Warnings: NC-17.  Slight stump.  More than slight angst.

Disclaimer: WEP owns Voltron.

Last Second Chance

When Sven returned to his room, Hunk was there.  He was sitting at the worktable, attention focused on a small electronic device.  Sven didn’t recognize it at first glance, but it was probably an upgrade of some kind for the Lions.

It didn’t appear that he had heard the door open; he continued to work, making carefully awkward adjustments with his tools.  His hair, long and shaggy and unrestrained, feathered into his eyes, but he was so engrossed in his work that he didn’t even brush it away.  Sven stood in the doorway for a few seconds, drinking in the sight of him with a faint little foolish smile, thinking how good it was that he was getting back to normal after the accident.

This hint of how things should be was so attractive that it was several moments before he noticed that Hunk had his sleeves pushed up above the elbow.  The bright light that illuminated the worktable clearly showed the line where the flesh of his right forearm met the plastic of the prosthetic.

Sven tried not to shudder.  But the way Hunk’s lower arm . . . shone in the light, so obviously false . . . it just reached into him and touched a place that whispered how very wrong it was . . .

With an effort, he pushed his uneasy thoughts aside and stepped into the room, finally allowing the door to slide shut.

Hunk twitched and looked up at the sound it made.  When he saw it was Sven, his mouth stretched in a thin approximation of a smile that did not reach his eyes.  “Hey.”

Sven pretended he didn’t notice, and gave him what felt like a genuine smile in return.  “Hey.”  He kicked off his shoes and padded over to the worktable to lean over Hunk’s shoulder.  “What are you working on?”

“An amplification module for Green.” He set it down on the table and rotated his shoulders to work out the stiffness, then raised a hand to rub his neck.

Sven could not help but notice that it was the prosthetic.

The shudder was becoming harder and harder to suppress.  He had to force himself not to straighten away, lest the false hand accidentally touch him.

It isn't fair, he thought with no small resentment.  Why did this have to happen to him?  Why . . .

But Sven knew the reason.  He did not remember it like it was only yesterday; it was as sharp in his memory as if it had happened only seconds ago.

The guilt stabbed so deep that he could not bring himself to forget an instant.

It was a scene out of a classic western movie: pinned down by the too many of the bad guys, too far from their horses and too little cover.

In retrospect, they should have known better than to get out of their Lions all at once.  But none of them were thinking that there might be an ambush; they were all much more curious about the standing stones in the middle of the clearing.

Then the shots rang out from behind and above, long range laser rifles sniping at them, and they all dove for what sparse cover they could find.  Most of the team ended up in the shadows of the crumbling stones.  Sven, scouting in front of the rest of the team, was not so lucky; he had no cover at all.

Answer the distress call, wipe out one of Haggar’s ro-beasts, go back to Arus, Sven thought sourly, his face in the dirt as lasers burned around him, too close for comfort.  Simple.  No sweat.  So how the hell did we end up like this?

One thing was clear, though; if they stayed here much longer, the plan wouldn’t even get through the first stage.  When the shots falling around him seemed to lessen slightly, he rose and made a crouching, jagged run back to the nearest tor.

Hunk was already there, pistol in hand.  Sweat trickled down the side of his face beneath his visor.  The way his heart pounded in relief was so deafening that Sven just stared uncomprehendingly as Hunk spoke.

“What?” he asked, voice raised to be heard over the noise of the laser fire around them.  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Lance and Keith behind another stone, Pidge in the lee of yet another, all firing vainly back at the enemy.

Hunk grabbed his arm, all but engulfing his bicep in one massive hand, and gave him a teeth-rattling shake.  “I said, you need to get to Blue!  One of us has got to make a run for the Lions.  The others are too far away.”

Jolted back into reality, Sven snuck a glance around the stone.  “Yellow’s closer . . .”

Hunk snorted, the sound just barely audible.  “Yeah, but you’re faster.”  He released Sven, shifted his grip on the pistol.  “Go on.  I’ll cover you.”  Behind his visor, his eyes were pained, and Sven knew that Hunk wanted to take his place.

The knowledge firmed his resolve and he nodded.  Hunk smiled at him with grim regret, then straightened, his back against the stone.  Sven readied himself, his attention narrowing down to the path he would have to take to get to Blue.  As Hunk started to turn, to fire around the corner of the stone, Sven leapt forward.  Running full speed into the face of the deadly fire around him, he thought he heard something behind him, Hunk calling out . . . no, screaming . . .

Once he’d launched, Blue had provided ample covering fire for the others to make it to their Lions.  The clearing, once so beautifully pastoral, was a smoking ruin, scorched and pitted, the standing stones toppled or blasted to pieces

It was only after he’d landed again that he’d discovered what had happened, why Hunk had cried out.  A lucky shot had burned his hand off just above the wrist, leaving a stump, mangled and blackened, with the fabric of his uniform fused to his skin.

