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The unseen automatic timers hit and the lights dimmed to a shallow darkness, a few guiding lights around the edges of the cargo hold stay lit. The priest cat, whatever his name is, The Boy didn’t bother remembering, told him and the other kittens that Cloister himself dictated the rise and fall of the lights. The Boy thought that was a load of bull, how would someone make the lights dim on command if he wasn’t even here to do so. Besides, cats slept whenever they felt so there really wasn’t a need for it. But The Priest chastised him and sent him to the corner, by himself, like usual. Now at this time, when the lights dimmed, they were shooed off to their den as the priest worked. The small dwelling where they slept was especially dark, and small. But somehow it was still one of the largest of the dens in this part of the city. It felt larger to The Boy as he lay on the other side, away from the rest of the kittens. It wasn’t cold in the den but The Boy still felt that lack of warmth. He didn’t know why it was there. He wanted to sneak over to the rest of them but he knew he wasn’t welcome. One of the kids made sure he knew that. He thought they all liked him, everyone loved him, what’s not to love. But one of the other kids broke one day and signed, quite enthusiastically, LEAVE ALONE. The rest of them nodded and piped up in agreement. So The Boy kept to his own, he didn’t really need them anyways. He preferred being by himself. But as another shiver ran down his spine and pain ran across his arms and settled in his hands, he wasn’t so sure he liked it very much.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Lister stared at the top of his bunk. Making direct eye contact with the figure on his poster that was tapped precariously above him. Furrowing his eyebrows and grimacing briefly before his face settled again. He sighed and resigned that staring contest as he rolled over. The only anything going on in the room that could be heard, if he really strained his ears, was the air conditioning and the steady hum of the engine deep in the depths of the ship. He couldn't even hear Rimmer breathing, which was unsettling. He understood why but it still made the room seem deeply and unsettingly quiet. Lister was a little peeved that he didn't even move as slept. There would be no sign of him being under his bunk if it wasn't for the soft glow he could see reflected in parts of the room. Lister rolled over again. One thing Lister will admit was that he was thankful that there weren't any of those “learning while you sleep” tapes playing. Holly has yet to cave to Rimmer's request for those tapes, and Lister was hoping he'd keep at it. He had the little things to be thankful for. But in the deep quiet of the ship he was wishing to even hear just a whisper of them. Anything to make it not so painfully quiet. He could almost hear his own heartbeat. It made him itch.
He rolled for the third time and a shiver went across his skin when his blanket shifted away as he twisted in his sheets. Lister adjusted himself again, tucking more into himself. His eyes closed lazily at a shabby attempt to fall asleep before flickering back open when he heard the shfffft of the door.
The door shffft'ed closed again before Lister processed the figure making its way to his bunk. The silhouetted figure, of what he pieced together to be The Cat, was in very decorative flowing PJs with a pattern he couldn't figure out in the dark. He had his hair in curlers, which seemed to defeat the purpose of straightening it, and had that under a netted bonnet. Over that there seemed to be something else resting on top of the hair net that Lister tried to make out before The Cat was directly in his face.
"Psst, Dog-breath,"
It was a sleeping mask. Zebra print sleep mask.
"Dog-breath, I know you're awake. Move over,"
His breath smelled vaguely of fish.
"Caaat," Lister whined but he rolled over anyway. He wasn't in the mood to argue with Cat at this hour.
The Cat crawled into Lister's bunk and tucked himself under the covers. Completely curled up and resting on Lister's side. Cat seemed to radiate heat off of him, making Lister drowsy. It reminded him of the late nights where he’d wake up to a steady purr resting on his chest.
"Just this once," Lister grumbled as he felt himself drifting, an arm wrapped around The Cat to let the slim creature rest closer.
