That is to say, he toggled the flusher. Several times. Each more frustrated than the last. It seemed that whatever was in there—and that's number-two for anyone who couldn't guess—was not going to go down without a fight. And flushing excessively only seemed to make it worse. Water flooded the bowl. Fast. Incredibly fast! It appeared to Lance that his situation was quickly turning into a flash flood. He backed away slowly—then spun and leaped on the doorknob. But in his panic he could not open it, obviously forgetting he had locked it only moments earlier. As he turned in terror, a tsunami of toilet water engulfed him and knocked down the door.

Meanwhile, in the Castle lounge, the other four space explorers were engaged in a deep conversation that is rather unimportant to the story and would in short time be interrupted, and therefore need not be paid any attention. So, they were in the middle of this deep conversation when Lance threw himself upon the doorframe, panting heavily and dripping wet, thereby ending the aforementioned unimportant conversation.

"Omigod, Lance!" Keith exclaimed. "What happened to you?!"

Lance ignored the question, treating the crowd to a perturbed glare.

"Okay, which one of you clogged the toilet?" he said.

Keith and Hunk exchanged glances, then turned to Pidge. Noticing this, Pidge started to panic. His finger shot out at Sven. "He did it!"

Sven started. "Don't look at me. I didn't even use that bathroom."

Everyone looked at Sven. Especially Keith. "But it's the only one in the castle," he said.

"No it isn't. There's one in the princess's room—" Sven caught himself but it was too late. "Oops."

Keith's jaw dropped as it dawned on him. "You slept with the princess?"

Lance raised an eyebrow. "So, you're saying you didn't clog the toilet?"

"What?!" Sven asked defensively. "Whatever gave you that idea? We've all been inside her room. Haven't we?" Hunk and Pidge shrugged.

Lance: "So, who clogged the toilet?"

Keith: "You slept with the princess?"

Sven: "Well, I, er... Those are pretty harsh accusations—"

Hunk and Pidge stared dumbly. Lance, oblivious to the exchange between the Keith and Sven, continued: "Hel-LO! Who clogged the toilet?"

Keith was now fully convinced Sven had slept with the princess. "You slept with the princess!" It seemed this dialogue would go on forever.

"Okay, Keith, yes!" Sven finally agreed. "I slept with the princess! There, are you happy now? But, I'll have you know, we didn't do a whole lot of sleeping, if you know what I mean." He flashed them a lecherous grin.

Keith's jaw dropped.

"Besides," Sven continued, "she seduced me. She told me that's what escorts do on Arus."

"What's that?"

"You know. Do it."

"I don't believe that," Keith snorted, hands on his hips. "Don't tell me you fell for that one!"

"No, but it made for a great plot when we tried role playing the seventh time."

"The seventh--" Keith put a hand to his brow. "Well, this is just great!"

Lance: "WHO...CLOGGED...UP...THE...wait a minute." Suddenly, it hit him. "SVEN SLEPT WITH THE PRINCESS?!"

"WHOA!" exclaimed Hunk and Pidge simultaneously.

"SHH!" said Keith and Sven simultaneously.

"And she told me I was the only one," Keith said to himself.

Lance started. "Whoa. You mean you've slept with her too, Keith?"

"Yeah. Haven't you?"

Lance snorted. "Well, yeah. Who hasn't?"

Hunk and Pidge exchanged glances. "Well, looks like it's just you and me, little buddy," Hunk said with a pout.

"I don't even know what you guys are talking about," said Pidge.

"You mean you've never had sex, Hunk?" Lance said almost incredulously. "A well-rounded lady killer like yourself?"

"You calling me fat, Lance?" Hunk shook a fist. "And, no. I happen to be saving myself for the right girl."

Keith laughed. "Aw, come on, Hunk! Nobody does that anymore."

"I do!"

"But it's so old-fashioned," Sven added. "Besides, there's no such thing as the right girl. You have to take 'em as they come." Keith gave him five.

Hunk crossed his arms over his wide chest. "Oh, really?" he said to Sven. "So, tell me, Socrates, how many women have you had, hm?"

