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secondtechnicianrimmer · 4 months

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Space Corp. Directive #1215225

For some ungodly reason, you fancy the second technician, but you'd be damned if you ever admitted it.

Pairing: Arnold Rimmer x (F) Reader

Warnings: None! Apart from some flirting

Chapter Eight: Dimension Jump

“Hey, little lady. Can you and me take a walk?”

You glanced sideways at Lister. He was beaming, of course. He was finding the whole thing too hilarious for words.

Here you were, bracketed by Rimmers, one who was too neurotic to realise you adored him, and one who swaggered about, handsome and confident and unavoidably likeable. Somehow, you’d stumbled into some kind of personalised hell.

“Yeah,” you sighed, already dreading what would come next. “Alright.”

You followed Ace out into the corridor, just hoping this would be over quickly.

He really was strange to look at. He was completely identical to Rimmer, the same warm eyes, the same restless hands. They were both so expressive but their backs, pulled taught as if by an invisible string, hinted at a restrictive and lonely childhood.

And yet, in a lot of ways, they could not have looked more different. It wasn’t just the amazing hair and the shiny gold spacesuit. Ace seemed taller somehow, his voice more sonorous. Perhaps it was just the confidence he oozed, something that Rimmer only seemed to have in buckets when he was absolutely sure about something he ultimately knew absolutely nothing about.

But despite everything, despite the bravery and the technical knowhow, the kindness and debonair charm, he didn’t make your chest flutter like Arnold did.

Still, you weren’t blind. It was still difficult to have a conversation with Ace without sounding like a babbling fool, everyone seemed to have the same trouble. And now you were alone with him for the first time in a dimly lit corridor, and the last time you’d seen a smile like that, it was when you were playing Better Than Life.

“Are you off then?” you asked, hoping he wouldn’t catch the way your voice cracked nervously.

Ace sighed, as if leaving Red Dwarf was the biggest heartbreak of his life and not, in actuality, a frankly enormous relief.

“‘Fraid so, sweetheart. There’s a lot of worlds out there. Someone’s gotta make sure things are ticking over nicely.”

You should hate him. You knew you should. He just wasn’t real. No one was that charismatic. No one could seriously go around being that heroic and sauve, and not come off as a huge, smarmy git. And yet, you found yourself thinking, what a guy…

“Well, it was great meeting you. Weird but…” You smiled and stuck out your hand. “Good luck.”

Ace took your hand and shook it firmly, like a good pilot should.

“Cheers, darling.”

In the brief moment that his palm was pressed to yours, you tried to capture the moment in your mind, the feeling of his skin against yours, the length of his fingers, the warmth of him, the strength in his movements. You knew it was weird, but if this was the closest you’d get to touching Rimmer, you wanted to make the most of it.

“Say, listen,” Ace looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was coming, then bent his head towards you, his voice low. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this all day, sweetheart. Been so damn busy with your brilliant crewmates, just haven’t had the time. But the you that I know, the you from my dimension, she’s…”

“Oh, God. She’s dead, isn’t she.”

The idea had been humming about your brain ever since Ace first burst into Starbug. There was another Lister, another Cat, even another Kryten in his world. Ace hadn’t mentioned anything about the other you. He was right, there hadn’t really been time. Between fixing the starboard engine and getting Starbug up and running again, you hadn't exactly had much of a chance for smalltalk.

Part of you had worried something terrible had happened to her. She must have gone down with the Atalanta IV. But then, how would Ace know her if this other you had never stepped foot inside Red Dwarf? The tangents and timelines were all too bizarre and unwieldy. It was the type of thing that made your head hurt if you focused on it for too long.

Ace smiled. It was a very nice smile. Rimmer sometimes smiled at you like that. Just you, no one else.

That was another difference. Ace had time and a good word for everyone. Rimmer was so sparing with his kindness, it had put you off him when you first met. Now you knew him better, now you understood him, or at least, you were starting to, it made you all the more proud to be the person he reserved his softer side for.

“No, no,” Ace said. “She’s very much alive. What a lady. She’s the pride of the Space Corp., you know. But, uh, I’m afraid to say she hates my guts.”

Your jaw dropped.

“No way.”

“It’s true!” Ace shrugged, still smiling. “She won’t even look at me.”

“What did you do!”

Ace laughed.

“I don’t know! She just never has time for me, sweetheart. Always something better to do than talk to boring old me. She’s a navigation officer, you see, and a damn good one. Doesn’t have time for an old pirate, and I don’t blame her.”

“Well… Wow…”

You tried to picture this other woman, this other you. She must be quite a person to be immune to Ace’s charms. Even Holly found him beguiling.

You imagined a fearsome figure, an officer at the helm of one of the most important ships in the JMC’s fleet. It was a life you could never see for yourself but, by Io, you couldn’t be more pleased for her.

“She must be the only person you’ve ever met who didn’t like you.”

You must’ve done a terrible job of hiding just how happy the thought made you because Ace laughed again, a great booming laugh that was so un-Rimmer, for a moment you forgot they were practically the same man.

“So far,” Ace said, ever self-effacing. “She’s about the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. I keep trying to work up the damn courage to ask her out to dinner but she just won’t talk to me.”

“You’re joking. You? Shy?”

“It’s been known to happen, sweetheart. I’m a sensitive old sod, really.”

You couldn’t imagine anyone saying no to Ace. Hell, you thought Lister would probably let him wine and dine him, given half the chance.

“But the way I figure it is,” Ace went on. “The way things seem to work here, events seem to be a little backward. It must mean that you and old Arnold, there…”

“Oh, no.” You shook your head so quickly you almost made yourself dizzy. “No, no, no. We’re not-”

Ace raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow.

“But you love him?”

You made an embarrassing choking noise in the back of your throat. God, you wished everyone would stop saying that. It was getting embarrassing.

“I never said-”

“You didn’t have to. The reason I ask is, well, it seems to me that my alternate self is, unfortunately, a bit of a bastard.”

“Yeah,” you said fondly.

“I need someone to look after him. I won’t be coming back here. I wanna make sure all the Rimmers out there are living as best they can. Can you help me with that?”

Mortified. You were completely mortified. But, you supposed, it was sweet of Ace to ask. You just wished you weren’t so obviously in love with such an idiot.

“I’ll do my best. And Ace? About the alternate me… I like films. And plants. And going for walks. Not exactly thrilling, I know, but… Maybe she does too?”

Ace looked down at the floor, and if you hadn’t been so distracted by his great hair, you might’ve seen a flash of sadness cross his face.

“I can’t go back to my dimension. I’ll never see her again.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Nevermind, hey, sweetheart. Ever onwards, as they say. Plenty more fish in the sea. It just wasn’t meant to be. Maybe there’s a dimension out there where we’re together.” Ace smirked. “Maybe this is it.”

Shaking your head, you tried to resist smiling, but it really was impossible when Ace was concerned.

“I’ll let you know.”

After Ace left, the ship felt tense and quiet.

It took you until late that evening to figure out what was so off. While the others were still gushing about how wonderful Ace was, Rimmer hadn’t spoken to anyone all afternoon. He didn’t even break his silence to bark orders at Kryten or chastise Lister for clipping his toenails in the kitchen.

It took you ages to find him. Wandering through A Deck, you called his name, poking your head in every room, but there was no sign of him. B, C and D Deck presented the same disappointing results.

Half exhausted from your trek, you considered giving up and just going to bed. It was late and Rimmer clearly didn’t want to be found, so why push it? Then you remembered what he’d said to you that night, when he described the hypothetical date he’d take you on.

The stairs up to the observation dome clanged underfoot, announcing your arrival long before you reached the summit. Your suspicions proved correct. You caught Rimmer scrambling to his feet. He’d been laying on his back, watching the stars, before you startled him.

He watched you, his brow furrowed slightly, like he was waiting for you to make fun of him. The thought hurt so you pushed it away.

“Hey, Arn,” You tried to smile. “Fancy a game of chess? Everyone else’s gone to bed so we’ve got the mess to ourselves.”

His eyes lowered to somewhere over your shoulder. Rimmer was silent but you could see his jaw working. His tongue poked irritably at the inside of his cheek, like he was investigating an achy gum.

“How was your date with Captain Flash?” he said eventually.

You rolled your eyes. You should’ve seen that coming, that one was on you.

“We just went for a walk, Arn. He’s nice. If a little…” You floundered for the right word before deciding he’d already pinned it down nicely. “Flash.”

Rimmer raised his eyebrows but said nothing, his tongue still pressing against the backs of his teeth.

“It’s funny,” You went on, even though the waters were starting to get choppy. “He told me there’s a version of me in his world too. And you’ll love this, she hates him.”

