RD fic: "Machine in the Ghost" 1/8 (R)
“Machine in the Ghost”
Rated: R for language, slashy sexytimes, talk of torture
Chars: Lister/Rimmer, Kochanski, Cat, Kryten, Hol, original characters
Disclaimer: Property of Grant Naylor. I don't get to keep these characters, I just get to take them home for the night on occasion.
Summary: The crew gets more than they bargain for when they find a derelict in deep space. Can be read as a standalone, or as the continuation of Urgent, which itself juts out of a short earlier series I wrote. (In other words, do what you want, LOL.)
Spoilers: The entire TV series, some borrowed elements from the novels.
A/N: Thanks to Nat (metalkatt) and missflibble for beta work, and to Nat for helping write a passage toward the end and for big helpful plot and character suggestions along the way (and also for the loan of Fiona, a creation I wish had been mine).
“It’s like a giant, floating Toys R Us,” Lister confirmed, hopping up to sit on an unblinking drive console, crossing his ankles. “The main cargo seems to be toys - acres of them if you laid ‘em out, really.”
“But not real toys,” the Cat interjected. He leaned against an opposite wall, arms crossed, looking like cool had superimposed James Dean over Liberace. “No catnip mousies or big feathers, or even motorized hamsters. Although,” he conceded, “there were these little doohickies with remote controls that Gerbil Cheeks called ‘trucks.’ I suppose I could cover ‘em in padding and fur to be useful.”
“No ship is going to be stocked for deep space with pet toys,” Lister explained yet again. “Not profitable enough.”
“I would not have thought regular toys would be profitable, sir.” Kryten frowned - rather, considering the state of his permanent face, frowned more. “Many ships in the past forbade deep-space crew members from having children, according to my databanks, including those of the Jupiter Mining Corporation.”
“The colony settlements didn’t.” Rimmer’s lips twisted up in one corner wryly. “Some parents didn’t buy much. But the stores themselves were stocked at all times.”
Lister looked over at the taller man, who leaned one hip against the same console, a couple of feet from him. “Don’t tell me your parents didn’t let you guys have toys.”
He shrugged. “John and Frank had some. Howard got some of his own, and their hand-me-downs. Three boys do a lot of damage; by the time they got to me, there wasn’t much left to most of them.”
“I thought your family had money.” Lister furrowed his brow. “Hell, man, even my family bought me toys.”
“Oh, they did,” Rimmer nodded, ticking off on his fingers. “For boarding school, body-stretchers, military textbooks and training equipment, uniforms, Mother’s shoes, Father’s cars, Howard's pilot lessons, three brain enhancement implants …” He trailed off, making it clear he could go on and on. “Toys were a reward for good grades and successful completion of obstacle courses. Frank, Howard, and John were good at both; I had all left feet and no aptitude for physics or navigation.”
“Your mostly successful record as Ace would suggest not a lack of aptitude, but perhaps a tendency of requiring proper motivation to develop those skills,” Kryten observed. “I believe humans call it being a late bloomer.”
“Man, his fashion sense must be really waitin’ to flower, then,” the Cat muttered, eyeing Rimmer’s ensemble.
“Just because everything I’m wearing is all in the same color family, kitty, does not mean I’m devoid of couture,” Rimmer snapped back. He gestured at Lister’s usual mishmash of leather and denim and scraps. “How come you never bitch at him for how he looks? A vagrant’s laundry has more of a common theme than his wardrobe.”
Before the Cat could answer, Lister spoke for himself. “I’m a rebel.” He grinned cheekily at Rimmer. “I’m not supposed to match. I’m counterculture.”
“You’re counter-clean,” the hologram huffed.
Lister sniffed inside the fairly new jacket he was still trying to break in, having been forced to leave the old one on the disintegrating Red Dwarf. “Oy; I take a LOT more showers than I used to.”
Rimmer crossed his arms loftily. “Only because you’re after something by being clean, that you wouldn’t get otherwise.”
“I wouldn’t?” His eyes speculatively raked the other man, from his dark brown calf-boots up along tight brown trousers, and over the short-sleeved dark green turtleneck tucked into them. “Well … I did get in the shower this morning.”
