Somewhere in an abandoned Cat city, on a planetoid the universe had sensibly forgotten about, two men stood, very still, in a very small house that was called a Room. The words "IT SAYS WE HAVE TO SMEGGING SHAG!" echoed across the room and through their skulls.

Lister staggered back with the effort of shouting, almost stepping on his hat.

Rimmer hiccupped, took a few steps back, and coughed. “What?” he asked, in a squeak.

Lister put his hat back on, holding it tight to his head with both hands. In a tiny voice, he said, “Oh god, don't make me say it again....”

"And we,” Rimmer’s voice squeaked again, “shag, and the door doesn't open?"

Lister replied in that same tiny voice “I don't know...”

Rimmer gulped and looked down. “I’ve done more in one day than I did in a lifetime, Lister." For smeg’s sake. How much soul-baring does a dead man have to do to get out of one simple bloody room?

Lister gritted his teeth. “I'm sorry.”

This was not the worst of it, though, and Rimmer did not know how to express the worst of it. Willingness was only part of the equation. How on earth was he supposed to tell Lister… "I mean, does it say…” He started again. “Lister, just what..." He stuttered to a halt again, waving his hands incoherently. He abruptly stammered to a halt, and sat heavily with his back against the wall. “Smeg.” He just could not say it. No chance.

Lister’s expression slowly changed as he watched this performance. A smile danced in his eyes, and at the corners of his mouth. “It doesn't say anything specific. Just ‘meeoaarrrouuaaaurgh.’” The word made his throat hurt. “Er, sex.”

"Sex."

“Sex.”

"I, er..." Rimmer waved his hands again. “Lister, I...” He circled one hand, then waved it back and forth between them. “I don’t know…” he choked and stopped.

Lister looked at Rimmer’s hands, trying to figure out what on Earth he meant. He walked over, knelt down, and looked into Rimmer’s face as the hologram licked his lips. “Hey, listen,” he said. “You don't have to do anything, right?”

"Yes! I can just rot in here for the rest of eternity!" Rimmer could feel that he was getting hysterical.

“We'll get out of here! We'll find a way, yeah?”

"I can make go boards out of rotted wood chunks! I can learn to juggle!"

“Yer getting hysterical.”

"YOU THINK SO??" Rimmer shouted. He hugged his knees and took a deep breath. He mumbled something into them.

“OK... OK... We'll find a way out of this. Gotta be another way out of this. Look, I'm sure the Cat and Kryten are out there trying to help right now!” He tried to catch Rimmer’s eye through the other man’s knees.

Rimmer poked his head up. "I'm sure they're reading the 'Screw to exit' sign on the outside and laughing hysterically."

“It's not on the outside; it just says "Room" there. That's what they call this place,” Lister said, hoping he hadn’t misunderstood that part too.


Kryten looked down at the sleeping form of Cat, curled up cozily inside the impossibly narrow space that was clearly supposed to be a bedroom. “Wake up,” he yelled again, expecting, and getting, no reaction. Oh, it was no use. His olfactory senses weren’t what they used to be since Lister had repaired him after the psi-moon accident, and he found it hard to navigate around the confusing city. He kept confusing grape and cheese, and no matter how hard he tried he just couldn’t get the hang of pine. He needed the feline’s nose. Apparently there was nothing for it but to wait until he woke up. Outside, across the slinking road, a sign wafted “Room” softly out into the cold night air.


"It's probably common knowledge among the Cats,” Rimmer groused. “'Room, eh?' Titter..."

“He might not know,” Lister offered, sounding unconvinced himself.

"And GELFs might fly."

“Some might. You know those chicken-beetroots we saw that time?”

"They must have weighed 30 stone. Their wings were as useful as tits on a bull."

“Wasn't for lack of trying though!” Mental images he’d tried very hard to forget rose in Lister’s mind.

"The GELFs or the bulls?"

Lister shook his head. “We gotta keep our hopes up, is what I'm saying.” Visions of bulls with tits swam in his mind, and he found his eyes drawn to the front of Rimmer’s uniform. He remembered the psi-moon again.

Rimmer shivered, although it was almost too warm in the room. "If you want to find mine, start digging."

“What, yer tits?” Lister asked, staring at Rimmer's chest.

"My hopes, you goit!" Rimmer’s ears turned red.

“Oh, right.” Lister cast about for something, anything un-maudlin to talk about. ”Cats have six nipples, did you know?”

"Yes, and I had been trying to forget ever since I learned."

“I mean, they'd probably only get confused if they saw us naked.”

Rimmer shuddered at the mental images that swam unbidden into his mind, of being strapped naked to an exam table and having Cat examine him with a clipboard and a cold measuring tape. "Cat would get confused if he saw a girl-Cat naked. He probably thinks they're just like him, only not as pretty."

Lister sniggered. “He would, at that.” Rimmer shifted uncomfortably, feeling Lister’s scrutiny. “You looked good in purple, you know,” Lister continued.

Rimmer could not keep track of the conversational leaps. "What?"

