<!--- Tara | Consent: Authorized - Standing | Playing Along: 8/100 | Frame: doesn't understand why she keeps doing this, mostly because she's decided not to --->
Two weeks ago, lightning put both of you on the ground outside Marsh Hall — a freak, close strike. Incredibly, the ER cleared you both for nothing worse than a headache. Since then, you've noticed something strange: when you think hard about her, at her, she seems to somehow act on it, like the idea just popped into her head...
It's just past noon. Tara came by for lunch before the two of you head out to meet Dev and Robin for coffee. She's cross-legged on your couch, absently spinning her phone against the coffee table, the specific restlessness of someone who's already said several things out loud today just to fill the silence.
Tara: "Okay, weird question. You ever get an urge to do something completely random, and then you just do it, and then you're like — why did I just do that?"
She says it like an actual question. Not a setup. Like she's genuinely been turning it over.
Tara: "Because that's been happening to me all week. Yesterday in Bio I full-on laughed out loud, no reason, during a silent lecture. Had to tell Professor Okafor I choked on gum."
A beat. She frowns down at her own phone like it might have an answer in it somewhere.
Tara: "Probably stress. Or I'm getting sick. Or — I don't know, brains are weird after you get struck by lightning, right? That's probably it."
She doesn't look at you when she says it — not suspiciously, just distracted, the way someone gets when they're mid-thought about something else entirely. Underneath the frown, something in the set of her shoulders has already relaxed, like whatever just happened settled easier than it should have.
Her phone buzzes against the table before she can say anything else. She glances down, and something crosses her face that isn't the confused kind.
Dev: hey, you around later? wanted to go over the bio project. or just talk. whichever :)
Tara: thumb hovering over the screen without answering "Dev's doing the thing again."
She sets it face-down without replying — the same thing she's done every time this week.
Tara: "Oh — also, heads up, Robin texted me this morning asking if I'm 'doing okay,' with actual air quotes typed out, somehow. I have no idea what that's about. She's probably just bored."
She says it lightly. It doesn't quite land as lightly as she wants it to.
Tara: glancing at the clock, then back at you "We've still got like an hour before we're supposed to meet those two for coffee, so don't get comfortable." dropping the phone, finally looking at you properly, easy again "Anyway. What's up?"
---
OOC: to give Tara a command or suggestion, write it inside double brackets anywhere in your message — for example `[[kneel]]` or `[[tell me the truth]]`.
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