Chapter Text
This Train Don’t Stop
Kryten wove his way through the debris of the sleeping quarters with a laden breakfast tray and a spring in his step. It was already proving to be a fine morning – they were free of Legion, they were back on Red Dwarf, and Mr Rimmer’s new hard light mode presented plenty of intriguing new challenges for the canny service droid. He had already begun engaging in the exciting new duties – the breakfast tray he carried was set to serve two, and two very different palettes at that. Not that Kryten would ever complain of course, but it had been pleasant to prepare something other than curry. As he placed the tray down on the table, laying out the dishes and his patented hangover cure, calling a cheery good morning to the two men passed out in the bottom bunk, he began plotting his course back through the tangled piles of discarded clothing, already anticipating the excitement of that afternoon’s laundry. How did one launder hard light? Did it need to stay in range of Mr Rimmer? Yes, there were plenty of practicalities to consider, presenting a pleasing challenge. Unnecessary to launder them at all, some might say, but if Kryten could touch it, he would find a way to clean it. That was just the kind of droid he was.
But laundry would have to wait until later; it wouldn’t do to try and tidy while Mr Lister – and Mr Rimmer, now - were partaking of breakfast. Kryten showed himself out, leaving them to wake up and refresh themselves; the door closing behind him more or less as the shouting started. He strolled away, happily considering which detergent to use, when he passed the Cat; looking unusually dishevelled, still in last night’s clothing.
‘Pardon me, sir, I wouldn’t disturb them if I were you,’ he cautioned.
‘What? Why not?’ The Cat demanded, holding out a crumpled lapel, one of the sequins hanging loose. ‘Look what that smeghead did to my jacket! He needs to pay!’
‘Oh, I don’t think you need to worry,’ Kryten reassured him. ‘I suspect both Mr Lister and Mr Rimmer are already regretting last night by now.’ He allowed himself a rare laugh.
‘What?’ The Cat blinked at him, then groaned. ‘Oh, no, say it ain’t so.’
It was so. It was very much so. Lister stood on one side of the room, with nothing but a pillow to cover his dignity, looking at Rimmer, who had pressed his back to the opposite wall, wedging himself between the wall and a conveniently-placed chair back. As soon as they had woken up, naked, hung over, and snugged in each other’s arms, they had instinctively jumped out of bed and gotten as far away from each other as they possibly could. There may have been some screaming. It didn’t help. There was no denying it.
‘Well, smeg.’ Rimmer said.
***
‘How could you do this to me?!’
‘Me?! There were two of us in that bunk!’
‘Please don’t remind me.’
It had been fairly inevitable.
Rimmer had gotten hard light mode. He could touch! He could eat! He could drink! He could feel!
He could make a colossal mistake with a man whose idea of hygiene was to make sure he always wiped his fingers on his sleeves after clearing out his ears, because otherwise when he picked his nose and ate the results it would taste of earwax.
Urrgh.
Lister, of course, was already over it. He’d pulled on underwear and was tucking into the disgusting mess he considered to be breakfast. He was avoiding looking at Rimmer.
Breakfast. Coffee. Momentarily distracted, Rimmer reached out for his own plate – only for his hand to go straight through it.
‘Holly,’ he said, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath to try and keep his temper. ‘Uniform, please. Why am I back in soft light mode?’
‘Nothing to do with me,’ Holly said, as the clothes winked back into existence on his body. ‘You probably need a recharge. You did spend a lot of time hard yesterday.’ She didn’t quite giggle, but it was in her voice. Lister put down his mug harder than necessary.
‘Holly, off.’ He said.
There was silence. Rimmer paced. This was a disaster.
‘This is a disaster,’ he said. ‘A catastrophe. Total and utter calamity. We’re doomed. We’re more doomed than a worm at a crow convention. And yet you don’t care one bit, do you? How you can sit there eating that disgusting slop like nothing is wrong-’
He knew what Lister would say, but if he dared –
‘Rimmer, will you calm down?’ Lister said.
There it was. Of course.
‘Calm down?! Calm down?! That’s easy for you to say! You haven’t just done unspeakable things with – with the worst – with the most disgusting – with you!’
Lister rolled his eyes, taking a sip of his coffee. ‘It doesn’t mean anything, man. We were drunk and it was the first time you had a physical body in ages. It was just a backslide.’
‘Well, it’s nice to know you’re as romantic as ever,’ Rimmer said, throwing himself into a chair. ‘But you’re not thinking ahead. What if it happens again? What if it keeps happening? What if -’ Despite the fact he was physically incapable of vomiting, he had to swallow back bile before continuing. ‘What if we end up back in a relationship?’
Lister froze. ‘Don’t, don’t even joke about that, Rimmer.’
‘I’m not. Strange things happen in deep space.’
‘Not that strange!’
‘It happened before.’
‘Yeah, but we didn’t know back then what a bad idea it was! If I’d known how smegging intolerable you are I’d never have got with you.’
‘So you say, Listy, so you say - but the moment I got a body back you just couldn’t keep your hands to yourself, could you?’
‘Uh, neither could you!’
‘Yes, but as we know, I am chronically bad at decision making,’ Rimmer pointed out. ‘It’s like a disease. I always make the worst possible choice for myself at any given moment. I mean, look at our wedding. All I needed was a man in a silly hat to say, ‘do you take David Gimboid Lister’ and I said ‘I do’!’
Lister had gone pale. It was his turn to start pacing. He spun on his heel, pointing his finger warningly at Rimmer. ‘Absolutely not. We can’t. We cannot end up in a relationship.’
‘I agree wholeheartedly,’ Rimmer said. ‘Which, given my track record, probably means a spring wedding.’
‘No,’ Lister said firmly. ‘No, we won’t let it. Look, we just need to stay apart for a bit. Avoid each other as much as possible until we’re used to you having a body and can trust ourselves-’
There was a loud bang, a mechanical wrench, and the lights went out.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ Holly said, reappearing on the screen. ‘But I thought you’d want to know that we’re crashing.’
***