Categories > TV > Red Dwarf > Lone
Rimmer lay in his bunk, very still. All of the lights were out - well, except for him. He was a projection of light, after all, and so retained a slight luminescence in the dark, just enough to illuminate with a dull blue glow the sharp edges of the grey niche that formed his bunk. It had been a dull red when he had been soft-light, and he had found it hard to fall asleep to it back then, as well. As a hologram, there were no catnaps (oh, and how he had grown to hate that word); he had to be very tired to be able to fall asleep at all.
He was not very tired. He was irritatingly awake. He scrunched up his eyes in another futile attempt to fall asleep.
He wondered if alcohol worked on his hard-light body. But that experiment would involve joining the others to get at it, and he did not feel in a mood to face them at all. Especially if Lister took the opportunity to follow him back. He already swung at a point of indecision between fear that the man would forget their conversation and not come down, or would not forget it and would come down. He had reviewed the kiss Lister had given him over and over, and vacillated between excitement and horror. He hesitated to consider where else that tongue had been; it most assuredly had not been brushed in any reasonable manner between the time it had been - wherever it had been - and the time it had been in his mouth. It had felt reasonably magnificent when it had been in his mouth, and he cringed to think that something that had been - wherever it had been - could feel so magnificent when it was, eventually, in him.
No wonder he was having trouble sleeping.
But he desperately wanted to be asleep at the time Lister either did not come in, the thought of which disappointed him, or did come in, the thought of which made his simulated viscera do opposing somersaults of excitement and dread. What the man might do, whatever other things of his he might care to stick into other bits of Rimmer - well, the hologram was not quite sure if he could handle it. He squeezed his eyes shut even more tightly.
A brighter light filtered through his eyelids in concert with the sound of a door opening. Lister's braying laughter became audible as the door opened, followed by an enthusiastically drunk "Jist seein' how the smeghead's doin'..." Rimmer waited for the door to slide shut again before opening his eyes. In the dim glow of himself, he could just barely see Lister standing in the middle of the room, blinking and looking around as he tried to acclimate his eyes to the darkness. His tatty jacket was half-hanging off, and a can of lager threatened to spray its contents on Rimmer's walls as Lister swung from side to side, peering into the dark with an inebriated keenness.
"Whersa lights?" he asked, squinting. His eyes did not take long to acclimate, and he focused on Rimmer. "Heeeey, theresh one!" He marched over to the bunk with a heavy tread that, Rimmer was sure, must have been knocking Starbug off course. Lister did some complicated maneuver involving one leg and a duck that resulted in him landing in the cubicle, straddling Rimmer, with his beer unspilled. It was a maneuver that looked as natural as walking, and Rimmer had the distinct impression that Lister had spent more than his fair share of time straddling people in regulation bunks in the past. He cringed back at the breath that wafted over his face, and kept his hands folded neatly on his stomach.
"Hey, shexy," Lister said with a grin that was almost a leer. He leaned in close, putting his hand on Rimmer's chest. He pulled the hand back and looked at Rimmer's chest with confusion. "You shleep in your clothes?"
"Well, not usually," Rimmer started, preparing for a lengthy explanation. Lister was not interested. He leaned back, looking behind him, and found another area of commentary. "You shleep in your /boots/?" He laughed long and hard. Rimmer grimaced.
"Did you come down here to make fun of me?" he asked, somewhat irate. He had not been on edge for hours merely so that Lister could sit there and snicker at him.
"Nah, man," Lister said, leaning down and running his hand along Rimmer's neck, "I came down to have shex with you... but I think I'm a little too drunk." Rimmer felt something akin to a simulated heart leaping into his hologrammatic throat, but whatever it was, it had plenty of time to settle back into its accustomed position. Lister fell forward once he finished speaking, resting his head on Rimmer's chest and sighing. Rimmer reached up to touch Lister's hips, not sure what to do with his hands; when nothing happened, he let them fall back to the foam pad that passed for his mattress. It did not take long for Lister to start snoring, breathing warm, beery breaths into Rimmer's throat as he straddled the hologram even in sleep. He somehow kept his grip on the lager, and kept it upright.
Rimmer sighed and looked at the ceiling of his bunk in the blue glow of himself. He was horny, now, but in a very confused and vague way; it was not enough to keep him awake. But the warm weight of Lister, and everything he did and might possibly represent, was indeed enough. Rimmer focused on breathing, wondering if he was going to remain there until Lister woke up; in typical Rimmer fashion, freezing under duress and leaving the decisions to someone else.
