Fortunately for Duane, it only took a few minutes for the crew to thaw from the blast he had given them. Lister gently extricated the bottle from Duane's hands.
"I think it's time for you to get back to being Cat," he sighed.
"That's fo' sho'!" Duane exclaimed, shaking his head. "What a Dibbley!"
"Kryters, go help him out," Lister said, shoving the frozen Emohawk into the mechanoid's hands and waving in the general direction of the medibay.
Kryten took Duane by his arm and turned to Rimmer. "Mister Ace, sir, perhaps you would care to offer your assistance?"
Lister pushed Kryten away. "Hey, man, don't make him spend his 24 hours doctorin' the Cat!" Kryten considered this, nodded, and walked back to the medibay, a nervously dancing Cat in tow.
Lister turned back to Rimmer with a grin. "So, how are you goin' to spend yer 24 hours as Ace, man?"
Rimmer had been uncharacteristically silent during this exchange. Now that the need for action was gone, he found himself sitting with his thoughts, and they were strange indeed. True, they were the same as they always had been, but they now lacked a very fundamental tinge that he never knew he had until it was removed. It was as if he had owned a car for all of his life, and had just finally discovered what the wiper blades would do. He was looking at his hands as if someone else's had been abruptly stuck on his wrists. When Lister addressed him, he looked up, tugging somewhat nervously at his blond hair.
"I hadn't quite decided, Davey-boy..."
Lister grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the sleeping quarters, betraying nervousness. "C'mon, man, let's talk."
Lister set a fast pace, and he arrived at their quarters somewhat breathlessly. He slapped at the door-close switch, then turned to face a disconcerted Rimmer.
"Do you remember... everything that happened last time, Ace?"
With a perception that the old Arnold Rimmer never seemed to have at his disposal, this suctioned Rimmer understood what Lister thought he was talking about. "I'm not Ace Rimmer, Davey-boy."
Lister's brow wrinkled in confusion.
"But... your voice, your looks..." Lister waved at Rimmer, confusion evident on his face. "I know whot you said happened, but it's hard to believe you didn't just D-J in."
"Didn't think I had it in me, old chum?" Rimmer asked with a smile. The old Arnold Rimmer would have been horribly insulted to have been mistaken for Ace. But the bitterness was gone, and he could pull up nothing but understanding for Lister.
"It must be how my... hologrammatic subconscious, I suppose you'd call it, is dealing with the personality change." Rimmer continued. "I'm not seeing things quite the same way, Davey-boy, and I have to admit that it's a bit disconcerting."
Lister walked closer and tentatively touched Rimmer's hair. "Yes... you're not quite the same."
"I don't want to say anything about my other selves - it just seems a bit impolite - but I believe I'm a bit less arrogant than the Ace you met. Not that he didn't have good reason to be full of himself," Rimmer added hastily. "Hell of a chap."
Lister, almost unconsciously, said, "What a guy!" Rimmer wasn't sure if he was referring to himself or to his alternate incarnation. Both, he supposed, and felt a slight embarrassment that, he is sure, would be alien to his alternate self.
"Yes, I saw that you two were pretty close. Sorry I was such a damn prat about it all, mate."
Lister laughed, nervously. "Actually, you were kinda right. I offered to meet him in my room, covered in curry paste, after he finished sewing Cat up. He acted like he was expectin' it."
"Did you?" With his normal snarkiness gone, Rimmer was almost shocked by how much the idea of Lister offering himself to an alternate Rimmer bothered him.
"Nope; he said it wasn't his place. Dunno what he was talkin' about." Lister shrugged.
Rimmer felt a strange urge to comfort the man. He reached out and grasped him by the shoulder. "Sorry, old chap. Not exactly cricket, that."
Lister grabbed the hard-light hand that lay on his shoulder and squeezed, a more genuine grin lighting his face. "It's good to see you like this, man." Rimmer couldn't help echoing the smile. They stood there, tranquilly, for a few quiet moments. Then Lister reached forward and touched Rimmer's cheek.
"Is it your place, man?"
Rimmer hunted for the answer. He was not as shocked as he would have expected to be by this proposition. His new, clearer vision saw the push and pull between himself and Lister, in all its complexity, and dissected out the latent sexual tension that had quivered between them for years, pushed away with loathing by his bitter, neurotic side.