You thought that might cheer him up a little. Or, at the very least, make him smile or even laugh, it didn’t matter if it was scornful.

Rimmer’s lip did curl but only with disdain.

“Shocking.”

“Fancies her like mad, of course. But, hey, who can blame him?”

Still nothing. Rimmer’s gaze stayed somewhere over your shoulder. You wondered if that was simply where it felt safest to look right now. Staring at the ground or looking you in the eye would give too much away.

After a beat of silence, you wondered if you should just leave him to sulk. The stairs back down to the safety of the ship were looking more and more attractive, but you’d never been able to let sleeping dogs lie.

“Ace said he wanted to speak to you, before he went,” you said, slowly and steadily. “I think you should’ve gone to see him, Arn. I think he wanted to say goodbye to you properly.”

“Oh, he’s ‘Ace’ now, is he?” Rimmer sneered.

Baffled, you shook your head.

“That’s his name!”

“His name is Arnold. And what would I have to say to that goit? And since when did you become his carrier pigeon? Got you all wrapped around his finger like he has the others, has he?”

“Why are you being such a twat?”

“I’m not!”

“You are!” You took a breath, forcing yourself to lower your voice. “You’ve been a snarky bastard ever since he turned up. What’s wrong?”

“Everything’s wrong! Him! He’s wrong!”

“He’s you, Rimmer.”

“He’s not me. He’s everything I could be but I was never given the chance!”

Something chimed in the back of your head, a voice telling you to take a step back and really think about what he meant by that.

It had been a long time since you argued with Rimmer, and even though it was often a wonderful source of entertainment, especially since you always won, this felt different. This mattered. And now your relationship was different (even if neither of you seemed to know in what way) you felt strangely responsible for Rimmer. You knew you were the only person in the whole wide universe who would care enough to ask why it hurt.

“Arn, please.” You stepped closer like you were approaching a scared animal, not wanting him to feel hemmed in. “Just talk to me. What’s wrong?”

Rimmer withdrew into himself as you came closer, still avoiding your gaze. Keeping his back straight and his chin high seemed to be a kind of armour, probably something his father had drilled into him at a young age.

“He had the schooling. He had better parents. He had the relationships and the girls and the looks and the prospects. He has everything I’ve ever wanted and worst of all, everyone loves him! He was only here five minutes and you all fawned over him like everything he touched turned to gold.”

“Rimmer,” You tried to keep your voice steady but your patience, after a long, tiring day, was incredibly fragile. “He had the same schooling as you. The same parents as you. He’s had everything you had, things just happened differently for him.”

“And that’s-”

“And that must be hard to watch, I know. But all this stuff you blame for the way you are, it all happened a million years ago. No, sorry, three million years ago. Everyone who bullied you is long dead.”

Rimmer snorted.

“Well, not everyone,” you conceded. “But everything that held you back and knocked your confidence is stardust now. There’s no excuse, Arn. Every time you criticise and run away and cheat and lie, it’s your choice.”

Silence fell hard. Such deafening, awful silence. It was suddenly abundantly clear to you that no one had ever spoken to Rimmer like that, and you didn’t know if you were the right person, or the last person in the world who should be putting him in his place.

Rimmer seemed just as shocked.

“Why are you doing this?” He barely got the words out from between his clenched teeth. “I thought you were my friend.”

“Rimmer, I am! That’s why I’m telling you! No one else will! They've just accepted that you’re a mardy bastard who’s never going to change but I’m not gonna let you get away with blaming everybody else for your mistakes.”

Something shifted in his face. A chink had appeared in Rimmer’s otherwise impervious armour. You thanked every star that sailed slowly by above your heads.

“You have friends, Arn. You have a purpose here. You have a second chance at life and I just- I worry that you’re squandering it.”

Rimmer’s nose wrinkled. You thought he might cut you down with an acerbic comment or even simply storm off. You wouldn’t blame him. Between Ace turning up, beautiful and resplendent, and you shouting at him, it had been a bit of a day for Rimmer.

When he spoke at last, his voice was lower and more grave than you’d ever heard it.

“What would you know about it?”

“I know you.”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

He spoke quickly, spitefully, defensive beyond reasonable thought.

You sucked in a sharp breath. Heart hammering, you tried to remember that Rimmer was afraid and dismally bad at articulating what was going on inside his head. For someone who so desperately tried to bottle up his feelings, he wore his heart so vividly on his sleeve, and yet couldn’t describe what he saw there.

“Maybe you’re right,” you said quietly.

It seemed to bring Rimmer back into the room and remember who he was talking to. You watched his eyes as they switched about restlessly. Why did he have to hurt himself so much? When the whole universe seemed against him, why did he have to be his own cruel antagonist?

“I’m sorry,” Rimmer murmured. “I don’t think I’m the person you want me to be.”

Your chest felt like it could cave in.

Above your heads, the endless night sky seemed darker and emptier than ever. But if you tried, you could almost imagine you were home, back on Callisto or maybe on Io, where Rimmer grew up. Just the next moon. You’d missed him by a star-hop and found him again, against all odds, three million years from everything you had both ever known.

“You think I want him?”

“Why not? He’s actually real.”

“You’re real.”

“I’m not. I’m-”

“You’re real, Arnold.”

“He’s me but better.”

The idea was so painful, you couldn’t even laugh at it. Ace was great, he was handsome and brave and a whole skein of other positive adjectives, but he wasn’t yours.

“You’re so daft, Rimmer. You’re so stupid sometimes it makes me wanna scream.”

“Thanks, that really helps.”

“I just don’t know how else to show you that I care about you. You’re so important to me. It makes me so sad, Arn, I-”

Your voice cracked. It surprised you both.

Rimmer’s face finally softened. His shoulders went slack, like someone had cut all the strings keeping him upright. The voices in his head were finally quiet. His jealousy had been snuffed out. At last, you were the only people in the room.

“I’m not…” Rimmer raised a hand and curled his fingers towards his chest, until they tightened into a fist, almost like he wanted to hit himself. “I’m not worth all the trouble it takes to like me.”

Heart thudding, you drew in a shaky breath and tried very hard not to show just how much it hurt to know he thought that way. You wondered if the idea had always been there, a hissed, rasping voice that gnawed away in the back of his mind, or if it had taken the shock of today to make the thought clunk into place.

You stepped closer. He was only a hand’s breadth away now, not that it mattered. You couldn’t touch him, couldn’t slip your fingers through his, couldn’t hold his face in your hands as you said,

“You’re not hard to love, Arn.”

“I am. I am, I’m too much work.”

“Not to me.”

Rimmer’s eyes turned glassy, and you wondered if it was possible for holograms to cry. But the moment was gone as quickly as it appeared. Rimmer looked away and cleared his throat. When he looked back, the shine was gone.

“I’m…” His jaw worked awkwardly, like someone had punched it out of place. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for… I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” You tried to smile but it didn’t meet your eyes. “I’m sorry too. You’re right, he’s not you. I shouldn’t have said that. And anyway, he’s not that great. He’s got a daft hairdo.”

Rimmer seemed to perk up considerably at that. He even managed a laugh that didn’t sound completely contemptuous.

With a sigh, he looked around before deciding to sit back down on the floor. You didn’t get a chance to wonder if that meant he was done with the conversation and wanted to be alone. Rimmer held up his hand, inviting you to sit down beside him. Cold and hard as the floor was, you followed without complaint.

You gazed up at the stars together, your arms behind you, supporting your weight, your legs stretched out on the rust-red floor.

You were so close, the agony of not being able to touch him felt worse than ever. If you just tilted your head to the side, you could rest it on his broad shoulder. If you let your foot lean to the left, the toe of your boot would brush his. His hip was almost against yours, his arm, his ribs, his thigh. Almost, almost, but never.

“Nice spaceship though,” Rimmer said after a moment.

You shrugged, making a non-committal noise.

“Eh, it’s not all that. ‘Ere, did you know there’s only three words in the English language that begin with ‘DW-’?”

Rimmer looked thoughtful for a moment.

“I didn’t. Only three? Surely not.”

“Not slang and nothing not in common use. Only three.”

“Is that what they taught you at university?”

You shot him a wry smile.

Rimmer’s distaste for your lack of cadet training and animosity whenever your five years at Callisto’s top university came up were still as strong now as the day you met. But you liked it. It made you laugh, and you needed grounding. He was cute when he was annoyed about how impressed he was by you.

“Amongst other things, Second Technician.”

“There’s another thing. Is the other you a lieutenant too? What if she’s doing even better? Don’t you feel even a bit jealous of her? I mean, she’s out there, thriving and having fun and meeting people and- I don’t know.”

