Author: Sojuske
Title: Crossroads (duh)
Pairing: Eventually Rimmer/Lister
Summary: During Stoke me a Clipper. Rimmer and Lister have a brief chat (and I mean brief) before Rimmer leaves. The conversation and the hints that are dropped therein, have untold consequences later in life. (aka, Im working on it.)
Disclaimer: I do not own Red Dwarf, and I am not profiting from writing this at all. So don't sue me.
Lister was working in his shift, waiting for Cat to take over when he arrived. It had been a long day. With Kochanski and Kryten arguing the entire time (about salad cream none the less) and Cat looking at his portable mirror, life was the same old boring routine. And the only thing that would have made it seem more normal was if a familiar smeg headed crew member would walk back in and stay.
"About time Cat, you're late man. Where've you been?" he said tiredly, staring straight ahead at the viewscreen hearing boots behind him coming towards the cockpit. "Hello Listy." a very familiar voice said, as it sat down on the consoles at Kryten's station.
Lister turned quickly. "Rimmer! What are you doing here?" Rimmer shrugged.
"Just came back to say hi. Got fed up being the hero, so, here I am." He took off his Ace wig. "So, how have you been Listy?"
"Same old same old. You know, I missed you man." Lister looks up at Rimmer with slightly adoring eyes and Rimmer looks back at him just the same. Rimmer gave a solemn nod. " I did too Lister."
Suddenly, almost unexpectedly, Lister jumps up at Rimmer, who does the exact same thing and they pull each other into a bone crunching hug. "Don't ever leave me again." Lister breathes anxiously as he holds Rimmer's warm body close to him.
"I won't. Oh Listy..."
"Rimsy..." Lister says back as they go closer and finally kiss each other, on the lips. In their desperate state, the kiss quickly turned into one of tongues exploring and darting around. The warmth and the comfort and passion, drew Lister into a stupor as they parted briefly to breathe.
'Wow... he's a good kisser. Better snogger than Kochanski was that one time I got her drunk enough to kiss me.' he thought briefly before realizing something.
'Wait a moment. I'm snogging Rimmer here! And how come I'm on Starbug?'
Listers eyes snapped open as he panted in slight fear and confusion looking around. He was on the mirror Red Dwarf in his quarters. Or rather, his mirror's quarters. It was close enough, other than the fact that his mirror self was a great engineer. He got up, barely missing his head on the ceiling and made his way out of the bunk, looking at the empty bottom bunk where the 5th member of their party should have gone. Suddenly all his memories of the incident came flooding back.
How Rimmer (the new one that was remade by the nanobots.) was on the dying Red Dwarf in their original timeline. How they had left him there, thinking that he wasn't going to return with the formula when in actuality, he finally found it and headed back, right before the portal closed. How he had remembered the special contacting numbers to give a distress call that could be answered by the only people and ship that could help save Rimmer's life. The Wildfire and Ace, with it's dimension jump capability. And how apprehensive he was to see Ace again, after he had been having such dreams for the past year, along with how he was still obsessing over their last conversation.
"Oy Rimmer... What did you want to say when you left?" he muttered right as Kryten poked his head into the door.
"Oh, excuse me sir. But the distress call we sent out an hour ago has been picked up by the Wildfire, which is trying to contact us to get more details. It seems she wants to speak with you sir." Kryten wrings his hands aplogetically for waking him up, and looks at him hopeful, maybe he'll leave him some extra laundry when all is said and done. Lister nods at Kryten and begins to head out before stopping.
"Wait a minute. Kryten, She? What's with she? You canna tell me..."
"The computer sir, is a she. Martha, she said her name was. Ace was not available at the moment she said, but she would like to know more so she can move them towards the Red Dwarf." Kryten looked at how crestfallen Lister was when he said that and filed it as odd. 'Why would he seem so disappointed that it was a girl. I mean really. You would think that he would be glad since she has those little in and out bits and makes those interesting horizontal motions that he seems to desire so much!'
"Alright Kryten, I'm coming, I'm coming. Don't you have some laundry to do or something?" Lister added, not wanting Krtyen to see him talk to the computer. He might let something slip that Rimmer (the hologram one, not the flesh and blood one) was actually Ace, and that would have Kyten prying. And he didn't want to sit through the Rimmer experience yet again nor try hypnosis. The accidental exposure to the Nuremberg speech almost gave him a heart attack last time. And knowing his luck, next time it would be something even worse, something he was unable to think of yet. Kryten's eyes lit up in ecstasy.