“Bully for you; pity for the drain.” Rimmer’s mouth valiantly fought off an actual smile. “Good for the sheets, I suppose.”
“At least for a while-”
He was cut off by a retching noise from the Cat, who, despite his dark skin, managed to look quite pale. “Could you Casanovas have some respect for my lunch? It’s trying to stay in my stomach!”
Before being Ace, Rimmer would have bleated quite loudly in retaliation about coming across a desperate Cat trying to mate with an old beanbag chair two months ago. This one coughed into his fist a couple of times, choking out the word “Styrofoam” in between, instead. The Cat went silent, narrowing his angular eyes … then showed his fangs. It was as close as he would get to both acknowledging the incident and thanking the hologram for not making it common knowledge.
“Mr. Rimmer and I found a large store of food and beverages on the mess decks,” Kryten reported. “As well as tanks containing quite a large supply of water. I recommend it be irradiated before drinking, but it should be safe, otherwise.”
“What about the bodies?”
Now it was Kryten’s turn to look impossibly pale. “Sir?”
“Bodies.” Lister spread his hands in a half-shrug. “Nobody loads up a ship with food and aims it for the outer solar system without human beings to staff it. Being way out here means this ship’s about as old as the Dwarf. Somewhere, there has to be bodies. Even if the first ones were shot into space, there had to be at least one last person left.”
“Ah, I see what you mean.” Kryten nodded. “However, it is not necessarily true. While the food and some textiles have been vacuum- and cold-stored, the rest of the ship seems to have normal air-recycling. Air aids in decay of organic matter, and over three million years, the basic atoms comprising any bodies would likely be rendered smaller than the largest micron of a ‘Galactic Idol’ winner’s musical integrity.”
“Do we know if there are any stasis booths to check?” Rimmer asked.
“It’s a pretty big ship to search.” Lister chewed at a thumbnail, thinking. “Maybe Holly could interface with the mainframe and save us some time, if it’s not too dangerous for him. We should get back, see what Kochanski thinks.” He looked around. “Speaking of which, has anyone talked to her since we left the cargo bay?”
“Shortly before we rendezvoused here, she signaled that she was almost done with repairs to Starbug’s mainframe,” Kryten piped up.
“Well.” Lister hopped off the console and looked around at them all. “Our chariot’s probably waitin’ on us. Let’s see what the damage is.”
******
Since the small green ship had needed fairly basic parts easily found, Kochanski had been able to effect repairs rather quickly and was slowly walking the perimeter of the derelict’s cargo bay taking a visual inventory of other stock when her four shipmates returned. “Any of you boys bring me a big stuffed panda?” she asked, grinning. “Or maybe a giraffe?”
“No, but I can get you a life-size stuffed Cat,” Rimmer lobbed back, glancing sideways at the felinoid, with a turbo-nostrils smirk.
“Try it, bud, and I’ll turn your light bee into a pendant for the pretty lady.”
Lister rolled his eyes. “I’ll be sure to keep an eye out,” he promised her, smiling. “What’re you doing?”
“I’m just seeing what else we might be able to use from around here. I think a few things might be compatible with our systems, or easily converted.” She looked to Rimmer. “I’m not sure there’s a lot that’ll work with your ship; the Wildfire’s a pretty advanced design.” He hadn’t left since returning with Lister six months prior, and seemed content to stay, but they all agreed having a ready FTL ship and pilot at one’s command was beyond valuable.
“It didn’t cost thirty billion for nothing,” he agreed.
“Hang on; that much?” Lister whistled.
“And that was three million years ago, when she was originally commissioned,” Rimmer nodded, then smirked again. “They must’ve considered Ace a superior pilot to Howard, to give it to him.” Lister regarded him with mild chastisement. “What? I can’t gloat when it’s deserved?”
“You didn’t even like Ace.”
Rimmer looked down at him. “I didn’t like either of them; doesn’t mean I shouldn’t enjoy the credit of the genes.” He addressed Kochanski, who watched, amused. “I’ve had to adapt a lot of things to use on the old girl; I wasn’t always in a position to be picky. I’m sure I can find supplies.”
