Chapter Text
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy was a wholly remarkable book. More popular than the Celestial Homecare Omnibus, better selling than Fifty-Three More Things To Do In Zero Gravity, and more controversial than Colluphid’s trilogy of philosophical blockbusters Where God Went Wrong, Some More Of God’s Greatest Mistakes, and Who Is This God Person Anyway?
In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitchhiker’s Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom.
However, the one bit of knowledge and wisdom the Guide did not supply, was the bit of knowledge and wisdom that Ford Prefect needed most. There was no entry on the subject of love.
Er, well, technically speaking there was an entry, it was just astoundingly useless.
It was Ford’s general opinion that the Guide would be wholly more remarkable and useful if it possessed this essential information. Of course, if you’d asked him a year ago, he’d have probably said something along the lines of, “Love? Never heard of her. Zark off, I’ve got some very important things to do,” and then he’d probably slip off to the nearest pub and order himself a round of drinks.
Recently, however, he was growing increasingly concerned about the subject. He had, just a few months ago, realized that he didn’t actually have a clue what exactly love was supposed to mean. He didn’t know what it looked like, what it felt like, what - if anything - it smelled like, nothing. He wasn’t entirely sure what had prompted the thought, but he had stewed on it for at least an hour, and upon not coming up with anything, had of course looked it up in the Guide.
He’d been extremely disappointed to find only this on the matter:
Love. Avoid at all costs.
This was more unhelpful to him than if there had been no entry at all.
-----
Ford sat on one of the chairs in the bridge of the Heart Of Gold ship, feet propped up on an important-looking console. He stared angrily at the small screen of the Guide, which displayed for the third time today the entry on love. It was exactly the same as before. He pursed his lips and furrowed his brow, but that didn’t help much so he stopped and just settled for glaring.
Arthur Dent, his foolish and rather fussy companion for the better part of the last few years, wandered blearily onto the bridge holding a small plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. He sipped at it in a dejected sort of way as the door hissed shut behind him, chirping that he’d “made a simple door very happy.”
Ford hardly noticed - he’d learned to tone it out at this point - and kept on staring at the Guide.
“What are you doing?” inquired Arthur, who’d approached silently, and was now leaning over his shoulder.
Ford, startled, tried to turn the screen away from his view, fumbled the Guide in his rush, caught it, and stuffed it into his satchel. “Nothing,” he said, putting his feet back up on the console in a way that was perfectly calculated to look perfectly incalculated. If he’d looked any more nonchalant, he’d have melted into a puddle and dribbled right out of his seat.
Arthur looked unconvinced, but just said, “Okay.” He was used to Ford being all secretive and mysterious, and by now had come to terms with the fact that sometimes - scratch that, most of the time - it was better just Not To Ask. He leaned on the back of Ford’s chair and watched him for a moment.
Ford glanced up at him and raised an eyebrow. He asked him what his problem was.
“Huh?” said Arthur, blinking.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like that.”
“No reason.”
“Well, stop it.”
“Sorry,” muttered Arthur into his cup, taking another sip. Ford crossed his arms and sat in silence for a bit, and then he got bored and uncomfortable, so he stood up and huffed something about finding Zaphod and stalked out of the bridge.
. . .
Arthur, to put it simply, was confused. More so than usual, at least. For a few weeks now, Ford had seemed very… distracted. Ford of course usually seemed rather distracted, but for the past few days it had been on a whole other level. Any time he attempted to strike up conversation with the alien, it had either gone unnoticed, was waved off (sometimes viciously), or - more often - Ford would simply shoot up while Arthur was mid-sentence and lock himself in his room.
Other times, Arthur didn’t even need to talk. Occasionally, he would enter a room, and as soon as Ford saw his face, he’d make some excuse and race off to find a stiff drink or, again, lock himself in his room.
Even Zaphod was starting to get worried, which had been something of a shock to Arthur. He hadn’t previously known that Zaphod worried about things other than himself, which was, in his opinion, perfectly reasonable to think. I mean, have you met the guy? Obviously not, but you know what I’m getting at.
Anyway, back to the point: Now Arthur was getting worried. "Worrying" was Arthur Dent's constant state of existence, but he didn’t often worry about Ford; he was happy to let the guy do whatever the hell he wanted, as long as the consequences didn’t involve him too much. Obviously these days, the consequences of Ford’s actions usually involved him much more often, seeing as they did happen to live in a great big floating hunk of metal together, and were therefore at a much closer proximity than back on Earth.
Arthur couldn’t really avoid Ford’s shenanigans, anymore.
