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Cabin Fever
By Taleya
For a ship capable of existing in every point of the universe at the same time,
the Heart of Gold was excruciatingly slow at sub-light speeds. Boredom quickly
set in for Ford Prefect. There were only so many drinks one could drink in one
day after all, and Zaphod was a boring conversationalist if you wanted topics
other than his ego. It seemed there was little to do but stare at the stars as
they flicked by, a thousand and one interesting planets and people all going
past and he couldn't convince his cousin to land on a single one.
His time on Earth had changed him, he was surprised to find. Things
just...didn't seem as good as they were. The excitement of being in space again
had worn off. It seemed he'd traded his impromptu imprisonment on Earth for an
impromptu imprisonment on a shiny spaceship.
And then there was Arthur. Ford had tried to be patient, really he had, but his
friend was seriously beginning to get on his nerves. He didn't understand why he
missed his planet so much. Trillian didn't. And it was a rather boring planet,
after all. There were a thousand other planets out there, better ones, bigger
ones. Ones where the natives didn't bugger sheep for something to do on a
Saturday night in the rural areas.
Better sheep, too.
On Earth, Arthur had been a comfort. A drinking partner, someone to tow Ford
home when he'd been on a bender, to take care of him when he was sick
afterwards, bail him out of gaol, join him in star-gazing and someone Ford could
trust not to laugh at him, but join him in quiet companionship when his
homesickness for travel got too large and he spent hours staring glassy-eyed up
into the night sky.
On the spaceship, he was becoming a whiny, annoying git, always moaning about
tea. Ford knew a little about how humans took time to adjust, but this was
getting ridiculous.
The last straw was when Arthur used his towel.
Ford was sprawled on his bed, flicking moodily through the Guide, and
desperately waiting for a new assignment when the human wandered back into their
shared quarters from a shower, towelling his hair dry. "Do you think we actually
have a destination in mind, or are we just wandering around in circles?" he
asked.
Ford looked up, opening his mouth to reply, then snapped it shut in shock.
Arthur had his towel in his hands. His towel. And was using it to
dry his hair.
"That's my towel."
"You don't mind, do you?" Arthur scruffed at the still-damp hair at the nape of
his neck. "I can't seem to find mine, I think it's in the wash."
"That's my towel."
Arthur blinked at him. "Yes...you said that already."
"That's. My. Towel." Ford leapt off the bed and snatched it from
his hands. "My towel, why are you using my towel? I didn't give you
permission!"
"I'm sorry, but it was just sitting on the end of your bed, and I didn't think
you'd-"
"Didn't think I'd what? Mind? It's MY towel!" Ford wrung it between his hands
"You took my towel! You used my towel! What the zark were you thinking?"
"I'm sorry!" Arthur had no idea whatsoever why he was apologising. "If it means
so much to you, I promise I'll wash it before I return it - "
"WASH IT? YOU WANT TO WASH MY TOWEL??"
"Ford, calm down! It's just a towel!"
"JUST A TOWEL??" Ford howled. "This isn't just a towel, it's MY TOWEL! MINE! You
don't touch another man's towel without permission!" A towel was a sacred trust!
A tool and blanket and comfort and without realising it, Arthur had committed
one of the grosses profanities imaginable.
"I don't see what all the fuss is about!" Arthur was getting angry too. "All I
did was borrow your towel to dry my hair. There's no reason to made a dramatic
production out of it!"
Ford snapped.
"You don't get it do you? This is my towel," he frapped it
frantically in the air, trying to convey three thousand years of towel culture
in one short movement. "You took my towel. You used my towel."
Blank incomprehension met his anger and simply fuelled it stronger. "Zarking
Fardwarks, Zaphod was right, you really are just a stupid bloody monkey, aren't
you? I don't know why the hell I took you off that miserable little mudball of a
planet!"
There are several things that never, ever should be said during an argument with
one's friend. Intimating said friend should have been left on a planet that was
rapidly vapourised to make room for a hyperspace bypass is one of them.
As soon as he'd said the words, Ford wished he hadn't.
"Arthur - "
"Sod off," the human snarled, jerking off the apologetic hand on his shoulder.
"Just...just... sod off! Go and drink your pan-galatic gargle whatevers and
leave me the hell alone!"
