FicWad

"D'ya know something?" Lister asked, dipping his poppadum in the lurid minty green sauce and taking a bite.

"Yes, actually, I do," Rimmer replied airily, not looking up from his book.

Lister plunged ahead. "We'll run out of curry again in three months. Kryten should never have smashed the time drive." He waggled his poppadum at Rimmer. "What'll we do when we run out, eh?"

"Celebrate?" Rimmer suggested, closing the heavily worn and dog-eared book on astronavigation he had found in the cargo hold while doing as little as he could get away with towards cleaning it up. The previous owner had left a substantial number of practical notes in the margin, and whether it was because of those or because it now did not matter one bit towards his career prospects whether he learned it or not, he was finally beginning to understand basic physics and how they applied to interstellar travel. "Lister, smashing that time-drive may be the only halfway sensible thing that erector set on steroids has ever done."

Lister sighed and contemplated the hot pocket of spicy vegetable mush in his hand. "I know, paradoxes and breakin' our destiny line and all. Still - three months! Then back to that horrible veg crap Kryten calls food!"

"You could try... oh, I don't know... rationing the Indian food?"

Lister looked at Rimmer over the midsection table, and for a moment, a look of acute pain passed over his features. It quickly turned to hope. "Maybe we'll find more supplies on a derelict somewhere."

Rimmer folded his arms. "What we should do is go back into deep sleep. We lost our chance to head Red Dwarf off. We're just aging pointlessly and losing time on supply runs."

Lister shook his head. "Lose another two hundred years! Nah, man!"

One of Rimmer's eyebrows lifted. "Two hundred years on top of three million? Pocket change. Would you rather have lived out your life and died on Starbug instead of sleeping through it?" He took a sip of his tea. He rarely ate - eating again had lost its appeal with startling rapidity - but he never missed tea. Something comfortable and civilized would always be attached to tea.

Lister chewed thoughtfully on another bite of poppadum. "Maybe, " he said, a few little bits of filling flying over to land on Rimmer's blue uniform. Rimmer pointedly picked each bit off and flicked it back across the table to Lister as the other man continued. "I mean, yeah, I miss Holly and all, but wouldn' we be missin' a lot if we had slept through the last few months? I mean, you wouldn't have yer hard-light drive, for one. Mebbe we'll find some super-duper drive thing that'll let us catch the Dwarf that we'd miss if we was asleep."

"Super... duper... drive... thing." Rimmer enunciated the words with care as he made a note on the inner back cover of his book. Lister stuck his tongue out.

"You know wha I mean, man."

"Or maybe I'll strangle you with your own nostril hair the next time I catch you pulling them out with kitchen implements."

"Well, that's better'n tryin' to stick a fridge in me. You know," Lister added with a giggle, "there are some other things I'd rather have ya stick in me..."

Rimmer did not have to breathe, so Lister did not understand how it was possible for him to choke on a mouthful of tea that was on its way down. He rose halfway out of his seat to look at where Rimmer sat coughing on the ground. "Eh - you all right there?" Rimmer, still unable to speak, demonstrated with two fingers that he indeed was not. Lister took this as a sign that all was well, and sat back to enjoy the rest of his meal.

Kryten walked out of the cockpit. "Changeover." He looked down at where Rimmer sat on the ground, the tea almost expelled from all incorrect passages. "Is Mister Rimmer all right?"

Lister glanced over and shook his head. "Nope." Satisfied that all was normal, Kryten headed down to the laundry room.

Rimmer gave one last hack and pulled himself to his feet with the help of the table. He mentioned a few choice places where Kryten could stick his head, and walked into the cockpit. Lister put his boots up on the table and pulled his plate onto his lap. He closed his eyes and ate the kebab with his fingers, slowly and deliberately, savoring the rich fire.

He did not get up from the table until he was done. He walked into the cockpit, licking the last of the grease off of his fingers. He had intended to merely wish Rimmer goodnight, but the hologram had been doing something at the console that caused his head to be bent down, and the bit of pale skin that showed between his dark blue collar and the bottom of his teeth-grittingly neat haircut was irresistible to Lister. He licked it from left to right on one broad swipe, and felt Rimmer shiver as he finished.

"Eh, man," he muttered in Rimmer's ear. "C'mon down when yer done." He started to walk out, but turned back at the door, catching Rimmer glancing up at his retreating back. The hologram looked back at the console quickly. "If yeh want to," Lister finished with a grin.


Back in his room, Lister tried to pull his knitting off of the table. This proved to be a more difficult task than normal, as Cat was asleep on the table. He hissed and lashed out at Lister in his sleep as Lister tried to tug the scarf-in-making (or was it a tea cozy? bath mat?) out from under Cat. "Hands off of the spats, you bitch!" he hissed, eyes shut, swiping blindly with his sharp nails. Lister finally gave it up as a bad job, prodding at a scratch on his cheek. He pulled off his boots and overalls and hopped into bed, calling the lights out.

He awoke to a dark room. A dull kathunk-kathunk noise sounded like a noise that would have woken him up. He could make out a pale blue glow. "Lights - dim," he mumbled, and they obligingly lit to about half of their normal sickly dullness. Cat was no longer on the table, and Rimmer's boots made one last kathunk-kathunk before stopping, as Rimmer did.

