Work Text:
Every so often, when Lister is particularly cheesed off at something Rimmer has done (daily, in the beginning), he'll turn to Holly and plaintively ask, 'Why him?'
And the thing is, Holly's running out of lies.
The first slip too near the truth is, 'It's a next of kin thing.'
Fortunately, Lister's five lagers down and doesn't question this too hard, aside from remarking, 'I thought I had Petersen down for that.'
He does, actually. The thing is that legally speaking, in the hierarchy of Space Corps paperwork, a marriage certificate still outranks anything that one fills out during induction when still wildly drunk from the pre-induction-day, last-night-of-freedom piss-up. Also, technically, Lister's next of kin on his induction paperwork is 'Oleg Peterson'.
The second time Holly almost blows the gaff is not so long after the incident with the second Rimmer, although long enough, because Lister rides the gazpacho soup confession high for a full month. But Lister sulks into the Drive Room one day, puts his feet up on Kochanski's old console, and asks once again, 'Why him?'
'It made sense to bring back the person you'd been cohabiting with," Holly says.
Lister snorts. 'No, it didn't. Anyone else would have made more sense. Hollister would have made more sense! Why didn't you bring back smeggin' Hollister?'
Holly had tried that, as it happened. He had brought Hollister back, explained the situation, and the Captain had heard him out before invoking his rank to be switched off and never bothered again, thank you very much, Holly.
'Would you have wanted to live with Hollister?'
'Fair point,' Lister concedes.
The third time, Lister doesn't even ask, as it happens. He and Rimmer are in what can best be described as a minor tiff, squabbling halfheartedly over what to watch during dinner, having just escalated to Rimmer's favourite point, being that his entertainment preference should take precedence because he's the one who can't actually eat, and it's Kryten who says, 'Really, you two argue like an old married couple!'
'They are,' Holly says without thinking it through.
Rimmer, who is clearly about to unleash on Kryten, wheels towards Holly's screen instead and stops, gawping, when Holly defensively shields himself with the digitised marriage certificate.
Lister just puts his head in his hands, but Holly's sensors are not so corroded that he doesn't hear the mumbled, 'Oh. That's why.'