Aaaand we're back!

Summer 2007

Phoebe Love is 14 years old, and the novelty of being a teenager has long since worn off. Someone around flipped some kind of switch, or lever and all of a sudden there's this totally new divide in her life. She's gotten all the talks about chemical changes in the body, seen all the Disney afterschool specials and listened with increasing frequency to her friends going on and on about the subject of life and romance (like they have any idea what they're talking about). It's like her entire world has gone mad. Seriously, when she finds the man who flipped her friends switches from (relatively) sane to obsessed lovey-dovey wack jobs driven crazy by their collective hormonal desires he's dead meat.

Why does she have to deal with this at school now?...She's had to put up with it for 4 years already at summer camp...

...It's happened to her as well, as much as she pretends that it hasn't. She had a growth spurt almost immediately beginning after camp last year, and now none of her clothes fit. High School is supposed to be an exciting time, but all she feels like is an awkward, gangly mess. It's affected her music. It's a bit louder now, a bit angrier. Still, her new teachers all see her as a well disposed, creative kid, and to her friends Phoebe is still Phoebe just with a more cynical chip on her shoulder.

Don't worry, everyone tells her. It's all part of growing up. That sweaty inelegant discomfort swimming through the blood vessels of your body every waking second? Yeah, that's just life…Somehow, words like these provide her less than substantial comfort. It's put a bit of a damper of all things, most specifically her desire to do a lot of the same old things she's been up to for the past few years. Suddenly, camp seems decidedly less glamorous. The romance has already lost its luster, the pairs walking around Whispering Rock remind her too much of high school, and vice versa.

There was a definite bright spot, though maybe somewhat selfish. She may have been in this horribly embarrassing phase, compressed into a rebellious, oily personage but then so was everyone else. It was this consciousness of the people around her working through that same spate, being forced to deal with their own crazed, self destructive indulgences that got her through her latest year of high school after all.

She arrived at Whispering Rock that year only to find that the one person who simply hadn't changed at all was Quentin. Barely an inch taller since last year...typical. The mere fact that Quentin remained the same as he ever was annoyed her to no end.

Quentin Hedgemouse is also 14, though he certainly doesn't look it. In fact, as Phoebe discovered on her first day back, she'd past him by a good two inches. Infuriatingly, he seems to take it in stride, like this whole puberty business is just another eddy on his serene kayak river ride through life. He's not exactly the coolest anymore, if anything his attitude seems a little to…youthful? He still acts like he always has, like the kid everyone knows him as. Yet, Quentin just goes with the flow, he hangs out behind his DJ table, new tunes at his fingertips and just spins. Scarf or no scarf he takes life as it comes, which in turn forces everyone around him to conclude that this kid must indeed, be very cool.

"You're looking tense there," he says to her one evening during band practice. Phoebe suddenly finds her stick stopping halfway down on their way to the drums. It's irritating how well he can read her, but then that's not a surprise, he's always done that and she's always tense and irritated these days. "You wanna break for dinner?"

"No," she insists rapidly, bringing her sticks back up as the irritation festers further in her brain. She can do this, they can get this one song down and have plenty of time to crash later. She taps out the time and gets ready to start up once more. "I'm not hungry, I just want to get this beat into my head."

"Righteous," Quentin nods, awaiting her signal as his hands returns to his turntable. "If music be the food of the soul then play on,"

"What?" Phoebe stops again, sticks in the exact same position they were in the last time he moved into her groove. She gives him a curious look, trying to decode what he's just said.

"Shakespeare my guy," he replies like they should've just read that in English class last semester.

"That's not how that goes."

"What do you mean?"

"Love, if music be the food of love, play on. Shakespeare The Twelfth Night." She says, giving him a look that informs him that she was the one who read that for English class just last semester.

"Oh."

And then Quentin does something she's never seen him do before. As they lock eye contact he breaks it first and immediately lets his eyes go back towards his turntable and all the bells and whistles on that, his face beginning to glow…wait, is he blushing? Is he embarrassed? If he is he recovers in practically no time at all, his too cool for school attitude returning as he snaps his fingers at her.

"Well play on then, my dude," he says, moving back to his rhythms as if the event never happened at all.

Wait…no, no way can she let him off of the hook that easily. He can't just go on ahead like that. She can count on one hand the times she's seen Quentin genuinely, truly perturbed or embarrassed. To let him off of the hook after that…well it would just be plain wrong.

