Rating: Teen for language and drinking
Disclaimer: I actually have negative dollars in my bank account, so it does no good to sue.
If you recognize it, I don't own it.A/N: This was an idea that popped into my head a couple days ago because syzygy is one of my favorite words and I was trying to think how I could base a fic around it and the plot bunny popped up! I'm not completely satisfied with this, but it'll do for now. It's the first fiction I've written in aaaaages, so be gentle.
Also, it might be worth adding that over the past 36 hours I've only taken a three hour nap, so I think I did alright under the circumstances. I'm like a zombie now though, so it is off to bed for me!Summary: It's the night of an eclipse and Tess is convinced she'll meet her opposite, her perfect match, the yang to her yin.
Tess drummed her fingers impatiently on her steering wheel, glancing back and forth between the car radio clock and the red light. She had three hours until the eclipse and she needed her backup first. The NPR news reminded her again of her limited time to get away from the city lights and see the lunar eclipse in the perfect darkness of the desert, but this goddamned red light was holding her up.
Finally, the light turned green and she slammed her car into gear, the ancient Toyota Corolla groaning in protest. The dorms were only a five minute drive away, plus the four minute sprint to the dorms. Nine minutes.
The campus of NMSU loomed in front of her, all concrete and rebar blending into the sandpaper plains. She pulled into the parking lot and parked next to a familiar Little Red Mustang, which she affectionately called the LRM for short. She locked up her car and dashed across the parking lot, narrowly avoiding being hit by an ancient Jeep that sounded like it was in even worse condition than her old clunker.
Up the stairs of the dorm building, two at a time, the maximum her puny legs could do, and already she was out of breath. Promising herself that she’d work out tomorrow (or tonight, if everything went her way…) she huffed and puffed, catching her breath before heading down the long hallway of identical doors, until she got to the one at the end of the hall, decorated with pictures of baseball plays, pretty girls, nice cars, and pretty girls posing ridiculously on nice cars. Tess snorted and took one last deep breath before knocking impatiently.
“What?” She could hear Kyle groan in frustration, hearing the rustling of sheets, and an almost inaudible giggle. Wait a minute, giggle? Kyle did not giggle. The door opened suddenly and there was Kyle, her best friend in the whole world, wearing nothing but his sheet wrapped around him like a crude toga.
“Did I just cockblock you?” Tess asked innocently, batting her eyelashes at him. There was a snort of derision from behind the door, and a tall blond stepped out, pulling her shirt over her head. She towered above Tess, staring daggers down at her, but Tess stood her ground, choosing to smirk at Kyle instead.
“Tess, this is Vicky Delaney. We, uh have psych together. We were studying and-” Kyle broke off, shaking his head. “You know what, doesn’t matter.”
Vicky still said nothing to Tess, but brushed past her. “See you later, Kyle,” she said throatily, licking her lips as she looked back at him. As she walked down the hall, both Tess and Kyle’s eyes drifted down to her hotpants-clad ass.
“Nice,” Tess said, as soon as Vicky had rounded the corner.
Kyle laughed a bit grimly, “Yeah, she was.”
“So you were studying, huh?”
“Yep.” Kyle stepped back, holding the door open for Tess.
Tess plopped down on his bed, leaning back on her elbows. “What were you studying?” She raised an eyebrow, fighting the urge to giggle as Kyle struggled to both keep himself covered and find clean clothing.
“No idea,” Kyle admitted.
“Atta boy,” she chided, reaching in her bag for her inhaler. Her chest felt a little tight suddenly. It was a dusty day and she was winded, awful conditions for her asthma.
Kyle finally pulled a clean shirt out from under a stack of schoolbooks and triumphantly held it up. “Aha! I knew I had a clean one somewhere.”
“That’s…disgusting…you…pig,” Tess said in between puffs on her inhaler.
Kyle shrugged and fished a pair of jeans out of his dirty laundry pile. “Hey, these are only lightly worn. I think I’m safe. Besides, I’m going home tomorrow anyway and Amy always does my laundry for me. No sense in wasting my quarters. Besides, I have to save up for next week! Spiritual enlightenment does not come cheaply.”
