Pairings: Gan Ning x Ling Tong, Zhou Yu x Sun Ce, Shang Xiang x Lu Xun on the side. Shang Xiang x Lu Xun was part of Quantum's request, and I just can't help myself with Zhou Yu and Sun Ce.

Warnings: None really.

Summary: AU. Camp Wu – a place for swimming, horseback riding, and juvenile delinquents. Of them all, only Ling Tong does not belong. Far worse than the bugs, the mud, and the screaming children is his co-counselor, an obnoxious boy named Gan Ning. He's the picture of trouble and Ling Tong hates him. But Gan Ning isn't as easy to understand as he seems. How much can change in the course of one summer?

A/N: This chapter took too long, and I don't really have any excuses, given how short it is. All I can say is that classwork hasn't given me much time to write lately. And in other news, this story is now over 100 pages long in Microsoft Word, proving definitively that I can't write short pieces, no matter how much I try.

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There was something off this morning. Ling Tong hadn't even opened his eyes yet, and the world at large was nothing more than the bleary imprint of sunshine on his eyelids, but he knew something was strange.

He couldn't place the feeling, exactly. In a way, it felt like something was pushing down on his chest, but in another way it was his head that felt out of sync, thick and muddled as though there were a smell surrounding him that he couldn't shake. Ling Tong frowned and his forehead wrinkled in response, but he kept his eyes closed, staring into the yellow darkness as he turned the feeling over in his mind.

It could have been his stomach. He hadn't had anything other than marshmallows to eat in at least twelve hours, and the camp food suited his palate about once every six meals anyway. The drama student wouldn't have been one bit surprised to learn that he was medically starving, considering the menagerie of barely edible fare he'd been encouraged to put in his mouth over the last week.

Or it could have been his skin. Even without touching his face, Ling Tong could tell there was something strangely tight and dry about it this morning—which wasn't at all surprising, really, considering how many hours he'd been asked to spend outside playing with brats of all shapes and sizes. Sure, his uncle had carefully reminded him about sunscreen every time they exchanged words, but the drama student hated the oily residue that sunblock left on his face, and he used it as little as possible. So dying of early onset skin cancer was also not out of the question.

If he didn't make it through the summer, Ling Tong wanted "It wasn't my idea" carved on his tombstone. Just so there was no confusion about why he'd been sentenced to death in the upper regions of hell.

In the end, there was only one thing Ling Tong was sure the feeling wasn't about. It had absolutely nothing to do with the preceding night. Well, maybe the marshmallows. But not the rest of it. Not the long game of tag, or the round of charades that had followed, and certainly not the fleeting feeling he'd had at one point—the first time in a week—that maybe he wasn't in the last place on earth he would ever choose to spend his time.

He still didn't like it. Camp Wu was a dirty, barbaric hole in the middle of nowhere, inhabited by delinquents and small children who needed almost equal amounts of supervision. But when Cheng Pu had finally managed to calm all of the restless boys down and circle the group around the campfire again, and they had moved into a game of charades instead, Ling Tong had found that his fellow counselors—even Camp Wu's resident dictator—could be marginally bearable when their energy was directed at some pursuit other than tormenting him.

And if he'd enjoyed the game at all, it was mostly because someone had slipped Sun Ce's name into the card pool, and it had been his good fortune to draw it, and the subsequent mockery had done a little to heal the wounds that the delinquent's tongue had been giving him all night.

And maybe watching Lu Meng try to get the kids to say The Wizard of Oz had been a little funny, mostly because the bad-tempered bear had stood like a stone with his arms crossed, and the boys had insisted that he was playacting a totem pole. And maybe things had gotten a little better when the Qiao sisters agreed to show the little girls to act out mermaids, and he'd been given the more dignified role of teaching stage fencing, which had at least given him an opportunity to jab all of his fellow counselors with a stick a few times. And maybe Gan Ning had said something that the drama student couldn't decide whether to take as an insult or a compliment, and was undecided even now.

"Heh. Wha'dya know, girly. Turns out you do smile when yeh're not laughin' at people."

