudes of Listers he had seen. Surely their personalities hadn't been entirely identical? Hadn't some of them been cleaner, more eloquent, less prone to guzzling beer all the time? Somewhere out there, there had to be one that was worthy of the things Rimmer's libido very much wanted to do to him. And dammit; Rimmer would find him!
From that moment on, he began to take notes. The computer insisted that there was no way to determine what an individual dimensional alternate would be like, but Rimmer looked for patterns anyway. The Listers in one dimension cluster seemed marginally cleaner than those in the neighboring one. Listers in odd-numbered dimensions tended to be shyer and quieter than those in even-numbered ones. After five months, his chart looked like the rainbow-colored net of a doped-up hippie spider, and the computer promptly deleted it, claiming it took up too much space. Rimmer threw a few choice expletives at it, and resolved to make one on paper. As soon as he could find some paper. And appropriately colored marking pens.
It wasn't love, he mused, while keeping his eye on the Lister in the Starbug they had just rescued from a Goatrilla-GELF fleet. You could be in love with a person, but that's not what this was, obviously. There was only one Lister he had known long enough to fall in love with, and that one was clearly out. No, it was just a matter of pure, animal attraction. Which seemed appropriate, as this particular Lister ate like an animal. The one before him had been far too slow, even for a Lister. Not that Rimmer was looking for conversation, but it still felt wrong. Rimmer looked over at the curry-stained overalls of the current specimen, and tried not to flare his nostrils in disgust. As quickly as he could, he said his goodbyes, tolerated the inevitable hug, and hurried back to the ship. After take-off, he crawled into the tiny cot in the back, and lay there, very still, for quite some time. He didn't know how long he had been out here, by now. Twenty years, at least, but then again, time behaved oddly when you traveled like this. His Lister would be old and grey by now, in the normal cause of things. Rimmer wondered why that gave him pause. Then he tried to sleep for a while, and not think about anything at all.
Of course, that's when the distress-call came.
Rimmer knew this Lister was different the moment he set eyes on him. There was something about the way he avoided looking at Rimmer, and the way he smiled, subtly, when he accidentally did. A friendly smile. Genuine interest, rather than that smegging, ever-present curiosity, or badly hidden schadenfreude. He was unusually quiet, and, as Rimmer found when he brushed by him to get to the damaged console panel Kryten had pointed out, smelled as clean as he looked. A Lister that looked and smelled clean! The physical reaction this caused in him made Rimmer glad of the roomy trousers of the flight suit. This might be it, he told himself, working methodically at the panel. After all this time, this might actually be it!
This Kryten insisted, as they all did, on serving tea and refreshments when the job was done. Rimmer watched the mechanoid fuss and chatter, biting the inside of his cheek to remember to reply in Ace-like amicable tones, because Lister was sitting across the table, looking at him. Looking at him with undisguised desire. By the end of it, Rimmer was gripping the edge of his chair, his knuckles whitening for fear that he would leap across the table if he didn't. Then Kryten left the room, muttering apologies, and Rimmer leaped.
Maybe it was the years of anticipation, but finally feeling Lister's mouth on his, their tongues intertwining; voices competing in moans and urgent whimpers; it drove Rimmer to the edge of sanity. Pulling at Lister's lapels, Rimmer dragged the other man closer, over the smoothly polished surface, until they were both half-way on the table, half off, clawing at one another to keep upright. Rimmer didn't need air, but Lister did, and finally, they had to pause. As Lister withdrew, there was such pure, unfiltered joy in his face that Rimmer nearly lost his balance.
“Hey,” the perfect Lister said.
“Yes... hello, old chum. And that.” The persona was clammy, itching, like his wig, but Rimmer had no choice but to hold onto it.
Lister laughed. “Why're ye still talking like that?” He giggled, and Rimmer froze. He was falling; suddenly he as falling, and he knew. He knew before Lister even opened his mouth again, and told him, grin threatening to split his face, “hey, smeghead... I missed ya.”
Pairing: Rimmer/Lister
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own Red Dwarf, or any of the characters thereof. I make no money from this.
Spoilers: Stoke Me A Clipper.
Beta: smaych
Notes: Written as part of my fanfic100 challenge. My table is here. As always, please bring me concrit!
Over the years, Rimmer met a lot of Listers, being Ace. That was to be expected, of course; the dimensions he jumped between were parallel, every one a variation on a theme. He met fat Listers and skinny Listers. He met young, gangly teenage Listers, and grey-haired, wrinkled, cane-walking Listers with terrible smoker's coughs. He met several variations of female Listers, which always slightly disturbed him. Long or short, tan or pale or cybernetic, however, they were all the same person underneath; a lazy, disrespectful, vulgar, slobby git. And Rimmer despised the lot of them.
He met a surprising number of gay Listers. Frankly, Rimmer had always suspected what he now reluctantly thought of as 'his' Lister of being something of a fruit; goodness knows he wasn't anything like a real man, but never anything like this. Lister, for example, would never have gone up to Rimmer, bold as brass, and pinched his bottom. Nor would he have left gay porn around suggestively for Rimmer to find, then raised his eyebrows innocently above sinful eyes when confronted. It took all of Rimmer's slowly growing willpower to keep in character whenever he met one of those Listers. It wasn't that he hadn't slept with a man or two, or three. Dozen. He was a space hero now; people threw themselves at him with blatant disregard of gender, and his developing Ace-instincts told him it would be impolite to rebuff all the men. It was expected; part of that whole 'irresistible sex-god' package. No, it was the fact that Lister; any version thereof, would want to sleep with him that absolutely terrified and disgusted Rimmer.
