Fic: Months - R/L (imp) - PG-13

[kahvi.livejournal.com]

Title: Months
Pairing: Rimmer/Lister (implied)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own Red Dwarf, or any of the characters thereof. I make no money from this.
Spoilers: The End.
Notes: Written as part of my fanfic100 challenge. My table is here. As always, please bring me concrit!




Lister was turning the last page of the copy of Bikes and Babes he had found in Petersen's old quarters when Rimmer entered, looking like someone had just set his dog on fire; an odd mix of shock, horror and confusion. Against his better judgment, Lister pushed the magazine away, and looked up at him. "What's wrong?"

"I was in the library on E-deck. The skutters finished decontaminating it this morning."

"So?"

"There was this training vid there I hadn't seen. I had one of the skutters put it on." Rimmer seemed to be staring at something on the opposite side of the room. Lister tried to follow his line of sight, but it was just a bit of dull, grey wall.

"You've never seen any of the training vids, Rimmer. Ye just said you had, so ya could get on the backs of all the rest of us for not having seen 'em."

Ignoring the comment - in itself not a good sign - Rimmer continued. "It was about the dangers of long deep space missions. What difficulties the crew were faced with when left alone in space for prolonged periods of time."

"Yeah?" Lister sat up straight. That sounded rather interesting, actually. "What did it say?"

Rimmer took some time in replying. He blinked, then swallowed, then began to lick his lips only, to glance quickly at Lister before pulling his tongue back in again. "It..." He cleared his throat, and began again. "It addressed how small crews sometimes... form attachments." He raised an eyebrow at the word, as though he were broaching some taboo subject. Lister nodded, urging him to go on. "Serious attachments. Even same-sex crews."

Oh. Lister giggled. No wonder he was stressed out! "What; you didn't know?"

Rimmer seemed torn between glaring angrily at Lister and avoiding looking at him. His head jittered back and forth, like a nervous chicken. "Know what? That deep space can turn perfectly masculine men into womenly faggots? No, Lister, I've remained blissfully unaware of that fact until now!"

Lister snorted, shaking his head. "Oh, come on; you never heard of straight guys in prison starting to ride up the dirt road 'cause there's no one else around? And what about boarding schools; there's a fair bit of bending over going on in there."

"No there isn't," Rimmer snapped.

"Oh, eh? And how would you know?"

"There isn't. The dean at my boarding school told me himself. Anyway," he hurried on, waving his hands dismissively, "who cares about prisons? Filled with the criminal element; base, unscrupulous people with no morals. It's not surprising they would take it up the arse. But professional, highly trained JMC personnel? Shocking." Rimmer shuddered.

Lister shrugged. "It's just people being people."

Rimmer leaned forward, waving a finger in Lister's face. "Normal people don't do things like that!" His hand began to shake. "At least I didn't think they did."

Rolling his eyes, Lister got up, grabbing his magazine along the way. He had more important things to do than sitting around getting fingers waved in his face. "Whatever, man." He got as far as two steps towards the door before Rimmer was blocking his path, gesturing back and forth between them, nostrils flaring wildly.

"Don't you get it? It could happen to us! We've only been alone a couple of months; we wouldn't have noticed anything yet. It probably sneaks up on you, like some incubating disease."

Folding his arms, Lister looked at him askew. Taking it all in; the panting, skinny frame; the wide-eyed, staring, terrified eyes, whose color could not clearly be identified. Grinning, he took a step forward, stopping just short of overlapping the hologram's projection. "Don't flatter yerself, mate," he grinned, then walked straight through him.

Walking through the hallway, Lister giggled to himself. Stupid git of a smeghead. As if Lister would ever... He pulled up the magazine, and started flicking through the pages. Chrome and female flesh flashed at him in rapid succession. He drank it in, concentrating on the bright lurid images. Maybe if he looked at them long enough, he could convince himself they were real.

Comments

[amy-wolf.livejournal.com]

There isn't. The dean at my boarding school told me himself.

That's very Rimmer.

As if Lister would ever...

Totally. As if.

I can quite see him thinking like this at that point.

Of course, he's got the idea in his head now.

[kahvi.livejournal.com]

Yep. This is, in part, inspired by that thread about characters sexuality in fanficrants, btw.

Thanks for reading and feeding back!

[sunny-bexster.livejournal.com]

'deep space can turn perfectly masculine men into womenly faggots'

Well, not womanly...perhaps camp?

It just seems so right, Lister is unperturbed (sorta) by this news of 'homosexual necessity' in deep space, whilst Rimmer has a panic attack about it. Bless!

[kahvi.livejournal.com]

I wonder if Rimmer thinks women are camp. I'm not sure he knows much about women, frankly.

Thanks for reading and feeding back!

[queen-fiend.livejournal.com]

Know what? That deep space can turn perfectly masculine men into womenly faggots? *snicker*

And: There isn't. The dean at my boarding school told me himself. That's Rimmer!