Rimmer slowly became aware of a strange taste in his mouth and an odd, granular texture on his face. He opened his eyes, and whatever the granular business was, his eyes did not like it. He snapped them shut and tried to stand up. Pain shot through his arm and his back, and he fell down again, moaning.

His mind finally caught up with his consciousness. He had fallen asleep face-down on the dirt floor, with Lister sprawled across his bed, masturbating into his sheet. Rimmer sighed. At a thousand and some years old, he was in no shape to sleep on hard ground. Rimmer moved very, very slowly, dragging his stiff arm downwards, raising himself up on its elbow, grabbing his screaming back with his other hand, and scuttling the short distance over to his chair. He pulled himself up and collapsed onto it with an agonized moan. He carefully and gently started to stretch out his tight, knotted muscles.

The chair was facing the bed, so Rimmer could not be spared the sight of Lister as he brought his body back to working order. Lister, sleeping the sleep of the just, highly undeserved though it was in his case. His mouth was half-open, and his left thumb was hooked in it. He had kicked the sheet off at some point during the night, so there was nothing covering his penis, which lay flaccid in his right hand. The blighter must have beat off on my bed, all over my sheet, Rimmer thought, irately, then fallen dead asleep the very next second. As if the situation weren't uncomfortable enough, Rimmer could not keep the conversation of the night before out of his head, and he was quite, quite horny. Then again, the last two days aside, he had not so much as masturbated in decades. It was, he reassured himself, only natural for him to be a little hung up on the subject when it was... re-introduced, so to speak.

As Rimmer worked the kinks out, rendering him capable of basic locomotion again, he stood, ready to take a good, long walk. But petulance overtook him before he reached the door. Why should he leave his own smegging hut, just because Lister made him uncomfortable? He'd bloody well make Lister uncomfortable, and let him piss off to find another place to stay. Rimmer sat back in his chair, staring disdainfully at the sleeping Lister. His eyes traveled back and forth between the thumb dangling out of Lister's mouth and the penis dangling out of his hand - which, taking into account that it was flaccid, was of a reasonably impressive size.

He was still staring when Lister's eyes opened, blinking, and fixed on Rimmer. The fingers that were wrapped around his cock twitched.

"Did..." Rimmer was trying to stuff condescension and sarcasm into his voice, but it was far too early in the morning for that much subtlety, and it dribbled out in a pathetic squeak. Rimmer tried again, this time with just the sarcasm. "Did you sleep... well..?"

The image of Rimmer slowly resolved onto Lister's retinas. Lister had woken up to a number of disturbing images over the years. Topping the list were the insides of Petersen's mouth, Rimmer's mum that time they'd been attacked by the Polymorph (though the fear hadn't actually registered at the time), and Kryten vacuuming his t-shirt with his groinal attachment with Lister still in it - but this? This wasn't so much disturbing as... well... His voice, he found, was gravelly. "Sleep... yeah."

"Not," Rimmer looked pointedly at the limp cock in Lister's hand, "up all night?"

Lister couldn't stop staring at Rimmer. He looked... he looked like he always had done, Lister supposed, but only now did he realize that the rush of blood to his genitalia and the need to absorb Rimmer with his eyes were linked. He grabbed his cock as it was mentioned, as though he suddenly remembered that it was there, and it began to harden.

Irrepressible. Unevolved. Rimmer licked his lips, unconsciously.

Those lips being licked didn't exactly help. Lister whimpered as he tried to look away, but couldn't.

Rimmer raised his eyebrows. That was not a noise he was expecting. Sarcasm, insults, even jocularity, if Lister were in a very good mood - but a whimper?

"Dun..." Lister tried again. "Din't mean to disturb ya..."

"No, you don't mean to... you just do." Rimmer tried to force ire into his voice, but it came out as more of a statement of fact.

He shouldn't be lying here like this, frozen, staring, damn near wanking in Rimmer's face, but Lister didn't feel entirely like himself yet. Or rather, he felt too much like himself. It was that damn leaf; it was still in his system, making him too honest, too open, and far, far too willing to give in to desires he hadn't know he had just yesterday. Three hundred years ago. His free hand clenched the sheet, as if to steady himself. This would not end up in a good place, his rational mind insisted. Sadly, it was being overpowered by the part of him that had been repressed for far too long.

Rimmer sighed, stood, then moved over to stand next to the bed. Cover Lister with the sheet, then leave him alone for a while. He had been dead for some time, after all. Had a few things to get out of his system. But Rimmer found himself - staring. Unable to move his hands. "Hell," he croaked.

Something broke inside of Lister. He let go of his cock and the sheet and sat up on his knees. Rimmer was looking down at him, to all appearances, frozen in liquid delinium. Drug-induced or not, he couldn't stand this any longer. He needed Rimmer. There were no alternatives, and he'd stopped caring that there weren't.

Rimmer raised his hands slowly, uncertainly. Lister had such a look of wanting on his face. But when had he ever wanted anything from Rimmer, other than for him to leave the room?

"Please..." Lister said, very quietly.

"What?" Rimmer asked, confused, staring. He was still strangely horny, and with Lister's earnest face so close, he could not even remember the conversation from the night before. Why was he so horny?

No other options. The only, only way. Lister whimpered again and grabbed Rimmer's face, pulling the hologram closer, the speck of rationality still in him keeping him from going further yet - but it was only a matter of time, he knew. And it scared him. Scared him witless.

Rimmer stared at Lister's eyes, which were now a significant part of his field of vision. He tried to speak, to say something sarcastic and mean, but he drew a complete blank. His mouth hung half-open, stupidly.

Lister repeated "Please..." in that same quiet voice, his whole body shaking. "Need you..." Like a junkie needing a fix. If Rimmer pushed him away now, he'd go to pieces. He'd go insane.

Need me? Rimmer thought, desperate. Since when does he smegging need me? But his horniness was only growing, and he realized its source too late. Too late to keep him from grabbing Lister under the armpits, pulling him closer, as Lister licked his own lips. Rimmer felt himself closing in on Lister with slow inevitability. No, no, smegging no! What was he doing? He moaned - a whiny, nasal moan. "Listy..." Listy, please, stop this - act like yourself, insult me, get exasperated - I'm Rimmer, for smeg's sake, don't smegging kiss me!

Lister closed his eyes. "Ri... R..." He couldn't finish.

It must be... desperation, from so long celibate, mixed with that contagious lackadaisical attitude of the clones towards sex, along with the shock of Lister becoming re-alive again. A visceral reaction. Something to get out of his system. Rimmer slid his hands down to grab Lister's buttocks, pulling up and in, kneading.

This touch, so to the point, so unambiguous, made Lister exhale with a high-pitched whimper. Oh, sweet relief - Rimmer wanted him, too!

Rimmer pressed his lips to Lister's. They were full, soft, and resilient, just like that girl-clone's. But his breath was stale lager and ship's air and nicotine, which tasted almost nothing like the smegging blessed leaf.

Kisses shouldn't be this electric, this exciting, Lister mused as his whole body sighed. He let the kiss be oddly mellow, wanting to savor it in all its oddness. Whatever he felt for Rimmer, it was far beyond lust, that much was clear.

Rimmer pulled and pushed on Lister's buttocks to rub the other man up and down against him. Mellowness was for affection. This - this was some strange, raw sexual aberration that they would both resent afterwards and never refer to.

Lister slid his tongue into Rimmer's mouth lazily, wondering if he was still asleep, and this was a dream. But no, Rimmer's tongue felt soberingly real as he caressed and fondled it with his own. It tasted no different than the many tongues he'd felt before. The feeling, though - that was different indeed, and it egged him on, fueled his desire and made him slowly lose what little control he had left.

Rimmer nipped the tongue and sucked it in, feeling that it was all somehow more right - or less wrong - when Lister became frantic, tearing at Rimmer's clothes. Rimmer opened his mouth and pushed it into Lister's to the point where their teeth clicked against each other. He raised his hands to the clasps on his jacket and ripped, some of the clasps flying off of the jacket and fizzling to nothing. This felt altogether too magnificent, Rimmer thought as he ground his groin against Lister's stomach.

Lister licked the roof of Rimmer's mouth, sticking his tongue in as far as it would go, rubbing his hands under Rimmer's undershirt, needing to feel skin, and sighing when he finally did so. He sighed again when Rimmer opened his mouth wide, leaning back slightly to allow Lister greater access. Lister slid his tongue out of Rimmer's mouth and licked the outside of his lips and chin, then pulled back a little more to lick the underside of the hologram's chin, until he didn't know what he was doing, where he was, or what his name was. His name. Was someone saying his name?

"Lister," Rimmer panted. Are you sure this is such a good idea, how much are we going to hate each other tomorrow, can you live on the same planet after this? None of the rest made it past his lips as Lister slid his hands behind his back and breathed "Yes..." in his ear. Rimmer ran his hands over Lister's own solid, warm back.

Lister nibbled at Rimmer's neck, pressing back, hard, as Rimmer pushed into his stomach. "Smegyes," Rimmer gasped. He had read that this kind of thing happened when men were alone for too long together. The clones hardly counted, and so this might very well be completely normal, couldn't it? Lister should know, after all; he was always more of the social, matey type. Yes, this must be just a normal bloke thing. God, he was hungry. He turned to fall onto the bed on his back, pulling Lister.

He was falling, Lister noted with detachment. It didn't matter - nothing mattered. He was safe. As he fell into the nook of Rimmer's neck, he gasped one word, one name - "Arn..."

Rimmer spread his legs, pulling Lister between them, bucking against the other man, as Lister settled between Rimmer's legs, sliding his hands over Rimmer's buttocks. Rimmer tore at his trouser fastenings, then realized that, logistically, his boots would have to come first. He raised his right leg in an awkward stretch to yank off his boot, tossing it away, then his left, licking Lister's face.

"Want you... so bad." Lister moved his head with the movement of Rimmer's tongue, saturated with want.

Rimmer mumbled something that sounded affirmative, pleased that his boots were out of the way. He ripped his trousers open, licking Lister's ear. The moment his erection was free, Lister grabbed it, squeezing it hard. Rimmer had done as many things as he could think of to his cock in the name of variety over the centuries, so he did not understand why this made his spine shiver like nails were scraping over it. He threw his head back onto the bed. "Ohsmeglistysmegginghellyes," he spat.

The closest thing to his mouth was Rimmer's shoulder, so Lister licked it as he started pumping up and down. It didn't taste like much, but then again, people were always telling him he'd have no tastebuds left with the way he was smoking and drowning his food in triple-extra-hot chilies.

Rimmer gasped in time with Lister's hand motions, one leg dangling over the edge of the bed. He stroked Lister's shoulders, trying to figure out why the wet lapping at his shoulder did not feel as disgusting as he intellectually knew it to be.

"Touch me," Lister moaned. "Please..."

Rimmer frowned. He had his hands on the goit's shoulders! "I am!" What, did Lister think he had a third hand with which to tousle his hair? He didn't think he had ever had both hands on the goit... "Oh." Realization hit, and after all, if this was some kind of matey thing, there should be reciprocity, shouldn't there? Rimmer ran one hand down Lister's chest, winding his fingers in Lister's pubic hair, which was even wirier than the hair on his head.

Lister hadn't entirely held out hope that Rimmer would actually comply - when did he ever? - but the mere indication that he might made Lister's spine tingle. He bit his lip, and tried not to thrust or thrash about, though he felt he was going quietly mad with want.

Rimmer did exactly what felt good on his self-administered hand jobs; he ran his thumb over the head, spreading precome, as he stroked the underside of the shaft with his fingertips. He grabbed the nape of Lister's neck with his other hand.

Lister didn't know which felt better - the actual touch of Rimmer's hand on his cock, or the fact that he had actually done what Lister asked him to. Oh hell, there was no contest, his body insisted; though it felt clumsy and inexperienced, he had never felt such a thrill associated with fingers playing with his reproductive organ. He groaned, pumping Rimmer harder, almost without thinking.