"Washing sir? Yes, I do. If you need me to help talk to the computer, just call, I'll be down in the laundry room, scrubbing your long johns. This time there is a beautiful..."
"Kryten." Lister held up a hand to stop the mechanoid from continuing. "Don't tell me and just do it. I better go." Kryten nodded and with a brief "of course sir," left as fast as his odd gait could take him to the laundry room. Lister chuckled at the mechanoids retreating form before jogging up to the teaching room (since it had a lock and a console) which was only a few halls down.
When he entered the familiar drab room, he was glad that no one stayed there overnight. It seems that this universes Rimmer, didn't try to suck up to the teachers of the exam after hours for hours and hours on end. Mainly because that he was the captain of this ship and had no need, but what the smeg. "Lock." Lister ordered first before going to the console.
"Uh, Holly. Can you patch me through to the Wildfire please?"
Holly's face appeared on the screen. "Communicating..." he said, before his face disappeared and the face of a female with short brown hair and green eyes looking out of a slightly pouty face.
"This is Martha of the Wildfire responding to the distress beacon. What's the problem exactly that we need to save this other Rimmer from?"
Lister looked at the computer, with an open mouth for a moment. 'Smeg, even the computer is good looking. And Rimmer didn't want to leave? What, was he crazy?'
"Oh uh, well, it's a dangerous mission, since the entire ship is decomposing and there is a creature, or chemical or some sort that is eating up the ship. it eats up metals, but it doesn't eat up glass, however he doesn't have much time left, according to our calculations. It seems he went back to try to save us, but it ended up that we lost him instead."
Martha thought about it for a second. "I believe we can get him, although there is no guarantees. Oy, are you Skipper?" she asked. "I'm setting a course now, but I'm curious if this is the highly elusive Skipper that Ace keeps talking about." Her green eyes looked at him up and down trying to gauge why Ace seemed so... is infatuated the word? She sure hoped not, but it didn't matter.
Lister nodded, wondering what Rimmer had been telling to that computer. 'He probably is glad to be gone, and he regaled the computer with tales of my disobedience. Like the hundreds of times he put me on report, Like the one time he put me on report for mutiny, yah, he probably told her about that, but embellished it a bit.'
"Yah, I was called Skipper by Ace at one point. Is it important? What have you heard about me?"
Martha looks at him one last time and quirks a quick grin. "I've heard nothing much about you. It just seems that Ace's seem to mention your name around me and I was wondering who they were really talking about. I mean really, three generations of Ace's is hard to ignore. Well, I'll contact you again to tell you how the rescue went. Goodbye." Martha smiled and winked out, leaving Lister staring at the monitor.
"Well then, that wasn't as bad as I thought." he muttered to himself wondering why Ace himself didn't come onto the screen. "Ah, he's probably shagging some beautiful woman, or an alternate form of McGruder." he laughed fakely before hearing his stomach rumble.
"Time for my morning vindaloo then. Unlock." he ordered, prompting the door to open so he could leave. On his way to the kitchen he saw Cat and his alternate self talking, or maybe arguing in the corridor.
"You can't wear that! It's so last century." Cat was exclaiming in horror as he saw his doubles form of dress and appearance in his plaid shirt and drab brown pants. "I can't be seen with you. No one can know that you are me with your horrid dress sense." Cat's alternate self laughed a bit.
"No one would care hear, believe it or not. Actually, I think I should be the one embarrassed at your appearance. It's obvious to anyone that you only care about your clothing and your brain is as hollow as a shop's mannequin."
"Ah, but.." Cat flufffed his suit's collar. "a well dressed shop mannequin."
Lister shook his head and tried not to chuckle as he walked past, eliciting Cat's cry of "What are you laughing at monkey?" before he finally made it to the kitchen. Luckily enough for him there was ample curry supplies on the ship, so he dug into them while he waited for any report from the Wildfire.
In a parallel universe, the small ship Wildfire appeared, next to the gigantic hulk of metal that was the Red Dwarf. Or what was left of it anyways. The bulkheads were collapsing and already one part of the ship was almost torn in half, making the ship in danger of exploding any minute now.
