Crossover Fic (Part 4/4)
Last of Our Kind
Pairings: Rimmer/Lister, Amy/Jack/Lister, Eleven/Rimmer
Rating: G or PG
Notes: The final installment. I am surprised at how I managed to finish the entire fic with no actual written sex. Hmm. Anyway, hope you like it. It's quite sweet, if nothing else.
Rimmer paced outside the door to his shared room with Lister before entering. He was nervous, and trying to decide how best to enter the room. Triumphant, as though he too had just had a sexual encounter? Blasé, as though he couldn’t care less about his roommate’s exploits of the evening? And the most terrifying possibility of all - sincere. Could he truly do what he thought the Doctor would want him to do? Could he…tell Lister how he felt?
That was absurd, though. Because how was Rimmer supposed to know exactly how he felt inside? It was all tense and swirly, and the tiniest bit painful. How would he convey all that to Lister, when he couldn’t quite put it into coherent thoughts for himself?
He sighed and stopped pacing. Lister might not even be in his bunk. He might be asleep in the officer’s room where he and those two…oversexualized morons had done the deed. Or, if he was back, he was most certainly asleep. Exhausted from having sex with not one, but two people. Disgusting. Unfair.
He moved into the door sensor’s periphery and the door slid open onto a dark room. There was a lump on the top bunk. So, Lister was here, and sleeping.
Rimmer entered quietly and made for the bottom bunk, where he planned to lie silently while his thoughts kept him up for the remainder of the night. As soon as he lay down on the comforter, making a slight sound as the fabric of the bed and the hologram fabric of his clothes met, he heard movement from above him. He suddenly felt anxious, and wished he hadn’t come back here. His light bee ticker sped up considerably.
“Rimmer?” he heard a muffled voice from the top bunk.
He closed his eyes and wished Lister hadn’t been awake.
“Yeah. Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,” he said with an air of finality which he hoped mean that the conversation was over.
“Listen, mate. I hope you weren’t offended. Earlier.” Lister sounded like he had a cold, but Rimmer didn’t focus on that, since he was frantically thinking of a way to wrap up this discussion pronto.
“What, you mean when you told me to smeg off so you could shag the ginger and the ponce? No, course not Listy.” He said with characteristic sarcasm.
There was a pause, in which Rimmer hoped Lister would take the hint and drop it.
“…Right.” Lister said.
Something about the way he said that one word made all the anger that Rimmer had been pushing down inside all night flare up. So, Lister would just leave it at that, would he? He would just apologize lamely for being completely insulting, and not even feel badly for jumping into bed with a couple of strangers? He scrunched his eyes up and tried to calm himself, tried to let it be, tried to stay silent. But he just couldn’t. And the first thing that came out of his mouth was an attempt to make Lister jealous - as jealous as he, himself, now felt.
“I was off with the Doctor, anyway.” He said, and then wished he could take it back instantly. He wanted very much to stick his fist in his mouth and bite down. What a stupid thing to say! He should have kept quiet. But a big part of him was glad he’d said it, and even gladder when he heard the tentative interest in Lister’s voice next.
“Oh yeah? Did you…show him around the ship or something?”
Ha! Rimmer thought. Oh, I did much more than that, buckaroo! You think I’m only capable of giving guided tours to guests while you give fellatio? I think not!
“Hardly. We went back to his ship.”
Now Lister sounded really curious. And, did he have a cold?
“Yeah? What’s it like in there. As small as it looks on the outside?”
Rimmer allowed himself a chuckle, happy to know something Lister didn’t know. He hoped it sounded suggestive.
“Huge. Absolutely enormous inside, and the technology is quite advanced. But I didn’t see much of it. We had, er, more important things to do.”
There was a pause in which Rimmer thought he could hear the wheels turning in his bunkmate’s head.
“Rimmer, did you…”
“Hmm?” Rimmer said, trying to sound confident.
“Never mind. Can’t be.”