"Why you got someone you're playing for?" she asks in her best teasing tone. She's no Elka, but she knows Quentin well enough to get to the heart of the matter pretty easily. At least she'd better, after all the songs written by and about Kitty Bubai she's had to sit through.

True to her predictions and calculations the blush appears on his face. Oh yes, this, this is what victory feels like. Finally, evidence that Quentin's not just some bio-engineered super life form engineered by aliens to be the hippiest thing walking planet Earth. Something that used to come so naturally to him is now just throwing him off his game, and for some reason she's glad to see that. She's confirmed that her friend is still under there, under that mask of the rexalinator 3000 robot he can appear to be at times.

"What about you?"

"No, and let's not change the subject here."

"I'm serious dude, banging away on the drums like that? You sound positively pent up over there. You bang any harder and grow a couple more inches and we can call this band Attack of the 50 Foot Drummer. Not that it makes for a bad sound, but I gotta ask...who you doing it for?"

No! NO this was not how this was supposed to go. He's changing the subject and for some reason, for some strange psychological bent in her personality she feels compelled to answer. He's got her on the back foot. For some reason she keeps forgetting that one of the duos ability to read the other is, and always has been a two way street. (And he won't stop with the drummer jokes.)

Now, all of a sudden, it's her turn to look flustered. She may…ok she does have someone. Even since Camp kicked off again she's been cursing these shaky knees and heated faces she's been getting around one certain figure in particular. Even the memories of it are causing the familiar surreptitious symptoms to surface. She bites her lip, and follows Quentins earlier lead by darting her head the other way to avoid eye contact. Forget getting her on the back foot, he's got her on the freaking ropes, in full retreat.

Quentin stops and smiles, like the whole thing was just a little joke, a friendly jibe between the two. The calm, collection grin on his face now looks apologetic, as if he totally didn't see this was coming or guess that this was the expected outcome.

"Oh hey, take it easy dude. Didn't mean to throw you off your game. What's up?"

She doesn't like this. They've all gone through this process before, maybe not her in particular, but Whispering Rock as a whole has never ceased to be one broiling potluck soup of soap opera level romance, breakups and makeups that's enough to make How I Met Your Mother look like an ice cream social. She's never been a part of it, but boy has she heard the voice of every single participant as they sob against her shoulder.

Sure, she likes playing counselor, but the last thing she wants to do is get caught up in all of…this. Not exactly her idea of a fun time. If anything can be counted on it's instead that Phoebe doesn't fall in love. That instead hanging around Phoebe ensures one refuge from the drama.

Something suddenly seems to click inside Quentin's brain. She's never known her friend to be slow in any academic capacity, but his romantic IQ had never extended much beyond writing hopeless, pining, badly rhymed love songs that might even give the most direct to home video Disney specials a run for their money. The look that's lighting up his face right now though tells her that he's fitting the puzzle pieces together a little to quickly for her liking.

"No…no way," he says, voice actually a bit giddy now as he leans over from his turn table and looks at her with what some might almost take for excitement on his normally imperturbable features.

"You," he continues, stressing her name as he lowers his head so that he can meet her gaze as she fidgets in her drummers seat. "You're crushing on someone?...Phoebe Love, in love, with someone here, at this summer camp. Man, this is too good."

"S-shut up," oh fantastic, she couldn't even get out a straight retort without stumbling over her own words. She glances aside to find Quentin staring at her like she'd just said the sky was falling. Yeah, she could hardly believe it herself. Grumbling she tries to crouch herself down behind her drum set to make herself look as small as possible. Truly this was the end of days.


There's chatter, so much chatter in the dining lodge that night. Griller Crueller has surprised everyone by revealing that the burgers he's had on back order since 1991 have finally arrived. He's finally been able to prepare the orders he's received years ago.

Not that any of this has distracted Quentin from his friends most recent revelation.

To Quentin's eternal credit, he refused to fall victim to the cliché where the confidant immediately blurts out the top secret information just transmitted to him in confidence. No instead, she got a far more typical Quentin response. As she whispers the name of the individual she's been crushing on into his ear his face takes on a very calm, serious demeanor, as if she's just provided him with the nuclear launch codes.

He nods sternly and importantly, giving her little secret crush way more weight than anyone has any right to give it. She gives him that flat unimpressionable face. She might actually prefer it if he shouted the name out loud, as it stands he's making this a much larger deal than she wants it to be.

