Gift for JlvsClrk! A Wonderful Idea (or Two)
Title: A Wonderful Idea (or Two)
From: josephina_x To Be Revealed!
For: JlvsClrk
Type: fic, 3700+
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none
Spoilers: up through 1x08 Jitters
Summary: Clark is planning a small Christmas party. Lex decides to try and help. Some suggestions are a bit much. Talking ensues.
Request: S1 After the infamous Jitters party, Lex helps Clark organize an 'intimate' Christmas party for their friends. Clark has to keep shooting down Lex's wonderful ideas.
Author note: A bit short and more than a little bit talky, but hopefully okay ^_^
A Wonderful Idea (or Two)
“--A snow machine!” Lex exclaimed.
Clark stifled a groan. “No, Lex.”
“But it’s festive to have a white Christmas!” Lex said. “And the weather forecast looks like--”
“Lex.” Clark sighed. Lex wasn’t pouting, because Luthor’s didn’t pout, but his tone sure sounded like he would be if he wasn’t. It didn’t help that this wasn’t the first idea he’d had to shoot down so far. “A snow machine isn’t... It isn’t a good idea,” he had to tell Lex bluntly.
Lex looked at him and a slight frown passed across his face. “Why?”
Clark wondered, not for the first time that afternoon, if this was what a headache felt like. He was starting to think that maybe he shouldn’t have asked Lex to help him with the small Christmas party he wanted to put together. Lex’s ideas just kept getting more and more outrageous.
He looked up at his best friend and wondered if logic might work on him any better. “Lex, most machines like that need a lot of power to run.”
“So?”
“So,” Clark said, “They probably have huge, weird power-plugs. We probably couldn’t power something like that off of the regular house power.”
Lex looked at him askance. “I don’t doubt that there ought to be a few models that can...”
“--And if we powered it off an extension cord coming from the barn or something, even if we didn’t blow every circuit breaker in the fuse box, dad would never let you pay for the extra cost of the power bill for the house,” Clark pointed out. ‘And it would probably be a lot,’ was implied.
Lex tilted his head slightly and sat back in his chair. “I could rent a generator to go with it.”
Okay, there were at least three things wrong with that. “Gas generators are really noisy, Lex. That doesn’t exactly go with the whole ‘softly falling snow’ thing. And there are the exhaust fumes, too.” Clark took in a breath and debated whether he should try and tell Lex that spending that much money on a snow machine and portable generator, just to spew snow all over their house and yard for a couple hours for his party, would go over about as well with his dad as the truck had.
Instead, Clark ended up saying, “It’s just too much.”
“But you want your party to be a success, don’t you?” Lex said, and Clark had a flashback to the fireworks (and the lack of police) that Lex had pulled off for the last ‘intimate’ gathering Clark had tried to have.
Clark shook his head. “It’s not like that. Really. It’s just going to be a handful of people and maybe their parents and siblings this time.” Unlike the huge party that had erupted when half the school had just shown up at his house. “Nobody’s going to expect snow unless it actually snows. It’s just too much for the farm.”
“Oh!” Lex seemed to perk up a bit at this for some reason. “I see! I didn’t realize. I thought you’d just meant that this was going to be for your friends. If you’re inviting entire families, then is the farm really going to be enough room?” he asked.
“Uh..." Clark tried to visualize that many people in the house. It should be okay, right?
“Why not host it at the mansion instead?” Lex asked him.
“The mansion?” Clark repeated, feeling thrown a bit. Lex was okay with hosting a party for a bunch of people he didn’t know, for Clark, at his house?
Lex nodded. “There’s plenty of space, and it wouldn’t be a bother to set up a snow machine on the grounds,” Lex said with a smile.
Clark frowned a little. “But I was-- we were planning on doing the decorations and stuff ourselves, remember?” Clark amended, remembering that Lex had offered his help for the setup and takedown. Personal help -- as in, doing it himself -- pitching in with his own two hands, not paying other people to help out.
“Yes, I remember,” Lex said with a smile.
“The mansion is pretty big,” Clark put out there.
“I wasn’t suggesting that we decorate the entire grounds,” Lex told him, a little taken aback.
