Ch 12 - Have you got aaaaaaaaa one?
Lister, Rimmer, Cat, Tim, Rich and Paul were playing cards. It was decided that Kryten would attempt to stop anyone from cheating...however everyone was cheating and after the first ten minutes Kryten gave up and settled on working out how to stop them from killing each other which seemed inevitable. The tension between the players was thick, both Lister and Rimmer showed animosity towards Paul, and despite the fact that Rimmer knew Paul was a shit stirrer he still wasn't comfortable around Tim if what Paul had said held any merit.
In this round Tim and the Cat each had one card; Lister, Paul and Rimmer had three and by some strange occurrence Rich had the rest. Tim's voice echoed through the room as he asked Rich, "Have you got aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa," there was a pause as Tim looked over his card, "one?" Rich seemed to take ages looking through his cards, during which Rimmer said in an annoyed voice, "its called an Ace you gimboid!" Eventually Richard replied, "nup," and directed his question to Tim, "have you got aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa king?" if it was possible Tim seemed to take longer than Richard did to check over his solitary card. Paul was annoyed and threw his cards on the table. "Can we stop this stupid game!" Lister and Rimmer nodded in agreement. As if replying to Rich's request and Paul's question at once Tim replied "nup." Paul let out a frustrated groan and left the table. Tim picked up Paul's cards and looked at them, "that bastard!" he cried indignantly, "he did have a one!" Paul's voice could be heard from his room "NO! ITS A FUCKING ACE YOU ARSEHOLE!"
A calm occurred for the first time since the Dwarfers had arrived. Unfortunately, this didn't last long as Paul calmed down sufficiently from his game of cards to realise something was wrong in his room and Paul's head appeared from his room. "Who the fuck cleaned MY room?"
"Um, that was me sir." Kryten nervously answered, "Your room was worse than Mr. Lister's quarters and I'm afraid as a sanitation mechanoid, despite breaking my programming I couldn't allow for that to be the case," Kryten rambled. Indeed, Kryten had seen the state of Paul's room and had tidied up, filing away all his childish drawings, putting away his toys and even removing the stains that had been on Paul's uniform for over a year.
Paul walked out of his room and his face was red with anger. He stalked over to the mechanoid and clenched his fists. "Who gave you permission to even enter my room bolt brain?" Kryten looked guiltily towards the ground, his already hyperactive guilt chip becoming very much more so. Tim and Rich sensed another fight was about to break out. Tim put his card down, hurried over to Paul and put a reassuring arm on Paul's shoulder. Paul quickly spun around and looked up at Tim with a murderous glint in his eyes. "DON'T TOUCH ME FERGUSON!" He yelled. Startled Tim quickly dropped his hand from Paul's shoulder and instinctively took a step back.
"Look Paul." Began Tim trying to reason with the short man, "Paul why don't we calm down over a game?" Paul grinned manically at Tim.
"Like Mr. Potato?" He asked evilly. Tim's eyes widened.
"No not Mr. Potato! Each time we play that you nearly kill me McDermott!" Tim said in a scared voice.
"Ever thought that's the idea Tweezerdick?"
"Ummm...err...how about we go down to the alcohol library instead?" Tim asked in an attempt to change the topic off him dressing up as a potato and them sticking facial features with long sharp ends into him. Paul thought for a moment, "alright pencildick, if I drink enough I might forget you, tricky Ricky and the freaks exist and I'm back in Tangawarra."
"Great, lets go then!" Tim said happily, getting drunk on the remaining alcohol seemed like a good idea to him...a much better idea...just as long as it doesn't spark Paul's drinking problem again, last time was bad enough with Paul hallucinating that he was a Mexican Hitler. The Dwarfers didn't appear to mind either which was another bonus. In the AllStars' opinion the only thing worse than uninvited guests were uninvited guests who don't drink.