Sven shook his head. "If I were Socrates, I'd be having sex with young boys. Besides, Hunk, you don't even know who Socrates is."

"Yes I do!"

"Then who is he?"

Hunk thought for a long moment. "Don't try to change the subject!" he said at last. "How many women have you slept with?"

"Oh, no more than a couple, I should think," Sven said. "Although those figures don't quite express the amount of time I've spent with each of them, if you know what I mean."

They all stared.

Sven shrugged. "What? So I like to have my fill before moving on."

Keith yawned. "Obviously. If you ask me, you need to cut down, buddy. Do you know I haven't been able to get a decent five hours of sleep at all this week? You forget your room is right next to mine."

"Oh-ho!" Lance laughed. "Now I get it. Yeah, very good, Sven."

"So, what about you, Lance?" Hunk asked.

Lance exhaled dramatically and jammed his hands down his wet pockets. "Jeez, I don't know," he said, thinking quite hard. "I lost track. I'd have to say maybe twenty-five to thirty at the least."

"Lance has a roving eye," said Pidge.

Lance started. "Where did you hear that?" he asked sharply, leaning over the kid.

"From Cynda. What does it mean?"

Hunk started. "Cynda too?"

"And all the other skirts on the force," Sven added matter-of-factly. "Even some without skirts." Hunk's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. "Don't act so surprised. We've all been around the block a few times. Except Pidge and Chip, of course. And you, Hunk."

"Well, jeez," Hunk said. "You guys could all get diseases."

"We use protection," said Lance.

"Oh yeah?" said Hunk. "How 'bout that time you got mono, Lance?"

"That's not even an STD! And it wasn't mono, dumbass. I had my tonsils removed. What, you think I spent five days in bed for my health? I was sleeping off the drugs!"

Hunk gasped. "So you have casual sex and you take drugs?!"

"Hey!" Lance pointed a defensive finger at himself. "I may have experimented a couple times, but that time it was for the operation! And it isn't always casual." There was an uncomfortable silence. "Well, what about Keith?" Lance said, quick to have the spotlight taken off himself.

"What about me, Lance?"

Everyone looked at Keith.

"What?! You think now that you've all shared your sex lives I have to share mine?"

"Well, you did sleep with the princess," reasoned Pidge.

Lance laughed and shook his head. "Man! I still can't believe you got icky-sticky with Allura!"

"What's so hard to believe?" Keith said. "Are you jealous? You don't think she could be physically attracted to a guy like me?"

"No, I thought you were gay."

"I'm not gay, Lance," Keith said flatly.

"Dude, I just said I thought—"

"I'm not gay."

Pidge piped up: "You know, Lance, when you assume you make an ass—"

Everyone: "Shut up, Pidge!"

"Don't think too much of it, Lance," Sven said. "I'd bet he's only trying to get promoted again." He squinted at Keith. "Sir Keith has a nice ring to it, doesn't it, Keith?"

"What are you talking about?" Hunk said.

After a panicky start, Keith waved his arms desperately and mouth for Sven to keep quiet. But he went right on with a grin. "Last time he got a promotion it was because he slept with the marshall's daughter."

Pidge: "WHOA!"

Hunk's eyes bugged out again. "Wh-what?! Is that true?"

"How else do you think he got to be commander?"

Outraged, Hunk shot up from his seat. "She was my girlfriend!"

"Thanks a lot, Sven," Keith mumbled. Sven smiled.

Hunk balled his fists. The constipated look he got when he was seriously pissed off appeared on his face. "You better watch yourself, commander," he threatened. "'Cuz when I get ahold of you, I'm gonna punch your cheating face in! I know where you live."

"Dude, Keith," Lance said. "You mean you don't sleep with anyone that doesn't have some sort of strategic value to you?"

Keith shrugged. "Guess not."

"That's sick, man."

"Yeah," said Sven. "Don't you ever care about anything other than yourself and your career?"

"Hey!" said Pidge, who was tired of being pushed aside. "Aren't you guy's gonna ask me if I've had sex?"