The Cat was already snoring, a small sound that filled the small space of his bunk. Lister focused on it and finally let go of his grip on wakefulness with a sigh and drifted off to sleep. The sounds of cows and ocean water filling his head.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Rimmer was awake. He made a frequent habit of this. Most people do but not to the extent that Rimmer has. It has hit hour 432, almost three weeks, he was proud of that little achievement. While Rimmer did like to keep his living body’s habit of sleeping from time to time, as his holographic body still seemed to crave it, he appreciated the ability to stay up for weeks, even months. Although his body didn’t appreciate it, but what can it say about it? Can’t hallucinate or die or anything of the sort so his body just has to suck it up. His body aches and moans in response but Rimmer ignores it. He’s gotten very good at ignoring most signals his body has told him over the years, it's just that this one didn’t have any dire consequences. He locked his eyes on the book he has on his lap instead and flipped through his notes and a second book he has resting on the couch arm. His plan was to translate this journal that Earth historians found about two hundred years PRD. (or post-Rimmer Death as he called it. The others think that it’s Post-Red Dwarf but it’s more so that it seemed that anything interesting or important happened after Rimmer’s death so he thought that was a telling marker of the times.) Said journal was said to have been written by Napoleon himself which meant Rimmer was frantic to get his hands on it. He didn’t necessarily have to go through the painstaking effort of translating it, he could get the computer to do that easily enough but he just wanted to do it just to say he could do it. He’s gotten through one sentence so far. On one page, out of probably three hundred or so. Bollocks, this was going to take a while. There was static around his vision, a buzz in his ears, and his hard-light body felt weightier than normal. He felt his holographic body try to push him towards sleepfulness. But he resisted, he’s been good at this for so far. Honestly something worth bragging about. He hadn’t because last time he did Lister was relentlessly on his case about it, but it still was worth bragging about it.
He thought this as he sunk farther into the couch, Rimmer’s eyes stuttered, the words on the page blurred and smudged together more than normal. Why is everything getting farther away? Was his last punctuated thought before he completely drifted off after fighting off sleep for a good 433 hours.
His dreams were formless and colorless. Words in languages flitted past his head and smudged and smeared images of Napoleon. The words amo un uomo passed by but had no hope to know what that meant. Suddenly his eyes cracked open when something warm pressed against his side in the dark. He flinched and his fist tightened before realizing nothing else moved then he leaned into it and relaxed again. Some sort of soft snoring lulled him back to sleep.
—-
Lister stumbled back into his bunk room, letting out a large stretch and a yawn. A crisp sound of joints cracking that he shook off as he trudged over to his bed. Kryten just took over for his shift in the cockpit and he was glad to get back to sleep. After a long day of trying to loot a derelict ship that was wedged into an asteroid and was begging to fling off into the nearby sun at one wrong bump, he really just wanted to sleep and sleep long. He tossed his jacket on the floor near the bunks and threw himself onto the top bunk and gratefully accepted the feeling of the thin mattress on his back. Almost as soon as his head hit the mattress it popped off of it. He rolled to his side and peered down to the bunk below his, which was starkly empty. Normally Rimmer would at least pretend to sleep or be doing something in his own bunk by the time Lister sauntered off to bed but he wasn’t even there this time. His eyes darted blearily around the room when he saw the couch with a vaguely Rimmer shaped shadow sitting on it.
“Rimmer? Why are you sitting in the dark like a creeper, you smeghead?” Lister hissed out.
There was no response. Lister snickered.
“Since you’re so preoccupied with not being asleep I think I’m going to take this as a sign to finally gettin’ around to eatin’ that big tub of curry in your bunk,”
Still nothing.
“After that, maybe even using one of your whiteout markers to get the stains out of me favorite pair of underwear,”
More nothing, maybe even a snort of a snore. Lister held back a laugh. He’s known that Rimmer’s been trying to stay up for weeks now, normally he’d chastise him when he brought it up but recently Rimmer’s been more secretive about it. Nothing Lister can really do, he just knows he can’t last far too long without conking out again. This was the longest time he’s been up, which kind of itched at Lister. But here he is, deep in sleep.
Lister leapt down from his bunk and walked around the couch to look at Rimmer’s sleeping form. He hoped he looked somewhat droolly and absurd, it had been awhile since he had a good photoshoot to put all over Red Dwarf’s occupied floors. But what he saw instead was all the more than what he could have hoped for. Lister’s face split into a grin as he saw his bunkmate very deep in sleep with his arms crossed and his mouth slightly open, but also his head was leaning against The Cat’s who was completely curled at his side sleeping just as soundly. Lister slowly slinked away in order to not wake them as he rushed to his bunk to grab for his holocam. Smeg, this was just perfect. He thought as he steadied his cam and forgot about the flash.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
The halls are lit by emergency lights. The ones that are important. The only sounds being the drone of fans pumping out oxygen. Also only in the places that are important. Most of the skutters were shut down except for two or three of them. Except Holly didn’t really realize that having their central computer processor being shut down would make them completely useless so the few that were operating spun in circles or wandered aimlessly. Having no more functionality than a robot vacuum with no vacuum. Despite that they seemed to nip at people’s heels as if they were mad about the whole situation. Holly couldn’t really see this happening but this was because what she could see was confined to the handful of screens still using power. The whole ship was dark, it was dead silent, and they had very little extra equipment still running. The Red Dwarf drifted quietly into the night.