The stench of burnt flesh was sickening, overwhelming.  Hunk was mercifully unconscious, his face pale in shock.  Sven could only stare at that arm in disbelief.  When he reached out to brush Hunk’s hair back from his face, his skin was clammy with cold sweat.

And now, months later, after counseling and rehab and the operation to attach the false hand . . . Hunk was doing as well as could be expected.  He had adjusted fairly well to the way things would have to be from now on.

Sven had not.  He hated it, hated what had happened to Hunk, hated the way the prosthetic felt the few times he’d had to touch it.  He hated the way he could not control the revulsion that shivered through him when Hunk tried to use that thi—hand to touch him.

He hated himself for not being able to move beyond the guilt.

“Sven?”

He started, jerked out of the tangle of his thoughts by Hunk’s deep voice.  From somewhere, he found a smile.  “What?”

Standing, Hunk frowned, and it made him look stern, almost forbidding.  “You didn’t even hear me.”  He studied Sven for a moment, then his shoulders slumped and he sighed gustily.  “You were thinking about it again, weren’t you?”  He moved his right hand meaningfully.

In an instant, anger coursed through Sven.  He could feel his cheeks heat in response to Hunk’s words.  “No, I wasn’t,” he protested uselessly.

Almost as if he could tell Sven was lying, Hunk turned away.  “Then you were thinking about what happened,” he said.  Sven distinctly heard the squeak and snap of plastic as Hunk forced that hand into a fist.  “I told you, it wasn’t your fault!  It was just a lucky goddamn . . .”

“I was not thinking about it!”  His voice rose in both pitch and volume, strident and guilty even to his own ears.

Oddly enough, they had not fought about . . . it before; one or the other of them had always backed down before it had ever gotten this far.

Hunk eyed him in disgust over his shoulder, then looked away again.  “You were.  You just get this . . . freaked out expression when you think about it.”  His voice dropped until Sven had to strain to hear it, only a pace or two away.  “And you’re constantly thinking about it.”

“I am not always thinking about it!” he yelled, every word a lie, but he didn’t care.

Hunk snorted and faced him again,   “Of course you are!” he shouted, deep voice echoing.  “I can see it in your eyes!”  He brought the prosthetic up between them, forcing Sven to focus on it.  “You’re distant, never listening when I try to talk to you!  You watch me with a wary look all the damn time—no, not me, you’re always looking at my arm, my hand!  It’s like you’re afraid that I’m going to touch you with it.” He clenched it into a fist, and Sven stared as each finger responded, slowly curling into position.  “I know I’m not a whole man anymore, but for Chrissake, I’m more than just a hand!”

“Damnit, I don’t see you as just a hand!”

“Then fuck me.”

Sven’s mouth dropped open at that, his anger draining away slightly.  “What?” was all he managed.  Surely he couldn’t have heard right . . . that husky tone so at odds with the furious ones they’d been flinging at each other . . .

Hunk’s eyes gleamed at him in the glare of the lamp.  “Fuck me.” He stepped closer, and Sven could feel the heat of him, could smell the faded scent of his aftershave.

In an instant, his anger was redirected, and he fisted his hands in Hunk’s shaggy hair, yanking him down to mash their mouths together in something that was too violent to be a kiss, but could not be called anything else.

Hunk met him eagerly, mouth open to accept the invasion of his tongue, big hands—one cool, one hot—curling in his shirt to pull him closer.

Body to body, pelvis to pelvis, the saliva-slick slide of mouth against mouth as their tongues fought and Sven realized in the rush of need that swept over him how much he’d missed this.  They had touched often enough, in the weeks and months since the accident, but rarely had it been in any way sexual.  A hand against Hunk’s shoulder, a kiss, a comforting embrace . . . carefully devoid of the searing passion they had enjoyed before.

Until now.

He could not get enough.

He wrenched himself away from Hunk’s mouth, and bit his way along his stubbled jaw, savage bites that made Hunk moan and shiver.  His hands were moving of their own accord now, nails scraping down Hunk’s chest and sides, feeling fabric snag and muscles bunch beneath his fingers.

But the cloth was too much in the way.  With a growl, Sven grabbed the hem of Hunk’s shirt and peeled it almost violently over his head, throwing it away from him.

Then the planes of Hunk’s body were bared to him, skin pale gold in the lamplight, and he lost himself.  He attacked that flesh, suckling, nipping hard enough to leave bruises. 

Hunk’s hands wound into his hair, pulling against his scalp, and Sven could hear him making noises of encouragement above him.