“Well, you did.”

"That's nice." Rimmer remained utterly lost.

“Sorry...” Lister sighed. “I don't know what I'm saying. I get like this when I'm nervous.” He looked around. “Not that I'm nervous about us not getting out.” He’d done it again. Captain Foot-in-Mouth to the rescue!

Rimmer hugged his knees closer. His mind was cycling through two equally horrifying possibilities. Being locked into a small room for centuries until it fell apart through natural erosion, or getting naked in front of and demonstrating his complete ignorance of all but the most basic of sex to… Lister. Rimmer abruptly leapt to his feet and ran at the door full-tilt. Lister rocked back and turned to look in horror. “RIMMER!” he shouted, as Rimmer hit the door shoulder-first at speed and bounced back with a noise like bazookoid shot. The hologram staggered and fell back onto his rear. Lister rushed over to him. “You smegging idiot!”

"Ow," Rimmer whined, plaintively.

Lister glanced at the door. “You didn't even dent it.”

"I did too dent it!" Rimmer replied, prodding his shoulder tenderly. “Maybe broke it.”

“Don't go doing stuff like that!” Lister shouted, looking at where Rimmer sat, nursing his hurt shoulder; he felt like hell. He started to hit his arm with his own fist, as realization struck. “This is my doing! God, I’m such a goit!”

"Just wanted a snog," Rimmer muttered. "You could have asked."

“And now you've gone and...” Lister paused. “What?”

"Nothing." Rimmer prodded his shoulder again with a quiet “Ouch.” But his last statement had Lister’s full attention.

“I could have asked?” Yeah, that would have gone down well, he thought. ‘Oi, excuse me, Rimmer, but I’ve been secretly lusting after ya for the last few years; d’you mind if I put me tongue down yer throat?’ Still… There had been something in the way the hologram had said it…

Rimmer looked back at the door. "We need to get the bloody door open, Lister." He decided that the door could be the bane of his existence. It could bear the responsibility for everything that had happened since they had become trapped in this room. He got to his feet, still gently kneading his sore shoulder, looking death at the door. He swallowed. "Lister," he growled.

“Yeah,” Lister replied, quietly, looking at Rimmer with a depth in his eyes that Rimmer just could not take. "Figure out a way to get that door open!” he snapped, desperately. "That's an order!"

“I'm trying, man.” Lister smiled, softly, and, as an afterthought made an attempt at procedure with his salute. “Sir, yes sir!” He figured if Rimmer had ever earned a break and half an ounce of respect, it was now. He busied himself trying to look busy.

Rimmer deflated slightly. Where was the Lister who argued with everything he said? He was hoping to engender more conflict. He could deal with conflict. It was safe, familiar. He walked around the perimeter of the room, prodding at the joins in the corners and at the floor. “Solid,” he groused. "The one thing in all of Cat history that was erected with some care, and we're in it."

Lister kicked randomly at the wall nearest him. “Figures it would be this, yeah?” Kicking at things felt slightly more productive than just looking at them. He kicked at the floor. It didn’t give, and his foot started to throb.

Rimmer watched this with annoyance. "I have an idea,” he said with false excitement. “Let's whack body parts against the inside until we're both one large bruise."

Lister made a noise that was half groan, half giggle. “Yeah, that's a grand idea, that is. But I’d rather...” He remembered Rimmer's earlier reaction to the mention of sex, and shut up abruptly.

Rimmer looked back at him. "What?" He walked over to where Lister was standing. "Rather what?"

“Er... I don't want to... You weren't so hot about the idea earlier!”

"You think we should shag,” Rimmer said, in an emotionless voice. "And see if the door opens." He swallowed and looked at Lister's feet.

“I...” Lister felt lost. “I don't want you to hurt yourself. And yeah, I wouldn't mind... That.”

Rimmer tried to force through what he had not been able to get out before, like drain cleaner attempting to plow through a stubborn clog. His ears were burning. "I..." He swallowed, and looked at Lister, who was playing with his dreds. "I don't know..." His voice was starting to come out as a squeak. He shoved it all out, in one splat of a sentence, in a barely audible squeak. "Idon'tknowhow."

“You don't know what?” Lister asked, genuinely bemused. What Rimmer was trying to tell him was so far outside the realm of what he would consider possible that his mind wouldn’t translate it. “You don't know how to what?”

Rimmer regretted having said it at all. Maybe rotting for a few centuries was a better alternative. He abruptly swung around and started to wrench at the door again. "Blasted thing."

Lister put his hand on Rimmer’s arm, feather-light. “Hey, I was worried you were gonna throw yerself at it again. Don't go doing that.”

Rimmer pounded on the door, then put his face close to the join and bellowed, "You plaster-cast gimp! You fatuous feline!"

“Rimmer... Arn...” Lister said, anxiously. He’d never seen Rimmer this despairing before.

"Get us the smeg out of here!"

Lister moved behind Rimmer, grabbed his arms, and held tight. “Rimmer... It’s OK. It will be OK.”