The whole issue that started all of this was a stowaway that snuck on after they docked with a crumbling research institute. The research institute had nothing of interest. Or well, nothing that any of them understood. Even Kryten couldn’t even make heads or tails of what they found. After watching Kryten pick up a broken sign and watched as he flipped it around, try to read it, flip it around again, try to read it once more, and repeat that process a few times before giving up, they kind of got the jist that they wouldn’t be finding out what they were even trying to research here. They spent most of the time haphazardly slapping buttons and wandering into shady sections with support beams that were the equivalent width of a tall stack of dimes; as any proper rough and tumble space scavengers would. With a few close calls (of anything interesting happening), they made it out of there without as much of a scratch but with the ache of extreme boredom. But as it turns out a few of those buttons Cat poked and prodded at turned on a half operational personality program. Along with that only halfway turned on her actual holographic form, letting her slip past them into the ship like a ghost. Holly eventually found her doing her own poking and prodding in Holly’s central nervous system. Which Holly only bothered telling anyone else when she started having full body sneezes (causing the whole ship to shudder), a fever (making the ship’s internal heating work until they steamed), and muscle aches (resulting in the electricity fluctuating, in turn resulting with very bristly Cat with his hair smoking and not in a good way). The crew eventually found the intruder and locked her lightbee up until they figured out what to do with her. Holly, after some needling, proceeded to turn off everything but the essentials to try to rest up and repair herself. She wasn’t happy about it, she tried to argue but then she sneezed so aggressively it caused a couple of light fixtures and an entire monitor to come crashing to the ground and that's just what was in that room. So she begrudgingly agreed.
Kryten and Lister tried to more directly help with her recovery, Lister even tried uploading a picture of chicken noodle soup into her computer bank. It didn’t really help with anything but Holly kept calling Lister “mum” in her almost feverish stat so at least she appreciated it. Maybe. Whatever, at least she wasn’t getting any worse. All there could be done was for Holly to rest up. With that news, almost everyone headed to bed and tried to get some shut eye. The ship was freezing, but most of them slept through worse.
Kryten had no issue with the cold though. But there were plenty of complications with him being unable to do any of his chores of the night. Which was the main way he could occupy his time since he couldn’t sleep nor could he take the time to recharge. He really didn’t like not being busy, not having anything to do with his hands. It was what he was made to do so he had to find something to do. Anything at all quite frankly. So through trial and error he found a way to do some of his duties of the night, but that took a lot, a lot longer to do. Right now he had just finished hand washing a load of clothes in one of the showers. He took the time to hang up lines and pin up the clothes to dry with some items he took from the ship’s red room. After standing around and watching them dry and finding that having not enough of his involvement, he took them all down and hung them on himself. Cranking up his internal temperature to be his own dryer. He found this very effective if not making himself very hot.
So he sat himself down at a bench sitting in the tiny room, his joints creaked with his movements, and began to dry and fold each individual article of clothing. Most of the clothes were Lister’s, the only clothes Kryten trusted to survive this experiment. One time he mistakenly put one of The Cat’s silk shirts into a warm water wash and Cat avoided Kryten for days. When he finally emerged, Kryten spent the next three days straight apologizing. The Cat stopped listening after the 3rd apology but only bothered stopping him after the second day. Kryten could not relive that again, he thinks his guilt chip would just snap. He shuddered at the thought, creating the only noise in the room with the clanking of metal.
Kryten spent hours just drying and warming clothes. Running through episodes of Androids in his head with perfect clarity. Through all the corruptions and memory surges his brain has gone through he made sure to keep in tact his favorite episodes, especially for slow times like these.
Kryten was humming the theme song to himself when someone slinked into the room.
“What ya up to?” The usual peppy voice of The Cat cut through the quiet. He sounded groggy.
Kryten’s head snapped up and turned to look at The Cat. He was dressed in his usual overly ornate pajamas with an additional blanket wrapped around him. His face looked unusual without the makeup and with a frown; he seemed a lot more tired than usual.
“Oh, just the laundry Mr. Cat!” Kyrten chirped cheerily, placing a T-shirt on his extended arm. “What do you need, sir?”
