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"Did you mean what you said?...Y'know, about the moonlight thing,"
"Yeah, course. Meant every word, man. Why d'ya ask?"
Rimmer sighed, sitting back in his chair. "Well it's- well, it got me thinking. How it makes us sound almost-"
"-Eternally bound?" Lister said with a grin, stretched out across the sofa.
"I was going to say 'eternally shackled by an ill-fated destiny' but I suppose that'll have to do."
"Been at the Earth Classics section in the library again then have ya?"
"...Yes well, perhaps, but that's besides the point, Listy." He looked over at Lister, eyes earnest. "I never really got the chance to thank you for doing that, helping me out then. Making me feel," He frowned, "...useful. Wanted."
"S'ok. An' you are wanted, man. But that wasn't why I said it."
"It wasn't?"
"Nah. I mean, yeah, maybe I did time it for that moment. But it was something I'd been meanin' to tell ya for a while though. Somethin' I've known for a years really."
"What? That I remind you of a long-gone moon?"
"Not quite. More that I realised how much ya mean to me. That if you weren't here with me, for all these years, I would've gone insane. Completely smegging loopy. An' probably ended up offing myself decades back."
"Don't be daft, Lister, I'm sure you would've worked something out. What about fish-breath and your number one mechanoid anyway? Surely they would have kept you at least partially sane for a few decades or so."
"You've got to be jokin', man. Think that might have sped the insanity along actually." He glanced over at the hologram, gaze uncharacteristically sincere. "Plus, none of them are you, Rimsy. I only happen to love military board game-obsessed holograms who dress in shiny uniform tunics every day."
"Is that so? And are the military board games essential to that?" Rimmer countered, though he failed to hide the fond smile etched across his face, and accompanying blush."
"See I dunno." Lister smirked. "I could probably live without them."