#Astral Anomoly ;; (Xavier)

[taraandtarot]

↪️[My place or your place this time?]

[Xavy-Baby 🩷🩷🩷] ➞ Ooooh you’re so baddd. 😍

[Xavy-Baby 🩷🩷🩷] ➞ Mmm, yours this time! I promised MC I would drop off that wine we’ve been obsessed with, and no time like the present!

[Xavy-Baby 🩷🩷🩷] ➞ I’ll wear that purple skirt you like. 🥰

[taraandtarot]

I would argue that Jeremiah has plenty of rizz, considering I don’t find myself rizzed all that easily…

You're stealing my rizz, huh?

If you had any, why would I take that which is so scarcely bestowed?

[taraandtarot]

Can I ask you something? I think you read her card the other day and she seemed... a bit off afterwards. Did I... what exactly was it?

Oh, yeah… I tried to tell her that it was fine, really. She pulled the Tower. Destructive change, a hard reset. It’s not necessarily bad, because towers rebuild, but the changes are usually stark and abrupt. Like turning a computer off and on again, or getting struck by lightning. And the change isn’t always a negative one!

Besides, she got it with the Two of Cups. So for all we know, it could just be a sudden change in relationship status (hint hint), or maybe someone new coming into her life! We’ll just have to see.

[taraandtarot]

The added sweating is great for your pores!!

☆Moments:

Would U eat soup in the summer? This may be about hot pot

[taraandtarot]

[To: Man of Mystery] ➝ “Was she looking for me” he asks!! O b v i o u s l y!

[To: Man of Mystery] ➝ And excuse me, my entire work revolves around my desk and figuring out where people are, thank you very much! 🙄🙄

[To: Man of Mystery] ➝ Don’t mention it, just come in so a certain Alpha team member can get some 💤s!!

Xavier!! Where the heck have you been?? Captain Jenna’s been practically ripping her hair out trying to get a hold of you!

I tried to do a reading about it but I kept getting the Chariot and Death reversed! How can you be not moving or changing for like a week straight??

Ah, anyway! MC says hi. She’s looking right over my shoulder while I type this. Something about ‘not wanting to bug you just in case’. So come by HQ sometime and let us exhale, silly!

- @taraandtarot

I was asleep.

↪[Was she looking for me?]

↪[U both can't b working very hard then]

↪[I have some reports to turn in, so I'll be there soon]

↪[Thx for the tip Tara]

[taraandtarot]

Oh, now that’s a pleasant surprise. Tara’s brows quirk up at his question. Frankly, she assumed Xavier wouldn’t give a damn what she thinks no matter the topic. Being asked so directly certainly feels like a welcome surprise. “I think she likes you, you dummy,” she replies, the bluntness of the thought softened, padded by her tone. “And I think she got so weird and nervous because she doesn’t want a new factor of romance in her life so much as she wants more of one she’s already got.”

Tara gives him a look, unsure how she could be laying on the hint any thicker. “And you know what’s really cool about knowing someone you care about is feeling funky? That you have the ability to talk to them about it. And, even better in your case, the person in question really, really wants to talk about it with you. She probably hasn’t because she’s worried you’ll get all freaky and shut down and go all —“ Tara drops her voice and hovers her arms out to her sides, like she is trying to make her chest and shoulders appear bigger. “— ‘I’m Xavier and I’m so mysterious. Nobody can crack my super-hardcore-Hunter exterior because I’m in a league all my own and I’m allergic to vulnerability that I don’t initiate’.” She can’t help but giggle a bit under her breath when she drops the act.

Still, she gives the grey-blond a pointed look. “Seriously, sometimes she’ll tell me stories about the little outings you go on and it’s like you’re a whole other person than whenever we talk. That’s not a complaint, that’s a good thing. Lean into all that like you clearly have for her, okay?” She even dares to reach forward and poke his chest. “Or else she’s going to start thinking that what she’s feeling isn’t what you are, and she’ll look for that reciprocity elsewhere.”

Can I ask you something? I think you read her card the other day and she seemed... a bit off afterwards. Did I... what exactly was it?

Oh, yeah… I tried to tell her that it was fine, really. She pulled the Tower. Destructive change, a hard reset. It’s not necessarily bad, because towers rebuild, but the changes are usually stark and abrupt. Like turning a computer off and on again, or getting struck by lightning. And the change isn’t always a negative one!

Besides, she got it with the Two of Cups. So for all we know, it could just be a sudden change in relationship status (hint hint), or maybe someone new coming into her life! We’ll just have to see.

[taraandtarot]

Every time they’ve done this — every single damned time — he manages to knock the air out of her lungs. It’s like his kiss is the butt of his light blade, hitting her square in the sternum. But, oh, does he make up for it. Xavier touches Tara like she is an oasis in his psyche’s desert.

She doesn’t respond to his first two quips, only gasps when her back is slammed against the wood of his front door. Was else could she do? His statement-question makes her heart backflip. He needs her? Needs? That word alone has her moaning into his mouth. He tastes like coffee and desperation, his hands echoing the latter under her clothes. She feels the gusset of her panties stick, only for a millisecond, when he pulls. Gods, he gets to the core of her desire so fast. Her hands tug at his hair, her thigh hitching up to find his hip but then —

Then he’s pulled away. Asking about her best friend again. It takes a moment for Tara to screw her head back on enough to register the question. Does she know Tara’s here?