The Cat grimaced at the mechanoid’s cheery attitude. He pulled his blanket closer around him and shivered.
“Tryin’ to find a place on this ship that’s warm. All my usual spots are just as cold as everything else in this ship,”
“And you came here sir?” Kryten titled his head curiously.
The Cat gestured with his head to a set of lockers in the corner. There is a slim space between the lockers and the ceiling and there were a few shiny bits and bobbles resting in the space.
“Sitting right under a vent. It’s normally pretty warm,” He shrugged.
Kryten studied the corner and the currently unused vent.
“I don’t think it’ll work how you want it, sir,”
Cat groaned. “Damn, I thought not,”
He stood there silently, he tapped his foot as his cold sleep deprived brain tried to think of something.
“Y’know if I had more of a chance to sleep during the day this wouldn’t be a problem. But humans are always move move move. No rest, no wonder they have to sleep a full 8 hours every night. Us Cats only sleep a few hours throughout the day and night. That’s how it should be, works better that way. Keep us light on our feet y’know?”
“I suppose I do know, sir,”
The Cat looked at Kryten.
“Tch, you don’t get it,” He sat next to Kryten on the bench.
Kryten shook his head with a smile. “I suppose I don’t,”
Cat heaved a big sigh and pulled his legs up on the bench.
“None of them really get it,” He muttered bitterly, just a bit too quiet for the human ear to make out. Kryten could hear it as loud as day. He didn’t say anything though. He didn’t understand what he meant by that but his social protocols tell him to not pry. Or that he should pry? He didn’t know, it was all garbled.
They sat there on the bench in silence. Kryten folded the laundry as The Cat sat there shivering on the far end of the bench. Kryten took a pair of shorts off of a clothing line and draped it on an arm, with that The Cat stuck his head up and sniffed the air.
“Why do you smell different, Rubber-head?”
“Oh, well that might be because the steam and my internal heat being higher, sir.”
Cat chewed his cheek in thought.
“Heat?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Cat squinted at the mechanoid as he weighed his options. He let out another loud sigh as he slid across the bench. He unwrapped a hand from his cocoon and poked Kryten’s arm experimentally. Kryten tilted his head and furrowed the ridges above his eyes.
“Sir?”
“Hm, not too warm.”
With that The Cat slid under Kryten’s arm and laid himself across his lap. Making himself snug.
“Sir??”
“What? You’re the only warm place on this ship, buddy.” He mumbled as he adjusted himself.
Before Kyrten came up with a suitable response The Cat’s breathing already slowed. Kryten contemplated waking him up but he realized he could still do his work easily enough with The Cat there so he went back to his laundry. The only sound left was the Cat’s steady snoring and Kryten’s gentle humming. Once he finished the laundry he remained seated. His new task at the moment was to be a comfortable resting place for The Cat.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
It has been 5 months 24 days 5 hours since Kochanski was back in her home dimension. It certainly has gotten easier, at least there weren’t high strained tensions plucking away and threatening to break, unfortunately it was still uncomfortable with most of them. If it got too quiet or she was alone in a room with one of them, the feeling of her not belonging rolled over her with waves. It reminded her too much of when she first started her training as a cadet. After years of working through cyber school she hadn’t really built much social skills in that time. It was uncomfortable working with her peers who weren’t her well-known Jane Austen characters, with their set scripts and mannerisms she memorized, these people were real and unpredictable. Over the course of her higher education and first years in the Space Corps she struggled through the skills she should have learned in her youth, but as with most things she set out to do: she ended up on top. But now she felt like she was thrown back into that uncomfortable array again. These were people she knew, plus a hologram of someone she hasn’t talked to for three million plus years, but these people were different. Ways that were hard to pinpoint. It made her uneasy. She had to figure them all out again. She wrote it down in her journal, any difference she spotted with this universe’s counterparts: she made note of it. Made her feel farther from her home but she needed to remember that these are not the Starbug crew she’s used to, she’s got to act accordingly.
Right now she wasn’t doing that, right now she was sorting out her room. The ship got attacked earlier today which rattled the ship and flung it in barrel rolls. The Starbug wasn’t exactly the best shape to do that effectively so anything that wasn’t strapped down got flung haphazardly around the ship. The Cat upon hearing this news sprung from the pilot's seat and scurried off to his room, yelling about his suits and dresses and shoes being ruined. None of them had heard from him for the rest of the evening. After most of the main areas got sorted out, Kris ran to her own room. Seeing it a complete wreck caused her shoulders to tense up and stomach swirl with nausea. This was her only reprieve from her situation, she even got used to the sound in the pipes. It was like white noise to her now. Her hands shook as she picked up the articles of clothing and books on the floor and across the bunk. As the room came back to something presentable, her heart steadied. Then there was a knock on the door. Kochanski stood up and dusted herself off, she was just trying to grab her copy of Frankenstein that got wedged underneath the small crevice under her bed. She called out to unlock the door and for the knocker to come in.