As the others followed Kochanski while she continued explaining, Lister hung back with Rimmer as the taller man looked over the stacked components against the wall. Lister brushed his fingers against Rimmer's before playing between them and reaching around to rub his thumb against the center of Rimmer's palm.
Rimmer swiveled his head to look down at him. Lister regarded the merriment in those green-brown eyes as he felt long fingers curl around his thumb. He watched Rimmer glance briefly at everyone else's backs, then back to him. “More already?”
“What? It's been a few hours.” It was Lister's turn to smirk as Rimmer quietly laughed. “Sue me, I'm horny. So're you.”
“So you are.” He stuck his tongue out at Lister, then looked back to the wall of parts as he kept a couple of fingers on Lister's hand. “Too bad Starbug's only so large; we could really use about all of that. Smeg knows when we'll come across another cache anywhere.”
Lister didn't even think on his next words; they just fell out of his mouth. “Maybe if the joint's completely empty, we can just move in here.”
Rimmer raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“Nobody seems to be usin' this ship. Still capable of running, right? Just need to switch on some systems. It has its own energy collection or the air recyc wouldn't work. And it's smaller than Red Dwarf, so even if we never see that heap again, maybe this would be better anyway.”
“It's not going to move faster than three million years per … three million years,” Rimmer pointed out, wisely stopping as the witty rejoinder he’d hoped for at the beginning of the quip resigned somewhere in the middle of it and embezzled itself away.
“Yeah, I know that, smeg-for-brains. But there'd be more space, more storage area, more protection … more privacy.” Starbug was pretty small, and it became even smaller when you were the only two people aboard having regular sex. Much as Lister liked snuggling, it just wasn't enough for his libido, and he was sick of having to tamp down his natural verbosity. Moreover, he got tired of rarely hearing anything louder than muffled whimpers out of Rimmer - he'd made the man shout back in that hotel room, and he wanted to do it again, by Gordon.
“Privacy.” Rimmer repeated, and Lister saw the momentary glint of hazel-eyed speculation that made him want to throw the guy down right here and ride him stupid. “What if there are people in stasis?”
“I doubt they’ll be walking in on the middle of anything.” Rimmer arched a brow; Lister shrugged, quirking the corner of his mouth up. “We ask them to share the ship with us. Plenty of food, and I'd imagine they wouldn't mind seeing some friendly faces from their own species … -ish,” he finished, thinking of the Cat. “We have things to offer, too, y'know.”
“And if they come charging out of stasis and attack us, instead?”
“You're just full of sunshine today, Rimmer.”
He spread his hands. “It was Ace’s job for several years to anticipate and prepare for trouble. It was usually warranted.”
Footsteps announced the others were returning, and it was Kryten who spoke first. “Sirs - ma’am - if you still want to make landfall on the moon we were originally headed for, its sunrise will begin in two hours, and daylight will only occur for about five hours each day for scouting water and food.” Everybody looked around at each other - the ship was a sure source of supplies, but the moon might have something else they needed. Kryten shuffled his feet and muttered, “Engaging throat-clearing mode,” then raised his voice back to normal. “I believe one solution may be to split up into two groups to search both the ship and the moon.”
“Yes - I was just thinking that,” Kochanski said, nodding. Lister nodded along, too, while Rimmer and the Cat glanced at one another with similar expressions: Sure, let’s all pretend we had the obvious idea and were each just too shy to speak up. That’s believable with this group. “Does anyone want to volunteer to stay-”
Lister’s hand went up like a shot; so did his voice. “We’ll stay!” Rimmer looked at him, askance, and he cleared his throat and dropped his tone back to normal. “I mean, y’know, you need the ’Bug for going down there, since it has more room - we can keep the Wildfire in case we need to leave here. And since it’s ol’ Ace’s ship, I imagine he’d want to be the one to pilot it.”
Kochanski looked to Rimmer. “You agreeable with this, ol’ Ace?”
“Think nothing of it, spunky lady,” Rimmer shot back in his best deep-voiced test pilot voice, his expression clearly conveying what he thought of the performance. “Me and the old girl and Davy-boy’ll make sure everything’s tickety-boo around here.”