Rimmer struggled, pulling his arms out of Lister’s grasp. "What is the definition of 'OK,' in the Lister Unabridged?"

“I'm not letting us rot in here, not now, right?” He held his hands just outside Rimmer’s arms, as though he were trying to find a way to touch them without actually touching them.

"Well, it will take a while to rot, true."

“Just trust me; we will fix this. We'll get through this.” He tried to turn Rimmer around to face him.

Rimmer resisted for a minute, trying to glare a hole in the door. He finally gave in and turned, grudgingly, to face Lister.

“Look at me, eh?” Lister said, quietly, but forcefully, his hands on Rimmer’s arms. “Look into my eyes. Focus.”

Rimmer was looking down. He flicked his eyes up.

“Remember how I said I cared about ya?” Rimmer mumbled something that sounded vaguely affirmative. “Yer not stupid, that I know. Look into my eyes, and see that I'm not lying.”

"You're a good liar," Rimmer said, lamely. "You've done it before." He pulled away and leaned back against the door. "I learned a little something about trusting you on the psi-moon."

There was that moon again. “Too right,” Lister nodded. ”I'm not proud of that moment; it's stuck with me since then.” Nightmares. Rimmer’s face looking to him, trusting him, actually smiling; then falling into the newly dug grave marked “Hope.”

Rimmer’s upper lip twisted, and his lower protruded in disdain.

“I was too annoyed with ya to feel anything else, at the time,” Lister continued. “But I did care, and I felt like shit when it was over. And the look on your face when you realized…” Open graves, confused, hurt yells of pain. “Yeah, you've every right not to trust me now. But I want to tell you this all the same.” Lister let go and looked away. Rimmer licked his lips, and was startled to find that they still tasted faintly of cigarettes and cheap beer.

Lister looked back at Rimmer. “But when I kissed you just then... I wasn't lying then either. And that wasn't words doin' the talkin'.”

Rimmer looked away. He put both hands on the door, pushing himself off of it so that he was standing straight. He needed to step back onto familiar ground. "My..." he swallowed. "My shoulder hurts."

“Can I see?” Lister asked, concerned.

Rimmer looked awkwardly down at his shoulder, well-covered with his shirt and jacket. "I haven't tried to take this off since I got the hard-light drive." He hadn’t wanted to. His uniform was his shield.

“You haven't?” Lister asked with considerable surprise.

"Well, it's all so new," Rimmer replied. “I don’t know how everything works. I’m still learning how to control it.” He didn’t want to take off his jacket or boots or, god help him, anything more, and then discover that he couldn’t get any of it back again. It chafed to sleep fully clothed, but he had not had the courage to experiment with doing it any other way.

Lister, having only been a hologram for what amounted to a fraction of the time that Rimmer had, realized that he had no idea what it's really like to be full time living dead person. Still, how could Rimmer not know? As a man driven almost entirely by curiosity and impulse, Lister just couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea that someone could have a new body – entirely new, mind – for days without stripping naked at least once and poking all the bits to see how they worked. Hang on… his mind reeled at the implications of this. Rimmer hadn’t seen himself naked?

Rimmer looked at Lister’s distracted stare, wondering where the goit’s thoughts were going. He touched on possible areas of mockery concerning his body, and decided that was not a good line of speculation. He retreated to the safe topic of his sore shoulder, and started to fumble with the clasps on his jacket. Lister considered briefly whether it would be a good idea or not to help the hologram out. He reached out, tentatively; Rimmer did not stop him. He touched a clasp, and frowned. “How does this thing come off, anyway?”

"How should I know?" asked Rimmer.

“It's worse than a Marks and Spencer discount bra!” Lister groused.

Rimmer yanked at the top clasp more firmly. It popped open. Lister grinned. Yanking was his territory; he easily popped open the rest of the clasps, with almost childish glee. Rimmer shrugged out of the jacket, held it out, and tried to set it on the ground; it fizzled to nothingness in a pretty little display of bluish-white light. He shivered at the thought that it might be gone for good. “Well, that answers that.”

“There you are then!” Lister grinned.

Rimmer awkwardly pulled at the neck of the shirt he wore underneath the jacket, trying to expose his shoulder without removing the shirt. Lister frowned, wondering if Rimmer was actually being serious. “I don't think that's going to work, really.” He unthinkingly pulled at Rimmer’s shirt, and it came un-tucked. Rimmer glanced down, uncertainly. Lister raised his eyebrows, and Rimmer made his decision, taking his shirt by the hem and pulling it off. They both watched it dissolve in a little light show.

Lister gawked at Rimmer’s bare torso. Rimmer, however, bit his lip and started to wring his hands in each other. “Er – I don't know how to bring them back." Why would you want to, Lister couldn’t help but think, giving his libido another thwack with the stick. Rimmer sighed and put his kit below ‘trapped in a dark room’ and ‘painful shoulder’ on his list of things to worry about. He looked at his shoulder, where a good-sized purplish bruise was spreading, and winced. “Legion was a lying bastard.”