It wasn't a big deal, or anything. Way less than a big deal. No deal at all. It was just unnerving, because Ling Tong had been noticing Gan Ning's smile himself—noticing it because the broom-headed cowboy didn't seem to be laughing at anyone, either, and it made such a difference in his expression…

Ling Tong shook his head a little, his neck unusually stiff against the lumpy pillow. Not that he hated Gan Ning any less for it. Not that he hated any of them less. And the feeling had nothing to do with that, anyway. Not unless exposure to the company of the lowest rung of society's rabble had really started to make him physically ill, at least.

He couldn't rule it out.

"Hey… Queenie?"

It was a young voice addressing him, which was the only reason Ling Tong refrained from chucking his pillow in the direction that the insulting nickname had come from. It didn't sound like one of the girls, though, and it took him a minute to remember that he'd spent the night in his new cabin, in the company of Gan Ning's troublemaking tater tots.

The drama student groaned internally. This was where hell truly began—activities with Gan Ning, meals with Gan Ning, and a babysitting charge for four little demons that were absolutely doomed to grow up just like the ragtag cowboy at their head. Or like Sun Ce, perhaps. If only there were a way to head it off early…

"Queenie? Are you listening to me?"

Ling Tong tried to scowl, but his face was too tight to form the expression properly. Now that he listened more carefully, he could hear more than one voice; the others were hushed to whispers, along with a running giggle that he immediately disliked. Ling Tong sighed and cleared his throat, though it still seemed better to lie where he was than to bother sitting up.

"What do you need?" the drama student replied, trying to steady his croaky morning voice.

There was a shift away to his left, as though the boy were adjusting his position, and then the curious voice came again, muffled a little now like there was something in the child's mouth.

"Can you see like that?"

Ling Tong tried to open his eyes in response, but somehow it just seemed easier to leave them shut, so he settled for a sharp frown instead. He was probably just tired, in which case the brat could blame himself—the bonfire had gone on quite long enough in Ling Tong's opinion, but of course the boys in his cabin had run around like juvenile monkeys for a good half hour later than all the other campers. Trust Gan Ning's batch to be evil incarnate…

"Can you, Queenie? See like that?"

Ling Tong gritted his teeth. "Like what?" the drama student asked, beginning to feel decidedly annoyed about the conversation. The boy shifted again.

"You know. With whipped cream all over your face."

Ling Tong's eyes shot open, revealing a world bordered in gobs of white ready to tumble down into his startled pupils at any moment. The drama student struggled to sit up, but the motion was impossible, and his arms weren't working properly either. Ling Tong twisted onto one side, and suddenly a whole web of yarn appeared in his field of vision, the green and red strings wound around both of his sleeves until they looked like works of tapestry.

Ling Tong did not scream. He would maintain that until the day he died. But the sight of all that yarn wrapped around and around his unsteady cot, secured to the blankets with what seemed to be pools of dripping honey, combined with the heartbeat racing inside his chest, did wrench a sound of some kind from his throat—and with it, the drama student began to thrash, fighting the cocoon of string with useless, hogtied limbs.

"What the—"

Ling Tong's voice stopped abruptly as he lost his balance and tumbled out of the cot, still caught in the strings so that his arms and legs were dragged up toward the mattress, leaving him helpless on his back. The drama student couldn't be sure exactly what his fall upset, but a flurry of water balloons cascaded down from the ceiling, and in his compromised position Ling Tong could do nothing but yelp as each one splashed the whipped cream and honey from his ruined pajamas.

"A little help would be nice!" the drama student spat at his campers, but they stayed where they were on an upper bunk, passing a Snickers bar between them. The boy who had woken him shrugged.

"We can't get on the floor, Queenie. It's got molasses on it. Besides, he gave us this Snickers bar if we promised not to get in the way."

He. Ling Tong didn't even have to ask who the boy meant. There was only one person in the entire camp who would do something like this to him—one bigmouthed jerk of a delinquent who'd borrowed his hairstyle from a clump of weeds…

Ling Tong stilled his back against the wet, sticky floor, taking a huge breath in spite of his discomfort and his anger and his frustration and all the other emotions swirling in his stomach. Then he let out a yell that rattled the walls of the cabin around him and careened out the screen door to echo like a demon's screech through the thin mountain air.

"Gan Ning!"

In a way, it seemed like asking for it to yell from such a compromising position, knowing that all sorts of people would come running. But Ling Tong didn't care. He was going to rip Gan Ning to shreds—and the sooner the cowboy's ugly mug appeared in his doorway, the sooner it could be separated from its body.

