Categories > TV > Red Dwarf > Monster
Rimmer: I'm a competitive man, Kryten; always have been. That's what makes me what I am."
Kryten: "We're all perfectly well aware of what you are, sir."-Rimmerworld
Lister sat on his bunk with a foil tray with the remains of the evening's mutton vindaloo in it. His normal midsection meal had been truncated by Cat's speculation on possible nasty fates that would befall the next crew member to vent air in either a belch or a fart. He, Kryten, and Rimmer had turned pointedly towards Lister. Lister thought it highly unfair; OK, he might have been a little gassier than usual, but did that really merit ejection from the midsection? Apparently, it did, and he dropped the poppadums into the tray, picked it up in one hand and the second can of lager, half-full, in the other, and walked back to the crew's quarters. Cat's offer to take the evening shift came drifting down the corridor behind him, and he snorted.
He was picking the last bits of mutton out of the thick sauce in which they were swimming when the door slid open and Rimmer walked in. Lister immediately exaggerated his lack of table manners, lifting the mutton bits over his head and dropping them into his open mouth, then sucking the sauce obscenely off of his stained fingers. Mission accomplished as Rimmer's nostrils flared. Lister laughed.
"You like being disgusting, don't you?"
"Yeah, man," Lister replied, starting to lick the sauce from the bottom of the tray. "It's fun."
Rimmer sat in a bunk across from Lister and watched. Lister met his eyes and stretched his tongue out farther, to get the sauce out of every cranny.
"You know, a weaker man might be moved to examine his faith in your fidelity. You seem to have a strong sexual bond to curry. You've had a relationship with it that eclipses the duration of any human relationship."
"Me and curry - we go way back." Lister finished the last drips of sauce and tossed the tray in the waste bin. "But yeh knew that before you got inno this."
"I wonder," said Rimmer, lying back and looking at the ceiling of the bunk, "if you had to choose between curry and me, which would you pick?"
"Both," said Lister, firmly. He walked over and wiped his right hand on Rimmer's cheek, leaving streaks of curry sauce. He climbed on top of Rimmer, straddling him, and licked every drop off. Rimmer's face crinkled in disgust. Lister laughed and wiped his left hand down Rimmer's neck, then buried his face in the junction between head and shoulder, licking and sucking off the sauce. He started to tug at Rimmer's dark blue pants, and Rimmer grabbed his wrists. "You are not putting curry sauce /there/." Lister sighed - and then put his fingers in his mouth, one at a time, and sucked them clean. By the time he was halfway through the second hand, Rimmer was pulling at his vest and popping buttons on his long johns. Lister laughed, and plunged a fiery curry-lager tongue in Rimmer's mouth.
Some time later, Lister was sated in every way, and ready to drift off to sleep. But Rimmer's feather-light touch on his buttock tickled, and kept him awake. "Stop it, man," he muttered sleepily, swatting at Rimmer's hand."Just admiring your one unbending love," Rimmer said, in a voice that was not one bit sleepy, and Lister realized he was tracing the heart on Lister's tattoo. Lister sighed and rolled over onto his back.
"I bet you wouldn't be able to live without curries."
"Why would I want to live without curries?"
"Maybe so the rest of us wouldn't have to wake up every morning swimming at the bottom of a fetid sea of flatulence?"
"You're gonna wake up in a fetid sea of flatulence, and you're gonna like it." He put his head to the side. "I don't love any one curry," he said. "I just love curries. Like you love that stupid salute. Go to sleep." He immediately suited action to word. And as deep a sleeper as Lister is, he did not hear the soft whump of Rimmer turning to soft light, or feel the gentle brush of electricity as he exited the bunk through Lister and walked to the midsection.
Lister sat in the midsection the next morning. He defined morning as when he took his breakfast, as there was no real definition of daytime in space. This arrangement suited Lister perfectly; when on a planet, people could always point to the sun as proof that it was afternoon, while up here, he could point to his bowl as proof that it was morning. He asked Cat to pass the Tabasco. Cat did not look up from his fashion magazine as he slid the bottle across the table. "Why does this magazine have so many naked women in it? Man, peach is totally five years ago!"
