A/N: Apologies for the delay, it's been one of those weeks :- Thanks for the reviews, I'm so glad you're enjoying it - mind you, I think it's pretty hard to go wrong with Ford/Arthur! x-)
Chapter10 – In which very small amounts of very strong alcohol are consumed
Ford looked quizzically at Arthur, but it didn't help, as they were still in pitch blackness.
"What do you mean?" He asked, "'We've had this conversation before.' When?"
Arthur wriggled uncomfortably – the floor really wasn't so appealing once you came down,
"I don't know. It just feels...I've definitely had that conversation with you before. I don't know. I get a feeling with it...like I was interrupted..."
"We were. Remember?" Ford said slightly bitterly,
"No, no, not just now." Arthur waved irritably at him, caught his fingers in soft curls and stopped. He thought for a second and shook his head,
"It doesn't matter." He said. He wrapped his fingers more tightly in the curls and pulled Ford back to him. His hands stroked down Ford's back and down over the points of his hips into the warm, excitable space between them.
Light streamed into the cupboard once more. Trillian peered in. There was a pause.
"Zaphod told me you needed to see me," she said, "I guess he was lying... Sorry." And with a quick appraising glance, she was gone. The door closed again. There was a long pause, when silent forces somehow told Ford and Arthur that if they pretended that hadn't just happened, perhaps it would turn out to be a cleaning-chemical-induced dream...
"You were saying we were interrupted?" Ford said evenly, Arthur unfroze, another ray of light, this one in his head, briefly illuminated another shard of memory,
"I was...insulted." He said. Ford rolled off him and yanked his towel out from under them to pull around his shoulders.
"Yeah, well, Zaph's like that sometimes." Arthur shook his head,
"No, not Zaphod."
"Who then?"
"I don't know." Ford tutted and got up, bashing his head on the tray of aerosols hanging halfway off the shelf, and sending them crashing to the floor, mostly onto Arthur.
"Ow!" Said Arthur. Ford ignored him,
"I need a drink. Come on." He opened the door, flung his towel about his waist and looked down at Arthur, lying in a pool of feathers, a burgeoning bruise on his arm where an aerosol had hit him squarely, and another glancing blow on his cheek starting to make a passable impression of a black eye. Ford's expression softened a little and he reached out his hand. Arthur took it with slight reluctance and Ford pulled him to his feet.
"Oh, for zark's sake Arthur, put your towel on." He said, as Arthur started to move towards the door. Arthur grabbed his flattened, creased towel, brushed the worst of the feathers off it, and wrapped it around his midriff.
"You owe me one." Ford said as they turned to leave the broom cupboard.
They were halted by a considerable amount of metal, shaped in a roughly humanoid form, and standing directly outside the cupboard door, tutting to itself.
"I suppose you think that mess in there will just disappear by itself do you?" Marvin droned, "No , don't answer, I know what you're going to say. You're going to ask me if I wouldn't mind clearing it up. Would I mind? Do I have a choice. Anyway, what right have I to mind? I'm just a menial robot. What else could I possibly be good for? And me with this terrible pain..."
"Yes, yes." Butted in Ford,
"...in all the diodes down my left side. Well? Do you want me to clear it up?" He stopped, inclined his head with a mechanical whirr to a precisely calculated angle that put across perfectly the depths of his loathing for the task, and waited. Ford and Arthur looked at him, towels firmly grasped in their hands,
"Uh, yeah, you do that." said Ford at last. He hurried off down the corridor, and Arthur smiled apologetically at Marvin – mostly out of habit – and followed.
By the time he caught up with Ford, he had reached the galley. Ford was looking through all the cupboards muttering,
"Alcohol, alcohol..."
"Alcohol?" Asked Arthur, in rather a school-teachery tone, "At this time in the morning?" Ford emerged from a cupboard holding a tall, blue, plastic bottle. He held it up to the light and swirled it. The contents glooped like syrup up the walls of the bottle. Ford pulled a displeased face and put it down on the side before sticking his head back in the cupboard. Arthur sniffed, trying to look superior, but a general post-coital doziness, coupled with a state of semi-undress reduced his attempt to a sort of half-hearted sneer.
"Well, if you're going to get drunk, then I'm going to have a shower and go back to bed."
"Arthur." Ford interrupted from the depths of the cupboard, Arthur didn't notice.
"Heaven knows where my clothes have gone. I expect someone cleared my pyjamas away,"
"Arthur." Again, Arthur failed to hear.
"Perhaps threw them in the rubbish, I wouldn't be at all surprised. My"
"Arthur." Less calmly this time.