The boys on the top bunk had begun to giggle, and Ling Tong could hear all manner of voices starting to go up outside the cabin, the great hum like a swarm of curious bees sending another angry shiver down his spine. Then came the pounding of running footsteps and a voice that dove straight for his last nerve, the heavy boot heels shaking the floor beneath him.

"All right, girly, what's all the shoutin' for—"

The screen door screeched open, and then there was a sound that Ling Tong hadn't been expecting—a slip, a crash and a muffled curse as Gan Ning lost his footing in a pool of molasses and hurtled into an overstuffed dresser. The cowboy clutched the splintering wood with startled fingers and looked wide-eyed at Ling Tong, his uncombed bangs trailing into his face, and the drama student felt a jolt of surprise vibrating through his stomach, leaving his muscles limp as he exchanged stares with his nemesis.

Gan Ning had slipped, obviously expecting nothing but dry wood on the other side of the door. He'd come running at the drama student's call, and though he was awake now his bedhead proved that he'd rolled off his cot only at the sound of his name. Most importantly, he wasn't laughing, and that alone was enough to push Ling Tong's eyes as wide as they could go in his cream-covered face.

Gan Ning wasn't laughing. Did that mean… he really hadn't done this?

Gan Ning ran a hand through his messy hair, taking one careful step and then another toward the trapped drama student on the floor. "What the hell happen'd, girly?" he asked at last, putting one knee down into the molasses as he reached for his belt. "Some kind'a sugar bomb go off in here?"

Ling Tong huffed, glaring twice as hard at the twisted yarn so he didn't have to meet Gan Ning's eyes. "Just hurry up and untie me, okay?" the drama student snapped, writhing against his string prison. But the cowboy put out a hand and held him still, freeing a knife from his pocket and slicing through the lengths of yarn one at a time.

"Easy there. Don' want ta cut ya. Yeh'll be free in a minute, so jus' hold yer horses."

Ling Tong scoffed, laying his head back onto the floor and wincing as he felt the thick molasses sliding across his neck and through his ponytail. "Carry a knife even when you sleep, huh, Gan Ning? You're really into this whole Davy Crockett thing, aren't you?"

Gan Ning smirked, the expression far less smug than the drama student had expected. "Ya never know when it's goin' ta come in handy," the boy offered, pulling a clump of brown and yellow yarn from his rival's crinkled fingers. And Ling Tong found that he had no snarky reply to give, evidence as he currently was of the statement's prudence.

At last the yarn fell away from them in curtains of crystallizing sugar, and Gan Ning helped the drenched, slimy drama student to his feet, one arm reaching around his waist to help maintain his balance. Any other time, Ling Tong would have pushed the cowboy away as fast as possible. But since he wasn't positive he could walk through the muck on his own, Ling Tong held back, settling for a sharp comment instead.

"I think those clothes of yours are going to be completely ruined after this. Not that they weren't filthy already."

Gan Ning glanced down at his wrinkled pajamas, and then raised an eyebrow, flicking a dollop of whipped cream from his companion's sleeve. "I don't think yeh're really in a position ta be jabbin' at my state a'cleanliness, girly," he said. Ling Tong felt heat rising in his cheeks, but he ducked his head and kept the color to himself.

"You boys stay here," Gan Ning called as they moved carefully across the floor, and the giggling children gave some kind of affirmative, though Ling Tong could practically see the horns growing on their heads and doubted the validity of their word. What kind of kids would let their group leader be sabotaged in his sleep without giving so much as an offhand warning?

As they approached the door to the cabin, Ling Tong could again hear the murmur of conversation outside, and he hesitated on the threshold, suddenly realizing exactly what he was going to look like when he stepped out into the clearing. But Gan Ning wasn't interested in waiting for a change of clothes, and he dragged his companion through the door before the drama student could even protest, revealing them to the sunlight and a collective gasp that seemed to suck all the oxygen out of the thin mountain air.

Ling Tong squeezed his eyes shut, listening to the tremendous silence that had overtaken the camp at his appearance. He was never going to live this down, not even if he crawled under a log and stayed there for the rest of the summer—

"That's priceless, Queenie!"