"Gragh." Rimmer bucked into Lister's hand. He started to forget what he was doing, and stroked Lister more slowly. Lister gave a long, drawn-out moan, his own hand slowing to a stop, which did not matter in the least. Rimmer had lasted a rather long time, for him, already, and came, holding Lister's erection firmly. "Sw..." What the hell was he sputtering? Sweet? Swahili? Switzerland? His brain must have been what oozed out. He gave a wordless, drawn-out wail.

No. Oh, smeg, no. He couldn't... Lister gasped, slightly startled. He'd known Rimmer wasn't the most sexually experienced of men, but somehow that hadn't been at the forefront of his mind. He was disappointed; this was too new and exciting to end so soon!

Rimmer held Lister's erection motionlessly as he rode out his orgasm, gasping, thinking of nothing but pleasure - and rather enjoying that.

Frustrated though he was at the unmoving hand on his own cock, Lister found that Rimmer's orgasm thrilled him almost as though it had been his own. He slicked his fingers, lubricated with come, up and down... Arn's cock, caressing it.

Rimmer shivered at that sensation layered on the sensation of the last of his orgasm, and bit Lister's shoulder, and Lister yelped, shuddering. The yelp brought Rimmer back to himself. Ah. That had been rather rude, hadn't it? He licked the bite.

"Yes, smeg, yes..." Hard and horny as he was, any sensation egged Lister on. And he had a thing about tongues, mouths; the intimacy of it. If only Arn would... but no, of course he wouldn't.

Taking a cue from Lister's response, Rimmer licked over to Lister's jaw, across the jaw, across his lips, and up his cheek. He tasted of sour sweat and engine grease. Lister bucked against Rimmer's unmoving hand, still caressing Arn's cock. Oh - that was rude, too, wasn't it? Damn it, Rimmer was never outright rude. Well, yes, he was, but always very intentionally so; he was never rude like he was now, just from not knowing what the smeg the rules of the damn game were. He started to stroke again, sighing into Lister's ear in frustration.

Close to crying with relief that it wasn't over yet, Lister gave a deep, shuddering moan. Having to finish this on his own... well, that didn't bear thinking about. He wanted this to go on forever, not least because part of him knew how he'd feel about it once the effects of that leaf wore off. If he'd had any brainpower left at all, Lister might have been surprised at the fact that Rimmer had begun to grow erect again in his steady grip. As it was, it merely registered with him, filed alongside the other sensory impressions in a mental envelope marked "smegging good".

Hand. Hand left too much exposed to the air that, in comparison, felt cool. Rimmer grabbed Lister, pulling him as tight as one could get with two hands between. He grabbed the small of Lister's back with his free hand.

Lister let go of Rimmer's cock in the pull, grabbing the back of Rimmer's neck with the hand that had been on the hologram's cock. There were tiny curls at the back of Rimmer's neck, almost like Lister's own hair, but softer. Not by much, though. It was such a random little detail, but it stayed with him. Hair. Arn's hair.

Shit. Rimmer had no handle on the rules, none at all. Why did Lister fecking assume he did? Or maybe this was all one hell of a hallucination, brought on by that strange grog. "Are you real?" he asked in a hoarsely suspicious voice.

"Yes..." Lister whispered.

Rimmer nodded, stroking Lister firmly. The skin was very soft; it actually felt rather good.

He was going to come, Lister realized, with increasing frustration. Ironic, yes, given that moments ago he'd been worried about not coming at Arn's ministrations, but as it was - that quick, early release couldn't have been all that satisfying, and hadn't he always taken pride in being a generous, sensitive lover? Hadn't those people miraculously grown from his DNA based an entire culture on the values he had always stood for, including that one? He felt the stirrings of an odd sort of responsibility inside, and resolutely began trying to remove Rimmer's hand.

Rimmer let go at Lister's urging. Now what? Lister pressed his own erection against Rimmer's, and the sensation was immediately and viscerally joyful. "Dave," Rimmer spat.

Lister sighed a happy half-laugh. "Yes. Arn..."

The warm, slick movement of bodies against each other was mind-numbingly pleasant. At a loss for what to do, Rimmer slid his hands away to knead Lister's buttocks.

Lister forced himself to move slowly up and down. Although, as they settled into a rhythm, he found it took less and less effort to restrain himself from going faster. He wanted to do this right, make it good and long-lasting for both of them. That in itself was a delight, he'd always found. The fact that he was doing this with Rimmer... well, he'd worry about that later.

Ah, perhaps this was just a variation. Something Lister had hashed out at some point with his mates. Or maybe it was written somewhere. Not in the Space Corps Directives, for damn sure. 109456 dealt with hand jobs between technicians, and 92765 with oral service, but he could remember no reference to rubbing erections. Which was fine with Rimmer - where would they get the feathers? He moaned, laying his head back, kneading Lister's buttocks with deep, slow strokes.

Hearing the wail escaping Arn when he licked his chest, a rather tempting idea formed in Lister's mind. Hesitating only for a moment, he moved farther down licking his way towards Rimmer's stomach. He felt Rimmer let go of his buttocks, grabbing his hair instead, and grabbed his buttocks in turn, kneading them. He smiled as he trailed his tongue further down - this was his territory.

Rimmer bucked into and out of those hands. He had a very good idea of where this was leading, but was not sure he wanted to think about it.

Down towards Arn's stomach Lister's tongue slithered, taking an exactly calculated amount of time to move down into his crotch, and quickly up the side of his erection. Lister had never done this to a man before, but having had it done to himself, he felt he had a fair idea. Besides, bodies were bodies. And he was good at finding out how they worked.

Rimmer whimpered, twisting his fingers in Lister's hair. Although he had read about it, and seen far too many films, he had not actually been orally serviced at any point in the past, and the experience was like nothing else - not even conventional sex, which, for all of the delightful warm wetness of it, did not feature a prehensile muscle. Lister licked up and down a few times. Rimmer's whimpering turned into more of a gaaaah-like noise as his mouth fell open.

Lister took the head between his lips, moving down just a little. He licked what of the head was inside his mouth, grabbing Rimmer's buttocks to keep him steady.

Conscious thought had taken a breather, and Rimmer continued to gaahh, winding his fingers in Lister's hair.

Enjoying himself far too much, Lister slid his lips all of the way down, slowly, pressing his own erection, all but forgotten except as a dull, annoying ache keeping him from what was really important, against Rimmer's leg.

Rimmer writhed as well as he could. One hand found its way down to Lister's cheek, stroking it.

Lister moved up again, then down, then again, slightly faster each time. On a sudden impulse, he started timing slides to match the movement against Rimmer's leg, and soon the actions seemed interlocked, as did the pleasure he gained from them both.

Rimmer pressed his leg against Lister's erection and moved it, as if hurrying that action would speed up the other. His gaaahs had turned to mnugghs as he clenched his teeth. Lister kept licking faster, sucking on the upstrokes. Rimmer started making little staccato pulses, chanting in time with them as he came, "Geh.. roon... hi... mo..."

Lister didn't know which surprised him more, the words, or the sudden ejaculation. The latter, however, soon overshadowed the former, and forced it from his conscious mind. He swallowed, but there was nothing in his mouth to go down his throat. He should have come by now, he pondered idly. Why hadn't he? Oh well, he was probably just over-stimulated. It happened. Things happened. Yes. Things. Strange things swam in his vision, and his head felt like it had been wrapped in cotton wool.

Rimmer came back to himself to find himself stroking Lister's cheeks, panting hoarsely. Stroking cheeks? No, that was wrong. He moved his hands down to Lister's shoulders, rubbing them. He felt very, very relaxed; the knots he had picked up from sleeping on the ground were now gone.

Lister gasped and shuddered at any touch anywhere on his body. Articulation, however, was a problem. "Mmm..." It was the best he could manage.

"Mmm. I'll have to take note of that." What the smeg did Mmm mean?

"s...." Lister replied, faintly. Rimmer raised his head to look doubtfully at this incomprehensible man. The man in question had his eyes closed.

"Lister..." Rimmer asked, licking his lips. "What..." he stumbled to a halt. What am I supposed to be doing? Holy smeg, what have we been doing?

As though in trance, Lister opened his eyes. There had been some words. Said to him. Possibly. Why did his groin hurt? And there... There was someone there. Rimmer. No, Arn. He loved him. Yes. That was it. ArnwhomhelovedArn. That was nice.

Lister looked comatose, as if he had overdosed on that blessed weed. Maybe it was still in his system from the night before; maybe his body wasn't used to it. Rimmer cocked his head. "All right down there?"

Lister made incoherent happy mumblings.

"Oh, good..." Rimmer frowned, still gamely rubbing Lister's shoulders. If this was a too-long-alone matey kind of thing, shouldn't Lister want to come, as well? Did he really expect Rimmer to do... that to him? Or even worse... Rimmer brought that line of thought to a screeching halt. He had used a finger or two when masturbating, yes, but that dangly bit of Lister's was a damn sight bigger than a finger or two.

Entirely of its own accord one of Lister's leg twitched, and he looked up into Arn's eyes suddenly. Rimmer blinked at him. "I think..." Lister pressed hard against him.

Too easy a target. "When did that start?"

Lister put his finger to Rimmer's lips. "Shhhh...." This was important. He had to tell ArnyesloveArnthatwashisname; had to tell him something important.

Rimmer was struck by an odd impulse to lick the finger. It tasted of the grease of those woodland creatures they must have fried up for the feast, and had some musky flavor below it, which Rimmer realized must be the taste of him beating off overnight. It was oddly appealing, and Rimmer sucked the finger in.

"Think..." Lister gasped as his finger was licked. This did it - he came with impressive finality. "Love you..." Yes, that was the important thing. And god, it felt amazing to have told it, or was that something else? Never mind; feeling. Feeling was what mattered. LovingArnfeeling.

Rimmer spat the finger out. Lister what? Rimmer must have misheard. Or maybe.. this was a colloquialism. Or a convenience. Like on the smegging psi-moon. Something that made the... thing they just did more exciting for Lister. Lister collapsed on him, and Rimmer tried to move him up to a more mutually comfortable position. He had not gotten nearly enough sleep on the floor last night, and Lister was acting like he wanted to turn in, as well. Rimmer fumbled around, finally ending up with his arm winding under Lister's armpit and over his chest, as Lister smiled contentedly. "You and smegging love and smegging babies.... you're as bad as those sodding hippies..." Rimmer grumbled.

Lister laughed quietly. "Don't care. Still do."

"I slept like hell last night." Rimmer muttered. "They're going to write sodding hymns about how delightfully we fuck. Sing them at public events..." he trailed off. Had this been, truly, what this had been for Lister? Fucking? Making love?

Delightful fucking. Yes. Lister settled his head on Rimmer's chest. He'd never really thought about it before, but it was such a romantic word, wasn't it? He drew it out softly, gently. "Fuck..."

"Mm."

"You are gorgeous."

Rimmer shifted uncomfortably. "Don't die again. The first time was too strange." If all of this was the result of one death of Lister's, Rimmer did not want to contemplate what another might bring.

Laughter was happy but brief, as Lister choked on it. "Won't. This's too good..."

"And don't smegging snore. I'm tired."

Lister nodded in half-sleep. You had to make compromises. Oh, and on that note; "Promise won't 'dopt no babies."

"Thank the stars."

"Just... wanna be..." Lister's final slurred syllables sounded vaguely like 'with you.' He brought himself back enough to mumble, "We fuck good, Arn..."

Rimmer grasped for the remnants of his dignity, which were tied up with his Zed Shift Supervisor speeches. "Yes, miladdio."

The subordinate stirred uneasily in his sleep, his contented dreams interrupted suddenly by parades of identical-looking pipe-cleaners, which a giant clipboard insisted it was vital he be able to tell apart.



