Advent Calendar Dec 14: Comfort and Joy, Comfort and Joy (Clark/Lex)
Title: Comfort and Joy, Comfort and Joy
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing/Characters: Clark/Lex
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.
Spoilers/Warnings: General for entire series. Unbeta'd.
Word count: >2,200 (I think I need to learn what 'brevity' means... *sighs*)
Summary: Clark comes home for Christmas. Lex is not well-prepared for this.
Author's Notes: Part of the smallearth Advent Calendar - DEC 14
Prompt: Christmas Holly
Clark sighed and brushed the snow off of his shoulders, then stamped his feet on the doormat as quietly as he could before knocking on the door to the farmhouse he had grown up in.
Footsteps padded a soft approach up to the door, and Lex Luthor opened the inside door and tentatively peered out. Then he blinked, straightened, and immediately opened the outer screen. "What are you doing here?" he breathed out, stunned. His breath turned into dragon-smoke in the chill air, belying the threat of fire within.
Lex didn't do "evil" on Christmas. He pretty much took December off.
Clark had noticed that pretty much right away.
Even if no-one else had.
Well, if they didn't believe Superman when he said that he had Luthor under control and that they should just keep out of it -- year-round, preferably -- and decided to try and drive themselves up the wall during the last month of the year when the Big Blue Boyscout didn't seem interested in starting any major fights with his Metropolitan Nemesis... well, that wasn't Clark's problem, now was it?
Fair warning, and all that.
...And if anybody ever thought it through enough to realize that Superman had picked up that particular trick from Luthor -- fine. Clark was perfectly happy to let them blame Lex for influencing him to pick up better habits. Like not lying all the damn time. Lex did a fair lot more of that than he'd used to, and he'd spent horrifically-little of his time in Smallville lying to Clark, he'd realized in hindsight. If anything, Lex had spent quite a good bit of time being brutally honest with Clark, at great personal risk and pain to himself.
Lies of omission didn't count, of course.
Lex had all-but-forgiven Clark those, as far as he could tell. The least he could do for his nemesis would be to extend the same courtesy.
And now Clark was hoping that he wasn't overextending here, because he'd really not meant to screw this one up.
"Is Conner here?" Clark asked quietly, and he watched Lex's face turn into an emotionless mask. Damn.
"Yes," Lex bit off the single syllable quietly. "Why?"
"Is everything ok?"
Lex's eyes narrowed. Clark scrubbed a hand through his hair.
"Look, uh, I didn't get a chance to talk to Conner before the whole insane thing with the VrZraxK'tl invasion of Klrrrm and, um, they needed a diplomat and--" Clark cut himself off -- he was blathering and Lex really didn't need to know the specifics of what 'diplomacy' between aliens in Sector 2357 really entailed, and why the Green Lanterns had sent an emergency signal for somebody who'd be able to survive the negotiations, which included a lot of eating poisons and destroying large robots and... yeah. Not a fun week.
"Yes, I am aware that you hadn't discussed the matter with him," Lex said, and that was the 'I'm not going to try and vaporize you with a Kryptonite laser but only because it's Christmas' voice. He'd gotten to learn that one last year. Clark loved December. It was his new favorite month.
"Uh, right. Sorry," Clark said, feeling like a heel. "Can I see him?"
And now Lex was rigid and doing the business-Lex thing and damnit, had the cold frozen his brain solid?
"I'm not trying to take him away or anything!" Clark whispered in a low hiss. "I told you we'd take turns years for the major holidays, and I meant it, ok?" Even if Clark hadn't been able to spend the last Christmas -- Conner's first Christmas -- with him because of all the emergencies that had cropped up. Conner had had to spend the few days surrounding the holiday at the Watchtower -- the space station one -- because that self-styled Kryptonian hunter had been roaming the country and it just hadn't been safe. Clark had been shocked that Conner hadn't even been aware of what he'd missed out on -- what Christmas was -- and Clark had tried to make it up to him after, but it hadn't been the same. Not at all.
