Author: Roadstergal
Title: Junk.
Censor: G
Pairing: Rimmer/Lister
Commentary: Please. roadstergal@gmail.com
Disclaimer: They don’t belong to me, and I make no money off of them.
Note: AU #1
Rimmer tapped his foot on the metal deck. His new hard-light drive made it much more difficult for Lister to ignore him; the clanging noise was frustratingly intrusive. And the unspoken events that happened the first night he had the hard-light drive strung him out over Lister's nerves so tightly that only one pluck would sing a long note of annoyance.
"Whot?" Lister asked, finally.
"Are you going to clean that up?" Rimmer asked, pointing to the remains of Lister's lunch lying in desultory gobs on a nearby plate and clinging foam scum in a stein.
"Yeah, I'll get around to it, man." Lister turned back to his magazine.
"Lister, it has been there for hours. The last time you were going to 'get around to it,' you grew a new civilization on the midsection table."
"You're an anal-retentive freak."
Rimmer's nostrils flared. "And you're an utter slob. That's why you never got anywhere, Lister. You don't have a sense of neatness, organization, or discipline. Discipline makes the man, Lister. That's what makes me who I am. That's why I endure."
Lister sighed and set his magazine down. "Rimmer, did you ever read about Mount Trashmore?"
"Mount what?"
"Back in the twentieth century, people used these bags made outta permanent plastic to put their trash in. The bags didn't decay - they'll never decay - so people did the best they could and made a mountain outta them. Laid sod over and evvrint. We used to sled down it in the winter on lunch trays we nicked from the hospital."
"And just what does this have to do with your sub-simian personal habits?"
"I might be a triple fried egg chili chutney butty, but you're those bags, Rimmer. They're all neat, and they last forever. But there's no honor innit. You're a shiny pile of neurotic trash; there's nothing special about you that isn't special about those sodding plastic bags." Lister looked pointedly at the mess on the table, then turned back to his magazine.
"Protozoic goit," Rimmer muttered as he grabbed the plate and stein and dropped them in the sink with unnecessary noise. He stormed into the cockpit.
Cat walked out shortly thereafter. "What's up with goalposthead?"
"He's just bein' Rimmer. Hey, did you see wot Miss Manners said about meetin' your ex-girlfriend's new lesbian lover at her ex-girlfriend's wedding? Useful advice, here..."
The next morning, Lister emerged from the shower and started to towel himself off. Showering in his long johns saved time and gave him a nice fresh feeling in the morning, but he had to towel off right after the shower to keep them from becoming gloppy.
"Ah, interesting!" commented Kryten, who was dusting Starbug's cramped sleeping quarters. "The new curry stain over your left nipple looks just like Pollock's Convergence."
Ever since their 'visit' with Legion, Kryten had been eager to show off his connoisseur chip when given even the slightest excuse. Lister was getting heartily sick of it, and made a mental note to excise it if Kryten ever shut down to clean up his cache.
"Who's that, then?"
"A twentieth-century Earth artist." Kryten snapped the vacuum extension into his groinal attachment and began to vacuum under the beds. "He made abstract art.."
"Oooh, wasn't he that nutter who splashed paint all over and sold it for tons of money? They'll call anything art..."
"Ah, but nobody could copy it."
"Nobody could copy my long johns, either; should I call 'em art?"
"I could think of better words, sir."
Lister rolled his eyes heavenward and sat down on his bunk, pulling out his strainer and cup. "I want my art to look like summing." He started to pour last night's flat lager through the strainer.
"Realism has its limitations. When the Earth Renaissance painters went too realistic, all of the saints ended up with tea saucers suspended over their heads."
"All of that postmodern stuff was junk."
"Yes, junk!" Kryten was warming up to this. "There was a movement in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century to make art out of garbage. People were finding it harder to ignore how much of it there was, you see. And it works. For example, look at your jacket."
Lister looked over at the jacket; he had covered the black leather with bits of metal and cloth and wire he had found around Red Dwarf, and a few bits and bobs they had nicked from derelicts. He was inordinately proud of that jacket.
"It was only junk until I got me hands on it, Kryten. I made art of it, I did."
"Exactly." Kryten beamed. "You make beauty out of trash."
"Do I?" Lister tapped the strainer on the edge of the cup, took a pull, and sat there thoughtfully for a good long time.
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