He leans forward on the table in the dining commons where their conversation is masked by the chatter of almost two dozen other kids, each of them all squared away with each other, laughing about a host of other topics, deep in discussion about psychic theory...or in Vernons case belching the alphabet…Truly it's the perfect backdrop to their discussion

"Soooo," he begins slowly.

"Yeeaaahh," she replies awkwardly.

"Mikhail huh?" he asks in a purposefully quiet and collected tone of voice before picking up one of the dozen or so hamburgers on the plate before him. "I doubt even Elka could've seen that one coming."

She fidgets again in her seat, it's just like him to be calm and collected about these things, but she still feels off squirming and revealing romantic feelings to him like she's just another girl. He confides in her about these things (and by these things she of course means his one sided crush on Kitty Bubai), not the other way around.

"Yeah well…" she tries again before letting the sentence disperse into the air, unable to finish the thought.

"Hey, I can't knock the choice dude. I mean you're not the only one around here who's rockin that taste."

"What?"

Oh crap, oh geez, oh great. Phoebe throws a million curses through her head, ranging from the minced to the 'would make even Bobby Zilch blush' variety. She really is just turning into the typical girl. Puberty is trash. How was she supposed to know? Who would even consider Mikhai a top tier romantic partner around camp except maybe a jacked 6'9 pro wrestling amazon?

"Well," Quentin begins, immediately picking up on the baffled vibes radiating from her like confusion grenade question marks. "He's 17, lifts bears for fun, one of the strong silent types, never dated around here, and you know everyone digs a foreign accent…"

Phoebe gives him another look, one that she's copied onto her burger with her condiments.

"What are you keeping notes over there?" she asks as they both reach onto each others side of the table and drag their condiment of choice back across the divide.

"Just free styling man," Quentin says, opening the ketchup, ignoring the mustard completely as she copies his motion movement for movement. "I'm saying it's not hard to see why all the girls are buzzing over him. He's always been the oldest one here, after puberty hit I guess all the girls brains just went there."

"After puberty hit all the brains went out the window," Phoebe corrects with something resembling an irritated snarl, forcing what's left of the tangy yellow topping from the bottle and onto her pickles and beefs in spurts. Her look grows even more sour as her repeated beatings against the bottle, demands that whatever is left of the mustard reveal itself go unanswered. Finally she turns the bottle right side up and slaps it against the table with a thud. "Well I might as well forget that then."

"It would've been a tough fit for anyone here anyways," Quentin says nonchalantly, ketchup lazily spiraling onto his burger. Phoebe narrows her eyes at him as she rests a hand on the table.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" she asks, unsure of why she's just being so sore with him today. Quentein, finishes topping his burger with cheese and doesn't even hesitate to bite into it.

"Look around you dude," Quentin says, at least having the decency to place a hand over his mouth so she doesn't have to see his molars at work. "Do you think anyone here knows where he is right now? Do you know where he is for that matter?"

Phoebe is intrigued. She looks up and glances around the cabin. Clem, Crystal, Raz and Lili at one table on the far side of the room, JT, Chops, Dogan and judging by the slightly smaller 10 gallon hat, what must be JT's younger brought on the other side…Her eyes scan the cabin back and forth and to her shock, no, not a Kazan handstitched hat in sight.

"Ok, so the man's AWOL? What's that got to do with anything really?" Phoebe asks, eyebrow raised slightly.

"It's Monday night," Quentin says, his voice still managing that prepubescent rasp, bringing the burger up to his mouth for another pass.

"Huh?"

"The showdown of immortals?"

"Ok, you're gonna have to explain this one to me," Phoebe shakes her head, obviously this is going to some weird niche hold that she has no idea about. As if to prove her point Quentin mounts the table seat and holds the burger up to his mouth like a microphone.

""Welcome, ladies and gentlemen!" He begins to roar, though his voice still barely makes a dent in the dining hall din. Even with such energy it barely draws a glance from the table next to them. Only Elton takes the time to look up and over nervously before coming to the thankful conclusion that this has absolutely jack all to do with him.

Thus, Quentin continues unabated.

"To Monday Night RAW! Where tonight, in this very building, in front of a capacity crowd Big Daddy Cooool Disel will do battle with the one and only, the bad guy, your intercontinental champion Razor Ramon!"

Phoebe performs the queen mother of all eye rolls. Professional wrestling, she should've known.

"Oh, that."

"Yeah, so given that, where do you suppose he is now?" Quentin asks, cat like grin on his face as he returns to his seat. They both know the logical conclusion, their heads turn up towards the television room where another set of noises can be heard even through the cacophony of the kids. Phoebe turns to look back at her friend who's still grinning like the Cheshire cat as he asks. "Want to go check it out?"