“Hey, Kris.” Lister smiled pleasantly from the door. The awkward energy between them wasn’t as strong as it was when she first came on board but it still hung around. “Wondering how you’re holding up,”
He was so sweet, even when they settled on only staying friends completely and fully while she was here, he stayed sweet to her. That’s why she was so close to her Dave. That was his most consistent trait she’s found. He tried his best to make her stay here as smooth as possible, well as much as you can when you’re trying to rough-and-tough survive in deep space, but Kochanski appreciated it. Dav- Lister leaned against the doorway, not barging in even though he was technically invited in.
“Well, I’m doing better now.” She gestured at the mostly sorted room. “Things are not as hectic.”
“That’s good, that’s good.” He nodded. “Just wonderin’ if you wanted to join us in the main area, going to have a proper game night tonight, since we found a load of games while cleanin’ up.”
“I’m not so sure, Lister.” She wrung her hands together nervously.
Lister put his hands up placatingly. “That’s all right by me! Just wanted to make sure that the offer was there. If you do decide to come on down, I’ve gotta warn ya that Rimmer found a Risk board that I swore I chucked out the airlock. So be wary, he might trap ya with the rest of us in a session.” Lister grinned playfully.
Her ears perked up at this. She liked Risk, well she was good at Risk. She often would try her hardest to one-up the upperclassmen at the academy. Most of the ones in the command branch loved Risk to an alarming degree and she had a hard time talking to them. That was mostly due to her lack of social skills, but it definitely didn’t help her being a young girl in their eyes. When she found out about Risk games they had she found this as an in. She studied numerous strategies and maneuvers and even special ways to flick her wrist to get the numbers she wanted. An unexpected result with that was that she became very good at gambling, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that she was going to kick Rimmer’s ass at Risk and show him exactly how she was in fact a worthy superior officer. Even though she had long abandoned the notion of rank, every time Rimmer complained about Kochanski being the NEW senior officer and showed her any ounce of disrespect that old habit to show him up and put him in his place flared up at the back of her brain.
“I’ll join you.” Kochanski spat out far too quickly.
Lister’s head sprung up and looked at her curiously. “Really?”
“Yes.” She smiled.
“Thought the threat of Risk’d scare you away,” He chuckled “Alright see you down there,”
Lister turned to leave but popped his head back into her room.
“Ah, almost forgot! Found this in front’v your door.” He handed her a folded up article of clothing. It didn’t look like anything she owned. As she inspected it Lister waved and walked down the hall, the door slid behind him.
There was a note on top of the article. Written in a form of a cursive that seemed both messy and extravagant, and it was a very bright orange. Gel-pen she noted, didn’t know they had gel-pens, not the point. She shook her head and actually started to read the note.
“Hi! It’s The Cat!!” ‘Cat’ had ears and a tail coming off of it. “The handsome one a couple rooms down the hall! You know the guy! So I was looking through my many many racks of clothes and I found to my horror: I HAD SOMETHING DEEPLY OUT OF SEASON!!” Kris wondered to herself how anything could be IN season while this deep in space. “I KNOW shocking for a cat with my fashion sense!! And I realized something, instead of dumping it into space or using it for scraps like I do with all my other old ragged stuff, I thought I’d give it to YOU! You don’t need to thank me. I know how you monkeys have absolutely no sense of style so you don’t seem to really care about things being in and out of season, but you Kris seem to have some sort of human-y fashion sense so that’s why I’m graciously giving you one of my old shirts. The red one with green accents and the bishop sleeves, you know the one! I can’t make use of it anymore but maybe you will! Good luck!”
There was no signature but when Kris leaned in she caught a whiff of The Cat’s telltale cologne. Clear he signed in the cat way. Kochanski smiled as she carefully unfolded the shirt, it was as he described it and the fabric was very smooth. It was a nice blouse and she didn’t have many of those anymore.