As he pressed against Hunk, he could feel hardness grinding against hardness, trapped between them.  Blood and desire roared in his ears, and he dropped to his knees, fingers fumbling at Hunk’s belt and fly.  The pants slithered down Hunk’s legs, and Sven wrapped his hands and mouth around the cock that sprung out.

Hunk cried out, his fingers clenching in Sven’s hair, and his balanced wavered.

After no more than a minute of sucking, though, Sven released him and stood.  His own cock was throbbing mercilessly in his pants, need raging through him, and he pushed Hunk back toward the bed, teeth bared in a feral snarl.

They hit the bed with such force that they bounced, and then Sven was feeding at Hunk’s mouth once more, their teeth scraping, moaning and grunting into each other’s mouths.

Then he felt Hunk’s hands sneaking in between them, fingers scrabbling awkwardly at his pants, trying to undo the button.  He sat up, straddling Hunk, and opened them, and when Hunk wrapped his hand around his erection, he thrust into the firm grip, groaning.

Even though his eyes rolled back from the delightful friction that Hunk was creating, Sven still managed to reach out to the nightstand and yank on the drawer.  It got stuck partway out from his uneven pull, but it was open enough hat he could get a hand in and search by touch for the lube.

When he found it, he pulled away from Hunk’s hand and maneuvered himself around until he could push Hunk’s legs open wide.

Hunk groaned something that sounded like, “God, yes,” and complied, raising his hips to give Sven easier access.

Finding what he sought, Sven slid a slick finger around the puckered opening, spreading the lube, and then none-too-gently worked that digit inside.

A shiver passed through Hunk, and Sven felt his muscles clamp down around his finger.  He wiggled it out and pressed in again, panting, feeling the heat inside Hunk and trying to contain himself, because part of him was urging him to just plunge in and take him . . .

But the second finger broke his control.  Hunk gasped, groaned, thrust himself down onto Sven’s hand as the fingers scissored inside him, and that was all Sven could take.  He remembered to coat his cock with lube, but it was a near thing.  He was trembling as he set himself at Hunk’s opening, his breath coming fast and short and hot

Hunk arced up off the bed again as he slid in, and the noise he made echoed off the close walls, pained, needy, “more”.

“Gott . . .” Hunk was so tight it made his head spin, and in some distant corner of his mind, Sven knew he had to be hurting him, but he followed the drives of his body, and of the hands on his bare ass pulling him closer, the fingers digging into his flesh and leaving bruises.

Nothing like this madness that had come upon them could last too long, but when Hunk came, it caught Sven by surprise.  He sucked in a breath, and suddenly Sven could feel him spasming beneath him, around him.  Before he knew it, he was shuddering, gasping for air, as he hit his own climax.  He stayed balanced precariously over Hunk for a moment, trying to breathe, and then his arms gave out and he collapsed.

Slowly, slowly, his racing pulse calmed until he could hear something other than the beat of his heart.  Eyes closed, he wondered why there was a strange repeat to it, and it took him a while to realize that he had his ear pressed to Hunk’s chest, and the echo he heard was Hunk’s heartbeat.

Hunk’s arms were wrapped around him, hands resting on his rapidly cooling back, one warm, one . . . not.

Hands.

He jerked, instinctively, then tried to disguise it as the effort to raise himself up onto his elbows.

When he looked down into Hunk’s eyes, though, he blinked, and reared back in shock.  His eyes were hard, and he was staring up at Sven in disbelief, which quickly turned to betrayal, even as Sven watched.

“Get off me.”

Sven flinched again as the icy words struck him.  “Hunk . . . what . . .”

“Get the fuck off me!”  This time, the words were accompanied by a brutal shove that rocked Sven off his broad body.  When he came to rest an instant later, Hunk was already off the bed and looking for his clothes.

“Hunk . . .” Sven sat up and was blinded by the glare of the lamp.  All he could see of Hunk was a dark outline.  He shifted, and was able to see the anger and hurt on Hunk’s face.

“Nothing changed, Sven.  You can still only see the hand!”  He pulled his shirt over his head, struggling with it in his haste.

“No, that’s not it, I . . .” He swallowed.  “I just . . . Hunk, please!”

“No.  All you did was prove that you can only forget it in the heat of a moment.”  Hunk’s voice barely carried from the foot of the bed, but the coldness in it raked Sven’s soul.  He pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.  “I . . .”

“I don’t want sorry.” Hunk wrestled briefly with the button and fly of his trousers, then flicked off the light.  He stepped into his boots where they waited by the door.  “I want to know when you can see me, not the prosthesis.  I want to know when you can love me again.”

The door whooshed open and closed and he was gone.

Sven hid his face against his knees.  If he wept in the darkness, there was no one there to see.

***

January 1, 2005

© randi (K. Shepard), 2005