The Edge of Everything I Wanted

Chapter Twenty-Two Spoilers


I really can't post a new chapter, but I hope this helps lessen the wait.
(I haven't had time to write bc I've been reading Don Quixote like a madwoman so I get it over with).

“Dude, dude,” opened Weiss calmly, “I was totally just looking of for these ladies’ health.”


After laughing, Vaughn asked, “And what’s the verdict?”



“When’s he gonna be back?” she asked Will.
 
i'm not going to promise anything, but I have Thursday and Friday off...so technically i have wed night, thurs day and night (but not afternoon bc i work), and friday (i have a busy weekend) to possibly write something. so if i even get one chapter out of this, i'll post the one left that i have done.
 
I'm not gonna lie that got my hopes up a teeny tiny bit!! lol
But hey if you're busy I understand...I just like to give you a hard time!! HAHA
 
i have about 500 words of the next chapter, so here you are!

(and is this site insanely slow for anyone else?)



Chapter Twenty-Two

The five of them arrived around four o’clock, which was good because there would be about four more hours of summer sunlight. It took them about one hour to set up their tents.

Sydney and Francie were sitting on folding chairs they’d brought, eating a bag of potato chips.

“We basically just got here, and you two are eating junk already?” asked Will as he gave them a scrutinizing look before going back to throw a sleeping bag into the tent.

The tent itself had three separate rooms and could sleep a maximum of eleven people. They had decided that one room would be for the girls and the three boys would share a room, and the third room would be used for general storage and changing.

Why Jack and Sydney, a family of two, who never even went camping in the first place, had an eleven-person tent, no one knew. But they did, so it came in extra handy for their five-person party.

Will exited the tent to find that Weiss had joined Sydney and Francie on his own chair, set up right between them.

Again, Will looked at them. “Dude, dude,” opened Weiss calmly, “I was totally just looking of for these ladies’ health.”

“Yeah, okay, Weiss,” said Vaughn as he brought in a deflated mattress into the tent.

“No! I was!” he protested. “You see, I was walking out of the tent after bringing in a verrrrrrrrry heavy item,” he said.

“Weiss, you brought in one pillow,” said Will.

“Yeah, but it’s full of feathers, William! A pound of feathers is still a pound, you know,” defended Weiss, to the chuckles of everyone else.

“Yeah, yeah. You were saving Syd and Fran?”

“I was! I came out and I saw they were eating this bag of chips. Now, William, I immediately noticed that this particular bag of chips was not purchased by me earlier today. So, I asked them what the expiration date was.”

“And we didn’t know,” said Sydney, a mouth full of crunchy fried potatoes.

“Nope,” added Francie, her mouth with only slightly fewer chips.

Somehow in the middle of this anecdote, Will and Vaughn had gotten their own chairs and sat down across the fire pit, as to better listen to the rest of the story. “So how is this saving their health?” Vaughn asked.

“Well, Michael, I was just about to tell you. I volunteered –no! I risked my life to become the official taste tester.”

After laughing, Vaughn asked, “And what’s the verdict?”

After chewing a bit more to finish off the current quantity of chips in his mouth, Weiss answered, “I’m not sure. I’m new at this job.”

“Eric, I think you’re doing a good job,” said Francie.

“I concur,” nodded Sydney.

Vaughn and Will looked at each other.

“Oh, hell no,” said Vaughn, tossing a sleeping bag at Weiss. “You three,” he said pointing at Weiss, Sydney, and Francie, “are putting the rest of this stuff in the tent. Will and I can get it out of the car, but you’re putting it away.”

Sydney gave him a “yeah, right” look. “This is significant other abuse.”

“Tough,” he said as he snatched the chip bag away from her. “Mr. Tippin, care for a chip?”

Seeing there was no way out, the three lazy people did eventually get up and organized the tent.

Around six o’clock they were sitting around again. They were making hot dogs on a mini grill that Vaughn had brought.

“Hey, where’s Vaughn?” Sydney asked as she held an extra plate in her hands. She looked around their campsite but simply did not see him.

