Dry white wine(Rimmer x Lister)

Chapter 5: Turned Reality

"Rimmer man, you in here?" Lister said stepping into his bunk, he looked at the table and saw Rimmer with his nose stuck in a book, his eyes focused and intense "oh, there you are. Listen man about the dream recorder" Rimmer's face grew hot at the mere mention of it, his head turning to look up at Lister. He coughed and tried his best to keep his cool "what about it?" Rimmer his his face back in his book, trying desperately to break eye contact with Lister. And he had hoped that saying that would make him appear calm and collected, but because his voice faltered, he just sounded nervous as he always did.

Lister looked at Rimmer solemnly, seeing Rimmer avoid his gaze like this made him hurt, in fact, this was the exact reason he hadn't told anybody about the dream in the first place, because he knew that it would mess up whatever their relationship was, and make Rimmer avoid him more than he already did.
"I just want you to know that, that dream didn't mean anything" Rimmer felt his heart sink at Listers words "it was just because I missed you and I guess my brain wanted to play some kinda trick on me"

Rimmer looked up at him, his eyebrows furrowed and his top lip quivering ever so slightly. "Nothing..?"he said weakly, his eyes focused on Lister "nothing" Lister was so confident in the way he spoke and didn't notice how his bunk mates breath hitched, 'Nothing' the words engraved themselves in his brain, they stabbed at his heart like a knife. To him, those words described exactly what he meant to Lister, what he meant to everyone, nothing.

He slowly stood up from his seat and paused to look at Lister in the eye with a deep, solemn expression, before pushing past him and walking swiftly out the door. Lister was left standing in their bunk dumbstruck, he failed to see what he said that made Rimmer so upset, sure he had always been a huge Smeg head and over reacted at every little thing, but why did he feel the need to walk out of the room in a strop? And why did he look at him like that? And as much as Lister wanted to just leave Rimmer alone and let him strop, some part of him compelled him to go after him, so he did.

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"Nah, I'm telling you, Lister had a dream where he got busy with goal post head" Cat was saying to Kryten who was mopping the floor trying his best to ignore cats words, they were both standing at the side of a corridor and cat had been blabbering on about random things for around half an hour. Kryten looked at cat, the words intriguing him "well, a dream often reflects one's subconscious" Kryten said, turning his whole body to face the feline "perhaps mr Lister's dream was a reflection of his desire to-" Kryten was cut off, by Rimmer swiftly walking passed them, almost knocking cat down in the process "man, what is it with everyone trying to crease my suit" the cat yelled, huffing and frantically checking his body for a sign of a crease, giving a sigh of relief he turned his attention back to Kryten "Listen bud, I'd love to stay and chat, but this cats gotta nap" he started squealing as he shuffled down the hall, Kryten shook his head slightly as he resumed mopping the floor.

Lister suddenly slid round the corner almost slipping over on the wet floor "oh mr Lister, I am so sorry. Are you alright?" "Yeah yeah" Lister said, barley acknowledging that Kryten was there "have you seen Rimmer?" He said desperately" "well yes sir, he went that way a few seconds ago-" "Thanks Krytes" And just like that Lister had bolted of down the corridor.

Kryten smiled to himself and continued mopping.

'Finally'

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Rimmer began to return to regular walking speed, confident that he had either lost Lister or Lister wasn't even coming after him at all, he looked behind his shoulder and sighed before coming to a stop. Lister turned the corner and found Rimmer leaning against the wall, with his hands over his face out of frustration, Lister looked pitifully at the man and slowly approached him "Hey, Rimmer" Lister saw Rimmer jump at the sound his voice and recoil away from him. Rimmer stared to walk away from him but felt Lister grab his hand "wait man, we need to talk" Rimmer turned around and faced the man, Lister still kept his grip on his hand and Rimmer looked down at it, feeling his face flush and a warm feeling creep into his stomach.

"What are you doing?" He said, almost solemnly as he forced his gaze away from their locked hands and onto Lister's face, Lister gave a confused look until he looked at their hands, blushed, and pulled his hand back. The two men were stood there, alone in a small hallway staring at each other in silence 'I wasn't talking about your hand Lister'. Rimmer noticed how Lister's eyes ever so slightly dropped from his eyes and looked downwards at his lips and Rimmer lost all control of his body, they both stepped forward still looking into each other's eyes, the space between them growing smaller and smaller until it disappeared all together, their lips touched and the feeling in Rimmer's stomach was the worse it had ever been, but somehow he liked it, and didn't want it to go away.

They wrapped their arms around each other, and Lister reached a hand up to caress Rimmer's cheek. Almost simultaneously, they both pulled away quickly, Rimmer looked at him with a horrified expression before turning away and walking away, one hand covering his mouth.

"What just happened?" Lister was left standing in shock. Had he really just kissed him? Lister knew he was not entirely straight but Rimmer. Really? He slowly turned around wide eyed, and walked away shaking. Kryten had just finished mopping when Lister can hobbling down the corridor looking as if he had just see a ghost "Mr Lister" Kryten said with great concern, Lister walked past him paying him no mind "Mr Lister. Are you alright?" Lister still didn't pay attention to him and instead walked back to his bunk.

Lister kissing Rimmer was not what made him feel so shocked, he had had a dream about this before and that dream had meant nothing, it was what he felt afterwards.

He had actually enjoyed it