A/N: Didn't really quite make it to the next morning yet, too much going on in the meantime. Many thanks for the reviews, they help so much :) S V, you're a treasure, and Kirke - what an honour!

I swear Wowbagger will make an appearance at some point - but in the meantime, you are still waiting for him!

Chapter 4 – Where Arthur proves that the heating on the Heart of Gold is more than adequate

Ford seemed to be rather disoriented, and quite worried too.

"Zaph?" He called hesitantly across the dark room, the lights having flicked off as Zaphod's second head hit the pillow. The two heads started to snore in harmony. Arthur punched him in the side and he yelped.

"Zaph, old pal?" Ford called again, sleepy overtones making his voice rather indistinct.

"Wha?" Muttered the left-hand head. Ford started towards the bed,

"I thought I heard...you didn't hear anything just now did you? Like we had a Vrill on board...Only, that thought kind of freaks me out at this time of night."

"I didn't hear anything...why? D'you think we have? Wild!" Zaphod was more awake now, and sat up slightly, dropping Arthur from a height of a several inches as he realised he'd brought him up with him.

"Oof." Said Arthur, involuntarily.

"Who's that?" Said Ford, coming closer, "Trillian?"

"No it's not bloody Trillian!" Arthur said, loudly and with vigour, feeling rather indignant that he had just been dropped quite so heavily. "It's me, and I'm quite happy to leave, right now. I would very much like to know, in the morning, how I came to be stuck here in the first place, if it's not too much trouble." He got out of the bed, forgetting the fact that he was still naked, marched past Ford, and stormed off down the corridor, still muttering.

Ford looked at Zaphod, his mouth slightly open. It wriggled into more of an o-shape, then back out to an uncertain smile,

"Er...Zaphod, what was Arthur doing in bed with you?"

"Sleeping, I guess." Said Zaphod. "Just now, at any rate."

"No, I mean, why was he in there?"

"I don't know. He doesn't know. He just woke up next to me and...hey!" Ford looked slightly distressed,

"You didn't...did you?"

"What?" Asked Zaphod, the picture of innocence,

"You didn't...do him did you?" Zaphod's shy little smile returned and he looked away. Ford sighed, looking sadder than the sigh.

"Zarking fardwarks Zaphod, why? You don't even like him." Zaphod looked back at him, eyebrows waggling mischievously,

"So I was bored! Anyway, you do. Isn't that enough?"

"I like him as a...a friend."

"Right. Sure. Look, Ford baby, are you going to stand there and chat all night, or are we going to have a serious discussion about my reasoning, or are you going to go away and let me get the sleep I haven't really managed to snatch yet, or are you going to hop in here and make up for it?" Ford looked at him,

"Zaphod, that's in very poor taste."

"Hey, you've been spending too much time with the monkeys." Replied Zaphod. Ford turned and left the room. The door sighed closed and Zaphod lay back on the pillows, smirking to himself as the lights went out again. Hell, yeah, he was alone, but... The door opened again with a satisfied 'Glad to be of service', and Ford stood silhouetted in the light from the corridor,

"Zaph, I swear it sounded like we've got a Vrill on board. It's sort of lonely in my room. Can I...?" Zaphod smiled warmly in the darkness,

"Sure kid, hop in. Knew you'd come back. Monkey-man not an option yet then?" Ford climbed into the bed and hit his semi-cousin hard on the arm.

"Ow baby, that hurt!"

"Stop being so coarse then." Said Ford, and wriggled his hand between Zaphod's two right arms.

Arthur woke with a "Hoahh", and sat up in the darkness. That had all been a dream...hadn't it? Of course it had.

"Thank goodness for that." He muttered to himself. "Ow." He said, as he shuffled in the bed. Bits of him were sore that weren't usually sore. "Oh no!" He groaned and flopped back onto the pillow.