“I’ll be sure not to tell Fiona you called her ‘old girl,’” Kochanski promised.
“Oh, thank you.” Rimmer’s real voice sighed with genuine gratitude.
*****
“Ahhh.” Rimmer reached behind him and grabbed at the strut he was backed against. The space-cold metal registered briefly against his skin, but being a hard-light hologram had its advantages, namely that his body could tune it out easier than a human’s could. Besides, it perfectly countered the warmth enveloping his hips, the front of his legs, and his cock. He was shaking with it. “Oh … damn. Dave …”
On one knee, Lister didn’t bother answering; his smug grin that only briefly interrupted his fellating was enough, and he knew it. He leaned back on his heels and lifted his eyes to glide up Rimmer’s mostly naked torso, bobbing slightly as his hips undulated with the rhythm of the sucking. He’d barely given Rimmer the chance to descend from the Wildfire hatch and the cargo bay doors to shut on the departing Starbug before he’d backed him against the landing gear, stripped him nearly bare, and put hungry tongue to skin. To his credit, Rimmer no longer went off like Old Impatient, and while Lister congratulated himself on his tutelage, by the time he stood back up, his knees were shaky and creaked a little. “I need to be more or less horizontal to do that again,” he panted, leaning into his partner and wiping his lips against Rimmer’s shoulder.
“Was your own fault.” He curled his arms around Lister, mumbling in his hair. “Yank me off the steps, nearly turn my ankle …” Rimmer didn’t have the heart to genuinely complain. “I knew you were desperate-”
“Yeah, and you were quiet as a church mouse.” Lister straightened and frowned at him.
Rimmer shrugged fondly, lifting a plait behind the other man’s shoulder. “Sorry - force of habit.”
“Yeah, well, we’re gonna break you of that. I’ll have you screaming-” Lister threatened, leaning in.
A scream, both unearthly and unjupiterly, ricocheted shrilly through the cargo bay, making both men grab at one another in reflex. “What the SMEG was that?” Rimmer screeched.
Part 2
Rated: R for language, slashy sexytimes, talk of torture
Chars: Lister/Rimmer, Kochanski, Cat, Kryten, Hol, original characters
Disclaimer: Property of Grant Naylor. I don't get to keep these characters, I just get to take them home for the night on occasion.
Summary: The crew gets more than they bargain for when they find a derelict in deep space. Can be read as a standalone, or as the continuation of Urgent, which itself juts out of a short earlier series I wrote. (In other words, do what you want, LOL.)
Spoilers: The entire TV series, some borrowed elements from the novels.
A/N: Thanks to Nat (metalkatt) and missflibble for beta work, and to Nat for helping write a passage toward the end and for big helpful plot and character suggestions along the way (and also for the loan of Fiona, a creation I wish had been mine).
“It’s like a giant, floating Toys R Us,” Lister confirmed, hopping up to sit on an unblinking drive console, crossing his ankles. “The main cargo seems to be toys - acres of them if you laid ‘em out, really.”
“But not real toys,” the Cat interjected. He leaned against an opposite wall, arms crossed, looking like cool had superimposed James Dean over Liberace. “No catnip mousies or big feathers, or even motorized hamsters. Although,” he conceded, “there were these little doohickies with remote controls that Gerbil Cheeks called ‘trucks.’ I suppose I could cover ‘em in padding and fur to be useful.”
“No ship is going to be stocked for deep space with pet toys,” Lister explained yet again. “Not profitable enough.”
“I would not have thought regular toys would be profitable, sir.” Kryten frowned - rather, considering the state of his permanent face, frowned more. “Many ships in the past forbade deep-space crew members from having children, according to my databanks, including those of the Jupiter Mining Corporation.”
“The colony settlements didn’t.” Rimmer’s lips twisted up in one corner wryly. “Some parents didn’t buy much. But the stores themselves were stocked at all times.”
Lister looked over at the taller man, who leaned one hip against the same console, a couple of feet from him. “Don’t tell me your parents didn’t let you guys have toys.”