“Oh, he said he forgot to get some pass thing or something that has to be in the front window of his car when we came in. So instead of having the park ranger maybe go all anal on us later, he said he’ll just go get it now,” informed Will.

“Oh,” Sydney said simply as she sat down in a chair. “I don’t remember him leaving,” she added as she put the extra hot dog down on a log.

“I’ll take that off your hands, Syddie,” said Weiss as he swiped it away.

“When’s he gonna be back?” she asked Will.

“Uh… he left like… twenty minutes ago. So, probably in about twenty minutes or less, depending on how long it takes him down there.”

“Oh… okay,” she said.

“Don’t worry about it; he’ll be back soon enough. Probably before you even finish all your food,” Will smiled.

She smiled too, showing it was not a big deal even though it perplexed her. “Yeah, yeah, I know,” she said. “I just think it’s a little weird he didn’t say it louder or something. I don’t even remember hearing the car start up.”

“Oh, I heard it,” Francie said in between bites.

“Really, when?”

“When we decided we probably brought too much stuff for two nights and had to lie down for five minutes,” Francie informed.

Sydney pondered a moment. “OHH!” she exclaimed. “I heard it then. I just thought it was probably Weiss’ stomach growling or something.”

Everyone snickered.

“Normally,” Weiss said with some bun still left in his mouth, “I’d be upset with a comment like that, but I must admit the rumbly in my tumbly was extra loud today.”


Vaughn got back just after seven and quickly ate something. There was still over an hour left of sunlight, so he invited Sydney to go on a short canoe trip with him. At first she hesitated, but he assured her that they would be back on land before sunset, so she agreed.

The lake water was serene and calm, just like the still night air. Every now and then a cricket’s chirp could be heard, but it did not distract from the general mood of the night.

Sydney and Vaughn put the paddles aside for a moment and let the current take them wherever it wished. The sun was slowing setting on the horizon, painting the sky different shades of blues, reds, oranges, pinks, and purples. By now they were fifteen minutes into their outing, which meant they were a significant distance away from their campsite. Returning to the campsite would take twenty minutes plus an additional fifteen or so to secure the canoe for the night and walk back to their exact tent location.

They were extremely limited on time.

“So… is it time to turn back yet?” Sydney asked, trying not to show that she was actually slightly concerned with the ever-darkening skyline.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I guess,” replied Vaughn. “Lemme just get a sip of water,” he said as he began to stand in order to walk over to Sydney’s end of the canoe, where a water bottle lay.

“Vaughn!” Sydney shouted hastily. “Sit down. Let me get it for you, or the boat will capsize.”

Ignoring her, Vaughn said, “Nah, don’t worry about it, I’ll just get it and—”. He was cut off by the boat turning over, landing the two of them in the fairly cold water.

Both of their heads poked back up at about the same time. Sydney was not happy.

“WHY did you do that?” she yelled, treading water to stay afloat. “I TOLD you we were going to tip over.”

“I’m sorry,” Vaughn said earnestly. “I really didn’t think that was going to happen.”

She was furious, and wet, which did not help the circumstance at all. “Help me flip the freaking thing over,” she commanded, nodding to the canoe. He did as she asked, and they both climbed back in, somehow successfully keeping the canoe right-side up.

They sat there, not moving, for a few more minutes in silence, Sydney fuming, Vaughn mute. “Well, what do we do?” she barked.

Vaughn’s lips were pressed together tightly, obviously due to the fact that he did not have any good news for his girlfriend.

“What?” she asked, more calmly, but still upset.

“By the time we get back it will be dark.”

“Great,” she sighed sarcastically. “That is fantastic, Vaughn. Fan-frackin-tastic.”

He started to crane his neck a little to closer observe his surroundings.

“Don’t you dare stand up again!” she warned.

“Sydney,” he said firmly. “Chill. I wasn’t going to. I was just looking around, because I think the entrance is around here somewhere.”

“How can the entrance be by a lake?” she asked in an obnoxious voice on purpose.

“Well I don’t mean exactly here, but like… a ten or fifteen minute walk from here.”

Her fury mellowed a little. “We could pull fifteen minutes before it gets really dark,” she said, understanding.

