I've been wanting to write this for years but had never gotten around to it by Christmas before! Merry Christmas everybody, I hope you enjoy!
According to Starbug's calendar, it was the day before Christmas Eve back on Earth—or at least it would have been if humanity was still around. Lister supposed that he and the others on board Starbug must have been the only ones in the universe celebrating Christmas this year, and he didn't even feel in the spirit.
"I'll be home for Christmas. You can count on me," the morose music danced through the air of the ship. "Please have snow and mistletoe and presents on the tree."
Dave sat in front of a box of old Christmas ornaments Kryten had managed to gather up from the dead crew's belongings. The mechanoid was currently humming along to the music as he attempted to straighten out the branches of their artificial Christmas tree. "Oh, isn't this just such a beautiful time of the year, sir?" he asked delightedly.
"Yeah, lovely," muttered Lister, staring at his own sad reflection in a silver bell.
"Christmas Eve will find me where the love light gleams. I'll be home for Christmas if only in my dreams."
"Can we turn that off already?" Lister asked.
"What's wrong, Dave? Don't like a little Christmas music?" asked Kochanski.
"I've got nothing against Christmas music! It's just… that song. Can we pick another?"
Kochanski nodded and made her way to the controls to skip to the next song.
"I'll have a blue Christmas without you. I'll be so blue just thinking about you. Decorations of red on a green Christmas tree won't be the same, dear, if you're not here with me."
Lister groaned and got up from the floor, rubbing his hands over his face. "You can decorate without me. I don't want to do Christmas anyways," he grumbled before making his exit.
"Is he always like this at Christmastime?" Kochanski asked Kryten once she was sure Lister was out of ear shot.
"Not usually. I believe it may have something to do with Mr. Rimmer. You see, right before he left, he said he'd be back for Christmas, but we knew he didn't mean it. In all likelihood he's dead by now—even more than he already was."
"Oh, poor Dave. That must be so hard for him, especially with those dreams he's been having… I'm gonna go talk to him."
"You can try, ma'am, but I think the only person who could comfort him right now is Mr. Rimmer."
Meanwhile in a far off dimension…
"Don't worry, Madame President. That highly intelligent tyrannosaur will never touch you again," the inter-dimensional super hero assured the shaken damsel in distress.
"Oh, Ace. You're my hero. How would you like to be the country's first man?" the President asked.
Ace looked down at his watch. "No can do, ma'am. I've got places to be, planets to save."
"Oh but of course you do! Good luck, Ace," she said, kissing the dazzling redhead on the cheek.
Ace gave her a wink before piling back into his ship. "Smoke me a kipper. I'll be back for breakfast!"
The President sighed dreamily as she watched him take off. "What a guy."
Once he was safely out of the planet's atmosphere, the space pilot wiped the lipstick smudge from his cheek.
"Where to now, Ace?" asked the ship's computer.
"Take me home, old girl."
Christmas morning on Red Dwarf had arrived, and Kryten was in a tizzy for Lister would not touch his pancakes.
"I'm sure they're good and all, Kryten, I'm just not hungry," he explained. "How bout we just go open presents, eh? Get this all over with."
"I already got my present!" announced Cat, slinking into the room, holding one of the silver Christmas balls from the tree. "Look at this shiny thing!"
"Cat, have you been stealing ornaments off the tree again? Give me that," sighed Dave.
"No! It's my shiny thing!" Cat cried, darting off to some unknown corner of the ship.
"I'll go after him, sir. You just stay here and try to eat," said Kryten, shuffling off in the direction Cat had run.
As the mechanoid was searching near the landing bay, suddenly the airlock opened, causing Kryten to stumble backwards. "Oh my! We're being invaded!"
"Calm down, Kryters. It's just me," said a familiar voice.
Kryten peeked out from behind his fingers. "Ace! What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be out saving Christmas somewhere?"
"Stop calling me bloody Ace," muttered Rimmer, tearing off the ginger wig. "For once I'd like to just be able to be myself. Oh, don't look so shocked. Surely Dave told you it wasn't really me who died by now."
"Yes, sir," said Kryten. "It's just when you said you'd be back from Christmas none of us really thought you were serious."
