Fic for Smallearth Christmas Advent Calendar!!!
Title: A Christmas Tale
Pairings / Characters: Clex // Clark Kent, Lex Luthor, Martha Kent
Rating: PG, if only for the slash
Words: 1,746
Warning: slash, angst, bad writing
Summary: It's like something out a story book, with lovers cast to far afield, giving confession to the stars who know all their troubles and only wish for them to be shared with those mortals to who the confessors are bound. There should be a moral, but no one's ever sure to the end and the only one's who will know will have suffered for the foolishness of the main characters. And yet, we shall still read on. It is imperative that we reach the end. Or else we won't understand the story, at all.
Prompt pic:
A/N: I totally took this differently than may be expected, but I thought that the picture looked like it came from a Christmas Storybook, like my mom has. And so the fic is based not around a tree, but a book of stories. So sorry for my FAILURE.
-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-
It’s something out of a story book. And those are something Lex has never read except for the one. His mother, for all her love and devotion only read him novels once she realized how smart he was except at Christmas, not because she didn’t want to read him storybooks - because she did, but because he in his childish naivete said that he didn’t need to be read “baby books”. He actually mostly read to her by that time. And by the time his baby brother came and went along with his mother’s sanity and his mother, when Lex needed those stories the most, his father came to him, not with tales with happy endings, but stories of battles and wars where the only victor was the one who gained the spoils and the happy ending was for the dead.
Yet, it seems that for all Clark’s intelligence and his speed-reading ability, which had cropped up early, he loved being read stories. Perhaps it was because he likes sharing the stories, or because his parent’s brought the stories alive with their reading antics or perhaps it was the reason Clark kept in his secret heart of hearts. The secret place that still wondered if and when the Kent’s would be taken from him like his biological parents were, because no matter what people think about him being modest to the point of self-deprecation, he will never let himself think about himself taken away. He’d fight to get back unless they didn’t want him (and that’s one thought that hurt too deeply to say).
And no one would ever think to call Lex Luthor, lost. A scrooge, perhaps, but never lost. However, he was - undeniably, unequivocally, unmistakably lost. And he knew it, and it was that moment, on Christmas Eve when he had a bout of self realization, bordering on epiphany and realized that he was utterly fucked. And he was thus, simply because the only person he trusted to care for him, tell him the truth and be there for him - all without ulterior motives - wasn’t speaking to him and most likely never would again. The lead up to said epiphany occurred two weeks previous when he realized that he was being well and truly avoided. And woe unto thee who should utter this truth into the air, but he was hurt. And that was unacceptable. So he drank and called and drank and wrote and got horrendously drunk and drove off to see the very person who was avoiding him and was left with nothing but heartache. Lex Luthor was not a person with whom one would associate the word lost, but he was lost without Clark Kent and that was fact.
Lex Luthor may have been fucked, but Clark Kent was, at a similar moment in time three weeks previous, completely and irrevocably sure of himself. And that led him to his present bout of teenage alien angst. Because, really, what do you do when you realize that you’re in love with your best friend, who you’ve lied to, countless times, whose very name sends your father into fits and who is precisely 5 years, 3 months and 22 days older than your sixteen years. You bemoan your very existence and stop taking said best friend’s calls, emails and visits, that’s what. You pretend that said friend never existed if only to keep your hard-won sanity. You cry yourself to sleep only to wake up doing the same from nightmares or doing something similar from much more enjoyable dreams. You crave for something you think you’ll never have, but who doesn’t do that on a regular basis anyway?
All these epiphanies and avoidance tactics had led to both children - for we are always our mother’s children, aren’t we - to their late night, Christmas Eve reveries: Lex, facing the fire with drink in hand, and Clark staring out the window at the snow falling. It also led to many headaches for the only two women involved in both of their lives - namely Martha and Chloe.
Both of the lovely ladies had long noticed the not so secret unresolved sexual tension between both boys and could not, for the life of them, figure out what to do about it, simply because both of the dear, sweet, handsome boys could be terribly oblivious and stubborn as mules. And this made them very frustrated.
Martha tried to talk to Clark on many an occasion, but couldn’t get through to him. She eventually told him that she knew that he was in love with Lex and it wouldn’t be news to anyone, but Lex and possibly his father. This did not go down as well as she’d planned, so she then turned to another point of attack, namely Lex.
