A/N: Okay, so it was a bit of an elastic two weeks... This has sprung itself upon me, as final chapters always do, so without any sort of warning, this is the end. Thank-you lovely reviewing people - turning one-shots into hulking great epics since 1842 ;D

Chapter 18 - Pushing the right buttons

Arthur hurried down the corridor, his presence of mind slowly returning to him as he moved further away from the bedroom. Even so, he felt calmer than he probably ought to. It wasn't that he was exactly happy with what had just happened: embarrassing Trillian and being stripped and molested by Zaphod were not on his list of things to do for a good time. It was more that they were eclipsed by the fact that Ford had come to rescue him. Ford, towel at the ready. Ford, his knight in...well, very little actually.

In many ways, he wished his brain would stop being so damn reasonable. It struck him as complacency. After all, he would have been horrified if Zaphod had actually managed to go through with it...even given what he, Arthur, had said to Ford. To be covered in toffee sauce and have it...licked off...by a Betelgeusian...or two...and maybe even Trillian, who may not have been Ford, but was still quite...

Arthur stopped. His legs had actually turned him round and started to walk him back to the bedroom. He resisted. He drew himself up and smiled as he won out against the terrifying impulse. He turned back and continued to the bridge.

Ford stared at Zaphod, unable to speak. On the one hand, Arthur had just left the room, taking his towel, and he needed to go after him, to rescue what he could from this shambolic mess and find some way of manoeuvring his way back into bed with the man before that possibility evaporated completely. That meant ignoring Zaphod's offer and all its ramifications. On the other hand, here was a pretty definite offer of sex, here and now; possibly, even probably, with a decent dinner thrown in, and a chance of finding out just how it was that Trillian had managed to keep Zaphod interested for more than a couple of days. Arthur had looked pretty calm when he had left and a minute or ten either way probably wouldn't make that much difference. He could just stay here and reduce the tension by dealing with the most urgent aspects of Zaphod's libido, then go.

It would be entirely wrong to fall for such an offer. I would be shameless and thoughtless and show a distinct lack of tact.

So in fact, when it came down to it, there really was no good reason why Ford Prefect should not scratch his head (which he did,) glance over his shoulder to check that Arthur wasn't on his way back (which he wasn't,) shrug (which he did, still wondering where this irritating habit had come from,) and throw himself back onto the bed, landing just shy of breaking Trillian's legs and earning an appreciative wiggle of the eyebrows from Zaphod.

Arthur sat down in one of the console chairs on the bridge and leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands, his elbows flirting with some important-looking buttons on the console itself. He gazed at the screen ahead of him, which showed stars and a green grid. He let his mind wander, tracing the green lines with his eyes.

Given permission to wander off on its own, Arthur's mind became mischievous.

Why not try out the Improbability Drive again? it whispered, It's not as if anything that's likely to happen is going to improve matters.

Arthur sucked at his lip. True, the outlook was not fabulous. He seemed to have temporarily mislaid Ford, and the likelihood was that if nothing changed, he and Ford were going to end up hiding from Zaphod for however long it took to get them back to a place where they could jump ship. At the very least they were probably going to have to endure stony silence from those two mouths, and in addition, it was going to be painfully embarrassing to run into Trillian, knowing that he had seen far more than she was probably comfortable about.

Just press it. Go on. It'll be exciting.

'Yes, well, I've had quite enough excitement for the time being, thank-you very much,' said Arthur, out loud.

Something caught his ear. He glanced behind him. A squelchy sound was echoing down the corridor. A whiff of pond slime entered the bridge, followed by the mattress.

'Hello! Floom,' said the mattress.

'Hello,' said Arthur, warily.

'What,' it asked innocently, 'are you doing on your own here when there are sounds of company in a room not far distant?'

Not for the first time, Arthur felt a moment's suspicion about the mattress' motives. Why was it so damn interested in having him paired up, or at least in company at all times? This time, he decided to try to find out.

'Why are you so worried?' he asked. The mattress willomied next to him, coming to rest against his ankle like a very closely-groomed dog.

'I volue a deep need for the company of your fellow bipeds,' it offered, its voice wistful and gentle, 'I feel deep in my innermost sprung pockets that you require constant affection and conversation to distract you from the dreadful reality of your existence,' it continued, then went on more brightly, 'But most of all I desire to be of service once more in providing an appropriate surface on which you may perform that curious act which makes you radiate such happiness that I can feel it down to my deepest wadding.' It fell silent and Arthur understood. The mattress was lonely. It was the only one that had still been alive on that carrier ship. It had had no-one to talk to in all of that long journey and it had felt it. It was lonely and needed to go home. Failing that, it needed, actually life-or-death needed, to feel the sort of depth of comforting emotion you get when two people are... Yes. Well. It had obviously used some sort of survival mechanism to persuade Ford and him to stay with it and to do... If it hadn't, would they ever have...? Arthur felt a surge of gratefulness and pity towards the striped mass of fabric and metal. It was pretty unlikely they'd come out anywhere near where it needed to go. Nigh on impossible actually...

Arthur leapt up and hurried over to the opposite side of the console.

'What are you doing, flurble?' asked the mattress. Arthur did not answer. This would not work. There was no way it could. He lifted the protective cover and hesitated, his fingers twitching above the big button. The 'danger' sign above it was provocative. His hand slammed down and the Universe became everything at once.

Zaphod giggled as he jumped on top of Ford, grabbing at his groin and moving his fingers in a way guaranteed to get Ford on his side. Trillian raised her eyebrows and made a little movement as though she intended to get up and leave them to it, but Zaphod's third arm strayed up to tweak at a hard, pink nipple and his eyes gazed playfully up at her through his fringe and it occurred to her suddenly that this might be fun.