"I just thought that maybe if I talked to him, I could make sure that he was ok with it, so that he'd know that we'd really talked about it before and that you weren't just making it up. I mean, it would be pretty awful if he thought you'd kidnapped him and were holding him against his will or some...thing... oh god Lex, you didn't..." Clark groaned as Lex's expression changed and Clark realized that that was exactly what Lex had done.
"It's fine. He's not going anywhere," Lex said, and he really knew better than to equate 'not going anywhere' with 'staying because he wants to' -- didn't he?
"You don't have him chained up in one of the bedrooms, do you?" Clark half-accused, shocked. Then he damn near bit his tongue. He closed his eyes, rocked back on his heels and said in a rush approaching super-speed, "i-m-sorry-i-know-you-wouldn-t-do-that-to-him-i-shouldn-t-have-said-that."
There was silence for a time and Clark slowly cracked his eyes open. Lex was watching him warily.
"If you're so worried about him, I don't see why you aren't just extending your senses to determine that yourself," Lex said slowly, and Clark grimaced because he still hadn't had that talk with Lex about what Clark did and did not consider spying, and his own personal manifesto on personal privacy.
"That would be rude," Clark said succinctly, and watched Lex blink at him without further change in expression.
"...Look, can we please start over?" Clark asked. This really hadn't gone well at all.
Lex stared at him for a long time, then gave him a single short jerky nod. Clark breathed a sigh of relief, because when Lex made a concession...
So Clark took a deep breath, plastered on a big smile, and started again. "Hi, Lex. Merry Christmas! How's the decorating going? I know Fordman's doesn't carry this," and he brought out from behind his back the huge holly bunch that he'd picked up from Britain on the way over, "so I thought I'd grab some. Um, in case you wanted any." Because Lex had said something about wanting to do a traditional Christmas, and Clark had really doubted that that meant a cold holiday at the mansion (not quite rebuilt, more like still a pile of rubble since Tess was still fighting the turnover of the property back to its rightful owner), or an even colder tree-less and present-less and decoration-less holiday that Lex had grown up with under Lionel's tender mercies. At the glance he got of the living room from where he was, and the gaily-lit and decoration-adorned Christmas tree in the corner a safe distance from the fire in the fireplace, he felt relived that he'd guessed correctly.
Lex stared at him, then looked down at the holly, and his eyebrows twitched like they really wanted to go up but Lex didn't want to let on to whatever was going through his head. Clark passed over the holly, and Lex fingered the leaves gently, then seemed to come to some internal decision.
Then he looked up at Clark and said, "Would you like to come in?"
Clark managed not to start in shock, but only barely. "I, ah, don't want to impose," he all but stammered, cursing the Reporter for rearing its ugly head at that moment. He knew better than to think that Lex really meant that as anything but politeness -- this was Lex's time with Clark, and he knew that his own presence would be seen as intrusive, imposing unnecessarily on time that would not necessarily be returned in kind in the future and that Clark could not hope to prove otherwise.
"You aren't. Please," Lex said, taking half-step back.
Clark's eyes-widened. "Are you sure?" he blurted.
"Do you want to come in?" Lex said quietly, and Clark knew better than to think that Lex was doing anything but believing that the opposite must be the truth of it.
Oh god, Lex wasn't just being polite, he'd actually meant it--
So Clark nodded a few too many times more than he probably should have, and Lex only froze a moment in utter disbelief before he'd recovered enough to take a step back and usher Clark inside.
And then Lex softly closed the door behind him once he was in the main hallway.
Lex gestured at the coathooks by the door and Clark slowly stripped off his coat and boots and padded into the living room after Lex. He really hadn't expected to be invited in -- this really was Lex's time with Conner, not Clark's, Clark got to see him all the time -- whenever he wanted really, what with the superspeed. He didn't really know what to do.