Ling Tong gritted his teeth, lifting his head to glower at the source of the call and accompanying laughter. Sun Ce was doubled over holding his stomach, evil cackles just braying from his grinning mouth, and behind him stood Taishi Ci and Lu Meng, one holding a gigantic tub of molasses and the other with a can of whipped cream and honey balanced on either hip. Zhou Yu stood beside them, but his hands were empty and he looked distinctly annoyed by his companions' amusement.

The drama student noticed that the managers were all conspicuously absent, but otherwise the entire population of the camp had gathered to stare at him. Maybe Sun Ce had even organized them himself, just to make a bigger spectacle.

Sun Ce leaned back on his heels to study his victim—yes, Ling Tong was positive now who the real culprit was—and the smile was unstoppable on his sunshine face.

"Anybody got milk?" the boy laughed, and Taishi Ci chuckled, crossing satisfied arms over his chest. Lu Meng only snorted, gesturing dismissively toward the dripping pair on the porch.

"It's going to take more than milk to clean all that up."

If there was any skin showing on his face at all, Ling Tong knew it was beet red, flaming with embarrassment and anger as he faced the openly guilty counselors at the foot of the porch steps. He should have known from the beginning. A hazing ritual this wretched could only have come from Camp Wu's little dictator, demon-spawn that he was.

Sun Ce cupped his hands to his mouth and his shout soared across the camp, drawing the eyes of every counselor and student to his beaming face. "Consider this your official welcome to Camp Wu, Queenie. We wanted to do this earlier, but we were worried you might kill somebody… so congrats! You're finally part of the gang!"

Ling Tong stared at the excited counselor with his jaw hanging down, indignation overtaking his cream-doused expression. This was what made him part of the gang? Public humiliation and an absolutely ruined set of clothes? And where was his good-for-nothing uncle at a time like this?

"Well? Any words for the group?" Sun Ce asked at last, his hands falling back to his side. The boy was still smiling, but there was something curious about his face, as though the hush of the startled campground had drawn on far longer than he'd expected.

Ling Tong opened his mouth to give Sun Ce a piece of his mind, but he found that he had nothing to say, a fact that surprised him almost as much as the cowboy beside him. Gan Ning was watching him through the silence—the drama student could feel that gaze on his face, combined with another sixty odd stares. But he simply had no words for the feeling inside of him, a hopeless knot of frustration and anger and something else he couldn't understand.

It was that last emotion that truly kept him speechless. The only thing he could remember that felt remotely similar was when he'd made friends with a kid in the high school chorus who later put live crickets into his locker, and had never spoken to him again without laughing in his face.…

But there was a world of difference between the two. There had to be. Because he didn't like any of Camp Wu's counselors, and if he didn't like them there was no way it could hurt to be betrayed.

Gan Ning watched him for a moment longer, and then the cowboy turned to face the assembly, focusing on Sun Ce in particular. His voice, when it came, was lower than Ling Tong expected, but it seemed angry somehow, as though Gan Ning had swallowed a coal and was slowly grinding it to dust in his throat.

"Nobody told me 'bout this."

Sun Ce laughed, brushing chaotic bangs out of his eyes. "Well, yeah. After last night, we were pretty sure you wouldn't wanna help anyway, Texas."

Ling Tong blinked, watching Gan Ning out of the corner of his eye. Last night? Did Sun Ce mean their stage fencing adventure, or did the insufferable little dictator know something he didn't?

Silence followed his fading answer, and Sun Ce shrugged, waving one apologetic hand as though to brush all of the cowboy's displeasure away. "Sorry to cut you out of the fun, man. Next time, okay?"

Gan Ning's lips were stiff with a frown, and Ling Tong noticed that the grip around his waist had gotten tighter, more than the congealing molasses holding him against his rival's side. The cowboy shook his head, eyes narrowing in his unusually serious face.

"That's not what I meant, T-rex," Gan Ning said, tapping the toe of his boot against the porch. "This ain't funny."

Sun Ce started at the response, and Ling Tong did the same, his heartbeat leaping a little faster in his chest. Not funny? Wasn't this kind of thing right up the unkempt cowboy's alley? If he'd been picking out troublemakers in the counseling staff, the drama student would certainly have included his cabin partner. Why wasn't Gan Ning laughing his head off with the other delinquents?

