Hunk's ranting gradually faded to intermittent sputtering, which melded with the breeze through the willows in a lulling song that was almost enough to send Lance off to sleep. The beeping of his portable comm from the pocket of his jeans pulled him only slowly out of a sludgy, contented semi-doze. Checking on Hunk's position with a smirk - still in the pool, still scowling - he flipped over onto his belly and stretched out to retrieve the comm. Flopping back onto his back again, he raised the thing to his lips and opened the channel.

"Lance. Go ahead."

That was what he meant to say, anyway.

His name came out in normal tones, but the rest was reduced to a shocked squeak as Hunk erupted from the pool right in front of him and pounced on him with a fierce expression that would have reduced any self-respecting B-movie monster to jealous tears. Damn, but he could move fast when he got it into his head! Having a completely naked man suddenly on top of him might have been a little more disconcerting if Lance hadn't been so worried about the freezing cold water dripping off this particular naked man onto his nearly dry and almost warm body. Squirming, he held up Hunk's boxers as a flag of truce. Hunk tossed them roughly aside, a frighteningly savage grin splitting his rugged face, and silenced any further protests Lance might have uttered with a deep, totally unexpected kiss.

"Lance?" Pidge inquired nervously over the open comm-channel, "Are you all right?"

"Mmnf," was the most-coherent reply Lance was able to make until Hunk released his mouth to concentrate on the soft flesh of his throat instead. "M'fine . . . what was it you needed?"

"You never checked in. Neither did Hunk. Has the test flight gone wrong? We were worried." Those last three words were spoken in a motherly tone that had become more pronounced as Pidge grew older - his last birthday had been his twentieth - and was almost always directed at Lance or especially at Hunk. Keith had learned to check in regularly; Allura simply didn't tolerate it, already swamped by Koran and Nanny's smothering concerns.

"Nope, mmmnnnn . . . no problems." Hunk's surprisingly nimble tongue had migrated down to his nipples, making the formation of words a suddenly tricky business. This was what he'd set out to do - the switch from seducer to seducee aside - but it hardly seemed a good idea to let on that he was in the process of being licked like a candy by the usual and only recently acquired lover of the voice on the other end of the comm. ~ Oh, goody, Lance. Perfect time to grow a conscience. ~ "No problems at all."

"Are you sure?" Pidge didn't sound convinced. "What does it look like the malfunction is?"

"We don't nnnnnn . . ."

Hunk's tongue had dipped into his navel, broad fingers still teasing the hardened flesh of his nipples; he bit his lip and struggled on . . .

" . . . don't know for sure . . . there may be a malfunction in the aaah-aft stabilizers . . ."

He was still fine. Just because there was a hand clasping and kneading him through the front of his briefs did not mean he would fall apart . . .

" . . . and the fuel lines are a possible prob-LEM!"

OK, now his briefs were down around his knees but he was still in control of the conversation, could still handle this with no real difficulty . . . ~ Focus, Lance, focus . . . ~

"We'll probably know more once we oh . . . open the nnnnnn . . . open it up at the . . ."

His sex suddenly enclosed in the humid warmth of Hunk's mouth, Lance's tongue lost even the most tenuous connection to his brain and he clapped both hands over his lips before he had a chance to moan and completely give the game away. He tried desperately to lie still and regain his composure but his hips kept lifting of their own accord, knowing even if he didn't that his body was only interested in harder, faster and now. Though he obligingly forced Lance's hips back to the ground with a strong, thickly muscled arm across his waist, Hunk was being as unhelpful in the other regard as humanly possible, wrapping his tongue just so around Lance and lapping expertly at every inch of him.

"He can be very aggressive, can't he?"

Lance blinked, cautiously releasing his captive mouth. "Nani? Who can . . . nnnnnn . . ." The hands returned to their posts, his eyes sliding closed as Hunk began taking him in even deeper, letting him feel the back of Hunk's throat against his tip.