Rimmer sighed, then added,

“Dwell.”

“Yep, two more.” You smiled. “And… A bit,” you admitted. “But I guess I’m pleased there’s a me out there who’s having a laugh. But then I am too. And it’s not all good for her. She hates her Rimmer. I really quite like mine.”

He turned his head. Now, he was so close, you could almost press your lips to his. Just a few inches, that’s all it would take. And a bit of bravery. And several great feats of technological advance.

He really did have quite a nice mouth when he wasn’t sneering and grumbling. You wondered what it would feel like to have Rimmer moaning against your lips, pressed so close, his nose ended up crammed against your cheek, his chest rising and falling raggedly under your hands.

Your time in Better Than Life was supposed to sate your curiosity, to give you just enough to get over the ache in your heart. But if anything, it had only made it worse, and not a day went by where you didn’t catch yourself daydreaming about Rimmer’s needy, clumsy hands, and the rumble of his voice against your throat.

Io, it was agony. He was right there, and he liked you, you knew he did. You could push him onto his back right here, right now, and he’d go so easily, you just knew it, and all the while he’d be whimpering and whining your name, those big, ungainly hands touching you everywhere.

“I would perhaps avoid calling me ‘your Rimmer’,” he said. “Makes me sound like a new kind of sex toy.”

You blinked, face burning. Panic shot through but quickly cooled again. He hadn’t read your mind, he was just making a silly joke to fill the silence, to make you laugh. Still, it was funny he should say that. It reminded you of that funny fantasy you’d had about straddling him and using his buzzing light bee as- Well, it didn’t matter now.

“Noted,” you managed to get out.

“Anyway, I like when you call me ‘Arnie’.”

“Yeah?”

He’d never told you that before.

“My parents called me ‘Arnold’. Or ‘idiot’. Everyone else just calls me ‘Rimmer’. Or ‘idiot’. You’re the only one who calls me ‘Arnie’.”

You beamed.

“My Arnie.”

You really couldn’t have sounded more unbearably wistful if you tried. If he noticed, Rimmer didn’t give anything away. But he was still looking at you, watching you, waiting, you thought, for you to say something else. But the starlight in his hazel eyes was enough to make you forget your own name, and you thought about those words again and again, my Arnie, my Arnie, my Arnie…

He turned his gaze back to the stars, tilting his chin back until you could see his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

“Are you going to be alright, Arn? You know you can always talk to me, don’t you?”

“I’m fine,” he lied, and you let him for now. “I just- For once, I just want someone to be proud of me. The way you all looked at him…”

“I’m proud of you, Arn.”

Rimmed sighed.

“You have to say that, you’re my friend. Oh, dwindle?”

Shaking your head, you waved your hand in front of his face. It was the nearest equivalent you had to taking his arm and turning him to look at you, or wrapping your fingers around his jaw and turning his head, something you thought about often.

“Listen to me, Arn,” you said seriously. “You are the most disciplined, organised, dedicated, hard working man I have ever met. You make sure Lister stays alive, you keep everyone safe, and you’ve had this voice in your head your whole life telling you that you’re not good enough, but you still try. I’m proud of you, Arnie. I think you’re amazing.”

Beneath the shiny green material of his uniform, Rimmer’s chest was rising and falling heavily, shuddering ever so slightly with every inhale. Again, you wondered if it was possible for holograms to cry, and if Rimmer would even let himself if he could.

“But I’m also a smeghead,” he said quietly, but he was smiling, just a tiny smile, but something.

You hummed, tilting your head, and watched his gaze follow your movements.

“Hmm, sometimes. And a coward. And you’re arrogant. And a self-serving pain in the arse.”

“Are you new to this whole ‘cheering up’ thing, darling?”

“But we all are. In one way or another.” You shrugged, hoping he wouldn’t notice how much you loved it when he called you that. “You’re only human.”

“You’re the only one who makes me feel like I am.”

Rimmer watched you for a moment, worrying the inside of his cheek, then finally, he sat up straight.

“Could you do something for me? Go like this?”

He crossed his arms over his chest and hugged himself, his fingertips pressing into his own sides. Rimmer’s cheeks were tinged pink.

You copied him, hugging yourself tight. You tried to imagine it was Rimmer’s arms wrapped around you. You could almost feel his hands splayed on your back, keeping you close to his broad chest. It was heaven.

“You’re a soppy old git really, aren’t you, Arn. No, no! Don’t stop,” you said when he began to lower his arms. “Can you do the same?”

Rimmer smiled and hugged himself again.

You looked at each for a moment until you couldn’t resist any longer.

“This is so stupid.”

“A bit.” Rimmer laughed. “Nice though.”

“Yeah.”

You still didn’t lower your arms. Neither did he.

“When we get you a body, the first thing I’m gonna do is hug you.”

“Or punch me.”

“Depends how much of an idiot you’re being at the time.”

Rimmer, despite himself, still looked quite pleased.

He finally dropped his arms and turned his gaze back to the sky.

“Thanks, Lefty.”

Heart jittering, you rested your hands back on the floor. Your left passed through his right, your fingers entwined. He didn’t move away and neither did you.

“Anytime, Arn.”

You were silent for a while, then you heard Rimmer inhale, as if he was about to speak. You swallowed hard, your chest suddenly tight, wondering what on Jupiter he might be about to say.

“What was the last word?”

“I- What?”

“The third word beginning with ‘DW-’.”

“Dwarf, Rimmer.”

“Oh, for Io’s sake.”

Next Chapter

Master List

#red dwarf #arnold rimmer #chris barrie #my post #arnold rimmer imagine #arnold rimmer reader #arnold rimmer smut #arnold rimmer x reader #arnold rimmer x you #arnold rimmer you

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rimmers-swimming-certificate · 4 years

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Red Dwarf fanfic - Patience

The sleeping quarters on the new ship were bigger and a little more luxurious than the ones that Rimmer remembered. The last time he had been on Red Dwarf, or at least on Red Dwarf in this universe, it had been very different. This was an entirely new, upgraded model, rebuilt by nanobots for reasons that Rimmer still didn’t entirely understand, and from what he had seen of it so far, it was the kind of ship a second technician would have dreamed of being assigned to. Everything about it was better. Even the vending machines were more intelligent, better stocked, and probably much less prone to clogging.

In many ways — actually, probably in every way — it was better than the ship they had used to call home, but it was better in that ‘nice but not yet familiar’ way that a new car was better. It was going to take time to figure out what all the fancy new buttons did, and where to find the headlights and the windscreen wipers. It was going to take time before it felt completely comfortable. As someone who had spent years hopping between dimensions and encountering things and people that were familiar, yet subtly different from the ones that he knew, Rimmer was sure it was going to take time before it felt like home.

Lister didn’t seem to be having any such trouble. Of course, he had a head start on getting used to the place. To Rimmer’s relief, Lister, unlike the ship, hadn’t changed one bit. A little older, maybe, but otherwise identical in every way to the man that Rimmer remembered. He lounged slobbily on a sofa at the other side of the room, humming a tuneless tune under his breath as he casually flicked through the well-thumbed pages of a magazine aimed at women half his age and filled with celebrity gossip over three million years out of date.

All around him was a growing collection of junk. He had, predictably enough, already started to fill every available surface of the living area, and part of the floor, with things he had found around the ship. As though he sensed Rimmer watching him, Lister lowered the magazine and glanced over at him. “Hey,” he said, sounding genuinely pleased to see him. “You’re back in blue.”

Rimmer looked down at his clothing. It had been time. Now that the other Rimmer had left, and taken the Wildfire with him, it was official: he was himself again. It felt good; familiar, like putting on a comfortable pair of old shoes. Ace’s clothes had never felt like that. He nodded.

“What are you doing standing in the doorway?” Lister asked.

Rimmer took a few steps into the room, to allow the door to close behind him. “Just thinking I should get my stuff out of storage,” he said. He made a show of looking at the assorted junk. “While there’s still somewhere left to put it.”

Lister nodded. “You’re still planning on bunking with me then?” he asked.

Honestly, it had never even occurred to Rimmer not to. The ship certainly had enough quarters to spare; they didn’t need to be living in each other's pockets, but he just couldn’t imagine living any other way. For all he had used to complain about Lister's snoring, he had still occasionally had trouble drifting off to sleep on the Wildfire because it was too quiet. For years, when he had woken up in the middle of the night after a bad dream, or had some funny thought occur to him as he drifted off to sleep, he had instinctively tried to talk to Lister about it only to find himself alone.