Lister hiked himself up on one elbow, arranging himself into a position that most of the girls he had dated had assured him looked suggestive - although judging by his expression, Rimmer would probably just assume that Lister was releasing a silent-but-deadly. Lister sighed. There had been all too many late nights - or early mornings - like this; Rimmer would come to his room when Cat was away, or he would go to Rimmer's, and they would talk for minutes or hours, gently sniping, saying nothing of importance; what they were not doing would hang over their heads, eventually driving the visitor back to his own room. Sometimes they would kiss, sometimes deeply; those times, Lister had to wank to get back to sleep, and he desperately hoped that Rimmer did, as well.

"Hey, man," he said with a sleepy grin. "Anythin' excitin' happen?"

Rimmer did not answer, but sat on the edge of the bunk, his back to Lister. "AR and" he cleared his throat "yourself aside, you haven't had sex in what - three million years, two hundred asleep, three or so since?"

Lister's grin fell. This was a very different opening, and he was not sure what to make of it. "Well, plus a few weeks before stasis, ya know."

Rimmer muttered 'weeks,' and shook his head. Lister contemplated the over-the-shoulder three-quarters view he had of Rimmer's face as the other man continued. "So it's been a while."

Lister's elbow was beginning to ache; he turned to lie on his back. "Whot are you gettin' at?"

Rimmer turned to face Lister, not quite meeting the other man's eyes. "Have we finally reached the point at which two blokes lost in space are so horny that they'll do anything? And anyone?"

A convenient answer lay at hand for that one. "Would yeh sleep with Cat?"

"I'd rather remove my testicles with a butter knife."

"Well, there ya are, then."

Rimmer looked around the dimly lit room. He turned back to Lister, and looked the other man up and down. Lister started to feel very uncomfortable. "What?" he asked, raising himself up onto his elbows.

Rimmer resumed looking over the room. "You've neatened yourself up a bit, haven't you?"

Lister looked around, and had to agree. His room was cluttered, but it had not been a proper sty for months. He had thrown out his moldy cultures, and sent his laundry down on a weekly basis. His long johns were actually white, these days, rather than a modern-art kaleidoscope of spice stains. He was not sure why. It had just felt - ludicrous, lately, to live the way he had been. "Yeah, I just got tired of living like smeg, I guess."

Rimmer cleared his throat. "And what do you want me to do?"

Lister lay back down again, startled. He had not considered that his neatness might be construed as... wooing. He snorted. Wooing /Rimmer/? He looked back up at the hologram, who was staring at him with one eyebrow raised - his snarky attitude not concealing the nervousness that the stiffness of his shoulders and the tongue that kept darting out to lick his lips insisted on betraying. Well - perhaps. Maybe. But more likely just a convenient coincidence. Yes. As for Rimmer... "Want you to do?" Lister shrugged, wiggling against the mattress. "Do what you want, I guess." He looked at the ceiling and thought. "You aren't such a coward as you used ta be. You're still a right bastard, but you've sorted yerself out. That's enough for me."

"Are you sure?" The heartfelt uncertainty in Rimmer's voice was a rarity, a part of the other man that Lister could only recall overhearing as Rimmer was menaced by his internal demon on the psi-moon, and heard directly only in the jail on Rimmerworld.

"Yeah, man," he replied, feeling, somehow, responsible for this baring; as if he had been entrusted with something that was beyond his ability to adequately care for.

This seemed to reassure Rimmer, however, and the hologram turned and started to kiss Lister, tentatively. Lister smiled; this, at least, he understood. He pulled Rimmer closer and opened his mouth, kissing him more deeply.

It was awkward, as all first times are; the awkwardness slightly compounded by neither man being quite sure about the mechanics of the act between two men. Some bumping of limbs and accidental movements to simultaneously occupy the same part of the bunk were inevitable, as were the mood-breaking apologies, shushed with kisses as quickly as possible. They eventually settled into a reasonably satisfying nude variation on frottage, Lister rubbing against Rimmer's stomach, Rimmer slipping his erection between Lister's legs. Rimmer came first, but was almost immediately erect again; Lister had to wonder if this was inherent to Rimmer, or some side effect of the hard-light drive. These thoughts were appropriately driven out by his own orgasm, and smeg, on a very visceral level, it was so bloody satisfying to climax with his hands on someone else's body, kissing and being fondled himself. He sighed and rubbed Rimmer's back as the other man finished what Lister counted as his third round in what he estimated to be about fifteen minutes. He filed that datum for future reference.

A little more awkwardness ensued as they tried to find a comfortable position for sleeping. They finally ended up with Lister on Rimmer's arm, his head on the hologram's shoulder, his arm flung across Rimmer's stomach. This allowed Lister to kiss and lick the hologram's chest for a few minutes more, marveling at how it tasted and smelled just like a freshly sweaty human chest. He could feel no heartbeat, though; just a low, almost-inaudible hum that he found almost compellingly lulling. He let himself be lulled, closing his eyes and relaxing. "Schleepwell... Arn..." he mumbled. Rimmer's voice rumbled through his ear as the hologram called the lights off, and the grip on his shoulders tightened for a moment, then relaxed, as he drifted into sleep.


Cat danced out of the cockpit, vaguely startled that he had not seen dormouse cheeks stuffing his face or goalpost head being a prat in the midsection. It was rare not to see one or both of those sights when he left his shift. But these thoughts were squashed by the realization that he had not done his hair in half an hour, and he hurried to Lister's room, where he had left his favorite comb. He stopped outside of the door, sniffing, and a look of utter disgust crossed his features. He would make do with his second-best comb, he decided as he hurried away from the smell of sex that wafted out from under the door like a Do Not Enter sign. He wrinkled his nose. Monkeys were /strange/.