"Tsuyoshi, of course, silly! Subtle has never been my Hunk's style, ne? Particularly once he knows exactly what's expected of him . . ."

The fact that Pidge was giggling percolated very slowly through Lance's unfairly distracted brain, jarring a little against the fact that even Pidge - well, Hiroshi - almost never used Hunk's nearly forgotten "real," given name, unless he was either very serious or very not serious. Those names were only heard when the two were teasing each other, arguing, sharing an intimate moment . . . or a joke. He struggled with that for a moment or two. Right about the time it really started to process, he was set back again by the fact that two sets of amused noises were coming from the comm. The tenor giggles were very obviously from Pidge, but the deeper chuckles sounded like they just might be . . .

"Keith . . ." What was meant to be an indignant accusation came out as a husky, gasping whisper.

Black Lion's pilot only laughed harder. "Ohaiyou, love . . . and please don't tell me you really thought I would dare open a wager like this without asking Pidge first?"

Lance tried very hard to come up with an appropriate response to that comment, but right about then Hunk slipped a thick finger eased by stream water inside him and every ability, every thought, every sense secondary to his need immediately and completely shut down.

"Oh, my, was that a scream? Lance? Oh, Lancer? Castle Control to Lance . . ."

"Urusai . . ." he groaned roughly, tossing the comm impatiently into the middle of the pool and taking a double handful of Hunk's thick brown hair.

Another finger joined the first, nudging over and over against that one sweet place deep inside, rocking his whole body and making him tremble with so much more than the cold he could no longer feel. His head rocked from side to side as if in negation, as if disbelieving that any single mundane thing could feel so good . . . and then even better. Even the willows seemed to be conspiring to make him writhe, gracing his face and chest with the kisses of their falling petals. Panting, sobbing at the unbearable tension, the sublime sensation that arched his back and ripped these hoarse cries from his throat, Lance let everything go - or had everything taken from him, more like - in one throbbing, mindless, timeless rush. Hunk greedily swallowed everything that he was, and every color in the world faded out to the white of the spinning blossoms over his head.

When he finally managed to drag himself back into consciousness, Hunk had sidled up beside him, gently gripping his chin while he studied the bruise as if afraid that Lance had passed out for a far less positive reason than he actually had. His worried scowl transformed into a wide grin when he caught Lance blinking sleepily at him, however, and he trapped the smaller pilot in a huge bear hug, kissing him at the same time with an almost surprising care and delicacy. Too weak to even move quite yet, Lance still managed a soft chuckle.

Hunk pulled back and grinned even wider. "Laughter is not usually considered a complimentary response at a moment like this, you know."

Shakily, Lance wrapped his arms around Hunk's neck, pressing their foreheads affectionately together. "No, I don't mean it like that," he laughed, "I was just remembering how I always used to think Pidge was exaggerating about your, er . . . talents."

"It's impossible to exaggerate about the Hunk," the big man stated simply, and suddenly swept Lance into his arms, standing up and carrying him to the edge of the pool.

More than a little nervous about the widening, shark-wanna-be grin Hunk was currently sporting, Lance continued to cling to his shoulders perhaps a bit tighter than was necessary. "Um, what now?"

How was it possible for one man to have that many teeth? "You lost your comm."

"Nani? Oh, Hunk, no! No, please! NOOOOOOOO!!!"

Splash.

Hunk was in the water with him before he even managed to surface again, and something about the expression on his face prompted Lance to just turn and swim for all he was worth in the opposite direction. He tried heading straight for the other bank, but Hunk's long strong arms and big hands moved water like nobody's business . . . he wasn't going to be able to outdistance him that way. Switching strategies, he dove down again, breaking toward the waterfall and the big, smooth rocks there, hoping to clamber up and out to safety. He had his feet on one under the surface, reaching up to climb onto the slick top of the next, when fingers thick and strong as tree roots closed on his ankle, prompting a tiny cry of dismay from the new-made captive. An instant later, his back was pressed against the higher rock by Hunk's body tight against his own, the waterfall battering cold and fierce over them both. He captured Lance's mouth as if he thought to devour him whole, sucking on his tongue, bruising his lips with the force of it. Their hips ground together hungrily.