He shrugged. “John and Frank had some. Howard got some of his own, and their hand-me-downs. Three boys do a lot of damage; by the time they got to me, there wasn’t much left to most of them.”
“I thought your family had money.” Lister furrowed his brow. “Hell, man, even my family bought me toys.”
“Oh, they did,” Rimmer nodded, ticking off on his fingers. “For boarding school, body-stretchers, military textbooks and training equipment, uniforms, Mother’s shoes, Father’s cars, Howard's pilot lessons, three brain enhancement implants …” He trailed off, making it clear he could go on and on. “Toys were a reward for good grades and successful completion of obstacle courses. Frank, Howard, and John were good at both; I had all left feet and no aptitude for physics or navigation.”
“Your mostly successful record as Ace would suggest not a lack of aptitude, but perhaps a tendency of requiring proper motivation to develop those skills,” Kryten observed. “I believe humans call it being a late bloomer.”
“Man, his fashion sense must be really waitin’ to flower, then,” the Cat muttered, eyeing Rimmer’s ensemble.
“Just because everything I’m wearing is all in the same color family, kitty, does not mean I’m devoid of couture,” Rimmer snapped back. He gestured at Lister’s usual mishmash of leather and denim and scraps. “How come you never bitch at him for how he looks? A vagrant’s laundry has more of a common theme than his wardrobe.”
Before the Cat could answer, Lister spoke for himself. “I’m a rebel.” He grinned cheekily at Rimmer. “I’m not supposed to match. I’m counterculture.”
“You’re counter-clean,” the hologram huffed.
Lister sniffed inside the fairly new jacket he was still trying to break in, having been forced to leave the old one on the disintegrating Red Dwarf. “Oy; I take a LOT more showers than I used to.”
Rimmer crossed his arms loftily. “Only because you’re after something by being clean, that you wouldn’t get otherwise.”
“I wouldn’t?” His eyes speculatively raked the other man, from his dark brown calf-boots up along tight brown trousers, and over the short-sleeved dark green turtleneck tucked into them. “Well … I did get in the shower this morning.”
“Bully for you; pity for the drain.” Rimmer’s mouth valiantly fought off an actual smile. “Good for the sheets, I suppose.”
“At least for a while-”
He was cut off by a retching noise from the Cat, who, despite his dark skin, managed to look quite pale. “Could you Casanovas have some respect for my lunch? It’s trying to stay in my stomach!”
Before being Ace, Rimmer would have bleated quite loudly in retaliation about coming across a desperate Cat trying to mate with an old beanbag chair two months ago. This one coughed into his fist a couple of times, choking out the word “Styrofoam” in between, instead. The Cat went silent, narrowing his angular eyes … then showed his fangs. It was as close as he would get to both acknowledging the incident and thanking the hologram for not making it common knowledge.
“Mr. Rimmer and I found a large store of food and beverages on the mess decks,” Kryten reported. “As well as tanks containing quite a large supply of water. I recommend it be irradiated before drinking, but it should be safe, otherwise.”
“What about the bodies?”
Now it was Kryten’s turn to look impossibly pale. “Sir?”
“Bodies.” Lister spread his hands in a half-shrug. “Nobody loads up a ship with food and aims it for the outer solar system without human beings to staff it. Being way out here means this ship’s about as old as the Dwarf. Somewhere, there has to be bodies. Even if the first ones were shot into space, there had to be at least one last person left.”
“Ah, I see what you mean.” Kryten nodded. “However, it is not necessarily true. While the food and some textiles have been vacuum- and cold-stored, the rest of the ship seems to have normal air-recycling. Air aids in decay of organic matter, and over three million years, the basic atoms comprising any bodies would likely be rendered smaller than the largest micron of a ‘Galactic Idol’ winner’s musical integrity.”
“Do we know if there are any stasis booths to check?” Rimmer asked.
“It’s a pretty big ship to search.” Lister chewed at a thumbnail, thinking. “Maybe Holly could interface with the mainframe and save us some time, if it’s not too dangerous for him. We should get back, see what Kochanski thinks.” He looked around. “Speaking of which, has anyone talked to her since we left the cargo bay?”