This dismissal made Rimmer’s blood boil - or would have, if he were still compromised of flesh and bone. So Lister really didn’t think he was capable of being sexual? He really, truly thought of him as an asexual light projection, and not a living person with feelings and needs? It hurt too much. All of it. The way Lister thought of him, too many years without comfort, the way he could just have a casual encounter with such absolute…aliens!
Rimmer stood up from the bed and yelled, “Lights!”, then turned to face Lister.
“It most certainly can be, you ignorant git! And it almost certainly was. Or would have been. But I couldn’t. I mean we couldn’t. Because it wasn’t…” he stopped long enough in his yelled rant to really look at Lister’s face, and it took the fight right out of him. “Why are you crying?”
“I’m not,” Lister said, looking grumpy at the accusation.
“But your eyes are all red, and look! Your pillow is wet.”
“I’m just tired,” Lister said dismissively.
Rimmer suddenly had a thought that made him quite angry.
“Did he hurt you?” he demanded.
“What?”
“That man! That…that poncey, muscley, long-coated man! Did he, y’know, hurt you?”
“Don’t be stupid, Rimmer.”
“I’m serious! I don’t know what you two got up to, but I can imagine, and if he was too rough with you…”
“Shut up, Rimmer! It’s not that. He didn’t ….no. Okay?”
Rimmer looked suspicious.
“Was it that ginger girl, then? She looked like the type that might be into sadomasochism…”
“What? No, Rimmer! No. Just, shut up please. I’m fine. I’m going back to sleep. Lights!”
“Lights!” They turned back on.
“Let me sleep, Rimmer!” Lister said angrily, turning away, toward the wall.
“I want to know why you’re so miserable, if they didn’t hurt you! I mean, I’m the one who has a right to be miserable here! Me! You got what you wanted. Didn’t you? You got a pretty girl and a grinning idiot of a man in your bed. Why do you have any right to be upset?!”
“Because it didn’t mean anything,” Lister said, still facing away from his roommate. “And tomorrow they’ll leave, and it’ll be just like before. Except it’ll be even worse, because I’ll remember how it feels to be touched, and held. And maybe it was better that I was starting to forget. Because I’ll never get home. And I’ll never hold anyone again. I’ll just be stuck up here with no one, till I die.”
Rimmer watched as Lister’s body began to shake with what he imagined were silent sobs. His instinct was to leave the room. To come back in the morning and be a bit nicer to Lister, but generally pretend this discussion had never happened. And yet. This could be the moment. This could be the perfect opportunity to say what he wanted to say. It was so, so difficult to get the words to come out. But for once, Lister was a captive audience, in that he was distracted by his misery.
“You’ve got me, Listy,” he said gently.
“You don’t even like me,” Lister said through his tears.
“Yes I do,” Rimmer said. His light bee pulse was so loud in his ears, and he felt as though he was leaking the energy it was pouring out to him. This was so terrifying.
“Go away, Rimmer,” came the sad voice from the top bunk.
“No.”
“Why won’t you just leave me alone?”
“Because I have something important to say to you. And I think, with you in this state, you’re less likely to make fun of me for it. So I’m trying to get up the courage to say it.”
There was a tiny laugh from the lump of Lister on the bed.
“I don’t have the energy to make fun of you right now, Rimmer. Say what you want to say, then leave me alone.”
“Alright. I will.” Rimmer took a deep breath, and then closed his eyes, and forced himself to continue.
“What I want to say is that…well, I didn’t do anything with the Doctor. Because, well…he thought, and rightly so, I think, that…that my heart wasn’t really in it. And…the reason for that was…I mean, the reason…my heart, you see,” Rimmer held a breath for a few seconds, then let it out with the words he was so scared to say, “my heart belongs to you.”
Lister was silent, and still. He was clearly listening attentively. Suddenly Rimmer felt that he could go on, he could elaborate. Having said it now, the waves of relief were overwhelming.
“And you might not believe me, because you know, I haven’t always told the truth to you. And you can ignore it, of course, because I know I’m not…handsome, or nice…or any of the things you like in people. But, I suppose, it was time you knew. Because I’ve felt this way for years. And I’m terrible at showing it. And…I just wanted you to know.”
