New Red Dwarf fic - "Fools Fall" part 2/2 (R for language)
"Fools Fall"
Red Dwarf chars. Lister/Rimmer, et. al.
Rated R for language
Summary: Lister. Rimmer. Kinitawawe bride on the rundown. Marriage of convenience. You guess the trope.
Continued from Part 1 ...
Lister had shut his eyes briefly to savor the solidity of that hard-light body in his arms, but when he opened them, something was off. It took him a few seconds to realize the hunched, tall, multi-limbed creature several yards behind Kryten didn’t belong there (namely because Kryten’s expression was distracting, somewhere between nervously twitchy and inexplicably constipated, which Lister bet had nothing to do with any awareness of oversized bugs). “Oh, smeg,” he murmured, slowly backing away.
Rimmer eyed him with a frown and looked down at his shoulder, then lifted his arm and sniffed under it as if his light bee had suddenly developed odorous capabilities. His mouth moved to form words, then stopped as he watched Lister’s expression. Casually, he turned to look behind him, and Lister heard, “Right, then,” just before he lifted his wrist and spoke to the black band around it, instead of messing about with that infernally slow bee transmitter. “Nona, dear, could you be a love and swoop in over here? We’ve got roaches to scatter.”
Lister took a few seconds to compose himself and try to look unaffected again. “Aliens?” he squeaked skeptically (Smooth as satin, he thought).
Rimmer shook his head. “No, they’re Terran,” he said, keeping his voice down as he withdrew the pair of pistols from his belt. Keeping his right hand behind him, he waved one toward Lister, giving him the silent hint to take it. “To begin with, anyway. Sort of like the felinoids - evolved from Earth cockroaches over millions of years.”
“So that’s where the ugly stick went to live,” Cat remarked. “It was off beating them.”
Keeping his voice pitched low, Rimmer said, “Listy … you know how a cockroach’ll eat anything, anywhere, and can’t be killed short of stepping on it?” Lister made an affirmative noise through his nose, keeping his eye on the huge insectoid twitching and starting to move their way. “Multiply that by about fifty for the Cocherel. But,” he added, “they do have two notable gaps in their exoskeleton, at their belly and throat. Not from the back of the neck, but the front.” He took in a long breath, and Lister watched him sidelong as Rimmer straightened subtly, rolled his shoulder, and shifted his stance to become Ace. His expression dropped about twenty degrees, his eyes half-lidded and one corner of his mouth lifted in something resembling amusement.
It was then he also noticed the GLEF chief and the few guards he could see were still, looking toward Ace - presumably for direction.
Almost immediately, the Wildfire under Fiona’s power just …¬ appeared about fifty feet hovering over them. And in Lister’s peripheral vision, perhaps a score more of the Cocherel began beaming, or popping, into existence around them and the GELFs, twitching limbs and mandibles and moving slowly toward them.
And then, Ace tossed his bangs - while managing to keep the skewed flower circlet stuck in the wig on his head.
And it was on.
Lister knew he shot; Ace’s pistol was varying levels of energy, rather than bullets, and worked off a near-inexhaustible charge. He knew GELF guards were charging the invaders. He saw Rimmer shouting into his wrist at one point and then his ship dropped dangerously low over all of them, opening the hatch and unfurling an emergency flexi-ladder. Kryten and the Cat were shooed aboard - after much coaxing and none at all, respectively - before Rimmer fairly shoved Lister ahead of him toward it. But at its foot, he turned and shook his head. “We can’t just run out and leave them to it.”
“Get on the ship, Lister.”
“No.” He stopped shaking his head. “They’re not a violent people, Rimmer; they don’t deserve - THAT.” He pointed at two Cocherel grabbing a GELF’s staff and whipping it around swiftly to spear him through the midsection, then shoved at Rimmer as to go around him. “We’ve got to help them!”
“David. Get. On. The. SHIP.” Rimmer stood his ground and gritted through his teeth, almost nothing of Ace’s magnanimous calm in there now. Lister glared at him. Finally, Rimmer blew a “Fuck!” through compressed lips. “You and that smegging … thrice-damned misplaced nobility.” He gave Lister a murderous look before turning away to survey the camp again. “There’s still more of them than us, but they’ve stopped beaming in …” He trailed off, taking a couple of heavy breaths, then Lister watched him calm himself. “Nona,” he said into his wristband, “roll up and go find their ship. The Cat’s got a spooky nose, he might be able to help. Work fast, please; I need to know if it’s just a scout, or an invasion force.”
He grabbed Lister’s sleeve. “YOU. Stay with me. Do not get separated. These smeggers are plenty dangerous.” He didn’t let go until Lister nodded, then began sighting and shooting off to his left again, leaving Lister in charge of his right side, still pressed to the Scouser. The fact he didn’t even spare a glance his way told Lister he was either incredibly angry or extremely trusting of Lister’s abilities. Or both.