"Now logically," he thought, as he lay there, trying not to apply to much pressure to certain parts of himself, "I must be able to work out exactly what happened. Facts, Arthur: what happened? Right...um...I woke up. No; need to go back before that. Can't. Okay, let's state what we know and try to work back from there. I woke up then. I'd had a dream, I wasn't really awake, I bumped into the wall, I tried to get back to bed and I woke up Zaphod. I realised where I was and tried to leave, but couldn't because someone outside the room had locked us in together. For some reason. I went back to the bed to try and figure it out, and then...well. Quite. Then I almost got back to sleep, but Ford came in. And he didn't expect me to be there...or he did a very good impression of being surprised. So we have a number of questions to ask: Who locked us in the room; why did they do it; and why do I not remember a thing about how I came to be there. That's very good. Perhaps I'd better write them down." Having completed his little monologue, Arthur fumbled around for the lamp at his bedside, located the switch and turned it on.

Zaphod inclined his left chin towards Ford's head.

"You know baby, I think I might know what the Vrill noise was."

"You do?" Asked Ford sleepily, no longer really that concerned about the presence or not of such a terrifying creature.

"You know, your monkey-man might just have a little bit of intelligence after all."

"Well, he's not bad for his species...what did he do?"

"He found that little spot just down in the ol' inter-head highway there."

"I always knew he had roving hands on the quiet..."

"Hey, listen will you? Anyway, he found this earlier, while I was just playing around a bit, you know? But he got around to using it just when it mattered. I figure that took a bit of thinking."

"What's that got to do with the Vrill?" Ford asked, snuggling down further into Zaphod's chest.

"Well, I'm guessing it was me." Said Zaphod, with a hint of pride, suggesting that he thought 'sounding like a Vrill' was one of the great achievements for any being.

"I've never heard you make a noise like that. I have heard you make some pretty strange noises, I'll grant you, but you can't honestly be saying that Arthur, my Ar...that Arthur caused you to make a noise like that. I ought to know."

"You never did that to me. Believe me. I don't mind you checking up on my assertions though. I've pretty much given up on the sleep thing tonight." Ford pulled himself up sharply onto his elbow and looked at where he thought Zaphod's heads might be.

"You're kidding."

"Why?"

"You just had Arthur and now you think I'll come just as quietly?"

"Uh, not that quietly, actually." Said Zaphod, a grin in his voice.

"Alright. But...don't tell him.

Arthur blinked in the light and searched for a pen. Damn, where was his dressing gown? There was a pen in the pocket. He always had a pen; he prided himself on it. But the dressing gown was nowhere to be seen. He lay back again and stared at the ceiling. So, the dressing gown must be somewhere else...good start Arthur. It must be either in Zaphod's room, though he didn't remember seeing it there, or somewhere else. If it wasn't in Zaphod's room, then wherever it was might give him a clue to what had happened in that mystery time before he woke up in bed with an alien.

"Ugh." He said to himself. He got out of bed and looked down.

"Ah." He said. "Clothes." He looked around. Clothes were not lying in abundance about this room. Not on the chair, not on the bed or floor, nor, as he found when he shuffled over to take a look, were they in the storage lockers around the walls. So logically, they had to be with the dressing gown. He was missing a pair of pyjamas and some underwear. Admittedly, not a huge wardrobe, but it was all he owned at the moment. A thought hit him, and he hurried to the en suite bathroom. No, no clothes in there either. There was, however, a towel.

Arthur cheered softly, the presence of a manageable sheet of material seeming like a major triumph at this point. He wondered why he had ever scoffed at Ford's insistence on the usefulness of a towel. He wrapped it around his midriff, and went to the door. It opened and he stepped through with relief.

Standing in the corridor, in his towel, he wondered where he should go first. Zaphod's room would be the obvious choice, to eliminate that possibility. He did not relish the thought of going back there in what was, after all, still the middle of the night. However, it seemed better than roaming the ship clad only in a guest-size bath sheet, and it would give him a few more minutes to collect his thoughts and work out a plan.

The sleeping quarters all being huddled together at one end of the ship, it was a very short walk to the door of Zaphod's room. Arthur stood just outside the door's sensor field, indecision suddenly paralysing him. It was night. He'd stormed out of this room not all that long ago, and it would be rather embarrassing to have to explain his return, should Zaphod wake, not to mention how rude it would be just to walk into someone's bedroom.

No, much better to search the rest of the ship first, establish whether his clothes were anywhere else, then go back to Zaphod's in the morning, if they hadn't turned up. Arthur turned and walked back off up the corridor towards the galley.