From Io, the sun had been just another star, twinkling and distant in an unending night. The founders of the colony had, however, placed the giant solar collection mirror in such a position as to create a bright pre-noon sun over the domed city, and a retractable barrier between them made for fairly Earth-normal-duration day/night cycles. So Rimmer was no stranger to the blaze of a morning sun, and the awkward way it can stream in a window and lie across a body, as if some higher power were pointing an accusing finger and saying, "Him! That's the schmuck, right there!"

Rimmer awoke to the early-morning sun streaming in the window. It pointed directly at him. It pointed at his mussed hair and unmade bed, and the clothes scattered haphazardly on the ground. It pointed to his nudity, to his tadger, which was suffering from an all-too-common morning erection, and to the semen that had dried into a crusty mess on his thigh and stomach. It seemed to give a little giggle as it pointed at the man who was sprawled over his left side, snoring merrily and drooling slightly on his chest. It was most assuredly shaking its head in disbelief as it pointed at his arm, which threaded under that man's armpits, pushed aside his braids, and terminated in a thin-fingered hand lying atop a dark nipple.

Rimmer closed his eyes, then reopened them. The scene stubbornly refused to change. His body stubbornly refused to admit that it felt anything other than comfortable with the arrangement.

He was smegging nuts.

Arnold J. Rimmer might not know many things - strike that, he did not know many things - but one thing there was of which he was completely certain. He was not a smegging queer. He loved women (even if they did not normally love him back), and he most assuredly did not love men. Not like that. Just - matey, friendly. Yes.

Rimmer sighed. As much as he hated to admit it, as much as it ripped at his viscera to even entertain the possibility, there was no getting around it. Lister was right. There, he had thought it. Lister had been right. Rimmer took a deep breath, coming to terms with that concept. Yes, as soon as he had... awoken? he had said Rimmer's light bee had been damaged. Rimmer had no idea how he had known - lucky guess, perhaps - but the fact was unavoidable. The way he was acting and feeling - there was no other explanation. It was some kind of light bee malfunction.

He needed to think. He couldn't do it in this position, with Lister on his chest and the sunlight snickering at him. He concentrated and changed to soft-light. Lister fell through him, landing with a thud on the hard bed. Rimmer froze as the man turned and mumbled in his sleep, saying something about lettuce, but when he did not wake, Rimmer ran out, his light bee brushing aside the light curtain.

The first sight that greeted him was, as always, the village of the clones. Rimmer sat down on the grass, staring down at them. The damned Listerene clones, with their unwarranted eternal chipperness and hedonism and contagious freakish sexual attitudes. They were of no use. They couldn't heal a wounded man, and they sure as smeg were in no state to repair a damaged hologram. One girl, who was headed out to the stream with a pail to fetch water, waved and winked at him. Tart. He flopped on his back, staring at the sky. The numbness of soft-light was a blessing; he did not want to feel.


Lister's eyes were not working. Odd. He'd opened them, so he should be seeing something, shouldn't he? That's the way it usually went, anyway. Unless... Bloody hell. He must have drunk himself blind! Rimmer was always telling him this would happen sooner or later; that he'd wake up one day and find himself sightless as a slug due to alcohol abuse. Lister had never taken him seriously; it had been Rimmer, after all, and... Rimmer. Bit by merciless bit, his memory returned, as he lay there unseeing; the discovery that his sight problem was caused by stuck-together eyelids entirely failing to improve his mood. His mouth felt stickily parched, for reasons he'd rather not analyze all too closely, but it was too late for that.

Oh, smeg.

He got out of bed - usually such a simple act, but this morning, his balance and muscular control seemed to be off on holiday somewhere. Lister wished he'd gone with them. He stumbled to the floor and rubbed his jaw. What had he done? What had he bloody smegging gone and bloody smegging done? He kept rubbing, moving to his mouth, then his entire face. He only succeeded in making his skin feel raw and sore. Without the dubious benefit of blessed leaf, his thought processes of last night seemed no less true, but the idea of having shared them, telling Rimmer he... Lister's eyes widened to a medically inadvisable degree. "Shit!" he shouted, almost in hysterics.

The word drifted outside of the hut. Rimmer shrugged. Odd that Lister should not be simply delighted about the morning's activities. Hadn't he said, the night before, that he had inclinations in that direction already? Perhaps he was simply regretting having confessed all of that to Rimmer. Who wanted their bunkmate to know they were secretly a poof? Or maybe, Rimmer thought with irritation, he was simply upset that he had slept with Rimmer.

Lister needed something alcoholic. There was no way he was going to face a world in which he loved Arnold Rimmer sober. He surveyed his surroundings, seeing, as expected, nothing. He briefly considered drinking the oils he could just about glimpse through the leaf-frond-curtain. Probably wouldn't kill him; they used them for cooking, didn't they? Probably wouldn't be a worse idea than smegging sleeping with Rimmer while out of his head on smoke and drink. Sleeping with normal, well-adjusted people on a drunken whim could lead to confusion, hurt, and misunderstandings. Sleeping with a homophobic man whose psyche was 96 percent neuroses on a drunken whim and telling him you loved him? In a voice that was at least close to his normal tone and register, if still frantic, Lister shouted, "Shit!" At a loss for anything productive to do or think, he sat on the on floor and ran his fingers through his hair, biting his lip.

Rimmer sat up, too annoyed to lie still, and switched to hard-light. He picked up the bottle of oil that the grotting clones had left outside. Yes, they just loved the idea of their Watcher and their Sleeper getting it on, didn't they? Smegging voyeuristic perverts. He threw the bottle in the direction of the village with all of his might. The bottle did not get very far, but at least it split down the side, spilling its contents on the ground. "Bastards," Rimmer muttered. He put his arms on his knees and glared sullenly.

The thud of the bottle breaking made Lister jump. He looked around wildly, suddenly realizing he was still naked. He swore quietly and grabbed his jumpsuit, cursing his lack of wearable underwear. He put it on with nothing underneath, tying the top around his waist. He rushed out, saw Rimmer, and came to a screeching halt. He had not, he realized, thought this through in any great detail.

"What the smeg do you want?" Rimmer snapped. He did not turn to look at Lister, but he could feel the man behind him. He shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably.

Lister ran his fingers through has hair again, already sweating in the morning sun. His hand caught the tangled roots of his dreds, and he kept it there, his mouth open like an idiot. What did he want? What had he been thinking? He'd been thinking too much and too damn clearly, that was the problem. What kind of a drug made you clear-headed? Clear-headed, yet mellow enough not to care about the consequences of your actions. Well, now he did. Words finally formed in his mouth, and he forced them out gravely, yet desperately. "I am so sorry!"

"Your smegging clones... can't be bothered to fecking evolve, can they," Rimmer muttered, looking at the village.

"Eh?" They didn't seem to be having the same conversation. Either that, or Lister was still drunk, high, or dreaming. All three were, he had to admit, entirely possible.

"No technology, no hospitals, nothing to fix my smegging bee..." Rimmer shook his head and cleared his throat, feeling Lister staring at him. He spoke in his normal voice. "You were right, Listy; the old bee must have taken a hit from the crash." He glared at the village again. Everything that was wrong with the present situation could be their fault, he decided. "They can't smegging fix it. Couldn't fix a broken pot, that lot."

"Fix what?" Lister's eyes fell to the remnants of the nutshell bottle further down the hill. He couldn't be talking about that.

"My smegging light bee, you stupid goit!" Rimmer sighed, feeling almost physical pain over what he was about to admit. "You were right."

"Rimmer, what are you talking about?" Lister was allowed a few moments of safe confusion before reality hit. "Oh." They were back to that again. Well, at least he hadn't actually gone insane.

"I'm not a smegging fruit, Listy."

Or maybe not. Lister blinked, eyeing the pear-shaped purple bulbs hanging from a nearby bush. He was way out of his territory here. What if Rimmer started insisting he needed to be kept in a cool, dry place, or far away from bananas?

Rimmer turned at the silence that greeted that comment and saw confusion on Lister's face. "Queer! Poof! Chocolate-dipper! Smegging gay!"

Lister was almost annoyed. What did that have to do with anything? "So?"

"So?" Rimmer asked, his voice topping out in high-pitched incredulity. He snapped his head back around to look at the village again. "Something in that blasted crash must have mucked my bee."

Lister sighed and sat next to Rimmer, who gave him a glance before shifting to the side to allow a suitably straight-male space between them. And there it was. It was worse than he'd thought. Rimmer wasn't just confused and conflicted about having given in to his attraction to Lister - he clearly hadn't been attracted to Lister in the first place. What this morning had been - curiosity, the thrill of breaking a taboo? - it didn't matter. Rimmer was disgusted with what he'd done, and disgusted with Lister, to the point where he was certain there had to something physically wrong with him to have even entertained the possibility of doing what he'd done. There was no way to remove a lifetime of repression and bigotry with words, so Lister didn't even trying. Quiet and resignedly, Lister muttered. "Yeah, well, anyway... I wanted to apologize."

"Nothing to apologize for. Just a malfunction." Rimmer pointedly did not look at Lister. "You are what you are." He could not keep an emphasis off of the 'you.'

Lister shook his head. "I was drunk. Or... something, anyway. I had no right to..." But what good would explaining do? Rimmer wouldn't understand anyway, and if anything, would just get more upset and disgusted with him. "Yeah, well. Not that it matters now," he finished, flatly.

Rimmer's reply was as tart as one of the clone-girls. "Well, the next time you get drunk, you might want to stay down in the village."

"I said I was sorry," Lister said quietly, resenting the unnecessary nastiness. He had apologized. He couldn't undo what he'd done. What else did Rimmer expect?

"And I said there was nothing to be sorry for," Rimmer snapped back, firmly not looking at Lister.

Of course. It was never Rimmer's fault, was it? How convenient to have a light-bee to blame things on, so he didn't have to come to terms with anything or gain any kind of personal insight. And god forbid he take any sort of responsibility for the feelings of other people! Lister watched him out of corner of his eye, anger churning. "Right. So yer fine then? Apart from some minor light-bee damage? Fix ye right up and ye'll be nice and..." He shook his head hard in frustration.

"Who the smeg is going to fix me up?" Rimmer spat at the village. Useless smeggers. Only two times did he ever need anything from them, and they just would not evolve! He did not need their blasted liquor and leaves and women and smegging interfering matchmaking. "Even that smegging bogbot would be an improvement..." he muttered.

Lister rested his head on his knees, looking towards village. "Stupid, anyway," he mumbled. Him and Rimmer? What a laugh. Very funny. Endless hours of fun.

Rimmer glanced at Lister. The man hardly seemed to notice his confession, let alone care. He seemed wrapped up in something of his own - and what did he have to be upset about? He was alive, he had access to a Lister paradise with liquor and endless sex, so what was he so mopey over? "Look, do you think it's easy for me to admit a malfunction like this?" Rimmer snapped. "You know I always pride myself on keeping in tiptop shape! But this...?" Rimmer shook his head.

"Yeah, real hard," Lister said, flatly. He moved his hands behind him, leaned on them, and looked up at the sky. It really was a very beautiful place to be miserable in. He sighed, deeply.

"I don't know what to do..." Rimmer felt his voice trailing off as he started to lose himself in self-pity. He shook himself. "I'll work something out," he said, decisively. "I can't let this go on, after all. What would..." he stopped. What would his brothers say? His mum, his dad? All dead, but where was the sense in the universe if he did not still care what they thought? Still care about what was right and normal?

Worry crept into Lister's face along side a gloomy suspicion. Was that what Rimmer was worried about? That Lister would... force him? Manipulate him? Smegging hell. Careful to keep his voice neutral and calm, he turned towards the hologram. "Nothing is going to go on that you don't want, Ar..n." He remembered himself before the last syllable, but by then it was too late. The name had come so easily, but would not easily go away. He hoped that wasn't symptomatic of the rest of all this. "What the hell do you think I am?"

