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Rimmer was already in when Lister got back to the bunkroom after supper in the canteen. He was sat at the table and reading one of his military magazines. Or rather, holding a magazine. He clearly wasn't reading, his eyes looked over the top of it at Lister as he entered and watched him as he tugged his jacket off and hung it on its peg, and continued watching as he cleaned his teeth in the sink.
"Alright, smeghead," Lister sighed when he'd finished. "Enough of the silent treatment. You've clearly got something to say, so say it. What have I done now? Put the trolley away wrong again? Used your shampoo? Forgotten to wash a mug?"
Rimmer put his magazine down and looked at Lister. "I saw you," he said coldly. "In the corridor earlier."
"Saw me doing what in the corridor?" Lister asked, baffled. Rimmer could be talking about any number of things.
"I saw you kissing Todhunter."
Oh, that. "Did you?" said Lister flatly.
"Yes," said Rimmer, standing up. "Kissing him, Lister. Full-on snogging. Tongues down the throat sort of kissing."
Lister scowled in annoyance. "Got a close-up look, did you?"
"I saw enough to know what was going on."
"Yeah, well it's none of your business."
Rimmer watched him as he turned away and began digging around for a fresh t-shirt. "I didn't know," he said eventually.
"Didn't know what?" Lister grunted, his head buried in his locker.
"I didn't know you were..., you know!"
"No, I don't, Rimmer."
"Like that!" Rimmer snapped.
Lister turned around and gave him a hard look. "Like what?"
"You know...," Rimmer stood twitching silently for a few seconds. "Gay!" he eventually blurted out.
"Okay, you feel better now you've said it?" Lister demanded. "Got that out of your system?"
Rimmer scowled and clenched both fists. "Well..., why would I think...? I've seen you with enough women before. In bars and things. You even bring them back here when you know I'm going to be out."
Lister groaned with exasperation as he tried to figure out Rimmer's thought processes. "What the smeg are you saying? You think they were all fake or something? If I was gay, I wouldn't go around pretending not to be, this isn't Io."
"So, you're not gay then?"
"Not exactly."
"What do you mean, 'Not exactly'," Rimmer demanded. "You are or you aren't!"
Lister sighed impatiently. "I'm bi, Rimmer."
"You're what?"
Lister sighed again. "Bi. Bisexual. You know, a bit of both."
"Since when?!"
"Since always!"
"Well, either way, you kept that quiet!" said Rimmer in a tone of accusation.
"No, I didn't," said Lister, beginning to lose his temper. "Loads of people on the ship knew, I just didn't tell you."
"Why not?!"
"Because I knew you'd behave like this!" He turned his back on Rimmer and changed t-shirts, then tossed the first one towards the laundry basket.
"Well, how should I behave then?" Rimmer demanded.
"It'd be nice if you'd behave like most people and not let it bother you but I know that's too much to ask so I just didn't tell you, okay?"
"Well don't I have the right to know?" Rimmer insisted. "I mean, we do share a room."
"What's that supposed to mean? Are you worried I'm going to try it on or something?" Lister took a mocking predatory step towards him and Rimmer flinched and backed away. Lister snorted with derision. "Don't worry, smeghead. You're not my type."
"But Todhunter is?" Rimmer scowled.
"Maybe. I haven't decided yet, we've only had one date so far. What's it to you, anyway?"
"I don't know, Lister. All I'm saying is that if you..., feel like you fancy the taste of sausage on occasion...,"
Lister couldn't help smiling at the phrase despite his annoyance.
"..., why does it have to be his? There's plenty of other men on this ship. Why him? You know how I feel about that guy. Why my arch-nemesis?"
"I don't choose who to snog, or sleep with, or date, based on how you feel about them!" Lister almost exploded. "Just stay out of my private life, Rimmer! It's got nothing to do with you!" He irritably grabbed his towel and stalked off to use the shower room. At the door he turned back to add, "And Todhunter isn't your arch-nemesis, don't be a smegging idiot."