A couple of feet of air and a few inches of steel away, Zaphod was not getting the peaceful sleep Arthur had imagined for him. Ford might not be 'the best bang since the big one' by a long shot, but he did know most of his semi-cousin's anatomy quite well, and at the moment, like Arthur, he was exploring the complexities of the new arm.

Having ordered the light on, he had found that if he pulled both right arms up together to above shoulder height, then held the skin on the lower one to seal it to the top one, he could pivot the two arms up and down and make really spectacular farting sounds. Zaphod rolled his eyes benevolently.

"You know, that's not quite what I got it for, and it isn't exactly what I'd call romantic."

"Who said anything about romance?" Said Ford, gazing intently at the join, but stopping all the same. It's a good job."

"Did it myself. Grew it..less messy than just getting one attached." He reached his left hand up inside Ford's pyjamas and stroked his back. Ford let go of his arms.

"You're not going to get the upper hand here." He said, "Even with an extra one." He sat up astride Zaphod and pulled off his top. "You know Arthur wouldn't approve at all. They're very sniffy about family on Earth."

"Can we keep him out of this? I know it's hard for you, but I find it vaguely distasteful, and since you're in my room, I make the rules." Ford ignored him and lowered his head to Zaphod's necks.

"No you don't" Zaphod said, warningly, "Not that quickly. Just because I gave you ideas." Ford shrugged,

"Okay. Suit yourself." He wriggled down Zaphod's body and started to worry at one startlingly pink nipple with his tongue. Zaphod smiled and ran the extra hand down Ford's back and into his trousers. Ford took a sharp breath as Zaphod started to display his undeniable excellence, but he was better equipped than Arthur to deal with it, and slid across to wake up the other nipple that had, up to now, been resting in his ear.

The problem was that Zaphod was really very good, and if you wanted to keep any vestige of control, you had to take that control early on. Ford knew this, and so, as he felt himself slipping into a daze of pleasure, he shook himself hard and sat up again, squashing Zaphod's hand between them. Zaphod was looking a little flushed, clearly his earlier exertions had only keyed him up for this. Ford was about to seize his initiative, when Zaphod's other hands shot out and grabbed him by the arms. The firm grip was enough to lift Ford so that the third hand could make its escape, and it pulled his legs out from under him, lying him flat on his back before he knew what was happening.

"Just so you know, baby, I feel like being in control tonight." Zaphod muttered to him, his extra hand reaching easily to remove Ford's trousers. Given his position, Ford didn't think it would be prudent to complain. Instead, he grabbed Zaphod's arms in return and hauled him down flat on top of him, receiving a dig in the stomach for his pains, which he was in no position not to return. Summoning up all his strength, he rolled over, taking Zaphod with him, but Zaphod's hands were on the move again. Pinning Ford's arm to his side, while one hand started to caress the body part that had just assaulted him, the other curled its fingers into his hair, pulling his face gently up to within an inch of his own.

"I wouldn't play like that if I were you. I've had mine once tonight, I can wait. I'll tease..." Ford screwed up his face,

"Not fair. I came here in good faith."

"You're sounding like the Earthman." Zaphod said, a little more moodily. He pecked him on the lips and let him back down onto the bed. Ford delved his hand down between them and stroked lazily at the warm lump still pressing into his stomach,

"Did you ever consider growing an extra one of those?" He asked innocently.

"Hell no! I have enough trouble satisfying the one I've got. Talking of which, a little more effort on your part wouldn't go amiss."

Arthur wandered into the galley, hoiking his towel further up around his waist. The galley was empty. Nobody and nothing. Certainly none of his clothes. He sighed and walked on, to the bridge. Here lights flashed and random bleeps and fizzes gave him to understand that the computers were busily doing something, but still, there were no heaps of discarded clothing lying around. Arthur sat in one of the console chairs to think. Where else on the ship could they be. Really, these were the only places he went. He wasn't too sure about the layout of the rest. Zaphod's favourite relaxing area in the view-bubble off the bridge was unofficially off-limits, but he could check.