"What do I think you are? Well, none of my business," Rimmer replied, loftily. He was tolerant, after all, of people who wanted to have their alternative lifestyles.

Lovely. Lister gave him a quiet, steady look through his anger. "Right. Nice to see you hold me in such high regard."

Rimmer frowned. Lister had spent almost all the time he had with Rimmer specifically trying to decrease the regard in which Rimmer held him. He seemed almost to consider it a challenge, with his slovenly habits, his pranking, his calculatedly annoying behaviors. "You'll live..."

Lister's sigh sounded almost cynical. "Yeah, I will, at that." He stood up. "I'll leave you alone now. That's what you want, isn't it?"

Rimmer watched Lister nervously out of the corner of his eye. With Rimmer's bee malfunctioning so oddly, he did not trust the man to be close to him. "What I want? Utterly not the point, I think."

Lister brushed the dirt off of his jumpsuit and looked away from Rimmer. "I dunno. I tried, Rimmer, I really did. I knew it shouldn't have happened like it did, and I'm still smegging sorry, no matter what you say."

The pot of tension that had been simmering in Rimmer for over three hundred years, and had been filled to overflowing by Lister's resurrection and their inexplicable... activities, boiled over. "Stop saying you're smegging sorry!!" Rimmer yelled, jumping to his feet. "Sorry doesn't fix anything, does it?" He bit his quivering lip and clenched his fists.

Lister looked directly at him, but Rimmer did not meet his eyes. Fine. If Rimmer wanted anger and honesty, Lister would deliver. Once a day and twice on Sundays, thank you very much. "All right, then. Tell you what I'm not sorry about - that it happened at all. Shouldn't have been there and then, but at least it did happen. At least I'll have that." He clenched his eyes shut, his mouth a hard line. "But don't worry, I'll get out of yer hair. You won't ever need to see me again."

Rimmer's nostrils flared with irritation. Far, far too rich. Lister was glad he had fucked his ex-bunkmate, and seemed upset that the feeling wasn't mutual. "Oh, don't let me put you out. Just smegging delighted, you are, that..." Rimmer stuttered to a halt. So lovely that Rimmer's breakdown had worked out so nicely for Lister, wasn't it? He probably did want to boink some more and adopt a pack of sodding rugrats, and well and good for him...

Calmness had no place in this, and Lister shed it like the tears welling up, adding to his annoyance, in his eyes. All that was left now was anger; wild, free and loud. "Why the hell did you bring me here, eh Rimmer? Why the swutting, smegging hell did ya bring me along, because it's pretty fecking clear that you don't smegging want me!"

Rimmer's mouth worked. "Y...." He bit his tongue. Stupid bastard. Rimmer did smegging want him, was aching for him although they had made... had sex only hours before, and Lister could not realize how very, highly wrong that was.

Did he just say that? Panting, staring into those brown-green eyes, Lister gave a slight almost-whimper. Want. He wanted Rimmer, that was the hell of it. Even after all this, even after they'd just sodding had sex, he still wanted him. Standing so close to the hologram, his adrenaline pumping, didn't exactly help.

"P...p..." Rimmer could not even smegging speak, not with those eyes staring at him, and Lister whimpering like he had just that morning, in a way that should not smegging well turn on anyone who was a halfway normal bloke! Rimmer watched Lister turn on his heel and stalk off. He tried to yell, but the word came out as a squeak "Pervert!" Hell, he didn't even know who he was referring to, anymore. He ran like a bulldog was on his heels.

Pervert. Lister froze, not hearing Rimmer's frantic footsteps, and the breaking of branches underfoot. "What?" he said, the chill in his voice making the temperature drop well below normal for a tropical climate. Hearing no answer, he turned, seeing Rimmer's fleeing back. The hologram stumbled, fell, clambered back to his feet, and staggered onward, away from the village. Thinking nothing, just breathing, Lister watched until long after he was out of sight, trying to get a grip. And failing. Finally, he collapsed into a hunched position like a wet sack of kittens.


Rimmer ran like a crazed rabbit in heat, not knowing where he was going, only that it was away. He was horny as hell and hating himself for it; the running helped to vent the frustration some, at least. It did not help with the frustration when something leapt out of a nearby copse and tackled him, teeth scratching at his neck and claws catching at his uniform. All of Rimmer's forward velocity turned into a faceplant, as whatever was on his back bore him to the ground, screeching his ears off. Rimmer struggled, shrieking like a girl.

Whatever was atop him shrieked in harmony. It rolled with him, pinning him to the ground with far superior reflexes. Rimmer struggled and yelped, working himself to a position where his back was to the ground and his face to his tormentor. He froze. An impossibility stared back at him. "Wh... wh... wh..."

Cat was wheezing, and his suede jacket was covered with leaves and blades of grass. In an eerie voice, he said, "You killed him."

"Wh... wh... wh..." Rimmer's mouth was working pointlessly as he goggled at the impossibility.

"Now, I'm gonna kill you." Cat said, matter-of-factly. He was sure he had caught a whiff of that grody aftershave goalpost head used, and he was right. This was going to be fun.


Pervert.

It wasn't the first time that word had been thrown in Lister's direction. Usually though, the offender would be a young lady of some description, giving him a well-deserved piece of her mind. That was fine - if he wanted to sneak into the locker room of the women's gym and hide in the supply closet, he'd take whatever they'd throw at him, which hadn't always been just words. Even Kris had called him that a couple of times when he's asked to see her naked before they were dating. But the girls had been angry, and he had been expected it, and Kris had been laughing, but Rimmer...

He hadn't been angry. He'd been disgusted and horrified.

He sighed, looking up at the sky again, flat on his back. Lying like this, it wasn't all too hard to imagine that the ground was just an extension of him, going on for miles and miles, surrounding the entire planet. He felt dizzy, and breathed in the surprisingly fragrant air. Everything about this place was heaven, wasn't it? So why did he have to ruin it by feeling like shit?

He sat up, and brushed the dirt off his shoulders and back. He'd been there for a while now, and his face was beginning to get that dull, insistent ache that signaled the beginning of a sunburn. On reflection, spending hours unprotected under a tropical sun after years of almost exclusively artificial light might not have been the wisest of moves.

Grunting, he got to his knees, and gazed in the direction of the village. A group of three or four girls were playing something that bore an uncanny resemblance to "Twister", but they were all laughing so hard at the contortions their half-naked bodies had been manipulated into that the game didn't seem to be progressing much at all. Neither they, nor Lister for that matter, seemed to care. He should go down there, he thought. That's clearly where he belonged; laughing, partying, not caring, getting fed things by gorgeous girls. On cue, one of them worked an arm free and gave him a little wave. He was about to return the gesture when he saw that the angle was all wrong, and that she was, in fact, signaling the tan, dark-haired girl on her way up the path towards Lister.

Lister scurried back, and by some miracle of locomotion managed to get to his feet by the time she'd arrived. Though straight-backed, relaxed and smiling, like the lot of them, there was something a little off about this girl. Lister couldn't quite place it until she looked up at him and grinned, revealing a face he'd seen in the mirror every morning at about age twenty or so. She could be older, he realized; he'd had a hard time getting into the over-eighteen vid-shows long into his twenties. She did not, however, have the worry-lines and pallor he'd developed over the last few years, and her teeth were naturally perfect, not patched together by whatever means necessary with the help of Kryten's patient dentistry.

"Hi," this strange him-woman greeted him cheerfully, in a voice not far away in range from his own. Though she could pass for him in a tick duffel coat, or in dubious disco lighting, she was unmistakably female. Her features were softer, she was slightly shorter, her hips somewhat more pronounced, and her waist narrower, though not by much. And of course, she quite obviously had breasts, bouncing free above the pleated grass belt holding her short skirt in place. The sight of them, all full and dark-nippled, led his thoughts down the painful path of Rimmer's frequent comments to the effect that Lister did in fact have breasts, but he was thankfully interrupted by a soft hand on his cheek. "Are you all right?"

The loving concern in her voice nearly pushed Lister back into tears, but he shook it off. He wasn't giving Rimmer the satisfaction. "I'm fine."

She smiled even wider, revealing traces of chewed blessed leaf between her teeth. "Oh, I'm glad! I saw the Watcher running off, so I thought I'd..." She frowned, as though suddenly remembering something. "I am Ilse. I gave pleasure to the Watcher yesterday." She jumped up and hugged Lister with less self-consciousness than a wet St. Bernard greeting its owner coming home from work.

Lister didn't have time to react to her statement before he was forced to react to her actions, which he did by staggering backwards and nearly tripping over the bottle Rimmer had thrown earlier. "Hey, hey, hey!" Normally, the close, eager proximity of women was something he enjoyed, but he'd had sex with himself one time too many. Besides which, this girl felt more like his daughter than anything else. His daughter, who'd... Grabbing her arms in both hands and holding her away from himself at their length, he spluttered, "You what?"

Ilse's smile didn't fade as Lister nearly shook her, but soon the gravity of his expression reached her own eyes. "You do not share?" she asked, haltingly. "I'm sorry; he said nothing, and you were still asleep. I suppose I just thought..."

"So, wait," Lister said, letting her go, and wiping the sweat from his now quite sore and itching brow, "yer the girl he slept with?"

"We didn't sleep." Ilse looked downright eerie standing there, arms crossed below her breasts, head askew. She was friendly enough, but there was just too much of him in her for Lister to take her seriously. "We had sex. Although," she hesitated, "we did do it in his bed. Was that what you meant?"

Smart girl, Lister thought. Daft him for assuming his words would mean the same to her as it did to him. Her being with Rimmer was making less sense by the minute. They couldn't have gotten on. "Yer a lot like me, aren't ya?" Too much like him. "What did he... What was he..." All these women, each more delicious than the next, and Rimmer goes and sleeps with the one that could pass for Lister. It didn't fit. Not with what Rimmer had just made abundantly clear.

"I enjoyed him, thanks!" It sounded like the kind of polite phrase you utter at the beginning or end of a meal, but nonetheless there was enthusiasm behind it. Ilse clearly had enjoyed Rimmer. Which was nice, but not exactly what Lister was after. "Where was he going?"

"Eh?" Lister couldn't stop staring at her breasts. Maybe Rimmer hadn't been able to, either. Maybe one thing had led to another, and that had been all. Nothing more than the convenience of her being close at hand, her looks just an grotesque coincidence.

"The Watcher - I saw him running." Ilse's too-familiar brown eyes searched Lister's face as she rubbed her arms. There was a slight wind, probably enough to feel chilly to her heat-spoiled sensibilities. "I wanted to meet you. I hope I didn't disturb anything. Are you playing a game?"

Had he ever been like that? Lister wondered, as the absurdity of her question made him laugh out loud. Probably not. She'd grown up in a world where 'misfortune' was not being able to find your favorite nut right away that afternoon, or your lover saying something slightly rude about your new skirt. Even death was seen as a safe and natural, if not a wholly good, thing. Lister had seen them carry the dead away as he'd left the welcoming feast; there had been tears, but mostly smiles and cheers honoring their lives. This place was smegging insane. And Ilse had grown up here, knowing nothing else. No wonder she could see two men arguing as he and Rimmer had, and think it had been a friendly game. "No," he gasped finally, "it wasn't a game. We were..." How could he possibly explain? He settled for shaking his head, and smiling.

"What?"

"It doesn't matter. He doesn't want me." Her eyes narrowed in lack of comprehension. "Do you understand that? Doesn't want me, yeah? Not interested."

"Not interested?"

Lister sighed. "Look, I know it's hard for you to understand, but where we come from -"

"The other place," Ilse interrupted.