After a few more minutes of moving in a circular sort of crabwalk with Rimmer and shooting a few Cocherel away from them and some GELFs, Lister figured out what was bothering him about the bugs’ movements - the one who’d grabbed the staff earlier used it with fast, frightening facility, but none of them were moving with nearly that speed. In fact, it seemed almost a chore. And they hunched. Ponderously. And Lister started thinking back to school and learning about the moon and space and floating and Zero-G leagues, and noticing how tall and heavy most of the GELFs were and how slowly they moved, but more gracefully than the invaders …
“Hey!” He nudged Rimmer in the back with his elbow, causing him to turn abruptly, scowling. “These guys are not moving so fast - what kind of gravity’d they have on their home planet, or moon, or whatever? Where they evolved?”
“It was-” Rimmer paused, licking his lips and considering.
“Was it less than here? Less than Earth?”
“Maybe. Wait - yesss …” Rimmer trailed off again, then fixed Lister with only a partial scowl. “Wait, why are we having a tea and a chat? I’m busy just now!” But then his visible confusion and annoyance cleared, and he regarded Lister with something that looked like wonder. “My stars, Listy … you’re a genius.”
He preened briefly. “Now what’re we going to do about it?” he pointed out.
Rimmer digested the observation only a moment before answering. “Shoot their legs; if you can’t hit the thorax around the exoskeleton easily, hit a leg or both, and then when you get close, shoot to kill. Once they go down, they’re not going to easily get back up; if we hobble them, we can buy some time and keep them off the GELFs!”
*****
The wig and circlet of limp flowers went first, as Lister pushed Rimmer into the Xpress Elevator aboard Red Dwarf three hours later and slapped the door closed. They stumbled briefly as Lister licked at his neck and shrugged off his own heavy leather jacket. “Sit,” he commanded, maneuvering Rimmer to the long bench. He went down hard and Lister climbed up on his knees, straddling those strong thighs. Rimmer craned his long neck up as Lister leaned in to kiss him, digging his fingertips into the man’s real hair, slightly sweaty and tight against his scalp. He felt hands on his hips, balancing him, then trailing up his sides; even over his clothes, it was enough to make him purr. “You make incredible sounds,” Rimmer garbled into his mouth.
“Give me time and I’ll give you some real noises,” he promised, bumping his forehead gently against the other man’s. They laughed breathlessly as he wound his fingers more into the short auburn waves, up past his knuckles, and placed kisses down the bridge of Rimmer’s sizable schnoz. He eased more comfortably onto Rimmer’s lap, held closer by hands on his lower back. “So all those run-ins with GELFs over all those decades, and you couldn’t remember any words without Fiona’s help?” he needled as he kissed.
“You know what crap I am at languages,” Rimmer hummed, mouthing and licking at Lister’s chin.
“I’ve heard you speak Italian …”
“Just enough to get you into bed,” he pointed out, moaning, “Listy … mmm, Listy, Lis- HEY, OW!”
Lister yanked upright, startled out of his sensual coma. He frowned, about to ask, then tried to pull his hands back and realized the new ring was caught on a couple of strands of auburn hair. “Bollocks,” he muttered, holding the hair roots with his other fingers as he carefully untangled the metal ring from the snarl. He got it loose with a strand still trapped between the twisted coils - but when he lifted his hand away from Rimmer’s body, it sparkled out of existence like any other part of his image separated from the projection. He noticed Rimmer watching and shrugged with a little grin. “That’ll never not be fascinating, sorry.”
He followed Rimmer’s gaze to the ring, and moved his attention back and forth slowly between it and the man’s eyes. “You know, she did offer to annul us. And she would’ve left me alone, too,” Lister pointed out, referring to the grateful chief’s offer after the Cocherel invasion was neutralized and a body count showed only three GELFs had died thanks to the Dwarfers’ leadership. He hauled himself backward onto his feet and sat next to Rimmer instead, his knee turned to press against the man’s thigh.
“I know.”
“So we didn’t take her up on it because why?” Lister pressed. “Just because it’s not really legal anywhere else?” When Rimmer didn’t answer, he sighed. “You and I - we’re not ready for this thing, are we?” He said it hesitantly, taking Rimmer’s hand as he spoke, hoping he’d realize it wasn’t a rejection. “I only mean it’s too-”
“I know what you mean.” Rimmer looked down at his hand being clutched by Lister’s. “It’s a fiction, right. We both know that.” Did he sound disappointed? “No, I’m not sure we’re ready for it yet.”
Lister quietly processed that yet. “Is it a feelings thing?”
Rimmer shook his head, eyes still pointed down. “No.”
He was sort of pleased to find he felt relieved; maybe he was growing up. “Just bad timing, then?”
“Something like that. It’s not the kind of thing I want to be forced into,” Rimmer explained. “Having no choice in the matter is about the least romantic thing I can think of. Aside from being measured for my trousseau by Kryten.”
Lister nodded in agreement, lifting the pale knuckles to kiss. “Or being given away by your mum.” Rimmer made a face, and Lister laughed.
“So,” Rimmer said after they were quiet a moment. “I suppose you want to give the ring back, then. Hold out for something less melted- and destitute-looking?”
“You’re not getting this back. Just think of all those crap birthday gifts you pawned off on me for years; it’ll start to make up for them. Feel free to do more, obviously.” Rimmer’s eyebrows went into his hairline, and Lister bit his lip in an effort to look stern.