But he had to be fair to Lister.
"Are you sure you want this, Davey-boy? Knowing that I'll be gone tomorrow?"
"Not gone..." Lister said hoarsely.
Rimmer nodded. "Just hidden."
Lister pushed Rimmer back to the bunk, and started to fumble with the clasps on his blue uniform. Rimmer caught Lister's gloved hands in his own bare ones, held them to his lips for a moment, and then set them down in Lister's lap. "Just calm down, old chum. I want to do this right for you." He took Lister's soft cheeks in his hands, and pulled the shorter man close. Lister's kisses were nervous and awkward, with too much teeth and mashing of lips, and Rimmer tried to calm the man by responding more slowly and gently. He had learned a few things about kissing from his time with Nirvanah, and took this opportunity to try to implement them. From the strangled moans that Lister started to make after a few minutes, and the way he settled into Rimmer's slow and sensual rhythm, the experience had not been wasted. Rimmer found himself quite turned on by the time they broke for air, but this was the night for Lister. He breathed sweet words in Lister's ear as he pushed the other man onto his back, unbuttoning the brown jumpsuit and stained long johns, stroking each bit of skin that appeared before covering it with soft, quick kisses. Lister's hands tangled in Rimmer's hair as the hologram nipped and sucked and stroked, working Lister up to a fever pitch. He finally took Lister in his mouth, stroking his cheek as Lister bucked and moaned and tugged at Rimmer's hair, yelling as he finally climaxed. Rimmer held him in his mouth until the shuddering stopped, then hauled himself back up to kiss Lister again. He was greeted with a cherubic grin and a hug that was almost too comradely for what had just passed between them.
"You all right, Davey?"
Lister laughed, sleepily. "I'm spent, mate."
Rimmer pulled up the blanket that had been kicked to the foot of the bunk, and spread it over Lister. "Take a rest, old chum."
Lister squeezed Rimmer's hand as he closed his eyes. He was asleep a second later.
Rimmer waited for his own erection to subside, and then stretched out next to Lister. He was quite pleased; he had finally done something right, something good; and in his current, unbittered state, that was enough for him. He smiled, and drifted off to sleep.
In the middle of the night, Rimmer's light-bee ran its daily self-check, detected foreign code, and rebooted.
Rimmer awoke several hours later, staring at the blank bunk wall. His back hurt; it was kinked in an awkward position. His head was muzzy, and his mouth felt stuffed with cotton.
I wasn't drinking, was I?
He squeezed his eyes tightly closed as he tried to remember what the hell had happened to make him feel this way. He remembered, dimly, the crash landing... the GELF village... the wedding... the Emohawk.. the strange, light feeling left behind after the negativity and bitterness had been sucked out of him...
Oh
SMEG.
He gingerly turned, and saw a blissfully asleep Lister, naked except for a blanket, snoring merrily away not a millimeter from him. He slowly raised his fist and bit down on it, hard.
Oh
SMEG.
His face scrunched up in horror, he weighed the possibility of vaulting over Lister and running from the room. He measured angles by eye and calculated vectors in a panic, coming to the conclusion that there was no way to escape without waking Lister.
As a hard-light hologram, at least. Good thought, old boy, he told himself. With a soft whump, he converted to soft-light. He stretched out his arms to confirm that he was in red, and then tore out of bed like a championship sprinter, only gaining speed as he ran to the fastest escape route, straight through the nearest wall.
His light-bee gave off a resounding clonk as it bounced off of the wall, dragging him reluctantly back into the room. He sighed, straightened his uniform, confirmed that Lister was still sleeping, and faded back into hard-light. He activated the door switch, and ran out of the room.
He stopped in the midsection, breathing hard. What the hell had he done? Sex with Lister? How desperate does an Emohawk-sucking leave a bloke? He would have done better to have shagged the GELF who tossed him the bouquet! At least she appeared to have a regular bathing schedule.
Rimmer was highly annoyed to note that one part of his body was very much enjoying his mental rehash of the previous night's events. He hit the offending member hard, to teach it a lesson.
Kryten walked into the midsection and saw a blue-uniformed figure curled into a tight ball on the floor. He looked closer, and saw a familiar head of curls topping a face that was grimacing and swearing silently in extreme pain.
"Ah, welcome back, Mister Rimmer."