"The... other place, yeah." The girl was really quick on the uptake. "Up... over... whatever, there, people don't just accept everyone else. There are things like hang ups and smeg ups and misunderstandings, and fecking neuroses, and all sorts of goited crap that keeps people from saying what they really mean, or getting what they really want. Where I come from, people can 'share' and 'give pleasure'" he spat the words out as though they were a scraps of rancid tobacco he'd accidentally gotten into his mouth, "and not really mean anything by it! They can fuck you and make you want them, and then tell you being with you makes them sick!" As the last word left his lips, Lister realized he'd been shouting straight into a terrified-looking Ilse's face. "God," he choked, wondering how many times today he would have to say these words, "I'm so-"

But Ilse reached out and hugged him again before he could finish. "I think," she whispered in that ill-fitting Ionian accent, "I need to tell you something."


Now, I'm gonna kill you

"Wh... wh... HEY!" Rimmer yelled as the words penetrated. One possible explanation for the impossibility leapt to mind. It also rather conveniently explained the last several hundred years. "I've died and gone to hell," he squeaked.

Cat grinned a nasty grin that showed his teeth. "Damn straight, cattle-brand head."

"You're dead!" For a dead Cat, the Cat was certainly doing a good job of pinning his arms.

"No, you're dead - pay attention!" Cat batted Rimmer in the face. Toying with your prey was very important, and he was quite good at it. The more afraid they were when you finally killed them, the better.

"I was dead before, you twit!" Rimmer shouted, fruitlessly trying to wrench his arms free. His legs were unpinned, however, and he brought one knee up with as much velocity as he could muster into the Cat's crotch.

More puzzled than surprised, the Cat frowned. "Now that's not very..." The sensation of his gonads being squashed very flat hit, and he folded carefully in two, making sure to fall in such a manner as to crease his suit as little as possible.

Rimmer found a part of him very much hoping that there was a rational explanation for Cat's presence, because the expression on the git's face had been one to treasure. He struggled to his feet, brushing grass and dirt off of his uniform and straightening it. He cleared his throat and spoke with pomposity. "I don't care if you are a hallucination; you can bloody well behave yourself!"

From somewhere in the tall grass, Cat gave a very quiet kitten-like squeak. Rimmer smirked.

"Mister Rimmer, sir?" said the voice of another impossibility. Rimmer jerked and stumbled. He whipped around. "I think... yes, I really think I might possibly have to kill you," Kryten said, smoothly and evenly. He thought for a moment, looking at Rimmer. Nothing seemed to contradict his earlier statement, so he nodded happily. "Yes."

Rimmer looked at the impossible Cat and the impossible Kryten. For variety, he looked at the impossible Kryten and the impossible Cat. Oh, dear lord, he had gone spare, hadn't he? He wondered if he would be struck with an inexplicable urge to sleep with them. He started to giggle. He pointed at Kryten, then at Cat. "You're..." he paused to titter, "dead."

Rather impressed with the simplicity and just plain overwhelming rightness of his logical deduction, Kryten droned on. "Oh, true, it would burn out my harm-to human safety circuits, and thus end my existence, but frankly, I feel it would be worth it." He had thought this over quite carefully.

"I am completely, utterly," Rimmer giggled, "loony."

Cat struggled to sit up, grasping his painful crotch. "Bastard!" he said, weakly. This was one of the favorite parts of his body! He was going to be nice before, and kill alphabet-block head quickly, but the monkey had earned a slow one with that move.

Rimmer sat down, laughing outright. All of the tension seemed to have drained right out of him. If he were mad, he wasn't responsible for anything, was he? It was terribly liberating. "Oh, this is..." he snorted another laugh. "Hey, I have an idea. Let's all," he chortled, "have a party!" He laughed very hard, watching Kryten stare at him with open-eyed bemusement. Cat moaned. "All of you... dead people! Lister, and the Brotherhood of the Frequent Fuckery..." Rimmer fell over on his side laughing. "And... you!" Rimmer snorted and pounded the ground, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes.

Kryten backed slowly away. This might possibly be worse than he'd thought He snuck over to Cat, whispering, "I was right; his light bee must have gotten damaged in the crash. That's why I couldn't pinpoint him. Well smelled, sir!"

Cat attempted to sit up with at least a trace of dignity. "Thank you..." he whimpered. His testicles seemed to be returning to normal. Massive relief surged through him, alongside renewed bloodlust.

Rimmer's bout of hilarity started to run its course. He sat up, still giggling.

Kryten turned back to the matter at hand. "Now, which one of us should kill him?"

"Oh, take turns, please! Fun for everyone!" Rimmer grinned at Kryten.

Cat attempted to stand, as Kryten reflected further. "True, as a mechanical, I am outranked by any biological, and so it should fall to you, Mister Cat, sir," Kryten told him.

Rimmer staggered to his feet, pointing at the village. Oh, this was terrific. It explained everything, so nicely. One broad brush of madness swept over all of the issues and subtleties that were plaguing him. He was quite mad! He wondered what would happen if his two sets of hallucinations met each other. "Oh, but make sure all of them get a chance." He covered his mouth with his hand to stifle a giggle. Cat and Kryten exchanged looks. Rimmer folded his hands and looked at them. "My, you're just as ugly dead as you were alive."

Kryten moved a step closer, carefully. Mister Rimmer should not be able to harm him, and in any case, the Cat's reflexes were better than any hologram's, but Mister Rimmer clearly was far into la-la-land. He might be able to summon reserves only afforded to the truly smegged-out-of-their-skulls. "Sir, you are not well. Now please cooperate and allow us to kill you."

Rimmer frowned at the stupid thick hallucination of Kryten. "Oh, for smeg's sake. I am not going to let some smegging hallucination of a grotting bog-bot kill me. Piss off back to whatever fevered dream you came from."

"Oh, I'm afraid we are very real indeed."

"Oh, yes, indeed." Rimmer snorted. He shook his head. "I saw you all die - and rather enjoyed the experience, actually."

"Oh, this is useless!" Kryten said to Cat. They should have brought the bazookoids, but then again, there was the matter of Mister Lister... He addressed Rimmer again. "Yes, that's all lovely, sir. Now, if you'll just be kind enough to tell us where you've put-" his voice broke, "Mister Lister's body..." he lost it completely, and started to shake with tearless mechano-sobs.

Rimmer sighed, rolling his eyes. "His body is over in the village. With his mind still in it, more's the pity."

Kryten frowned. If anything, this made even less sense than what he'd been saying before. Had he wanted to remove Mister Lister's brain, but had been unable to? "Are you saying... you didn't..." Kryten searched around for ways in which to remove brains that would seem logical. None came to mind. "Scoop his brains out? Why would you?"

"How would I have found them?" Rimmer snapped.

"I appreciate that you are quite, quite mad, but even so, sir, you've lost me."

Cat, who had been gently prodding himself, took a few experimental steps. He whipped out a clothes brush, cleaned the leaves and grass off of his jacket, swept a comb through his hair, and extended his claws. "Lemme kill him!"

Rimmer glared down his nose at Cat. "Look, if you two hallucinations are quite done..."

Kryten put a pacifying hand on Cat's shoulder. "Please, sir, we do need to find out where he's buried Mister Lister."

"Buried?" Rimmer shook his head. "Look, why don't you two... things... go pay him a visit?" He waved in the general direction of his hut. "I'll be over here, going quietly mad." He turned, looking at the sun and the bright, green grass. It was a lovely day to be mad. He started to whistle.

Cat and Kryten exchanged looks again. "Look, we know what you did!" Cat yelled. Turning to Kryten, he hissed, in a voice loud enough to be heard by theoretical civilizations far underground, "Is it me, or is he even crazier than normal?" They followed at a cautious distance, Cat cocking his head from side to side to keep a close eye on the weirdo.

Rimmer glanced back at them. It was not kind of the hallucinations to not let him be mad in peace. He flipped his hand at them. "Shoo."

Kryten rubbed his hands together. "Erm... if it wouldn't be too much bother... could you provide us with exact co-ordinates? It's just you won't be able to when I've extracted your light bee from your body and mangled it beyond repair."

Rimmer spread his hands, exasperated. "Why would I have exact coordinates of that free-love fest? And why would I give it to two... smegging... hallucinations?"

Cat's ears perked. "Free love?" Oh, that sounded good! He might have a chance to kill goalpost head and have sex with something. If he found something to eat, it might turn into a very good day indeed.

Yes, that was just like Cat. Rimmer frowned. "Startlingly realistic hallucinations..." Gears in his head started to turn. They latched onto his earlier thought about running the two sets of hallucinations together, and ran it around for a while. They liked it. "Look... why don't you..." he put one finger to his lips, a gesture he always found oddly settling and others always found oddly unsettling. Or was that because others... never mind. "Come with me." Rimmer glanced at the hallucinations, so oddly like Cat and Kryten just moments before their deaths. He would have to give his subconscious a good talking-to. It could have hallucinated some lovely nymphomaniacs who looked nothing like Lister, after all.

"Right, and let you lead us into one of your crazy death-traps or somethin'? Not this Cat!"

Rimmer put on his most soothing tones. Other people tended to find them terribly grating, but that was hardly his fault. "I just want to take you to see his body."

Mister Lister's body! How wonderful... But that meant he was dead, and not alive any more, and there would be no more underwear to scrub, but at least they had found him, and oh no - but it was terribly comforting, but oh goodness... Kryten's features twisted into a bizarre sequence of faux expressions. "Oh, splendid!"

Cat shifted his still-sore jewels in his trousers. "Bastard," he muttered, glaring daggers at Rimmer. Box-head would not let him kill ugly-face right now, then. Fine; he could wait.

Rimmer was rather pleased that he ran so haphazardly before. He had a wonderful talent for getting lost, one that he discovered in the Space Scouts, but he left a trail that Ray Charles could follow. He folded his hands behind his back and casually strolled back the way he came. He resolutely did not look at or talk to the two hallucinations. He was still rather put out at his subconscious, so he whistled, looking at the scenery, hoping that it would get bored and provide something more appealing. They refused to change, however, and followed him all of the way back to the hill that his hut sat atop.

Cat glared at the back of fridge-magnet head, annoyed that he had to wait to kill him. Cats did not have friends, but Lister had fed him, which gave Cat a perfectly good reason to loathe the spindly one even more than he had before. It also gave Cat a good reason to kill him - which he hardly needed, as killing that one would raise the overall coolness and handsomeness of the universe significantly.

Kryten sniffled slightly, running his memory back over scenes of his time with Lister. Making his early-morning pick-me-up breakfasts after a night of heavy drinking. His patient, long lessons trying to teach Kryten how to lie. He'd never given up, not his Mr. Lister, no sir! His love of Indian food and chilies... "His face used to light up whenever we found a fresh supply of Indian spices. Who will eat those crates of chili-chutney now? They'll start corroding the deck in a few weeks’ time!" Kryten had scrubbed all of his long johns over and over again on the trip over here. There was a distinct glow when you opened his underwear-drawer now.

"Swutting infatuated mechanoids," Rimmer muttered. Three female Space Corps test pilots, in those tight silvery uniforms, with straight blonde hair, smiling shyly at him while they fingered their zippers. Rimmer prodded his subconscious, but it refused to oblige.

Lister stood on the hillside, looking thoughtfully out over the village. Ilse was long gone, but her words still lingered in his mind. He wasn't sure what they meant yet; he still wasn’t sure what any of this meant. All in all, though, he felt a damn sight better. They had time, he and yes, dammit, Arn. Nothing was impossible. He'd almost forgotten that. Hearing footsteps, he turned quickly, thinking Arn had returned.

He had. But not alone. "Cat? Krytes?" All right then; yes - nothing was impossible!

"Bud?" Cat called back. He sniffed, then wrinkled his nose. Yep, that was his bathless bud, all right.

Kryten was almost in hysterics, his joy-chip shorting out. "Mister Lister!"