“You can borrow my jacket,” Lister offered. Then he noticed the bruise. “Ouch! That's a hefty one.”

"Not much to do about it. Maybe one of these is the bruise-remover." He waved at the console on his belt. It probably also controlled his clothes. He was going to have to experiment with it some time, but quailed at the thought of what else it might do.

“It'll heal though... Right?” Worry seeped into Lister’s voice. “Kryten couldn't knock you out, could he?”

Rimmer grimaced. "He tried."

“It might turn ya purple,” Lister giggled, waving at the keypad.

"I already am. There, at least."

“Good point. It should be broken, by all rights though.” Lister gave the bruise a critical look. “The fact that it isn't; well, that should mean this'll heal quick, yeah? Does it hurt to touch?”

"I don't know..." Rimmer prodded it. "Sort of."

I’m only doing this to see how bad it is, Lister told himself, as he absent-mindedly traced a path to Rimmer’s shoulder with his hand. The fact that he was caressing Rimmer’s arm on the way up there was just coincidental.

Rimmer shivered. He was not used to being touched - not when alive, and certainly being a hologram got him out of the habit. The mere fact that he was being touched on a part of the body he usually covered thickly with clothes felt ludicrously provocative.

Lister’s hand reached Rimmer’s shoulder, and his touch became clinical. “Does that hurt, then?”

Every brain cell of Rimmer’s was on blue alert, watching and, dear god, feeling Lister’s hand moving up his bare simulated flesh. No brain cells remained free to translate Lister’s comment. "What?" Rimmer stared at Lister’s hand, blinking.

“I'm not hurting you, am I?” Lister asked, earnestly.

"You... what? Er.. no?"

Lister touched Rimmer’s purple shoulder experimentally. “I think you'll be fine.” He felt Rimmer’s tremors. “Er. Are you cold?” He started to shrug out of his leather jacket.

"No." Rimmer was not shaking from the cold. He hugged himself. “I’m just not used to…” he looked down at his shirtlessness. Nudity – not something a soft-light hologram usually has to worry about.

Lister looked at Rimmer’s shirtlessness, too; appreciation and something that looked suspiciously like lust shone in his eyes. “Not that I'd want to cover that up, but...” He proffered his jacket.

There were no theme parks on Io – no room for such frivolity on an outpost moon – so Rimmer had only been to one, on Mimas, as an adult. He had bought a ticket to a rollercoaster, and the whole time that it had slowly ratcheted upwards, he had an ice-cold feeling in the pit of his stomach, not sure if he would be able to take it. An oddly similar cold feeling was growing in him at this moment.

He looked at the thing in Lister’s outstretched hand. Calling it a jacket would not so much be inaccurate, as an insult to jacket-kind. Most of it seemed to be connected to the other bits with string or staples, and there was only one arm. Nevertheless, Rimmer took it. Lister seemed pleased. Rimmer held it at arms’ length, as if it was an alien artifact and he had been asked to determine its purpose.

“Ye can either put it on or not.” Lister shrugged, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

Put it on. What a concept. Rimmer slung it uneasily over his shoulders, and sniffed at it, not sure if he was more worried about the smells he could identify or the ones he could not. He did feel safer once he had… whatever it was on.

“How's that?” Lister asked. Hey now. There’s a sight. The smeghead don’t look half-bad in your jacket, does he, part of Lister said. The other part of him waved a stick, menacingly.

"Er..." Rimmer struggled for an adjective. "Jackety." He hugged himself under the garment.

“You sure yer not cold?” Lister had the insistent feeling that he was missing something, but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what.

"No."

Lister considered asking for clarification, but seeing the desperate look in Rimmer's eyes, he merely sighed and tried to think of something relaxing. Rimmer, true to form, came up with exactly the opposite.

"I wonder if they've left. It must have been an hour ago that we ducked in here."

“Maybe,” Lister shrugged. In a heroic struggle, his libido yanked the stick away from the sensible part of him (which was, admittedly, the weaker half), beat it senseless, and made Lister put his hand firmly on Rimmer’s hip. He watched the hologram carefully, ready to remove it.

Rimmer shivered, very slightly, but did not pull away. He was afraid his spine had turned to jelly, and would collapse if he moved.

Lister put his other hand on Rimmer’s other hip, feeling like a scientist conducting an experiment with highly sensitive radioactive materials.

Rimmer was still hugging himself under Lister's jacket, uncomfortable with how the other man was staring at his naked torso, as if it were a specimen in a jar. The rollercoaster had finished its slow ratchet to the top, and he was now staring at a very long drop.

“Hey,” Lister said, looking up at Rimmer, feeling he should say something. “I'm a nice guy, really. I aim to prove that to ya.”

"What?" Rimmer asked, barely audible.

“I get that you maybe can't trust me all the way... But can ya trust my body?”