A tentative knock sounded at the door. Rimmer's head shot up.
"Mister Lister? Are you all right?"
Bugger. Kryten. Rimmer looked down at where Lister lay in a deep and apparently very contented sleep, his head on its side, drooling slightly on Rimmer's uniform, his thighs resting on the outside of Rimmer's. This was nothing the android needed to see, Rimmer decided. He shifted to soft-light with a gentle whumph, letting Lister fall through him with what looked like a rather uncomfortable thump. Rimmer looked anxiously at the hand holding the lager, but it kept the can in a firm grip; Lister was not about to waste lager, even in sleep. Rimmer then set to extricating his light bee from underneath Lister. The other man had sandwiched it neatly between himself and the foam pad, and Rimmer jerked and wiggled to try to work it free. Having a little metal sphere bouncing underneath him finally irritated Lister enough to make him grumble and shift in his sleep, allowing Rimmer to jerk free. Rimmer straightened his perfectly straight red uniform and walked to the door, where Kryten had started to knock a little more insistently. "Mister Lister!"
Rimmer switched to hard-light, touched the Door Open switch, and leaned out as it opened on a somewhat worried Kryten. "He's passed out on my bunk," Rimmer said in an exaggerated stage whisper. "I think we should leave him there to sleep it off." In answer to the question that was forming on Kryten's features, Rimmer stepped out, allowing the door to close, and jerked his thumb at the cockpit. "It's my turn on watch, anyway." Kryten nodded, satisfied, and headed down to the laundry deck.
Rimmer settled into his usual chair in the cockpit with a sigh of satisfaction. Even after all these months with the hard-light drive, he still relished the feel of a chair under his arse; a firm, solid /thing/, not the absence of sensation that he had to sit on as soft-light, trusting to his soft-light drive's boundary-sense algorithm to keep him seated. He ran a full set of utterly unnecessary systems checks, then looked carefully around the cockpit and the midsection. Satisfied that nobody was about, he pulled a ratty paperback from between the console and the wall, and settled back to read.
"I din' know you still had paper books left," Lister's voice said. Rimmer jumped slightly; he was three-quarters finished, and had lost all track of time.
"I've been picking them up on derelicts. I didn't want you to burn them," Rimmer groused. He put the book down. Lister stood in the cockpit entryway, his back to the metal doorframe, finishing up what looked disturbingly like the can of lager he had brought to bed last night.
"Oh, eh," he said, his eyes widening, "I don' burn 'em for fun, man! That was just to keep warm." He walked to his chair at the front of the cockpit, and sat in it backwards, looking at Rimmer. He patted his pocket. "I've still got page sixty-one, you know. If the rest of these book things are that twisted, I might get into 'em."
Rimmer twisted his mouth, considering. "I did find some romance novels. All about heaving bosoms and throbbing members and the like. You're welcome to them." He paused, considering. "The only time I would really describe my member as "throbbing" is when Porky kicked a rugby ball into my crotch when I was twelve."
Lister grinned. "I've had my share of heaving bosoms, though. 'Specially when I invited girls up to see my room. Kept 'em heaving for a while, usually."
Rimmer looked down at his hands. Lister took another sip of flat lager and stared at him. An uncomfortable silence fell over the cockpit.
Lister finally broke it with a cough. "Hey, man, I gotta ask." Rimmer looked up at him. "What do yeh want?"
"What do I want?" Rimmer asked, chewing the words. Lister nodded. Rimmer worked his mouth for a moment, indecisive. He had no idea. It was not his nature to know what he wanted. It was his nature to be told what he wanted, and then to fail to achieve it.
"I don't know," he said, finally.
Lister nodded and stood up. He walked over to Rimmer and straddled the hologram's thighs, seating himself on Rimmer's lap. He leaned in and kissed Rimmer solidly, lips on lips. "Well," he said, pulling back, "think about it some, would ya? Because..." he leaned in and kissed Rimmer again, this time opening his mouth and prodding Rimmer's lips open with his tongue, then running that stale-lager flavored muscle over the inside of Rimmer's cheeks. Rimmer found his hands creeping up to the small of Lister's back, and he opened his mouth wider, enjoying the sensation. All too soon, Lister leaned back, breaking the kiss. "...I do know what I want, man."