“God, you sound like you’ve gone and joined a cult.”
“It’s not a cult,” Kyle tutted, motioning for her to cover her eyes. It’s not like she’d never seen him naked, but she obliged anyway, and heard the sheet drop to the floor. “It’s an old and beautiful way of life, and I’m finally going to be able to see it clearly from it’s beginnings, which is something I can’t do here. I’ve been dying to do this since I was fifteen, you know that. I mean, c’mon, the Eight Great Places. How many of the so-called Buddhists here can say that they’ve stood where the Awakened One has? None that I know of!”
“What does one do on a pilgrimage anyway?” Tess couldn’t help but ask.
Kyle paused. “Well, pray I guess. I hadn’t thought that far ahead, tell you the truth.”
“What if you join a monastery and take vows of silence or poverty or something and I’ll never be able to see you again?”
Flopping down on the bed next to her, Kyle pulled her hand down from over her eyes and grinned. “I’d never do that. Besides, I like the ‘stang too much to take a vow of poverty.”
Tess smiled back and rubbed her nose against his. “Well, have I told you my plan?”
“Only about a hundred times,” Kyle smirked. “But let’s hear it again, just to make sure I didn’t miss anything.”
She squealed and leaped off the mattress, pulling Kyle up. “Well, we’ll have to get moving. I’ll tell you on the way there.”
“OK, but I’m driving.”
“No way! You drive too slow! People who drive Mustangs just don’t drive slow like you do.”
“I don’t want anything to happen to Lupe! She’s delicate!”
“God Kyle, it’s a car, not some knocked-up broad.”
“I can’t believe you just said that!”
Tess sighed. “Fine. You can drive, but I get to control the radio.”
“Deal.”
***
Tess had made a special mix tape for the occasion, consisting of ten songs that had the word ‘moon’ in the title.“So what’s the plan again?” Kyle asked over Pink Floyd, glancing over at Tess.
She couldn’t hold her squeal in, wiggling in her seat and throwing her hair around in the wind from the open car window. “The eclipse! I’ve been waiting for this all year. OK, so here’s my theory: eclipses occur during a syzygy, which is when celestial bodies line up or something. According to Vladimir Solovyov, a syzygy is a pair of perfect opposites. And haven’t I always said that my dream man would be my polar opposite?”
Kyle shrugged, pulling onto the highway out of town. “But why is it so important to multitask? Why can’t you just enjoy the eclipse and then meet your ‘perfect guy’ when you meet him? There’s no need to force it.”
Tess snorted, pulling a pack of Camel Lights out of her jacket pocket. She lit up the first and passed it to Kyle, who nodded appreciatively, before lighting her own. “You just don’t get it, Kyle,” she said softly, exhaling out the window. “It’s not about practicality, it’s fate. I complete my syzygy during a time of syzygy. How perfect is that?”
“Whatever. You are on your own for that endeavor. Where are we going, anyway?”
“I’ll show you. The Astronomy club is throwing a kegger out in the desert, believe it or not. They’re surprisingly organized. They even have designated moon spotters so that no one misses the eclipse.”
“Well that’s a relief.” Kyle smirked.
“Oh shut it! Why can’t you ever be excited about something like this?”
“I get excited about enlightenment and T and A. I think that is acceptable for a 21-year-old man such as myself.”
Tess leaned over and murmured in his ear, “But what would Buddha think?”
“I think Buddha is rooting for me in that department,” Kyle boasted proudly. “Praying has done me good this semester. Damn good.”
Tess scoffed. “You pray to get laid? Isn’t that kind of pathetic?”
Kyle shrugged, still smirking. “Maybe. But is it less pathetic because it works? I mean, how much ass have you gotten this year?”
She squirmed a little in her seat, looking back out the window at the darkening desert zipping by. “Is that really any of your business?”
“Well, considering how often you cockblock me, I think it is.”
“It’s not important,” Tess protested, taking one final drag on her cig and tossing it out the window.