He stood there, watching Lister’s body in the silence. He gave no response.
“I suppose I’ll go, then. Like you said,” Rimmer conceded, and turned to leave, trying not to let the disappointment and despair wash over him until he was out of the room.
“Wait,” Lister said, and then turned over to face him.
They looked at each other, Rimmer trying to appear earnest, Lister trying to discern what he could from the other’s face.
Lister pushed the blankets off and jumped off the bed. He walked over to Rimmer, who stood very still, and tense.
“Really, Rimmer? Was all that true?” he asked, a little smile beginning at the corners of his mouth.
“Yes,” was all Rimmer could say. What was Lister going to do?
Lister leaned in slowly and wrapped his arms around Rimmer in a hug. Rimmer was surprised, but gently wrapped his arms around the other in return. It was a soft hug, and strange since they had never done this before, but it felt so good. And then Lister turned his face to kiss Rimmer on the cheek.
“I really never thought I’d hear you say something like that. To anyone,” Lister said, smiling.
“Me either,” Rimmer admitted.
“I’m really proud of you,” Lister said, still smiling.
“Rimmer’s eyebrows shot up, and he scoffed quietly.
“Proud? Yes, well, what about…you know, the rest of it?”
“I don’t know,” Lister said truthfully, his arms still around his bunkmate.
“You don’t know?” Rimmer’s hopes fell, as did his heart into his stomach.
“I’ve had a very emotional night, and this was really unexpected. But I’m not saying no. I’m just saying we can give it a try. And see where it goes.”
“Really?” Rimmer could hardly believe it.
Lister pulled back from the hug.
“Really. But for right now…” he grabbed Rimmer’s hand and pulled him toward the bottom bunk, “I am exhausted, and we should both sleep. Will you let me hold you?”
Rimmer just nodded, silently, unsure of how to navigate these new, intimate waters.
They lay down, and arranged themselves comfortably in each other’s arms, smiling at the newness and the strange new feelings it brought up. Very quickly, Lister fell asleep, his arm around the hologram. Rimmer, on the other hand, didn’t dare sleep, but watched Lister and held him close until he woke up several hours later.
“Doctor, shouldn’t we say goodbye?” Amy asked, watching the Time Lord pull levers at the console.
“We’ve waited around for a good twelve hours. If they wanted to say goodbye, they’d have knocked on the TARDIS door. No, I think we have done enough damage,” he gave a pointed look to Jack, who leaned innocently against a railing, “and overstayed our welcome.”
“I was sure you’d want to give a goodbye kiss to that little hologram, though,” Jack said teasingly.
“Shut it, Jack.” The Doctor responded pointedly.
Jack laughed silently to himself and caught Amy’s eye, making her smile.
“He was quite cute,” Amy said, the smile audible in her voice.
“Shut it, Amy.” The Doctor responded.
“Oh fine, you’re no fun.” She said, feigning grumpiness. “At least not with us.” She said, hinting at seeing him kiss another man the night before.
“You two are on very thin ice. I’d suggest you not push it.” He said with a menacing voice tone that both ignored.
Amy walked to him and wrapped an arm around his waist, then leaned her head against his shoulder.
“You can’t stay mad at us,” she said with a pout.
“Maybe not you,” the Doctor said, unable to keep his angry façade in place with her eyes pleading up at him. “But I can stay mad at him.”
Jack looked affronted.
“What did I do?”
“It’s who, Jack,” The Doctor said, “And who didn’t you do is the easier question to answer.”
Jack rolled his eyes. He walked over to the Doctor and stroked a finger flirtatiously down the arm that wasn’t obscured by Amy.
“Can’t help it, it’s just who I am, Doctor.”
The Doctor sighed.
“Yes. Well. Try harder, won’t you?”
Jack peered at Amy behind the man’s back, and they shared a mischievous grin.
“I promise to try very hard,” he said completely unconvincingly.
“Good,” the Doctor replied, as he pulled one last lever.
The TARDIS began to dematerialize, while in another part of the ship, two men woke up in each other’s arms, and shared a tentative first kiss.