"No," Lance said. "Why should we? We already know you haven't?"

"Yeah I have."

They all stared at Pidge.

"Yeah. With Allura... I-in the hall."

A dumbfounded silence. Pidge blushed nervously.

"Sh-she kissed me. Right here." And he pointed to his cheek.

There were sighs of relief around the room.

"Pidge, that isn't sex," Lance said.

"Oh... Then what is it?"

"What's sex?" Hunk blurted out incredulously. "You mean you don't know?"

Pidge shook his head.

"Well, he's gotta find out sooner or later," Lance said with an index finger poised intelligently. "What is he now, eight?" He scratched his head, then blushed bright red. "Keith, why don't you explain it to him."

"Me?! Lance, you brought it up."

"Oh, OK. Come here, Pidge. It's time someone told you about the birds and the bees."

"But I learned all about them in second year biology."

Lance slapped his forehead. "Jesus, Pidge! That means sex, OK? Now, it's like this..."

Lance whispered an explaination of sex in Pidge's ear, whose expressions changed from mild amusement at first to utter disgust. Before Lance could even finish, Pidge broke away and ran around the room, shouting: "Oh, SICK! That's disgusting!"

"Jesus, Lance!" Sven said. "I thought you were going to tell him about sex, not scare the living daylights out of him!"

"What the hell did you tell him?" asked Keith.

"Just he basics! How was I supposed to know he'd react that way?"

"Lance, you didn't tell him..." And Keith whispered something lengthy and—judging by the look on the other's face—nasty to Lance.

"Goodheavens NO, Keith!" Lance exclaimed. "He's just a child!"

"Well, this's been fun," Hunk said sarcastically and got to his feet. "I'm gonna go get a snack—"

"No, Hunk," Lance said with a staying hand. "Wait a minute, you guys. We've gotten completely off what's really important here. All this stuff about who slept with who still doesn't answer my question: Who clogged the toilet?"

Just then, at that very moment, and perfectly on cue, Allura walked in, smiling at the five. "Hi, guys!" she said in an overly cheerful voice. "Just passing through."

The five looked at her, wondering whether she could possibly be the culprit in Lance's case. After all, she had that all-too-well-timed entrance against her.

"Nah!"

When Allura came to Lance, she flashed him a sexy smile. Lance grinned back, as suavely as he could in his current state. He was sorely disappointed then when she wrinkled her nose. "No offense, Lance," she whispered, albeit loud enough for everyone to hear, "but you smell awful!"

And she left.

"Hey, thanks, Allura!" Lance called after her retreating form, pride wounded. "Nice to see you again too!" He kicked the doorframe and sighed. "What is it about me that turns her off?"

"Besides the smell?" Sven asked. Lance glared at him.

"Well," Keith said, turning once again to the previous, still out-standing and pressing question, "if it wasn't any of us, and it wasn't the princess, that only leaves one person."

Coran suddenly appeared on the monitor.

"I didn't clog the toilet."

And he was gone.

The five were silent for a long moment. If Coran didn't do it either, they were out of suspects! It did not seem to occur to any of them that Coran might have heard any or all of their conversation.

He reappeared. "Oh," he said, "and in case any of you were wondering, I heard the entire conversa—"

"Out of my way!"

Coran was shoved out of the way with a grunt and a thud. A pudgy, old, and droopy female face filled the screen, eliciting starts of surprise and disgust from the space explorers. She began to rant:

"You disgusting boys, you should all be ashamed of yourselves! You are all in very big trouble! Hm! When I finally get a spot on this show you are all going to pay dearly!" She waved her meaty fist threateningly. "I'm going to take you over my knee and give you what's been coming to you: A long-deserved paddling you'll never forget!"

"Wait a minute," Hunk said. "We all get paddlings?"

"No, just the skinny one, the gay one, and the one with the funny accent."

"Skinny?!" Lance coughed.

"I'm not gay!"

"Funny accent?" Sven crossed his arms. "Look who's talking!"

"When I get there," the hag went on, "you three are going to wish you never did...did... Well, what you did to the princess!"