He shrugged, attempting to give the impression that he didn’t mind one way or another. “Yeah, I’ll probably stick around here,” he said. A horrible thought occurred. He had just assumed he would be welcome, Lister had certainly seemed pleased to have him back on the ship, but what if he wanted his own space? “I mean… If that’s okay with you of course,” he added.

“Yeah, ‘course it is,” Lister told him. “I’ll help you move your stuff out of storage in the morning.” He grinned widely. “It’s not the same around here without your swimming certificates and newspaper clippings brightening the place up.”

Rimmer breathed a silent sigh of relief. “He didn’t have swimming certificates then?” he asked. “The other me?” He tried to keep the jealousy out of his voice, but he heard it anyway. It had been a shock to return home to find another Rimmer, a living Rimmer, no less, in his place. Not only a shock, but confusing too. For a time, he had been convinced that the computer was wrong and he had landed in the wrong dimension.

“Yeah, he did,” Lister told him. “But he took them with him.”

Rimmer nodded. He hadn’t had the opportunity to do that. When he had left, only Lister had known the truth, the others had thought he had died. It would have given the game away if Ace, who had happened to be there at the time, had mysteriously decided to take all of Rimmer’s keepsakes with him when he had headed back out into the unknown.

“I still can’t believe you convinced him to go,” Lister added. “I mean, considering how much work it was to get you to take the plunge. And he was a version of you with no experience at all of parallel universes and no clue about half the smeg he might run into out there.” Lister shook his head in apparent amazement. “When I first met him I thought he was exactly the same as you; you before you died, I mean. He changed a bit while we were in prison, loosened up a bit, if you can believe it, but I figured maybe not having to worry about duties and exams and all that stuff was good for him. Now, I think maybe he was different all along. I mean, he must’ve been, right?”

“How should I know?” Rimmer snapped. Honestly, he hadn’t known him well enough to say. For some reason though, it made him feel better that there might be differences between them. “He never met the real Ace. Maybe not knowing what an insufferable git he was helped.” Not knowing what he might run into out there had probably been a factor too. Rimmer wondered whether he should feel guilty about that. He hadn’t lied exactly, but he had emphasised having his own ship and being a hero side of things over the dangers.

Lister shook his head. “I don’t get it, Rimmer. You were Ace. How can you still hate him?”

“Easily,” Rimmer said. “Sticking on a wig and doing a silly voice doesn’t change who you are, you know. I wasn’t Ace, I was an Ace, just like your other Rimmer is now.”

Lister shrugged, then nodded. “Fair enough.”

Rimmer cleared his throat and folded his arms nervously across his chest. “Are you going to miss him?”

“Ace?”

“The other me.” What he really wanted to ask was, ‘did you miss me?’, but he couldn’t ask that. He couldn't bear it if the answer was no.

Lister frowned thoughtfully. “I mean, it’s only been a couple of days since he left,” he said. “And I’ve got you back… I mean we’ve got you back, so it’s not the same as when you left.” He shrugged. “But yeah, I probably will, a bit.”

Rimmer nodded. That was good. Someone should, and he knew that the others wouldn’t. He brushed a hand down his uniform tunic, then glanced around the room again. “Nice junk collection,” he said.

“It’s not junk,” Lister told him. “It’s salvage.”

“Salvage means things rescued from a shipwreck, Lister. This is junk you found while rooting through the belongings of your former crewmates.”

“Yeah well whatever it is, don’t worry I’ll make room for your stuff,” Lister promised. “You’re lucky it’s all still there, by the way. The others wanted to throw it out.”

A stab of irritation struck him at the thought of that. “Throw it out? My stuff? Why?”

“They thought you were dead, man.” Lister shrugged. “And I guess they’re not as sentimental as I am.”

Translation: they hated him, and they had wanted to get rid of any reminders of his existence. They had probably tried to eject it from an airlock the instant he had left the ship.

“We were still all living on Starbug at the time, don’t forget.” Lister added. “We didn’t have as much room and, well, most of it wasn’t stuff we had any use for.” Lister hesitated. “I think Cat might have been interested in Rachel, but don’t worry, I kept her safe for you.”

A muscle began to twitch just below his left eye at the thought of Cat and Rachel. Not that he had touched her since well before he had died, not even after he had got his hard light drive. Lister was right; Starbug was small, and he wouldn’t have been able to bear the embarrassment of someone walking in on them. He couldn’t imagine wanting to try it now, either. Rachel had been good to him, but it was over between them. Still, the thought of Cat touching her turned his stomach. “Thanks,” he said.

Lister nodded. “Maybe in return you can tell me a bit about what you got up to while you were off being a hero.”

Rimmer didn’t reply. He glanced around the room, looking for a way to change the subject. He strode over to a shelf filled with Lister’s things and picked up a packet of playing cards. The backs of the cards showed soft porn images of women, and he knew instantly that Lister had liberated them from Petersen’s quarters. He quickly checked the pack for anything disgusting, Finding it clean, he held it up to Lister. “Fancy a game?” he asked.

Lister looked at him suspiciously. “I’m going to get it out of you, Rimmer.”

“It’s not a secret,” Rimmer insisted. “I’ve just got back. Give me some time to be myself again before you make me talk about pretending to be him. Now, gin rummy?” he suggested. “Speed? Or how about snap?”

Lister shook his head, still looking suspicious. “Not with those cards. They’re useless. Every single one has a different picture on the back, so all you have to do is memorise which set of breasts belongs to each card. I’ll play later though, with a real pack. In fact, let's have a poker night tonight. All four of us. It’s been a while.”

Rimmer nodded. A quick glance at the deck confirmed that Lister was correct about the cards. He shuffled the assorted sets of breasts, sat down at the table and started to deal himself a game of patience.

“What’re you doing?” Lister asked.

Rimmer glanced over at him again. The magazine was discarded on the floor now, next to a dirty, curry-smeared plate and one — not a pair, just one — dirty sock. Lister was peering at him over the back of the sofa with apparent interest. “Patience,” Rimmer told him.

Lister got up from the sofa. He stepped around the magazine and old plate, and made his way over to the other side of the room, where he folded his arms and leaned against the wall, watching as Rimmer continued to arrange the cards on the table.

Rimmer watched him out of the corner of his eye, as he turned over a card and started to play. Lister continued to stare down at the game as though it was the most interesting thing that had happened aboard the ship in months, and it was a little distracting. “Lister, what are you doing?” Rimmer asked, finally.

“Watching you,” Lister told him.

Rimmer put down the card he had in his hand, and turned to look at him. “Yes, I can see that. What I meant was, why are you watching me?”

Lister shrugged. “I just wanted to see what you were going to do.”

Rimmer turned over another card. He couldn’t use it, so he dropped it on the reject pile and picked up another. “I told you what I’m doing. I’m playing patience.”

“Oh!” Lister grinned and shook his head. “Right, that makes sense. I thought you were telling me to be patient. I thought you were going to do something interesting.”

Rimmer looked up at him incredulously. “The game is called patience, Lister. You know, solitaire? Did you switch brains with the Cat while I was away or something?”

“No, I just…” Lister gave him an embarrassed grin. “I just thought maybe you were going to do a card trick or something.”

Rimmer turned over another card and placed it on top of one already on the table. “Lister, the whole time we’ve known each other, have you ever once seen me show the slightest interest in performing card tricks?”

“Well, no.” Lister pulled out the chair at the opposite side of the table and sat down. He looked down at the cards. “But you’ve been away a while, haven’t you? I figured maybe you picked it up while you were off being Ace.”

Rimmer turned over another card, placed it on the table and made several more moves. “I didn’t,” he said.

“Well you can’t blame me for not knowing that,” Lister told him. “You’ve been back nearly a whole week now and you’ve barely said a single word about what you got up to out there.”

“And so you leapt to the obvious assumption that I’d spent my time learning how to do sleight of hand tricks?”

“Well, no. Not until I thought you were about to do one.”

Rimmer shook his head dismissively and turned over another card in his game. “I did a lot while I was away,” he said. “Far too much to tell you about in just a week. Dozens of heroic rescues, overthrew a couple of fascist dictatorships, organised an uprising or two.” He shrugged in what he hoped was a modest way. “Nothing special.”

Lister smirked.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, it’s just you did that hair flick thing again. It just looks a bit silly when you don’t have the wig on.”

Had he? He hadn’t noticed. He glared at Lister, just on the off-chance that he was messing with him. “No I didn’t,” he said.

“Rimmer, you did. You do it about five times a day. Maybe you should just start wearing the wig again, at least that way you’d have enough hair to have to actually flick it out of your eyes.” He shrugged. “Or you could grow yours out.”