"Where is he Martha? Can you get him on your scans?" Ace asked slightly worried, as he watched the ship, knowing the problems occuring inside.
"Yes, he's up on deck 24... Wow, he's moving fast. I wonder what he thinks he is trying to run from. It's not like Death is at his heels or anything. I can let you use the transporter we got from that society in dimension 134 to get down safely." Martha looked at him with admiration filled green eyes. "Go save him Ace, you know the code, I'll beam you back up as soon as you find him." Ace nodded.
"Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast." he announced proudly, disappearing in flash of light.
Currently on the same ship Arnold Judas Rimmer was running as fast as he could up the decks away from the cloaked and hooded fellow with the scythe and that crazy dispensing machine. Even though he couldn't see any advanced deterioration yet, he could still smell the smoke from the lower decks as he raced to god knows where.
'Ooh, I don't think he's happy I did that.' he thought to himself as he sped down another corridor. 'I mean, kicking death in the joy department isn't going to give you good grades when he finally catches up with you.' He continued racing until he saw an figure suddenly materialize in front of him in the hallway. A figure about his height in a flight jacket with wavy blond hair and a killer smile.
"Oy Arnie. Or Arnold Judas Rimmer. I've come for you." The figure said in a smooth voice.
Rimmer stopped dead. 'Who is this freak? Oh no, don't tell me that it's death again trying to make me come nicely.' "You think that disguise is going to fool me you barmy git. I mean really. I thought you might get it the first time I kneed you in the todgers I'm not coming with you!"
Ace blinked at him. 'He what?' he thought in disbelief before shaking his head and gesturing a negative. "I don't know who you think I am Arn, but I'm here to save your life."
Rimmer was scared. Who was this odd self centered git? And why would he want to save his life? He was about to give a scathing comment to that stranger when a strangely familiar dark body came up the hallway. The newcomer looked at Death with wide eyes and Rimmer ran to the man.
"Ok, ok I believe you. Can we go!" Rimmer asked quickly getting a quick nod from the other man.
'Oh god. What is going on here?' Ace thought before holding Rimmer's arm. "Martha, get us out of here now!" The world blinked out around him as he was transported onto the Wildfire with his passenger.
The dark figure looked at where Rimmer and Ace were and swore. "This is a bad day. How am I going to explain this to my boss?" before winking out himself and coming on a ship that was pitch black. He set down the scythe and looked around. Soon another hooded figure also came towards him. "So, did you get the job done and keep this universe on track?" it asked. The first one looked sheepish (as much as a cloaked figure without any expression can).
"Um... There was a bit of a problem." it said sheepishly in it's deep booming voice. If the other could raise it's eyebrow and be seen it would be doing that right now.
"A bit of a problem..." it said incredulously. "You just had to get one Arnold Judas Rimmer. The world's biggest coward on a ship that was being destroyed. He was the last one there, you saw how he was knocked down. How could there have been a problem? You know that we needed to kill him, how was that so hard?" It looked at the original one who was slightly hunched over indicating a reasoning. The leader made a scornful sound.
"Well, you still have the job. Let's not waste anymore time then." before stalking off. The injured one picked it's scythe back up. "Well, that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be" it muttered before making it's way up the ship.
A dark black ship that seemed to hide into the background of space fired it's engines and began to follow the Wildfire at a steady pace. And yet on radar screens nothing could be seen, leaving the occupants blissfully unawares of the creatures behind and their mission of extermination.
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End of that chapter, and now for a brief Authors note
A/N: Ok, now I think I have more of a plot worked out. I swear that it will be slash later one, but I just wanted to get this over with so I can post something before I leave to go to Idaho for 6 days. Since I never get reviews before this I have to thank all my reviewers. (I got reviews, squee!)
Kirke- He'll convince Lister what he feels. However that's dealt with when they meet again. I like cannon events so I'm trying not to screw up things that was in the series, but what they leave you with is fair game eh?
Reddwarfaddict- Yup, it does link up to Only the good. I'm so predictable ne?
Sunrise over the Tango Factory- Thanks for the compliment. I'm continuing and I hope I don't disappoint you guys.
Boogle- Thanks too. I'm continuing. I just hope it's good.
Okies, thanks, and I hope I didn't disappoint you guys.
(Reviews keep me alive and help me improve, so review away!)