After departing the lift a few minutes later, they separated with a quick last brush of fingers, Rimmer heading off wherever while Lister went to the drive room. He relieved Kochanski on watch with a mildly dramatically reenactment of the bug battle, skimming over the afternoon’s earlier details. It wasn’t until she’d pointedly eyed his left hand for a couple of minutes, going back and forth between it and his head, that he remembered, and sheepishly reached up to untangle the circlet’s wire ends from his hair. “What,” she finally said, “no veil?”
“Kris-”
“I would have liked to have been invited, you know. Am I persona non grata just because I’m an ex?” she continued, clearly enjoying taking the smeg.
“Isn’t there a nap that needs taking?” he hinted.
“Yes, that’s going to happen,” she remarked dryly, stretching her arms above her head and yawning despite the sarcasm. “I want to hear about this wedding.”
“Ask Kryten; he’d be glad to give you the rundown, I’m sure.”
She cocked her head. “I’m surprised he didn’t have a meltdown.” She yawned again, showing how little sleep she’d managed in their absence, after all. “Oh, hell; I do need to get to bed. I’ve managed to keep this crate up for the last couple of days, so do try not to ram it into a planet, or stellar array while I have a sleep, would you?” She softened the gibe by leaning over and giving him a quick kiss on the forehead.
“What was that for?” he asked.
She stood and stepped away from her seat. “Everybody knows you’re supposed to kiss the bride on her happy day.”
“How am I the-” Kochanski toodle-oohed with her fingers and disappeared. Rolling his eyes, Lister flipped his locks back over his shoulder and swiveled back to the control panels to do a cursory check; as if there’d be anything wrong after Kris had been on the job, but he’d learned through hard lessons that taking shit for granted is what landed them on GELF planets and in smack in the middle of “Starship Troopers” reenactments. As he moved, something sharp poked him in the upper thigh - he patted himself and realized the signet was still in his tight jeans pocket. He pulled it out, eyeing it a moment before testing it on his middle left finger; it sat, snugly, but serviceably, against Rimmer’s ring.
He took the multicolored ring off and held it up to examine more closely. After getting it near some better light and rotating it slowly, he realized something was scratched inside the band, on a worn, flat part; it was Rimmer’s initials, presumably so he could pick it out of a lineup if it went missing among other homemade rings. Lister chuckled to himself, turning his attention to its outside. The little twinings of various metals turned out to be more intricate and regimented than he’d initially realized - perfectly reflective of its creator, he thought.
“I was going to put little stones in there, but I thought they might get snagged on something while you were working.” The voice startled Lister into straightening his back, and he wondered why he hadn’t heard the footsteps. Then he realized, not for the first time, that between being a soft-light hologram for years and Ace for even longer, Rimmer knew how to move quietly.
“Stones?”
“A gem or two. Something to break up the metal.” He turned and watched Rimmer, who had changed into soft maroon pajamas and a robe, lower himself fluidly into the seat Kochanski had vacated some time earlier. He sat forward, hands clasped between his knees. “But - oh, hell, I didn’t think it was very manly anyway.”
Lister was unaccountably amused. “And that’s a word you associate with me? You once said if I were any more girly with my soaps and trashy movies, you could’ve taken me home to your mum as a bad date.”
“Don’t feel pressured; you still would’ve been a bad date just like you already are, to her.” Rimmer rubbed his palms slowly and looked embarrassed. “Besides, believe me, I’ve had opportunity to … uh, revise my opinion of your … status as a male since. Plenty,” he added, pinkish. Lister smirked.
He pushed the ring back onto his finger and leaned back, slightly turned toward Rimmer. “Just bored, then?”
Rimmer made an inarticulate noise, stalling, then blew out a big breath. “Not exactly.” Lister waited. And waited. “I don’t think I represented myself entirely truthfully in our conversation earlier.”
“About?” Just as quickly, he added, “Ohhh - the whole wedding thing?” Rimmer nodded, after hesitating. Lister crossed his arms and waited.
“Here’s the thing.” Rimmer gesticulated as he talked, and right now he was pumping his forearms and looked like he was setting posts repeatedly into concrete as he made his points - it reminded Lister of how Second Technician Rimmer used to practice from those stupid self-help guides for upper management, to Zed Shift during his morning “pep” talks. “I made that ring. I didn’t just make it for any old bloke, or any lady. I think it should be pretty obvious to even you that it might’ve had a purpose.” Now he looked a little less constipated, but still ran his hands back through his unruly hair. “Okay?”
“Let me save you some mental anguish, Arn. I don’t really need all that.”
“What?”
“I don’t need any law or ritual to tell me how to behave or if I should be loyal to who I love. You choose to stay here with me, we like each other rather a lot more than we started out doing. We’ve got each other’s back in a tough spot - like today. What’s mine is yours-”
“Like a big red metal trash can?” Rimmer put in, bemused.
“Hey, I can’t speak for Jupiter Mining’s property.” He waved a hand and shook his head. “You know if someone from the company showed up somehow three million years out into space, they’d find a way to repossess it and put us out into the vacuum until we paid three thousand millennia’s rent.” Lister found another point to make. “Besides, who out here’s going to try to enforce a marriage contract anyway?”
