Warning: Contains kissing of the slashy, drunken variety
Pairing: Ford/Arthur
Words: 1166
Disclaimer: Is it really necessary to point out that I am not Douglas Adams? Is that what people really need? (I'm not even English and I don't even look like a Douglas.)

For once the Fry & Laurie "if you'll pardon the pun" is not followed by a "Wasn't there one? I'm sorry" and a short blast of laugh-track. Yay for TheRimmerConnection suggesting it, as well as putting up with all the times I kept sending this back to her for yet further editing. I wouldn't put up with me.

Liquor Monkey

Arthur Dent was an ape-descendant who liked to think he was a very respectable sort of person. He also liked to think that he was not easily shaken and that he paid his taxes on time.

All of these things were generally true, though he had never personally thought of himself as an ape-descendant in precisely those words.

At the moment, he was being very respectably, calmly, and promptly confused by the ginger-haired stranger who had just walked over to him from the other side of the crowded pub saying, "Have you ever had this drink before? Ish great, you should try it," and then handed him a wedge of lemon.

He was about to very sensibly point out to the man, who looked to be the happier sort of drunk who might not take such a comment amiss, that a lemon was almost entirely unlike a drink and that they weren't actually as acquainted as he seemed to think. In fact, Arthur couldn't recall ever having seen him before. Which was odd, because Cottington was a small village and didn't attract a lot of tourists – and the man was certainly dressed garishly enough to be a tourist. Perhaps one who'd meant to end up on a rather more tropical island, or perhaps in a circus.

However, as Arthur mulled this over (as well as the minute variations of how exactly he might word his very sensible comment), the stranger turned and leaned against the bar, fumbling slightly over a request for a shot of vodka and a packet of sugar.

Well, that was a slightly different matter then. Arthur had tried vodka before and never been terribly impressed, no matter what it had been mixed with.

The bartender, who was certainly earning his tips tonight, rapidly produced these and then disappeared further down the bar where other patrons were shouting for his services. It was a Friday night, and this was a popular place; the noise was just short of deafening. As a result (and with a bit of help from a methyl group attached to a methylene group attached to a hydroxyl group), any non-acquaintances faded into the background as easily as uninteresting furniture in a poorly lit home furnishings store.

On this particular evening, Arthur hadn't been able to find anyone he recognized. No one who knew him was around to spot him, either. He had already finished off the pint he'd ordered and didn't particularly feel like having another… not least because a great number of people had already stepped on his left foot, and only his left foot. Even attempts to make his right foot more easily trodden upon, in a resigned effort to at least be equal about such things, had failed to change this. So Arthur was quite ready to call it a night and just go home.

But before he had a chance to make some excuse and leave, the stranger had already leaned back over towards him, stepping on his left foot, shot glass and sugar packet in hand, and—

—Licked his neck. For a moment, Arthur thought that his lungs might actually have stopped working out of shock.

"Excuse me!" he began indignantly (and almost, but not quite, breathlessly).

The protest didn't seem to at all deter the man, who tore the sugar packet with his teeth – in fact, it was mostly lost in the din. "Shh," he chided unsteadily, somehow perfectly audible. "It's not done yet."

He stared at Arthur for a few seconds, head cocked to one side as if puzzled by something. Arthur stared back, trying and failing to decide what to do about this. They were far too close, for one thing, and that only seemed to make the wet spot on his neck all the more distressing. What if someone saw? Granted, the lighting was very bad, and no one (with only one notable exception) was paying him the slightest amount of attention, and he'd always had a tendency to fade into the background of most places anyway…

"Ah," the stranger said, expression suddenly brightening, and took the lemon back.

Whether or not anyone else in the pub was watching, Arthur could feel his face reddening under the man's intense scrutiny. Doesn't he blink at all? Arthur wondered. He opened his mouth, perhaps to ask that very question, and was again interrupted – this time as the lemon wedge was placed gently but insistently between his lips. Before he could do much more than register that the stranger's eyes were very, very bright blue, he had already thrown back the shot and there was sugar on Arthur's neck, sticking to slightly damp skin, and—

—Good lord, the man was licking him again. But this time, oddly, it didn't feel as sudden. It was just warm and wet, and a little rough as the sugar was dragged across his skin in one long line from the base of his throat to his jaw…

Arthur suddenly became aware that he'd just bitten down a little too hard on the lemon in his mouth. He wanted very much to just sit down but there was nothing to sit on, or at least nothing close enough to be even remotely helpful, and he hadn't come to the pub with the intention of being accosted by an inebriated tourist—

—Who was now biting the lemon for him, invading Arthur's mouth with the tastes of vodka and sugar and something else, something very faint and unfamiliar. One of his hands drifted to Arthur's waist and settled there with all the determination of a particularly dedicated colonist, while the other crept up to tug the lemon out of the way and discard it on the floor to be forgotten and trodden upon.

(Arthur had, at this point, forgotten all about his left foot. The lemon would prove to have a far more enduring memory.)

Faced very abruptly with the reality of being kissed, Arthur began to panic. Or at least he assumed it was panicking, because it was suddenly hard to breathe and one more brush of this man's – man's – tongue would probably make him jump out of his skin and it was terrifying and oh god there were people watching, he was sure of it. Most of the crowd was at the other end of the bar, but still. If he tried to back away he'd probably just back into someone and draw even more attention… Arthur prayed to be allowed to sink into the floor and away from this bizarre experience. It seemed all the more possible because he couldn't feel his knees.

It was the sort of feeling that he would come to know quite well over the next five, maybe six years – long after they'd been kicked out of the bar and asked never to come back.

Long after Arthur looked down at the stranger, smiling drunkenly up from the ground where he'd fallen, and heard the peculiar little man introduce himself as Ford Prefect.