They agreed that trying to walk to the entrance, where there were park rangers who could give them a lift to their campsite, was their best bet.

After reaching the shore, Sydney asked, “What are we doing with the boat?”

“I guess we’ll just leave it here.”

“Is that safe?” Sydney inquired with a scrunched-up nose.

“I think so… I’ve seen people do it before.”

She shrugged. “Okay. Let’s start walking.”

And they did. They were walking for a good ten minutes, Sydney well ahead of Vaughn, mostly because she was too angry with him.

“Hold up, will you?” he requested.

She stopped and turned around briskly. “I’m sorry that I’m soaking wet because you tipped us over and am walking quickly in hopes of finding some people before I get eaten alive by mosquitoes.”

He sighed. “I get it, you’re mad at me.”

“You could say that,” she said as she began walking again, since he was only a few steps behind her at this point.

“I told you I was sorry,” he said, projecting his voice towards her as they continued their trek in the darkening woods.

“Yeah. And I told you not to stand,” she retorted.

Just then they heard the crackling of twigs that were stepped on, along with assorted ruffling.

“What was that?” Sydney asked as she rushed towards Vaughn’s side. It wasn’t that she was not a “nature girl.” She didn’t mind being in the “wilderness” of a campsite. However, that did not mean that wild creatures that roam around freely in wilderness sites, such as the one they were in, did not scare the living bejesus out of her.

Vaughn shrugged. “It was probably just a rabbit or something.”

She heard it again and immediately reached for his hand and tried to hide behind him. “Rabbit?” she asked again.

“Sounded like it,” Vaughn responded, greatly appreciating the diminished hostility toward him. He held her hand in turn.

Now, the sun was just barely visible in the horizon. It was still possible to see their surroundings fairly well, but in order to do so they needed to strain their eyes.

“We’ve been walking for like fifteen minutes,” Sydney stated for the record. “I don’t see anything.”

“I guess I estimated wrong, sorry.”

Surprisingly, the two of them were drying off fairly quickly in the decreasingly humid night.

Vaguely, Sydney could make out the silhouette of something ahead in the path, but she couldn’t quite see exactly what it was. A few more steps were taken by the both of them, and they neared the dark outline. Suddenly, Sydney let go of Vaughn’s hand and ran towards the object.

“It’s a tent!” she shouted back towards Vaughn excitedly.

He caught up to her as she was cupping her hands around her face, trying to see through the opaque tent canvas.

“Can you knock on a tent door?” she asked, seriously.

He chuckled. “I don’t think anyone’s in there.”

“Yeah, me neither…but like… we can’t just go in there,” she said as Vaughn unzipped the door open. “What are you doing?” she whispered in a hiss. “You can’t do that!” she said as she tugged him to her.

“Relax, will you? It’s my tent,” he said matter-of-factly.

She rolled her eyes. “Vaughn, just because you found a tent in the middle of the woods does not mean that it is your tent.”

He laughed. “I know. But this is my tent because I came out here and set it up earlier,” he said after he walked inside and turned on a lantern.
 
I'd be pissed to if I fell in the lake right before dark!
But grr why did you have to end it there!! Hmm I
wonder what he has planned!?? :D

AND yes..this site is being EXTEMELY and PAINFULLY slow!!!
Glad to know its not just me...
 
So Vaughn had the whole 'accident' planned. :rolleyes: If it wasn't such a good and original plan to get them alone, I would be pounding Vaughn just about now. Hope he has a sleeping bag in there and maybe told Weiss or Will what he was going to be doing so they don't worry when the two don't come back.

Chris
 
argh the site is so slow
I love cunning Vaughn such a great idea!
soo good!

I hope you update more
any chance you could send a pm purely coz i dont visit site often and really want to know the end to this amazing story?
 
Since Thanksgiving is coming up...and omg its the same day as Michael Vartan's birthday....
I think an update would be a perfect way to celebrate!! :D

PLEASE!!! at least consider it!! :rolleyes:
 
the sequel is really good so far! vaughn totally did plan it, and she's kinda oblivious. hahaha weiss is just hilarious. i swear, everything action he does is great. love it! update soon?

-erin
 
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