Unfortunately, Lex proved to be more, if not as stubborn as her son. He was much more eloquent about it, though. He simply told her that he was fine and to have a wonderful holiday. However, she was able to steamroll him and get him to at least agree to try and come to dinner on Christmas day.
Martha could not get Lex to promise to come and nor could she, for all her motherly authority get Clark to agree to come down if Lex came. However, Chloe could do much more with thinly veiled threats and blackmail than she could with the same threats. Chloe basically told both of them that she would tell the other their deepest darkest secrets. That prompted complete obedience and even some enthusiasm. It was fake, but what are you gonna do?
These threats prompted the midnight ruminations of both. With and without alcohol.
Christmas morning came and went with anxiety on both sides. Clark’s anxiety was mollified with hot chocolate and an apple pie to himself. Lex’s was placated with a 17 year old cognac and Swiss chocolates - at least a pound.
And yet, they both appeared at a Christmas dinner filled with anxious - and angry if you were Jonathan Kent - and curious looks from all around. The only individual that made it through the dinner without their appetite diminishing at least once was Mr. Sullivan, who along with Chloe was invited to Christmas dinner at the Kent’s. He however, was not privy to any of the tension - neither was Jonathan, but he would have blown a gasket had he known.
Fortunately, the dinner went off without anyone running away or falling into fits except Jonathan, who seemed to have developed a nervous tic disorder due to his wife’s loving on the Luthor at his table.
The Sullivan’s stayed until around 9 and Martha and Jonathan went to bed (grudgingly on Jonathan’s part) leaving Clark and Lex alone with one another for the first time in almost a month.
-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-
“Clark -”
“Lex - ”
“I’m sorry, go on.”
“Clark, I - Oh, where did you get this? I haven’t seen a copy of this book in ages. Not since... my mother.”
“Oh. We’ve had it since I was little. It’s been tradition for us, my mom and dad and I, to read stories from it to each other. When I was really young, they would read some of the stories to me and act out the parts. When I learned to read, they let me read to them. And as I got older, we would just read our favourites out loud after dinner on Christmas day. What did you do with your mom?”
“We did much the same. Only, I read to her most of the time. I was a bit of a pompous brat, back then. My father, of course, thought it was frivolous, but it was one of the only times he never complained about her treating me like child. It was one of the only times I was allowed to be a kid. After she died, my father had all her things taken away. I asked for a few things to keep and he let me have them - everything except the book. That, he burned in the fireplace, right in front of me. He never said it, but I could tell that he burned it because he blamed me for her death. And his.”
“Lex, I’ll put it away if it bothers you. I didn’t mean to bring up any bad memories. Or we can go outside to the loft. I don’t want you to feel bad. I’m so sorry. Do you want - ”
“Clark, it’s fine. She’s been gone a long time. I do miss her, but I can’t run around avoiding every single thing that reminds me of her. Remember, Clark, that all my memories of my mother aren’t bad. That book happens to bring back some of my favourite memories of her.”
“Ok. Would you like to read through it with me?”
“I would like that very much, Clark.”
“Ok, come sit next to me on the couch.”
“Alright, let me take off my shoes.”
“Why?”
“I plan on being comfortable while we read this. Indulge me.”
“Oh, alright.”
“You realize that this is the closest and the longest we’ve talked in almost a month. I want to take advantage of it. I was sure you weren’t going to speak to me. I just want to take advantage of this moment before you stop speaking to me again, for one reason or another, or another of your secrets.”
“Lex, I - ”
“It’s alright Clark. Don’t worry. It’s Christmas. Let’s just sit down and read. I don’t want to deal with secrets or lies or our pasts. I just want to sit down on this couch, in this house, in front of this Christmas tree and read my favorite story from this book with one of the most important people in my life.”
“Oh, Lex -”
“Clark -”
A kiss. A gasp. Flushed cheeks and averted eyes. Soft hands on warm cheeks. Lips meeting once again.
-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-
If Martha Kent walked down to her living room around close midnight, Christmas day and saw her son and his best friend curled up close on the couch reading from a book, she said nothing of it to anyone. If Jonathan Kent walked down later than his wife did and saw the same, except that they were sleeping curled together, he said nothing of it either. And if, both awakened to find a blanket draped over them, that Martha herself knew she did not place, no said anything of it. And breakfast was delicious as usual.