“Shortly before we rendezvoused here, she signaled that she was almost done with repairs to Starbug’s mainframe,” Kryten piped up.
“Well.” Lister hopped off the console and looked around at them all. “Our chariot’s probably waitin’ on us. Let’s see what the damage is.”
******
Since the small green ship had needed fairly basic parts easily found, Kochanski had been able to effect repairs rather quickly and was slowly walking the perimeter of the derelict’s cargo bay taking a visual inventory of other stock when her four shipmates returned. “Any of you boys bring me a big stuffed panda?” she asked, grinning. “Or maybe a giraffe?”
“No, but I can get you a life-size stuffed Cat,” Rimmer lobbed back, glancing sideways at the felinoid, with a turbo-nostrils smirk.
“Try it, bud, and I’ll turn your light bee into a pendant for the pretty lady.”
Lister rolled his eyes. “I’ll be sure to keep an eye out,” he promised her, smiling. “What’re you doing?”
“I’m just seeing what else we might be able to use from around here. I think a few things might be compatible with our systems, or easily converted.” She looked to Rimmer. “I’m not sure there’s a lot that’ll work with your ship; the Wildfire’s a pretty advanced design.” He hadn’t left since returning with Lister six months prior, and seemed content to stay, but they all agreed having a ready FTL ship and pilot at one’s command was beyond valuable.
“It didn’t cost thirty billion for nothing,” he agreed.
“Hang on; that much?” Lister whistled.
“And that was three million years ago, when she was originally commissioned,” Rimmer nodded, then smirked again. “They must’ve considered Ace a superior pilot to Howard, to give it to him.” Lister regarded him with mild chastisement. “What? I can’t gloat when it’s deserved?”
“You didn’t even like Ace.”
Rimmer looked down at him. “I didn’t like either of them; doesn’t mean I shouldn’t enjoy the credit of the genes.” He addressed Kochanski, who watched, amused. “I’ve had to adapt a lot of things to use on the old girl; I wasn’t always in a position to be picky. I’m sure I can find supplies.”
As the others followed Kochanski while she continued explaining, Lister hung back with Rimmer as the taller man looked over the stacked components against the wall. Lister brushed his fingers against Rimmer's before playing between them and reaching around to rub his thumb against the center of Rimmer's palm.
Rimmer swiveled his head to look down at him. Lister regarded the merriment in those green-brown eyes as he felt long fingers curl around his thumb. He watched Rimmer glance briefly at everyone else's backs, then back to him. “More already?”
“What? It's been a few hours.” It was Lister's turn to smirk as Rimmer quietly laughed. “Sue me, I'm horny. So're you.”
“So you are.” He stuck his tongue out at Lister, then looked back to the wall of parts as he kept a couple of fingers on Lister's hand. “Too bad Starbug's only so large; we could really use about all of that. Smeg knows when we'll come across another cache anywhere.”
Lister didn't even think on his next words; they just fell out of his mouth. “Maybe if the joint's completely empty, we can just move in here.”
Rimmer raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“Nobody seems to be usin' this ship. Still capable of running, right? Just need to switch on some systems. It has its own energy collection or the air recyc wouldn't work. And it's smaller than Red Dwarf, so even if we never see that heap again, maybe this would be better anyway.”
“It's not going to move faster than three million years per … three million years,” Rimmer pointed out, wisely stopping as the witty rejoinder he’d hoped for at the beginning of the quip resigned somewhere in the middle of it and embezzled itself away.
“Yeah, I know that, smeg-for-brains. But there'd be more space, more storage area, more protection … more privacy.” Starbug was pretty small, and it became even smaller when you were the only two people aboard having regular sex. Much as Lister liked snuggling, it just wasn't enough for his libido, and he was sick of having to tamp down his natural verbosity. Moreover, he got tired of rarely hearing anything louder than muffled whimpers out of Rimmer - he'd made the man shout back in that hotel room, and he wanted to do it again, by Gordon.
“Privacy.” Rimmer repeated, and Lister saw the momentary glint of hazel-eyed speculation that made him want to throw the guy down right here and ride him stupid. “What if there are people in stasis?”