"Arthur!"
"No, I mean it! I'm just a stupid bloody monkey after all, why don't you go and
get drunk with that half-cousin of yours and go write a few more articles about
planets and how bloody mostly bloody harmless they are!"
Ford had never seen Arthur this angry. His whole posture, tone and scent had
changed. It made his own hackles rise instinctively, and he resisted the urge to
hit his friend over the head with the sodden towel still clutched in his hands.
"Fine."
"Fine."
And he stormed out.
Ford got over it fairly quickly. Betelgusians were not prone to introspection or
excessive reflection, and the truth be told, once he was over his cabin-fever
induced temper tantrum, he found he really didn't mind the idea of Arthur using
his towel overmuch. It was such a silly thing to fuss over anyway, and he was
quite astonished to find out that ten minutes later, Arthur was still mad. And
ten minutes after that.
And the next day.
The mood on the ship had darkened after the argument. Whenever Ford entered a
room, Arthur left it. Trillian skittered nervously around them both, and Zaphod
spent his time working on his tan in the solarium. They'd gone from a simple
disagreement of views into the great dark realm of Not Talking To One Another.
The final straw was when Ford staggered back to his room after another drunken
night with his cousin to find the towel he had given Arthur that night on the
Vogon ship thrown in a crumpled heap on his bed.
It was at that point he realised just how badly he might have hurt his friends
feelings.
Arthur sat on the floor of the galley, hugging his knees and
staring out the viewport. Stars drifted lazily past, and he wondered fleetingly
if one of them was his own. It didn't matter anyway. There was no little blue
planet circling it. Not any more. Nothing really mattered. His home was gone,
his planet was gone, and the one chance at possibly repopulating the species was
enamoured with a two-headed idiot. His best friend was an alien, and a
towel-obsessed prat, and, and, and...
And he missed him terribly.
He rested his chin on his knees and closed his eyes, sighing deeply. This wasn't
how things were supposed to go at all.
He should go and apologise, he knew. Leaving Ford's gifted towel on his bed was
a step too far. But he was angry, and upset, emotions roiling and burning in a
tight acidic knot in his belly. It was easy for Ford to shrug it all off. He was
an explorer, a journalist, a man with a terribly exciting job roaming the
universe. Arthur was really just a simple, boring man who'd had his simple,
boring life snatched out from under his feet, leaving him with no grounding
whatsoever. All he had were his pyjamas and his dressing gown. Not even a taste
of home.
The door sang out a cheerful greeting behind him, then degenerated into a
strangled squawk as a fist pounded into its voice-screen, smashing it beyond
repair. Arthur looked up at the familiar silhouette on the wall, then away, back
towards the starfield.
"Arthur?"
He should get up, he knew. Get up and walk away again. But he was tired. Tired,
and upset, and he'd just gotten comfortable. So he stared at the stars and
vaguely wished that Ford would just go away, that everything would just go away.
Instead, Ford sat down beside him. "Arthur....Arthur, I'm sorry for what I said.
I shouldn't have said that. It was a very nice planet you had, and I'm sorry it
got destroyed."
Arthur grunted.
Ford edged a little closer. He wasn't used to this. Arguments usually flared,
then died, and either violent bouts of sex or drunken pub crawls ensued, in his
experience. The coldness of the past few days was something new to him entirely.
He didn't like it at all.
"Arthur?" He tried again. "I..I found some peanuts in my satchel," he proffered
them for a moment with a hopeful smile that quickly faded as his overture was
ignored by the stiff back and shoulders of his once-friend. "They're from
Earth?" he offered tentatively, shaking the bag a little.
Arthur's shoulders shook a little, and the stiffness left his frame. Ford gave
him a tentative smile as he reached out and took the little blue packet, and it
was grudgingly returned.
"I'm still mad at you, you know."
"I do." And they sat for a moment in a companionable silence, broken only by the
crunching of peanuts.
"Ford?"
"Yes, Arthur?"
"Why did you take me with you?"
Ford half-shrugged, then sighed, leaning his head against Arthur's shoulder. "I
didn't want you to die," he said simply.
There didn't seem to be anything to say to that. Arthur silently offered him a
peanut, and they shared the rest of the packet, staring out together at the
stars as they wafted past.
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