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"Rimmer, no!" Lister grabbed his head between two hands. "You can't! Not me curries, not after all the trouble I went to to get them back!"
"Lister, may I remind you that I am the senior officer on board, therefore I am the one responsible – as people keep reminding me – of your well-being, and I say this garbage needs to go. You are ruining your intestines." He was standing with his hard-light finger only an inch away from the button. One third of the ship's curry store was already loaded into the waste-disposal unit and the skutters stood in an unenthusiastically threatening pose between it and Lister. "Not to mention," Rimmer continued, "that I am sick and tired of your flatulence." He raised his finger as if to jab it down.
"Stop! That's an order!"
Rimmer paused, then chuckled. "Really, now, Lister. You giving me orders? Is this more of your living privilege showing? Ooh, Rimmer's dead, ooh, I can boss him around now, is that it?"
"I didn't want to tell you this." Lister groaned.
"What? Tell me what?"
"Remember that chef's exam I took?"
"What, four years ago?"
"Yeah. Thing is, I told you I failed, but I didn't."
"No no, you told me you passed, but you didn't."
"You just got so unbearable about it," Lister continued. "Remember? You barely spoke to me, and if I asked you a question you just saluted and called me 'sir'. I could see that you were mad at me, so Holly and me decided to tell you I'd lied just so things could go back to normal."
Colour drained from Rimmer's face. "You... passed? Is this true, Holly?" He turned to a screen set to the wall, where Holly watched them with a kind of a melancholy curiosity.
"I'm afraid it is, Arnold," she confirmed.
"That's right. I'm your superior officer. And if you jettison me vindaloo, I'm throwing you in the brig!"
Rimmer slowly moved his hand away from the button. "I'm sorry, sir. Skutters, move aside for... for the ship's chef." He gave a Rimmer salute and stood to attention.
Lister sighed. "All right, skutters, let's get all of this back into the hold."
Rimmer remained frozen in attention as Lister passed him with the skutters. Lister already regretted telling the truth.
*
"It's the same thing all over again," Lister complained. "Do you know he's started to expect me to cook?"
Kryten started. "Sir, I hardly think that's advisable. Remember your taste buds."
"Yeah, the two remaining ones. Don't worry, I'm quite happy to leave it to you and the vending machines. It's just Rimmer. He's so in love with protocol and discipline and all that stuff. He won't relax for even a minute and insult me like he used to. It's just not the same."
"Oh! I have read about this sort of thing, sir. I believe there are some suitable props in the Floor 21 recreational commercial facility for just this kind of situation."
"What are you talking about, Kryten? What props?"
"I don't pretend to fully comprehend their purpose, sir, but I have read rather extensively on human sexual practices since that misunderstanding about Miss Rachel..."
"No, no, hold on. What's sex got to do with Rimmer being a toadying little smeghead?"
Kryten opened his mouth, and then closed it again, a stiff mechanic expression that Lister had begun to take as a sign of hesitation. "I apologise if I misunderstood, sir. I read that enjoying discipline is a fairly common human sexual taste."
"You think Rimmer's got a thing for all that kinky stuff? It would make sense, wouldn't it?" Lister picked a cigarette from his hat thoughtfully, glanced at its crumbled state, and put it back. "He's never mentioned it, though. Either way, it doesn't solve my problem."
"What exactly is the problem, sir?"
"Don't get me wrong, it's a laugh watching him jump when I give him an order, but you can't live with him anymore. It's like being followed around by an overenthusiastic service robot. No offence," he added quickly. "Not like you. I mean..."
"Well," Kryten said with quiet dignity. "I certainly wouldn't want to make you feel uncomfortable, sir."
"Kryten, I didn't mean--"
"Do not concern yourself, sir. I can tell when I'm not wanted. I'll be in the laundry room... Sir!" Kryten practically wailed that last word, and bolted out of the room.
Lister let his hands drop back to his sides. It wasn't easy being the last sane person left in the universe.