"Hell..." Rimmer staggered backwards, his jaw slightly unhinged. Lister saw them, too. "Oh, hell," he croaked.

Lister ran towards them, beaming. "Guys!" They all embraced in a jumble of hands, words and laughter.

Rimmer shook his head. If Lister saw them, they couldn't be his hallucinations. But they were dead. He saw it! He looked carefully as Lister's hands touched Kryten's shoulder plate, Cat's arm...

"I thought you was dead!" Lister cried.

"We thought you were dead!" Cat replied. "Didn't goalpost head kill you?"

Lister frowned. "Wha? Of course not, he saved me life!"

All was still for a moment, as the four of them stood there, looking from face to face with increasing incomprehension. Until, suddenly, a quiet tittering, almost giggly, erupted from Kryten's square lips. "Oh, dear," he spluttered. "Oh, how amusing..."

Lister raised an eyebrow. "Wha? What's so funny?"

Kryten continued to giggle - a very strange thing for an angular mechanoid to do. "Oh, just wait until you hear this one!"

"Just tell me, guy!" Lister said, exasperated.

Rimmer was having a hard time coming to terms with this. After a few static centuries, three people who he had been very, very sure were quite dead were all walking and talking just like normal people, within the space of a day. He pointed at all of them. "You're... not... dead."

"'Course not!" Cat hissed. "So shut up!"

Rimmer got to his feet. "Doesn't anyone stay dead??" he barked. He pointed at Cat. "Even just you? Would that have been too difficult?"

"I think I know what happened here!" Kryten exclaimed, waving a finger knowingly.

"Right." Rimmer folded his arms, having as much faith in the mechanoid's analysis as he did in that bottle of relaxation tonic Lister had given him to make up for a fight over his ninth go at the astronavigation exam. It had fizzled worryingly when he poured it down the loo.

Kryten could hardly speak for repressed laughter. "You see... when our future selves tried to kill us, they must have destroyed the time-drive in their barrage, completely by accident. Therefore, our future selves erased themselves, and the timeline began to change."

"I shot the smegging time-drive!" Rimmer yelled.

Kryten hurried on, lost in his narrative, paying no attention. "When Mister Rimmer hightailed it in the escape pod, he couldn't possibly know that the timeline would re-align itself and return us to normal - so he escaped for no reason!" Kryten laughed heartily. "My, oh my," he gasped, wiping an imaginary tear from his ductless eyes.

Damned stuck-up mechanoid. Rimmer clamped his lips shut to keep himself from sputtering. Not to mention, damned stuck-up and utterly wrong mechanoid. Pause. Regain control of mouth. "It didn't smegging re-align! Lister was dead when I opened the pod." Rimmer stopped, something else filtering through his brain. A Something Else that he should have thought of before. But he had been attacked by a killer smegging Cat, he justified, which should forgive him a little absent-mindedness.

Lister spoke before him. "So hang on, hang on. Yous guys returned to normal right away? Why'd ya hang about so long before coming to rescue us?"

Rimmer smiled a very pertinent vulture smile, tapping his mouth with his forefinger. "Or did I halt your recovery when I put Lister into stasis?"

Kryten coughed an artificial cough and raised his imaginary eyebrows. "Well," he said, uncertainly, "there was that odd business with the ship's chronometers..." He'd thought it had just been a relapse of that malfunction Mister Lister had tried to fix with a stick of cinnamon gum. Kryten had warned him that peppermint would have been much more stable, but he really could be quite stubborn at times.

Rimmer stared as Kryten stuttered to a halt. That Something Else that was filtering through his brain was not a good Something Else. It threatened to discomfit him greatly. He had one cure for his own discomfort, however, and that was to make those surrounding him even more uncomfortable; he prided himself on his ability to discomfit. He slowly raised one eyebrow in a discomfiting manner, still tapping his lips with his forefinger.

"Oh my," Kryten stuttered. This was far worse than anything gum-related. Even peppermint would be unlikely to fix this.

Cat frowned. "How long you dudes been here, anyways?"

Rimmer grimaced. The answer to that question meshed very badly with the Something Else that had settled in his brain. "Good question. I lost count."

Startled, Lister swiveled around to face him. Lost count? Rimmer never lost count, once he got started on something. Once he became hard-light, the smegger had patiently written down in a new report book every insult Lister had tossed since his death, painstakingly committed to memory. Lister remembered the wall, all neat rows of lines, going on and on. Why would he have stopped? Unless, Lister thought grimly, he'd stopped caring...

Kryten spoke in a measured voice. "It would appear that... ahem... your putting Mister Lister into stasis indeed did slow our recovery down. By about... well, I couldn't say exactly, but..."

Lister's eyes widened, as rows of charcoal lines danced in his head. Hundreds of years, waiting for Lister to wake up. Then thinking he was dead. Then the shock of him coming alive, and it had all been... for nothing? He was surprised Rimmer hadn't started disintegrating into tiny, sparkling, hard-light pieces.

As Kryten had faltered, Rimmer, still in one miserable piece, took over. "Ooooh, three hundred years or so?" It had all fallen into place. A very Arnold-is-a-schmuck place. He turned and kicked the ground. A bit of uncovered turf stared back at him and offered nothing useful. "Smeg!"

"Yes, thereabouts," Kryten replied, carefully.

"If I hadn't smegging bothered to put him in smegging stasis..." Yes, Arnold, if you had just left things alone, they would have fixed themselves. Instead, you spent a few centuries with a civilization of Listers, while your three crewmates waited out the time comfortably in death. Will you ever learn to stop meddling, you dumb bastard?

Cat's nostrils twitched. He looked around, finally homing in on the village. "I smell something." He squinted at the village, sniffing the air. "Something bouncy." Things that might make up for not being able to kill goalpost head with his bare hands.

Rimmer wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Oh, yes, always in tune with the important things."

"I think I need to go investigate further. Excuse me." Cat headed towards the village. He smelled soft and squishy things. Things he could have sex with. Things with wet bits that would make his important bit feel very, very good. Kryten looked on thoughtfully as Cat danced off towards the village. Organics never failed to surprise him in their choice of pastimes.

"He won't know what to do with them," Rimmer grumbled. Cat probably thought girls looked just like him, only not as attractive. He wouldn't know what to do with a pair of breasts. Let alone... "Never seen a twat in his life."

Three hundred years, Lister thought. It had never really struck home until now. What Ilse had said; Rimmer's cruddy behavior; all of it. All of it. Staring at Rimmer, he found it hard to believe that the man was still holding it together at all. All of this, he'd done all of this for Lister, and what had he done in return? Been a twonk about it all, that's what he'd done.

The import of the village and Rimmer's earlier statements had finally sorted themselves into a scenario. A very strange one, but the only one that fit all of the facts. "You used the pod's seeding ability, then?" Kryten asked.

"Yes, may I rot in Hades for even contemplating such a move."

"He made a whole people out of me. They're all like me," Lister said quietly, still staring at Rimmer.

Kryten made a heroic effort at wrinkling his brow, which, unfortunately, was just not made for that sort of thing. "Really, sir?" This was passing strange behavior for Rimmer. Not taking the pod and running, no. The only thing that surprised Kryten about that move was that he waited so long. No, cloning a race out of Mister Lister. Kryten had a very strange, quite novel feeling about this. Unfortunately, his copy of 'Your Syntho-Motions And You' was back in Starbug, and so he had no idea what it was.

"Unfortunately, yes," Rimmer told the divot he had toed into the turf.

Kryten eyed Rimmer, doing the equivalent of having his emotion sit down for a spot of tea and biscuits while he got comfortable with it. "I find that a little bit odd."

"A little?" Rimmer hooted. "It's the most dysfunctional society you have ever seen in your smegging runtime, bogbot!"

"So why did you make it?" Kryten asked.

"I thought..." Rimmer waved. "I mean..." he gestured, as if his arms, one wildly flailing at Lister, the other at the village, could communicate an overriding despair at the concept of Lister's death, which had turned out not to be a death, and his hope to use the villagers to heal Lister, who did not need it, after all, using a technology they had never gotten close to evolving. "I..." Rimmer threw his hands in the air, then dropped to sit on the ground as his arms fell. "Oh, smeg it, I don't know why. Latent masochism." He was startled at the bitterness in his voice.

Kryten watched this display with bemusement. He considered the actions the emotion wanted him to pursue, and judged it to be a complex mixture of surprise, disbelief, concern, annoyance, and jealousy. He started to parse it, judging the relative contribution of each component. "It's just - and I hope you'll pardon me for saying so, sir - that given your usual modus operandi, one would have expected you to dump Lister's body, try to reprogram the pod, and get the hell out of Dodge. Not raise an entire civilization of clones."

Such a sensible course of action. A damned sensible course of action. It fit every Rimmer directive to a tee. "Yes, that would have made a lot more sense, wouldn't it have?" He stroked his chin. He would have escaped. The others would have come back to normal within - minutes, hours? Soon, at least. They would have chased him down, and all four would have gone on just as before, sniping and yelling and being mean bastards to each other. No hundreds of clones, no lost centuries, no Lister-girls with clean braids and powerful hooch, no odd light bee malfunctions that made him want to kiss and fondle his ex-bunkmate. Rimmer's hand dropped, and he watched it flop to the grass between his legs.

Lister gave Rimmer a sad look. "He doesn't make sense, that man. Never did; why start now?" Bitterness saturated his voice. His short, Ilse-induced burst of optimism was fading; funny how just a few minutes with good old Arnie J. could do that to a person.

Kryten looked thoughtfully at them both. "I'll... I'll just go and see how Mister Cat's getting on, shall I?"

"Take a hammer and a squirt gun," Rimmer growled.

"If you think that will help," Kryten said, puzzled, and trotted off, wondering where he would find either in this place.

Rimmer could feel Lister approaching. Was it too late? Could they go back to normal - after all of that? He stood. "Well, that's that." Lister's gaze rose with him, and did not let up. Rimmer could not meet his eyes, could not see the want that lived there, the want that was echoed by his own damned malfunctioning bee. "Back to the 'Bug." He forced his voice to be chipper, and dusted the soil off of his trousers.

"That what you want, then?" Lister asked in a measured voice.

Rimmer turned to look at him, incredulous. Smegging gay Lister might be, but didn't he understand, now, that Rimmer wanted none of it? Or would want none of it, once he was repaired. "Of course. Do you really think I want to live out my run-time on Listerworld?"

Lister met his eyes, levelly.

"You want to live your life out here?" Part of Rimmer applauded the idea. A part that never wanted to see Lister again, Lister with his eyes and lips and ability to draw out bits of Rimmer he was quite happy not having drawn out. A larger part of Rimmer did not like this idea at all. He supposed it to be the damaged part.

Lister looked away for a second. "Wouldn't be the worst idea I've had." When he turned back, there was a renewed intensity in his eyes. Living here. No, not a bad idea. Second choice, perhaps, but not a bad one.

Rimmer spread his arms, indicating the world. "This might very well be the worst idea I've ever had." In every way. In every sodding possible way. Everything it had done to him, and oh god, he hoped it could be undone.

Lister smiled, very faintly. "You don't get it, do you? What you've created?"

"All I had to do was wait," Rimmer found himself almost wailing. "Just smegging... sit there."

"You made a paradise. Might not be your type of paradise, but it is fer them." No poverty, no crime or major diseases as far as Lister could tell. Young and old lived and loved together, everyone getting the respect they deserved. Damn sight better than the Earth he had left, that was for sure.

It was all rather funny, Rimmer decided. He chortled. "That's all I had to do." He kicked at the unoffending turf again. Damn that turf. Blast it all to smeg for being so inoffensive, for being so soft and inviting, for making him want to lie on it naked with Lister atop. It was all the smegging turf's fault.