Gan Ning kept his eyes on Sun Ce but tipped his chin in Ling Tong's direction, wiping a line of honey from his well-tanned cheek. "See girly here? He woke up an' found 'imself like this, all tied up in knots with no way of gettin' out. Yeh got proof he was desperate, 'cause he was callin' fer me."

Gan Ning's expression didn't change as he spoke, but Ling Tong ducked his head a little, hoping that the whipped cream would conceal his flush. When he'd shouted Gan Ning's name, it had been an accusation, not a cry for help. And somehow the knowledge that his rival had thought of nothing but rescuing him made the drama student's stomach twist even more than it had been, as though now for some reason he could add shame to the maelstrom of emotions in his gut.

Gan Ning shifted in his stance, measuring the silence, and then he exhaled heavily, shading his eyes with a molasses-coated hand. "So go on, T-rex. Tell me one more time why this's worth celebratin'."

Ling Tong's eyes widened as far as they could go. He had to be imagining things. There was no way that Gan Ning was standing up for him.

Was there?

Sun Ce had adopted a frown, both arms crossed over his patchy t-shirt. "Sheesh, Texas—it's no big deal." The boy scuffed one tennis shoe against the ground, indicating his target with an absent gesture. "It's just a harmless prank. Besides, it's tradition. I got you last year, too, remember?"

Camp Wu's little conqueror was standing his ground, but to Ling Tong he looked well and truly confused, as though he couldn't understand why being doused with unnumbered confections and tied up in knots would be anything but thoroughly enjoyable. Then again if Sun Ce had ever been "initiated" this way, he probably had enjoyed it.

"When it was me, things were diff'rent, T-rex," Gan Ning returned, straightening a little. "You'all got me my first night here, so I saw it comin'. And I wasn' having any trouble fittin' in, either, so I didn' care. But girly's not like that. He's had a rough week already, with you not least ta thank for it. Yeh couldn' cut him a little slack?"

Ling Tong wasn't sure he appreciated Gan Ning's underlying assertion that he was a delicate flower likely to be squashed by any foot that came near him, especially coming from the boy who had given him so much trouble for the past week. But he appreciated it a hell of a lot more when Sun Ce opened his mouth again, defiant hands moving to his hips as his voice swallowed the clearing.

"You've gotta be kidding me! Why are you all making such a big deal about it? So he's gotta take a bath. Considering how whiny he's been about how dirty it is up here, you'd think I was doing him a favor!"

"Oh yeah—thanks a lot, Sun Ce," Ling Tong snapped, recovering his voice and his gift for sharp words at last. "Somehow, this wasn't quite the bath I had in mind."

"It'll wipe off," Sun Ce replied, making a face at the sticky counselor on the steps above him.

Ling Tong had a great backlog of insults and anger on his tongue now, and he relished the opportunity to spit them out, as his composure had finally returned—but it was an opportunity he lost, because the female counselors, whose absence he hadn't noticed until they reappeared, came running up at that moment, dragging the camp managers behind them. Shang Xiang gasped and threw her hands over her mouth, and Cheng Pu, who had been jogging behind her, almost tumbled over the frozen girl before he came to a halt, his jaw hanging loose below wide, worried eyes.

"Tong…"

The name was barely more than a breath, but it carried through the absolute silence as though it had been shouted. Behind his uncle, the drama student could see Huang Gai and Han Dang stiffening in their hiking boots, the latter manager's gaze already fixed on Camp Wu's number one troublemaker. But Cheng Pu was decidedly more interested in his nephew's welfare than in capturing the culprit, and he took a few steps forward, stopping short of the cabin steps as though an invisible barrier kept him at ground level.

"Tong, what happened?" Cheng Pu asked, his forehead a forest of baffled lines. "Are you all right?"

And for a reason Ling Tong could not explain, Cheng Pu's gentle question was the first thing all morning that had made him want to cry. He felt the prickle at the back of his eyes and the instant lump in his throat, already the size of a goose egg, and the drama student tipped his head down to hide his expression, though his confectionary disguise did most of that for him.

"I'm fine."