“I don’t want to mess up whatever your staff put up already.” He’d just be adding more work for everybody involved.
“It’s not a problem,” Lex waved off. “The library and one of the ballrooms would be more than enough space, I think. Though the connecting areas should be just as festive, too, so we also ought to decorate the connecting hallway, and perhaps the foyer?” Lex pulled out a couple of Clark’s other note sheets on budgeting for supplies, put his head down to skim through them, and began rambling on a bit about decorations and a tree as he shuffled through the pages in front of him.
Clark looked at Lex sidelong. He was leaning forward, almost on the edge of his seat, smiling, and making suggestions that sounded almost reasonable now. Why did he seem so excited about this?
“--So, what do you think?” Lex asked, looking up at him again, and when Clark hesitated, Lex noticed. ”Clark?”
“Why the library and the foyer?” Lex didn’t use either of the ballrooms in the mansion that often, and the LuthorCorp Christmas party was in Metropolis, so Lex probably wouldn’t need to host anything there over the holiday. But, that was the ballrooms. The foyer was pretty much the main entrance, part of his living space, and library was really more Lex’s own personal space than anything else. Decorating and taking over those areas of the mansion seemed kind of...
Clark shifted in place uncomfortably, and at Clark’s obvious balking at the idea, Lex immediately backed off a bit. “It doesn’t have to be those rooms. There are plenty of rooms that could be used. Whatever you’d like.”
Clark peered at Lex carefully, dead-on. It was weird -- he could swear Lex seemed almost nervous.
“...Why do you want to have the party at the mansion?” Clark asked slowly. “You don’t even really know anybody that well.” He gestured at the rough invite list.
“I don’t mind,” Lex said. “I have the space, and I trust whomever you invite won’t burn the place down while I’m not looking.”
“Not... looking?” Clark frowned for a second. “Lex, you know that you’re, uh, invited, right?” Clark asked. Wasn’t that kind of a given? He’d thought that was kind of obvious, and hadn’t even needed to be said, especially since Lex was helping out with the planning! But the way Lex had sounded just then...
...Lex looked surprised, then sort of pleased? And Clark did a mental facepalm as he remembered that he hadn’t actually asked Lex for his help in the party-planning -- Lex had just walked up the stairs to his loft where he was camped out trying to figure things out, taken one look at the pages of notes strewn across the table in front of him and asked Clark what he was up to, and then offered his help -- all before Clark had even explained anything, really.
Clark frowned a little, though, because who helped plan a party that they figured they weren’t invited to?
“Geez, Lex,” Clark said. “Who gets that excited about decorating for a party that they think they’re not gonna attend?” he muttered rhetorically.
Lex didn’t laugh, though. Instead, Lex gave him a quirky half-smile that wasn’t quite as... comfortable as usual, and Clark sat up a little.
...Okay, bigger question: if Lex hadn’t even thought he was going to be attending, then why had he offered up the mansion for Clark’s use?
“Lex..." Clark was thinking hard now. “Is there something wrong with way the mansion is decorated right now?” Because the only thing he could really think of that might explain Lex’s behavior and leading suggestions was that maybe Lex was looking for an excuse to redecorate his living space for some reason.
“No, no,” Lex said with a slight laugh, waving a hand from side to side, and that just came off as nervous, too.
Clark gave him a long look. “Lex, if we have to tear down whatever’s already up, it’s gonna take twice as long to set everything up,” he warned him. “It’s gonna be a lot for two people,” mainly because Clark couldn’t get away with using super-speed at the mansion while doing stuff with Lex.
“It’s not a problem,” he was told.
“But--” Clark began, about to complain that undoing the hard work that his staff must have put in was not a good idea. But Lex interrupted him first.
“--It’s not a problem, really,” Lex told him, this time with a self-deprecating smirk, and Clark blinked at him and then stared as a new thought finally occurred to him.
“Lex,” Clark said carefully, fighting the urge to lick his lips, or maybe get up and pace... or just run around screaming for awhile... “Is the mansion not decorated for Christmas?” That would be weird, because he knew Lex was Catholic, and he couldn't think of a reason it wouldn't be, unless...