Rimmer shook his head. “Lister, there’s a reason that Ace decided to wear a wig; my hair just doesn’t do that. Anyway, I passed the wig on to the other Rimmer.” Like passing a baton in an endless relay race around the assorted parallel universes, he had handed over the wig to the living version of himself that the nanobots had created in his own universe, and sent him on his way. “And like I was saying, I did loads while I was away, and I’ll tell you about it one day. I’ve just been too busy settling back in.”

“Right, absolutely, makes sense,” Lister told him. “Well, except for the part where you haven’t even got your stuff out of storage yet. Anyway, you’re not busy now.”

He gritted his teeth. Technically, he supposed Lister was right; he wasn’t busy. That didn’t mean he wanted to talk about it. Not yet. One day, maybe. If it ever came up in conversation naturally, rather than when he was being grilled for information. And if it never did, well, maybe Lister would tire of asking after a few years. He pointed at the cards on the table. “I am busy.”

Lister looked decidedly unimpressed as he looked at the game. “Come on Rimmer, the only reason people play that is to kill time because they’re bored. And it’s not even a good way to kill time. Why don’t you watch a film or something, like a normal person?”

“I’m not ‘killing time’, Lister. I play because I enjoy it.”

Lister looked unconvinced. “Okay then, so how come I never saw you play it before?”

Rimmer turned over another card. “When did I have a chance before?” he asked. “Before I died I was always busy. When I wasn’t on duty, I was revising, or trying to convince you to pick up after yourself. I didn’t have a lot of time for sitting around playing games.”

“Yeah, okay.” Lister shrugged. “But I never saw you do it after the crew got wiped out either.”

Rimmer sighed in frustration and slammed another card onto the table. “Lister, why are you so interested in why I’m playing a game? I just wanted to.” God, Lister was infuriating. He could be a master irritant when he wanted to, skilled in the not so subtle art of being annoying. And what was worse, was that he revelled in it. Once he got an idea in his head, he would keep going until he got his way. Rimmer had missed him, more than he had ever realised he would, but he definitely hadn’t missed this. “Can’t you just smeg off and read your magazine, leave me to it?” he tried, knowing that Lister wouldn’t.

Lister didn’t smeg off. Instead, he tucked his chair a little further under the table, rested his chin in a hand and looked down at the cards on the table as though he were the one playing the game.

Rimmer watched him for a moment then sighed. “Fine. If you must know, the reason I didn’t play then, was because I was still soft light. Not being able to pick things up doesn’t exactly make it easy to play cards, you know. Just enlisting the skutters’ help to let me play poker was bad enough, and that doesn't take half the dexterity that this does.”

“Dexterity?” Lister shook his head dismissively. “I thought you said you weren’t doing card tricks. How much dexterity does it take to turn over a playing card and put it down in the right place?”

It took a lot more that Lister could ever realise, and a level that a skutter just didn’t possess. Not unless you were willing to spend about twenty minutes on every move. Rimmer shook his head. “Lister, until you know the frustration of spending hours coaching some idiot of a skutter to perform a simple task that should take two seconds, only to have to watch them screw it up over and over again, I’ll thank you to keep your mouth shut on the subject.”

Lister looked at him, and for a moment Rimmer thought that he was going to argue. Instead, he frowned, then reached for the pile of cards. He moved slowly, as though paying attention to every minuscule movement of his hand and arm as his fingers slid the card from the top of the pile and turned it over. “Okay, yeah,” he said, and handed the card to Rimmer. He looked thoughtful for a moment. “It’s probably a bit like that fake arm Kryten gave me that one time,” he said. “Took me forever just to make the stupid thing pick up a smegging ball. Something like this? There’d have been no way.”

Rimmer looked up at him sharply. “What?”

“Well, until Kryten upped the sensitivity, but that wasn’t any good either, ‘cos then it had a mind of its own.”

Rimmer tried to make sense of what he was hearing, but he couldn’t. He looked at Lister, specifically at Lister’s arms; they both appeared normal. They were covered by the sleeves of his jacket, making it difficult to be sure, but as far as he could tell, they looked exactly the same as they had always done. He allowed his gaze to move to Lister’s hands, where he could see bare skin. They both looked fine too; completely normal. “Lister, what are you talking about?” he asked. “What fake arm?”

“Oh, right,” Lister said. “You weren’t here for that.” He shrugged like it was unimportant, and pointed to one of the cards already turned over on the table. “You can move that one,” he said. “To there.”

Rimmer ignored him, and instead continued to stare at Lister’s hands. They both looked real. They both moved like they were real. If one of them wasn’t, it was the best prosthetic he had ever seen. “Lister, are you trying to tell me that you have a prosthetic arm?” he asked.

“What?” Lister grinned as though that was the funniest thing he’d heard all year. “Of course I don’t.” He flexed the fingers of his right hand compulsively. “Rimmer, have you ever seen those things? Trust me, if I did, you’d have noticed by now. He reached for the card he had told Rimmer to move, and moved it himself.

“Lister, don’t do that!” Rimmer snapped. He snatched the card up and moved it back to where it had been before.”

“I was only helping!”

“Well don’t. This is a one man game; you’re not supposed to help. For all you know, I was saving that move for later.” He looked at the cards, desperately trying to find another move to make first; any other move, just to prove his point. Typically, there were none. He scowled at the cards as though they had done it on purpose, then grabbed the one Lister had moved, and moved it again. “So if you didn’t lose an arm, what were you doing with a prosthetic?” he asked.

Lister shrugged. “I never said I didn’t lose it. I just kinda…” he shrugged, “found it again. But technically I didn’t lose it actually. I knew where it was, it’s just that Kryten hacked it off with a laser scalpel and flushed it out the airlock.” He winced and flexed his fingers again. “Anyway, stop changing the subject.”

“Yes, because the subject of exactly how many times I’ve played a particular card game in the past is infinitely more fascinating than the story of how you lost and somehow found an arm. Come on, what happened?”

“Actually, the subject was what you got up to while you were Ace,” Lister corrected. “Talking about your stupid card game came later.”

“Lister, I want to know how you lost an arm,” Rimmer demanded.

Lister frowned thoughtfully. “Oh, do you?” he asked. “Okay, let’s trade. If I tell you this story, you’ve got to tell me one of yours. Deal?”

Rimmer sighed, the idea that this whole thing might have been a setup suddenly occurred to him, but he really did want to know. He folded his arms and glared at Lister admonishingly. “Okay, fine,” he agreed. “But it better be a good story.”

“Killer virus,” Lister told him. “Got snogged by a three million year old corpse, caught this thing called Epideme.” He shrugged. “Kochanski and Kryten got the idea that they could chase it into my arm, then cut it off.”

Rimmer blinked. “You got snogged by a what?” he frowned. “Wait a minute, that wouldn’t work. You can’t just chase a virus into one part of the body and lop it off, or else they’d have been able to cure everything that way.”

“Turns out you can,” Lister told him. “Or you could with this one, anyway. Except for a few bits of the virus escaped back into my body, so I ended up armless for nothing. In the end they actually had to kill me so Epideme left, then they brought me back to life.”

Rimmer blinked. “Right. So you died?”

“Well, I mean not really. Not like you did, anyway. It doesn’t count if it’s only for a minute or so.”

That was a lot to take in. “And getting the arm back?”

Lister shrugged. “Nanobots. You know that part already.”

“I knew they rebuilt the ship and the crew. You neglected to mention the part where they also rebuilt you.“

“Out of the whole thing, honestly that seemed like the least interesting part.”

Rimmer shook his head. “It’s a part of the story, it’s relevant. And how could you think I wouldn’t be interested in you agreeing to let Kryten cut off your arm to save you from a deadly space virus?”

“Honestly? It wasn’t exactly something I was eager to relive. I only brought it up now because I figured I’d be able to get a story out of you in return.”

“So you did trick me,” Rimmer said. “You lured me in with a hint of a story, knowing I’d want to know more, just so that you could wheedle information out of me in return. I knew it!”

Lister grinned. “Yeah.” The grin faded. “But having one arm sucked like you wouldn’t believe. I couldn’t play the guitar.”

Rimmer smirked. “Well in that case I’m surprised you found anybody willing to help you track down the nanobots. Personally, I’d have been completely willing to sacrifice your arm in order to silence your guitar.”

“Smeg off. You would have as well, wouldn’t you? It was my right arm too. Do you know how crap I am at everything with my left hand? I could hardly do anything for myself.”

Rimmer turned over another card in his game of patience. “You’d have learned. It was only one arm, so it’s not that bad, is it? I didn’t have any arms at all — any body at all — for years, and you didn’t hear me whinging about it.”