Apparently neither did Lex, because the first thing he did was offer, "There are sugar cookies if you want any. Conner decorated the round ones." He sounded a little dazed, and he was playing with the holly in his hands. If Clark didn't know any better, he'd swear that Lex was almost... nervous.
Clark helped himself to a few cookies (still spread out on the counter, there as a rather dizzying assortment, and some were even chocolate chip!) and a glass of milk, and watched as Lex hung the holly across the crossbeam that separated the living room from the kitchen. It was quiet, and almost peaceful, and Clark relaxed as he breathed in the scent of fresh pine needles and listened to the snow falling softly outside the kitchen window.
Clark cleaned up after himself -- crumbs into the sink, glass washed out and put on the drying rack next to the cookie sheets. He padded over and craned his head straight up at Lex's handiwork as he finished and moved the stool out of the way.
"Looks nice," Clark said, turning his head back down to look at Lex, and that was when he kissed him.
Clark blinked. Then he blinked again. Because Lex had kissed him on the lips, and that just did not compute.
"Um," Clark said intelligently, then rethought what he should say.
"You know that mistletoe is for kissing, not holly, right?" Clark said finally.
"Oh, is it?" Lex said lightly, not breaking gaze.
"...Uh. Yeah." Clark stared back, not sure what to think, now. If he should think anything at all.
"Good to know," said Lex, and he turned and started to walk upstairs, like nothing was wrong. Like nothing odd had happened. Like nothing was out of the ordinary, or crosswise to normal.
"You can stay the night, if you'd like," Lex said over his shoulder as he ascended the staircase. "It's pretty late."
"Okay," said Clark breathlessly.
He fidgeted and started to readjust his glasses, but then remembered that he wasn't in his suit and tie and glasses, he was in his Superman suit.
Right. Trust Lex to make him forget who he was supposed to be at any given moment except wholly himself.
And maybe a little unsure and flustered while he was at it. Clark swore that was like a national sport for Lex, or something.
He grimaced and adjusted his shirt a little as he stared down at himself. This version of the costume was the slightly Santa-like one that the League had decided he should wear delivering gifts to the orphanages. Tonight he'd made a very harried run getting all the donated gifts to the designated shelters and such in time; if anyone had asked him yesterday if he'd be back in time for Christmas, he would have sighed sadly and said no, he didn't think so, but he'd managed to wrap things up with the aliens in a somewhat-balanced (if not exactly happy) resolution somehow. Instead, he'd made it back just in time to have J'onn pass the duty back to him when he'd really just wanted a break. But, apparently the Christmas season had been hell on the heroes left behind and covering his duties, and he didn't want to begrudge anyone their own break, especially when he somewhat understood the strain it had put on J'onn to have been almost constantly shifted as 'Superman' while Clark had been away, in order to keep the villains from getting ideas while he was away for an unknown period of time and unavailable for hero work.
Clark sighed and ran a hand through his hair again, deciding that leaving quickly to get a change of clothing would send the wrong message. Whatever that message might be, Clark didn't know exactly, but he'd learned that he really should trust his instincts when it came to Lex. God knew things probably would have gone a lot better in Smallville if he'd done so years ago.
Or not. Water under the bridge with Lex's car and his own innocence, and all that.
Well, he'd make do somehow.
Clark banked the fire before he headed for the guest room on the ground floor. He gave the holly one last glance, left the faux-fur-trimmed red-and-white S-shield coat where it was by the door, and entered the bedroom quietly. He stripped off his S-shield undershirt, tossed the gloves and belt over a chair back, and shimmied out of the more pants-like 'tights' and under-tights before slipping under the covers in a room as spartan as the rest of the house seemed, yet still just as perfectly serviceable despite the apparent lack. He sighed and relaxed into the mattress, not really sparing Lois a second thought. He was dead-tired and needed a rest. She would understand if he was home a little later tomorrow instead of tonight.