Lister looked over. "Oh, sorry, Cat; I hid my dirty magazine in that one." He pulled the dog-eared insert out of Cat's magazine and tossed it on the other end of the table.
"Ah, that's better!" said Cat. "I need some inspiration. I'm down to fifty suits - I need to find a way to change some of the clothes we found on the Simulant ship up to my level of fashion."
"Cat, don't tell me you took clothes off of the dead bodies in the cells."
"Nah, those stains never come out. But the handcuff links make good earrings!" He pulled his hair back to show them off.
Rimmer walked out of the cockpit. "Changeover.""I'm eatin'," Lister told his bowl.
"I'm readin'," Cat told the magazine.Rimmer folded his arms and sighed. "Well, be sure to tell the next asteroid we run into that you're busy, and could it please stop by to smash the ship at a more convenient time?" When this speech elicited no response, he leaned over the table, took the fashion magazine in one thumb and forefinger, jerked it out of Cat's hands, and flipped it into the cockpit. He raised his eyebrows at Cat, and walked back to the quarters.
Cat flipped an obscene gesture at his retreating back. "What a smeghead. How did you live with him and not throttle him?"
Lister scraped the bottom of the bowl with his spoon. "You know, I spent as li'le time as possible with him when we was back on the Dwarf and everyone was alive. I think I woulda throttled him otherwise."The two of them walked into the cockpit and took their positions. Cat pulled out his magazine, and Lister put his feet up on the control panel, carefully settling his heel between two buttons that it would be very bad to push. "He changed a lot after he died, though."
Cat sniffed. "Yeah, people do tend to change a lot after they die. Most of them have the good sense to change into corpses, though, and /stop talking/."
"Nah, man, I'm serious. He's changed for the better. Yeah, he's still an anal-retentive cowardly irritating self-satisfied pilea smeg, but at least he knows other people exist, now, and actually acts as if they matter from time to time. Nothing mattered to him back before, yeh know. He cared about as much fer people as fer a bog roll. Use and discard. He keeps goin' on about how he'd love to be alive again, but now - well, he's better than he was when he was alive."
"Well, that's one point where we agree," said Cat. "Neither of us wants him alive." He turned back to his magazine. "You know, I wonder if entrails would go well with a mauve number like this? I found this great jacket back on the ship, but I just can't get the guts out..."
The walk back up to the midsection from the newly expanded cargo decks was long, and both of the crew members who required wind were winded. Cat walked ahead, and sat at the midsection table, wiping his brow. Rimmer felt a tug on his sleeve as he followed; Lister caught his eyes, raised his eyebrows, and nodded towards the quarters. "Sex and death, man - who says they have to happen once in a lifetime?" Wordlessly, Rimmer yanked his sleeve out of Lister's hand and walked ahead, grateful that Lister did not try to follow him as he walked through the midsection to the cockpit and started to run wholly unnecessary system checks.
He hated to admit it, but the encounter with his future selves had shaken a very fundamentally weaselly part of him. The end result of following his natural inclinations had been disgusting, unlikable, and altogether grotesque. Respect for some things, he decided grudgingly, had to take precedence over his desires, from here on out. And causality and the natural balance of the universe would have to rank very high on that list of 'some things.' He wouldn't touch a time drive now with a pole any shorter than he'd use to fish a sock out of Lister's laundry hamper. And, although his desire to somehow bring himself back to life had become rather less of a priority since his hard-light drive, certainly enough to put it respectably below his 'some things' list, he would be lying to himself if he told himself that it did not matter. And although he did not expect this to be the first thing on Lister's mind, either, it disgusted him to the electronic marrow that he was bumped down the list of considerations in favor of the one true love of Lister's life.
Lister was wholly willing to violate the laws of time, space, physics, and causality - not to bring life back to his lover, but for...