“Other than your missus?” Rimmer raised an eyebrow. “I’m really surprised at you. You’re the giant romantic, all about meaningful gestures and forever emotion. A ‘contract’ is how you see it?” His expression fell a little. “Unless it’s just me, and-”
He growled a little at that. “Arnold Judas! We’ve been over this. It’s not her versus you. Name me once I ever said anything about having to marry Krissie. Go on.” Rimmer opened his mouth; stopped. He raised a finger, then stopped, screwing up his face to think. “I’ll save you some time there, too - it didn’t happen. I talked about being with her, and I would’ve stayed with her and been in love, and had fifteen kids, and if she’d wanted to get married, I would’ve done that. For her; because it was important to her. Not to me.”
“What about ME?”
“Is it important to you?”
“Well, maybe it is!” A vein Lister hadn’t seen in a while stood out on Rimmer’s neck, and Lister leaned toward him in his seat, raising his own voice to match.
“Then ASK, man!” Rimmer’s nostrils quivered a little, but he stayed silent. “What’s the problem?” He realized he was still shouting, and scaled back his tone. “Arn?”
“It wouldn’t mean the same thing to you it does to me.”
“Says the last registered member of the Red Dwarf Love Celibates Society,” he threw out.
“Yes, I was young and disillusioned. I hadn’t been through all the smeg I’ve seen since. Had you?” Lister, impressed by the graceful admission, shook his head. “Look, Dave … there was this other Lister I met while out there as Ace; about ten or so years ago. I stayed with him for about a week before I left. We had a thing.” He’d told Lister he’d never slept with another version of him, and now he was coming clean? “When you asked, we’d just started up together. I didn’t want to ruin it. I also didn’t want to tell you because the only reason I did it was that I missed you. A lot, Listy.” His face colored. “You might’ve been scared off if I looked that desperate and lonely.”
He was remembering the recurring dreams he used to have about Rimmer coming back with a better sense of humor, some humility, and a more favorable outlook on Lister himself. A far more favorable outlook. “Come on. You know I missed you too,” he said gently.
“Not the same way. Not for as long.” Rimmer sighed, looking away. “Not so deeply.” Lister’s chest ached. “If you get a better prospect, I feel like you’ll go to her. Or even him, maybe.”
“Oh.” He closed his eyes briefly and shook his head. “No, I haven’t been thinking that at all.” He had been considering, in fact, for nearly the duration of their relationship how seriously he hoped Rimmer wasn’t going to Ace-up again and take off for better dimension. “I’m the one who ought to be worrying you’ll want to leave me.”
“After all the time and trouble I went to to track you down again? TWICE? And spent the better part of a year in prison for you?” His voice was going all nasal again, in that Are you mad? tone; quite perversely, Lister loved it. He flashed Rimmer his best ray-of-sunshine smile and watched his expression come down from haughty to something far softer. “And there’s why I did it,” he said, nodding toward Lister.
“Me smiling?”
“You smiling, you complaining, you arguing with me. You.”
And Lister said the only thing he could. “You realize it’s done, right? We didn’t get annulled. Neither one of us went along with it when she offered.”
“You don’t consider that real, though …” Rimmer trailed off, visibly thinking.
“It’s as real as Kryten doing it, isn’t it? Or Cat, or Kris? Who else here is going to do it? You?”
“Technically, Ace is captain of his own vessel.” Rimmer gave him a small smile. “And you’re de facto captain of this bucket of rusty bolts.”
“Stop,” Lister deadpanned. “I can’t handle all the flattery.” He cut Rimmer off by shaking his head and twisting his own ring off his middle finger, then leaning forward and taking Rimmer’s left hand. “I’ve had this since I was in Smeg and the Heads. Bought it with my share of our first gig’s pay. Never even loaned it to anyone else.” He tested the silver signet ring on a couple of knuckles, and found it slid comfortably over Rimmer’s pinky finger. “You’d better not pawn it anywhere. Congratulations, Mr. Lister. Might want to get that resized sometime.”
He couldn’t tell if Rimmer was about to start crying, or burst into laughter; likely, the man himself didn’t know, either. Finally, he got his expression under control and nodded. “To you too, Mr. Rimmer.”
“You know, I don’t know how to break this nicely to you, but nobody wants to take that name on purpose.”
“Mum did.”
“I think that tells you everything about her.” He smirked, and Rimmer laughed. “I think I’ll stick with ‘Rimmer’ or ‘Arn’ or ‘smeghead,’ or if you’re really super-good and deserve it, sometimes, I’ll call you ‘Captain.’” He drew it out in the low voice he knew revved the man’s libido, then popped forward out of his seat briefly to kiss him.
“And you can stay ‘git’ or ‘gimboid’ or ‘Listy’ or ‘you great twonk,’” Rimmer informed him as they separated, with a glance down at the signet ring. “Just as long as we can have our first dance to ‘OHM.’” He rolled his eyes up and exaggerated the word, forming his lips into the big O and smacking them on the end.
“Sod off, you cheeky fucker!”
And they lived reasonably content ever after. And decades later, Lister died. And then they lived reasonably content again, thanks to Rimmer’s penchant for hoarding undamaged hard-light bees from all the expired himselves he’d come across in his travels.