*
"Rimmer?" Lister put his head cautiously into the cabin. He was alone. He tiptoed inside. The plan was to find another berth on the ship, somewhere where Rimmer wouldn't look, and hide out there with his music and a few videos. Not the most brilliant long-term plan, perhaps, but it'd be enough just to get a rest. All he needed was a few things from his locker--
"Mr Lister, sir!" came the crisp, unmistakable voice of Rimmer from the vicinity of the bathroom. Lister groaned and turned around, only to see Rimmer finishing his salute. He was dressed in a towel and his hard-light body was still glimmering with moisture. Remarkable technology, really.
"Aw, Rimmer. Can't you cut it out for just a minute?"
"Sir." Rimmer said, staring at a point straight ahead, standing in perfect attention.
"So I rank higher than you. So what? I'm still me! Remember? Slobbiest entity in the known universe?" He picked up a can of warm beer from where Rimmer had meticulously arranged them on the shelf. Cleaning seemed to be one of the side-effects of his new status-consciousness. Lister opened the can, the fizz spilling over his hands and the floor just the way he liked it, and took a big messy gulp, getting beer all over his shirt. He gestured to himself. "You're really going to take orders from this?"
"Unquestioningly, sir," Rimmer said. "It is my fondest wish to someday--" Rimmer's left nostril flared.
"Yeah?" Lister said, curious.
"To - to be like you – sir."
Lister shook his head. "This is smegging unbelievable." He set the beer down and went over to Rimmer, walking around him. "I know how you talk about officers behind their back. Because I passed one exam more than you – one – you'll wedge your tongue between me cheeks as soon as talk to me." He stopped in front of Rimmer, looking up at his stony face. "Am I right?"
Rimmer swallowed. "Sir."
"Well then." Lister grinned. "Get down on your knees, technician."
Rimmer blinked and looked at Lister for the first time. "Sir?"
"Are you going to talk to me like a normal person again?"
"Sir."
"Right. On your knees."
Rimmer slowly lowered himself down on his knees, attempting as best he could to remain in attention.
"You know, Kryten thinks you get off on this."
Rimmer's face remained impassive, but Lister leaned in closer and could see the colour rising on his face. This was starting to be fun. "Is that true? Is a pair of pips all it takes to do it for you?"
"Sir, I have nothing but the utmost respect--"
"Second technician Arnold Rimmer!" Lister barked.
"Sir!"
"Take off that ridiculous towel, this isn't a Turkish bath."
Rimmer stared up at Lister with something between terror and defiance in his eye, but obeyed, fumbling with his towel just a moment before whipping it off and folding it neatly on the floor in front of him.
"Very good," Lister said, looking Rimmer up and down. It occurred to him that in all this time he'd never seen Rimmer naked before. Petersen and Chen in the showers, sure, but never Rimmer.
He had an inkling of what he was doing, but mostly this was just forward momentum. He lifted his T-shirt, one so old and worn down that not even Kryten's relentless laundering had done away with all the stains, and pointed at his belly button. "Lick this," he said.
Rimmer's nostrils flared again. It was working. Suppressing another grin, Lister frowned instead. "Whenever you have a moment, second technician."
"List-- sir, I--"
"Did I give you permission to speak?" Lister barked.
"No, sir."
"Chop-chop, Rimmer. Jump to it. I gave you and order, didn't I?"
Rimmer jerked forward, shuffling on his knees until they rested on the folded towel, and steadied himself against Lister's midsection. Lister jerked as he felt the atomic simulation of the surface tension of a moist tongue on his skin, searching for a moment before dipping into his belly button.
He'd never expected Rimmer to actually do it. Almost instinctively he grabbed the back of Rimmer's head, but stopped himself from pulling it away, even as Rimmer kept lapping at his skin.
He was on the right track. He knew he was. He'd just underestimated just where Rimmer's breaking point was. Kryten was wrong, of course. All he needed to do was find the one thing Rimmer wouldn't do, and things would go back to normal. It was a great plan. It was a brilliant plan. It couldn't fail.
Lister caught his own eye in the mirror, taking in the absurdity of his position, and steeled himself.
"That's enough," he said, and released Rimmer's head. Rimmer's eyes were fixed on nothing once again, but his face was flaming red, and his a muscle at his jaw twitched. That was a good sign.