(He hadn’t exactly been able to on Earth either, seeing as if it was past 5:00 p.m. on a Saturday evening in his home or before noon on the following Monday, if he called out Ford’s name it was more than likely he’d receive an answer.)
Even now, in space, most of the worrying he did was about himself, not Ford. That was because Ford seemed perfectly happy with his problematic lifestyle. He didn’t see the point in worrying about something that was bringing his friend so much joy, mostly because he was so occupied with wondering how the fuck he was going to get himself out of whatever situation Ford had unceremoniously and often haphazardly grabbed him by the shirt collar and drop-kicked him into and how loudly/at what length he would complain about it afterwards.
Recently, however, that manic cheerfulness about anything and everything that happened in the universe had evaporated. It had been too long since Arthur had seen that unsettling grin which made him wonder about Ford’s mental well-being, and he hated to admit that he actually sort of missed it. Things on the Heart Of Gold were just… too... quiet without it. Far too repetitive. It would have been comforting to Arthur, if he weren’t so anxious about why Ford was behaving the way that he was.
So, here was Arthur, at the door of his friend’s cabin, working up the courage to knock and ask what was going on. Once he felt like he’d sufficiently hyped himself up, he rapped gently and unobtrusively on the door a couple times.
“Ford?” Arthur called, but there was no answer, so he was unsure if he had heard. He hesitated, and then knocked again, harder this time. “Hello? Ford?” he said, raising his voice a bit. “Are you alright in there?”
. . .
Ford really wished Arthur would go away. He wasn’t in the mood for this sort of thing at the moment, and he probably wouldn’t be any time soon. He lay on his side in bed, halfway curled up, smushing a pillow over his ear. It was hardly doing anything to block out all the sounds coming from the other side of the door, but it made him feel a little bit better about it all anyway.
It had been somewhere close to five minutes since Arthur had showed up, and he’d been knocking and yelling for the lot of it. Ford hadn’t provided a response, which was probably why he wasn’t going away, but honestly Ford didn’t entirely get why he needed to tell him to zark off seeing as he’d already put himself away in his room and locked the door, and he was quite sure this was the universal way of saying “zark off” without having to take all that time and effort to blow air out your mouth and vibrate it just right so the Babel fish that was most likely in the other person’s ear could properly translate it to “zark off.”
Apparently, Arthur did not know this. He didn’t know most things, Ford was aware of that, but this definitely felt like something he should know since the rules are - as far as he could observe in the fifteen years he’d been stranded on the planet - pretty damn similar on Earth.
He sighed, and threw his pillow at the door. “Zark off,” he told Arthur, and then heaved himself out of bed to retrieve the pillow. He bent over, grabbed it, and then waited at the door for a moment. Arthur had fallen silent for once, and he didn’t like it. He thought he would, but he didn’t. He waited for Arthur to speak.
Finally, from the other side of the door: “Look, Ford, I just wanted to see if you’re doing okay…! You’ve been acting… odd, and I-”
Ford screwed his face up and opened the door. “Odd?”
. . .
OH GOOD LORD Arthur had not been expecting the door to open. He jolted somewhat violently, almost fell over, and then finally settled again, arms crossed over his rapidly beating heart which he was frustratingly unable to ease the racing of.
Ford raised an eyebrow. “Odd? How so?” he prompted again, mirroring Arthur’s crossing-of-the-arms but looking much more confident about it.
Arthur cleared his throat and did his best to avoid direct eye contact, staring past Ford and into his private quarters (which Arthur had never been allowed into; he was perfectly fine with this and didn’t mind it in the slightest). “Er- well, I don’t really know,” he lied, “maybe not ‘odd’ per say, but, well, different?” He attempted an anxious sort of smile but his facial muscles didn’t seem to care for the arrangement and failed spectacularly, so he just bit his lip and let his worried gaze fall to the floor.
Ford’s eyebrows continued to climb up his forehead, which was beginning to become an impressive feat. “I’m not acting different,” he said plainly. “Maybe you’re the one acting different, hm? Did you ever think of that?”
”That doesn’t make any sense,” said Arthur flatly, looking back at Ford. “Look, I’m just worried about you. We’re friends (I think), and if there’s something bothering you, I’d like to at least know about it.” Yeah, that felt good. Touching, but not too sensitive. Just the right amount of emotional. Arthur was starting to think maybe he was better at this than he initially thought.
Ford squinted at him. After a bit, his gaze softened, and there was a quick moment of hesitation where it looked as if he was getting ready to say something. Arthur experienced a brief ray of hope, which was quickly dashed, diced, and stomped on by the something Ford had apparently been preparing himself to say. “Bye,” Ford said quickly, and the door slammed right in Arthur’s face.