Standard Disclaimers apply.

Wow guys, I'm SOOOOOO sorry about the sloppy update. I would make excuses, but thats not worth anyones time. I realize I left this off at a terrible point in time but here you go. Terribly sorry, about the wait.

It also seems that while I was sleeping (ie: being lazy, please don't hurt me) the "Chadpay" coupling has become quite popular, which is really cool. Unfortunately that means I'm no longer going to add Chad/Sharpay's into my off the wall c2, but I will keep all the ones that are currently in there in there.

Peace!
DP

Petting the Mountain Lion
HSMHSMHSMHSMHSMHSMHSMHSM

The best part of camping, (I think at least) is getting there. We had already driven the two hours there, don't really know what happened though, I slept the entire time. Troy is the morning person, me, not so much. I woke up and yawned, "Are we there yet?"

The Mountain Lion turned from her spot in the back seat next to me, "Almost, you'd know that if you paid attention."

I smirked and slouched down to go back to sleep. "Wake me when we get there."

The Yucca Flowage is possibly one of the coolest places there is. It's this little place full of islands that you can go to and camp on. You could be out there for weeks and never see another group of campers, it's really amazing. Troy 's family took me there once, and I've never wanted to go anywhere else since then.

I think I'm pretty skilled in camping; I've been doing it since I was little. Troy is definitely better, but our parents don't mind us going camping by ourselves. They trust our judgment enough and all that. But this time we were with two inexperienced campers, which changed things just a bit.

Our first mistake was to put the Beast and Ryan in one Canoe by themselves; I guess that Troy and I are so used to sharing one we didn't even think about it. Our second mistake was putting the she-cat in the back; she absolutely sucked at steering and could not handle it. We kept on having to turn back, and make sure they were still there, and that they hadn't drowned or something.

This went on for a really, really long time, until Ryan stood up in his boat, causing a squeak of rage from his boat buddy, "Flotilla!!!"

Troy and I looked at each other, and then Troy called back to him, "What?"

Ryan cupped both of his hands around his mouth and shouted again, "Flotilla!" He then sat down, much to the relief of his twin, who looked ready to shoot him, and paddled frantically towards us, "I have string, we can make a flotilla."

"A flo-what-illa??"

Ryan sighed, lined our canoes parallel, and proceeded to tie our canoes together at the benches. Grinning proudly at us, he looked up, "A flotilla!"

"Oh-kay…." In all honesty I had no idea where he was going with this.

"See, now we can go the same speed, but we only have to do 1/4th the work!"

For someone who wasn't great in school, Ryan was sure inventive.

Once our two canoes became a 'flotilla' it became much easier to keep track of them, which I think put Troy at ease, and we did, in fact, get there a lot faster.

The Mountain Lion threw herself dramatically down on the bench facing the lake, "Oh my, that was exhausting."

Troy smirked a tiny bit, "Just wait until the hike." Amazing how he could keep his nice guy face while smirking.

"When's the hike?"

"Now."

The Mountain Lion just gave him a death glare, as her brother gave him an unmanly squeak.

At that noise Troy 's pseudo smirk, suddenly turned into a face full of concern, "What's wrong, Ace?"

I thought to myself, 'Ace?' Leave it to Troy to give the most flamboyant boy in East High a manly nickname, hmph.

Said flamboyant boy whimpered again, "Sea sick." It came out so soft that it barely registered, and then Ryan began to sway. Falling into Troy's arms, he sighed and leaned his head onto the other boy's shoulder.

Feeling that it was the proper thing to do, I turned away and began to set up the tents. Finishing the first one I moved on to the second without a hitch. Man, I'm good at camping. After I was done, I turned back to find the couple. Ryan was on Troy's lap, with him rubbing the sick boy's back. It was kind of unnervingly weird, but they were probably happy about it.

"So…. Are we going on that hike?"

"Chad , how can you think about going on a hike when Ryan isn't feeling well?"

"Because it's tradition? The fresh air won't hurt him at least."

"How about you and Sharpay go and we'll stay here?"

At that suggestion I scoffed, "Yeah, right."

Before I knew what was happening, the Mountain Lion snaked out a paw and grabbed my wrist, "Come on Superstar, let's go."

We hiked quite a ways, before she stopped to catch her breath on the rocks. "I can't believe people do this for fun."

I grinned back at her, "Suck it up, sister!" and continued on.

A polished and glossed paw grabbed my arm again, "Wait, can't we just take a break?"

"It's not that far."

She gasped, "Ugh I can't take it, it's too warm."

I rolled my eyes, "What are you talking about? It's so nice out. And maybe if you came out here more, instead of driving around in your giant SUV, we wouldn't have this problem."

"At least my SUV has air conditioning."

"And thus the basis of our problem!"

"What's that supposed to mean? What problem?"

"It means, that it's people like you who parade around in obscenely large 10 mile per gallon tanks for no reason, depleting the ozone."

"Global warming? Are you serious?"

"It's a serious issue!"

"An issue that seriously doesn't exist."

"Yes it does, have you seen the statistics about how warm the planet is getting, and how much it's increased within the last ten years? Don't you pay attention at all?"

"Of course I pay attention, I'm not ignorant. But the government report last year said it didn't exist."

"Oh yeah, like the government has never lied to us. What about watergate?"

"The water gate scandal was the president spying on his opponents, it has nothing to do with this."

"Oh... Well Exxon Mobile is the main funder of the 'Global warming doest exist' group."

The Mountain Lion's eyebrows raised to an alarming height, "You don't make any sense."

I sighed, man I'm tired of arguing with her, even though I'm right in this instance, I swear. "Whatever," I huffed, "Just forget about it, we're here."

