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ᴛᴏᴍᴍʏ sʜᴇᴘʜᴇʀᴅ ⋙ sᴘᴇᴇᴅ ([personal profile] mph) wrote in [community profile] calvinbox2021-04-22 10:13 pm

I wanna cut to the feeling

Who: Tommy Shepherd and David Alleyne
What: The first time they kiss, it's around midnight in a paris nightclub.
Rating: NC-17 possibly, or R. We shall see.

Sneaking into nightclubs and crowded bars is easy when you're a speedster. Tommy's been doing it since he was 14. It's a lot harder to do with a plus one. It's not impossible, they've done it plenty of times in the last few months of being close, but sometimes it's a Tuesday, in the middle of the day, and you've somehow managed to convince your very studious and very busy best friend to go out dancing, and that was not something to waste.

It's how Tommy ended up, after a brief interlude to change (and asking David to trust him with his most charming smile) bridal carrying David across the Atlantic to where it wasn't the middle of the day, and the Parisian party was just getting started.

Parisians are funny. They're flirty, they're handsy, they love an American accent and then love to shit talk you in French when they think you can't understand what they're saying. To be fair Tommy couldn't the first few times, but he's quick study, and it helped him determine who was worth hanging with and who wasn't. Another thing about Parisians is that they always assume you and whomever you're with are a couple, while also simultaneously continuing to flirt like that's no obstacle.

It's weird at first, when he's showing off by ordering them both drinks in heavily accented but pretty good French, when the bartender, and another patron both just assume David and him are together. It sets his stomach into knots, so he downs his double shot before he even hands David his drink. He doesn't need to drink to want to dance, so he pulls David onto the dance floor like he always does. He's fallen into a pattern, and he doesn't even realize it: drink, dance with some girls, encourage David to dance with anyone and not just by himself, more drinks, maybe dance with a guy too, more drinks, get progressively closer until it's just the two of them dancing, or hanging out by the bar to take a breather, just enjoying each other's company and talking.

It takes a lot to get Tommy drunk, and it doesn't last for long, but this time it's a pretty good buzz. He's three hours, five goldshlaggers and three tequilas in. He's a little sloppy. Sloppy enough to lean into David and really, really just dance with him, close together in the sardine can of a night club, without a care in the world except the base and the totally meaningless ear to mouth chatter between them. Sloppy enough to lean back against some guy who just crowded him and grind, all while talking up David right in front of him like David's the person this french rando wants to hook up with. He's having a great time.
helpdesk_hero: David Alleyne  / Prodigy - From Young Avengers (Default)

[personal profile] helpdesk_hero 2024-07-24 06:11 pm (UTC)(link)
The stranger moves away with his own shrug and David... well, he can work with that. At least work with it enough to try and keep the growling beast in his chest down. Clearly he'd had too much to drink and probably needed to stop for the night. Day. Whatever. Timezones are really beyond the limits of his brain right now. Probably. Maybe. Okay, not at all, but fuck it he wants to pretend they are. He's day drunk (buzzed) in a club in Paris with one of his closest friends, he's allowed to be like this.

At least with Tommy this close he doesn't have to shout nearly as much to be heard when he leans in to speak into the guy's ear. Especially since he knows that his voice can cut through some of the bass in the music going on.

"Four different dialects, including Quebecois which French people will deny is actually proper French. Languages were literally the first thing my powers pinged onto at school."

Past tense. He doesn't even need to work to keep them sharp because when he picked them up it was always with a native born speaker's fluency. Needless to say language classes were never put on his schedule at Xavier's. Other things he might need to retain away from people whose knowledge he was copying, but the theory had been that he'd have the languages he needed when he was around people who spoke them.

"And you seemed to be having fun taking the lead on talking. Didn't want to ruin that."
helpdesk_hero: David Alleyne  / Prodigy - From Young Avengers (Default)

[personal profile] helpdesk_hero 2024-07-24 10:22 pm (UTC)(link)
"Not Aurora, but Northstar was a teacher at Xavier's and a team leader for a time."

Before... No. No David doesn't want to go there. He just doesn't want to touch on the trauma of that night.

"He was caring, and the defacto head of the school's queer support group. A lot less out mutants at that point after all, and Jean-Paul never apologized for who he was. Though his taste in men is questionable. And then Jean-Paul was on Utopia with us. Pretty driven guy."

Yes, David does know of the man's former crushes. Yes, he judges Jean-Paul for them. But that was a while ago, and since then Jean-Paul met Kyle, and David thought it was adorable how hard Jean-Paul tried to impress him when his boyfriend visited.

"You have a nerdy thing about other speedsters?"