"What?" Rimmer repeated, completely lost. Lister moved his hands slowly around Rimmer's back so that they connected behind the hologram. Rimmer had no idea of how the physical logistics of this were going to play out. He shivered again, pulling Lister’s so-called jacket more tightly around him as the other man drew himself closer.

“What I mean is... Sometimes it's easier to understand one another when there are no words. So with that, I'm going to shut up now. “ He took a deep breath.

Rimmer grasped lamely at the last vestiges of his bravado. "Best idea yet, Listy.” His voice was a hoarse croak. Lister only grinned, so broadly that his teeth parted. Rimmer could swear he saw the tip of his tongue. He was hypnotized by the proximity of those lips. As Lister leaned in for a kiss, Rimmer gamely pursed his lips again, leaning forward and closing his eyes. Lister kept his eyes wide open, and did not move slowly. Sense was not in the driver’s seat anymore, and his libido had been doing the equivalent of drinking heavily all day. His tongue worked into Rimmer’s mouth, forcing the other man to relax his lips. Lister let his tongue slide over Rimmer's teeth and into his mouth, feeling around as though he were trying to coax the real Arn out.

Rimmer was now in the fast plunge of the rollercoaster, not knowing where this was going, not knowing if he was capable of riding it out to the end. He let go of himself and grabbed Lister under the arms like a lifeline. The jacket-thing fell to the ground. The air between his torso and Dave felt very cold, suddenly.

Lister wished he was wearing anything but those stupid smegging overalls; god knows when he's washed them last! He didn’t normally care about these things, but then again, he didn’t normally snog Arnold Judas Rimmer, either! This felt so good, though... Better than... Better than anything. Maybe it's that he had not been this close to sex since forever, but he was more turned on than he had been in his life. Lister tore at his own clothes, zippers breaking, buttons flying, but he did not care.

Rimmer’s mouth was filled with the cigarette-and-curry taste that he had, that day, come to assimilate as Lister. His nostrils were saturated with the mustiness of the place they were trapped in, and he was desperate to replace that with something, anything else. He pulled his head back and pushed it into the join of Lister's neck, sucking and licking, desperately breathing in old ship's air and grease and bitter beer - all of the things, he realized, that had started to represent home, god help him. He searched his memory desperately for comparisons, some guide to how to handle this. McGruder had been almost embarrassing in its rapidity, and the details were not recalled easily. Nirvanah had been divine, almost effortless; and compared to that, this was so earthy, so ship-bound - so tangible.

Yelping both at the sudden loss of tongue against tongue, and the new sensations on his neck, Lister forgot undressing, and embraced Rimmer again. The hologram felt so impossibly real; so human.

Rimmer slid his hands under the overalls, trying to find skin, wanting more of this newfound tactile sensation. Lister pushed his mouth over Rimmer's ear, and moaned, quietly, "Arn". This undid Rimmer. He pulled back and kissed Lister fiercely, twisting the frustrating cloth in his fists. Most of Lister's overalls were on the floor, his long johns more tattered than they were at the outset – implausible as that may seem to anyone who had seen them at the outset. Rimmer tried to open his mouth impossibly wide, to swallow Lister whole.

By twisting and moving, Lister guided Rimmer's fumbling hands to an opening into bare skin. Rimmer grasped at Lister’s bare skin like a drowning man thrown a rope. He ran his hand up Lister's bare back. Lister had never imagined that Rimmer could be so... intense. It drove him wild.

The hard-light drive was capable of simulating a very realistically painful erection, Rimmer discovered. And he choked, for a moment, realizing again that he had not the faintest idea what to do with it. He shivered and froze.

Breaking from the kiss oh-so-reluctantly, Lister stepped out of the remains of his overalls, and managed to take the top of his long johns off. Rimmer gasped, feeling naked without Lister pressed to his front. He wrapped his arms around himself again, biting his lower lip as his shivers turned to wracking shudders.

Lister stood there for a moment, panting. His boots were still on. Somehow, they felt like the final lifeline to sanity. He felt on fire, all of him, from his fingertips down into those safe, sturdy boots, but he could not bring himself to move. He watched Rimmer stare back at him with his own arms wrapped around himself, as if he would shatter if he let go, and his mind was a complete blank.

Rimmer looked at Lister as the other man stood almost naked, and was startled at the smoothness of his chest, almost hairless. His brain grasped that observation and refused to move any farther.

Lister looked over, confused. Why was Rimmer looking at him like that? Uncertainty flowed through his haze of lust. There had been times, in their most heated shouting matches over the years, that he had called Lister fat. And those times, Lister had retorted with comments about Rimmer’s nose, and its noticeable lack of aesthetic qualities. Of course, at that time Lister hadn’t been half naked, with a raging erection, half crazed with lust. For smeg’s sake, what was he staring at?!

Rimmer reached out one hand, holding all the more tightly to himself with the other, as Lister stepped forward and held out his own hand. Their hands touched, oddly, as in a dream. Lister wanted to pull the other man to him, but looked at those arms and thought that there was no earthly way he could manage. Then he realized that they were not on Earth, and he pulled, gently. Rimmer, feeling like he was balanced on a pinpoint, staggered forward.