The She-cat looked around, "And where exactly is 'here'?"

"Just look."

That seemed to shut her up, because the view was breathtaking. From our vantage point all the islands are visible, and it was just beautiful. I turned to look at her, and with the sun hitting her golden mane, it was better than the view. Even her expression changed. It was a soft subtle smile, and she didn't look like a mountain lion, a bitch, or even just a person. She looked like a... Sharpay.

I couldn't resist, I moved closer beside her, she rested her head onto my shoulder. She fit so easily beside me, that I put an arm around her waist, and she returned the gesture with both arms around me. Letting out a small sigh, I hoped she was thinking the same thing I was, "Perfect."

She turned to me, "What?"

Oh shit, did I say that out loud? "I uhhh said..." and because I couldn't think of anything else, I let out a burp, a very loud and very long burp.

The mountain lion detached it's self from my side, with a mild scream of shock, "What the hell was that?"

I shrugged, and rubbed the back of my neck trying to figure out something to say. "So, we better head back and see how your brother is doing, he looked really sick."

The She-lion scoffed. Waving her paw dismissively, she laughed, "That, dear boy, is good acting."

"What?"

"Despite popular thought, Ryan is really the good actor in the family. I'm just the one with the drive to make him use his talent. If I hadn't, he still wouldn't have been realized as one of the best actors in the history of East High. Not to mention his voice."

I don' think I've ever heard so many positive words come out of the Beast's mouth at once. Wow, I guess she really does like her brother. Then again, I suppose that's why she came on this trip that was doomed from the beginning. "Well, regardless of whether he's actually sick or not, I'm hungry."

The Mountain Lion rolled her eyes and scoffed, "Fine, lets head back."

By the time we got back, the sun was already setting and Troy had the fire started. Ryan was opening cans for dinner. Looking at the blond closely, I noticed that he showed no signs of his earlier 'sickness.' I guess the She-cat was right. Wow, I never would have guessed that the boy had it in him. Upon our arrival Troy looked at us, grinning, "How was the hike?" There was that nice guy smirk, how does he do it?

I groaned, the proper response, and instead of telling him how beautiful the sunset, not to mention how beautiful she was, I rolled my eyes and grunted, "Survivable."

"Well at least you're alive."­

"How was taking care of your sick boyfriend?" I asked, putting air quotes around "sick."

The only response I received was the far off dreamy look... again. Troy however, was snapped back into reality when none other than the Mountain Lion came over, stretching her paws to the side, and letting out a lazy sounding growl, she asked, more like demanded to know, what was for dinner.

Troy snapping out of his state, and once again resumed his nice guy smirk. That thing is going to be permanently plastered to his face someday. "Beans, rice and soup."

"Ew." The Lioness furrowed her eyebrows in disgust, "...and?"

I grinned, jumping in at the opportunity to torment her, "That's all."

"What?"

"You heard me. In fact, that's all we really have for this entire trip."

The shriek of disgust was priceless.

Troy, being the nice guy that he was, quickly fixed the situation so that the Beast was satisfied. Heaven forbid if she weren't satisfied.

Dinner was a very boring affair. As much as I said I approved of Troy's new boyfriend, I still found it extremely strange when they publicly showed affection. Don't get me wrong, I didn't mind it, it's just that every time I looked over and saw them holding hands, or cuddling, I felt like doing a double take. Maybe it was just the fact that my best friend since childhood now had a boyfriend.

Figuring I should let the little lovebirds have their time, I volunteered to do the dishes. Looking over at them I sighed a little bit thinking, how did the two of them even get together? It was probably an interesting story. I'll have to ask Troy sometime.

I guess I was staring at them too long because suddenly I felt a claw tap me on the shoulder. IT planted her paws on her hips and gave me a cool look, "I know what you're thinking, and I'm not going to take another moment of it."

Giving her a weird look, I attempted to stop her, "What are you talking about? I was just-"

"I know what you were just, and if you try and break them up, let me tell you, I will do everything I can to stop you. I will tear you from limb to limb. I will make you wish you were never born, I will make it so your mother won't recognize you."

What in the world? "You don't get it-"

IT's chestnut eyes glowed with rage, "I don't get it? I don't get it?! I tell you what I don't get. I don't get how you pretend you're Troy's bestfriend, but every time he tries to do something that he truly wants, you do everything in your power to try and stop him. How can you be so heartless?"

"Me? Heartless?" I gave the Beast an incredulous look, "You're the one that's called the Ice Princess. You're the one who treats her own brother like dirt. You're the one who people shiver at when they walk by!"

Then IT rose to the full height of a Mountain Lion, jabbing a paw into my chest. IT spoke slowly and deliberately, "YOU don't know me, YOU are the bigger asshole, and people like YOU are the reason I act the way I do."

Her eye's glossed over with the threat of tears as she quickly turned away and headed towards the camp fire to join the others.

By the time I went into the tent the Mountain Lion was already asleep. Lying down in my sleeping bag, I looked at her carefully, with no makeup and no snarl, she looked... beautiful. As I yawned and stretched my arms she cuddled closer to me and I slipped one arm around her shoulders, and the other over her slim waist. Leaning in slightly I whispered into her ear, "I'm sorry."

HSMHSMHSMHSMHSMHSMHSM

If you're interested in global warming I susgest reading/ watching an Inconvienent Truth By Al Gore. I read the book, it was really great. Sorry the argument kind of sucked though... As always thank you to the lovely Danielle for Beta-ing. (I tried changing the argument a little but it... didn't flow then)

And to everyone else, I love the feedback, so please read and review!