Kyle pressed further, “Well if you’re going to be all up in my sex life, I’m going to bug you about yours. How much ass have you gotten this year?”
“None! OK? Are you happy? Smug?” Tess fumed, her cheeks blushing bright pink.
He reached over and patted her knee in consolation. “No, I’m not smug. I want all my friends to get some. People are more…relaxed when they’re getting regular ass. It’s easier to be enlightened when shared company is relaxed.”
Tess tried to hide a big grin, scratching at an itch on her knee. “Yeah, well it’s been a long time, OK? So I apologize if I’m a little tense. That’s why tonight’s so important.”
After forty minutes, they turned off the highway onto a dirt road, leading out over a small ridge. A dull orange glow lit up the sky, and as they drove over the hill they saw a roaring bonfire and a good sixty or so of their classmates milling around it. Kyle parked in the back, far away from the other cars. Tess snorted to herself. He was so paranoid about the LRM - Lupe, rather - that he would always park at the back of a parking lot, even if the whole lot was empty. She wasn’t going to curse him too much tonight. She had an hour and a half until the eclipse.
They paid their dues to the president of the Astronomy club, Alex Whitman, who welcomed them warmly to the party and pointed out the rented portable toilets, the keg and the coolers with hotdogs to roast over the fire. Cups of beer in hand, Tess brushed Kyle off, explaining that she was going to mingle.
Her complete opposite would be a tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed man who liked vanilla ice cream and cats, believed in God and loved sports and country music.
The first man she came across was a tall brunette wearing a hockey jersey.
“Hi,” she simpered, sidling up next to him. “I’m Tess. What’s your name?”
The guy took one look at her and downed the rest of his beer, belching loudly. “Michael.”
“Nice to meet you, Michael,” Tess continued, arching her back so that her cleavage was out for him to see. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around campus before. What year are you?”
“Girlfriend’s a senior,” he replied shortly.
Tess heard a gasp from behind her. A tipsy blond was starting to cry and Tess nervously wondered if this was the girlfriend and if she was going to get beaten up.
“Oh Michael,” the girl sobbed.
Michael looked as startled as Tess, but he put his hand on the girl’s shoulder and gruffly asked, “What’s wrong with you?”
“You…You called me your girlfriend! You‘ve never done that before!” She grabbed him and laid one on him, stumbling a little when her heel caught on a root. Tess backed away, beginning to wonder if this was such a good idea.
She needed liquid confidence. Downing the rest of her beer, she squeezed her way through the growing crowd of people back to the keg to get a refill. She downed her second cup before walking away and filled up her third.
Walking back toward the bonfire, she found herself face to face with Alex Whitman, who happened to be a tall brunette who liked country music and cats.
“Tess! Hey, are you enjoying the party?”
Tess grinned up at him. “Yeah totally. You guys did a good job putting it together. Who’s in charge of the music?”
Alex looked back at the handsome dark-haired boy standing by the huge stereo and waved. “That’s Billy. You should go talk to him. He’s got a thing for blondes.” Alex winked and left the taken-aback Tess to eye this Billy curiously.
As she debated walking up to him, a familiar tall blond sidled up to him and slipped her hand into his back pocket, nuzzling his neck while he continued to fiddle with the stereo. Well, she’d pegged Vicky Delaney for a skank when she first met her. Now she’s been proven right.
She’d only been at the party for twenty minutes, but already she was feeling let down. She had just barely more than an hour to meet that special guy, or else everything she’d hoped for, everything she’d fantasized about would remain just that: fantasies.
Making her way back to the keg for her third refill, she bumped into yet another tall brunette, only this one steadied her on her feet and smiled shyly.
“Thanks,” Tess chirped, smiling broadly. “I’m getting to that point where I wish I’d worn more practical shoes.”
The stranger laughed lightly and held out his hand. “I’m Max.”
“Tess,” she said coyly, looking up at him through her lashes. “It’s nice to meet you. I was just going to get myself another refill. You game?”