Clark closed his eyes and fell asleep to the sound of Lex's heartbeat, steady and strong.
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing/Characters: Clark/Lex
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.
Spoilers/Warnings: General for entire series. Unbeta'd.
Word count: >2,200 (I think I need to learn what 'brevity' means... *sighs*)
Summary: Clark comes home for Christmas. Lex is not well-prepared for this.
Author's Notes: Part of the smallearth Advent Calendar - DEC 14
Prompt: Christmas Holly
Clark sighed and brushed the snow off of his shoulders, then stamped his feet on the doormat as quietly as he could before knocking on the door to the farmhouse he had grown up in.
Footsteps padded a soft approach up to the door, and Lex Luthor opened the inside door and tentatively peered out. Then he blinked, straightened, and immediately opened the outer screen. "What are you doing here?" he breathed out, stunned. His breath turned into dragon-smoke in the chill air, belying the threat of fire within.
Lex didn't do "evil" on Christmas. He pretty much took December off.
Clark had noticed that pretty much right away.
Even if no-one else had.
Well, if they didn't believe Superman when he said that he had Luthor under control and that they should just keep out of it -- year-round, preferably -- and decided to try and drive themselves up the wall during the last month of the year when the Big Blue Boyscout didn't seem interested in starting any major fights with his Metropolitan Nemesis... well, that wasn't Clark's problem, now was it?
Fair warning, and all that.
...And if anybody ever thought it through enough to realize that Superman had picked up that particular trick from Luthor -- fine. Clark was perfectly happy to let them blame Lex for influencing him to pick up better habits. Like not lying all the damn time. Lex did a fair lot more of that than he'd used to, and he'd spent horrifically-little of his time in Smallville lying to Clark, he'd realized in hindsight. If anything, Lex had spent quite a good bit of time being brutally honest with Clark, at great personal risk and pain to himself.
Lies of omission didn't count, of course.
Lex had all-but-forgiven Clark those, as far as he could tell. The least he could do for his nemesis would be to extend the same courtesy.
And now Clark was hoping that he wasn't overextending here, because he'd really not meant to screw this one up.
"Is Conner here?" Clark asked quietly, and he watched Lex's face turn into an emotionless mask. Damn.
"Yes," Lex bit off the single syllable quietly. "Why?"
"Is everything ok?"
Lex's eyes narrowed. Clark scrubbed a hand through his hair.
"Look, uh, I didn't get a chance to talk to Conner before the whole insane thing with the VrZraxK'tl invasion of Klrrrm and, um, they needed a diplomat and--" Clark cut himself off -- he was blathering and Lex really didn't need to know the specifics of what 'diplomacy' between aliens in Sector 2357 really entailed, and why the Green Lanterns had sent an emergency signal for somebody who'd be able to survive the negotiations, which included a lot of eating poisons and destroying large robots and... yeah. Not a fun week.
"Yes, I am aware that you hadn't discussed the matter with him," Lex said, and that was the 'I'm not going to try and vaporize you with a Kryptonite laser but only because it's Christmas' voice. He'd gotten to learn that one last year. Clark loved December. It was his new favorite month.
"Uh, right. Sorry," Clark said, feeling like a heel. "Can I see him?"
And now Lex was rigid and doing the business-Lex thing and damnit, had the cold frozen his brain solid?
"I'm not trying to take him away or anything!" Clark whispered in a low hiss. "I told you we'd take turns years for the major holidays, and I meant it, ok?" Even if Clark hadn't been able to spend the last Christmas -- Conner's first Christmas -- with him because of all the emergencies that had cropped up. Conner had had to spend the few days surrounding the holiday at the Watchtower -- the space station one -- because that self-styled Kryptonian hunter had been roaming the country and it just hadn't been safe. Clark had been shocked that Conner hadn't even been aware of what he'd missed out on -- what Christmas was -- and Clark had tried to make it up to him after, but it hadn't been the same. Not at all.
