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“You?” Lister scoffed. “You’ve got a date? Yeah, when pigs fly.”
“I do!” Rimmer huffed, peering at himself in the mirror as he straightened his already straight tie.
“With who then?”
Rimmer paused, lips pursed into a thin line that made him look rather like a disgruntled ferret. “She’s… a new member of the crew.”
“Oh yeah?” Lister scoffed, propping himself up on an elbow to get a better look at Rimmer. “And what department does she work in, huh? The special boot-licking division? The secret ass-kissers corps? Or maybe she’s one of the people who uses toothbrushes to scrub out the gristle in between the plates on the outside of the ship?”
“Oh ha ha, very funny, let's all laugh!” Rimmer tossed his hands up, looking in the mirror to glare at Lister. “I’ll have you know she’s in… she’s… she’s part of the cleaning staff.”
Lister raised an incredulous eyebrow. “The cleaning staff? Rimmer, since when do you talk to the cleaning staff?”
“I talk to the cleaning staff!” Rimmer protested. “It’s a valiant profession!”
“Didn’t you say just the other week, and I quote,” Lister paused for dramatic effect, putting on his best impersonation of Rimmer’s voice, “‘Folks who clean for a living are just a bunch of thickies who couldn’t get anywhere at a desk job. They saw the startup button on ‘Windows’ and just thought to scrub them instead of-’”
“You’ve made your point!” Rimmer interrupted, bristling in irritation at having his own words thrown back in his face. “I… I was misguided. I’ve changed my tune, met a lovely woman from the cleaning staff, and now we’re going out for drinks this evening.”
“And what’s her name?”
Rimmer’s heart lurched in a slight panic. “Her name? It’s… Jane.” His eyes darted around the bunkroom. Toothpaste. Boots. Desk. Pencils. Cups. “...cup.” Blankets. “Blan…cup. Jane Blancup.” Yes, he was a genius, thinking on his feet like this. Seamless. Smooth.
“Jane Blancup?” Lister echoed.
“Yep!”
“Alright then,” Lister snorted, deciding to play along with Rimmer’s false story. Lister wasn’t an idiot. It was quite obvious that Rimmer was making up this Jane character and his imaginary date with her, but so sue him, he was curious to see how far Rimmer would take his little charade.
Lister hopped off his bunk, steel-toed boots hitting the floor with a loud thunk. He strolled up behind Rimmer, peering around him to look in the mirror. Rimmer wet his hands in the sink before bringing them up to try to smooth down his hair. Lister watched him struggle with a grin playing on his lips.
“How’d you get her to agree to go out with you?” Lister prodded.
“I picked her up the same way anyone picks up women.”
“Please don’t tell me you used that awful ‘wormdo’ line,” Lister grimaced.
“Women like that!” Rimmer retorted. “She thought I was charming. All I had to do was hit her with the Mesmer stare and she was head over heels!”
“Rimmer, when you hit women with the Mesmer stare, they either think you’re having a stroke or that you’re some sort of pervert.”
“Like you’re any better at picking up women then I am,” Rimmer said dismissively.
“I’ve gotten a few dates in the past few months. You’ve gotten, and let's count together now,” Lister dramatically flourished his hand as if preparing to count on his fingers before simply keeping it curled into a fist. “Zero!”
“Unlike you, I value quality over quantity.”
“Unlike you,” Lister said derisively, “I know how to speak to women like they’re human beings.”
“Oh well then, if you’re such an expert, how would you go about picking up a girl?” Rimmer whirled around, placing his hands firmly on his hips. In his mind, it made him look authoritative. To Lister, it made him look like a schoolteacher about to scold a kindergartner for not sharing their crayons with others.
“What, you want me to show ya?” Lister tipped his head inquisitively.
“Yes!” Rimmer huffed. “If you’re going to brag about your ability to get dates, then you should be able to back it up!”
“Fine, fine. I can give you a demonstration.” Lister sat down on the edge of Rimmer’s bunk and patted the space beside him. “C’mere.”
Rimmer slowly shuffled over, taking a seat beside Lister. “So… what would you do then? If, say, I were a sexy woman in a pub and you wanted to pick me up.”
“Alright,” Lister rolled his shoulders. “S’a rather hard ask to pretend you’re a beautiful woman, but I’ll do my best.”
Rimmer shot him a dirty look.
Lister took in a deep breath, closing his eyes before slowly opening them to gaze at Rimmer. “Heya doll.” There was a change in his demeanor. This was no longer the man who called Rimmer a pompous smeghead for (very sensibly) practicing his salute for an hour each day. This was the sort of man who could slide into the seat beside you at a bar, even if there were others empty, and you wouldn’t think of asking him to move. He was… charming.