/Curry/.
Kryten: "We're all perfectly well aware of what you are, sir."-Rimmerworld
Lister sat on his bunk with a foil tray with the remains of the evening's mutton vindaloo in it. His normal midsection meal had been truncated by Cat's speculation on possible nasty fates that would befall the next crew member to vent air in either a belch or a fart. He, Kryten, and Rimmer had turned pointedly towards Lister. Lister thought it highly unfair; OK, he might have been a little gassier than usual, but did that really merit ejection from the midsection? Apparently, it did, and he dropped the poppadums into the tray, picked it up in one hand and the second can of lager, half-full, in the other, and walked back to the crew's quarters. Cat's offer to take the evening shift came drifting down the corridor behind him, and he snorted.
He was picking the last bits of mutton out of the thick sauce in which they were swimming when the door slid open and Rimmer walked in. Lister immediately exaggerated his lack of table manners, lifting the mutton bits over his head and dropping them into his open mouth, then sucking the sauce obscenely off of his stained fingers. Mission accomplished as Rimmer's nostrils flared. Lister laughed.
"You like being disgusting, don't you?"
"Yeah, man," Lister replied, starting to lick the sauce from the bottom of the tray. "It's fun."
Rimmer sat in a bunk across from Lister and watched. Lister met his eyes and stretched his tongue out farther, to get the sauce out of every cranny.
"You know, a weaker man might be moved to examine his faith in your fidelity. You seem to have a strong sexual bond to curry. You've had a relationship with it that eclipses the duration of any human relationship."
"Me and curry - we go way back." Lister finished the last drips of sauce and tossed the tray in the waste bin. "But yeh knew that before you got inno this."
"I wonder," said Rimmer, lying back and looking at the ceiling of the bunk, "if you had to choose between curry and me, which would you pick?"
"Both," said Lister, firmly. He walked over and wiped his right hand on Rimmer's cheek, leaving streaks of curry sauce. He climbed on top of Rimmer, straddling him, and licked every drop off. Rimmer's face crinkled in disgust. Lister laughed and wiped his left hand down Rimmer's neck, then buried his face in the junction between head and shoulder, licking and sucking off the sauce. He started to tug at Rimmer's dark blue pants, and Rimmer grabbed his wrists. "You are not putting curry sauce /there/." Lister sighed - and then put his fingers in his mouth, one at a time, and sucked them clean. By the time he was halfway through the second hand, Rimmer was pulling at his vest and popping buttons on his long johns. Lister laughed, and plunged a fiery curry-lager tongue in Rimmer's mouth.
Some time later, Lister was sated in every way, and ready to drift off to sleep. But Rimmer's feather-light touch on his buttock tickled, and kept him awake. "Stop it, man," he muttered sleepily, swatting at Rimmer's hand."Just admiring your one unbending love," Rimmer said, in a voice that was not one bit sleepy, and Lister realized he was tracing the heart on Lister's tattoo. Lister sighed and rolled over onto his back.
"I bet you wouldn't be able to live without curries."
"Why would I want to live without curries?"
"Maybe so the rest of us wouldn't have to wake up every morning swimming at the bottom of a fetid sea of flatulence?"
"You're gonna wake up in a fetid sea of flatulence, and you're gonna like it." He put his head to the side. "I don't love any one curry," he said. "I just love curries. Like you love that stupid salute. Go to sleep." He immediately suited action to word. And as deep a sleeper as Lister is, he did not hear the soft whump of Rimmer turning to soft light, or feel the gentle brush of electricity as he exited the bunk through Lister and walked to the midsection.
Lister sat in the midsection the next morning. He defined morning as when he took his breakfast, as there was no real definition of daytime in space. This arrangement suited Lister perfectly; when on a planet, people could always point to the sun as proof that it was afternoon, while up here, he could point to his bowl as proof that it was morning. He asked Cat to pass the Tabasco. Cat did not look up from his fashion magazine as he slid the bottle across the table. "Why does this magazine have so many naked women in it? Man, peach is totally five years ago!"