“Seriously?” Lister stared at him incredulously. “Rimmer, you used to whinge about it all the time.”

“I didn’t. Not all the time, anyway.” He thought back to the time after he had first been activated. “I mean, maybe I complained a little bit at first, but all things considered I think I handled the whole thing pretty well. Better than you would have done, anyway. And even if I had complained, I’d say that was a whinge-worthy problem. Losing one arm, not so much.”

“This is why I didn’t tell you about this before,” Lister told him. “I knew you’d find some way to trivialise it.”

“I’m not,” Rimmer assured him. “I’m sure the whole thing was very traumatic for you. How terrible it must have been, having to brush your teeth with your left hand.”

Lister shook his head. “Fine. Go on then, you owe me a story. And it better be a good one too.”

Rimmer mulled over his options. He had stories, of course he did. The issue wasn’t thinking of a story, it was thinking of a story that would paint him in the right light; one that Lister would be impressed by, but that didn’t make him sound too much like that insufferable git Ace. He needed something that would remind Lister why he, Rimmer, the Rimmer without a wig, was the superior Rimmer.

He couldn’t think of a single one.

“You’re right, you know,” he said, hoping to fill the time. “I didn’t play patience before. I picked it up while I was off being Ace.”

Lister nodded. “Yeah, I figured,” he said. “It couldn’t have been all daring missions and rescuing the damsel in distress, could it?”

“Sometimes it wasn’t a damsel, men needed rescuing too, you know. In fact, they needed rescuing more than the women because they have a tendency to do more stupid things and get themselves into trouble.”

Lister shrugged. “Fine, so it couldn’t be all rescuing the damsel or,” he hesitated, “…or damson in distress.”

“I don’t think that’s the right word.”

Lister waved a hand dismissively. “My point is, there had to have been some downtime in between. And it’s not like you had us lot around to talk to, so you would’ve needed something to do.”

“I kept myself busy enough.”

“Well yeah, but I bet because you’re, well, you, even though you probably could’ve spent the night in bed with whatever lucky sod you just saved, you’d’ve probably convinced yourself they didn’t actually like you or something, and decided to spend your nights alone in your ship. So you needed something to do, so you got yourself a pack of cards.”

Rimmer sighed. On the one hand, it was nice to be back around someone who understood him. On the other, sometimes it would be nice if Lister didn’t know him quite so perfectly. “I didn’t have to ‘get’ the cards, they were already there, left behind by a previous Ace.”

Lister shook his head. “That wasn’t really the point.”

“Fine. Well if you must know, Lister, I did have a few liaisons. I even had to turn down a couple of marriage proposals. But in-between all that, there was still a lot of time alone. There were times when I would jump into dimension after dimension and find them completely empty. I don’t know whether humans just never evolved there, or whether they wiped themselves out before I arrived, or if I was just in completely the wrong part of the universe. All I know is, there were times that I went for months without speaking to another person. So I had to find something to do.”

Lister nodded. He was quiet for a long moment, then folded his arms tightly and nodded. “Sounds lonely,” he said quietly.

It had been. Long stretches of loneliness and boredom interspersed with the occasional terrifying situation.

Lister was looking at him now with something approaching sympathy in his expression. Lister understood loneliness; a man who had surrounded himself with a large group of friends, who had been friends with everybody, who had thrived on and drawn energy from the social interactions that left Rimmer drained and anxious. A man who had found himself marooned in deep space, the last survivor of the human race.

“It was fine,” Rimmer assured him. It was only a partial lie, half of the time it really had been. Well, a bit less than half. More like a quarter. Or fifteen percent? He shook his head. “Okay yes, it was a bit lonely. But it’s your fault.”

“Mine? How’s it my fault? Because I convinced you to go?”

Actually, that was a good point too, but not the one Rimmer had been trying to make. He shook his head. “No. It’s your fault I couldn’t hack the solitude. Over the past however long it’s been, I must have got used to having you around.”

“So you’re mad at me because you missed me?”

Rimmer shook his head. “I‘m not mad at you, and I didn’t miss you, not specifically. I just missed not being alone; having someone to talk to.”

Lister grinned. “You did. You missed me,” he said.

“Fine. And what about you? Did you miss me?” He hadn’t meant to ask that, but now it was out there, he couldn’t take it back. He held his breath and waited for the reply.

Lister folded his arms. “Yeah, of course I did,” he admitted. He glanced away and dropped his voice to a mumbled whisper. “Even had a couple of dreams about you.”

Rimmer nodded in satisfaction. Lister hadn’t even been on his own. For some of that time, he had had a whole crew to keep him company, not to mention a version of Rimmer himself, and yet he still admitted to missing him. He smiled to himself, confident that he had come out the victor in this competition. “Wait,” he asked. “What kind of dreams?”

“Just dreams, not important.”

He decided to let it go for now. “So, your turn,” he said. “What else did I miss while I was off being a hero? Did Kryten hack off anybody else’s body parts?”

“One arm wasn’t enough for you?”

“Okay, maybe that’s enough dismemberment, but something else interesting must have happened while I was away.”

Lister frowned. “What, other than the entire crew, including you, coming back to life?”

“Other than that. I already know about that.”

“Well yeah, plenty happened,” Lister told him, “but you haven’t held up your side of the bargain yet, have you? A story about you sitting around in your ship playing cards on your own doesn’t exactly count, you know.”

“Of course it does. You never specified what the content of the story needed to be.”

“Suit yourself,” Lister told him, and turned over another of Rimmer’s cards. He placed it exactly where Rimmer would have put it, which allowed him to make five more moves and take two cards out of play. He moved to pick up another card.

“Fine,” Rimmer told him. “I’ll tell you one more story.”

Lister looked up.

“I rescued you once,” Rimmer told him. He hesitated. That wasn’t true, strictly speaking. “Well, no. Not you but another version of you. And it wasn’t much of a rescue either if I’m honest.”

“Great story, Rimmer. I’m on the edge of my seat!”

Rimmer scowled at him. “It was a couple of GELFs with a grudge, and they — the other crew — would have probably handled it fine if I hadn’t shown up, but I did, so I thought it was only right to lend a hand.” As he spoke, he heard himself slip unthinkingly into the Ace Rimmer accent he had perfected over the years. He cleared his throat. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I kinda like it.”

Rimmer rolled his eyes and continued in his own accent. “He was a lot like you, the other Lister. If I hadn’t known better — well, if I hadn’t had a ship’s computer that could tell me better — I’d have genuinely believed I was home. It turned out his Rimmer had already left to become Ace, years earlier. When I showed up, the other Lister thought his Rimmer had come back.”

Lister winced. “Did you tell him he hadn’t?”

“I didn’t want to,” Rimmer admitted. He looked away. “Telling him that, was basically the same as telling him that his Rimmer was gone.”

“Yeah,” Lister said. “If I was him, I don’t know how I’d have…” He folded his arms and stopped talking abruptly.

Rimmer nodded. “This thing is, it was a bit more delicate than that. They’d been…” he hesitated, “They were pretty close. Closer than you and I.”

Lister frowned. “Closer than us? Rimmer, the only way they could possibly have been closer than us is if they were…” His eyes widened as understanding dawned. Rimmer nodded, and slowly a smile spread across Lister’s face. “Oh, right,” he said. “Right.”

“It turned out they’d been together for quite some time before he went off to be a hero,” Rimmer said. He shook his head. “The idiot.”

“Hey!” said Lister. “You’re saying sleeping with me makes him an idiot?”

Rimmer shook his head. “No. Well, yes, obviously he must have been. But what I meant was why would a version of me who had someone that loved him, give it all up to go off and be Ace? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Lister shrugged. “You did it.”

Rimmer looked at him for a long moment, trying to figure out exactly what Lister had meant by that.

Lister cleared his throat. “So, what did you think about that particular revelation?”

He considered the question. “Mostly, I thought that I really didn’t want to have to be the one to tell him his boyfriend had died. For a moment, I even thought about playing along, being his Rimmer for a day or two then telling him I had to go off and be a hero again.”

“You didn’t, did you?”

Rimmer shook his head. “Of course not.” He was still Ace at the time, and that would have been a cowardly move. Another time, another circumstance, maybe he would have done. “It wouldn’t have been fair to him.”

“Yeah,” Lister agreed. “Definitely not.”

Rimmer picked up another card, and rather than putting it down, he began to fidget with it, turning it over nervously in his hands. He cleared his throat. “I thought another thing too,” he said.

“Oh yeah?”

“I thought about how glad I was, that there was at least one universe out there where I’d been brave enough to accept who I was.”