Pairings: Rimmer/Lister, Amy/Jack/Lister, Eleven/Rimmer
Rating: G or PG
Notes: The final installment. I am surprised at how I managed to finish the entire fic with no actual written sex. Hmm. Anyway, hope you like it. It's quite sweet, if nothing else.
Rimmer paced outside the door to his shared room with Lister before entering. He was nervous, and trying to decide how best to enter the room. Triumphant, as though he too had just had a sexual encounter? Blasé, as though he couldn’t care less about his roommate’s exploits of the evening? And the most terrifying possibility of all - sincere. Could he truly do what he thought the Doctor would want him to do? Could he…tell Lister how he felt?
That was absurd, though. Because how was Rimmer supposed to know exactly how he felt inside? It was all tense and swirly, and the tiniest bit painful. How would he convey all that to Lister, when he couldn’t quite put it into coherent thoughts for himself?
He sighed and stopped pacing. Lister might not even be in his bunk. He might be asleep in the officer’s room where he and those two…oversexualized morons had done the deed. Or, if he was back, he was most certainly asleep. Exhausted from having sex with not one, but two people. Disgusting. Unfair.
He moved into the door sensor’s periphery and the door slid open onto a dark room. There was a lump on the top bunk. So, Lister was here, and sleeping.
Rimmer entered quietly and made for the bottom bunk, where he planned to lie silently while his thoughts kept him up for the remainder of the night. As soon as he lay down on the comforter, making a slight sound as the fabric of the bed and the hologram fabric of his clothes met, he heard movement from above him. He suddenly felt anxious, and wished he hadn’t come back here. His light bee ticker sped up considerably.
“Rimmer?” he heard a muffled voice from the top bunk.
He closed his eyes and wished Lister hadn’t been awake.
“Yeah. Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,” he said with an air of finality which he hoped mean that the conversation was over.
“Listen, mate. I hope you weren’t offended. Earlier.” Lister sounded like he had a cold, but Rimmer didn’t focus on that, since he was frantically thinking of a way to wrap up this discussion pronto.
“What, you mean when you told me to smeg off so you could shag the ginger and the ponce? No, course not Listy.” He said with characteristic sarcasm.
There was a pause, in which Rimmer hoped Lister would take the hint and drop it.
“…Right.” Lister said.
Something about the way he said that one word made all the anger that Rimmer had been pushing down inside all night flare up. So, Lister would just leave it at that, would he? He would just apologize lamely for being completely insulting, and not even feel badly for jumping into bed with a couple of strangers? He scrunched his eyes up and tried to calm himself, tried to let it be, tried to stay silent. But he just couldn’t. And the first thing that came out of his mouth was an attempt to make Lister jealous - as jealous as he, himself, now felt.
“I was off with the Doctor, anyway.” He said, and then wished he could take it back instantly. He wanted very much to stick his fist in his mouth and bite down. What a stupid thing to say! He should have kept quiet. But a big part of him was glad he’d said it, and even gladder when he heard the tentative interest in Lister’s voice next.
“Oh yeah? Did you…show him around the ship or something?”
Ha! Rimmer thought. Oh, I did much more than that, buckaroo! You think I’m only capable of giving guided tours to guests while you give fellatio? I think not!
“Hardly. We went back to his ship.”
Now Lister sounded really curious. And, did he have a cold?
“Yeah? What’s it like in there. As small as it looks on the outside?”
Rimmer allowed himself a chuckle, happy to know something Lister didn’t know. He hoped it sounded suggestive.
“Huge. Absolutely enormous inside, and the technology is quite advanced. But I didn’t see much of it. We had, er, more important things to do.”
There was a pause in which Rimmer thought he could hear the wheels turning in his bunkmate’s head.
“Rimmer, did you…”
“Hmm?” Rimmer said, trying to sound confident.
“Never mind. Can’t be.”