I’ve described Kochanski’s relationship with the crew but I neglected to mention one thing: Kris had become comfortable with The Cat and honestly only The Cat. She talked about it with Lister briefly before. Something about him being a lot more like her Cat. Apparently it didn’t matter if Kochanski was the cats’ God or Lister was, because The Cat never paid much attention to any of that anyways. So both Cats were the same and both Cats reminded her of home. It also helped that he treated her the most normal out of the crew. Even though The Cat was so hung up on finding a lady, it had to be a lady cat, and that was an important distinction. So Cat simply treated her like a lot cleaner and a lot more stylish guy, much like himself. She was content with that. The others treated her like an awkward ex, a threat to normalcy, and begrudgingly a superior. The Cat just treated her like all the others, a human but a bit better.
Kris rolled the fabric under her fingertips and a smile creeped onto her face. She took her old uniform jacket off and slid the smoother fabric over her skin. It felt cleaner and pleasant, and like a bit of her mental fortitude had a brick set back in place. She took a deep breath in and out, clearing her mind of the thoughts vibrating against her skull. She threw a quick glance around the room and snatched up a green bandana and tied it to her hair. She patted her pockets, not really knowing what she was checking for, and headed out into the hallway.
As Kochanski neared the living area, a wail of anger erupted up the hallway. She skipped the last couple of steps of the stairs and looked at what was causing the commotion. Her eyes landed on The Cat perched at his seat with his beauty supplies scattered across the table, then she noticed Rimmer crouching close to the floor picking up pieces of a board game that were flung across the floor.
“C’mon Cat, can’t you do that some other time?” Lister went to grab one of The Cat’s unusual pieces of equipment that none of them really knew what it did. The Cat swiped it out of Lister’s reach.
“Hey man! I have to make sure none of these got damaged! How will I go on if my laser hair remover couldn’t laser anymore!”
“You could float out in front of the ship and we could just zap you clean,” Rimmer grumbled as he placed a handful of pieces on the one empty corner of the table. Cat grimaced at the tiny army men.
“It’s a fair concern,” Kochanski spoke up as she made her way to the table.
The Cat looked up with a grin that she’s seen on her own Cat many times before. She smiled back.
“Red legs gets it!” She stuck her hands in the pockets of her bright red pants and grinned.
Kochanski walked around the table and felt around for a button on the column attached to the wall.
“W-whatcha doing Chance?”
Without another word she clicked something and out jutted a bit of table on its side. She slid it out from the wall and Lister scrambled from his seat and helped her set up the metal folding table. As she went to grab a chair from the central table she noticed everyone staring at her.
“What? What did I do?”
“Has that been here the entire time!?” Rimmer gestured at the wall.
“You guys never knew? Did no one get bored and read the schematics? I’m pretty sure I know this ship in and out by now.”
Rimmer blinked at her, Kochanski shuffled sheepishly.
“Well. I did. At some point, I just must have. Skimmed over that part.” Rimmer carefully placed the board game, which Kris then recognized as Risk, on the new table. Kris narrowed her eyes at the game.
Kryten at this point made himself known, popping out of the kitchen with an unusual array of food and drink. Kryten noticed Kochanski was here and his smile fell. He was hoping the threat of Risk with Rimmer would have scared her off to her room for the night, but he didn’t find himself lucky. He set the platter of game night refreshments on the now unoccupied corner of the table.
“Oh, what’s this then?” Kris pointed at the board game. Lister’s now helping Rimmer place the pieces on the board, Cat continued checking on his very necessary equipment, and Kryten disappeared back to the kitchen.
“Ah!” Rimmer rubbed his hands together, he had a sort of ‘cat that ate the canary’ grin. Or I suppose a ‘Cat that sent Rimmer on a wild goose chase through the diesel decks’ grin. “This! M’laddo- m’lasso? Whatever. This! Is Risk. A game of strategy and cunning, of treachery and persuasion, of-”
“Yawning and snoring!” Lister added. Rimmer glared.
“-hours of fun and excitement.” He hissed out.
“Seeing as it’s that fun and exciting a time, why don’t we save that for last,” Lister grinned and pulled out a deck of cards.
“As long as we’re playing it,”
“Hey, I told you. If you came out to play with us we’d all play. Right guys?” A few groans and shrugs came from the other three as Lister looked around the room. “See! We’re not starting with Risk though.”
