It was later that night. Despite the pitched battle that had taken place in their quarters earlier, Rimmer and Lister had actually made it to the bar eventually, in time to have a few drinks with the others. Kriss looked at them with amusement, "So, you both managed to get here in one piece then?" she remarked, "No more little squabbles?"
"I can't think what you're referring to, Kriss," Lister said innocently.
"I'm sure it's nothing untoward, that would be worth mentioning, in any case," Rimmer added, his face carefully blank. Kriss grinned, but took the hint and left it at that. They had a good night.
Now the bar was closed, they'd said their goodnights and the two of them were tucked up in their bunks, the lights dim. Rimmer had something he wanted to say, but he wasn't quite sure how to broach the subject. "Lister? You still awake?"
"Yeah," The reply was immediate. He didn't even sound sleepy.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. Why?"
"I just thought you might be feeling a bit low still. Lying awake and all that."
"Hmmm."
"I know how much it meant to you. Having someone...like him...in your life again."
"Yeah, I'll miss him," Lister said softly, "But it'll be okay. I'll make other friends, meet other people...And there's always you guys, of course."
"So...you think you will want another friend like Alex?" Rimmer asked cautiously.
"Well," Lister said, slightly puzzled by the question, "Maybe not exactly like Alex, but someone who I can share the same kind of stuff with."
"I see," said Rimmer quietly.
Lister leaned over the side of the bunk and looked at him, "See what?" he asked, "What are you being so cagey about?" Rimmer shook his head,
"It's nothing. Doesn't matter."
"Oh, well, in that case..." Lister replied sarcastically, swinging his head back up into his own bunk. Rimmer looked at the empty space where he'd been for a moment, then went on. It was easier to say this without Lister's upside-down stare on him. "What I meant was," he said carefully, "Did you want just a friend or did you want the kind of friend that Alex was?"
"What are you talking about, Rimmer?" Lister said impatiently.
"I'm asking you if it's a friend you really want, or a lover." There. He'd said it.
There was silence from the top bunk. "Lister...?"
"How long have you known?" he asked quietly.
"Since that night at the club," Rimmer admitted.
"How? There wasn't even anything going on between us then."
"I don't know," Rimmer looked up at the slats above his head, "Just watching the two of you together, I suppose. Your body language and stuff. I could tell he fancied you, but it took me a bit longer to work out that you liked him too." Lister thought back to the night in Alex's quarters when it had all started. It had been Alex who initiated things, certainly. And he remembered how tense Alex had sounded when he'd quizzed him about the flirty barmaid, whether he was going to ask her out. Why? Do you fancy her? At the time Lister had assumed Alex was just being competitive, not wanting him moving in on his territory. Now he wondered if it had actually been a little stab of jealousy. Speaking of which...
"Is that why you wouldn't come over and dance with us when I waved to you?" Lister asked.
"No. I just didn't want to dance, that's all," Rimmer replied defensively.
"So it wasn't that you didn't want to be seen with queers?" Lister asked, rather tetchily.
"Lister, don't be so stupid. I'm seen with you all the time, for smeg's sake!"
"So, what then? You thought it would be more fun to just stand and glare at us?"
"Something like that. You know I don't like clubs."
"Well, why did you come then?"
"Oh, pardon me for wanting to spend some time with you. I've hardly seen you the past couple of months!"
"You weren't spending time with me! You were sitting in a corner sulking!"
"Yes, because you spent all night with Alex!"
"I did not! I tried about a hundred times to get you to join in with us!"
"Yeah, well I didn't feel like sharing!" Rimmer snapped.
"What do you mean 'sharing'?" Lister demanded.
Rimmer fell silent for a moment. "I mean," he said awkwardly, "I wanted to spend some time just you and me. The way it used to be before he came along. I wanted you to myself for a while."
"Rimmer," Lister said quietly, his anger gone; "All you ever had to do was ask."
"I didn't know how! I was worried that you might...I didn't know how to say it without sounding..." he trailed off.
"What?" Lister asked, annoyed.
"I thought it sounded gay," he confessed finally.
Lister put his head back against the pillow and laughed bitterly, "Oh, this is just priceless! You were worried I'd get the wrong idea and pounce on you, is that it?"
"No!" Rimmer almost shouted, "I was worried that you'd realise and I'd just end up looking stupid!"
Lister's eyes flew open in surprise as Rimmer burst into tears suddenly; "I thought you'd work it all out and then you'd tell him, and the two of you would laugh at me! I just didn't want you to know!"
"To know what?" he asked. He climbed down out of his bunk and stood beside Rimmer's bed. He had turned away from him, his shoulders shaking with his sobs. "Rimmer?" he said tentatively, "Do...Do you mean you were really jealous of Alex and me? Not just the time we were spending together but...what we were doing together?" Rimmer didn't reply, just cried some more; which was pretty much an answer in itself. "I...I had no idea," Lister said, dazed, "I always thought...I don't know what I thought."
