Disclaimer in part one.

Authors Notes: Thank you all for reading and for the reviews. I am unsure of how Rimmer and Lister got together and I'm not sure of how to get there. If anyone has any Ideas I'd love to hear them. Hopefully you all can get my imagination up and running again!

One In Particular

Good morning, Well I presume it's morning. This is the trouble with being in deep space you can never tell whether it's morning or night, except for your own body clock but even that gets thrown off from time to time.
Another uneventful day has gone uneventfully by and slowly, so slowly you would rather be stuck behind the senile old woman in a shopping queue.

Getting back to what happened after the paint incident:
I woke up the next morning with a bang; this was me hitting the floor with a great thud. Apparently the dream I had, had caused me to propel myself from my bed and onto the floor. Unfortunately I am not a small or light man; the noise was quite spectacular. Dave was in my room at the time of the incident.

He had just stared at me. At first I didn't notice he was there as my eyes were closed in pain. When I did notice him he was stood over me with a 'What the smeg?!' look. I hadn't known what to say - I had, had the wind literally knocked out of me.

"Nice fall?" He asked whilst grinning - I hated him then.

"Smeg off"

"What? Get up on the wrong side of the bed?"

"I only have one side you gimp"

"Still, bet you wish you hadn't"

"No because then that would have made you right, which you're not"

"You're grumpy this morning"

"So would you if you woke up like I did and then had to see your ugly face"

"What's wrong with my face?"

"How much time you got?"

"Quite a lot actually"

"Shut up... Wait a sec, what are you doing in my room anyway?"

"Ah, well I was just" He looked around "Err looking for a book"

"A book?"

"Yea, I was bored, thought I'd read summat"

"You want to read one of my books?"

"Yea, why not?"

"Firstly Lister they are my books, Secondly, you don't even like my books!"

"I wanted something to help me sleep"

"It's nine A.M!"

"Hey, Early to bed, early to rise isn't that what you're always saying?"

"Not at nine A.M!"

"Ok Rimmer, want the truth? I was watching you sleep, happy?!"

"Fine if you want one that badly, just take one!"

"It doesn't matter I'll just go"

As he moved to leave I had the urge to stop him but I didn't know what to say, the only thing that I could come up with was.

"Lister?" He paused near the door and turned to look at me "I... Have a nice sleep"

He made a little wave and with that he left, we didn't see each other for the rest of the day.
I heard from the Cat that he was helping Kryten with the laundry. That was the most useful information I got from the Cat all day - actually, ever.

I had spent some of the day in the cockpit, there wasn't much I could do besides sit there and look bored.
I had decided after that to organise my telegraph pole collection by size instead of mass, it was the forth or fifth change I had made that particular week. I have probably organised everything I own in every imaginable way possible you could organise something. Organising everything by weight was difficult; I had earned myself a nice slap from Miss Kochanski for that attempt.
I don't usually organise my things anymore; usually I only do it now when anxious or irritated. I have always found it a good way to take my mind of something.

As I hadn't seen Dave that day it was a good time for me to sort out my feelings.
Naturally I was confused; I had never been interested in men before and quite frankly since. It was only this man in particular. I knew I wasn't gay - I liked women and I didn't like men... someone had once told me that 'it doesn't matter who or what, when you fall in love, you fall in love' Still I didn't like the idea that I could be attracted to another man. I had been brought up with the idea that gay people were abnormal and deviants. I could never understand my parent's prejustice, I remember once getting beaten up by my brothers for once disagreeing with their ridiculous slander. They had called me 'Queer' and 'fag' once my parents had found out, my father had given me another beating.
From then on I had to agree with them no matter how awkward and ashamed it had made me feel.

Being on a star ship millions of miles from them did give me a lot more freedom, even though no one had liked me it was still heaven compared to being within speaking range of my family.

When I had gotten Dave as a room mate it was incredibly strange, I couldn't believe he would willingly talk to me. My last four roommates would only make comments about me to their friends and only talk to me when absolutely necessary. Dave on the other hand would often strike up a conversation.
Most of the time we would end up fighting but I finally felt like I could talk to someone with out hearing 'Shut up' as soon as I opened my mouth.

Of course I knew he didn't like me all that much and I often would make stupid comments to him just so I could get him to talk to me, I've never had the skill that Dave has to just go up and talk to someone.

Trying to figure out my feelings wasn't an easy task, there were so many conflicting emotions that I couldn't make sense of. It wasn't just what I was feeling for Dave; my own demons were coming into play as well. I had doubted my own self worth (not for the first time). It had taken me all day and I hadn't made much progress but I had known one thing for certain. If he had 'asked me out' I wouldn't have said no.

Toodle Pipski,

Arnold. J. Rimmer