Warning: Contains slash
Pairing: Ford/Arthur
Words: 717
Disclaimer: Do not own.

I just woke up today and decided that fluff needed to be written.

And then it was! Imagine that.


First Time They Kissed


Arthur Dent's first kiss happened under a table. He was six years old, and was conscientiously helping a girl find some feathered thing she'd dropped. Only, he hadn't been given a satisfactory explanation of what the feathered thing looked like. (Later he would come to suspect that there never had been a feathered thing at all, but that was quite beside the point.) The point was, she was under the table looking with him and suddenly leaned over and gave him a quick peck on the lips, giggled in that slightly embarrassed way girls do when they want to seem daring without sacrificing modesty, and insisted that now they had to play house and he had to be the husband.

Ford Prefect's first kiss was probably not Zaphod Beeblebrox. On the continuum of all the kissing Ford has done over his lifetime, though, that's as far back as he can remember – partly because of time, partly because of alcohol, and occasionally also partly due to repression. Zaphod stands out because he was probably the first really good kisser Ford had occasion to run into with his lips, and because Ford actually knew his name at the time. He doesn't remember the exact circumstances, of course, but there was an awful lot of alcohol involved.

Arthur and Ford's first kiss is like neither of those. It isn't immature and bashful and really just a lead-in to playing house all afternoon, and neither is it obscene and sloppy and really just a lead-in to sex for the sake of sex. There is some alcohol involved, because Arthur would ruin it by trying to talk too much if he weren't just tipsy enough to forget to, and because Ford generally dislikes being sober on principle. But neither of them is really drunk. They will remember this in the morning.

Remember how Arthur was looking so sad about his planet being blown up, in the reflection of his jynnan tonnyx, and Ford decided to cheer him up by telling silly stories, and Arthur ended up laughing at some of them in spite of himself.

Remember how Ford had thought it was so odd to see Arthur smile again because he hadn't done it in a while, and leaned in for a closer look, and Arthur had acquired a funny why are you staring at my mouth look.

Remember how Ford had met Arthur's gaze and how then Arthur had acquired a slightly more wistful why aren't you staring at my mouth look, and after that it was only natural to lean in.

They'll remember that, okay, maybe Ford was a little bit drunk, because the kiss tasted like several more different kinds of drinks than just a jynnan tonnyx. Arthur, in particular, will remember not really minding. There wasn't really time to mind, anyway. Because of, you know, the surprise. Of lips. He's no stranger to kissing, certainly, so he knows what to do and what to expect, but that doesn't mean he expected to expect it.

By morning they'll forget the grating squeak of Ford scooting his chair closer, and the fumbling of Arthur's hands before finding Ford's upper arms and holding on gently. Ford will forget the little moment of surprise when he realized that Arthur was actually kissing back, and quite earnestly at that – because he's Ford zarking Prefect, and who wouldn't want to kiss him.

Morning is an imperfect way of referring to it, because there is no morning in space. But, regardless, when they wake up in the morning to find themselves together in Arthur's bed, under the covers but still fully dressed (if a little rumpled) except for shoes, they'll remember it's because Arthur decided to go to sleep for the night and Ford decided to follow him. They'll remember kissing again, heads sharing a pillow and arms sort of awkwardly placed because there's really nothing you can do with the arm on the side you're lying on that's very comfortable.

At some point in the night they've moved around a bit. Ford yawns and rolls over and kisses Arthur good morning, and Arthur makes a face because the morning breath is spectacularly bad, and Ford laughs because of course it is, what does he expect?

And that's what happened the first time they kissed.