But the answer hovered somewhere between a croak and a whisper, and just hearing it made Ling Tong want to cry more. He wasn't going to. He couldn't. If he cried here, in front of all of these people, he'd be mocked even more than was already inevitable…

There was a shuffle of movement in front of him; Ling Tong couldn't see who had stepped forward, as his eyes remained downcast. But Han Dang's angry voiced settled it for him a moment later, as did the heavy footsteps coming toward him up the stairs.

"Who did this, Ling Tong?"

Ling Tong glared at the ground through his watering eyes, so filled with tears now that everything was a brown, splotchy blur. Who did it? Couldn't Han Dang see the culprit right behind him, at the head of the party as usual? Couldn't he see the goons lined up like bodyguards behind their dictator?

"I asked who, Ling Tong."

Han Dang's voice was much closer now. The drama student found out how much closer when two hands grabbed his upper arms and shook him. Ling Tong's eyes widened at the motion, and he had a sudden fear that the unsteady tears would be knocked down his face, revealing his weakness to the entire camp—but then there was a tug in the opposite direction, and Han Dang's hands came free, and Ling Tong found himself under Gan Ning's arm again, turned sideways from the gathering so that he was out of the manager's reach.

"Hey, take it easy, already." Gan Ning's voice was still angry, though its target had changed, and his hold on the drama student was only getting tighter. "He's been through enough this mornin'. What you got ta shake 'im for?"

It had to be a miracle, or some bizarre joke. That was twice in one day that Gan Ning had taken his side—no, it was more than taking his side. The stupid, ragtag cowboy he'd been fighting with for the last week was outright protecting him, and from his fellow cohorts no less. It was the last thing Ling Tong had ever expected: that of all the counselors, Gan Ning would be the first to really reach out to him.

As he was reaching out now, both hands settling onto the drama student's sticky shoulders. Ling Tong couldn't see the other boy's face very well, because the tears were still impairing his vision, but he could tell that Gan Ning wasn't laughing, and it was enough to make him shudder.

"What can I do, girly?"

Gan Ning was shaking him now, too, but it was a different kind of shake—like he just wanted the drama student to look up and meet his eyes. Ling Tong wasn't going to do it. If he looked up, Gan Ning would see how close he was to crying, and at this point he had no idea how the cowboy would react to that…

"D'ya want 'em all to leave? Should we go back inside? Wha'dya want ta do?"

What he wanted was to be alone—somewhere quiet, where he could cry without worrying about who was watching him. Where he didn't have to hear those voices anymore, especially the gentle ones, because they only made it worse. And where he didn't have to think about how weird Gan Ning was acting, or why, or what it meant.

There was a place like that, down by the lake. But first he'd have to get away from all these people, and through the gawking crowd, their silence pressing down on him like suffocating fog…

Ling Tong pulled away from Gan Ning's hold, blurry vision leading him toward the steps, but he'd only gone a foot before Han Dang stopped him again, one hand tight in the drama student's sleeve. The manager was out for blood—that much Ling Tong could feel through his grip alone—and his voice was yet sharper when he spoke, drilling into Ling Tong's ears like a swarm of angry hornets.

"Hold it. I asked you a question, Ling Tong, and I haven't gotten an answer yet. Who is responsible for all of this?"

It was so easy in his mind. The answer was right in front of them anyway, one colorful blur among the lot. Sun Ce. Sun Ce's responsible for it—he's responsible for everything. But for some reason, Ling Tong couldn't make his mouth form the words.

Maybe it was because he was tired, or because he ached all over from his struggle with the camp's "tradition" that morning. Maybe the thin oxygen at Camp Wu's altitude was just going to his head. Or maybe it was because everything about his situation seemed out of place, like someone had kicked the world and reality had slid a couple degrees to the left—Gan Ning being less of a jerk, Sun Ce's confused expression, Han Dang's eagerness to punish the culprit only making the drama student feel sick to his stomach. In spite of all his frustration and the hatred he'd been brewing for Camp Wu's counselors since the start, Ling Tong just didn't have an accusation in him.

No doubt he'd regret missing this golden opportunity for revenge later.

"No one's responsible," Ling Tong answered at last, and the air around him seemed to grow tighter, as though everyone had taken a deep breath at the same time. The drama student could barely see the ground in front of him, but he pushed on down the steps, his voice cracking beneath every muted word. "It was just a mistake, Han Dang. Nobody's at fault."