“Erm, hello,” Rimmer said with all the awkwardness of someone being caught up to their elbow in a gorilla’s bottom. He’d never been very good at playing pretend. “I’m just- erm- a single woman. Sitting at the bar. All by herself.”
Lister’s eyes slowly roamed up and down Rimmer’s body, causing him to blush. Since when could Lister make him blush? “Have you ever had your palm read?”
“No I- I haven’t,” Rimmer stammered, already starting to feel sucked in.
“Here,” Lister said smoothly as he reached out to grab Rimmer’s hand. “Let me show you.”
Rimmer watched with wide eyes as Lister carefully cradled his hand, facing his palm upwards. Lister’s thumb flattened out Rimmer’s curling fingers. Rimmer had to fight back a shiver as that thumb gently rubbed up and down his sensitive skin, causing the hair on the back of his neck to stand up.
“Y’know anything about what these lines mean?” Lister asked, continuing the gentle ministrations.
Rimmer found his words getting caught in his throat, so he merely shook his head.
“Some say you can tell a lot about a person from ‘em.” Lister brought the pointer finger on his other hand up to Rimmer’s palm and pressed it lightly to the diagonal line in the center. “This one here? That’s your heart line.” Lister carefully traced it. “You see how deep it is? That means you’ve got a strong heart. Lots of love to give. But this break here?” He tapped a point, about halfway down his palm, where the line disappeared for a centimeter before picking back up again. “This means you’ve had your heart broken before.”
“Uh huh,” Rimmer mumbled, his tongue feeling too big for his mouth.
“But let's not get too down, yeah?” Lister said gently, moving his fingertip to the major line above the center. “This one is the mind line. Yours says that you think a lot. Maybe even a little too much.” Lister laughed warmly, causing the skin around his eyes to crinkle.
Rimmer felt his stomach starting to churn, but not with nausea. No, this felt more like something hot and warm and squirming. He didn’t really have much of a frame of reference for these feelings, but had he been someone with any sort of romantic experience, he might have recognized it as arousal. Instead, he thought that it was probably some indigestion from having to taste test the chicken soup from the machines they repaired earlier that day.
“And this one,” he pointed to the last major line beneath the other two, “is your life line. If there’s any little breaks in it, that shows a major event in store for you.” Rimmer could feel the callouses from all that failed guitar playing on Lister’s fingertip as he stroked at the palm of his hand, trying to feel for any little divots.
Rimmer’s fingers twitched against Lister’s thumb. This felt alarmingly nice. Why did it feel so nice? Rimmer’s traitorous subconscious almost wished that this was real. That this wasn’t just playing pretend. But that was utterly ridiculous! Rimmer wasn’t a homosexual, and even if he was, he could certainly do better than David Lister.
Lister turned Rimmer’s hand to the side, thumb moving to firmly caress his palm as his other hand traced the ticklish skin that connected his thumb to his pointer finger. “And these little lines here come from your problems. You’ve sure got a lot of ‘em, huh? But I bet we can solve some of ‘em tonight, if you’ll let me.”
Rimmer felt his stomach drop through his shoes and his traitorous body, as if trying to flip him the bird, decided to start popping a stiffy for no justifiable reason at all. Who on Io gets a hard-on from just holding hands? Had Rimmer been marginally more intelligent, he might have understood that the sort of touch-starvation he dealt with had logically made him a little more sensitive than the average person when it came to intimate physical contact.
“And usually this would be the part where I’d kiss her hand and offer to buy her a drink,” Lister said casually as if he hadn’t just been wrecking havoc on Rimmer’s hellscape of a brain.
Rimmer jerked his hand away and hopped off the bunk, pointing a finger at Lister. “Ah- AHAH! I’ve tricked you! I never had a date! This was all a ruse to steal your pickup lines to use myself! And you fell for it, hook, line, and sinker Listy!”
Lister raised an eyebrow. “Are you serious?”
“Yes!” Rimmer laughed awkwardly. “This was my plan all along! Honestly, I can believe you were dumb enough to fall for it! You’re a gimp. Ahah... hah... anyway, I need to be going now, toodle pip! Catch you later! Hasta la vista!”
With that, Rimmer turned on his heel and sprinted out of the bunkroom like a teenager girl who'd just heard that Primark was doing a 2 for 1 sale. Lister watched him go, a bemused grin on his lips. He could have told Rimmer that he was about to go out while sporting an obvious stiffy, but nah, it would be funnier for Rimmer to learn how obvious it was for himself. What a strange, repressed little weirdo.