"I didn't either. But there's just been something I have to do. Kryten, could you do me a favor and not tell Dave I'm here yet? I want it to be a surprise."
"Of course, sir! My lips are sealed."
"Did you find the Cat?" asked Dave once the mechanoid returned.
"No, sir. My search was completely uneventful!"
Dave quirked an eyebrow at Kryten before standing up. "He'll be back eventually once he's forgot all about it. I'm gonna go back to bed. Come get me when you find him."
"But, sir—"
Kochanski placed a hand on the mechanoid's shoulder. "Let him go, Kryten."
Dave moped down the hall into his room, collapsing on his bed once he got there. He'd never appreciated what he'd had before. How many Christmases had he spent with Rimmer? And he hadn't appreciated a single one. He'd never even gotten the smeghead a proper gift.
The door to his quarters opened. The footsteps weren't mechanic enough to be Kryten, and he didn't smell Kochanski's overbearing perfume, so there was only one person it could be. "Cat, we've been looking everywhere for you," said Lister, turning around to face the door. "We need you there so we can open—Rimmer?"
"Hello, Dave."
"Smegging hell, what are you doing here?"
"I said I'd be back for Christmas, didn't I?"
Dave scrambled out of bed. "Yeah but… I thought you were just joking. Wait… I'm not dreaming again, am I?"
"Not as far as I know," replied Rimmer.
"And it's really you? Not some other Rimmer who took my Rimmer's place?"
"Nope, the very one."
"Smeg. I—I've missed you, man."
"I've missed you too, Listy," said Rimmer, placing a hand on Dave's shoulder and letting it linger for just a second too long.
"So, um, how've you been?"
"I've been alright. Surviving, mostly."
"I bet you've met a lot of cute girls out there, huh? They all want a piece of Ace Rimmer."
"Eh, I met a few here and there. None of them really caught my eye though… my mind was on someone else."
"Ah, I see," said Dave, feeling the blood rushing to his cheeks. He was going to keep quiet, but he just couldn't contain his need to know. "Who?"
"You."
Dave looked up. "Me?"
"Yes, of course it's you. Who else is it going to be, the bloody Cat?"
"Well, uh, I've been thinking about you too."
"I thought you might have been… Kryten may have implied as much," admitted Rimmer.
"Smegging hell, you can't trust that guy with anything, can you?"
"No, not really," Rimmer chuckled. "So… what do we do now?"
"Well, in my dreams this is usually the part where you kiss me."
"Is that so?" asked Rimmer, stepping closer. "Lucky for you Ace Rimmer is the snog master," he said, putting on the accent again.
"Knock it off you smegger," chuckled Lister, and pressed his lips to Arnold's.
As they kissed, Dave felt all of the pent up desires of his dreams melt away, and Arnold felt the weight of months of near-solitude lift off his shoulders. He wrapped his arms around the smaller man's back and pulled him closer. He'd never much fancied the idea of someone else's slimy tongue in his mouth, but he found with Dave, he didn't mind.
"Pretty realistic, that hard-light is," said Dave once they had finally pulled apart.
"At least in the snogging department. I've never gotten a chance to test out everything…" replied the hologram, glancing downwards.
"Well maybe we'll have to test it out sometime."
Arnold let out a shaky breath at the sound of that. He was beginning to grow weak in the knees.
A knock came on the frame of the open door. "Uh, sirs. The Cat's back. We're ready to open presents now."
"Thanks, Kryten," Lister told the mechanoid, then turned back to Arnold. "Come on, let's go. We can come back to this later tonight."
"Lister, you'll be the death of me," said the hologram.
"Hey, what's alphabet head doing back here?" asked the Cat when Lister and Rimmer entered the room. "I thought good things were supposed to happen on Christmas."
Rimmer sighed and put the wig back on.
"Oh hey! Ace! Merry Christmas, buddy! You are looking fine as ever," Cat grinned.
Rimmer just shook his head.
Once everyone had opened their presents, which were really just repurposed things found around the ship, everyone slowly dispersed to go about their business, and Dave and Arnold were finally able to sneak off alone together.
"I'm sorry I didn't have a present for you," said Dave. "I would have found you something but I didn't know you were coming!"