He sat down weakly on the edge of Rimmer's bed. "Why would you think I would laugh at you if I found out? What even makes you think I would have told Alex?"
"Of course you would have done," Rimmer choked out, miserably. Lister wasn't entirely sure he would. Alex and Arnold had been quite chilly enough to each other already, without adding that kind of tension to the relationship; and if Alex had indeed felt threatened by Rimmer's feelings, he might well have confronted him, perhaps even mocked him over it. For that reason alone Lister would have kept quiet.
A memory came back to him of the day he and Alex had narrowly avoided being discovered by Rimmer, and their relieved laughter when he'd walked in just a moment too late to catch them. Rimmer had been understandably annoyed by their mysterious laughter and, looking back on it, Lister guessed Rimmer's ever active paranoia had probably been on red-alert, afraid they'd sussed him. How ironic that their laughter had actually been a knee-jerk terror reaction that he might have sussed them. God, what a mess.
"For all I know," Rimmer continued, "You could be planning to write him a letter tomorrow telling him all this and I'll still wind up looking a fool!"
"Rimmer," Lister interrupted him gently but firmly, "I'm not going to be writing to Alex about this. I'm not sure if it would be the right thing for me to be writing to him at all." Rimmer rolled over and looked at him, sniffling,
"Why not?"
Lister sighed deeply, "Six months is a long time, Rimmer. What Alex and I have..." he paused and corrected himself, "Had...It isn't strong enough for that. If I do write to him and reply to his letters it will be as a friend and nothing more. And I suspect that it won't be that long before Alex starts forgetting to write anyway. To try and drag it out when we both know that it's not going to work would just be daft. It's better that we make a clean break now and start trying to move on."
"You broke up when you found out he was leaving?" Rimmer asked. Lister shrugged,
"Not exactly. It wasn't really a relationship. It was...a phase. And it came to a natural conclusion."
"Doesn't seem all that natural to me," Rimmer challenged him. Lister was surprised, "What do you mean?"
"Well, if he hadn't left you would have carried on what you were doing, right?" Lister floundered, "For a while, maybe, but it wouldn't have lasted forever."
"Why not?"
"Well, because...It just wouldn't have. Sooner or later things would have fizzled out. We just weren't...It wasn't...I didn't..." He was struggling to find the right words and wasn't sure why. It had all been very clear in his head not long ago. "Because you didn't love him?" Rimmer asked softly. Lister felt very tired suddenly,
"Right. I didn't love him," he admitted wearily.
"So...Really," Rimmer postulated, "It wasn't about it being a phase or any of that other crap. It was just that he wasn't the right person for you. Regardless of gender. Am I right?"
"What are you getting at, Rimmer?"
Rimmer sat up, leaning his back against the wall behind the bunk. "I wondered sometimes," he said awkwardly, "About that other me. The way you talk about him made me think that maybe you and he...Did you ever...?" Lister saw where he was going with this, "No," he said simply; "We never." Rimmer said nothing. "Don't get me wrong," Lister said, "He was special...in his own unique way, but..." he paused, trying to think how to communicate what his relationship with Rimmer had been. "We were brothers," he said eventually, "Not lovers."
"Is that how he felt?" Rimmer asked. Lister thought about it, then shrugged,
"I don't know," he said honestly. "I guess we'll never find out. For what it's worth, I think he felt the same way I did." Rimmer nodded and said nothing. Lister couldn't tell if he was relieved or disappointed.
"I assume what you're trying to tell me with this line of enquiry is that even before I met Alex you suspected I might be a bit gay. Right?" Rimmer winced,
"I wouldn't have put it quite like that, but I think you've got the point." Lister thought back to how this whole thing had started. Is it a friend you want or a lover? He thought about Rimmer's behaviour earlier this evening; the sudden playfulness, the physically intimacy he'd initiated when he'd pulled off his towel that had ended up with them wrestling on the floor with not a whole lot on.
"And I suppose," Lister continued, "That if I was, then having Alex removed from the picture would be very good news for you, wouldn't it?" Rimmer flushed red,
"I didn't mean it that way! I just thought..."
"What with you being my closest friend and everything. The person I would be most likely to turn to. And hell, as if things could be even more convenient, we even share a room!"
"I just wanted..." Lister held up a hand to silence him, and then smiled suddenly. He stood up, "Come here. There's something I want to show you." Rimmer got out of bed and followed him across the room. They stopped by the mirror. "What is it?" he asked. "Keep looking," Lister told him, "You'll see it." Rimmer stared hard into the mirror, "Lister, I really can't see what you're getting at..."
And suddenly, in one fluid move he'd perfected just a few hours ago, Lister grabbed his boxer shorts and yanked them down. Rimmer wheeled round to grab him, and as he did so Lister caught his arms and gave him a sweet impish smile. "Take a look in the mirror," he told him again; "You're bigger than Alex."