Pairings / Characters: Clex // Clark Kent, Lex Luthor, Martha Kent
Rating: PG, if only for the slash
Words: 1,746
Warning: slash, angst, bad writing
Summary: It's like something out a story book, with lovers cast to far afield, giving confession to the stars who know all their troubles and only wish for them to be shared with those mortals to who the confessors are bound. There should be a moral, but no one's ever sure to the end and the only one's who will know will have suffered for the foolishness of the main characters. And yet, we shall still read on. It is imperative that we reach the end. Or else we won't understand the story, at all.
Prompt pic:
A/N: I totally took this differently than may be expected, but I thought that the picture looked like it came from a Christmas Storybook, like my mom has. And so the fic is based not around a tree, but a book of stories. So sorry for my FAILURE.
-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-
It’s something out of a story book. And those are something Lex has never read except for the one. His mother, for all her love and devotion only read him novels once she realized how smart he was except at Christmas, not because she didn’t want to read him storybooks - because she did, but because he in his childish naivete said that he didn’t need to be read “baby books”. He actually mostly read to her by that time. And by the time his baby brother came and went along with his mother’s sanity and his mother, when Lex needed those stories the most, his father came to him, not with tales with happy endings, but stories of battles and wars where the only victor was the one who gained the spoils and the happy ending was for the dead.
Yet, it seems that for all Clark’s intelligence and his speed-reading ability, which had cropped up early, he loved being read stories. Perhaps it was because he likes sharing the stories, or because his parent’s brought the stories alive with their reading antics or perhaps it was the reason Clark kept in his secret heart of hearts. The secret place that still wondered if and when the Kent’s would be taken from him like his biological parents were, because no matter what people think about him being modest to the point of self-deprecation, he will never let himself think about himself taken away. He’d fight to get back unless they didn’t want him (and that’s one thought that hurt too deeply to say).
And no one would ever think to call Lex Luthor, lost. A scrooge, perhaps, but never lost. However, he was - undeniably, unequivocally, unmistakably lost. And he knew it, and it was that moment, on Christmas Eve when he had a bout of self realization, bordering on epiphany and realized that he was utterly fucked. And he was thus, simply because the only person he trusted to care for him, tell him the truth and be there for him - all without ulterior motives - wasn’t speaking to him and most likely never would again. The lead up to said epiphany occurred two weeks previous when he realized that he was being well and truly avoided. And woe unto thee who should utter this truth into the air, but he was hurt. And that was unacceptable. So he drank and called and drank and wrote and got horrendously drunk and drove off to see the very person who was avoiding him and was left with nothing but heartache. Lex Luthor was not a person with whom one would associate the word lost, but he was lost without Clark Kent and that was fact.
Lex Luthor may have been fucked, but Clark Kent was, at a similar moment in time three weeks previous, completely and irrevocably sure of himself. And that led him to his present bout of teenage alien angst. Because, really, what do you do when you realize that you’re in love with your best friend, who you’ve lied to, countless times, whose very name sends your father into fits and who is precisely 5 years, 3 months and 22 days older than your sixteen years. You bemoan your very existence and stop taking said best friend’s calls, emails and visits, that’s what. You pretend that said friend never existed if only to keep your hard-won sanity. You cry yourself to sleep only to wake up doing the same from nightmares or doing something similar from much more enjoyable dreams. You crave for something you think you’ll never have, but who doesn’t do that on a regular basis anyway?
All these epiphanies and avoidance tactics had led to both children - for we are always our mother’s children, aren’t we - to their late night, Christmas Eve reveries: Lex, facing the fire with drink in hand, and Clark staring out the window at the snow falling. It also led to many headaches for the only two women involved in both of their lives - namely Martha and Chloe.
Both of the lovely ladies had long noticed the not so secret unresolved sexual tension between both boys and could not, for the life of them, figure out what to do about it, simply because both of the dear, sweet, handsome boys could be terribly oblivious and stubborn as mules. And this made them very frustrated.
Martha tried to talk to Clark on many an occasion, but couldn’t get through to him. She eventually told him that she knew that he was in love with Lex and it wouldn’t be news to anyone, but Lex and possibly his father. This did not go down as well as she’d planned, so she then turned to another point of attack, namely Lex.