Part of her wants to ask why that matters. The dark part of her brain twists and makes her stomach lurch with insecurity. But then it dawns on her: she should hear this. She should hear this. Because, surely, Xavier must know. He must know the sheer amount of times Tara has been present for a flirtation between her best friend and her man of the hour. Hell, he’s been that man on the other end of the line, more than once. He must be privy to every time she’s become an unintentional voyeur to a love story that was never hers, every time she’s become someone that needed to find an excuse to leave so that the lovebirds could have their moment.

But now Xavier was stealing her away from that existence. Here he was, standing before her with her lipstick smudged in his mouth, asking her the real question:

May I let the spotlight shine on you?

Tara exhales through trembling lips. Technically speaking, MC knew Tara had a date. She knew that she and Xavier were becoming closer friends. That’s what she called it when she asked Tara about it: “are you two friends?” Surely a member of the UNICORNS Alpha Team was smart enough to put two and two together.

And so Tara pushed herself up off of the wall, her gaze shifting from one of astonishment to one of simmering mischief. “If she doesn’t,” she reached for Xavier, pulling him to her by the nape of the neck so her lips ghosted his pulse. “She’s about to.”

Tara bit down against the thrum of that pulse, kissing where the bruise might land tomorrow in sharpness’ wake. Xavier wanted to put on a show? Good. It was time for Tara to be a star.

���️[My place or your place this time?]

[Xavy-Baby 🩷🩷🩷] ➞ Ooooh you’re so baddd. 😍

[Xavy-Baby 🩷🩷🩷] ➞ Mmm, yours this time! I promised MC I would drop off that wine we’ve been obsessed with, and no time like the present!

[Xavy-Baby 🩷🩷🩷] ➞ I’ll wear that purple skirt you like. 🥰

[taraandtarot]

[Xavy-Baby 🩷🩷🩷] ➞ Of course I did~! One for the bestie, one for the Xavy. 🥰

[Xavy-Baby 🩷🩷🩷] ➞ On my way!! Don’t you dare start without me!!!

Surreal. That was a good way to describe how this all felt. Tara had become accustomed to playing the wing-woman, accruing juicy details and relaying advice in a way not dissimilar to her job. So it came as a surprise, quite frankly, when she was thrust from endearing sidekick to romantic lead. She could practically hear the bubblegum soundtrack as she sat, tote full of wine bottles clutched to her chest, grinning out the bus window.

And of all people, it had been Xavier who had come to her. The absolute enigma of a coworker, one of the four (!!) men that had entered her best friend’s romantic orbit, had veered off course and had rocketed into her atmosphere. A tugging by the wrist into an empty office, few words, a heated encounter… Tara gulped, shook her head to clear the memory as the bus slowed to her stop.

She wasn’t a stupid girl; she knew what that first triste had been. She had practically tasted the ire on Xavier’s tongue, felt the grudge in the way his hands pushed fabric and gripped to skin. But was it so wrong of Tara to let him? To have kissed him back, to fall into it? To feel wanted even if the motives may have not been pure? And, hell, he had come back. Again and again. Had started talking to her in earnest, had given her his number… Surely that wasn’t nothing, right?

Dropping off that first bottle of wine went smoothly enough. Her bestie had a date in an hour — Tara felt a little bad that she couldn’t remember which of the other three boys she had finally decided to become exclusive with — and so it was a simple “hello, oh my gosh thank you, I’ll talk to you later!” before she was alone again in the hallway. Usually, that would leave her bummed. But today? Oh, no, today she was borderline relieved. She practically sprinted up the stairs to the floor above.

And then knock knock knock. Tara stood bouncing on the balls of her feet, purple skirt clinging cheekily halfway up her thigh, her blouse loose on the top two buttons, and her heart absolutely fluttering.

↪️[My place or your place this time?]

[Xavy-Baby 🩷🩷🩷] ➞ Ooooh you’re so baddd. 😍

[Xavy-Baby 🩷🩷🩷] ➞ Mmm, yours this time! I promised MC I would drop off that wine we’ve been obsessed with, and no time like the present!

[Xavy-Baby 🩷🩷🩷] ➞ I’ll wear that purple skirt you like. 🥰

[taraandtarot]

Tara blinked. Once. Twice. And then she burst into a bit of giggles. Oh, gods, he was being adorable like this. It was a far cry from the mysterious, downright stoic attitude she was used to Xavier sporting.

“That’s a bit too literal of an interpretation, I think. It’s more like… You know when you take someone out to eat, on a date, and you each get a drink and toast each other? It’s like that. An agreement, a union. If the Lovers card is meeting someone and starting a companionship, the Two of Cups is like … making it official. Going steady, moving in together. Heck, sometimes it means eloping if the two people in question are crazy enough about each other!”

The bubbly brunette shrugged, grinning in her fae-like way. “Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s nothing you have to worry about.”

Can I ask you something? I think you read her card the other day and she seemed... a bit off afterwards. Did I... what exactly was it?

Oh, yeah… I tried to tell her that it was fine, really. She pulled the Tower. Destructive change, a hard reset. It’s not necessarily bad, because towers rebuild, but the changes are usually stark and abrupt. Like turning a computer off and on again, or getting struck by lightning. And the change isn’t always a negative one!

Besides, she got it with the Two of Cups. So for all we know, it could just be a sudden change in relationship status (hint hint), or maybe someone new coming into her life! We’ll just have to see.