Lister dragged the chair Kochanski pulled away from the table and pushed some of Cat’s multiple, somehow all different, hair dryers and began dealing out the cards for a game of Hand and Foot. He grabbed a bottle of lager, popped off the cap, and took a slug of the drink in one fluid motion. Cat turned off his red light mask, which gave Lister nightmares, and accepted the cards handed to him. Kryten waddled out from the kitchen and sat square between Lister and Kochanski. They paid no mind. Once Rimmer finally sat down they began the game.
—-
After a couple games of Hand and Foot, Spoons, even a game of Go Fish, someone suggested a game of strip poker which was quickly shut down, a game of darts, even snuck in a game of Magic Flute (which no one but Kochanski and Kryten were even able to play at all), and finally couple of dice games: They made it to game of the night, Risk. Some of the players begrudgingly pulled chairs up to the folding table as Rimmer assigned them their colors and set up the pieces and parts of the game. Rimmer asked if any of them had played Risk before, and only a very tired looking Lister raised his hand. Rimmer grinned and adjusted himself in his seat excitedly, after trying and failing to recite the rules from memory he eventually folded out the rules from the bottom of the box and recited the rules with way too much energy for this time at night. Whatever time that was. No one seemed to pay attention so they played a practice round. Rimmer was frustrated by no one taking it very seriously but continued on.
—-
Kryten bowed out of the game pretty quickly. The whole thing made him anxious and apologetic, he got the same way when they played Minepoly. So he fumbled out an excuse about needing to mop some part of the ship or check on the cockpit and ran off. The Cat surprisingly was able to hold up his own, he never took the time to actually think about his actions, but from almost pure luck his army stood strong. The Cat stated, with a shiny smile, that it was his natural cat instinct, that grin sank when Rimmer wiped out his biggest army. Only leaving a few smaller ones left scrambling for options. Cat huffed and pushed his army into Lister’s last army, leaving only one of Lister’s. Lister, who had been trying to lose this entire game or at least make it interesting, flicked the last one over and in a tired monotone voice.
“Ohh nooo, me commander just offed ‘imself, no one left to fight.”
“Lister, you are the commander.” Rimmer huffed.
“Well I offed meself, I lose,” Rimmer rolled his eyes as Lister grabbed a notepad.
Now only Rimmer’s and Kochanski’s armies were left. It was a tense battle, for them. The only other people there were napping or not paying attention. Rimmer had been smug for most of the multiple hours that they’ve been playing but he started to get worried. Kochanski knew what she was doing, she knew strategies and plays Rimmer hadn't ever seen before, this was the greatest hustle of her life. Which honestly isn’t saying too much considering she wasn’t the one for hustling very often, unless it was a game of poker or the like. It was fun to show up to a table with a sweet grin and look in her eyes of excitement at the chance to play something new and to see all their faces fall as she swept up her winnings. But that was when she was younger, and anyways this one felt even more satisfying on her stress-addled brain.
It was the ninth inning or whatever that baseball phrase was when they were almost done. Both of Rimmer and Kochanski’s last armies were staring each other down. They switched up the tactic of conquering territory half way through and decided to go completely into whittling the others' numbers down. Making it so they only have four pieces left on the board. This last roll would decide it all. Kochanski took her time shaking the dice. Rimmer tapped nervously at the table while trying his hardest to look as nonchalant as possible. She flicked the dice out of her palm with a practiced grace and watched with tensions high as they spun on the tabletop. Both Kochanski and Rimmer leaned across the table, top of their heads almost touching, and watched as the dice started to settle, the four seconds felt like four hours. Kochanski rolled two sixes, Rimmer’s entire army was slaughtered. She looked up with a large impish grin that would look well suited on The Cat’s own face.
“Well well, Rimmer. Looks like I won!” She pumped her fist in the air and squealed.
Lister leaned back in his chair and chortled at that, he had been idly doodling in a small notepad and had not looked up until this point.
“N- No this, the dice must be weighted. You must have cheated!”
“Whaat? Rimmeer, do you think she can’t beat you because she’s a woman ?” Lister teased.
“No! It’s just- I’ve never lost a Risk match with these morons, how is that y-YOU beat me!” Rimmer pointed accusingly at the still grinning face of Kochanski.
“You think a navigation officer such as myself hasn’t played her own fair share of Risk? I thought you thought better of your, senior officer,” She saluted, cheekily. She leaned back in her chair, hard, as Rimmer stayed leaning over the board. Her chair screeched a bit backwards but she didn’t pay any mind.
The Cat, who was sitting right beside her, woke up with a start.