He didn't see Rimmer again until he returned to the bunkroom to sleep. Rimmer was already in bed, the sheets pulled up to his chin. He gave a Lister a brief glance as the lights came on but didn't say anything. Lister stripped off his trousers, climbed the ladder to his bunk in his t-shirt and underwear, got under the duvet, then switched the lights back off.
Rimmer couldn't sleep, he lay on his back, staring into the darkness, his mind and stomach both churning. Remembering things said by his father and Uncle Frank and other Ionians about what was good and right and what was wrong and dirty. The time his father had backhanded him across the face for daring to even ask why anything else was bad. When two other boys at Io House boarding school had got a bit too close to each other and had both been dragged away to some sort of clinic, he'd never found out what had happened to them. How he had ended up keeping his eyes shut in the communal showers after PE in case any of the other boys thought he was looking at them, and had been unable to connect to anyone or spend time with anyone in case somebody got the wrong idea. It was no wonder he'd never had any friends.
And then there was Lister, who had tormented him since joining the crew, and even before Lister there had been others like him. Rimmer had tried to concentrate on women, tried to fill his mind with female faces and breasts whilst touching himself in his bunk at night, trying not to think of young men like Lister, pretty boys with slender figures and nice smiles. Tried to talk to women in social settings, tried not to be secretly relieved every time one of them turned him down. It hadn't worked, it had never worked. Yvonne McGruder was the closest he'd ever got; a woman, yes, but also a champion boxer with a boyish figure. She wasn't Lister though, no one else was.
Upstanding men married to upstanding women were the Ionian ideal. Upstanding men like Todhunter. Who apparently didn't think it was dirty to kiss another man. He wasn't from Io or any planet like it, the lucky bastard. And Lister..., Rimmer had always thought Lister was only interested in women, but it seemed he wasn't...,
"Lister," he said eventually. "Are you awake?"
"Yeah," said Lister from the top bunk.
Rimmer took a deep breath. "Would you..., come down here?"
"What?"
"Come down here..., with me." He heard his voice crack a bit in that sentence.
There was silence for a while, then Rimmer heard Lister's duvet shift and a creak from his mattress. Lister lightly dropped out of his bunk and sat on Rimmer's. "What's up, man?" he asked quietly.
"I just...," Rimmer trailed off and didn't speak for a while. "Can I..., hold you for a bit?" he said eventually. "Lie down with me?"
"Okay," said Lister softly. He was unsure what was happening but was intrigued by the gentle, pleading tone. He'd never heard Rimmer sound like that before. He shifted in next to him and tugged the duvet over both of them.
Rimmer's arms went around him in the dark and his face snuggled into Lister's shoulder. Lister slid his arms around Rimmer in return, he felt Rimmer's warm breath on his neck and realised how intimately their underwear-clad bodies were touching. It felt nice, he decided. He'd never even considered this with Rimmer before, but it felt right.
Rimmer's hand tentatively found his bare thigh. Lister didn't move or speak, he realised it would be all too easy to do or say the wrong thing here and then Rimmer would panic and stop, he just kept still and let Rimmer progress in his own time. Eventually Rimmer's hand found the front of Lister's boxer shorts. Lister let Rimmer stroke him for a bit, then covered Rimmer's hand with his own and gently helped him to increase his pace. Rimmer's other hand found Lister's and guided it to his groin. Lister gently touched Rimmer through his underwear until Rimmer's hand finally slid inside of his, he felt Rimmer's long slender fingers curl themselves around his cock, then he let his own hand follow suit. They pleasured each other gently in the darkness without speaking, occasional soft gasps and moans the only sounds.
When they'd finished, Rimmer slid his hand out of Lister's boxers. "Thank you," he whispered against Lister's neck.
"It's okay," Lister told him between soft kisses. "It's okay, man."
"Listy..., Don't tell anyone, will you?" Rimmer whispered, a desperately pleading note in his voice.
"No," Lister promised. "'Course not." Rimmer rested his face on Lister's shoulder and Lister held him close, gently stroking his hair. He felt the shoulder of his t-shirt dampening with silent tears. "Smegging hell, man," he whispered sadly. "Io really did a number on you, didn't it?"