"I just thought that maybe if I talked to him, I could make sure that he was ok with it, so that he'd know that we'd really talked about it before and that you weren't just making it up. I mean, it would be pretty awful if he thought you'd kidnapped him and were holding him against his will or some...thing... oh god Lex, you didn't..." Clark groaned as Lex's expression changed and Clark realized that that was exactly what Lex had done.
"It's fine. He's not going anywhere," Lex said, and he really knew better than to equate 'not going anywhere' with 'staying because he wants to' -- didn't he?
"You don't have him chained up in one of the bedrooms, do you?" Clark half-accused, shocked. Then he damn near bit his tongue. He closed his eyes, rocked back on his heels and said in a rush approaching super-speed, "i-m-sorry-i-know-you-wouldn-t-do-that-to-him-i-shouldn-t-have-said-that."
There was silence for a time and Clark slowly cracked his eyes open. Lex was watching him warily.
"If you're so worried about him, I don't see why you aren't just extending your senses to determine that yourself," Lex said slowly, and Clark grimaced because he still hadn't had that talk with Lex about what Clark did and did not consider spying, and his own personal manifesto on personal privacy.
"That would be rude," Clark said succinctly, and watched Lex blink at him without further change in expression.
"...Look, can we please start over?" Clark asked. This really hadn't gone well at all.
Lex stared at him for a long time, then gave him a single short jerky nod. Clark breathed a sigh of relief, because when Lex made a concession...
So Clark took a deep breath, plastered on a big smile, and started again. "Hi, Lex. Merry Christmas! How's the decorating going? I know Fordman's doesn't carry this," and he brought out from behind his back the huge holly bunch that he'd picked up from Britain on the way over, "so I thought I'd grab some. Um, in case you wanted any." Because Lex had said something about wanting to do a traditional Christmas, and Clark had really doubted that that meant a cold holiday at the mansion (not quite rebuilt, more like still a pile of rubble since Tess was still fighting the turnover of the property back to its rightful owner), or an even colder tree-less and present-less and decoration-less holiday that Lex had grown up with under Lionel's tender mercies. At the glance he got of the living room from where he was, and the gaily-lit and decoration-adorned Christmas tree in the corner a safe distance from the fire in the fireplace, he felt relived that he'd guessed correctly.
Lex stared at him, then looked down at the holly, and his eyebrows twitched like they really wanted to go up but Lex didn't want to let on to whatever was going through his head. Clark passed over the holly, and Lex fingered the leaves gently, then seemed to come to some internal decision.
Then he looked up at Clark and said, "Would you like to come in?"
Clark managed not to start in shock, but only barely. "I, ah, don't want to impose," he all but stammered, cursing the Reporter for rearing its ugly head at that moment. He knew better than to think that Lex really meant that as anything but politeness -- this was Lex's time with Clark, and he knew that his own presence would be seen as intrusive, imposing unnecessarily on time that would not necessarily be returned in kind in the future and that Clark could not hope to prove otherwise.
"You aren't. Please," Lex said, taking half-step back.
Clark's eyes-widened. "Are you sure?" he blurted.
"Do you want to come in?" Lex said quietly, and Clark knew better than to think that Lex was doing anything but believing that the opposite must be the truth of it.
Oh god, Lex wasn't just being polite, he'd actually meant it--
So Clark nodded a few too many times more than he probably should have, and Lex only froze a moment in utter disbelief before he'd recovered enough to take a step back and usher Clark inside.
And then Lex softly closed the door behind him once he was in the main hallway.
Lex gestured at the coathooks by the door and Clark slowly stripped off his coat and boots and padded into the living room after Lex. He really hadn't expected to be invited in -- this really was Lex's time with Conner, not Clark's, Clark got to see him all the time -- whenever he wanted really, what with the superspeed. He didn't really know what to do.