"Dressing gown is another matter. If that has gone missing, someone will have to answer for it. I know I owe you. I suppose "
"Arthur" With still less cool.
"Being repeatedly interrupted...Good God! People saw us...us doing...Hell, Trillian saw us. I...I'm going to go and have a lie down, and when I wake up,"
"Arthur." Desperately trying to keep a lid on his temper now.
"I expect everything to be normal again. I will not have these terrifying feelings of deja vu, I will not find it normal to"
"Arthur." A little resigned.
"Have people walking in on me when I'm...and I will not be seduced by you again...except of course that I do owe you a return on that last little escapade, and I suppose it would be churlish to refuse. But I would like you to remember that it is only my honour as an Englishman that makes me do it. I will see you when you're sober again." Arthur finished. Ford's head appeared above the cupboard door. His hand held a greenish bottle with considerably more liquid in it than the previous specimen.
"Arthur, you are going to get drunk with me." He got to his feet and brought both bottles over to the table.
"Oho!" Said Arthur, actually managing to articulate the two syllables of that improbable ejaculation. Ford looked at him for a second, wondering if Arthur was going to furnish him with any more story-book outbursts. He didn't. Instead he said, "Am I?" in wholly disbelieving tones that said 'If you think that, my good man, you are horribly deceived.' Ford put the bottles down and came around the table to Arthur. He put his hands on his bare shoulders, which made Arthur take in rather a deep breath for so early in the morning. Ford guided him to a chair and pushed him into it. Then he pulled up another chair next to him and sat down, gazing into his eyes.
"Yes, you are. At least then, as many people can walk in and out as want to without it mattering, and at least we'll have achieved something with our morning." His blue eyes were agonisingly open and Arthur was falling into them. His vision blurred and he desperately wanted to blink, but he was still being sucked forward towards those achingly blue irises. He jumped as his nose touched Ford's. Ford tutted and grabbed Arthur's chin with his hand. He kissed his lips briefly, let go and turned away from him.
"So, are you getting drunk with me then?" He asked, still not looking at Arthur, as he took the tops off the two bottles. Arthur nodded miserably. He felt like he didn't have a choice any more. Ford looked round and caught the end of the nod. He grinned,
"Good." He said. With his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, he carefully decanted the contents of the green bottle into the blue bottle.
"What is that?" Arthur asked cautiously. Ford finished his pouring, put the green bottle down, put the lid back on the blue bottle and shook it vigorously,
"I have...no idea." He said as he opened the bottle and sniffed it. He quickly got his nose as far away from it as he could, "Smells good though." He said wheezily.
Ford reached behind himself to the Nutri-Matic and called,
"Two cups please." The machine whirred for a second, then spoke,
"What would you like in your two cups? I can produce a variety of hot and cold beverages to suit your individual..."
"Shut up, and just give me two cups on their own, with nothing in them." Ford cut it off.
"You are sure you do not want a hot or cold beverage in your two cups?" The machine asked hopefully,
"Absolutely sure, just give me two cups." The Nutri-Matic whirred again and six cups fell into Ford's hand. He looked around, eyes blazing at the machine,
"Did I ask for six cups?" He asked dangerously. The machine replied with unfailing cheeriness,
"No, you asked for two cups, three times. I have therefore issued six cups. Share and enjoy." For a moment it seemed that Ford would get up and do some permanent damage to the Nutri-Matic, and probably to his foot at the same time, but he seemed to think better of it and remained seated. He put two of the cups down in front of him and gingerly poured some of the liquid into them. The plastic of the cups seemed to fizz and bubble a little, but after some initial smoking, it calmed down and the liquid stayed inside the cups. Arthur looked at the one Ford pushed across to him with distinct apprehension,
"Are you sure this is safe, Ford?" He asked. Ford brought his own cup up to his lips,
"No." He said cheerfully, and drained the cup.
If the colour drained a little from Ford's cheeks, if he seemed to stifle a coughing fit, if something inside him threatened to let him see the drink he'd just downed one last time, he controlled these sensations admirably. Ford hadn't spent years gaining a reputation as a master drinker, just to be unable to cope with a little store cupboard concoction. All the same, this was Zaphod's store cupboard we're talking about, and the sort of alcohol Zaphod tended to keep in his store cupboards could, at the least, be described as 'having a bit of a kick', and, with a little less understatement, as 'being a real and immediate threat to the well-being of the universe'. Arthur had known Ford long enough to know that a good strong whisky was mother's milk to him, and to know what signs to look for when judging the relative strengths of drinks. The slight discolouration and fractional widening of his eyes was therefore a blazing beacon to Arthur that this would be a drink to be approached with extreme caution.
