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It was a long time before Rimmer fell asleep, his alarm clock woke him again after only a few hours. Lister slid out of the opposite bunk and headed for the sink to freshen up. Rimmer simply altered his projection to fully dressed mode and left for the living area, furtively glancing back at Lister still in his silk slip as he did so.
Eventually Lister wandered in after him. To Rimmer's disappointment, not that he'd ever admit it, Lister had taken the slip off and was wearing his longjohns again. On the other hand, they were the new white ones Kryten had found him, rather than the grotty old ones, which Rimmer had repeatedly attempted to flush out of the airlock, and he had them only half buttoned up against the heat, with the legs and sleeves rolled up, so it wasn't as though he was entirely covered. Rimmer pretended to be engrossed in his chart.
"Morning, Rimmer."
"Morning. Dressed marginally more appropriately this morning, I see."
Lister rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, whatever."
"Seriously though," Rimmer enquired. "Where did you get that thing? And what was your old lingerie doing on Starbug anyway?"
Lister sighed. "I bought it, okay? Three million years ago back when you could still buy stuff. And it's on Starbug because I stashed several cool items of clothing here ages ago when the aircon started playing up, I thought I might need them. Good thinking wasn't it?" he added pointedly. "Otherwise I'd have to sleep naked in this heat."
Rimmer twitched. "Well..., yes all right! But why?" he blustered. "Why would you buy yourself women's lingerie in the first place? It just seems a bit..., odd."
Lister sat down at the table and gave him a hard look. "Do you really want to know?"
"Well," Rimmer muttered. "If I've been sharing a room with a cross-dresser all this time...,"
"It was just a one-off! The guy I was seeing at the time told me he'd had a sex dream about me in lingerie, so I bought some to surprise him for our dirty weekend together, okay? It wasn't just the slip, I had some stockings and suspenders as well." He paused to savour Rimmer's reaction to that part and wasn't disappointed. "But those are back on Red Dwarf somewhere."
"What guy?" Rimmer demanded suddenly. He narrowed his eyes. "Todhunter?"
"You knew about that?!"
"Well, I didn't know, I just suspected. I mean, I knew you had to be seeing someone who you weren't telling me about, what with you keep disappearing in the evenings, and there were rumours flying around that he was secretly seeing someone as well. I put two and two together and found it very unlikely, but not impossible. I mean Kochanski wasn't exactly in your league either and that still happened. Still, if officers do it for you, I'm not one to judge!"
"You're exactly one to judge and officers do not 'do it for me', Rimmer, that's you! You're the one with a thing about rank and officership, I just like who I like regardless of what job they do. If Kris and Frank both happened to be officers, that's just a coincidence." He stood up and headed for the cockpit. There was no point getting into an argument with Rimmer about his love life of all things, and it was almost time for shift changeover anyway. Cat had been working the whole night shift and would be wanting his sleeptime now.
Lister high-fived the departing Cat on the way past, settled himself comfortably at the controls, and sipped the fresh coffee Kryten had left out ready for him. So far, it looked like it was going to be another long boring day in a long boring week. But given some of the adventures they'd had before, boring was good. Maybe he could fill in another crossword puzzle.
After finishing his crossword disappointingly quickly followed by several dull hours of staring out the window at stars, Lister went to eat the lunch Kryten had prepared him and Rimmer took over cockpit duty. Lister spent the rest of the day performing maintenance jobs on Starbug with Kryten, although the problem with the heating would have to wait for now. He didn't see Rimmer again until bedtime.
Rimmer found it almost impossible to concentrate during his shift. Damn Lister in that damn slip, along with stockings and suspenders apparently, kept coming back to haunt him, over and over. Eventually he stopped fighting it and spent his last couple of hours daydreaming about Lister in lingerie and wondering if he'd wear it again tonight.
Eventually, Cat returned to take over again for the night and Rimmer headed off to the sleeping quarters. Outside the door, he paused to take a deep breath and then entered the room. As he'd hoped, Lister was indeed wearing the slip again. He altered his projection to stripped down to underwear mode and cleaned off the day's grime by the simple process of switching to soft light and then back to hard light again, one of the very few benefits of being a hologram was that it negated such things as needing to wash. That done, he settled into his bunk and climbed under the sheets, watching Lister. Watching the way the silk moved against his body as he prepared for bed.
Lister finished brushing his teeth and took some time to sluice his face and armpits clean, before heading for his own bunk.
Rimmer waited until the lights were off until he said anything. "So..., Listy...,"
"Yes?" Lister resigned himself, he knew that tone of voice.
"Todhunter then. You and Todhunter. That happened."
"What about it?" Lister sighed. "I know you didn't like him but it was a long time ago and he's dead, so why dredge it all up now?"
"Well if you were prepared to dress up in women's lingerie for him, with smegging stockings, then he must have meant something to you, people don't do that sort of thing for one night stands."
Lister stared into the darkness as he considered that. "Yeah," he conceded eventually. "I guess he did. But you know...,"
"Know what?"
"I was twenty-four, Rimmer, I wasn't exactly looking to get married. It got a bit too serious for me and I called it off, okay?"
"You dumped Todhunter?!" Rimmer asked in that gleeful tone of voice that he used for revelling in the misfortunes of others. "Officer Smug Git actually got his arse dumped? By the likes of you?!"
"Firstly, he wasn't a smug git, and secondly, you do realise it's really childish to gloat?" Lister replied irritably. "If you're not gonna be mature about this, I'm not gonna discuss it any further."
He rolled over in his bunk and Rimmer heard the sound of silk brushing against the sheet. He rolled over himself, his back to Lister's bunk, and his mind filled with those images again. Lister with his body encased in soft, shiny silk that flowed across his skin, that hitched up as he moved, slowly revealing more and more of his smooth brown thighs...,
Lister smiled down at him, flipping his dreadlocks over his shoulder. "Like what you see, Arn?" he said in a low sultry tone.
Rimmer reached up to clasp the silk covered body. Lister's legs were encased in white fishnet stockings and whatever it was they were attached to; more silk, as far as Rimmer could tell, covered his groin. The outlines of his cock and balls shifted under the fine creamy layer.
Rimmer's eyes wandered over it, watching the movement.
"You want it, you unwrap it," Lister purred, guiding Rimmer's hands to the fastenings.
Rimmer swallowed hard and fumbled with the clasps, until the covering fell away, revealing Lister in all his glory. Lister ran his hands over Rimmer's chest and Rimmer realised that he was somehow naked, he just accepted it. Lister caressed Rimmer's pectoral muscles and gently toyed with his nipples. He leant down further and kissed him, his mouth warm and wet and sweet-tasting, his tongue flicked across Rimmer's. Then he drew back from the kiss to look at him as his hand snaked between their bodies, finding Rimmer's erect cock.
"Smeg, you're big, aren't you?" he breathed. "I never knew." He shifted forward, adjusting position. "Much bigger than Todhunter. I can't wait to have that inside me. You ready, big man?" Rimmer gripped Lister's thighs as Lister lowered himself down, their eyes met as his cock was slowly enveloped in tight heat...,
And Rimmer woke up. With an achingly hard erection, a sore jaw from clenching his teeth, and sore palms where he'd been digging his nails in. Damn dreams. Damn Lister. Damn him to hell.