"How many people can say they've made a whole race of people happy, Rimmer? Eh? You did that. You helped make them what they are. They love you, you know that? Can't get enough of ya." Lister smiled a little. "Stands to reason that, though I know you don't want to hear it." Rimmer crossed his arms, shaking his head, as Lister moved to stand next to him. "This isn't my world. It's yours."

"You can have it," Rimmer said, quietly. It must be better for both of them for Lister to stay behind. It must.

"It's not mine to take." Lister pointed. "It's theirs. Can you at least appreciate that? Fer smeg's sake, Rimmer, you did something good here! You did something damn good!"

"So you say." Rimmer shrugged. "I didn't do it for them. I did it for me. They..." Rimmer waved one arm in the direction of the village, "were just a by-product. And I didn't need them anyway, after all..." Ah, yes, the ultimate irony. He felt a need to taste it, chew on it before swallowing it again, slowly digesting. It was a huge chunk of irony, after all.

Unbelievable. The man was downright unbelievable. "Right. Fer you. Because you desperately wanted a race of - what was it? Gerbil-faced hippie clones?" He'd tried to explain to Ilse what a gerbil was. She'd seemed amused by it.

"You bet I smegging didn't."

"So why, then? Kryten is right; this isn't like you. You could have fixed the pod on yer own, but you didn't." Lister walked over, raising his face and staring at Rimmer, his folded arms close enough to brush Rimmer's uniform, which he wanted to do, along with a whole host of other things, but this wasn't the time. He wasn't making that mistake again. "So why, then? Why did ya do it?"

Had he not made this clear enough? What did Lister think - that he did have a highly bizarre masochistic streak? He put his palms on Lister's shoulders and pushed the other man away. "Because you were smegging dying! What else could I have done? Sod-all, that's what!" Rimmer was spitting by the end.

"Exactly," Lister said, flatly.

Rimmer felt himself deflate as the part of him that was dealing with the large chunk of irony latched onto that reality, with glee. "Except you weren't dying."

"You didn't know that."

"You were already dead." Rimmer shrugged. "I must have known... somewhere. I must have seen those readings. And not let myself see what they meant." He wasn't that smegging clueless. Or careless. Rimmer shrugged again. He held onto a false hope that someone he did not particularly like, someone who did not particularly like him, was still alive, despite readings that clearly showed that he was not. Arnold Smegmeister Rimmer.

"And you still stayed." Dammit, Arn, have some insight into yourself, Lister fumed. Even Kryten had gotten it; Lister had seen the looks he'd given both of them, the way he'd left so hurriedly. When Kryten is more in touch with your feelings than you are, it is beyond a bad sign.

"I think I was malfunctioning even before we crashed," Rimmer muttered. Perhaps. Certainly this odd... besotting with Lister would explain his selective blindness.

"Malfunctioning, yeah." Lister gave a sad smile. You had to at least give the man credit for consistency.

Rimmer held to that bit of objective science tightly. "I mean, holography was new when we left the solar system. They can't have meant for me to run this long. And who knows what Legion did..." Rimmer stuttered to a halt.

Lister half-turned away. "Well, I'm for one am glad yer still here." He crossed his arms over his chest, realizing that he'd seen an echo of this pose in Ilse, not knowing what to think about that. Surreal, the whole of this planet.

"Great," Rimmer replied, flatly. He looked at his arms, looking for imperfections. Something. Some outward sign of his inner turmoil. "Maybe I'll just... flicker out."

Quite by impulse, Lister took his hand, gently. "Please don't," he said, quietly.

"It isn't exactly my call, miladdio!" Rimmer snapped. This... infatuation hadn't been his choice, either. Who knew what his bee might do? It wasn't like a real body, which gave some warning of when it was going off.

"I know."

"Unless you trust that auto-duster to fix me," Rimmer grumbled. "Quite frankly, I can't think of anything else." He hated the idea of that tin can getting his cool jelly-rubber hands on Rimmer's bee. But what other choice did he have? Just like with the clones, he thought with bad grace. He looked up to see Lister staring at him with glistening eyes. Rimmer looked away, and Lister dropped his hand with a sigh. Rimmer bit his lip. Lister's hand. Lister's eyes. They... enhanced his malfunction, somehow. Made him feel desire and want. He sat, staring at his hands, and took a deep breath. "Sod Kryten, sod Cat, sod our future selves. Sod your smegging clones, every last one, sod you, and smegging well sod me."

Lister hugged himself. "Why'd ya have to do that? Hate yerself so much?"

Rimmer lay back, looking up at the sky. "Just going with popular opinion," he had to admit.

Lister laughed heartily. "Yer impossible, aren't ya? What, a race of people isn't enough? What do ya want, a smegging solar system of adoration?"

Rimmer shook his head. "They think I'm a smeghead. Just like you. They love pranking. After three hundred years of evolution, their blasted pranks are still as smegging stupid as the ones you used to pull on Red Dwarf."

This spoke to Lister's pride, and he offered, over his shoulder, "Hey, stupid can be funny!"

"Not intentionally." Rimmer turned his head, looking at the leg of Lister's overalls. It was right next to him. The turf was soft at his back. He was filled with such aching need from the nearness of it - and yes, it was near. Close enough to reach out and grab. Rimmer did so.

Lister started, nearly losing his balance as something tugged at his leg. It wasn't exactly a relief when he saw what the cause of it was. Wrong time again. Even worse, this time. And yet, there was a stronger pull on him than that exerted by that long, lean hand.

Rimmer felt hypnotized. He needed to explain to the rational part of him what he was doing, because it for smegging sure was not in the least bit rational. "Kryten's... going to fix me," he breathed, pulling on Lister's leg.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, Lister's common sense screamed at him as he followed the pull, getting down on his knees.

Rimmer reached up, taking Lister's cheeks between his hands. Soft, warm; they fed his need and increased it. Rimmer pulled down, hearing Lister sigh with deep relief, letting himself be pulled. If feeding increased the hunger, Rimmer thought absently, he was in quite a bit of trouble. He pulled Lister's face down until their lips met, opening his mouth and kissing him deeply. He ran his hands over Lister's cheeks and neck, feeling their lovely texture, only wanting more the more he touched. "Once more... before he fixes me..." he mumbled through his kisses, to reassure his rational mind.

Lister whimpered. "Yes," he mumbled quietly, his brain screaming no! Fortunately, or unfortunately, the forces urging him on were much more vocal than the ones holding him back. Shut up, he willed at them, knowing he would pay the price eventually. Something this good had to be worth it, though... Yes? No, his mind retorted, but he asked it to shut up again.

Rimmer grabbed Lister's back, pulling him in to lie tightly atop, his body so close to Rimmer’s - but not nearly close enough. "Not... my fault," Rimmer moaned.

"It's all right," Lister said soothingly, caressing Rimmer's face.

Some part of Rimmer assured him that an interruption of this kissing would be physically painful, and so he mumbled into Lister's mouth. "Nothing's all right." He pushed at Lister's jumpsuit, feeling the man's solid body, so unlike anything he was supposed to want. But smeg, he wanted it.

Lister kissed just as desperately, panting. "Can't... ya... pretend?" He helped Rimmer get the jumpsuit off of him. "Just... fer... now?"

"Eh..." Wasn't he pretending, now? Pretending this was good and normal? Pretending it would last? Damn, it was a seductive pretense. He licked Lister's ears and neck, rubbing the man's chest, the sparse hairs tickling his fingers.

Lister leaned his head back, shuddering, making incoherent noises.

Rimmer pushed the jumpsuit farther and farther down, pulling up on Lister - or was he pulling himself down? did it matter? - to lick and bite at his chest. The taste of sweat and mechanic's grease from the jumpsuit, with the musky taste of Lister underneath, should not be tolerable, let alone erotic, his rational mind assured him. He told his rational mind to go hang.

Lister tried to pluck at Rimmer's jacket fastenings, wanting it gone, wanting them both naked, but most of all, wanting this all not to be some smegging grand finale. No, hell no, he wouldn't let it be!

Rimmer, somehow, did not care one whit to be unclothed. He slid his hands inside to Lister's buttocks, and grabbed them, licking Lister's navel thoroughly. All of those flavors were pooled in there, a slightly more intense area.

Lister cried out, leaning in and down to suck at Rimmer's neck, which didn't taste of anything except the faint alcoholic hint from the aftershave he could no longer smell through all this other sensory input, so he sucked harder, as if to compensate. Damn clothes were in the way, but he didn't have the presence of mind he needed to help get them off.

The jumpsuit was in the way. It seemed to mock Rimmer, laughing at the access it denied him to the very good bits of Lister. Arnie J. was in no mood to be mocked. He rolled over and sat up, grabbing Lister's boots, and yanked them off. Lister, looking dazed, let it happen. Rimmer then grabbed the legs of the jumpsuit, yanked them off, and tossed them away in triumph. The sight of Lister's naked body took his breath away and shot a wave of arousal through him that landed in his gut like a punch. This, he decided, was most definitely not normal.

The wildness of it all, Rimmer so clearly needing him, was intoxicating. Lister gave a lusty smile, and raised himself up on one elbow. This was not good enough, he thought, pulling Rimmer towards him by the back of his neck, mouth already open for a deep kiss. He couldn't wait to taste him, lick him, envelop him completely. Not the last time, dammit!

Rimmer threw himself full-length on Lister's body, opening his mouth wide, trying to reach Lister's hippocampus through the back of throat with his tongue. He stroked up Lister's thighs, his fingertips just brushing the soft skin of his testicles at the top.

Driven to new heights of frantic lust by Rimmer's actions, Lister kissed him back with ferocity, grabbing his buttocks as if for support, trying to pull Rimmer in closer than he knew was technically possible.

Rimmer brought one hand to Lister's erection, grabbing it firmly. Smeg, it was most definitely not normal for him to want to taste it. He opened his own trousers with his other hand and started to stroke himself. Orgasm would end this... madness that seemed to have no bounds. He stroked Lister firmly.

The more-than-welcome touch made Lister's eyes roll back, and his back arch, but he felt slightly cheated at the hologram should have all the fun. Batting Rimmer's hand away, he grabbed the erection that was not his own, and held it tightly.

This threw Rimmer off balance; he tipped to one side, grabbing the ground with his suddenly free hand. He grasped Lister's erection even tightly as he wavered. Lister made his own grip firmer in response, gritting his teeth, and Rimmer whined.

Surely there was a better use of his mouth than this, Lister mused, and stuck his tongue out to lick what he could of Rimmer's face, which turned out to be his lips and chin. When and as they became available, he turned his attention to his cheeks, kissing them joyfully.

Rimmer pumped hard and fast, feeling himself swimming in some strange, thick, heady sea of ecstasy as he opened his mouth and let Lister's tongue move over his face and inside of his mouth.

Lister threw his free arm around Rimmer and pushed at him with his body, rolling the hologram over and landing on top. Rimmer barely noticed. The universe had narrowed down to a hot, sweaty body against him, a stiff, bumpy cock in one hand that he pumped desperately, and an agile tongue that licked as if it were trying to find a candy center.

Lister removed his own hand from Rimmer's erection as he pressed his own, still in Rimmer's hand, against it, because there was just not enough of anything. He felt there would never be enough of anything, not ever, not if they were together for a thousand years - Rimmer had lived for a thousand years, he mused, in the detached way thought would come during the heat of sexual ecstasy. Well, it was not enough, regardless.

Rimmer moaned and hissed in a breath, pumping hard and fast. He couldn't even tell whose erection was in his hand, now. A sweaty body was atop him, slithering and licking, and the tongue in his mouth and over his lips and his cheeks belonged to a pair of wet brown eyes that he would see if he opened his eyes, he could see even if he kept them closed, they were staring and oh, he needed to come or this ache would kill him, it would...