"Um...how is it?" He asked.
"Faaaah...n" Said Ford, a sort of airy rattle in his throat belying his contented smile.
"Fine?" Arthur asked.
"Mmm. Try't." Ford waved his hand at Arthur's cup, coming perilously close to knocking it over.
Perhaps the fact the just one gulp of this mixture had started to hijack whole syllables of Ford's sentences in under ten seconds should have warned Arthur that, in fact, he should run now, and not touch a drop of it. Unfortunately, there was now, playing over and over in Arthur's head, the image of Trillian standing at the door, gazing down at him in all his glory, now and then supplemented with a picture of Zaphod leaning over her shoulder. In many ways, Arthur thought, getting rid of those images for a couple of hours would probably be quite comforting. He picked up the cup. He raised it to his lips, he tilted it, he threw back his head and let the drink fly down his throat. His arm jerked out and he threw the cup across the room. Ford lurched forward uncertainly to catch him as he wobbled sideways on his chair.
From his nasal cavity, all the way down the back of his throat and into his very stomach, Arthur could feel every millimetre that the drink or its vapours had touched. His throat muscles spasmed, a raw, scoured feeling shot through him, and little pyrotechnics started to go off in his stomach and his head. The hand clutching at his upper arm seemed a very long way away, though it was gripping so hard that it was clear that it was doing this more by way of supporting Ford than in order to keep Arthur upright. The room was spinning at the rate he would usually expect to have encountered at around two in the morning after a night spent not paying attention, in a bar with a lot of very generous people, who only considered they'd paid their way in terms of rounds if that round was 'something-and-a-nice-strong-chaser'. One drink should not do this to you.
"Jushinkishgoo?" Asked Ford. Arthur looked at him. He couldn't possibly have worked out what Ford had said, let alone formed an answer, so he just nodded blearily, which seemed to please Ford.
Ford had managed to let go of Arthur's arm and get himself back into a position of equilibrium in the centre of his chair. With an expression of the utmost concentration, and with rather a lot of moving his head from side to side, he managed to grab hold of the bottle by bringing his hands in from both sides and catching it unawares in the middle. He pulled a cup towards him and slowly lifted the bottle. With the painstaking care of someone who knows the importance of keeping the alcohol safe when you're drunk, he tipped the bottle up, using his other hand to measure the distance between it's mouth and the lip of the cup. After about twenty-five seconds, he managed to manoeuvre it past the rim and tip it up. Despite a couple of shaky moments when it looked like cup and bottle would go over together, he eventually lifted both with a look of triumph, and setting the cup down on the table again, he pushed it slowly over to Arthur, before repeating the whole complicated business on a second cup.
As the second helping seared its way down Arthur's throat, and apparently straight into his brain as well, his elbow slipped off the table and he sank sideways onto the floor. Ford downed his own drink as quickly as reasonably possible without getting it over his shirt or in his eye, and let himself down to the ground. He crawled to Arthur's unmoving form and put his arm under him and pulled him up to sitting.
"y'righ?" He asked. Arthur turned glazed eyes on him and his head sank onto Ford's shoulder. Ford blinked a couple of times and looked up at the bottle on the table above. To be honest, although another drink would be nice, the effort involved appeared astronomical, so he decided against reaching for it, and instead turned back to Arthur, whose head was a dead-weight he couldn't feel.
Lack of concentration caused Ford to relax rather too much, and he fell back, Arthur still pressed tightly to him. The floor was soft as a feather bed and sleep seemed like an awfully good idea, but someone was in the galley. From a long way off, Ford could hear his name being called. It was a question, then an order, then an irritated snap.
"Ford, if you and monkey man have finished off the Svantistynian Barrel Water I was saving, you are going to get it, and not like you got it last night." Zaphod turned to go, then an afterthought turned him back long enough to say, "Either of you." Ford rolled over, half crushing Arthur, and slept soundly on.
What exactly have Ford and Arthur been drinking? Will Arthur recover enough to ever forgive Ford for making him drink it? Will his forgiveness and his sobriety ever extend to the point where he can give Ford his share of the excitement? Have they drunk Zaphod's stocks of rare and exciting drinks? Will Zaphod ever forgive them, or does his disgruntlement run deeper than the looted drink? How long will they be on the floor of the galley? Will this remind Arthur of any more of his missing evening, or will it push it further away? A few reviews should sober them up enough to answer some of these exciting questions...