When they met, chest against chest, skin against skin, Lister felt like he was coming home. Rimmer didn’t smell of anything much, but there was the hint of stale air, Lister’s own scent, from their earlier embrace. There should be soap, Lister felt. Soap, and the cheap after-shave that stank up their quarters. His brain made him smell them anyway, and he smiled.

The feeling of that much bare flesh on his own, for the first time in... he didn't want to think about it… made Rimmer even more painfully hard. He felt an ache that started at his groin and spread rapidly upwards, and slowly downwards, making his legs weak.

Lister had stopped thinking. He did not want to - certainly not when he felt – oh, god – felt Rimmer's erection so close to his own.

Rimmer's fingers shook as he grasped Lister's back with one hand and shoulder with the other, hanging on like he would fall otherwise. His lips hovered over Lister's, wanting, not certain that he was allowed. Lister lunged for Rimmer's lips hungrily, like a man dying of thirst. But lips were no longer enough, and he moved lower down, his tongue lashing Rimmer's chin, then his neck, then his good shoulder, moving down his chest.

Rimmer shuddered, feeling his legs start to buckle. Lister’s knees gave in, as well, as he moved down Rimmer’s body, running on an instinct as old as the species, executing a program he had been waiting to run for longer than he could remember. His hands grasped Rimmer's buttocks as he sank to his knees.

Rimmer let go of Lister’s shoulders and put his hands behind him to break his fall. He let himself lie back and touched Lister's hair with his fingertips, surprised at the wiry texture. Lister, mouth already open in a moan, leaned down towards the bulge in those ridiculously tight trousers. He wanted... He just wanted. An ocean of want rose in him, drowning reason and sense.

Rimmer felt the world tilting, trying to shake him off. He grasped Lister's hair and gasped. Torn between wanting ten thousand different things at the same time, Lister settled for pulling the trousers down, and noting, to his surprise, that there was no underwear. Well, Lister hazily reflected, Legion might have been a lonely guy.

Rimmer shivered again as some parts of him that had not been exposed to the world since his death - and pretty damn infrequently exposed even before then - were abruptly uncovered. He desperately wanted something to happen, wanted it with an ache that threatened to split him in two, but he had no idea what it was. "Please…” he gasped, not knowing what he was asking for, knowing only that he needed it, desperately.

Lister devoured the erection in front of him, only dimly aware of something being said, in a nasal voice made harsh with lust. This... This was new. The part of Lister that was and always would be insatiably curious marveled at the strange, new sensations. The taste, the texture, the smell, the odd fullness in his mouth. It was slightly bitter, just like Rimmer himself. But most of him, the rest of him, was simply lost to a surprisingly vivid pleasure.

Rimmer felt himself enveloped by something warm and slick. Words disappeared, and the world was definitely tipping and sliding him off. He grasped the wiry hair harder, thrusting madly. He was not a man to last long at the best of times. This was far beyond the best of times. The climax was mind-boggling as he thrust himself into something silky and wet, with a few too many teeth, that he vaguely remembered was Lister’s mouth.

This isn't going to last, Lister thought, as the penis in his mouth swelled and pulsed. But he was hungry, oh so hungry!

Rimmer gasped and wheezed with his final thrusts. His head fell back onto the floor with a clonk.

Lister, confused and insatiate, yet oddly content, swallowed. He realized what he had just done, trying to make sense of the emotions swimming around his mind. He put one hand on each side of Rimmer, and tried to breathe normally. But he was still achingly erect. He wished he could remember what you were supposed to do about that.

Rimmer's head started to clear as he stared up at the ceiling. Thoughts rushed in to his brain, jostling with each other. He just had sex with Lister. He just had mind-blowingly good sex with Lister. David Lister. A man who ate his own toenail clippings. His head swam. It didn’t make sense! He raised his head off of the ground, uncertain what to do next. He felt drained. He was not sure he could meet Lister's eyes, but he could feel the man over him, straddling him. Hiking himself onto his elbows, Rimmer looked down at where Lister was crouched over him. There was an almost frightening hunger in Lister's eyes. Stark lust, tinged with a warmer emotion.

Lister tried to gain control of his voice, to breathe normally, to say something appropriate and fitting. No go. Rimmer reached towards him, yanking ineffectively upwards on the first thing his hand encountered, which happened to be an ear. Lister didn’t care; any touch felt good now, or at least a good form of bad. He leaned into the touch, following the movement like a puppy on a leash.

Rimmer was surprised when Lister moved up towards him with such a token tug on his part, and felt a bit like a perverted Moses, able to move with a gesture what was a previously very intractable sea. He tentatively kissed Lister, awkwardly fumbling in the other man's long johns as his head fell back again with another clonk. This, at least, was territory he could work with, as he tried to stroke the other man. Although it felt quite strange to be on the other side of the penis during a hand job.