Besides, Rimmer had no interest in captaining a rusty bucket of bolts.
Red Dwarf chars. Lister/Rimmer, et. al.
Rated R for language
Summary: Lister. Rimmer. Kinitawawe bride on the rundown. Marriage of convenience. You guess the trope.
Continued from Part 1 ...
Lister had shut his eyes briefly to savor the solidity of that hard-light body in his arms, but when he opened them, something was off. It took him a few seconds to realize the hunched, tall, multi-limbed creature several yards behind Kryten didn’t belong there (namely because Kryten’s expression was distracting, somewhere between nervously twitchy and inexplicably constipated, which Lister bet had nothing to do with any awareness of oversized bugs). “Oh, smeg,” he murmured, slowly backing away.
Rimmer eyed him with a frown and looked down at his shoulder, then lifted his arm and sniffed under it as if his light bee had suddenly developed odorous capabilities. His mouth moved to form words, then stopped as he watched Lister’s expression. Casually, he turned to look behind him, and Lister heard, “Right, then,” just before he lifted his wrist and spoke to the black band around it, instead of messing about with that infernally slow bee transmitter. “Nona, dear, could you be a love and swoop in over here? We’ve got roaches to scatter.”
Lister took a few seconds to compose himself and try to look unaffected again. “Aliens?” he squeaked skeptically (Smooth as satin, he thought).
Rimmer shook his head. “No, they’re Terran,” he said, keeping his voice down as he withdrew the pair of pistols from his belt. Keeping his right hand behind him, he waved one toward Lister, giving him the silent hint to take it. “To begin with, anyway. Sort of like the felinoids - evolved from Earth cockroaches over millions of years.”
“So that’s where the ugly stick went to live,” Cat remarked. “It was off beating them.”
Keeping his voice pitched low, Rimmer said, “Listy … you know how a cockroach’ll eat anything, anywhere, and can’t be killed short of stepping on it?” Lister made an affirmative noise through his nose, keeping his eye on the huge insectoid twitching and starting to move their way. “Multiply that by about fifty for the Cocherel. But,” he added, “they do have two notable gaps in their exoskeleton, at their belly and throat. Not from the back of the neck, but the front.” He took in a long breath, and Lister watched him sidelong as Rimmer straightened subtly, rolled his shoulder, and shifted his stance to become Ace. His expression dropped about twenty degrees, his eyes half-lidded and one corner of his mouth lifted in something resembling amusement.
It was then he also noticed the GLEF chief and the few guards he could see were still, looking toward Ace - presumably for direction.
Almost immediately, the Wildfire under Fiona’s power just …¬ appeared about fifty feet hovering over them. And in Lister’s peripheral vision, perhaps a score more of the Cocherel began beaming, or popping, into existence around them and the GELFs, twitching limbs and mandibles and moving slowly toward them.
And then, Ace tossed his bangs - while managing to keep the skewed flower circlet stuck in the wig on his head.
And it was on.
Lister knew he shot; Ace’s pistol was varying levels of energy, rather than bullets, and worked off a near-inexhaustible charge. He knew GELF guards were charging the invaders. He saw Rimmer shouting into his wrist at one point and then his ship dropped dangerously low over all of them, opening the hatch and unfurling an emergency flexi-ladder. Kryten and the Cat were shooed aboard - after much coaxing and none at all, respectively - before Rimmer fairly shoved Lister ahead of him toward it. But at its foot, he turned and shook his head. “We can’t just run out and leave them to it.”
“Get on the ship, Lister.”
“No.” He stopped shaking his head. “They’re not a violent people, Rimmer; they don’t deserve - THAT.” He pointed at two Cocherel grabbing a GELF’s staff and whipping it around swiftly to spear him through the midsection, then shoved at Rimmer as to go around him. “We’ve got to help them!”
“David. Get. On. The. SHIP.” Rimmer stood his ground and gritted through his teeth, almost nothing of Ace’s magnanimous calm in there now. Lister glared at him. Finally, Rimmer blew a “Fuck!” through compressed lips. “You and that smegging … thrice-damned misplaced nobility.” He gave Lister a murderous look before turning away to survey the camp again. “There’s still more of them than us, but they’ve stopped beaming in …” He trailed off, taking a couple of heavy breaths, then Lister watched him calm himself. “Nona,” he said into his wristband, “roll up and go find their ship. The Cat’s got a spooky nose, he might be able to help. Work fast, please; I need to know if it’s just a scout, or an invasion force.”
He grabbed Lister’s sleeve. “YOU. Stay with me. Do not get separated. These smeggers are plenty dangerous.” He didn’t let go until Lister nodded, then began sighting and shooting off to his left again, leaving Lister in charge of his right side, still pressed to the Scouser. The fact he didn’t even spare a glance his way told Lister he was either incredibly angry or extremely trusting of Lister’s abilities. Or both.