Lex looked away. “Ah, well,” he said. He looked down at his hands in his lap, then shook his head once like he was getting ahold of himself. His shoulders straightened a bit, and brought up his head and looked Clark right in the eye.
“No,” Lex said. “The mansion isn’t decorated.”
“...Why not?” Clark said, as neutrally and lightly as he could, trying not to make any assumptions or anything.
Lex took in another breath. He was still looking him in the eye. “Because my father-- my family hasn’t celebrated Christmas since my mother died,” Lex told him matter-of-factly. “Not like that. There’s no reason to.”
Clark tried not to clench his fists, or his jaw; he wasn’t mad at Lex. He really wanted to smack Lionel, though, because he’d totally been right -- it was one of those stupid ‘Luthor things’ again!
“If you want to celebrate Christmas and decorate stuff, that’s plenty of reason to,” Clark told his best friend firmly.
Lex blinked, then stared at him for awhile. Like this was some kind of a new concept that he really wasn’t all that sure about. Maybe even a little dubiously, like he wasn’t sure whether to trust that Clark was right on this, that he was telling the truth.
Clark felt a little jab of pain over that, then he sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Lex, this isn’t like driving over the speed limit or doing drugs. Celebrating Christmas is not a mainline to dressing up for Halloween,” he told Lex with much exasperation.
Lex let out a startled laugh at his pronouncement. “I, ah, I didn’t think it was,” Lex agreed, with the ghost of a grin at Clark’s silliness.
Mood lightened, Clark continued onward. “But if you do think you need an excuse, that’s fine. Just, maybe tell me what you want, instead of saying that something is what you think I might want?” Clark tried.
Lex blinked at him.
“Do you want to set up a snow machine to cover the mansion grounds with snow?” Clark asked him, point-blank.
“I, ah…” Lex looked a little taken aback, then blushed slightly. “No, not really,” he said.
Clark gave him a funny look, because what the heck?
“I just want your party to go well,” Lex told him.
“Our party,” Clark said, because he might as well give up and go all-in, if he was doing this -- if they were doing it. When he looked up and saw that Lex’s eyebrows would’ve been lost in his hair if he’d still had any, Clark belatedly added, “--If you want it to be. I mean, you’re helping already, and we are going to be setting up all the decorations and stuff together,” he pointed out.
“Clark, if I was throwing an ‘intimate’ party, I’d be obligated to invite half the town,” Lex pointed out. “And my father,” he added, making a bit of a face. “If I was somehow restricted to only needing to invite the people I actually wanted to come, then the only person I’d end up inviting would be you,” he told Clark, giving him another almost achingly self-deprecating smile.
...Well, this was new. Clark had never wished that somebody could actually buy a good friend for someone before, let alone for Christmas as a present. Though even if he could, that’d probably be way too expensive a present for him to afford to get for Lex, even if he saved up for it all year. Clark stifled a sigh and figured he’d just have to settle for sharing his own friends with Lex instead, as usual, and hope that everybody got along at the party (or as close to getting along as his snarky friends got) because nobody would want to risk ruining the general Christmas ‘happy’ mood.
Lex finished with: “Best if it’s your party, and I’m just helping out.” He seemed content to leave it at that.
“Okay, fine,” Clark said, stifling another sigh. “But if you wouldn’t want a snow machine for the mansion, then why did you suggest it for the party?” He was too curious not to ask.
“...Because it would be nice if it snows on Christmas?” Lex said.
“If it doesn’t snow, it doesn’t snow,” Clark told him with a shrug, as he picked up his ‘treats’ list again. “There’s way more to Christmas than snow.”
“Like food?” Lex said with a smirk.
“Right!” Clark grinned, waving the list at him. “So let’s maybe get back to decorations later, and figure out our grocery shopping list instead.”
“--No fruitcake!” Lex said quickly, and it was Clark’s turn to laugh.
“Yeah, no fruitcake,” Clark agreed. As far as he knew, it was way too much of a hassle to try and make right, and way too easy to get wrong, and he wasn’t going to ask his mom to try and help out. (Pies were much better, besides.) But that got him thinking...