Lister pulled himself off of Rimmer's lap and wandered back into the midsection. Rimmer leaned his elbow on the console and his head on his hand, pondering. A Blue Alert sign flashed, and a klaxon began to wail. Rimmer sighed and shifted his elbow off of the Alert button, finding the abrupt return of relative silence a better atmosphere for pondering.
He was not very tired. He was irritatingly awake. He scrunched up his eyes in another futile attempt to fall asleep.
He wondered if alcohol worked on his hard-light body. But that experiment would involve joining the others to get at it, and he did not feel in a mood to face them at all. Especially if Lister took the opportunity to follow him back. He already swung at a point of indecision between fear that the man would forget their conversation and not come down, or would not forget it and would come down. He had reviewed the kiss Lister had given him over and over, and vacillated between excitement and horror. He hesitated to consider where else that tongue had been; it most assuredly had not been brushed in any reasonable manner between the time it had been - wherever it had been - and the time it had been in his mouth. It had felt reasonably magnificent when it had been in his mouth, and he cringed to think that something that had been - wherever it had been - could feel so magnificent when it was, eventually, in him.
No wonder he was having trouble sleeping.
But he desperately wanted to be asleep at the time Lister either did not come in, the thought of which disappointed him, or did come in, the thought of which made his simulated viscera do opposing somersaults of excitement and dread. What the man might do, whatever other things of his he might care to stick into other bits of Rimmer - well, the hologram was not quite sure if he could handle it. He squeezed his eyes shut even more tightly.
A brighter light filtered through his eyelids in concert with the sound of a door opening. Lister's braying laughter became audible as the door opened, followed by an enthusiastically drunk "Jist seein' how the smeghead's doin'..." Rimmer waited for the door to slide shut again before opening his eyes. In the dim glow of himself, he could just barely see Lister standing in the middle of the room, blinking and looking around as he tried to acclimate his eyes to the darkness. His tatty jacket was half-hanging off, and a can of lager threatened to spray its contents on Rimmer's walls as Lister swung from side to side, peering into the dark with an inebriated keenness.
"Whersa lights?" he asked, squinting. His eyes did not take long to acclimate, and he focused on Rimmer. "Heeeey, theresh one!" He marched over to the bunk with a heavy tread that, Rimmer was sure, must have been knocking Starbug off course. Lister did some complicated maneuver involving one leg and a duck that resulted in him landing in the cubicle, straddling Rimmer, with his beer unspilled. It was a maneuver that looked as natural as walking, and Rimmer had the distinct impression that Lister had spent more than his fair share of time straddling people in regulation bunks in the past. He cringed back at the breath that wafted over his face, and kept his hands folded neatly on his stomach.
"Hey, shexy," Lister said with a grin that was almost a leer. He leaned in close, putting his hand on Rimmer's chest. He pulled the hand back and looked at Rimmer's chest with confusion. "You shleep in your clothes?"
"Well, not usually," Rimmer started, preparing for a lengthy explanation. Lister was not interested. He leaned back, looking behind him, and found another area of commentary. "You shleep in your /boots/?" He laughed long and hard. Rimmer grimaced.
"Did you come down here to make fun of me?" he asked, somewhat irate. He had not been on edge for hours merely so that Lister could sit there and snicker at him.
"Nah, man," Lister said, leaning down and running his hand along Rimmer's neck, "I came down to have shex with you... but I think I'm a little too drunk." Rimmer felt something akin to a simulated heart leaping into his hologrammatic throat, but whatever it was, it had plenty of time to settle back into its accustomed position. Lister fell forward once he finished speaking, resting his head on Rimmer's chest and sighing. Rimmer reached up to touch Lister's hips, not sure what to do with his hands; when nothing happened, he let them fall back to the foam pad that passed for his mattress. It did not take long for Lister to start snoring, breathing warm, beery breaths into Rimmer's throat as he straddled the hologram even in sleep. He somehow kept his grip on the lager, and kept it upright.
Rimmer sighed and looked at the ceiling of his bunk in the blue glow of himself. He was horny, now, but in a very confused and vague way; it was not enough to keep him awake. But the warm weight of Lister, and everything he did and might possibly represent, was indeed enough. Rimmer focused on breathing, wondering if he was going to remain there until Lister woke up; in typical Rimmer fashion, freezing under duress and leaving the decisions to someone else.
A tentative knock sounded at the door. Rimmer's head shot up.
"Mister Lister? Are you all right?"