After a few more minutes of moving in a circular sort of crabwalk with Rimmer and shooting a few Cocherel away from them and some GELFs, Lister figured out what was bothering him about the bugs’ movements - the one who’d grabbed the staff earlier used it with fast, frightening facility, but none of them were moving with nearly that speed. In fact, it seemed almost a chore. And they hunched. Ponderously. And Lister started thinking back to school and learning about the moon and space and floating and Zero-G leagues, and noticing how tall and heavy most of the GELFs were and how slowly they moved, but more gracefully than the invaders …
“Hey!” He nudged Rimmer in the back with his elbow, causing him to turn abruptly, scowling. “These guys are not moving so fast - what kind of gravity’d they have on their home planet, or moon, or whatever? Where they evolved?”
“It was-” Rimmer paused, licking his lips and considering.
“Was it less than here? Less than Earth?”
“Maybe. Wait - yesss …” Rimmer trailed off again, then fixed Lister with only a partial scowl. “Wait, why are we having a tea and a chat? I’m busy just now!” But then his visible confusion and annoyance cleared, and he regarded Lister with something that looked like wonder. “My stars, Listy … you’re a genius.”
He preened briefly. “Now what’re we going to do about it?” he pointed out.
Rimmer digested the observation only a moment before answering. “Shoot their legs; if you can’t hit the thorax around the exoskeleton easily, hit a leg or both, and then when you get close, shoot to kill. Once they go down, they’re not going to easily get back up; if we hobble them, we can buy some time and keep them off the GELFs!”
*****
The wig and circlet of limp flowers went first, as Lister pushed Rimmer into the Xpress Elevator aboard Red Dwarf three hours later and slapped the door closed. They stumbled briefly as Lister licked at his neck and shrugged off his own heavy leather jacket. “Sit,” he commanded, maneuvering Rimmer to the long bench. He went down hard and Lister climbed up on his knees, straddling those strong thighs. Rimmer craned his long neck up as Lister leaned in to kiss him, digging his fingertips into the man’s real hair, slightly sweaty and tight against his scalp. He felt hands on his hips, balancing him, then trailing up his sides; even over his clothes, it was enough to make him purr. “You make incredible sounds,” Rimmer garbled into his mouth.
“Give me time and I’ll give you some real noises,” he promised, bumping his forehead gently against the other man’s. They laughed breathlessly as he wound his fingers more into the short auburn waves, up past his knuckles, and placed kisses down the bridge of Rimmer’s sizable schnoz. He eased more comfortably onto Rimmer’s lap, held closer by hands on his lower back. “So all those run-ins with GELFs over all those decades, and you couldn’t remember any words without Fiona’s help?” he needled as he kissed.
“You know what crap I am at languages,” Rimmer hummed, mouthing and licking at Lister’s chin.
“I’ve heard you speak Italian …”
“Just enough to get you into bed,” he pointed out, moaning, “Listy … mmm, Listy, Lis- HEY, OW!”
Lister yanked upright, startled out of his sensual coma. He frowned, about to ask, then tried to pull his hands back and realized the new ring was caught on a couple of strands of auburn hair. “Bollocks,” he muttered, holding the hair roots with his other fingers as he carefully untangled the metal ring from the snarl. He got it loose with a strand still trapped between the twisted coils - but when he lifted his hand away from Rimmer’s body, it sparkled out of existence like any other part of his image separated from the projection. He noticed Rimmer watching and shrugged with a little grin. “That’ll never not be fascinating, sorry.”
He followed Rimmer’s gaze to the ring, and moved his attention back and forth slowly between it and the man’s eyes. “You know, she did offer to annul us. And she would’ve left me alone, too,” Lister pointed out, referring to the grateful chief’s offer after the Cocherel invasion was neutralized and a body count showed only three GELFs had died thanks to the Dwarfers’ leadership. He hauled himself backward onto his feet and sat next to Rimmer instead, his knee turned to press against the man’s thigh.
“I know.”
“So we didn’t take her up on it because why?” Lister pressed. “Just because it’s not really legal anywhere else?” When Rimmer didn’t answer, he sighed. “You and I - we’re not ready for this thing, are we?” He said it hesitantly, taking Rimmer’s hand as he spoke, hoping he’d realize it wasn’t a rejection. “I only mean it’s too-”
“I know what you mean.” Rimmer looked down at his hand being clutched by Lister’s. “It’s a fiction, right. We both know that.” Did he sound disappointed? “No, I’m not sure we’re ready for it yet.”
Lister quietly processed that yet. “Is it a feelings thing?”
Rimmer shook his head, eyes still pointed down. “No.”
He was sort of pleased to find he felt relieved; maybe he was growing up. “Just bad timing, then?”
“Something like that. It’s not the kind of thing I want to be forced into,” Rimmer explained. “Having no choice in the matter is about the least romantic thing I can think of. Aside from being measured for my trousseau by Kryten.”
Lister nodded in agreement, lifting the pale knuckles to kiss. “Or being given away by your mum.” Rimmer made a face, and Lister laughed.
“So,” Rimmer said after they were quiet a moment. “I suppose you want to give the ring back, then. Hold out for something less melted- and destitute-looking?”
“You’re not getting this back. Just think of all those crap birthday gifts you pawned off on me for years; it’ll start to make up for them. Feel free to do more, obviously.” Rimmer’s eyebrows went into his hairline, and Lister bit his lip in an effort to look stern.