“Clark?” Lex asked, and Clark realized that he’d been sitting there staring at his food list for awhile now. He shook himself.
“I have an idea,” Clark said. “But it might be kind of… weird.”
Lex gave a soft laugh that Clark probably wouldn’t have heard if he hadn’t been sitting next to him. “More weird than having a Santa Claus with sexy elves give out presents?” Lex said, poking fun at another of his own, earlier suggestions.
“Well, baking sugar cookies is usually more fun when you’re not doing it alone..." Clark began.
Lex let out a laugh, a good bit louder this time. “You’re, what, thinking about enlisting all of your partygoers to help set everything up?” Lex asked incredulously, in rising tones.
“Well, everybody’s got different traditions,” Clark pointed out, warming to the idea a bit despite Lex’s initial not-so-enthusiastic response. Besides, he’d sounded more startled than derisive when he’d laughed, anyway. At least, Clark had thought so.
“I--” Lex went through a few facial expressions, then seemed to settle on his thinking face as he finally gave it some serious thought.
Clark waited.
Lex looked at him more than a little suspiciously. “This isn’t because of what I said earlier, is it?” he asked. “About not celebrating Christmas anymore?” Apparently Lex was starting to catch on to Clark’s usual response to ‘Luthor things.’ That was okay, though, because...
“Chloe doesn’t get to do stuff with her mom anymore, either, and Lana’s Aunt Nell is usually too busy with the horse farm and her florist shop to do the homemaker thing,” Clark pointed out with unassailable logic. “I don’t want my mom to cook stuff for us, when it’s our party,” because that wouldn’t be fair; they should be the ones to do the setup, not her. “But I don’t think she’d mind being in the kitchen with us and giving us some pointers if everybody wanted to bake some stuff together.”
“I don’t think that would work well for most of it, though,” Lex told him, glancing down at his notesheets full of plans. “For one thing. it would be difficult to pick out a Christmas tree that everyone likes.”
“It would also take a lot of time, too,” Clark agreed. With that many people involved, that would end up being too much like work -- it would take at least an hour or two to choose a tree, cart it over there, get it inside, and decorate it, and they would have already done that at their own homes. Plus, they wouldn’t get to do much actual ‘partying’ and relaxing afterwards once they were done, and some of his less-than-super-strong friends might end up sore the next day.
“Yes, and even if we did manage it, a normal tree is just too small for the size of the rooms at the mansion. I’d have to special order one that wouldn’t be dwarfed by the room it was in. And getting a tree large enough to be used as a proper decoration at the mansion into the mansion and set up requires a great deal more work than just a few capable hands,” Lex warned him.
“Well, we don’t have to do everything as all set up already, or all done during the party,” Clark noted. “There are some things that just you and I could do, and different stuff that we could all do as, um, party activities?” Clark suggested. “If we want to set up a tree for the party, we could decorate most of the tree with lights and tinsel beforehand, and then everybody could make or paint ornaments and hang them on some of the lower branches later.” Then he frowned. “Wait. How much do big trees like that cost?” Some of the nicer ones even on Fordman’s lot were enough to break his party budget, and they weren’t huge.
“If it’s something that needs to be ‘mansion-sized’, like a tree, I’ll be happy to pay for it,” Lex told him.
“Yeah, but..." Clark bit his lip, thinking about what his dad would have to say about that. “Maybe we could just pick smaller rooms? The ballroom super-fancy, and way too big for stuff like this kind of party,” now that he thought about it. “And so is the foyer,” which was really just a big open space, and it had really high ceilings. It was also going to be cold, if that was where people were going to be entering and leaving. So, out of the rooms that Lex had first offered, that only left the hallways and the library. Clark thought they could still decorate the hallways pretty easily, with tinsel hanging off of the chandeliers and Santa hats on the suits of armor, but they couldn’t just have the party in a corridor. And, even though it was a mansion, the main hallway wasn’t that wide. “And I’m not sure about the library.” It’d be easier to just have the party in the library and maybe decorate a little where they were planning on doing other stuff, like the kitchen, but, well, that was still Lex’s library.