Lister nodded, and Rimmer got the impression that he wasn’t telling him anything he hadn’t already known. “So how’d he take it?” he asked. “When you told him you weren’t his Rimmer?”

Rimmer continued to fidget with the playing card. “I think he already knew, really. I mean, I think he hoped I was his Rimmer, but he didn’t really believe it. He’d already accepted that he was gone. That’s how it works, isn’t it? As soon as you get into the ship and make your first jump that’s supposed to be it. It’s meant to be a one way trip, and he knew that.”

Lister nodded. “Meant to, anyway.”

“He asked me to stay,” Rimmer continued. “Not to replace his Rimmer or anything like that, just to make a home there. Stop leaping dimensions and just… just be me again. It was tempting, too.” In fact, he had stayed for a little while, but he had found that he needed to move on. “When I told him I needed to go, he’s the one that told me I should try to get home. I think he could tell my heart wasn’t in it anymore.”

“And so you came back,” Lister said. He smiled warmly. “I’m glad. No offence to the other Lister, but if you were going to settle down somewhere, it had to be here.”

“It wasn’t quite as simple as just ‘coming back’,” Rimmer told him. “It was actually very difficult. You can’t safely jump between similar dimensions, you know. It involved multiple jumps, a fair amount of danger, and a lot of luck. Of course, if I’d known you’d gone and made yourself a brand new Rimmer, I might have just stayed where I was.” He could hear the jealousy in his voice, and he didn’t care

Lister shook his head. “Come on, you know that wasn’t planned. Anyway, he wasn’t you. I mean, he was you, but he wasn’t you you, was he?”

That was the kind of thing that Rimmer might have rolled his eyes at, once upon a time. Now, it made perfect sense. He had met a lot of people who both were, and were not, people he had known. It was a strange feeling, one that he had never quite got used to. “Still, I was surplus to requirements around here, wasn’t I?” He was fishing and he knew it. He didn’t care.

Lister seemed to know it too. It was obvious that he was playing along as he shook his head sympathetically. “Of course not!” He paused, then shrugged, “I mean, two of you would’ve been a bit too much to handle, but you’re always welcome here, Rimmer. Always.”

Satisfied, Rimmer nodded. “And I suppose it’s good that you replaced me,” he said. “Because then I could replace Ace. If there hadn’t been another me here, it would’ve meant the chair was broken.” He shrugged. “Not that that’s exactly a tragedy though. Does the universe really need some smug git in a wig flying around being heroic? Really?”

“I didn’t replace you,” Lister insisted. “And I think the universe probably does need an Ace. Just like it needs an endless ouroboros cycle of List…” he stopped, then smiled. “Okay, my turn,” he said. “While you were off being a smug git in a wig, I found out who my parents were.”

Rimmer stared at him. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. And you’ll never guess who they are.”

Rimmer resisted the urge to groan. “It’s going to be something ridiculous, isn’t it?” he said. “Like you’re actually related to royalty or something.” He was never going to hear the end of it; Lister was going to be constantly lording it over him. “You’re the illegitimate son of some King or Queen, dumped in a pub by a jealous relative whose claim to the throne your birth put at risk.”

Lister grinned and shook his head. “Er, no. Not exactly,” he said.

Rimmer breathed a silent sigh of relief. The only thing worse than finding out something like that would be… oh smeg. “You’re my brother, aren’t you? Like in that reality we hallucinated when we encountered the despair squid.” Oh, that was all he needed, just when he was beginning to come to terms with the idea that he might like Lister. It was typical, and so in-keeping with his luck that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t figured it out sooner. “How the smeg did that happen?” He rested his head in his hands. “I didn’t even know my mum had been to Liverpool.”

Lister laughed and shook his head. “I have to give you this much, Rimmer, you’ve got a good imagination.”

“So we’re not brothers?”

“No, of course we’re not.”

Rimmer began to breathe a sigh of relief, then hesitated. “And not half brothers? Or cousins? Second cousins once removed?”

“We’re no relation at all. Well, at least as far as I know.”

Rimmer exhaled slowly. “Right. Good.”

“It’s even weirder than that, actually.” Lister paused, either for effect or to make sure Rimmer was listening, Rimmer wasn’t sure. “It turns out I’m my own dad.”

Rimmer frowned. That couldn’t be right. He looked at Lister, searching for any hint that this was some kind of a joke, but he couldn’t see any. Finally, he shook his head. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. But it’s true. Me and Krissie had a baby, and it was me. Then I…”

“Wait,” Rimmer interrupted. “You and Kochanski?” He tried to ignore the stab of jealousy that came with that particular revelation, and failed. “I thought you said you never got back together with her. You said she was too hung up on the other Lister. You said…”

“Hey.” Lister stopped his words with a gentle hand on his arm. “Relax. She was still too into the other Lister, and I can’t really blame her either. I mean, they were together a long time; as long as me and you. And over that time she’d moulded him into some kinda weird, opera-loving anti-Lister. I mean, I was never going to live up to that, and I didn’t want to either. All I had to do was make a… uh, a genetic donation, and she was planning on raising the baby with him.”

“Oh,” Rimmer said. “Well, good. Not that I care, of course.”

“Nah, ‘course you don’t,” Lister agreed. “Anyway, it’s probably for the best that she wasn’t into me; I was a bit too hung up on somebody else myself too, if I’m honest.”

Rimmer wondered who it could have been. Lister’s own Kochanski, he supposed. After all, the one that had ended up aboard Starbug with them had been a different Kochanski from a different dimension. If the years they had spent together had changed the other Lister to the point where he was almost unrecognisable. Maybe there had been differences between the two Kochanskis that Lister hadn’t been able to see past.

“Anyway, that doesn’t matter,” Lister continued. “So when the baby was born, we raised him for a couple of months until he was about the same age I’d been when they found me, then I went back in time and left him under that pool table so that he could be found, grow up, get stranded three million years in the future, work this all out for himself and then do the same thing to his own kid." He paused, then frowned. “Who will be me as well.”

Rimmer pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head slowly from side to side as he tried to make sense of what he was hearing. Of all the nonsensical things that they had encountered during their time in space, this had to be one of the most improbable, for so many reasons. “Lister, before I dignify this with an answer, tell me, are you being serious?” he asked.

“Well, yeah. Of course I am. You don’t think I could just make up a story like that, do you?”

He probably could but it didn’t sound like something he would do. For all he had always pretended not to mind, Rimmer knew how much not knowing the truth about where he came from had bothered Lister. He also knew how much it had hurt him having to give up the twins; he wouldn’t joke about giving another child away.

“So, if you’re your own dad,” he said in an attempt to break the tension, “that makes Kochanski your mum, right? So is that why you never got together?”

“What?” Lister pulled a face. “No. Why would it be?”

“Well, because she’s your mum,” Rimmer repeated. “I mean, you’ve got to admit it would be a bit weird.”

Lister folded his arms. “It’s not like that though, is it? She’s the kid’s mum, not mine.” Even as he said it, he didn’t sound convinced.

“But the kid is you.”

“Yeah, but…” Lister shook his head.

“Technically, it sounds like she’s your grandmother too,” Rimmer added, with a smile to show that he was joking. He wasn’t, actually, but Lister didn’t need to know that. “And your great grandmother.”

Lister folded his arms and rolled his eyes. “Smeg off,” he said. “You’re just happy because you think you’ve got a chance with me now, like that other Rimmer did.”

Rimmer sat back in his seat. He genuinely hadn’t thought he was being that obvious. He looked at Lister, trying to decide whether he was joking, or whether he was feeling particularly empathic today. “No I’m not,” he lied.

“Oh,” said Lister. “Well that’s too bad.”

Rimmer blinked.

“So, did you ever figure out where the universes diverged?” Lister said.

It was such an abrupt change of subject that it took him a moment or two to realise that Lister was talking about the other him again. “More or less, yes. It was around the time I got my hard light drive. Remember that night we stayed up all night drinking and talking about things?”

Lister nodded. “I remember you talking for hours about different textures and temperatures, trying to make me understand why it was so great to be able to feel for the first time in years.” He smiled. “Must’ve been amazing.”

It had been. It still was, even if he sometimes took it for granted now. “Well, from what I can gather, that night played out a little differently in that universe, and ended up with the two of us… well, the two of them…”

“Gotcha.”

“What I couldn’t figure out is why that happened. There must have been something before that that changed things enough that we felt able to do that, but whatever it was, it must have been so small that the other Lister and I couldn’t figure it out.”