For a moment, silence was his only reply, and Ling Tong moved along the front of the gathering as steadily as he could, trusting his feet as he headed blindly for the lake. Then everyone began to talk at once, and it was all the drama student could do to catch fragments of the words being hurled at him.

"Don't be ridiculous!" Han Dang's growl. "I want an explanation, Ling Tong, and don't think you'll be getting anyone out of trouble by—"

"It wasn't a mistake—it was a tradition!" Sun Ce's proud yell. "And I'm not hiding anything, so—"

"Whoa, girly, where you goin'? Hang on—"

Whether it was the last voice in particular or all the voices combined that snapped the last of his patience, Ling Tong didn't know. But suddenly he found that he couldn't stand the weight of the encounter anymore, and he took off at a run, leaving the mayhem of the chattering camp behind him.

Trees rose up in front of him in the form of great brown shadows and disappeared to either side as the drama student charged through the sparse forest, dodging what few obstacles his vision revealed to him and tripping over the rest. The tears were coming down his face now, and he could feel the whipped cream melting beneath them, leaving open patches of skin for the air to brush across as the woods fell away and the broad expanse of the lake sparkled in the near distance.

Why him? Why did it always have to be him? Why was it that nothing could go right for him this summer, even on the small scale? And why was everyone so determined to break him down?

Ling Tong plunged toward the shoreline, aiming for the shallows and the muddy bank. But he misjudged the distance, and the next thing the drama student knew he was falling into knee-high water, his footing disintegrating in the loose sand. His hands came down to break his fall, and Ling Tong winced as they scraped against the sharp pebbles, but a moment later the light wound was forgotten, as his elbows buckled and plunged his face into the water.

For an instant, everything was murky and sightless, and the silted water stung his eyes—then Ling Tong pushed himself up and a gasp tore from his throat, rivulets of pond scum dragging the last traces of whipped cream from his face. A few drops made it into his startled mouth, and they tasted like sand and dead fish, but Ling Tong felt so disgusting already that he couldn't bring himself to care, and he only pressed his palms against his chest, squeezing his eyes closed as though that could stop the tears that were overtaking him again.

It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair. Everything had been so hard already—why did every day have to make it harder?

"Girly!"

Ling Tong's eyes shot open as the shout echoed across the lake, and at the same moment the splashes began behind him, running feet that slowed down only as the shoreline mud sucked them in. The drama student struggled to stand, fighting for balance on the soggy lake bed—but he'd never get upright before Gan Ning reached him, and he couldn't let himself seem vulnerable in front of the cowboy, after everything that had happened that morning.

"Hey, girly, you all right? Hey—"

A hand on his shoulder. Ling Tong turned and shoved as hard as he could against Gan Ning's chest, and the other boy tumbled away from him, yelping as a tremendous splash landed him fully in the water.

"Whoa!"

Gan Ning's hands had stopped his fall partway, but he made no move to get up—only sat in the water with his knees crooked in front of him, gaping to match the fish that couldn't be far off. One soggy piece of hair had flopped down in his face, dangling like seaweed between shocked brown eyes.

Any other day, the dripping cowboy's expression would have made Ling Tong laugh. Now he only turned away, unwilling to look at the victim of his sudden assault. And his hands were shaking, too. Why? It was their fault he'd pushed Gan Ning, anyway—what right did they have to wish he hadn't now?

"Ah, sheesh, girly…"

There was an undercurrent to his rival's voice that Ling Tong didn't recognize, and it was enough to bring his gaze back to Gan Ning's. The cowboy was watching him, one hand shifting through his damp hair, and the look in his eyes pushed a lump the size of a tennis ball into Ling Tong's throat. The drama student crossed his arms, watching as the water gradually stopped rippling around them.

"I'm sorry."

Gan Ning started, upsetting the lake's surface again.

"What's that?"

"I said I'm sorry," Ling Tong repeated, his tone far shorter this time. "That wasn't meant for you, okay? I was just… frustrated."

And getting more frustrated all the time. Gan Ning would be the type to mock someone for an apology…

"Wow, girly. That's the firs' time I've heard yeh apologize an' mean it."