Lister leaned into the kiss hungrily, following Rimmer’s head down and embracing the hologram. He ground himself against Rimmer's body, aching for release. When he felt Rimmer's hand moving towards his groin, he gasped, trying to move his erection closer to it. Lister soon forgot his own name as Rimmer’s long-fingered hands grasped him and stroked. He teetered on the edge of a climax. He found himself wishing Rimmer were soft light, so the hologram could envelop him completely; he wanted all of him!

Rimmer was startled by how sensual it felt to have Lister gasping in his ear, and to know that he was the one responsible. He stroked faster, more firmly, twiddling the tip with his thumb in the way that he knew he liked it when he... too frequently... did himself.

Rimmer did... something... to Lister, something that seemed to turn his brain inside out. He orgasmed, choking "Arn!" into Rimmer's neck, and felt like... like rain. Like he was home. Like... love.

Rimmer felt Lister spill on him, a sticky mess that he knew would take hours to get out, but he could not bring himself to care. Instead, he pulled out every gasp he could, whatever passed for his simulated heart shuddering as Lister groaned into his shoulder.

Lister realized that he was crying, and he did not know why. Rimmer brought one hand up to Lister's tightly curled hair, not sure what to do about the tears he felt on his simulated skin. He stroked it, slowly. Lister buried his head in that space, that inexplicably safe space, and tried to coax his mind into telling him what he felt. He had always lived by his emotions; he was the only guy he knew who cried at soaps and read trashy romance magazines. And yes, he did cry. But not when he was happy. Never before.

Rimmer lay on the ground, the weight of Lister atop, and felt a striking absence. He felt no snarkiness, no bitterness, no snideness. He was petrified of what was starting to bubble up to take its place. The hand that had been stroking Lister’s hair fell to the floor, and Rimmer tried to grab the floorboards.

Lister moved his head away slightly, and snorted, a little too loudly. He met Rimmer's eyes full on. "Believe me now, do ya?" he gasped.

"I..." Rimmer's mouth was dry. He was still trying to grab the floorboards; the other hand dropped Lister’s now-limp member and also grabbed for the floor. Lister gave Rimmer's cracked, dry lips a soft, quick kiss. Rimmer closed his eyes and shook his head. "Bloody hell..." he croaked. He opened his eyes, and saw Lister staring at him with an unfamiliar softness.

Lister tried to grin confidently, but he was afraid. He knew Rimmer, and everything he knew pointed to the fact that Rimmer would retreat, run away; try to deny everything. Ah, but to be fair, so had Lister. The psi-moon loomed in the landscape of his own mind again, and he bit his tongue to keep from saying something stupid.

Arn wanted nothing more than to run into a corner and try to sort things out. But the solid, heavy lump of flesh on top of him was inescapable. “Lister," he croaked, licking his lips. "We... uh." As if 'uh' was a word that conveyed, eloquently, the totality of what had just happened.

"Yeah?" Lister tried to catch one of Rimmer's errant hands with one of his own. Here it comes, he thought with desperate resignation. Denial.

Rimmer grasped the hand, squeezing it as if to communicate his thoughts via Morse code. Lister felt Rimmer’s hand, and something inside him started beating again. It occurred to him it might have been his heart.

Amid the jumble of thoughts crashing through Rimmer’s head, one finally broke through the confusion and rose above the rest...

Door.

Not letting go of Lister's hand, he turned his head towards the door. It remained closed. Rimmer sighed, a rather weary sigh. "Well.” He grasped for the lack-of-door opening as the only thing that was at all analyzable.

Then, suddenly, there came a voice. A very familiar voice; from outside the door. "Sirs? Sirs? Are you all right?"

Rimmer tried to jump at the sound of what he realized was Kryten, but he was lying down and trapped under Lister, so he settled for shimmying like a fish instead. "Hell!"

Lister kept chewing his own tongue; desperately afraid of losing what – if anything – they had gained here. When Rimmer ran, he ran at full speed, and he didn’t come back. There wouldn’t be a chance like this again.

Rimmer pushed himself into a half-reclined position, his eyes wide, slightly panicky. "Lister! Didn't you hear that?"

"Yeah. Best get our kit on then, hadn't we?" He didn’t feel like himself. He felt like a bad photocopy of himself that someone had crumpled up and thrown in a bin somewhere. Yeah, he was an optimist, but he needed something to go on. Some sign that Rimmer was with him in this. He felt suddenly very alone.

Rimmer looked at Lister’s calm demeanor, aghast. "Do you want to greet that bloody busybody mechanoid with..." he waved his hand at the general lack-of-clothing and presence-of-sperm on them both. He couldn’t believe that the other man didn’t seem panicky about the prospect of being caught in what must be the mother of all compromising positions.

Kryten’s voice drifted through the door. "Sirs? Thank goodness I've found you! The Cat simply refused to help look. I can't hear what you're saying, but I can hear it's you. Hang on; help is on the way!"

“Lister…” Rimmer said, as he felt the other man’s weight lifted off of him.

Lister smiled back at Rimmer, and started looking vaguely around for the remains of his clothing. "Yeah, man?"