“There aren’t many in-between-sized rooms in the mansion, Clark.” Lex didn’t sound very happy with him. “I’d only have a little difficulty in convincing my cook to let us play in her kitchen, but we can’t have the entire party in there, and all of the nearby rooms are for storage.” He let out a slow breath and sat back on the couch. “There are some larger bedrooms in the mansion, but decorating and using any of those would send entirely the wrong message. The next smallest room is the solarium, but most of the floor space is full of plants -- it isn’t really made for events,” Lex told him with a frown. It was clear that he didn’t want to disrupt that space without a good reason, and Clark couldn’t blame him. There wouldn’t really be anyplace to move the plants to without the risk of them dying. “The dining room is smaller than the ballrooms are, but the ceilings are just as high. The entertainment room is cozy, but low-lit; it isn’t set up to entertain multiple guests who aren’t in there for the purpose of wanting to sit, relax, and watch a movie or two. The library is the next-smallest space, unless you want to have this party outdoors.” The last was not quite a question.
Clark shook his head. “It’s too cold to have it outside,” which was why he’d been planning to have it in the farmhouse, instead of the much-larger barn. “I really don’t think that it’s such a good idea to take over your library, though,” Clark told him. “That’s your room. You work there, and play there, and relax there. When I come over to the mansion to see you, you’re always in there.” Clark slouched a little. “Maybe we should just have it at my house like I was thinking of before, and we find a better excuse to decorate the mansion?” he tried.
“Is your house really big enough to hold everyone?” Lex asked dubiously.
“We’ve done it before,” Clark shrugged. It might be a little tight, sure, but it’d be okay.
Lex looked vaguely put out. “I really don’t mind having it at the mansion,” he tried again.
“I know,” Clark said consolingly. “But it’ll be easier to have... this kind of party here, instead of at your place,” Clark managed to say a little more diplomatically this time.
“I suppose.” Lex gave him a long look, thinking. “...You’ll have to come up with a very good excuse for me to decorate the mansion, though,” Lex said, deathly serious but for the light in his eyes that belied his censuring tones.
Clark was happy to rise to that challenge. “I bet I can think of something.”
Lex smiled.
~*~*~*~*~*~
END
From: josephina_x To Be Revealed!
For: JlvsClrk
Type: fic, 3700+
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none
Spoilers: up through 1x08 Jitters
Summary: Clark is planning a small Christmas party. Lex decides to try and help. Some suggestions are a bit much. Talking ensues.
Request: S1 After the infamous Jitters party, Lex helps Clark organize an 'intimate' Christmas party for their friends. Clark has to keep shooting down Lex's wonderful ideas.
Author note: A bit short and more than a little bit talky, but hopefully okay ^_^
A Wonderful Idea (or Two)
“--A snow machine!” Lex exclaimed.
Clark stifled a groan. “No, Lex.”
“But it’s festive to have a white Christmas!” Lex said. “And the weather forecast looks like--”
“Lex.” Clark sighed. Lex wasn’t pouting, because Luthor’s didn’t pout, but his tone sure sounded like he would be if he wasn’t. It didn’t help that this wasn’t the first idea he’d had to shoot down so far. “A snow machine isn’t... It isn’t a good idea,” he had to tell Lex bluntly.
Lex looked at him and a slight frown passed across his face. “Why?”
Clark wondered, not for the first time that afternoon, if this was what a headache felt like. He was starting to think that maybe he shouldn’t have asked Lex to help him with the small Christmas party he wanted to put together. Lex’s ideas just kept getting more and more outrageous.
He looked up at his best friend and wondered if logic might work on him any better. “Lex, most machines like that need a lot of power to run.”
“So?”
“So,” Clark said, “They probably have huge, weird power-plugs. We probably couldn’t power something like that off of the regular house power.”
Lex looked at him askance. “I don’t doubt that there ought to be a few models that can...”
“--And if we powered it off an extension cord coming from the barn or something, even if we didn’t blow every circuit breaker in the fuse box, dad would never let you pay for the extra cost of the power bill for the house,” Clark pointed out. ‘And it would probably be a lot,’ was implied.
Lex tilted his head slightly and sat back in his chair. “I could rent a generator to go with it.”