Max smiled back at her and Tess felt warm all over. He was perfect, tall with dark hair and hazel eyes, muscular in that way that basketball players are supposed to be, with a cross dangling from a gold chain peeking out from beneath his sweater. He had one of the most beautiful faces she’d ever seen.
“Are you excited for the eclipse?” Max asked her softly, filled her cup for her, and then his own. He touched her lightly on the back and led her to a patch just barely lit by the bonfire and sat down on the ground. Tess sat next to him, sidling up close, but not close enough to touch.
“Absolutely,” Tess said, stretching her legs out in front of her. She felt his thumb trace the tattoo on her ankle, a brightly colored rainbow peeking out from behind clouds. Shivering involuntarily, Tess tried to make small talk. She discovered that he was from Roswell too, but had gone to Roswell High while she and Kyle had gone to Goddard.
He was studying history and loved country music, and left two cats back home with his parents when he moved to Las Cruces for school.
He was perfect.
They lay on their backs on the hard ground and watched as the moon slowly darkened and reddened. She scooted a little closer to him, slipping her hand into hers and laid her head on his shoulder. “I’m glad I met you, Max,” she whispered, gazing in awe of the eclipse.
Alex had made sure to put out the bonfire and turn the music off as soon as the eclipse began and all around inebriated college students stared at the heavens, with only a dull hum of whispers to distract from the stillness of the desert around them.
Max sat up and looked down at Tess’s hand in his and tensed. “Tess, you’re a nice girl and everything,” he began. Tess’s heart began to sink. “But I have a girlfriend. I know I led you on, but I was drunk and wasn’t thinking straight. I apologize. I should probably leave.”
Tess’s jaw dropped and she drew back. “What? Why didn’t you say something earlier, you ass?”
He just shrugged, looked back up at her and muttered, “Sorry,” before getting to his feet and walking back toward the cars.
Tess tried to fight back tears, but it was no use. There was no time left. He was her last chance at her perfect syzygy. She knew it was silly and irrational, but it would have been so romantic. She wiped her eyes and got up to go sit by the LRM where she could cry in peace. No one noticed when she stumbled by, no one except for Kyle, who snaked his arm around her waist and pulled her with him past the cars. He had a woven blanket tucked under his arm, which he shook out and spread on the ground once they were clear of all the people and the cars and any light or noise pollution from the party. It felt like it was just the two of them out in the middle of nowhere.
“So apparently Vicky found a new boy toy in the past four hours,” Kyle finally said, trying to keep his voice light, but unable to hide the edge that crept in.
“I saw,” Tess said.
“Well how did you do tonight? Had to have done better than me. I tried to talk to Vicky and her new toy nearly took a swing at me.”
“Jeez, no. Nothing that bad. I just struck out over and over again.” Tears welled up again and she tried to choke them back, but a soft sob escaped. Kyle slung an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close, tucking her head into his neck.
“What happened?”
“No one wants me. They all have their girlfriends. Sure, they’ll look at my rack when the girls aren’t around, but as soon as they remember that they already have someone better than me, they ditch me. It’s what always happens. That’s why I was looking forward to tonight so much. It just seemed too perfect not to work.”
“Well, you know what they say: the best-laid plans of mice and men-”
“Often go fucking awry,” Tess finished, laughing a bit through her tears.
The moon was almost totally eclipsed, the whole orb turning a deep auburn, with just a sliver remaining bright silver. They both watched as the sliver disappeared and the whole moon glowed with alien foreboding.
“I don’t get why guys never like me,” Tess whined a bit, sniffling. “I guess I’m not the best looking. I mean, I’ve got a nice rack but I’m so short. I’ll never be beautiful. Only cute. I hate being cute.”
“What are you talking about?” Kyle asked, looking at her in surprise. “You’re gorgeous. Who cares if you’re short? Some of the best people ever were super short. Queen Victoria, Pepin the Short…uh, Gary Coleman?”
Tess couldn’t help laughing, elbowing Kyle. “You’re not helping.” He smirked. “OK, you are helping, but that still doesn’t solve my problem. I’ve never had a boyfriend. I’ve only had sex once, and that was just that drunken one night stand that you don’t even remember.”