Against her better judgment she and Quentin, scarfing down the last of his burger rise from the table, virtually unnoticed by the crowd around them, and make their way towards the flight of stairs off on the far right side of the lodge.

"Mikhail, buddy…please, let's talk this through,"

Ascending the steps distinct cries and pleas for help can be heard. The obvious instinct of anyone else would be to intervene and assist the aggrieved party. The instinct of the whispering rock cadet would be to identify the pleading voice as belonging to Benny and then pay the entire thing no mind.

They peek through the slat in the already battered wooden door to catch view of Mikhail levitating Benny upside down. The larger boy pays no attention to Benny's struggling, instead keeping his eyes peeled on the screen as he watches the imposing figure of the Undertaker clearing the top ropes of the wrestling ring, flying through the air only to come crashing down atop his opponent Batista. The DVD case, the title Wrestlemania 23 boldly emblazoned on the front sits on the table, its corners worn from frequent use.

"Haven't you perfected that uhh, that uhh…" Benny begins, trying to stammer the words out as the blood pools further in his head.

"Not been paying attention have you?" Mikhail asks, not away from the screen for an instant. "Tombstone piledriver. No, practice for that is finished, now we practice working the ropes, after that should be time for Raw to start and I need sparring partner for that as well."

The telepathic slack loosens just a little as Mikhails massive bear hands grasp a now thoroughly terrified Benny by the knees as he sets up for the tombstone pile driver, a deadly maneuver which sees the Deadman send his opponents straight into the Earth headfirst and which, World Wrestling Entertainment stated quite adamantly in all their promotional materials not to perform at home.

From the door slat Phoebe continues to watch, mouth agape. She finds it to be much like a NASCAR pileup, horrific but unable to look away. It takes a massive mustering of willpower for her to peel herself away, before calmly and stoically walking down the stairs and away from the screams of Benny. They might be compelled to tell a counselor…but honestly Benny's kind of had this one coming.

They leave the smell of cooked meat and...were those pickled eggs; and stroll outside, now greeted instead by the smells of the forest and lake. Out in the clearing by the cabin the night stars beam over head drawing their attention skyward to where the Ursas' dance over the head of Hercules.

The voices from the cabin are all muffled now. It's just the two of them and the natural expanse.

"You know what?" Phoebe admits finally. "I think I'm over it."

Quentin just gives a light chuckle at this, like this is exactly what he's been expecting.

"Oh man, wrestling is that big of a turn off for you?"

"Eh, wrestling isn't exactly my scene," Phoebe shrugs, her legs leaning off the brick ledge, rocking back and forth in unison, heels clapping against the red wall with rhythmic regularity. Muscular figures pummeling each other in a performance of very violent ballet isn't exactly something she goes out of her way to watch.

"So what is? Don't tell me, Latin American folk music and street food right?"

"You're disgusting when you're right y'know that Quentin?" she confirms with a smile and wry response. She keeps her eyes on the stars, scanning the constellations she knows so well. That's all it was, she tells herself with a relief, the shortest of crushes dissipating when she found a single turn off. Instinctively she gives Quentin a secret looking, while asking aloud "And what's yours? You got a type?"

He's silent again, she can't see much of his face now, they're sitting away from the glow of the cabins lights, most of his face concealed in the darkness. It's not that she needs to see his face it's just that...this camp is basically a couples factory. It would be easier to create a list of couples that haven't happened then those that have. She knows full well that she's on that short list. It's ridiculous the way that all these kids are lining up to get their hearts broken, mended and then broken again all within the space of a month. But with Quentin she might've…

Phoebe decides not to follow that path, at least not yet. Instead she lets Quentin just pipe up with another laughing remark.

"Oh you already know my guy, blonde, real demanding, carries a tiny dog around in a purse."

"Uh huh," she replies over his laughter, thoughts knocking him in the head a little with her knuckles. "Pretty sure you'd throw yourself off of a bridge before you let that kind of relationship happen. C'mon, let's head back to the cabin, I got that beat from earlier burning a hole in my brain."

Quentin just laughs again as she leaps from the ledge. He lets the look of her leaving linger in his mind, just briefly, watching her walk away, granting his own face a little time to cool off. At this moment he's quite glad she hasn't been able to see his face throughout the whole thing. Romance...with friends like these who needs romance really?