After departing the lift a few minutes later, they separated with a quick last brush of fingers, Rimmer heading off wherever while Lister went to the drive room. He relieved Kochanski on watch with a mildly dramatically reenactment of the bug battle, skimming over the afternoon’s earlier details. It wasn’t until she’d pointedly eyed his left hand for a couple of minutes, going back and forth between it and his head, that he remembered, and sheepishly reached up to untangle the circlet’s wire ends from his hair. “What,” she finally said, “no veil?”
“Kris-”
“I would have liked to have been invited, you know. Am I persona non grata just because I’m an ex?” she continued, clearly enjoying taking the smeg.
“Isn’t there a nap that needs taking?” he hinted.
“Yes, that’s going to happen,” she remarked dryly, stretching her arms above her head and yawning despite the sarcasm. “I want to hear about this wedding.”
“Ask Kryten; he’d be glad to give you the rundown, I’m sure.”
She cocked her head. “I’m surprised he didn’t have a meltdown.” She yawned again, showing how little sleep she’d managed in their absence, after all. “Oh, hell; I do need to get to bed. I’ve managed to keep this crate up for the last couple of days, so do try not to ram it into a planet, or stellar array while I have a sleep, would you?” She softened the gibe by leaning over and giving him a quick kiss on the forehead.
“What was that for?” he asked.
She stood and stepped away from her seat. “Everybody knows you’re supposed to kiss the bride on her happy day.”
“How am I the-” Kochanski toodle-oohed with her fingers and disappeared. Rolling his eyes, Lister flipped his locks back over his shoulder and swiveled back to the control panels to do a cursory check; as if there’d be anything wrong after Kris had been on the job, but he’d learned through hard lessons that taking shit for granted is what landed them on GELF planets and in smack in the middle of “Starship Troopers” reenactments. As he moved, something sharp poked him in the upper thigh - he patted himself and realized the signet was still in his tight jeans pocket. He pulled it out, eyeing it a moment before testing it on his middle left finger; it sat, snugly, but serviceably, against Rimmer’s ring.
He took the multicolored ring off and held it up to examine more closely. After getting it near some better light and rotating it slowly, he realized something was scratched inside the band, on a worn, flat part; it was Rimmer’s initials, presumably so he could pick it out of a lineup if it went missing among other homemade rings. Lister chuckled to himself, turning his attention to its outside. The little twinings of various metals turned out to be more intricate and regimented than he’d initially realized - perfectly reflective of its creator, he thought.
“I was going to put little stones in there, but I thought they might get snagged on something while you were working.” The voice startled Lister into straightening his back, and he wondered why he hadn’t heard the footsteps. Then he realized, not for the first time, that between being a soft-light hologram for years and Ace for even longer, Rimmer knew how to move quietly.
“Stones?”
“A gem or two. Something to break up the metal.” He turned and watched Rimmer, who had changed into soft maroon pajamas and a robe, lower himself fluidly into the seat Kochanski had vacated some time earlier. He sat forward, hands clasped between his knees. “But - oh, hell, I didn’t think it was very manly anyway.”
Lister was unaccountably amused. “And that’s a word you associate with me? You once said if I were any more girly with my soaps and trashy movies, you could’ve taken me home to your mum as a bad date.”
“Don’t feel pressured; you still would’ve been a bad date just like you already are, to her.” Rimmer rubbed his palms slowly and looked embarrassed. “Besides, believe me, I’ve had opportunity to … uh, revise my opinion of your … status as a male since. Plenty,” he added, pinkish. Lister smirked.
He pushed the ring back onto his finger and leaned back, slightly turned toward Rimmer. “Just bored, then?”
Rimmer made an inarticulate noise, stalling, then blew out a big breath. “Not exactly.” Lister waited. And waited. “I don’t think I represented myself entirely truthfully in our conversation earlier.”
“About?” Just as quickly, he added, “Ohhh - the whole wedding thing?” Rimmer nodded, after hesitating. Lister crossed his arms and waited.
“Here’s the thing.” Rimmer gesticulated as he talked, and right now he was pumping his forearms and looked like he was setting posts repeatedly into concrete as he made his points - it reminded Lister of how Second Technician Rimmer used to practice from those stupid self-help guides for upper management, to Zed Shift during his morning “pep” talks. “I made that ring. I didn’t just make it for any old bloke, or any lady. I think it should be pretty obvious to even you that it might’ve had a purpose.” Now he looked a little less constipated, but still ran his hands back through his unruly hair. “Okay?”
“Let me save you some mental anguish, Arn. I don’t really need all that.”
“What?”
“I don’t need any law or ritual to tell me how to behave or if I should be loyal to who I love. You choose to stay here with me, we like each other rather a lot more than we started out doing. We’ve got each other’s back in a tough spot - like today. What’s mine is yours-”
“Like a big red metal trash can?” Rimmer put in, bemused.
“Hey, I can’t speak for Jupiter Mining’s property.” He waved a hand and shook his head. “You know if someone from the company showed up somehow three million years out into space, they’d find a way to repossess it and put us out into the vacuum until we paid three thousand millennia’s rent.” Lister found another point to make. “Besides, who out here’s going to try to enforce a marriage contract anyway?”
