It was nearly seven by the time the boys had finished work for the day. They returned the lorry to the building, dropped off their paperwork and slips for the day, and then clocked out, proceeding back to the car park to get in their car and go back home.
As they walked back to the car, Rimmer fished around in his pocket for the keys. "How long do you think Cat's party is going to last?" he asked.
Lister shrugged. "They do tend to go on, don't they? Last one last until four AM. Do you remember? The neighbors tried phoning the police, and when the police showed up, Cat set them up with two birds he knew from the modeling agency."
Rimmer found the keys and pressed the button no the key chain. The headlights flashed and the alarm chirped, meaning they could now open the doors. "We should probably get Holly to reinforce the walls of his place with concrete," he muttered, proceeding to get in.
Lister shot him a cheeky grin as he prepared to open his door. "I bet you could take of that, lover boy."
Rimmer scowled with discomfort as he slid into the driver's seat.
Lister chuckled and settled in with him.
As they buckled up, he scanned the roads over the grass island that divided the car park from the highway. "So, you wanna get a takeaway?"
"Not tonight, please. My intestines can only take so much of that greasy stuff. Those chips alone could give you heart disease just from smelling it without a gas mask."
Lister shrugged. "Then what do you want to do for supper?"
"Oh, let's just heat something up. God knows I could stand a night away from the kitchen."
Rimmer started the car up and proceeded to back out of his space. Then he gingerly switched gears and headed for the highway.
"Well, if you still feel like a film, we get watch a video when we get home," Lister suggested amiably.
Rimmer contemplated as he carefully merged with traffic. "I suppose we could. Just so long as it isn't one of those lousy B-movies you always insist on watching."
"Oh, come on, they're classics!"
"What, you mean like, Attack of the Crazed Half-Eaten Chicken Heart That Ate the North Side of Pittsburgh?"
"It was excellent!"
"Lister, I spent ninety minutes sitting on a couch waiting to see a crazed half-eaten chicken heart. Then, after ninety-one minutes, there it was. Then, after ninety-three minutes, the credits rolled."
"Hey, it did exactly what it said it would on the tin. It ate the north side of Pittsburgh."
"When? All we saw was a giant blobby jelly sort of thing wobble about, superimposed onto a shot of people pointing and screaming, then there was a flash, then they showed some World War II footage of a destroyed city that was probably very much not Pittsburgh, and then a toy tank rolled onscreen, fired a fire cracker, and then the jelly thing exploded, and nobody got any goop on their clothes."
"…See, people like you take the fun out of movies. You just pick-pick-pick at every little detail," Lister huffed, crossing his arms.
They parked the car in the lot and proceeded to walk up the steps towards their flat. As they passed the Cat's door, they could already hear the bass notes that came with the karaoke machine's speakers, and their neighbor's voice could be heard making all sorts of weird noises that couldn't have been construed as real words.
They were surprised to find their flat door was already unlocked. Cautious, they slowly pushed it open and peeked inside, and were stunned to find the place looking incredibly different than it had that morning.
It was cleaner, for a start.
They walked all the way in and saw an older guy with short hair and a stubble cleaning up the place, wearing a frilly pink apron and daintily dusting with a feather duster, humming to himself.
"Hey, Kryters," Lister said, feeling relieved.
The man looked over at them. "Ahh, good evening, Mr. Lister, sir, and you, Mr. Rimmer, sir."
Kryten was the building's cleaning guy. Essentially, he went into each flat and tidied up a bit, took out the trash, emptied recycling, made beds and watered plants, as well as a touch of vacuuming here and there. While his official papers said he came from London, no one was altogether certain if he genuinely was. Rimmer had been convinced for the first two years he knew the man that he was actually from Sweden, while the Cat had suggested he was from America.
The man's accent was just that hard to pin down.
When asked about his family, Kryten said his mother, a scientist in robotics, Professor Mammett, was indeed English, but he'd never known his father. He'd also revealed he'd had a brother named Able, who Lister had only managed to meet once before his tragic death a few months later.
Another strange curiosity about Kryten was that he no one knew of his middle or last names. The man had said they embarrassed him, saying that the middle name in particular was "jerky". So they just let it slide.
"So how was your day, sirs?" their manservant asked, finishing up with dusty a few picture frames on the bookcase.
"Long and tiring," Rimmer groaned, settling down into his chair and snuggling himself into the cushions.
Lister settled for sprawling out on the couch, taking up it's entire length.
"Would you like me to prepare your supper for tonight, sirs?" Kryten continued.
"Nah, don't worry, Krytes, we'll just heat something up ourselves," Lister said with a yawn, absently scanning the video shelf in the cabinet beneath their TV.
"Oh, not to worry, sir, I don't mind at all."
"Kryten, all you have to do for him is heat up a frozen curry, and he's set for the day," Rimmer mumbled, taking some sort of pleasure in staring at the far wall of the flat.
"Mr. Rimmer, please, I insist! Cooking is one of my favorite pastimes. I'd be only too happy to cook you both supper."
The two flat mates exchanged mutual looks of skepticism before they both nodded.
"Alright, man, hop to it. Surprise us," Lister murmured.
Kryten smiled with excitement and headed over to the kitchen, immediately pulling out ingredients left and right, grabbing whatever pots and pans could be described as clean.
Lister listened to him from the couch as he slowly sat up straight again. "We're going to hell, aren't we?" he muttered.