Apparently neither did Lex, because the first thing he did was offer, "There are sugar cookies if you want any. Conner decorated the round ones." He sounded a little dazed, and he was playing with the holly in his hands. If Clark didn't know any better, he'd swear that Lex was almost... nervous.
Clark helped himself to a few cookies (still spread out on the counter, there as a rather dizzying assortment, and some were even chocolate chip!) and a glass of milk, and watched as Lex hung the holly across the crossbeam that separated the living room from the kitchen. It was quiet, and almost peaceful, and Clark relaxed as he breathed in the scent of fresh pine needles and listened to the snow falling softly outside the kitchen window.
Clark cleaned up after himself -- crumbs into the sink, glass washed out and put on the drying rack next to the cookie sheets. He padded over and craned his head straight up at Lex's handiwork as he finished and moved the stool out of the way.
"Looks nice," Clark said, turning his head back down to look at Lex, and that was when he kissed him.
Clark blinked. Then he blinked again. Because Lex had kissed him on the lips, and that just did not compute.
"Um," Clark said intelligently, then rethought what he should say.
"You know that mistletoe is for kissing, not holly, right?" Clark said finally.
"Oh, is it?" Lex said lightly, not breaking gaze.
"...Uh. Yeah." Clark stared back, not sure what to think, now. If he should think anything at all.
"Good to know," said Lex, and he turned and started to walk upstairs, like nothing was wrong. Like nothing odd had happened. Like nothing was out of the ordinary, or crosswise to normal.
"You can stay the night, if you'd like," Lex said over his shoulder as he ascended the staircase. "It's pretty late."
"Okay," said Clark breathlessly.
He fidgeted and started to readjust his glasses, but then remembered that he wasn't in his suit and tie and glasses, he was in his Superman suit.
Right. Trust Lex to make him forget who he was supposed to be at any given moment except wholly himself.
And maybe a little unsure and flustered while he was at it. Clark swore that was like a national sport for Lex, or something.
He grimaced and adjusted his shirt a little as he stared down at himself. This version of the costume was the slightly Santa-like one that the League had decided he should wear delivering gifts to the orphanages. Tonight he'd made a very harried run getting all the donated gifts to the designated shelters and such in time; if anyone had asked him yesterday if he'd be back in time for Christmas, he would have sighed sadly and said no, he didn't think so, but he'd managed to wrap things up with the aliens in a somewhat-balanced (if not exactly happy) resolution somehow. Instead, he'd made it back just in time to have J'onn pass the duty back to him when he'd really just wanted a break. But, apparently the Christmas season had been hell on the heroes left behind and covering his duties, and he didn't want to begrudge anyone their own break, especially when he somewhat understood the strain it had put on J'onn to have been almost constantly shifted as 'Superman' while Clark had been away, in order to keep the villains from getting ideas while he was away for an unknown period of time and unavailable for hero work.
Clark sighed and ran a hand through his hair again, deciding that leaving quickly to get a change of clothing would send the wrong message. Whatever that message might be, Clark didn't know exactly, but he'd learned that he really should trust his instincts when it came to Lex. God knew things probably would have gone a lot better in Smallville if he'd done so years ago.
Or not. Water under the bridge with Lex's car and his own innocence, and all that.
Well, he'd make do somehow.
Clark banked the fire before he headed for the guest room on the ground floor. He gave the holly one last glance, left the faux-fur-trimmed red-and-white S-shield coat where it was by the door, and entered the bedroom quietly. He stripped off his S-shield undershirt, tossed the gloves and belt over a chair back, and shimmied out of the more pants-like 'tights' and under-tights before slipping under the covers in a room as spartan as the rest of the house seemed, yet still just as perfectly serviceable despite the apparent lack. He sighed and relaxed into the mattress, not really sparing Lois a second thought. He was dead-tired and needed a rest. She would understand if he was home a little later tomorrow instead of tonight.
Clark closed his eyes and fell asleep to the sound of Lex's heartbeat, steady and strong.