This dismissal made Rimmer’s blood boil - or would have, if he were still compromised of flesh and bone. So Lister really didn’t think he was capable of being sexual? He really, truly thought of him as an asexual light projection, and not a living person with feelings and needs? It hurt too much. All of it. The way Lister thought of him, too many years without comfort, the way he could just have a casual encounter with such absolute…aliens!
Rimmer stood up from the bed and yelled, “Lights!”, then turned to face Lister.
“It most certainly can be, you ignorant git! And it almost certainly was. Or would have been. But I couldn’t. I mean we couldn’t. Because it wasn’t…” he stopped long enough in his yelled rant to really look at Lister’s face, and it took the fight right out of him. “Why are you crying?”
“I’m not,” Lister said, looking grumpy at the accusation.
“But your eyes are all red, and look! Your pillow is wet.”
“I’m just tired,” Lister said dismissively.
Rimmer suddenly had a thought that made him quite angry.
“Did he hurt you?” he demanded.
“What?”
“That man! That…that poncey, muscley, long-coated man! Did he, y’know, hurt you?”
“Don’t be stupid, Rimmer.”
“I’m serious! I don’t know what you two got up to, but I can imagine, and if he was too rough with you…”
“Shut up, Rimmer! It’s not that. He didn’t ….no. Okay?”
Rimmer looked suspicious.
“Was it that ginger girl, then? She looked like the type that might be into sadomasochism…”
“What? No, Rimmer! No. Just, shut up please. I’m fine. I’m going back to sleep. Lights!”
“Lights!” They turned back on.
“Let me sleep, Rimmer!” Lister said angrily, turning away, toward the wall.
“I want to know why you’re so miserable, if they didn’t hurt you! I mean, I’m the one who has a right to be miserable here! Me! You got what you wanted. Didn’t you? You got a pretty girl and a grinning idiot of a man in your bed. Why do you have any right to be upset?!”
“Because it didn’t mean anything,” Lister said, still facing away from his roommate. “And tomorrow they’ll leave, and it’ll be just like before. Except it’ll be even worse, because I’ll remember how it feels to be touched, and held. And maybe it was better that I was starting to forget. Because I’ll never get home. And I’ll never hold anyone again. I’ll just be stuck up here with no one, till I die.”
Rimmer watched as Lister’s body began to shake with what he imagined were silent sobs. His instinct was to leave the room. To come back in the morning and be a bit nicer to Lister, but generally pretend this discussion had never happened. And yet. This could be the moment. This could be the perfect opportunity to say what he wanted to say. It was so, so difficult to get the words to come out. But for once, Lister was a captive audience, in that he was distracted by his misery.
“You’ve got me, Listy,” he said gently.
“You don’t even like me,” Lister said through his tears.
“Yes I do,” Rimmer said. His light bee pulse was so loud in his ears, and he felt as though he was leaking the energy it was pouring out to him. This was so terrifying.
“Go away, Rimmer,” came the sad voice from the top bunk.
“No.”
“Why won’t you just leave me alone?”
“Because I have something important to say to you. And I think, with you in this state, you’re less likely to make fun of me for it. So I’m trying to get up the courage to say it.”
There was a tiny laugh from the lump of Lister on the bed.
“I don’t have the energy to make fun of you right now, Rimmer. Say what you want to say, then leave me alone.”
“Alright. I will.” Rimmer took a deep breath, and then closed his eyes, and forced himself to continue.
“What I want to say is that…well, I didn’t do anything with the Doctor. Because, well…he thought, and rightly so, I think, that…that my heart wasn’t really in it. And…the reason for that was…I mean, the reason…my heart, you see,” Rimmer held a breath for a few seconds, then let it out with the words he was so scared to say, “my heart belongs to you.”
Lister was silent, and still. He was clearly listening attentively. Suddenly Rimmer felt that he could go on, he could elaborate. Having said it now, the waves of relief were overwhelming.
“And you might not believe me, because you know, I haven’t always told the truth to you. And you can ignore it, of course, because I know I’m not…handsome, or nice…or any of the things you like in people. But, I suppose, it was time you knew. Because I’ve felt this way for years. And I’m terrible at showing it. And…I just wanted you to know.”