With Arthur there, she couldn't have done it. He was a reminder of Earth, a reminder of all the things you don't do when you're on Earth because you never know who might be watching. Out here, where you could make your own rules, why shouldn't you? Without Arthur here, who was to know? She wriggled down the bed a little to get within better range, and was rewarded with a hot, wet sweep of tongue across her middle, which quickly turned cold as the moisture evaporated. She watched as Ford started to investigate the darkness Arthur had not-quite-seen beneath her sheet, and ran her fingers through his hair until Zaphod tugged at him, stopping him in his tracks and pulling him bodily up to lie level with Trillian. She grinned and snapped playfully at Zaphod's lips as he bent down to her. There were definite advantages to having a boyfriend with two heads when it came to threesomes, she thought as she kissed him and glanced across with half-closed eyes to his other head, which was working with equal keenness on Ford's mouth. Then again, the two mouths thing was nothing to the advantages presented by three hands. It was just another oddity in a long line of extreme peculiarities, that although two hands, both belonging to Zaphod, were stroking and squeezing at her breasts, she could see the rapture on Ford's face as the third hand got to work on the relevant portion of his anatomy.

Ford, however, was keen not to take a back seat. He pushed Zaphod away, admittedly with some reluctance, and rolled him over, across Trillian, who gasped as the air was squashed out of her. Zaphod lay on his back, watching Ford with a knowing look. Ford glanced at him, receiving an almost imperceptible nod and a growing smirk from Zaphod's left head. His hand stroked Ford's leg as Ford swung himself astride Trillian and looked straight into her eyes,

'What is it about you?' he asked, letting himself rub gently across the top of her thigh.

'What is it about Arthur?' she replied, running a hand down his side, fingernails tickling all the way to his hip. Ford stopped and frowned at her. That wasn't fair. He was meant to be having time off. From Arthur? No, that wasn't right. He didn't want time off from Arthur, just...

The Universe became everything at once.

He was on his back on the mattress. His pyjamas had folded themselves into a neat pile on the chair on which he had just been sitting and he was naked. No... He wasn't quite naked. Artistic swirls of chocolate sauce made Art-Nouveau patterns across the length and breadth of his torso. A certain part of his anatomy now sprung from a nest of whipped cream with...chocolate sprinkles on top, and either he had had some terrible accident with a pair of nipple clamps, or those shiny red carbuncles where he usually kept a sensible pair of little brown nubs, were cherries. His navel was also a pool of red. He took a chance, raised his arm, dipped his finger in and tasted it. Grenadine syrup. Not bad at all actually. He tasted it again and wondered what he should do. Nothing sprang to mind. He wondered why, in all those years of education, no-one had once thought to mention what the correct etiquette is for suddenly finding yourself naked and covered in confectionery while having been sober in the build-up to that moment. He started to hum. It seemed to be the right thing to do.

He was on the second verse of 'To be a Pilgrim' (which had, for some reason leapt from the obscurity of school assemblies to the very forefront of his brain in this moment of crisis,) when he was finally joined by the three other, very confused humanoids.

Zaphod was fully dressed, but plucking at his lapels as if he had never seen them before. Trillian, too, was re-clothed, though looking rather flushed and shifty. Ford was wrapped in Arthur's dressing gown, but a stick of celery protruded above the collar and he seemed to have the remains of a delicate paté and a prawn or two plastered about his person. He stopped when he saw Arthur. He seemed to be caught between whooping like an excited child, and running screaming from the scene. Arthur coughed,

'I think I've worked out what the mattress is up to,' he said nonchalantly. Trillian started to smile, as if she didn't know what else to do with her face. Zaphod looked back and forth between Arthur, Ford and the giant green giraffe nibbling at a potted palm in the corner of the room. To cut down on thinking, he decided to ignore the giraffe; it seemed to be looking after itself for the time being. Ford was going an interesting shade of purple, but he was fully dressed. Much more interesting to stare at Monkey-Man, who was looking the best Zaphod had ever seen him.

'Zaphod, stop staring at Arthur,' said Ford, without once taking his eyes off Arthur.

'Did you activate the Improbability Drive?' asked Trillian, realising that no-one else was going to ask this vital question.

'Yes,' replied Arthur, 'I needed to...that is, I knew it was the only way. Only I'm not sure it worked. This isn't quite the result I had in mind.' He dabbled a finger absently in his whipped cream and sucked at it. Ford took a rather unsteady breath,

'What did you have in mind?' he asked, with more effort than he had expected.

'I was trying to get the mattress home. It needs company. That's why it's being so...pushy.' The mattress sighed floopily and a ripple of agreement ran down its bindings.

Trillian, relieved at having something to do, went to the console and prodded a few buttons. The screen whirled and displayed their position.

'We have moved,' she called, not taking her eyes from the screen, 'We're currently in orbit around a planet called... Squornshellous Zeta.'

'Hey yeah?' asked Zaphod.

'Eddie?' Triallian shouted across the bridge,

'At your service,' came the cheery reply, 'Whatever it is that you want to--'

'What can you tell us about Squornshellous Zeta?' cut in Trillian before he could really get going.

'Well, I can tell you guys, its a whole lot of no-fun. Just swamp and mist and mattresses and...'

Arthur whooped, dislodging one of his cherries,

'It worked!' he cried, a grin plastered across his face. He looked up at Ford who slowly grinned back,

'It can go home!' he said. Then a wicked edge attached itself to his grin and he said,

'But it can zarking well do us one last favour first.' He sank down next to Arthur and addressed the mattress,

'We'll take you home, but first, carry us back to my cabin. I want to eat my dessert in private.'

As the mattress silomed off into the glowing light of the corridor, Ford rested his hand on a non-chocolatey part of Arthur's abdomen, plucked the cherry from his other nipple and popped it in his mouth.