"That's quite alright. I don't think I'd have much use for a fork meant to be used as a back scratcher."
"Oi, I thought I was being real creative with that one! It's better than the framed pictures of himself Cat got everyone."
"True, but I think just getting to spend the day with you was the best present I could have gotten," said Rimmer, unable to look anywhere other than the floor as such syrupy words left his mouth.
"Oh Arnold…" murmured Dave, reaching up to run his hand over the man's cheek and then moving his hand further to take off the ridiculous wig. "There, that's better. Ace is sexy, but it's Arnold I want."
"So, what do we do now?" asked the hologram.
"Well, we can do whatever you want. But what I was thinking is that we could lay down somewhere together and you could tell me all about your time off saving the universe."
"Like in a bed?" asked Rimmer.
"If you want."
"Of course! I just still can't believe you want to get me into bed with you."
"First you should take off that smegging flight suit. You look like baked potato."
"What should I wear?" Rimmer asked.
"Whatever you want. I'm still in me Christmas pajamas," said Lister, gesturing down to his candy cane pants and red shirt.
"I guess that works," said Rimmer, pulling up the control panel on his watch and generating his own pair of hard-light holographic Christmas pajamas."
"Sexy," chuckled Lister.
"Shut up, you gimboid. Whose bed are we using?"
"Bottom bunk's easier," shrugged Lister.
Rimmer sat down on his old bunk, still exactly how he had left it. "Smeg, I never thought I'd get to be back here again."
Lister took his place next to him. "And I never thought I'd be here with you. At least not in real life."
Rimmer laid his head down on the pillow and Lister followed suit, the size of the bunk making cuddling a necessity. "Well you'd better believe it, Spanners. How about after I tell you about being Ace, you tell me about these dreams I keep hearing about."
Lister wrapped his arms around Rimmer and found a comfortable place for his head against the man's chest. "Deal."
"I guess I'll start with my first planet. Hardly having gotten the voice down, I was scared out of my mind, but there I was, on the planet Omason, in the middle of a hoard of killer robots…"
The next morning, Lister and Rimmer awoke to the sound of the blaring alarm on Rimmer's watch. "Smeg! Not now!"
"What is it?" Dave asked.
"Some planet's in trouble somewhere. I guess that means I should go. But I don't want to be Ace Rimmer anymore! I don't want to die at the hands of some deranged inter-dimensional Nazi. I want to come back to Starbug, with you."
"Don't you have to find another Rimmer to be Ace first?"
"I do. So many Rimmers have died for this; I can't let it end with me."
"It's okay, Arnold. You do what you have to do. I'm not going anywhere."
"We didn't even get to… test out the rest of me."
Lister pressed a kiss to the hologram's pouting lips. "We'll have plenty of time for that when you get back," he assured.
The two gathered up the rest of the crew to bid Rimmer another farewell in the landing bay.
"Goodbye, Ace! Come back soon, buddy!" said Cat.
"Oh Mr. Rimmer, sir. You know I've always thought of you as a smee-hee, but please do come back safe. Mr. Lister is a horrible wreck without you," said Kryten.
"Don't worry, Kryters. You can count on me."
"Be safe, Arnold," Kochanski said as she hugged him goodbye.
Lastly, he got to Dave. "Well, looks like this is it, miladdo. Don't worry, there's bound to be another Rimmer around here somewhere. I'll be back before you know it."
"Merry Christmas, Arnold," Dave murmured.
Arnold wrapped his arms around the smaller man and held him tightly to his chest, looking down to kiss the top of his head. "Merry Christmas, Dave," he replied, loosening his grip so he could look the other man in the eye. With that he leaned in and pressed his lips to Lister's once more, trying to savor every moment of the kiss before he knew it was time to pull away.
"Eww! Get a room!" cried Cat, shielding his eyes. Kochanski punched him in the arm.
Lister and Rimmer were both blushing when they finally pulled apart. "Alright, get on your way then," said Dave.
Rimmer nodded and squeezed the other man's shoulder once more before turning to his ship and climbing aboard. Giving one last salute to the crew, he started his engines and was off. And they heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight, smoked kippers to all and to all a good flight.