"You know, Rimmer, I never did get the hang of washing me toes." He pulled up a chair and sat down, starting to pull off his left shoe and sock. "I guess I can't kill small animals with me socks anymore since Kryten's around, but it's not exactly a rose garden in me shoes either." He wiggled his toes in front of Rimmer's face, and saw his expression flicker again to disgust. "Care to wash these for me?"
Rimmer started to rise, opening his mouth, but Lister barked, "Down. You know what I want. Use your mouth."
He could almost see the words forming on Rimmer's mind. Go on, he urged him silently. Just call me Lister, just once, tell me I'm disgusting, tell me to smeg off.
Slowly, the expression died on Rimmer's face, melted into neutrality. Incredulous, Lister watched Rimmer slowly take a big toe in his mouth, rolling his tongue around it without so much as a twitch in his expression, closing his mouth over it, and sucking it in.
Lister felt his own face burning. No. Surely not. Any moment now he'll stop.
Rimmer ran his tongue between the big and index toes, and then moved on down the line.
Lister had never considered himself particularly kinky. Dirty, sure. It wasn't like he hadn't licked the odd toe himself. This was all wrong, though. This was about as wrong as wrong could be, and – he had to admit it, and that was the wrongest thing of all – it was turning him on.
He pulled his foot back, nearly kicking Rimmer's face in the process. "Th-that's good," he stammered. "I mean, that's good enough, technician."
Rimmer looked at him, then. Not at the empty air, not at the floor or at his slick-toed foot still hovering between them, but right into Lister's eyes. That was not a look of submission.
Smegging hell, he was on to him.
Lister's eyes narrowed. "Okay, then, Rimsy," he said. "Okay!"
"Sir?" said Rimmer, something dangerous in the way the corner of his mouth curved up.
It was time for the big guns. Lister stood up, turned around, grabbed the back of the chair and leaned forward. "Kiss me arse."
There was no sound of movement or even breathing behind him.
"Go on!" Lister continued with growing confidence. "It's what you do best, isn't it, Rimmer? So snorkel up and get in there. After all, it's the only part of me body that I wipe every day."
"Lister, you are the filthiest, nastiest speck of mucus that ever crawled out of a woman."
Lister let out a sigh of relief and straightened up. "Finally!"
It was then he felt his bottom being grabbed. Out of pure shock he fell back forward and caught the back of the chair. Rimmer was tugging down his shorts.
"Hey, hold on--"
"Sir?" Rimmer asked sharply even as Lister's shorts fell to his ankles.
"Why can't you just admit that I wo-whoa." Lister's fingers tightened on the back of the chair, his limbs frozen in place. Rimmer's hands were back on his cheeks and his tongue had just flicked into his crack.
"You are smegging kidding me," Lister managed.
Rimmer didn't reply, but lifted Lister's buttocks apart and dipped his tongue down lower, searching for the ring.
"Holy hell." Lister's legs were shaking. He wasn't sure if it was the shock more than the arousal but there was no more denying the latter. Never in a million years would he have thought Rimmer would actually – that he'd...
Rimmer had found what he was looking for. His tongue lapped slowly against Lister's tightly shut ring.
"No!" Lister seemed to regain control of his limbs, and spun away from Rimmer. "All right, you made your point, you can stop now. You don't actually have to—"
"Get back here and stick your arse back in the air – sir!" Rimmer commanded.
Lister stared at Rimmer, still there on his knees on the towel, wet hair flat against his forehead, and a look on his face that was – yes – predatory. Inevitably, quite without conscious thought, Lister's eyes flicked down and, smeg, there was no denying it. Rimmer was hard. So was Lister. This was sex. Real, actual--
"Yeah, you know what?" Lister said, a grin blossoming on his face. "Why not?"
He kicked off his shorts and took up position again, even spreading his legs a little.
Rimmer buried his nose in Lister's crack with new enthusiasm, licking and nibbling before pushing the tip of his tongue hard against his opening. Lister fought a sense of shame and excitement to force his muscles relax. The tongue slipped inside him and Lister pushed backwards, letting Rimmer lick him open.
This was thoroughly bent, of course, absolutely the worst thing ever, but that was what made it so great.