"Meh. The way the rules are written, we all are anyway," Rimmer said with a shrug.
Lister continued to scan the rows of movies from his seat when they heard a knock at the door. He got up from the sofa, not really taking his eyes off the sideways titles as he walked slowly towards the door.
He opened it and was greeted by the most beautiful woman in the world.
"You took your time," she lightly admonished.
Lister smiled for the first time in hours. "Ohh, get in here. Need female company now."
Kochanski kissed him lightly on the lips before entering, heading towards the abandoned sofa. "Evening, Rimmer," she said, patting his shoulder as she passed.
"Mmm," was all Rimmer could manage, feeling the day's long and boring activities catching up with him.
"Long day, boys?"
"Ohh, it was like getting a cavity filled with Barbara Streisand music playing in the background," Lister sighed, settling down next to her, wrapping an appreciative arm around her.
Kochanski winced sympathetically. "Well, look on the bright side: in thirty to forty years, you'll be dead, and it'll all be over."
"Good to know there's something to look forward to."
Kryten poked his head out of the kitchen. "Oh, Miss Kochanski, ma'am, will you be joining us for dinner?"
Kochanski looked over her shoulder at the man who was currently wearing a frilly apron and a chef's hat. "Sure, why not?"
"Excellent! I'll just add a touch more vinegar," he said with a smile, ducking behind the wall again.
Kochanski looked at Lister disapprovingly. "He's cooking for you two again?"
Lister shrugged helplessly. "He insisted!"
"He always insists."
"I can't help it. If I say no, he gives me this look like I've kicked a dog."
"And you know that look, don't you?" Rimmer said, raising an eyebrow at him.
"…Well, the dog had just pissed on a rare, expensive CD. I lost my head. Do you know how corrosive dog urine is? It's like pouring liquid nitrogen!"
Kochanski shook her head. "If your it was that important, you could've put it on a shelf."
"I tried, but it kept jumping down!"
Deciding it was time to change the subject, Rimmer spoke up again. "So, enough about that, Kochanski. How was your day?"
Thankfully, she silently agreed to the new path of conversation. "Not bad. I spent a nice three hours in front of a computer, tapping away on that infernal keyboard, trying to write up a decent reason why the case should be taken to court. Then I broke for lunch. Then I returned and received a phone call saying that the case has been taken out of court."
Both men winced.
"That's the fifth one in two months, isn't it?" Lister asked.
"Yes, it is. Thank you for paying attention to my whinging," she replied, kissing him on the forehead.
"I almost feel bad for all the lawyer jokes I've made over the years," Rimmer murmured.
Kochanski scrunched up her nose at him before snuggling into Lister's side. "So, what were you boys planning on doing besides getting out of cooking again?"
"Thinking about watching a film," Lister said, gesturing towards the row of movies under the TV.
Kochanski skimmed their choices herself once with her head tilted to one side. "You don't have much to choose from."
"I think we've got a pretty good selection."
"It's a choice between your god-awful B-movies or Rimmer's documentaries."
"Nothing wrong with educational programming," Rimmer replied, crossing his arms in self-defense.
"But all the documentaries are about Julius Caesar or Adolf Hitler or a bunch of other fantastically horrible dead gits," Lister moaned.
"Not all of them are about politicians and war, you know. There are a few others."
"Rimmer, we are not sitting through the James Last documentary. I don't care how desperate we get. I'm not sitting through that. Nor will I sit through three whole hours about the history of Hammond Organ, just so you know."
Rimmer glared at him. "Okay, so what can we watch that acceptable for everyone?"
Kochanski quickly skimmed the row of movies before finally seeing one that was neither over three hours long nor made on a budget under one thousand pounds. She spotted one that looked ideal and pointed to it. "How about that one?" she asked.
"Which one?" Lister asked, following her finger.
"Blues Brothers. Is that one acceptable?"
Lister and Rimmer mulled this over for a moment before they both nodded.
Since his flat mate was otherwise occupied keeping his girlfriend comfortable, Rimmer got up and started up the player and took the disc out of its casing and plopped it in the slot, starting it up.
At that moment, Kryten poked his head in the room again.
"Supper should be ready, shortly, sirs, ma'am," he announced.
"We'll have it in here, Kryters. Break out the TV trays," Lister replied.
Kryten frowned. "But, sir, isn't it said that a family that eats at a dinner table properly has a better relationship?"
Rimmer didn't even look up from what he was doing. "Kryten, we've never been a family, and unless something goes incredibly wrong in the near future, I have no intention of being a part of a family with those two."
Lister just sneered mockingly at him. He knew Rimmer was just jealous of what he and Kris had. As far as he was concerned, anyone would be. It was really part of the reason why he kept trying to hook Rimmer up with one of his female friends. If he could just get the poor smeghead laid, he figured he'd cheer the smeg up.
And maybe also move out, but that was a different argument altogether.
But for now, with the movie playing, all qualms were forgotten for another ninety minutes.
For reasons Kochanski never bothered to understand, Lister and Rimmer somehow were best mates when they were watching this movie. Although they would never admit it, she had once caught them singing Soul Man while they were cleaning up one day, complete with air guitar and a mimed harmonica.
Smiling at the memory, she settled in for dinner and a movie.
Author's Notes: Just so you know, the dog urine joke was taken from Craig Charles' first appearance on Robert Lllewellyn's web based chat show Carpool, available on iTunes. Don't worry - Criag didn't actually kick the dog. That was artisitc license.