Lance had almost completely lost himself in it again when Hunk suddenly flipped him over, pressing his belly to the stone with the force of his hips against Lance's rear, then his sex against Lance's anus. Fighting unreasonable panic at the suddenness of this, Lance closed his eyes and clung to the rock. This was exactly what he wanted, exactly what he'd set out to accomplish; he could do this. He braced himself for the pain of forced invasion, but it didn't come. Confused, he glanced over his shoulder to find Hunk's brown eyes dark and intense on his face, silently pleading for permission. Water coursed through his hair, making it shine and twirl around his solemn, golden face like the seaweed crown of an ocean god. Touched, almost awed, the only proper answer Lance could come up with was to press his own pale hand against Hunk's darker cheek, his lips, accept the kiss deposited in his palm and tip his hips back to make the entry that much easier.

The big man's first deep, slow thrust had all the vibrating power of the waterfall behind it, but none of the chill. Hunk felt hot inside him, too hot, burning him, filling him so that he thought he might split apart. He was huge. As Pidge often liked to say, there was nothing subtle about Hunk; this aspect of him was obviously no exception. Lance knew that this was going to hurt like hell later - it hurt like hell now, and there was a good chance he was already bleeding - but that quickly ceased to matter as the thick shaft inside him found that inner secret again. Working his penis back into hardness in a warm, insistent hand, Hunk nipped at the back of his neck, gasped heated non-words into his ear as he took him. Even as Hunk's pace picked up, his hips moving faster and harder, the pain threatening to overwhelm the pleasure, Lance wouldn't have traded this moment for anything in the universe.

It was Hunk who cried out this time, a hoarse, disbelieving bark of sound as he flowed into Lance. Lance only gasped when his own second orgasm hit, the white spray of it lost in the watery foam around their legs, fighting to breathe while pinned by Hunk's entire weight. It should have been uncomfortable, he supposed, but there was no real room for such things to slip past the lovely, trembling haze enveloping them both. Breathing didn't seem quite so important as it might otherwise have.

Struggling back fully to his feet, Hunk gathered him up again, chuckling tenderly when Lance nuzzled his face into his throat like a sleepy child being carried to bed. It was a tricky maneuver back to the bank on slippery rocks and shaky legs, but Hunk somehow managed it without once spilling them into the water. The same shifting sunbeam waited to warm them both again, the same windy lullaby to coo them into slumber. Lance pillowed his cheek on Hunk's broad, damp chest, wrapped tight in those strong arms, as he drifted off to the rhythm of Hunk's breathy snores.

High above, Red Lion and Yellow Lion stood silent guard.

"What do you look so happy about? You just lost your wager."

Chuckling as he turned off the Red Lion POV display on his personal vid-unit and returning to sit on his bed, Keith cupped Pidge's downy cheek in one hand. "You mean, besides the voyeurism factor? I'm not so sure I did lose. I mean, I dared him to seduce Hunk, not the other way around."

"Yes, but you also cheated . . ." Pidge pointed out reasonably, just before beginning to suck delicately on Keith's pointer finger.

"I didn't tell Hunk anything! That was entirely your . . ." He trailed off, shivering pleasurably at the play of Pidge's tongue over his hand.

"I say we should call it a draw. You're both getting something out of this, after all."

Keith nodded mutely and pulled him close, muffling the auburn-haired man's own triumphant chuckle with a deep, hungry kiss. Delicate fingers twined in his ebony hair briefly before reaching to switch off the light. The bed creaked softly as they both lay back.

"You did remember to hit record?"

"Naturally . . ."