Disclaimer – No, they're not mine. But you can't have them either! (Sticks out tongue)
Kochanski lay awake in the darkness of her quarters. She prided herself on being strong, being independent, but even on a small, cramped ship like Starbug she found it all too easy to feel lonely sometimes. She stared at the blank wall separating her from the boys, and briefly considered creeping across and asking Dave if he would come in with her, the way he sometimes did; but knew in her heart that she wouldn't. It didn't work that way between them.
He'd never actually stayed the whole night with her before anyway. He would come in to talk to her now and then, and they might snuggle under the covers together. If she was feeling particularly down he would hold her for a while. And yes, occasionally it would go a little further than just cuddling. Hands would wander, and sometimes they wandered into quite intimate places. They would curl up close and press together as his fingers tenderly brought her to orgasm, or vice versa, but they never actually had 'proper' penetrative sex; and although they might doze off together afterwards, she would inevitably awaken to find him slipping back into his clothes before going back to his own room; and Rimmer.
She had no doubt that Rimmer knew what she and Dave occasionally got up to, but he'd never mentioned it and neither had they. Kriss had an idea that Rimmer tolerated it out of a mild sense of pity and, perhaps, because he knew that there would always be something between her and Dave that he had no control over. As much as Lister loved him, the simple fact was that Lister was not instinctively gay. Kriss was a woman; and a woman he still had a lot of feelings for. Rimmer knew that Lister couldn't fight that. He let them do what they sometimes felt they had to and kept his silence; on the basis that Lister always came back to him and – she suspected – that she and Dave did not actually have sex.
It was amazing really, how little the normal rules and niceties of society mattered once you were put in a situation like this. This was not a living-arrangement that either her parents or even her friends back on earth would ever have approved of, or even understood. But then, had she presented with the hypothesis back then, she supposed she might have reacted the same way. Sharing somebody else's boyfriend, especially a guy's, did sound a little slutty. But having said that, Dave and Rimmer had had to come to terms with something even more difficult; so she supposed she had no right to bitch.
She rolled over and curled up into a tight little ball, with a sigh. It would be a while before she'd be able to sleep. An empty bed was always so much colder.