Rimmer looked at the door, and looked at Lister. He didn't move from where he lay.

Lister took stock of his clothing. One sleeve had been pulled completely off his overalls. Well. At least it matched his jacket now. He tried to tie it to the rest of the garment, but the result looked unconvincing.

"What's wrong?" Rimmer asked, haltingly. The question seemed ludicrous as soon as it fell out. What wasn't?

Another voice could be heard outside, mumbling something inaudible. Kryten's reply was clear as day. “And you didn't TELL ME?? Oh, for heaven's sake!”

Rimmer looked from the door, where he was starting to get a very bad idea of what was going on, to Lister, who seemed to be pulling away from him in a very unLister-like quiet melancholy.

Weird noises came from without the door, as though someone was moving a bunch of heavy objects.

Lister hesitated, then gave in. What the hell. It had been that kind of a day. He might as well say it straight out. Get it over with, like tearing a scab off of a wound that needed draining. "If you want to forget about this... then that's OK. Just... tell me now, OK? I'll work out something to tell Kryten; he'll believe anything I say. But please... if it meant anything at all... Don't just let it go."

Rimmer's brain grasped at that thought like a starving man who sees a spring roll dangled before him on a fishing line. Forget it all. Back to normal. Whatever passed for his brain applauded. Whatever passed for his heart sent a stab of pain through him, then turned around in a sulk. Rimmer stood up, pulling his slightly sticky and damp velour trousers up and refastening them.

Everything in Lister's body language begged Rimmer to not run away, not this time. "It's lonely in space, mate. Don't make it lonelier." With some effort, Lister managed to gather enough fabric around him to look decent... ish. He straightened his back, pretending he looked even half like something dignified.

Rimmer walked over to where Lister stood, trying to put on a set of clothes that had been barely cohesive even before this afternoon's activities. The hologram bent down with pursed lips and placed the kind of smack that a grade-school teacher would deliver on Lister's full, soft cheek. This caught Lister completely off guard, and he smiled, as by pure reflex.

Rimmer coughed nervously, licked his lips, and turned back to the door. "Er, one thing, though."

"What?"

"Apparently, that was not actually sex." His voice cracked on the last word.

"Oh, right." Lister had forgotten all about the door.

Kryten’s voice filtered through the door. “Don't worry, Sirs, I'm almost there!”

Rimmer looked down at his half-naked, ejaculate-streaked body with alarm. He was in no fit state to make a public appearance. He started poking at the small device on his belt. His pants passed through an array of bright colors. He turned briefly to female, yelped, and pushed that button again to return to male. Lister couldn't help but whistle appreciatively. The female Rimmer had been hot. Rimmer glared at Lister. "No smegging way." Oh, right then, Lister thought, your mind went there! That’s a good thing, my friend. His smile grew wider. Finally, one button gave Rimmer an undershirt and a clean set of blue pants. He released a long-held breath. That was as much experimentation as he was willing to do.

"He'll be here in a sec,” Lister reminded Rimmer, as though he needed reminding. ”What should I tell him?" Come on, Arn, he groaned silently, give us an inch!

"Tell him?" Rimmer's brain waved goodbye and wished him well.

Lister indicated the door, which was now almost, just barely, moving with vibration. Rimmer looked from the door to Lister and back, in panic. "Do you think he'll deactivate my lightbee and toss me out of the garbage chute if you tell him the truth, or will he just bitch at me and make my death more of a hell than it is already?"

Kryten’s voice came through the door again. ”What did you say? Oh? Then why am I using these? Must put them away then...”

Lister considered this. "He'll do what I tell him. He wants me to be happy, even if he thinks it's crazy. He makes me grated onion corn-flakes, fer smegs sake."

Rimmer, not reassured, walked over to where Lister's jacket still lay on the ground. Not thinking, he picked it up and wrapped it around himself.

Well, Lister thought, watching the very jackety looking Arn with something akin to pride. Baby steps.

Rimmer looked at Lister with pleading eyes. Don't make me decide something that important, they said. I'm Rimmer, for smeg's sake. Lister’s grin was nearing face-tearing proportions. His eyes said something very eloquent in a language Rimmer felt he should know.

The vibrations in the door stopped, and for a moment, all was quiet. Almost as an anti-climax, the door opened... inwards.

Rimmer looked at Lister, and his jaw fell open.

Lister tried not to think of anything. He was vaguely aware of the Cat's voice in the background, saying: "...And that way, we can just leave 'em in there for as long as we want, and they'll just do whatever they think they need to come out!" There was a very feline screech of laughter.

Rimmer's jaw shut with a snap.

"I wonder if there's really more than one way to skin a cat?” he asked, shrugging his arms into Lister’s jacket. “I’ve always wanted to fully explore that saying."

"Well, Arn, me man, there's only one way to find out..." Lister pulled his studded gloves on more tightly, following Rimmer out of the room with his mouth set grimly.


What is love about, after all, but sharing these moments of importance?