Okay, there were at least three things wrong with that. “Gas generators are really noisy, Lex. That doesn’t exactly go with the whole ‘softly falling snow’ thing. And there are the exhaust fumes, too.” Clark took in a breath and debated whether he should try and tell Lex that spending that much money on a snow machine and portable generator, just to spew snow all over their house and yard for a couple hours for his party, would go over about as well with his dad as the truck had.
Instead, Clark ended up saying, “It’s just too much.”
“But you want your party to be a success, don’t you?” Lex said, and Clark had a flashback to the fireworks (and the lack of police) that Lex had pulled off for the last ‘intimate’ gathering Clark had tried to have.
Clark shook his head. “It’s not like that. Really. It’s just going to be a handful of people and maybe their parents and siblings this time.” Unlike the huge party that had erupted when half the school had just shown up at his house. “Nobody’s going to expect snow unless it actually snows. It’s just too much for the farm.”
“Oh!” Lex seemed to perk up a bit at this for some reason. “I see! I didn’t realize. I thought you’d just meant that this was going to be for your friends. If you’re inviting entire families, then is the farm really going to be enough room?” he asked.
“Uh..." Clark tried to visualize that many people in the house. It should be okay, right?
“Why not host it at the mansion instead?” Lex asked him.
“The mansion?” Clark repeated, feeling thrown a bit. Lex was okay with hosting a party for a bunch of people he didn’t know, for Clark, at his house?
Lex nodded. “There’s plenty of space, and it wouldn’t be a bother to set up a snow machine on the grounds,” Lex said with a smile.
Clark frowned a little. “But I was-- we were planning on doing the decorations and stuff ourselves, remember?” Clark amended, remembering that Lex had offered his help for the setup and takedown. Personal help -- as in, doing it himself -- pitching in with his own two hands, not paying other people to help out.
“Yes, I remember,” Lex said with a smile.
“The mansion is pretty big,” Clark put out there.
“I wasn’t suggesting that we decorate the entire grounds,” Lex told him, a little taken aback.
“I don’t want to mess up whatever your staff put up already.” He’d just be adding more work for everybody involved.
“It’s not a problem,” Lex waved off. “The library and one of the ballrooms would be more than enough space, I think. Though the connecting areas should be just as festive, too, so we also ought to decorate the connecting hallway, and perhaps the foyer?” Lex pulled out a couple of Clark’s other note sheets on budgeting for supplies, put his head down to skim through them, and began rambling on a bit about decorations and a tree as he shuffled through the pages in front of him.
Clark looked at Lex sidelong. He was leaning forward, almost on the edge of his seat, smiling, and making suggestions that sounded almost reasonable now. Why did he seem so excited about this?
“--So, what do you think?” Lex asked, looking up at him again, and when Clark hesitated, Lex noticed. ”Clark?”
“Why the library and the foyer?” Lex didn’t use either of the ballrooms in the mansion that often, and the LuthorCorp Christmas party was in Metropolis, so Lex probably wouldn’t need to host anything there over the holiday. But, that was the ballrooms. The foyer was pretty much the main entrance, part of his living space, and library was really more Lex’s own personal space than anything else. Decorating and taking over those areas of the mansion seemed kind of...
Clark shifted in place uncomfortably, and at Clark’s obvious balking at the idea, Lex immediately backed off a bit. “It doesn’t have to be those rooms. There are plenty of rooms that could be used. Whatever you’d like.”
Clark peered at Lex carefully, dead-on. It was weird -- he could swear Lex seemed almost nervous.
“...Why do you want to have the party at the mansion?” Clark asked slowly. “You don’t even really know anybody that well.” He gestured at the rough invite list.
“I don’t mind,” Lex said. “I have the space, and I trust whomever you invite won’t burn the place down while I’m not looking.”
“Not... looking?” Clark frowned for a second. “Lex, you know that you’re, uh, invited, right?” Clark asked. Wasn’t that kind of a given? He’d thought that was kind of obvious, and hadn’t even needed to be said, especially since Lex was helping out with the planning! But the way Lex had sounded just then...