In time, he started to wonder if they weren't all gay. The certainly all made him feel... odd. Rimmer started to analyze every word and gesture of every short, scouser alternate he came across. He was finding it harder and harder to sleep at night, which annoyed him up until the point where he did manage, and the dreams started. After that, Rimmer forced himself to stay awake for almost a full week, until his bee went into emergency shut-down, and left him in a state of blissful, dreamless sleep for almost 48 hours.
Clearly, this would not do.
Slowly, Rimmer managed, if not to forget, then to push his churning, disturbing feelings aside; lock them away, like his father had always told him to. Best place for unwanted feelings, that; deep inside the farthest reaches of his soul with the key thrown away. He avoided the dimensions he had learned were similar to the one he had been born in when he could, and stuck to the outskirts of familiar reality. He rescued a sentient cornfield from the tyrant rule of mutant combine harvesters. He made love to beautiful monsters after rescuing them from evil princesses. He fought and shagged and grit his teeth, and kept pushing back until the throbbing, festering boil of emotion inside him burst, and he was forced to face the fact that smeg it all - he wanted Lister! He was fighting a rabid aganoid at the moment of realization, and its confusion at his sudden hysterical sobbing ended up winning him the advantage of surprise.
Safely back in his ship, Rimmer thought long and hard about it. He had fallen for Lister. Was he mad? Had he gone space-crazy? Probably not; the ship's computer ran all sorts of invasive tests on his bee almost constantly. What, then? What had come over him? Maybe... Maybe, it was a matter of potential. If he could become Ace, perhaps Lister could become something more than a lazy space bum. Rimmer thought about the myriad dimensions he had been to, and the multitudes of Listers he had seen. Surely their personalities hadn't been entirely identical? Hadn't some of them been cleaner, more eloquent, less prone to guzzling beer all the time? Somewhere out there, there had to be one that was worthy of the things Rimmer's libido very much wanted to do to him. And dammit; Rimmer would find him!
From that moment on, he began to take notes. The computer insisted that there was no way to determine what an individual dimensional alternate would be like, but Rimmer looked for patterns anyway. The Listers in one dimension cluster seemed marginally cleaner than those in the neighboring one. Listers in odd-numbered dimensions tended to be shyer and quieter than those in even-numbered ones. After five months, his chart looked like the rainbow-colored net of a doped-up hippie spider, and the computer promptly deleted it, claiming it took up too much space. Rimmer threw a few choice expletives at it, and resolved to make one on paper. As soon as he could find some paper. And appropriately colored marking pens.
It wasn't love, he mused, while keeping his eye on the Lister in the Starbug they had just rescued from a Goatrilla-GELF fleet. You could be in love with a person, but that's not what this was, obviously. There was only one Lister he had known long enough to fall in love with, and that one was clearly out. No, it was just a matter of pure, animal attraction. Which seemed appropriate, as this particular Lister ate like an animal. The one before him had been far too slow, even for a Lister. Not that Rimmer was looking for conversation, but it still felt wrong. Rimmer looked over at the curry-stained overalls of the current specimen, and tried not to flare his nostrils in disgust. As quickly as he could, he said his goodbyes, tolerated the inevitable hug, and hurried back to the ship. After take-off, he crawled into the tiny cot in the back, and lay there, very still, for quite some time. He didn't know how long he had been out here, by now. Twenty years, at least, but then again, time behaved oddly when you traveled like this. His Lister would be old and grey by now, in the normal cause of things. Rimmer wondered why that gave him pause. Then he tried to sleep for a while, and not think about anything at all.
Of course, that's when the distress-call came.
Rimmer knew this Lister was different the moment he set eyes on him. There was something about the way he avoided looking at Rimmer, and the way he smiled, subtly, when he accidentally did. A friendly smile. Genuine interest, rather than that smegging, ever-present curiosity, or badly hidden schadenfreude. He was unusually quiet, and, as Rimmer found when he brushed by him to get to the damaged console panel Kryten had pointed out, smelled as clean as he looked. A Lister that looked and smelled clean! The physical reaction this caused in him made Rimmer glad of the roomy trousers of the flight suit. This might be it, he told himself, working methodically at the panel. After all this time, this might actually be it!
This Kryten insisted, as they all did, on serving tea and refreshments when the job was done. Rimmer watched the mechanoid fuss and chatter, biting the inside of his cheek to remember to reply in Ace-like amicable tones, because Lister was sitting across the table, looking at him. Looking at him with undisguised desire. By the end of it, Rimmer was gripping the edge of his chair, his knuckles whitening for fear that he would leap across the table if he didn't. Then Kryten left the room, muttering apologies, and Rimmer leaped.
Maybe it was the years of anticipation, but finally feeling Lister's mouth on his, their tongues intertwining; voices competing in moans and urgent whimpers; it drove Rimmer to the edge of sanity. Pulling at Lister's lapels, Rimmer dragged the other man closer, over the smoothly polished surface, until they were both half-way on the table, half off, clawing at one another to keep upright. Rimmer didn't need air, but Lister did, and finally, they had to pause. As Lister withdrew, there was such pure, unfiltered joy in his face that Rimmer nearly lost his balance.
“Hey,” the perfect Lister said.
“Yes... hello, old chum. And that.” The persona was clammy, itching, like his wig, but Rimmer had no choice but to hold onto it.
Lister laughed. “Why're ye still talking like that?” He giggled, and Rimmer froze. He was falling; suddenly he as falling, and he knew. He knew before Lister even opened his mouth again, and told him, grin threatening to split his face, “hey, smeghead... I missed ya.”