He shuffled down the linkway and looked around. Outside, the stars were fabulously beautiful. There was something undeniably 'wow' about being there, in the middle of them all, watching them slide imperceptibly past each other as the ship moved onwards. Arthur shook his head and looked down. In Zaphod's chair, Arthur's underpants lay crumpled in the corner. Almost as if someone had been sitting in the chair and had stuffed them down the side to get rid of them. He frowned, plough-team back in full action, picked them up and held them to the light.

It didn't look as if they had experienced any worrying adventures since leaving his body, so he put them on, keeping his towel carefully wrapped, then, having checked for any other clothes, he went back to the bridge.

What, precisely, had his underpants been doing on their own in that chair? He decided that this was another question for his list, and looked around for an alternative pen. There was one on the console, a curious interloper among all the fully automated systems and dicto-machines. There was, however, no paper. He sat down again. He would have to write on his body. He doubted very much that any further searching tonight would disclose his other clothes, and in the meantime, he wouldn't get any sleep without writing this down.

Arthur hesitated, the pen hovering over the back of his hand. He just couldn't bring himself to do it. As a boy he had been given a strong talking to by his mother: 'You do not write on the back of your hand. The ink is probably very bad for you, and it looks ugly and common to have writing scrawled all over your hands.' Conditioning is everything. Arthur lost his nerve, and started to write on his wrist. He could always cover that with his sleeve if ever he got a sleeve back, and at least he was still following his mother's advice. That piece of advice, at least, had really sunk in.

Having written his questions in as small a script as he could manage, Arthur went back to bed and fell to sleep.

Ford's too-blue eyes narrowed as he smiled wickedly and started to apply a little more pressure. Zaphod's own hands were brushing trails of pleasure across Ford's chest, down his sides, into his hair, and down into his groin where two of them took up a vigorous assault, while the third did its best to support his weight. Ford tried to ignore the throbbing in his crotch that begged for his full attention, and succeeded to a great enough extent that he could carry on with his own hand-work. There was a head breathing heavily in his left ear, then another in his right, both licking and sucking at his ears and neck. Ford threw back his head and ground the top of it into the pillow, his curls fanning out around him like a halo, his mouth open and desperate. Zaphod was losing his balance over him, his full weight was on him, and the hands and their charges were trapped between them.

And Ford found time, in the second before he lost the power of rational thought, to bring his head back up, tilt it down and plant a firm and not unloving kiss in the valley of bared skin directly in front of him.

Two sets of teeth dug, part playfully, part abandoned, into his shoulders as Zaphod stifled what sounded like the cry of a Vrill in them.

Arthur woke up and looked at his clock. It was eight o'clock, ship-time. Not an unreasonable hour to go and search somebody's cabin for your clothes, he thought. In the light of day (a little brighter in the corridors, anyway), returning to Zaphod's room didn't seem quite so embarrassing, and before he knew it, he was outside the door, talking himself into being brave and going in.

Ford woke suddenly. He wondered what had roused him, then he became aware of his situation and screwed up his face.

"Oh Zark." He whispered to himself with resignation. Around him, Zaphod stirred,

"Mmm?" He muttered through lips that wouldn't open. Ford ignored him, he was listening to something outside the room, a flustered muttering, like someone trying to convince themselves to do something by talking themselves through it. Ford could only think of one species that would do that.

"Oh, Belgium!" He said, and shot up out of Zaphod's arms. "Lock, door, lock." He hissed, but the door did not confirm his order.

"Won' do it anymore...I upset it..." Zaphod slurred from the pillow.

"It's Arthur." Ford whispered savagely at him,

"Yeah?" Asked Zaphod, smiling, and clearly having no understanding of what the words meant. Then they sank in a little.

"Zark." He said quietly, "Um..." He looked around and then grabbed Ford's shoulder, hauled him back down onto the bed and pushed him bodily under the covers, where his extra bulk was well disguised by Zaphod's third arm holding a tent over him.

With a 'Good Morning', the door opened and Arthur came in.

"Um...Sorry I didn't knock – the doors don't seem to like it." He said, "Have you seen my dressing gown?"

How long is Ford going to be trapped under the covers? Will Arthur get any answers to his questions? Where are Arthur's clothes? Where is Wowbagger in all this? Dashed if I know, but it's amazing what a review or two can do!