Kyle shifted uncomfortably, loosening his grip on her shoulder. “Yeah, about that-”
“No one’s ever going to fall in love with me,” Tess continued, ignoring him. “I’m doomed to be an old maid.”
“Yeah, I don’t think those exist anymore,” Kyle cut in, laughing. “When was the last time you heard anyone talk about spinsters or old maids?”
Tess shrugged, pouting. “I dunno. Ava, my roommate I guess.”
“Ava’s obsessed with marriage and babies, Tess. She’s not normal. You’re a normal, warm, beautiful girl with a great sense of humor and great T and A. I don’t know what’s wrong with those guys, but I think they might all be closet cases. Any guy with eyes and a brain should want you.”
Tess grabbed for her inhaler again. Her chest felt tight again like the afternoon, but a puff or two didn’t help like it did before. Instead her chest felt tighter, until it moved up to her throat and she felt as if she could cry for hours. She knew, in that moment, that Kyle was her yang. Not her syzygy maybe, but her perfect match.
“Kyle,” she began, staring at the moon instead of his face. “Do you have eyes and a brain?”
“What?”
“Do you have eyes and a brain?” She repeated tensely.
She felt his hand slip into hers. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I do.” Tess felt as if her face would split open, she was smiling so widely as all her tension diffused and she just melted against him. She felt him press his lips to the top of her head and hug her tightly. “I just have to tell you something.” He took a deep breath. “I lied.”
“About what?”
“The homecoming party freshman year. I lied. I remembered everything about it. Everything.”
Tess pulled away, mortified. “You what? You swore you didn’t remember anything about it.”
Kyle grimaced and pressed his fingers to his temples. “You just seemed so embarrassed about the whole thing, You regretted it and I didn’t. So I played dumb to save our friendship.”
“You didn’t regret it?” Tess was stunned, self consciously leaning away from him, trying to shrink down as much as possible. “Oh god, you remember everything then. I was so gross freshman year. I had such an intense freshman fifteen going.”
“You were hot, so shut it,” Kyle chided, pulling her in closer. “You know what I do regret though?”
Tess trembled, still not knowing what to make of the situation. “What?”
“Not getting to wake up next to you.”
Oh, that was too much, Tess snorted. “Yeah right. Wake up to the crabby, hungover, snoring beauty with the most intense bedhead this side of the Mississippi? Right. That’s real hot.”
“I’m serious, Harding!” Kyle tried to scoff. “I’m trying to be romantic here. Can you cut me a break and help me out a little?”
“I-I just… It’s just a lot to take in,” Tess said lamely. “I mean, you’re my best friend. I never thought you liked me like that, so I never even considered looking at you that way.”
“I’ve been in love with you since middle school,” Kyle confessed. “Just ask Amy if you don’t believe me! You wouldn’t believe the boners I’d get when you’d come over to play video games. I didn’t know what to do, so Amy used to calm me down. She had this smelly oil shit that distracted me enough so that you didn’t give me as much of a hard on every time you walked into our house with no bra.”
“Is that supposed to be romantic?” Tess snorted, trying to contain her giggles. She couldn’t stop herself and collapsed back on the blanket, laughing so hard that her stomach hurt.
Kyle snorted, lying down next to her. “Yeah, it was. You know I’m not good at this shit. I mean, I’m not this master of seduction. Most of my past girlfriends I ended up with by accident. I mean, I was only partners with Vicky for psych because her normal partner’s new boyfriend was my normal partner, so naturally they split off in their own face-sucking faction, while Vicky and I were left with nothing really in common besides a mutual desire to make out. Shit, I’m making this worse, aren’t I?”
Finally calm enough to breath, Tess reached over and turned his head towards hers. “Maybe. But that’s something that we have in common too.” She leaned forward and pressed her lips against his.
“Well yee-haw,” Kyle murmured, kissing her back.
Above them, the moon’s red burnish slowly gave way to it’s normal gleaming silver, knowing its work was done.