"Shit... God... Arn..." Lister teetered on the edge of orgasm that he both wanted and didn't want, because it would mean the end of this, and a return to rational thinking, which would, he suspected, be rather angry with him for what he'd just done.

Rimmer came, still pumping desperately at Lister's erection. He whined into Lister's ear, and the orgasm was delicious, but the ache was still there.

Much against his will, Lister came as Rimmer did, because there was no way of holding back in this intense coupling of the two of them; they minds and bodies one. He pressed one hand against Rimmer's cheek, clamping the other on his buttock, and held on for as long as the long, shivering spasms thrilled through him, willing them to go on longer than he knew was possible, because hell, this should not, could not end...

Rimmer shuddered with his oddly unsatisfying orgasm, pulling out Lister's shudders.

"Yes," Lister gasped, quietly. "Arn, man..."

Rimmer pulled his come-covered hand up, holding it between their faces, wanting to demand an explanation. Why? I gave in, so why am I so smegging unsatisfied? Lister kissed the nape of Rimmer's neck, burying his head in it, as Rimmer dropped his hand, letting it fall to the ground. He wiped it off on the grass, that smegging lying, tempting turf.

Lister hugged Rimmer tightly, almost painfully. "Can't lose this..." His voice was desperate. "Hell..." He'd done a stupid thing; a stupid, goited, idiotic thing, but how could he not? He'd be twice smegged if he let it slip through his fingers now; hell no! Not ever! Not ever!

Rimmer rested his other hand on the small of Lister's back, thinking of repair. Normalcy. The right thing. "You can lose anything."

"Don't want to," Lister said, his anger firm, unflinching. Can't!

Rimmer sighed. Want. Well, didn't Rimmer want this? But this wasn't right and normal, and didn't he want to be right and normal? Smegging hell, everyone did, didn't they? "We don't always get what we want," he replied, bitterly.

Anger ate at Lister, pushing tears into his eyes, pushing him away from this man who never seemed to stop fecking messing with him. Was this the world championship fuck-up-Lister tournament? "What do you want, Arn? What the hell do you smegging want?" He pulled himself off of Rimmer and stood, hoping the way he tore his arms away hurt Rimmer; at least that way the goit would feel something. "I can't do this! This..." Lister flailed his arms. He picked up his jumpsuit to keep them still.

Rimmer rubbed his eyes, tiredly, feeling oddly vacant. "I don't know."

"No, you smegging never do know," Lister muttered. He pulled his jumpsuit on. At least that was something he was fairly sure he could do without mucking it up.

"I think... I lost... just about everything I wanted... centuries ago," Rimmer muttered. No, all of that had been... before. When he was alive. When there was a ziggurat. When there was a family and a social order. "Millennia." He looked down at himself, covered with grass-stains and sweat, his penis hanging limply out of his trousers. Nobody to care that he looked like an ass. Except Lister.

Lister picked up his boots and put them on. He felt tired, very tired.

"I just want... to be normal. To have the normal, sane, happy life that everyone wants. That my brothers had." But no, his brothers were dead. Smeg, he was dead. He frowned. "Or death." Damn it, the entire society was dead. Everything that dictated right and normal, and did these words suddenly simply cease to mean anything? How was he to know? "I don't want to smegging want you and miss you."

"All I can do is love you. And I wish I didn't, but I do. If that's not enough, I can't help you." Lister finished tying his boots. There. Another major accomplishment. Well done him.

Rimmer looked up at Lister "I just do... and if you did... hell, if you had the same, wouldn't you want to fix it?" he said, his voice almost a wail.

Lister stopped abruptly and turned sharply in Rimmer's direction. He moved over and put one hand on the grass on either side of Rimmer, bringing himself nose-to-nose with the hologram. "I do have the same. And no, I don't. Because Arn - that's life, that is."

Rimmer dropped his eyes. "Life."

Lister kept his voice steady. "Yeah. Life. Death. Whatever. And it just is, and we deal with it, because that's what people do. That's what yer brothers did too, you know, every single day. It's what people do. We're not perfect. We just are."

Rimmer folded his arms, shifting uncomfortably. He unfolded them to reach down and tuck his penis back into his trousers. He felt ridiculous, transparent. The strange tingling that used to come over him when the boys were being picked for football, knowing that he'd be picked last, that tingling that he felt when he noticed his fly was undone at the end of a date, was coming over him, and he hated it. Lister pulled back and stood with his arms crossed, looking down at Rimmer. Looking down on him like a school prefect; like one in the line of identical-looking sodding social workers that had sat him down in their offices and tried to run his life for him. "So, Listy, my guidance counselor," Rimmer asked, acidly, "what do you suggest I do?"

"Figure out what the hell you want, then let me know. You want me? Fine. Swell. I'm happy. You don't? I won't like it, but life isn't always fair. I might stay here then, at that. But just let me know, yeah? Because this..." he twirled his hand to indicate their recent actions, the hillside turf, looking almost disheveled "...is fecking killing me." He turned away, trying to catch his breath, and sat, finally. Standing up just seemed too much of an effort.

Rimmer rubbed his forehead, closing his eyes. He rolled over, putting his face into the grass, finding the black loam underneath oddly comforting. Little enough stability anymore, anywhere in the universe. No brothers, no parents, no society, no promotions, no JMC or Space Corps, no ranks. No normal. No expected. He would take what stability the sod had to offer. His face rested in an indentation, one that smelled like Lister. The ground, at least, did not seem to care what had transpired. "Why did you want so badly to catch Red Dwarf?" he asked, his voice muffled by the grass.

Taken completely by surprise, Lister almost turned his head, before remembering that nothing good or remotely helpful lay in that direction. "Eh?" What a question. Wasn't it obvious? "Because... it was the right thing to do, yeah?"

"We don't stand a chance, now," Rimmer muttered. "Too long."

"So we don't," Lister said, flatly. "We'll have a think on that later." When things were back to normal. Normal and claustrophobic and dull and boring, and sodding smegging no way in hell would Lister put up with it anymore.

Rimmer rolled over and sat up. He shifted over until he sat almost shoulder-to-shoulder with Lister, looking out over the grass. Perhaps this is all Arnold Judas Rimmer is, he thought. A collection of malfunctions. Without his malfunctions, he would be - Captain Platini. He frowned. "So. Is this," he tried to imitate Lister, "the right thing to do, yeah?"

Closing his eyes, Lister tried to enjoy the unexpected closeness for what it was, not hoping for anything more. "Feels right."

Rimmer nodded. Moved and seconded, and he could live - or not-live - with that. Lister leaned against Rimmer's side, and Rimmer tentatively put his arm over Lister's shoulder. The contact was oddly satisfying. Rimmer felt not in the least bit horny; just oddly calm.

For some reason, Lister started to shake; it seemed to be connected with a wetness in his eyes. He was tired, so tired. He couldn't think.

Rimmer looked down at Lister, the delicate calm Rimmer had just managed to grasp flitting away as Lister shook. "Oh, don't smegging cry. I really can't deal with that."

"I can," Lister said weakly, with a slight smile. He could handle it for the two of them. If Rimmer would let him. Rimmer shrugged nervously. But he did not let go. Lister gave him that. He did not let go.

Lister squinted towards the village, his vision blurred by tears. Things were so simple down there, weren't they? You just loved; you found someone you wanted, and you loved them. They loved you back, or they cared for you enough to... something wasn't right. None of the villages had hair that high or neatly coiffed, nor were they likely to be wearing coordinated eveningwear. "Hey... hang on. Is that Cat with those thr... fo... five girls?"

The delicate calm ran off somewhere far, far away. "I. Do. Not. Want. To. Know," Rimmer growled. "I don't think they do, either."

Lister wiped his eyes and took another look, then wished he hadn't. His eyes almost fell out of his head.

Rimmer reached up and covered Lister's eyes, looking resolutely away himself. The calm was far away, and Rimmer was damned if he was going to lose his sex drive to the blasted Cat, as well.

"Thanks... I couldn't look away!" Lister sighed.

"I couldn't look in the first place." Rimmer spat back.

Yes, it had been horrible. Depravity of the highest order. Of course... Lister thought for a moment. "You think that's physically possible?"

Rimmer curled his lip. "The brainless are often possessed of a great flexibility to compensate."

Lister gave a wide grin, and Rimmer, despite himself, glanced over. It was the impulse that makes one want to watch train wrecks and plane crashes and Paris Hilton videos, and Rimmer regretted it instantly. "I don't want to know where they're putting that big purple fruit, though."

"Oi, I thought you wasn't looking!" Lister stifled a sudden urge to giggle. This was nice, the two of them, the subject matter of their conversation notwithstanding.

"Just a glimpse. I'll be scarred for life." He probably would. He was not sure if he would ever have an erection again. Hell, he'd be lucky if his genitalia did not move back inside. He tried to think about something, anything else, and put his face in Lister's hair, feeling giggles shake the man's body. His hair had that reek Rimmer remembered from their days bunking together. "Their braids don't smell," he muttered. He quickly added, "I've... heard."

The though of what Rimmer might have heard - and smelled and seen - gave Lister an unexpectedly warm glow, as he thought of healthy, smiling teeth and sweet, friendly arms surrounding him. Lister gave a deep, comfortable sigh, and giggled again.

It was passing strange, trying to think of this desire for Lister as normal. Or at least, acceptable. He tentatively toyed with Lister's braids, ran his hands along the hair at the nape of his neck, and traced the outline of his ear. His fingers brushed Lister's cheek.

If he moved, Lister thought, this might all go away. He'd hardly understood how Rimmer worked before, and he was damned if he understood the flimsy framework he seemed to have erected now, holding up this wonderfulness and keeping it from crashing down on them both. Or maybe this wasn't real at all - just another unreality pocket come to haunt them. Making quiet happy noises, though - that might work. He did so, as Rimmer kissed his forehead awkwardly, like a child would kiss a teacher. "Mmm..."

"Mm," Rimmer replied, as if it were a countersign.

Lister's hand fell to rest on Rimmer's thigh, and he squeezed it slightly. That felt real, at last. A hard-light anchor in this complicated ocean they were swimming in.

Rimmer froze, his mind wrapping itself around this complication. He let himself get acquainted with the idea of Lister's hand on his thigh. Resting there. Almost possessively. After a minute or so, he kissed Lister again on the forehead. "I might still be slightly broken, you know," he muttered, defensively. "I've been in operation for a good long time."

It was hard to keep a straight face, but Lister just about managed by chewing on his lower lip, and trying to focus on the hut in the distance, into which the Cat had just been hauled. "Oh, eh?"

"Might well stop working, some time."

Lister shook his head. "So may I, too. People die. It happens. All we can do is hope it happens later rather than sooner."

"Yes. Just so you're not surprised." Rimmer felt he had adequately covered his bases, for the moment, and kissed Lister on the nose.

"Yes, Arn, I know you won't live forever." He wrinkled his nose, happily.

"Yes. Well." Wait, Rimmer thought; there is still one base to cover. "I don't like your clones."

"Don't expect you to," Lister said, happily.

"I didn't like mine, either. Bastards."

Lister laughed. It felt good. And yes, it felt right. Like the right thing to do. The two of them, here. Him laughing. Not Rimmer laughing, though; that would have been truly disturbing. There was, however, on that forcibly solemn face, something akin to a blinking target, drawing Lister in. He turned towards it. "Hey, could I ask ye something?"

"I don't think I can keep you from asking. I reserve the right not to answer."

"All right, then." Lister's smile turned sardonic, and one eyebrow rose to the top of his sunburned brow. "Would it be all right if I kissed ya again?"

Rimmer pondered this. "All right with whom?" Fortunately, he did not have to worry about his smegging parents. "Kryten would not approve. Cat would throw up." Rimmer suddenly lifted his head. That was a brilliant idea. "Let's go ask him." He owed the Cat a little genital wilting.

"Oh, shut up," Lister mumbled, promptly kissing him without permission.