"Hey!" Sven added. "It's not all our faults. What about Allura?"

"I'm going to have a nice long talk with that little tramp--But YOU three!" She waved a menacing index finger at the space explorers. Coran managed to pull himself upright and was promptly knocked down again by a careless swing of the old nag's elbow.

But none of these idle threats scared Lance. "Oh, yeah?" he said, with a little strut. "Over Sven's dead body, fat bitch!" He made a rude gesture, at which the woman on the screen gasped loudly and switched off. Pidge applauded.

Sven's jaw dropped. "Lance! Over my dead body?" He looked faint. Lance shrugged.

Suddenly, Hunk got it. "I got it!" They could see the lightbulb coming on in his head. "Maybe Cheddar and his little friends did it!"

Everyone stared at him blankly.

"Ya know, clogged the toilet?"

Keith shook his head. "Not likely. I doubt they could even reach the seat."

"I don't know," Sven said. "They are pretty resourceful."

"But there's no way they could plug the toilet unless one of them jumped in the can."

"True..."

Meanwhile, an even brighter lightbulb switched on in Lance's head. "I got it! OK, let's review what we have so far. Now, I didn't clog the toilet because I was the one in the bathroom when it exploded. Sven didn't do it; he has an alibi. Allura didn't do it, of course, and neither did Coran. And I'm pretty sure that fat bitch on the monitor didn't do it, either." As if his pointing to an invisible display board on his left wasn't confusing enough as it was, the other four were completely lost and stared at him dumbly. "Well? It's obvious, you guys! It means someone here was lying. Was in Keith, Hunk...or Pidge?"

Keith, Lance, Sven, and Hunk all fell deep into thought. Pidge on the other hand started squirming nervously in his seat.

Finally, Keith pointed at Hunk. "Hunk did it."

"What?!" Hunk towered over the commander. "Bull! First you take my girl, and now you blame me for clogging the toilet! It's a conspiracy! Yeah, that's it! It's because I'm the fat one, right? Is that it?"

"No," Keith said nonchalantly. "I'm blaming you 'cuz you were the one who had the extra helping of beans last night."

"So? Beans give you gas, not poop, genius."

Keith rolled his eyes. "Tell me about it..."

"Besides," Hunk countered, "for all we know, you clogged the toilet."

"Me?"

"Yeah!"

Meanwhile, Lance turned to Sven. "So," he pried with a little elbowing. "How was she?"

"How do you think?" said Sven with a sly grin.

"I don't know."

"Lance! You slept with her!"

"Oh yeah."

"Lance," Sven asked, "do you think you'll ever solve your mystery?"

"Jeez, not at this rate." The two watched as Hunk and Keith continued to argue. Presently Hunk had the other trying his best to keep the coffee table between them. Finally, Pidge said something.

"ALL RIGHT! All right!"

They all turned to Pidge.

Pidge gulped. "All right. I confess. I clogged the toilet."

A chorus of disgusted responses sounded around the room.

Lance put his hands on his hips. "Well I'm not surprised."

"I'm sorry, guys."

"Well, I'm sure glad this inquisition's over with," Hunk said. Keith nodded violently, but was not at all pleased to see Hunk glaring at him anyway.

"What's my punishment?" asked Pidge.

Hunk grinned. "Death!"

Pidge gulped.

"Can we please not talk about death?" said Sven as he massaged a temple. "I think I had a premonition."

"Don't worry about it, Pidge," Lance said. He grabbed the little guy's wrist with his still slightly slimy hands. "Now, come on. There's someone I'd like you to meet."

"Really? Who?"

"The plunger."

Pidge groaned. "Oh, man…"

And he walked sulking out of the room, followed close behind by Lance. As the doors closed the remaining three fell back into the same deep, but ultimately unimportant conversation they had been interrupted from at the beginning of the story. By some miracle called dinner, Keith managed to keep his face just the way it was, which may or may not be a good thing. As for Pidge, he eventually did fix the toilet problem, and over the next few weeks—until the stock of laxatives he had mistaken for candy bars ran out—mastered the art of the plunger.