Lister shrugged. “Might be because there wasn’t anything,” he said. “Sometimes things just happen, you know. I bet I can guess exactly how the whole thing started out; Rimmer put his hand on Lister’s, to feel it I mean, and Lister grabbed hold of it, pulled him in closer and kissed him. Right?”

Rimmer blinked. “I don’t know,” he said. “I never asked for a play-by-play. Why?”

“Because that’s what happens, isn’t it? When realities split. You have a choice, you make it, and the other version of you makes the opposite choice.”

Rimmer nodded. “More or less.”

“So here’s the thing,” Lister told him. He picked up the pile of unplayed cards on the table and ran his fingernail down the side of the stack. “In this reality, when you touched my hand I was… well, I was kinda tempted to pull you closer and kiss you, but I chickened out.”

Rimmer stared at him, trying to process what he was hearing. “Why?”

“Because you were talking about all these different sensations you’d been missing out on, and how amazing it was, and I thought you might want to experience another one.”

“Not why did you want to, you gimboid. I meant why didn’t you?”

“Oh…” Lister hesitated. “Well, like I said, I chickened out. I thought you might not like it, or you’d turn me down. And maybe you would have. I mean, if anything that could happen did happen in one universe or another, there must also be a universe where I kissed you, but instead of whatever happened in the dimension you landed in, you freaked out over it and things got really weird between us. So I mean, maybe I dodged a bullet.”

Rimmer pursed his lips. He wanted to insist that wouldn’t have happened, and maybe he was right, but there was a good chance he wasn’t. After all, he already knew that theirs wasn’t the reality where they had ended up together. Not then anyway. He sighed. “You’re probably right.”

A shadow of disappointment fell over Lister’s face.

“No, I mean, it was different then,” Rimmer stammered. “It was a long time ago. Just because I might have reacted badly then, doesn't mean I’d do the same thing now, does it?”

“I dunno.” Lister looked at him like he was trying to figure out whether Rimmer was serious, and if so, how serious. “Does it?”

Lister put down the playing cards and rested his hand on the surface of the table. Not breaking eye contact with Lister, Rimmer slowly slid his hand across until the tips of their fingers touched. He kept going, until his hand rested on top of Lister’s. As he moved, he tried to remember how he had felt that night, when everything had been so new and every touch had felt amplified a hundredfold. He concentrated on the warmth of Lister’s skin in comparison to the cool air of their quarters, the difference between the texture of the soft back of his hand and the rougher skin of his knuckles.

He had been so afraid that night, convinced that the hard light drive wouldn’t last; that his bad luck would kick in and he would revert to his usual, soft light form, deprived once again of the ability to feel. He remembered thinking how much worse it was going to be, having experienced touch only to have it snatched away again, and he remembered how desperate he had been to cram as much sensation as he could into every second, before it was too late.

He had become complacent, he realised, as he pressed the tips of his fingers a little harder into the back of Lister’s hand, feeling the bones and tendons beneath the skin. He had become too used to it; started to take it for granted. He closed his eyes and savoured the sensation in a way that he hadn’t done in years.

After a moment, Lister placed his own free hand on top of Rimmer’s and simply held him for a while, Rimmer’s hand encased in Listers, feeling the warmth of his skin. Then, gently, he turned it over. When his hand lay palm upward on top of Lister’s, Lister began to trace the lines of Rimmer’s palm with his fingertips, then, when that was done, began to move his finger in slow, lazy circles. It felt good. It felt incredible, but it wasn’t what he had been expecting. He opened his eyes and looked at Lister, questioning.

“What? I wasn’t just going to grab you and go for a snog,” Lister told him. “I’m a bit more subtle than that. I mean, not much, but a bit.”

Slowly, he pulled Rimmer’s hand a little closer to him, lifting it from the table and toward his lips, then gently kissed his fingertips one at a time. Finally, he moved his grip further up Rimmer’s arm. Holding tightly at his arm at the elbow, he tugged gently. His grip was firm enough that he could lead Rimmer closer to him, but not so firm that Rimmer wouldn’t be able to back off if he wanted to. Rimmer didn’t want to.

Lister pulled him closer until he leaned far enough across the table that Lister could easily close the distance between them, then he touched his lips to Rimmer’s. Their lips brushed gently together, barely a kiss, barely even a touch. It left him wanting more. Rimmer leaned closer, trying to get more sensation, but Lister moved further back. He smiled and shook his head. “Wait for it,” he whispered. Rimmer felt his breath on his skin.

He moved a little closer, a fraction of a centimetre, and allowed Rimmer to feel the warmth of his skin and the softness of his lips as they pressed, slightly open, against his own. Lister’s hand snaked slowly around the back of his head, his fingers parting Rimmer’s curls as they worked their way through his hair. At the same time, Lister’s tongue teased Rimmer’s and Rimmer felt himself respond in kind.

For a moment, everything around then faded away. The living quarters, the ship, the years that they had been apart, everything but the moment. Rimmer was lost in sensation; drowning in it.

And then, it was over. All concept of time had abandoned him, and Rimmer had no idea how long it had been before they finally came up for air. At some point, he didn’t know when, he had closed his eyes. He opened them now to find himself staring directly into Lister’s eyes. Lister smiled nervously, and shrugged. “So, it’d have probably been a bit like that,” he said. “If I hadn’t chickened out that night, I mean.”

“Right,” Rimer said. He nodded, and sat back down again, unsure what he was supposed to do or say now. His game of patience was ruined, the cards scattered over the tabletop and on the floor. He tugged on the bottom of his uniform tunic, straightening any creases that might have appeared, and quickly ran his fingers through his hair in a futile effort to undo any damage Lister might have done to it. “Right,” he said again.

He could feel his own simulated heartbeat pounding in the hard light projection of his chest. His skin tingled everywhere that Lister had touched him, and he wanted more.

“Right,” he said, for a third time. He realised that he really should think of something else to say, but for some reason he was drawing a complete blank. He opened his mouth to speak again, and this time, closed it again.

“Well?” Lister asked. Rimmer could hear the apprehension in his voice, and see it on his face.

Rimmer took a slow, deep breath and tried to force his mind to regain the ability to speak. “That was…” he began, then faltered. He didn’t have the words to describe what that had been. Anything he might say would pale into insignificance in comparison to the real thing. He took another breath, slowly in and out. He needed to say something or it was going to start to get weird. “Lister, if you’d done that the day after I first got my hard light drive, you’d probably have shorted the damn thing out,” he said.

“What’s that mean?” Lister asked, appearing worried now.

Rimmer reached for him again. He grabbed clumsily at his hand before intertwining his fingers with Lister’s. “It means it was incredible,” he said. “But it would have been too much for me then. When I hadn’t been able to feel for all those years, suddenly experiencing something like that… it would have been overwhelming.” It was almost still too much for him now, but at the same time it hadn’t been enough. He wanted more. If Lister could do that with a few gentle touches, Rimmer wanted to know what else he could do.

“I mean, I’ve had a bit of time to think about it, so maybe it wouldn’t have been exactly like that,” Lister told him.

“So you’ve been thinking about it?”

“No.” Lister said, far too quickly. Then he shrugged and glanced away. “Well, you know, just now and then. Not all the time or anything like that. Just when I had nothing to do and my mind wandered.”

In other words, he had been daydreaming about it. About him. Of all the things Lister had told him about the things he had missed while he had been away, the deadly virus, the resurrection of the crew, finding out that Lister was his own father, somehow the revelation that Dave Lister had been daydreaming about him was the most unexpected. And the most wonderful.

“So,” Lister said. “It might have been too much for you then, but what about now? You’ve had a couple of years to get used to touch again, and I bet you had more than a couple of kisses while you were off being a hero, so…” his question tailed off, leaving it hanging in the air between them.

Rimmer thought about it. “It was still overwhelming,” he said honestly. “But I think…” he hesitated. “I think being overwhelmed now and then might be a good thing.”

“Want to try again?”

Rimmer nodded.

Lister got to his feet and pressed the manual lock on the door to their quarters. He offered a hand to Rimmer as he walked back past him, and when Rimmer accepted, steered him in the direction of the sofa. “Might be a bit comfier over here than leaning across a table,” he said.

He sat down and Rimmer sat next to him. He glanced down at his hands awkwardly, not sure what he was supposed to do.

“Hey, by the way,” Lister said as he edged himself a little closer and snaked a hand around Rimmer’s shoulders and then up into his hair again. “Don’t you think this gets you out of telling me stories. I still want to know everything you got up to when you were out there being Ace.”

Thank you to @coney-island-blitz for the beta on this!

#red dwarf #red dwarf fanfic #my fic #long post #dave lister #arnold rimmer #rimmer/lister

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