Lister looked over. "Oh, sorry, Cat; I hid my dirty magazine in that one." He pulled the dog-eared insert out of Cat's magazine and tossed it on the other end of the table.
"Ah, that's better!" said Cat. "I need some inspiration. I'm down to fifty suits - I need to find a way to change some of the clothes we found on the Simulant ship up to my level of fashion."
"Cat, don't tell me you took clothes off of the dead bodies in the cells."
"Nah, those stains never come out. But the handcuff links make good earrings!" He pulled his hair back to show them off.
Rimmer walked out of the cockpit. "Changeover.""I'm eatin'," Lister told his bowl.
"I'm readin'," Cat told the magazine.Rimmer folded his arms and sighed. "Well, be sure to tell the next asteroid we run into that you're busy, and could it please stop by to smash the ship at a more convenient time?" When this speech elicited no response, he leaned over the table, took the fashion magazine in one thumb and forefinger, jerked it out of Cat's hands, and flipped it into the cockpit. He raised his eyebrows at Cat, and walked back to the quarters.
Cat flipped an obscene gesture at his retreating back. "What a smeghead. How did you live with him and not throttle him?"
Lister scraped the bottom of the bowl with his spoon. "You know, I spent as li'le time as possible with him when we was back on the Dwarf and everyone was alive. I think I woulda throttled him otherwise."The two of them walked into the cockpit and took their positions. Cat pulled out his magazine, and Lister put his feet up on the control panel, carefully settling his heel between two buttons that it would be very bad to push. "He changed a lot after he died, though."
Cat sniffed. "Yeah, people do tend to change a lot after they die. Most of them have the good sense to change into corpses, though, and /stop talking/."
"Nah, man, I'm serious. He's changed for the better. Yeah, he's still an anal-retentive cowardly irritating self-satisfied pilea smeg, but at least he knows other people exist, now, and actually acts as if they matter from time to time. Nothing mattered to him back before, yeh know. He cared about as much fer people as fer a bog roll. Use and discard. He keeps goin' on about how he'd love to be alive again, but now - well, he's better than he was when he was alive."
"Well, that's one point where we agree," said Cat. "Neither of us wants him alive." He turned back to his magazine. "You know, I wonder if entrails would go well with a mauve number like this? I found this great jacket back on the ship, but I just can't get the guts out..."
The walk back up to the midsection from the newly expanded cargo decks was long, and both of the crew members who required wind were winded. Cat walked ahead, and sat at the midsection table, wiping his brow. Rimmer felt a tug on his sleeve as he followed; Lister caught his eyes, raised his eyebrows, and nodded towards the quarters. "Sex and death, man - who says they have to happen once in a lifetime?" Wordlessly, Rimmer yanked his sleeve out of Lister's hand and walked ahead, grateful that Lister did not try to follow him as he walked through the midsection to the cockpit and started to run wholly unnecessary system checks.
He hated to admit it, but the encounter with his future selves had shaken a very fundamentally weaselly part of him. The end result of following his natural inclinations had been disgusting, unlikable, and altogether grotesque. Respect for some things, he decided grudgingly, had to take precedence over his desires, from here on out. And causality and the natural balance of the universe would have to rank very high on that list of 'some things.' He wouldn't touch a time drive now with a pole any shorter than he'd use to fish a sock out of Lister's laundry hamper. And, although his desire to somehow bring himself back to life had become rather less of a priority since his hard-light drive, certainly enough to put it respectably below his 'some things' list, he would be lying to himself if he told himself that it did not matter. And although he did not expect this to be the first thing on Lister's mind, either, it disgusted him to the electronic marrow that he was bumped down the list of considerations in favor of the one true love of Lister's life.
Lister was wholly willing to violate the laws of time, space, physics, and causality - not to bring life back to his lover, but for...
/Curry/.
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