Bugger. Kryten. Rimmer looked down at where Lister lay in a deep and apparently very contented sleep, his head on its side, drooling slightly on Rimmer's uniform, his thighs resting on the outside of Rimmer's. This was nothing the android needed to see, Rimmer decided. He shifted to soft-light with a gentle whumph, letting Lister fall through him with what looked like a rather uncomfortable thump. Rimmer looked anxiously at the hand holding the lager, but it kept the can in a firm grip; Lister was not about to waste lager, even in sleep. Rimmer then set to extricating his light bee from underneath Lister. The other man had sandwiched it neatly between himself and the foam pad, and Rimmer jerked and wiggled to try to work it free. Having a little metal sphere bouncing underneath him finally irritated Lister enough to make him grumble and shift in his sleep, allowing Rimmer to jerk free. Rimmer straightened his perfectly straight red uniform and walked to the door, where Kryten had started to knock a little more insistently. "Mister Lister!"
Rimmer switched to hard-light, touched the Door Open switch, and leaned out as it opened on a somewhat worried Kryten. "He's passed out on my bunk," Rimmer said in an exaggerated stage whisper. "I think we should leave him there to sleep it off." In answer to the question that was forming on Kryten's features, Rimmer stepped out, allowing the door to close, and jerked his thumb at the cockpit. "It's my turn on watch, anyway." Kryten nodded, satisfied, and headed down to the laundry deck.
Rimmer settled into his usual chair in the cockpit with a sigh of satisfaction. Even after all these months with the hard-light drive, he still relished the feel of a chair under his arse; a firm, solid /thing/, not the absence of sensation that he had to sit on as soft-light, trusting to his soft-light drive's boundary-sense algorithm to keep him seated. He ran a full set of utterly unnecessary systems checks, then looked carefully around the cockpit and the midsection. Satisfied that nobody was about, he pulled a ratty paperback from between the console and the wall, and settled back to read.
"I din' know you still had paper books left," Lister's voice said. Rimmer jumped slightly; he was three-quarters finished, and had lost all track of time.
"I've been picking them up on derelicts. I didn't want you to burn them," Rimmer groused. He put the book down. Lister stood in the cockpit entryway, his back to the metal doorframe, finishing up what looked disturbingly like the can of lager he had brought to bed last night.
"Oh, eh," he said, his eyes widening, "I don' burn 'em for fun, man! That was just to keep warm." He walked to his chair at the front of the cockpit, and sat in it backwards, looking at Rimmer. He patted his pocket. "I've still got page sixty-one, you know. If the rest of these book things are that twisted, I might get into 'em."
Rimmer twisted his mouth, considering. "I did find some romance novels. All about heaving bosoms and throbbing members and the like. You're welcome to them." He paused, considering. "The only time I would really describe my member as "throbbing" is when Porky kicked a rugby ball into my crotch when I was twelve."
Lister grinned. "I've had my share of heaving bosoms, though. 'Specially when I invited girls up to see my room. Kept 'em heaving for a while, usually."
Rimmer looked down at his hands. Lister took another sip of flat lager and stared at him. An uncomfortable silence fell over the cockpit.
Lister finally broke it with a cough. "Hey, man, I gotta ask." Rimmer looked up at him. "What do yeh want?"
"What do I want?" Rimmer asked, chewing the words. Lister nodded. Rimmer worked his mouth for a moment, indecisive. He had no idea. It was not his nature to know what he wanted. It was his nature to be told what he wanted, and then to fail to achieve it.
"I don't know," he said, finally.
Lister nodded and stood up. He walked over to Rimmer and straddled the hologram's thighs, seating himself on Rimmer's lap. He leaned in and kissed Rimmer solidly, lips on lips. "Well," he said, pulling back, "think about it some, would ya? Because..." he leaned in and kissed Rimmer again, this time opening his mouth and prodding Rimmer's lips open with his tongue, then running that stale-lager flavored muscle over the inside of Rimmer's cheeks. Rimmer found his hands creeping up to the small of Lister's back, and he opened his mouth wider, enjoying the sensation. All too soon, Lister leaned back, breaking the kiss. "...I do know what I want, man."
Lister pulled himself off of Rimmer's lap and wandered back into the midsection. Rimmer leaned his elbow on the console and his head on his hand, pondering. A Blue Alert sign flashed, and a klaxon began to wail. Rimmer sighed and shifted his elbow off of the Alert button, finding the abrupt return of relative silence a better atmosphere for pondering.
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