Rimmer tongued him hard, in and out, and Lister grabbed his own throbbing dick, squeezing it but refusing to pull at it yet. Every step in this thing was a new barrier to be broken. Lister lost another chance to break one when Rimmer reached between his legs and closed his hand around Lister's, pushing it along his dick, never once taking his mouth away from him. The feeling of the wet invasion was indescribable, and Lister didn't know if he wanted to thrust up into his hand more or back against Rimmer's face, and settled for a rolling between them. It was so good. So fucking good. He was going to come. He was...
"Oh man, fuck me, Rimmer," he blurted.
Rimmer broke contact, and Lister groaned, deprived. "I don't have any lubricant," Rimmer said, his voice absurdly normal and Rimmer-like for the situation.
"I've still got some condoms with co-packaged lube, I think," Lister said, and scrambled down onto the floor. He pulled out a drawer and threw half the contents on the floor, found a packet and tossed it over to Rimmer, who stared at it as if at a loss. He was looking thoroughly messy and flustered and Lister realized he hadn't kissed him yet, so he scrambled back over and rectified this.
After about a minute of wet, tangled making out, in which Lister discovered that Rimmer had favoured the mint-eucalyptus toothpaste that morning, that apparently his arse was cleaner than he'd thought, and that there was no logical explanation as to why Rimmer was still having trouble with Portuguese with a tongue that talented, Lister remembered he still wanted to be fucked. He broke off and found the condom between Rimmer's loose fingers.
"Didn't Yvonne show you?" he asked.
"Yvonne had a head injury."
"Point taken." Lister quickly tore open the package and placed it between his lips, pressing the reservoir closed with his tongue, and lowered his head.
Rimmer fell back on his hands, his legs unfurling under him as Lister took hold of his cock, pushed back the foreskin and rolled the condom down on him with his mouth. Rimmer pushed up into his mouth, and made a sound almost like pain.
Lister swallowed him in, caught the edge of a gag reflex and relinquished his cock-sucking effort, latching back on to Rimmer's mouth instead. He fumbled open the condom package's second compartment, felt the cool slick oil spread on his palm and rubbed it to make it warm with the fingers of one hand before applying it on Rimmer.
"Are you sure?" Rimmer asked, breaking the kiss. His face was still red and his breathing ragged. "I mean, you really want this and this isn't an alternate universe and you're not a psiren or anything, are you?"
"We've been having sex for, what, fifteen minutes and I haven't tried to suck your brains out yet, have I?"
"I wish."
Lister chortled and climbed into Rimmer's lap, his heels scraping the floor behind him. "Come on, technician. Let's hinge."
Rimmer looked down and aside, not meeting his eye. "I don't know what – I mean, I have never -"
"I have." Lister lifted himself up between his feet and one hand, and reached with his other hand between his legs, taking Rimmer's cock and pressing it against his hole. "Come on, Rimmer, hurry up. I haven't got all day."
"Yes you do, you little smegger," Rimmer said, but he took hold of Lister's hips and shoved his own up, hinging them together at last.
"Smeg!" Lister swore as he was penetrated. He'd wanted it, sure, but it had been ten years since Gazza and there had been only so much lube. Rimmer rolled his hips back and shoved them up again mercilessly.
"Had to have an exam just to boss me around, did you? Then you lied about it? For years I tried to discipline you and all this time I was the lowest rank on the ship?"
"You're still on about that?" Lister panted, rolling his hips down to match Rimmer's thrusts. "God, Rimmer, give me hand, will you?"
Rimmer licked his palm and wrapped it around Lister's cock, beginning to pull at it, rolling his thumb against the tip. Lister groaned and moved his hips between the two sensations, the shock and friction of the penetration starting to mellow into the pleasure he remembered, of being open and full of someone's sex. It was filthy and fantastic, just the way he liked it.
"You are without a doubt," Rimmer paused to grunt as he shoved his hips up, "the most pig-headed, unf, the most unscrupulous, the most – oh God – the most insufferable goit I ever..."
"Smeg! Rimmer!" Lister pumped his hips between Rimmer's cock and hand faster and faster. He was almost there.
"...I ever... oh God."