He stood there, watching Lister’s body in the silence. He gave no response.
“I suppose I’ll go, then. Like you said,” Rimmer conceded, and turned to leave, trying not to let the disappointment and despair wash over him until he was out of the room.
“Wait,” Lister said, and then turned over to face him.
They looked at each other, Rimmer trying to appear earnest, Lister trying to discern what he could from the other’s face.
Lister pushed the blankets off and jumped off the bed. He walked over to Rimmer, who stood very still, and tense.
“Really, Rimmer? Was all that true?” he asked, a little smile beginning at the corners of his mouth.
“Yes,” was all Rimmer could say. What was Lister going to do?
Lister leaned in slowly and wrapped his arms around Rimmer in a hug. Rimmer was surprised, but gently wrapped his arms around the other in return. It was a soft hug, and strange since they had never done this before, but it felt so good. And then Lister turned his face to kiss Rimmer on the cheek.
“I really never thought I’d hear you say something like that. To anyone,” Lister said, smiling.
“Me either,” Rimmer admitted.
“I’m really proud of you,” Lister said, still smiling.
“Rimmer’s eyebrows shot up, and he scoffed quietly.
“Proud? Yes, well, what about…you know, the rest of it?”
“I don’t know,” Lister said truthfully, his arms still around his bunkmate.
“You don’t know?” Rimmer’s hopes fell, as did his heart into his stomach.
“I’ve had a very emotional night, and this was really unexpected. But I’m not saying no. I’m just saying we can give it a try. And see where it goes.”
“Really?” Rimmer could hardly believe it.
Lister pulled back from the hug.
“Really. But for right now…” he grabbed Rimmer’s hand and pulled him toward the bottom bunk, “I am exhausted, and we should both sleep. Will you let me hold you?”
Rimmer just nodded, silently, unsure of how to navigate these new, intimate waters.
They lay down, and arranged themselves comfortably in each other’s arms, smiling at the newness and the strange new feelings it brought up. Very quickly, Lister fell asleep, his arm around the hologram. Rimmer, on the other hand, didn’t dare sleep, but watched Lister and held him close until he woke up several hours later.
“Doctor, shouldn’t we say goodbye?” Amy asked, watching the Time Lord pull levers at the console.
“We’ve waited around for a good twelve hours. If they wanted to say goodbye, they’d have knocked on the TARDIS door. No, I think we have done enough damage,” he gave a pointed look to Jack, who leaned innocently against a railing, “and overstayed our welcome.”
“I was sure you’d want to give a goodbye kiss to that little hologram, though,” Jack said teasingly.
“Shut it, Jack.” The Doctor responded pointedly.
Jack laughed silently to himself and caught Amy’s eye, making her smile.
“He was quite cute,” Amy said, the smile audible in her voice.
“Shut it, Amy.” The Doctor responded.
“Oh fine, you’re no fun.” She said, feigning grumpiness. “At least not with us.” She said, hinting at seeing him kiss another man the night before.
“You two are on very thin ice. I’d suggest you not push it.” He said with a menacing voice tone that both ignored.
Amy walked to him and wrapped an arm around his waist, then leaned her head against his shoulder.
“You can’t stay mad at us,” she said with a pout.
“Maybe not you,” the Doctor said, unable to keep his angry façade in place with her eyes pleading up at him. “But I can stay mad at him.”
Jack looked affronted.
“What did I do?”
“It’s who, Jack,” The Doctor said, “And who didn’t you do is the easier question to answer.”
Jack rolled his eyes. He walked over to the Doctor and stroked a finger flirtatiously down the arm that wasn’t obscured by Amy.
“Can’t help it, it’s just who I am, Doctor.”
The Doctor sighed.
“Yes. Well. Try harder, won’t you?”
Jack peered at Amy behind the man’s back, and they shared a mischievous grin.
“I promise to try very hard,” he said completely unconvincingly.
“Good,” the Doctor replied, as he pulled one last lever.
The TARDIS began to dematerialize, while in another part of the ship, two men woke up in each other’s arms, and shared a tentative first kiss.