reddwarfslash | Fic: Upstream (NC-17)

Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: I don't own Red Dwarf, and I do not profit from this. I just do this to amuse myself.
Pairing: Lister/Rimmer

This comes after the following:
Function
Static
Love
Release
Reunited
Byway
Weaknesses
Trepidation
Awakening
Officers
The List
Aground
Survival
Mother

Lister stripped off his clothing, and threw it onto a flat rock by the river. He nudged the tattered jeans with one toe cautiously, testing their overall stiffness. Even he had to admit that they were overdue for a wash. Kryten had mentioned something about powering the appliances in Starbug with the solar panels. It would be a brilliant idea if it worked, he reflected, easing himself into the brisk flowing water. He waded in until he was waist deep, and then submerged himself, scooping up a handful of sandy soil to scrub his skin with.

The river was one of the nice things about the place, he mused. He’d never had the opportunity to bathe outdoors before, well, never in a river. And never while sober. He felt as though he was in a soap commercial despite the fact that there was no soap to be had. He chuckled to himself at the thought, and was suddenly aware of eyes on him, glaring with enough heat to roast a chicken.

“So, amused today, are we?” Rimmer spat, stomping down the uneven hill. His hair was ruffled and a tiny bit damp. Dust lightly coated him, dulling the shine of his hologrammatic uniform.

“What’s eating you, then?” Lister asked, wading closer to the bank. “Thought you’d be pleased to no end t’ see me having a bath.”

“I would.” Rimmer said, pointedly, “If you weren’t washing your filthy body upstream. You do realize that you are contaminating the camp’s drinking water. Not to mention the washing water. This water you’re in can’t be used twice, Listy.”

Lister sighed, wringing an impressive amount of water from his locks. “You don’t need water, Rimmer, what do you care?” he sighed. “Besides, it’s running water. It’s not gonna hang around.”

Rimmer bristled, and bit his tongue just short of decrying the thought of Lister’s bath water polluting his tea. It would make Lister’s day. Instead, he put forth an idea designed to press on Lister’s guilt. “You really want to risk Kochanski drinking your toilet water? Unfiltered?”

“Hey!” Lister cried. “I don’t piss in the bath, Rimmer.” It wasn’t really a lie. He pissed in the shower sometimes, but that had a drain. He wouldn’t sit in it. A man had to have standards, after all.

“Still.” Rimmer grumbled.

“Since when are you such a gentleman, anyway?” Lister asked, peering up at him.

It seemed to be the wrong thing to say.

“I suppose spending the afternoon building a storage area and plowing a garden to grow vegetables that I don’t need to eat is selfish.” He sneered, crossing his arms. Lister supposed that he did have a point. He sighed, and climbed out of the water, sprawling out on a rock to dry. He gave Rimmer a softer glance.

“It’s not.” He mumbled. “And I really do appreciate it, you know. I mean, I …” He sighed. “I always thought that I’d be good at this sort of life. Build a house and a farm and all, and be the one taking care of business. I should be the one making a living for you and Kris.”

Rimmer was torn between surprise at his own sudden inclusion in Lister’s ridiculous Plan and a seething jealously that he had to share it with Kochanski, even after all this time. He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing, sitting beside Lister and trying not to look like he was ogling his nude body. It was perfectly normal to stare a bit, considering that he’d never had a proper look for more than a second or two. Still, he felt a bit ashamed of himself for staring, so he looked down instead.

“It’s a lot like Earth, isn’t it.” Lister murmured.

“I wouldn’t know.” Rimmer replied, toeing a pebble. “Not really, anyway.”

“You’re human, Rimmer. You know it in your blood, even if you weren’t born there.” Lister sat up, and leaned against Rimmer’s side. “You have to take the good with the bad.” He continued. Rimmer nodded. Lister grinned as he noticed that Rimmer’s eyes were everywhere but on him. “You also gotta loosen up a bit.”

He leaned up, drawing Rimmer into a deep kiss. Rimmer returned it, and reluctantly placing his hands on Lister’s damp skin, rubbing his hips in small, circular motions. Lister straddled him and chuckled against his throat. “C’mere, Arn.” He pushed him back against the grass. How many times had he fantasized about this, he and Rimmer rolling around and fucking in the grass, the heat of the sun beating down on them curbed by a slight cool breeze? He could pretend it was Earth. He could pretend, and be happy. He had Rimmer back, that was the important bit anyway.

Rimmer’s hands were feeling his torso as though it were an alien substance. His fingers trailed over his ribs, down his chest, along the slight curve of his cesarean scar. A small frown of concentration was on the hologram’s lips, as though he was trying to make sense of Lister’s skin. Lister let him continue, kissing the mussed curls of his hair, down his shoulder, and up again, until Rimmer seemed to be paying more attention to the fact that he was there, and not only his body. Rimmer blushed with embarrassment when Lister caught his eyes with a knowing look, and, quite to Lister’s surprise, broke the awkward atmosphere by gripping Lister’s shaft firmly, pulling at him with a surprisingly skilled hand.

Lister yelped, but recovered his composure quickly, arching into Rimmer’s hand. He clawed desperately at the shimmering blue uniform. It didn’t behave like normal fabric ought to, and he was too impatient to figure it out. “Get it off.” He hissed. Rimmer complied, the body beneath him shimmering with a slight vibration, and leaving him with a large expanse of hard light skin before him.

Once his skin was bare, he sucked any of it within reach into his mouth, half kissing and half biting in a frenzy, licking indentations of flesh. He closed his own handover Rimmer’s shaft, and pumped it in time with Rimmer’s own motion. He could feel Rimmer’s legs grappling him, could feel the sharpness of a protruding rock against his thigh, but such awkward things were trivial when you had your lover in your grasp and the scent of tender green grass in your nostrils, leading up to a blissful orgasm.

Lister couldn’t say how long it lasted, but he’d ceased to care about such things. He held his lover close, listening to the water flow downstream and the occasional rustle of a rabbit in the undergrowth hedging the water. He closed his eyes, and pretended that they were home.