“What did I miss! Did someone finally shove those little army men up Captain Wheel-arch’s nostrils? Oh, don’t tell me I missed that, that’s the only reason I played!” Cat’s hazy voice whined.
“Don’t worry Cat I haven’t gotten to that point yet,” Kochanski playfully nudged Cat’s shoulder. Cat pushed back in reaction. Rimmer scoffed as his very own reaction.
“We have to play again. That was a fluke! One more round!” The Cat groaned but Lister's gerbil-like grin split across his face. Everyone turned to him questioningly.
Lister wiggled in his seat and rubbed his hands together in his weird little charming way, he then grabbed his notepad he had his eyes locked on for most of the previous game and tossed in front of the three of them. Almost scared, they leaned over and read what Lister had written.
Lister excitedly watched their morphing facial expressions.
“It’s certainly, interesting.” Kris titled her head.
“It’s rubbish! It’s a complete mockery of everything that Risk is about! What’s with the mousetrap rules? It’s like a weird rollercoaster,” Rimmer angrily gestured, looking for a word. “Rollercoaster. Game!”
“Anything that isn’t whatever that was I’m happy with!” Cat tilted his head along with Kris. Rimmer crossed his arms with a huff.
“Rimmer, if neither of us played this version before, it would only be a game of skill wouldn’t it? Fair game?”
Rimmer continued his sculking as he thought.
“Fine!” He relinquished, placing his hands in front of him. “Fine, let's play whatever harebrained clowned up version of Risk, Lister cooked up.”
“Yes!” Lister pumped his fist in the air, mimicking Kochanski’s own, and ran to grab whatever extra parts he needed. Kochanski clapped eagerly and Cat twirled an army man between his fingers.
The room settled into silence, Kris fiddled with a Risk card as she absent mindedly studied the room. Rimmer glowered at Lister’s new rules as he flipped through them, occasionally directing that glower at Kochanski. Kryten was in the kitchen once again, he was scrubbing a bit too aggressively at the stovetop, he noticed Kris’ staring and shot daggers back at her. She looked back at the table and chewed at her cheek. The card of Alaska she held started getting creased in places so she slipped it back into the pile. Keeping her hands busy she started to shuffle the cards, the trill of the cards filling the space. Next to her The Cat was preoccupied with setting up little spaceships and army men in stacks and knocking them over. Kris looked at the outfit Cat put together, an apple green jacket over a matching shirt and skirt with deep red swirls splattered over it, and it was paired with deep red earring and cuban heels. Kris tugged at the bottom of her shirt before pulling up her chair, bringing it closer to the table. Before Cat started another stack Kris placed a card atop of the little calvary, The Cat continued his stack on top of Kris’ cards. They built up their little half card half figurines tower quietly, paying mind to not topple it over. When they got to the point of having to stand up to put the pieces on, Rimmer finally looked away from the hodgepodge of notes. His face twisted in distaste. At that Lister stumbled back into the room with a bag of junk that was clashing together like someone tossing around a pair of cymbals in a scrap yard. Cat rolled his eyes and pushed over the tower, Rimmer grabbed at pieces before they fell to the floor and threw them back on the table. Lister then poured out the contents of the bag with a grin and placed some more bottles of lager next to the table.
—-
It was late, it was hard to tell the time but it was. Kris purposely lost just to stop playing, much to Rimmer's chagrin. But it wasn't that she wasn't enjoying her time. She was. Tonight was nice, a lot nicer than it has been for the last couple. She didn't like getting too comfortable, made her home feel all that more far away, but it was nice. She watched as Lister and Rimmer kept playing, somehow not seeming all that tired but also a little drunk. Their slurred speech bleed into the background and Kris’ vision was getting hazy. She gripped her forearms in an effort to stay awake, watching a bit too intensely the dice run down a sloped piece of metal. She didn't want to fall asleep outside of her room, but the sounds of the game and The Cat's comfortable snores beside her caused her to sink into a slumber. She slid closer to the table and towards the resting Cat, eyes drooping.
Their arms met on the table and it caught on like a hook. She comfortably rested close to him, and The Cat unconsciously slumped towards her. Being drawn in by that steady heat of a person. A sleeping sigh escaped The Cat causing a smile to bloom on Kris. Just a few seconds, going to rest her eyes for a few seconds. Kris thought as her head lolled and rested on Cat's shoulder, something that felt familiar. A weight peacefully drifted off her own as a dreamless sleep pulled her in. Somewhere warm to rest.
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