Unfortunately, Lex proved to be more, if not as stubborn as her son. He was much more eloquent about it, though. He simply told her that he was fine and to have a wonderful holiday. However, she was able to steamroll him and get him to at least agree to try and come to dinner on Christmas day.
Martha could not get Lex to promise to come and nor could she, for all her motherly authority get Clark to agree to come down if Lex came. However, Chloe could do much more with thinly veiled threats and blackmail than she could with the same threats. Chloe basically told both of them that she would tell the other their deepest darkest secrets. That prompted complete obedience and even some enthusiasm. It was fake, but what are you gonna do?
These threats prompted the midnight ruminations of both. With and without alcohol.
Christmas morning came and went with anxiety on both sides. Clark’s anxiety was mollified with hot chocolate and an apple pie to himself. Lex’s was placated with a 17 year old cognac and Swiss chocolates - at least a pound.
And yet, they both appeared at a Christmas dinner filled with anxious - and angry if you were Jonathan Kent - and curious looks from all around. The only individual that made it through the dinner without their appetite diminishing at least once was Mr. Sullivan, who along with Chloe was invited to Christmas dinner at the Kent’s. He however, was not privy to any of the tension - neither was Jonathan, but he would have blown a gasket had he known.
Fortunately, the dinner went off without anyone running away or falling into fits except Jonathan, who seemed to have developed a nervous tic disorder due to his wife’s loving on the Luthor at his table.
The Sullivan’s stayed until around 9 and Martha and Jonathan went to bed (grudgingly on Jonathan’s part) leaving Clark and Lex alone with one another for the first time in almost a month.
-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-
“Clark -”
“Lex - ”
“I’m sorry, go on.”
“Clark, I - Oh, where did you get this? I haven’t seen a copy of this book in ages. Not since... my mother.”
“Oh. We’ve had it since I was little. It’s been tradition for us, my mom and dad and I, to read stories from it to each other. When I was really young, they would read some of the stories to me and act out the parts. When I learned to read, they let me read to them. And as I got older, we would just read our favourites out loud after dinner on Christmas day. What did you do with your mom?”
“We did much the same. Only, I read to her most of the time. I was a bit of a pompous brat, back then. My father, of course, thought it was frivolous, but it was one of the only times he never complained about her treating me like child. It was one of the only times I was allowed to be a kid. After she died, my father had all her things taken away. I asked for a few things to keep and he let me have them - everything except the book. That, he burned in the fireplace, right in front of me. He never said it, but I could tell that he burned it because he blamed me for her death. And his.”
“Lex, I’ll put it away if it bothers you. I didn’t mean to bring up any bad memories. Or we can go outside to the loft. I don’t want you to feel bad. I’m so sorry. Do you want - ”
“Clark, it’s fine. She’s been gone a long time. I do miss her, but I can’t run around avoiding every single thing that reminds me of her. Remember, Clark, that all my memories of my mother aren’t bad. That book happens to bring back some of my favourite memories of her.”
“Ok. Would you like to read through it with me?”
“I would like that very much, Clark.”
“Ok, come sit next to me on the couch.”
“Alright, let me take off my shoes.”
“Why?”
“I plan on being comfortable while we read this. Indulge me.”
“Oh, alright.”
“You realize that this is the closest and the longest we’ve talked in almost a month. I want to take advantage of it. I was sure you weren’t going to speak to me. I just want to take advantage of this moment before you stop speaking to me again, for one reason or another, or another of your secrets.”
“Lex, I - ”
“It’s alright Clark. Don’t worry. It’s Christmas. Let’s just sit down and read. I don’t want to deal with secrets or lies or our pasts. I just want to sit down on this couch, in this house, in front of this Christmas tree and read my favorite story from this book with one of the most important people in my life.”
“Oh, Lex -”
“Clark -”
A kiss. A gasp. Flushed cheeks and averted eyes. Soft hands on warm cheeks. Lips meeting once again.
-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-
If Martha Kent walked down to her living room around close midnight, Christmas day and saw her son and his best friend curled up close on the couch reading from a book, she said nothing of it to anyone. If Jonathan Kent walked down later than his wife did and saw the same, except that they were sleeping curled together, he said nothing of it either. And if, both awakened to find a blanket draped over them, that Martha herself knew she did not place, no said anything of it. And breakfast was delicious as usual.