The orgasm ripped through Lister like a meteor through small spacecraft, a luminous explosion that bent his body in an arch between his heels and his hands. He was only vaguely aware of Rimmer beyond the heat of his hips against his, his sides between Lister's knees, and throbbing inside him. It was only as the spasm subsided that he noticed that Rimmer had stopped moving, and was shuddering with his head bent against Lister's shoulder.
Lister fell back, spread-eagled on the cool floor. He could still feel pleasure coursing through him. "Rimmer, that was amazing." He fumbled for his hat, which miraculously still perched on his head, and found the crumbled cigarette. "Have you got a light?"
"You are unbelievable," Rimmer panted. "That was fraternization between a superior officer and a subordinate. There are rules about this sort of thing."
Lister frowned. "I only started it because I wanted you to talk to me again. You didn't have to do any of that stuff."
"Yes I did, Lister! Don't you see? I can't disobey an order."
"What about the bit where I told you to stop and you didn't?"
Rimmer stopped and blinked. "Oh yeah, fair enough."
"Here's an order: get me a light, then get down here. I want a snuggle."
Rimmer snorted, but got up. A minute later they were lying on the floor between blankets pulled from the bed, Lister blowing smoke rings in the air with Rimmer half-wrapped around him.
"Why are we on the floor?" Rimmer asked.
"You've rogered me to immobility, tiger." Lister patted Rimmer's head. "Can't move for at least another ten minutes, so you'll just have to lie here and keep me warm."
"Snuggling, honestly!" Rimmer scoffed. "What kind of a grown man wants to snuggle?" But he had buried his head into Lister's shoulder, and was holding on to him tightly, as if afraid of letting go.
"Holly?" Lister called. He had an idea. Holly's head appeared on the screen set to the wall.
Rimmer scrambled to untangle himself from Lister, and then scrambled to keep the blankets around his nudity. "Are you crazy?"
"Hello, Dave... and Arnold," Holly said, her gaze flicking between them. "What's up?"
Lister took a drag from his cigarette. "I'm the only officer on board, right?"
"That's right, Dave."
"And since I'm the only officer on board, I am also the most high ranking one."
"True."
"What are you doing?" Rimmer hissed at him while simultaneously trying to put the towel around his hips while they were still under a blanket. Lister ignored him.
"And in the absence of the captain, the highest ranking officer becomes Acting Captain."
"Correct."
"Second technician Arnold Rimmer!" Lister barked, still not bothering to get up. Rimmer, however, bounced reflexively up into attention, his half-tied towel dropping to the floor.
"Yes, sir!"
"I hereby bypass the requirement of completing an astronavigation exam, citing the virtue of experience and a crisis situation – would you call this a crisis situation, Holly?"
"As we are lost in space without so much as a skeleton crew and nearly all of humanity is dead, I guess I would, Dave."
"Very well. So, citing the virtue of experience and this being what you'd call a crisis situation, I hereby by bypass the need for a successfully completed astronavigation exam and appoint Arnold J. Rimmer as the head engineer of the Space Corps mining ship the Red Dwarf. Do you accept this post, second technician?"
"I-I-I..."
"Spit it out."
"I, I do, sir."
"Make it so, Hol."
"Duly noted," said Holly, a small smile playing across her lips.
"I further resign my post as ship's cook."
"Noted."
"That is all."
Holly was positively grinning as she winked out of the screen.
"There we are," Lister said. "You're Acting Captain. Now do you forgive me?"
"Forgive you? Lister, I could kiss you."
Lister grinned and opened his arms. "Come on, then."
"Can't." Rimmer sprung back into attention. "I would be taking advantage. The rules of fraternization between--"
"Oh, forget it." Lister stubbed his cigarette on the floor and got up, pulling off his now even more stained T-shirt and throwing it in the laundry bin. "I'm going to have a shower."
Rimmer stared at him. "Willingly?"
"Yeah. And you can join me once you've untangled whatever twisty little neurosis is making you act like a smeghead this time."
"I do not have neuroses."
Lister closed the door behind him and turned on the shower, adjusting the heat and counting under his breath until he heard the door open. He only got up to fourteen.
"For your information, I just happen to need a shower."
Lister grinned.