...Lex looked surprised, then sort of pleased? And Clark did a mental facepalm as he remembered that he hadn’t actually asked Lex for his help in the party-planning -- Lex had just walked up the stairs to his loft where he was camped out trying to figure things out, taken one look at the pages of notes strewn across the table in front of him and asked Clark what he was up to, and then offered his help -- all before Clark had even explained anything, really.
Clark frowned a little, though, because who helped plan a party that they figured they weren’t invited to?
“Geez, Lex,” Clark said. “Who gets that excited about decorating for a party that they think they’re not gonna attend?” he muttered rhetorically.
Lex didn’t laugh, though. Instead, Lex gave him a quirky half-smile that wasn’t quite as... comfortable as usual, and Clark sat up a little.
...Okay, bigger question: if Lex hadn’t even thought he was going to be attending, then why had he offered up the mansion for Clark’s use?
“Lex..." Clark was thinking hard now. “Is there something wrong with way the mansion is decorated right now?” Because the only thing he could really think of that might explain Lex’s behavior and leading suggestions was that maybe Lex was looking for an excuse to redecorate his living space for some reason.
“No, no,” Lex said with a slight laugh, waving a hand from side to side, and that just came off as nervous, too.
Clark gave him a long look. “Lex, if we have to tear down whatever’s already up, it’s gonna take twice as long to set everything up,” he warned him. “It’s gonna be a lot for two people,” mainly because Clark couldn’t get away with using super-speed at the mansion while doing stuff with Lex.
“It’s not a problem,” he was told.
“But--” Clark began, about to complain that undoing the hard work that his staff must have put in was not a good idea. But Lex interrupted him first.
“--It’s not a problem, really,” Lex told him, this time with a self-deprecating smirk, and Clark blinked at him and then stared as a new thought finally occurred to him.
“Lex,” Clark said carefully, fighting the urge to lick his lips, or maybe get up and pace... or just run around screaming for awhile... “Is the mansion not decorated for Christmas?” That would be weird, because he knew Lex was Catholic, and he couldn't think of a reason it wouldn't be, unless...
Lex looked away. “Ah, well,” he said. He looked down at his hands in his lap, then shook his head once like he was getting ahold of himself. His shoulders straightened a bit, and brought up his head and looked Clark right in the eye.
“No,” Lex said. “The mansion isn’t decorated.”
“...Why not?” Clark said, as neutrally and lightly as he could, trying not to make any assumptions or anything.
Lex took in another breath. He was still looking him in the eye. “Because my father-- my family hasn’t celebrated Christmas since my mother died,” Lex told him matter-of-factly. “Not like that. There’s no reason to.”
Clark tried not to clench his fists, or his jaw; he wasn’t mad at Lex. He really wanted to smack Lionel, though, because he’d totally been right -- it was one of those stupid ‘Luthor things’ again!
“If you want to celebrate Christmas and decorate stuff, that’s plenty of reason to,” Clark told his best friend firmly.
Lex blinked, then stared at him for awhile. Like this was some kind of a new concept that he really wasn’t all that sure about. Maybe even a little dubiously, like he wasn’t sure whether to trust that Clark was right on this, that he was telling the truth.
Clark felt a little jab of pain over that, then he sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Lex, this isn’t like driving over the speed limit or doing drugs. Celebrating Christmas is not a mainline to dressing up for Halloween,” he told Lex with much exasperation.
Lex let out a startled laugh at his pronouncement. “I, ah, I didn’t think it was,” Lex agreed, with the ghost of a grin at Clark’s silliness.
Mood lightened, Clark continued onward. “But if you do think you need an excuse, that’s fine. Just, maybe tell me what you want, instead of saying that something is what you think I might want?” Clark tried.
Lex blinked at him.
“Do you want to set up a snow machine to cover the mansion grounds with snow?” Clark asked him, point-blank.
“I, ah…” Lex looked a little taken aback, then blushed slightly. “No, not really,” he said.
Clark gave him a funny look, because what the heck?
“I just want your party to go well,” Lex told him.