“Other than your missus?” Rimmer raised an eyebrow. “I’m really surprised at you. You’re the giant romantic, all about meaningful gestures and forever emotion. A ‘contract’ is how you see it?” His expression fell a little. “Unless it’s just me, and-”
He growled a little at that. “Arnold Judas! We’ve been over this. It’s not her versus you. Name me once I ever said anything about having to marry Krissie. Go on.” Rimmer opened his mouth; stopped. He raised a finger, then stopped, screwing up his face to think. “I’ll save you some time there, too - it didn’t happen. I talked about being with her, and I would’ve stayed with her and been in love, and had fifteen kids, and if she’d wanted to get married, I would’ve done that. For her; because it was important to her. Not to me.”
“What about ME?”
“Is it important to you?”
“Well, maybe it is!” A vein Lister hadn’t seen in a while stood out on Rimmer’s neck, and Lister leaned toward him in his seat, raising his own voice to match.
“Then ASK, man!” Rimmer’s nostrils quivered a little, but he stayed silent. “What’s the problem?” He realized he was still shouting, and scaled back his tone. “Arn?”
“It wouldn’t mean the same thing to you it does to me.”
“Says the last registered member of the Red Dwarf Love Celibates Society,” he threw out.
“Yes, I was young and disillusioned. I hadn’t been through all the smeg I’ve seen since. Had you?” Lister, impressed by the graceful admission, shook his head. “Look, Dave … there was this other Lister I met while out there as Ace; about ten or so years ago. I stayed with him for about a week before I left. We had a thing.” He’d told Lister he’d never slept with another version of him, and now he was coming clean? “When you asked, we’d just started up together. I didn’t want to ruin it. I also didn’t want to tell you because the only reason I did it was that I missed you. A lot, Listy.” His face colored. “You might’ve been scared off if I looked that desperate and lonely.”
He was remembering the recurring dreams he used to have about Rimmer coming back with a better sense of humor, some humility, and a more favorable outlook on Lister himself. A far more favorable outlook. “Come on. You know I missed you too,” he said gently.
“Not the same way. Not for as long.” Rimmer sighed, looking away. “Not so deeply.” Lister’s chest ached. “If you get a better prospect, I feel like you’ll go to her. Or even him, maybe.”
“Oh.” He closed his eyes briefly and shook his head. “No, I haven’t been thinking that at all.” He had been considering, in fact, for nearly the duration of their relationship how seriously he hoped Rimmer wasn’t going to Ace-up again and take off for better dimension. “I’m the one who ought to be worrying you’ll want to leave me.”
“After all the time and trouble I went to to track you down again? TWICE? And spent the better part of a year in prison for you?” His voice was going all nasal again, in that Are you mad? tone; quite perversely, Lister loved it. He flashed Rimmer his best ray-of-sunshine smile and watched his expression come down from haughty to something far softer. “And there’s why I did it,” he said, nodding toward Lister.
“Me smiling?”
“You smiling, you complaining, you arguing with me. You.”
And Lister said the only thing he could. “You realize it’s done, right? We didn’t get annulled. Neither one of us went along with it when she offered.”
“You don’t consider that real, though …” Rimmer trailed off, visibly thinking.
“It’s as real as Kryten doing it, isn’t it? Or Cat, or Kris? Who else here is going to do it? You?”
“Technically, Ace is captain of his own vessel.” Rimmer gave him a small smile. “And you’re de facto captain of this bucket of rusty bolts.”
“Stop,” Lister deadpanned. “I can’t handle all the flattery.” He cut Rimmer off by shaking his head and twisting his own ring off his middle finger, then leaning forward and taking Rimmer’s left hand. “I’ve had this since I was in Smeg and the Heads. Bought it with my share of our first gig’s pay. Never even loaned it to anyone else.” He tested the silver signet ring on a couple of knuckles, and found it slid comfortably over Rimmer’s pinky finger. “You’d better not pawn it anywhere. Congratulations, Mr. Lister. Might want to get that resized sometime.”
He couldn’t tell if Rimmer was about to start crying, or burst into laughter; likely, the man himself didn’t know, either. Finally, he got his expression under control and nodded. “To you too, Mr. Rimmer.”
“You know, I don’t know how to break this nicely to you, but nobody wants to take that name on purpose.”
“Mum did.”
“I think that tells you everything about her.” He smirked, and Rimmer laughed. “I think I’ll stick with ‘Rimmer’ or ‘Arn’ or ‘smeghead,’ or if you’re really super-good and deserve it, sometimes, I’ll call you ‘Captain.’” He drew it out in the low voice he knew revved the man’s libido, then popped forward out of his seat briefly to kiss him.
“And you can stay ‘git’ or ‘gimboid’ or ‘Listy’ or ‘you great twonk,’” Rimmer informed him as they separated, with a glance down at the signet ring. “Just as long as we can have our first dance to ‘OHM.’” He rolled his eyes up and exaggerated the word, forming his lips into the big O and smacking them on the end.
“Sod off, you cheeky fucker!”
And they lived reasonably content ever after. And decades later, Lister died. And then they lived reasonably content again, thanks to Rimmer’s penchant for hoarding undamaged hard-light bees from all the expired himselves he’d come across in his travels.
Besides, Rimmer had no interest in captaining a rusty bucket of bolts.