"Rimmer shut up," Lister cried for the 4th time in as many minutes.
"I'm only humming" Rimmer whined.
"Well don't, it's getting on my wick." Lister growled, focusing on the large rock he was trying to avoid a mere few feet ahead. "All week all we have had it you grinning or singing or making stupid sounds with your teeth. Its just sick."
Rimmer stared back down at the navigation controls and half smiled, they were carefully picking their way around an asteroid belt that would usually have him gripping his seat with worry but today he didn't care, he wasn't really paying attention anyway.
"Why are you so frigging chirpy anyway?!" Cat demanded, "I haven't seen you this relaxed since you became a hard light and spent a day in your bunk"
Rimmer glared at Cat with renewed anger, "Shut up".
Cat laughed, pleased he had hit a note, "Look you claim you were studying, all we know is we went through a weeks worth of toilet roll"
Rimmer blushed and put his face as close to the scanner as he could, "Why don't you just keep your eyes ahead of you smegpot. Do you want us to become a skid mark on one of those rocks in front of us?"
"Yeah yeah, Buddy I could smell if one of those things was dangerously close, you just sit back there and play with your buttons. Damn that one was close"
"Cat please focus" Lister cried, "I want to get out of this and back to sitting in the kitchen with my dinner, which I might remind you all is going cold!"
Rimmer stared at the ceiling, then the floor and waited several minutes before slowly creeping out of the cock pit, he wasn't doing anything anyway he reasoned with himself. Slipping quickly past Kryten in the kitchens he wandered slowly down to the storage rooms listening carefully for any signs that someone had noticed he had gone.
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Paige was carefully arranging the remaining boxes of food and supplies into alphabetical order when she heard footsteps approaching, out of habit she ducked quickly into a dark corner and waited to see who it was.
Rimmer walked in and peered around, "Paige?" he called out. He could see she had been here recently as she had taken to helping Kryten as much as she could as a means of saying thank you for all he did for her. Rimmer walked to the shelves and grinned at her precise organising, he lifted up a notepad from the shelf, which noted everything counted, and stock rotated. Rimmer yawned slightly – it was getting late, he figured Paige might have gone to fetch something so sat on a crate and stretched his legs out, as annoyed as he was that he couldn't find her he decided to relax for a few moments then go an see If she was in her bunk.
Paige crept forward slowly, as silent as she had been created to do and stroked one finger slowly up the back of his neck, laughing out loud as he jumped and screamed with shock and promptly fell sideways off the crate and onto the floor.
"Jesus wept" he roared, "You could have given me a heart attack!"
"Oh yeah" she laughed, "And that would be such a danger to a dead person wouldn't it?"
Rimmer grinned, jokes about death seemed a lot easier now he had someone to share them with, "Even so, my light bee could have exploded or something. I am not a man accustomed to shock – I usually detect it earlier on and then find somewhere safe and warm to hide"
"Yeah I will never understand that, I mean you can't fear death now surely??" she asked cocking one eyebrow up at him. "I mean if we are dead, then nothing can touch us. Surely we should be the first ones to go out there, into the danger and see if we cant help the others"
Rimmer stared aghast, "We may both be dead, and believe me I really appreciate another member of the Dwarf cemetery but we have very different ideas about what to do with our death"
"You are such a coward," Paige laughed.
Rimmer was about to retort with something to make himself sound good but suddenly the ship lurched left violently, Paige gave out a scream as items flew off the shelves towards them both, she fell forward against him and they both ended up on the floor.
"What the hell was that?" Paige cried, trying to get back to her feet.
The ship lurched again, sending Rimmer flying across the floor and crashing into more shelves that dropped several bags of flour all over him, Paige would have been laughing at his new white hair if she hadn't fallen the same direction and ended up half covered in flour plus a jar of tomato sauce that had exploded over her.
"Sorry dudes" Holly's voice flew over the ship, "I thought I saw one coming for us, thought I would help a bit"
"Holly" Lister's voice appeared over the tannoy, "I am going to pour a can of lager into your speakers now. If you see that smegger Rimmer can you tell him there is a huge space in the navigation chair behind me that has not gone unnoticed and to get his arse back here"
It was then that Paige began to laugh, "it is always something with this ship isn't it, we haven't had a day this week where something hasn't gone wrong"
Rimmer stood up trying to dust flour off him as best he could, "Yes and 9 times out of 10 its usually that deranged computer that messes everything up".
Paige looked around at all her hard work that lay all over the floor. "I guess I should have closed the shutters on this lot once I was done counting it huh?" she turned to Rimmer blowing flour from his nose and started to laugh again.
"Funny is it?" Rimmer moaned, a small smile appearing on his lips as Paige walked over and leaned close to him, and began dusting flour from his hair.
"I think so yes" she laughed, Rimmer stared into her eyes and felt a bubble well up inside him as they sparkled from laughter, "Why aren't you navigating with the others?" she asked, cocking her eyebrow up and putting a hand on her hip, "You could have just endangered all of us there, you endangered my stock and your hair and now look what has happened!"
"I wanted to see if you needed anything" Rimmer mumbled, "I mean I can see now that you didn't need anything, and my appearance has probably given you a lot more work so I guess from now on when I get an urge to see you I should just stay where I am"
Paige batted at her clothes to get rid of some flour and threw her hair around for the some purpose, "You soft sod. You know I like hanging out with you. Well I am not looking my best but shall we go for a drink then? I'm not clearing this now" she offered her arm out to Rimmer who gladly slipped his own through it. "In fact if we put a sign on the door saying 'Do not disturb' I might get away with not doing it until tomorrow"
"Actually …. I have a better idea" Rimmer grinned taking her hand, "You are going to love this."