reddwarfslash | Love & Jealousy 1

Hi everyone! As you may know from my earlier blatherings, this fic is a sequel to Love & Friendship which is available to read on FF.Net for those who'd like to read that first. On the advice of Typhon-blue I have amalgamated some of the shorter chapters in this fic to make it a little more post friendly! It should come in at 15 chapters long...So here comes part 1. Hope you enjoy!

Arnold Rimmer wandered down Green Corridor 661, twirling a spanner in his fingers and cheerfully humming a marching tune. He smiled and nodded at other crew members that he passed. Those who didn’t know him smiled and nodded back; those who did know him looked at him with undisguised bafflement. It had got to the point now where people were starting to talk. Why had the most obnoxious man on the ship suddenly started being nice to people? Over the last few months his behaviour had changed radically. He’d stopped reporting people on charges of excessive noise just for walking past his sleeping quarters when he was revising. He’d stopped filing complaints against his charges on Z-shift for sporting ‘unsuitable haircuts’ or ‘thinking unflattering thoughts of a superior technician’. He’d started to ask people how they were; and actually seemed interested in their replies. There was no doubt about it. Something strange had happened in Rimmerworld. And nobody seemed to know what.

The answer was, of course, fairly obvious to anyone who’d cared to sit down and really ponder it. Rimmer was getting laid. The answer might not have been so obvious to anybody wondering who was doing the laying. There weren’t many who would have guessed, even after much hard thought, that the reason for Rimmer’s new-found joi-de-vivre was his bunkmate.

Rimmer and Lister had been secretly seeing each other for almost six months, and nobody – not even their closest friends – knew about it. When the outside world was watching, they were their normal bickering selves. Anyone meeting them for the first time would have been bemused as to why they spent so much time in one another’s company when all they seemed to do was squabble; but even the few people who did understand the slightly quirky relationship that the pair had, didn’t know the full story. That in the privacy of their sleeping quarters, when the outside world was locked out and oblivious, Lister and Rimmer were madly, passionately, thrillingly in love.

They had talked for a long time before deciding to keep their affair secret. It would have been impossible to tell the rest of the posse without it becoming a huge ‘thing’ and they weren’t certain they wanted the hassle of being a ‘thing’ yet. They wanted some time to enjoy their relationship before ‘thingness’ became a major issue. And as far as they could see, where the rest of the ship’s crew were concerned...well, it was none of their business, was it? And besides...things were more fun this way.

It was a game Lister had become much too used to playing. Before he and Rimmer had gotten together, Lister had been carrying on a surreptitious fling with his good friend Alex that had lasted about three months. It had ended without much fanfare when Alex had left to participate in one of the Dwarf’s scout missions; at which point Lister had discovered that the secret side of their relationship hadn’t been as secret as they’d thought. Rimmer knew everything and he wasn’t impressed. In fact he was out-and-out, green-eyed jealous; and it hadn’t taken Lister long to decide on a way to smooth his bunk-mates ruffled feathers.

Somewhere at the back of both their minds was an irritating voice that insisted on reminding them that things couldn’t go on this way forever. That sooner or later they had to confess or be found out, but they weren’t dwelling on it. Quite frankly, they were having too much fun.

Rimmer was just tidying up his tools for the day when he heard somebody shouting his name. His first instinct was to wonder if he should hide – he was not by any means the most popular person on board this ship. He ran through his memory and was fairly sure he hadn’t done anything recently to upset anyone. He decided to risk looking up and searching out the owner of the voice. For a moment he was sure he couldn’t see anybody he knew, but then he caught sight of somebody at the other end of the corridor waving at him. He squinted, trying to bring them into focus, and suddenly his heart rate increased by half.

It was Alex. His hair was shorter and he’d picked up a tan, not a huge difference but enough to make Rimmer have to look twice before he recognised him. And he was coming over. Rimmer stood up straighter, tensing up despite himself. He didn’t like Alex. He never had and he never would. It didn’t matter that he and Lister were together now. It didn’t matter that anything there had been between Lister and Alex had gone under the bridge and out to sea some time ago. Alex was the enemy. And in all truthfulness, Alex had never particularly cared for him either. So why was he bothering to come over here and act all chummy?

“Hey,” Alex dropped his bag at his feet, “What are the chances? I step back on board and walk straight into you.” He smiled but didn’t offer to shake hands. Rimmer smiled back tightly, “Alex. Has it really been six months already?”

“I know. I can hardly believe it myself.” He gave Rimmer a split-second up and down, “You don’t seem to have changed much,” he grinned. Rimmer seethed silently. Damned if he was going to acknowledge the git’s trendy new haircut and tan. “Nor you,” he said pointedly. Alex seemed to resign himself to the fact that the temperature of this conversation was never going to make it above the freezing level and cut to the chase. “Listen, tell Dave I’ll come by and see him tonight. Probably about seven. It’ll be nice to see him again.”

“I’ll do that,” Rimmer replied shortly, “Bye.”

Alex smiled again and shook his head lightly as he bent to scoop up his bag, “Nice to see you too, Rimmer. About seven, ok?” He walked away in the direction of his quarters.

Rimmer threw the last of his things into the toolbox and set off for his own quarters. Lister was already there, sprawled out on the lower bunk watching the vid-screen. “Hey, tiger,” he grinned when Rimmer came in, “How was your day?”

“Same as ever,” Rimmer flopped down on top of him, and kissed the back of his neck. Lister wriggled appreciatively and went back to watching the screen. Rimmer hesitated for a moment and then said, “I don’t suppose you fancy going to the cinema tonight?”

“What’s on?”

“I don’t know really. I just thought it might be nice. Have an early dinner and then catch the...oh, the seven o’clock show maybe?”

“Yeah, okay,” Lister rolled over and put his arms up round Rimmer’s neck, “If the movie’s crap we can always sit in the back row and entertain ourselves some other way...” He kissed him slowly and Rimmer beamed.

“Excellent.”

“You’re buying the popcorn though.”