Ling Tong blinked, his eyes trailing up from the water to find Gan Ning's cheerful smile. It wasn't the mean smile, either—it was the one he'd been wearing for a while the night before, the one that wasn't so bad somehow…

With renewed vigor, the cowboy pushed himself to his feet, and one arm wrapped around Ling Tong's shoulders, pulling him close enough for the boy's free hand to ruffle his hair. "C'mon, girly," Gan Ning laughed, leading him toward the shore. "Let's ge'tcha a shower, an' then I've got an idea I think yeh might be interest'd in."

"What are you talking about?" Ling Tong asked, brushing the cowboy's arm away from him. Gan Ning's smile widened.

"Payback. And I've got jus' the thing…"

.x.

The space amid the prickling branches of the ponderosa was not nearly as big as Gan Ning had led him to believe—and definitely not big enough for the both of them, since he could feel the cowboy's breath on the back of his neck. But Ling Tong was putting up with that and the needles as well as he could, because this was the best tree in the area from which to watch the porch of Sun Ce's cabin, and there was no way he was missing this. Not after everything he'd suffered that morning.

The clearing below them was deserted. The children of cabins A and B were busy making a mess of arts and crafts time in the lunch hall, and if Xiao Qiao's wink had meant anything, Ling Tong was sure they'd stay there until long after his revenge was carried out to perfection—just as well, in the drama student's mind. The last thing he needed was some mindless kid toddling back and getting in the middle of things before Camp Wu's dictator returned from his walk. Which should be any minute now, if Sun Ce hadn't misplaced his watch along with his brain all those years ago…

"Hey. Look who it is."

Gan Ning's whisper tickled his ear, and Ling Tong swatted him, glaring at the boy. "Shh. You want them to hear you?" Gan Ning raised his hands in surrender, and the drama student rolled his eyes, turning back to peer through the evergreen branches at the two figures slowly approaching their hiding place.

Sun Ce didn't suspect a thing, of course. How could he, when that dopey grin on his face was a lifetime's worth of proof just how little was going on behind his eyes? The only thing that worried Ling Tong was the shadowy figure beside his target. Zhou Yu wasn't quite as stupid as his companion—what if he noticed something?

They had reached the edge of the porch. The first step. The second. Ling Tong felt his muscles tightening as he held his breath, and as though in response to the small sound Zhou Yu suddenly stopped, glancing at the clearing behind them as if searching for movement. Ling Tong bit his tongue, willing himself not to breath. Damn Zhou Yu's good senses! Did he have demons working for him or something?

Finding nothing out of place, the dark youth turned back toward the cabin—and then his back went rigid, and even from their perch high in the tree Ling Tong could tell how wide his eyes had become. Zhou Yu opened his mouth with a warning, but his companion was already reaching for the door of the cabin, oblivious to the three hearts beating faster behind him.

"Sun Ce, don't—"

Sun Ce yanked the screen open. There was a crash, and a yelp, and the clatter of plastic on wood—and there stood Sun Ce, covered in eight gallons of chocolate syrup, his jaw practically on the floor, staring at Zhou Yu as though his companion could explain what had just happened.

Gan Ning snorted. Ling Tong forced the laugh back down his throat. And Zhou Yu raised a hand to his mouth, lines of disbelief filling his forehead.

"Sun Ce, you moron…"

Sun Ce looked at his ruined clothing, and at the sticky puddle forming beneath him, at the integral bucket rolling back and forth at his feet. Then a cackling laugh escaped the sunlight boy, and he raised both hands to his mouth for a megaphone, grinning no less brightly for the syrup that had swallowed his skin.

"Nice one, Queenie! But don't you dare think it ends here! I'm gonna get you for that, I swear it! You hear me?"

Ling Tong heard him. But he couldn't answer, even if he'd wanted to, because the laughter had gotten out of control and now it was all he could do to breathe, leaning back against the trunk for a little extra support. He could hear Gan Ning chuckling beside him, and in a moment a hand accompanied the sound, resting on his shoulder with a kind of heavy warmth.

"See, girly? Told yeh it'd be nothin' ta get back at T-rex. He ain't careful 'bout where he walks."

"Don't call me that," Ling Tong replied, brushing the other boy's hand away. But even the drama student could tell that his response wasn't as harsh as he'd intended, and it didn't help that he was smiling—against his wishes, against his inclinations, against all the training his acting had given him. Smiling at Gan Ning, and Gan Ning was smiling back.

So miracles did happen, after all.

End Chapter 12