“I doubt they’ll be walking in on the middle of anything.” Rimmer arched a brow; Lister shrugged, quirking the corner of his mouth up. “We ask them to share the ship with us. Plenty of food, and I'd imagine they wouldn't mind seeing some friendly faces from their own species … -ish,” he finished, thinking of the Cat. “We have things to offer, too, y'know.”
“And if they come charging out of stasis and attack us, instead?”
“You're just full of sunshine today, Rimmer.”
He spread his hands. “It was Ace’s job for several years to anticipate and prepare for trouble. It was usually warranted.”
Footsteps announced the others were returning, and it was Kryten who spoke first. “Sirs - ma’am - if you still want to make landfall on the moon we were originally headed for, its sunrise will begin in two hours, and daylight will only occur for about five hours each day for scouting water and food.” Everybody looked around at each other - the ship was a sure source of supplies, but the moon might have something else they needed. Kryten shuffled his feet and muttered, “Engaging throat-clearing mode,” then raised his voice back to normal. “I believe one solution may be to split up into two groups to search both the ship and the moon.”
“Yes - I was just thinking that,” Kochanski said, nodding. Lister nodded along, too, while Rimmer and the Cat glanced at one another with similar expressions: Sure, let’s all pretend we had the obvious idea and were each just too shy to speak up. That’s believable with this group. “Does anyone want to volunteer to stay-”
Lister’s hand went up like a shot; so did his voice. “We’ll stay!” Rimmer looked at him, askance, and he cleared his throat and dropped his tone back to normal. “I mean, y’know, you need the ’Bug for going down there, since it has more room - we can keep the Wildfire in case we need to leave here. And since it’s ol’ Ace’s ship, I imagine he’d want to be the one to pilot it.”
Kochanski looked to Rimmer. “You agreeable with this, ol’ Ace?”
“Think nothing of it, spunky lady,” Rimmer shot back in his best deep-voiced test pilot voice, his expression clearly conveying what he thought of the performance. “Me and the old girl and Davy-boy’ll make sure everything’s tickety-boo around here.”
“I’ll be sure not to tell Fiona you called her ‘old girl,’” Kochanski promised.
“Oh, thank you.” Rimmer’s real voice sighed with genuine gratitude.
*****
“Ahhh.” Rimmer reached behind him and grabbed at the strut he was backed against. The space-cold metal registered briefly against his skin, but being a hard-light hologram had its advantages, namely that his body could tune it out easier than a human’s could. Besides, it perfectly countered the warmth enveloping his hips, the front of his legs, and his cock. He was shaking with it. “Oh … damn. Dave …”
On one knee, Lister didn’t bother answering; his smug grin that only briefly interrupted his fellating was enough, and he knew it. He leaned back on his heels and lifted his eyes to glide up Rimmer’s mostly naked torso, bobbing slightly as his hips undulated with the rhythm of the sucking. He’d barely given Rimmer the chance to descend from the Wildfire hatch and the cargo bay doors to shut on the departing Starbug before he’d backed him against the landing gear, stripped him nearly bare, and put hungry tongue to skin. To his credit, Rimmer no longer went off like Old Impatient, and while Lister congratulated himself on his tutelage, by the time he stood back up, his knees were shaky and creaked a little. “I need to be more or less horizontal to do that again,” he panted, leaning into his partner and wiping his lips against Rimmer’s shoulder.
“Was your own fault.” He curled his arms around Lister, mumbling in his hair. “Yank me off the steps, nearly turn my ankle …” Rimmer didn’t have the heart to genuinely complain. “I knew you were desperate-”
“Yeah, and you were quiet as a church mouse.” Lister straightened and frowned at him.
Rimmer shrugged fondly, lifting a plait behind the other man’s shoulder. “Sorry - force of habit.”
“Yeah, well, we’re gonna break you of that. I’ll have you screaming-” Lister threatened, leaning in.
A scream, both unearthly and unjupiterly, ricocheted shrilly through the cargo bay, making both men grab at one another in reflex. “What the SMEG was that?” Rimmer screeched.
Part 2