“Our party,” Clark said, because he might as well give up and go all-in, if he was doing this -- if they were doing it. When he looked up and saw that Lex’s eyebrows would’ve been lost in his hair if he’d still had any, Clark belatedly added, “--If you want it to be. I mean, you’re helping already, and we are going to be setting up all the decorations and stuff together,” he pointed out.
“Clark, if I was throwing an ‘intimate’ party, I’d be obligated to invite half the town,” Lex pointed out. “And my father,” he added, making a bit of a face. “If I was somehow restricted to only needing to invite the people I actually wanted to come, then the only person I’d end up inviting would be you,” he told Clark, giving him another almost achingly self-deprecating smile.
...Well, this was new. Clark had never wished that somebody could actually buy a good friend for someone before, let alone for Christmas as a present. Though even if he could, that’d probably be way too expensive a present for him to afford to get for Lex, even if he saved up for it all year. Clark stifled a sigh and figured he’d just have to settle for sharing his own friends with Lex instead, as usual, and hope that everybody got along at the party (or as close to getting along as his snarky friends got) because nobody would want to risk ruining the general Christmas ‘happy’ mood.
Lex finished with: “Best if it’s your party, and I’m just helping out.” He seemed content to leave it at that.
“Okay, fine,” Clark said, stifling another sigh. “But if you wouldn’t want a snow machine for the mansion, then why did you suggest it for the party?” He was too curious not to ask.
“...Because it would be nice if it snows on Christmas?” Lex said.
“If it doesn’t snow, it doesn’t snow,” Clark told him with a shrug, as he picked up his ‘treats’ list again. “There’s way more to Christmas than snow.”
“Like food?” Lex said with a smirk.
“Right!” Clark grinned, waving the list at him. “So let’s maybe get back to decorations later, and figure out our grocery shopping list instead.”
“--No fruitcake!” Lex said quickly, and it was Clark’s turn to laugh.
“Yeah, no fruitcake,” Clark agreed. As far as he knew, it was way too much of a hassle to try and make right, and way too easy to get wrong, and he wasn’t going to ask his mom to try and help out. (Pies were much better, besides.) But that got him thinking...
“Clark?” Lex asked, and Clark realized that he’d been sitting there staring at his food list for awhile now. He shook himself.
“I have an idea,” Clark said. “But it might be kind of… weird.”
Lex gave a soft laugh that Clark probably wouldn’t have heard if he hadn’t been sitting next to him. “More weird than having a Santa Claus with sexy elves give out presents?” Lex said, poking fun at another of his own, earlier suggestions.
“Well, baking sugar cookies is usually more fun when you’re not doing it alone..." Clark began.
Lex let out a laugh, a good bit louder this time. “You’re, what, thinking about enlisting all of your partygoers to help set everything up?” Lex asked incredulously, in rising tones.
“Well, everybody’s got different traditions,” Clark pointed out, warming to the idea a bit despite Lex’s initial not-so-enthusiastic response. Besides, he’d sounded more startled than derisive when he’d laughed, anyway. At least, Clark had thought so.
“I--” Lex went through a few facial expressions, then seemed to settle on his thinking face as he finally gave it some serious thought.
Clark waited.
Lex looked at him more than a little suspiciously. “This isn’t because of what I said earlier, is it?” he asked. “About not celebrating Christmas anymore?” Apparently Lex was starting to catch on to Clark’s usual response to ‘Luthor things.’ That was okay, though, because...
“Chloe doesn’t get to do stuff with her mom anymore, either, and Lana’s Aunt Nell is usually too busy with the horse farm and her florist shop to do the homemaker thing,” Clark pointed out with unassailable logic. “I don’t want my mom to cook stuff for us, when it’s our party,” because that wouldn’t be fair; they should be the ones to do the setup, not her. “But I don’t think she’d mind being in the kitchen with us and giving us some pointers if everybody wanted to bake some stuff together.”
“I don’t think that would work well for most of it, though,” Lex told him, glancing down at his notesheets full of plans. “For one thing. it would be difficult to pick out a Christmas tree that everyone likes.”
“It would also take a lot of time, too,” Clark agreed. With that many people involved, that would end up being too much like work -- it would take at least an hour or two to choose a tree, cart it over there, get it inside, and decorate it, and they would have already done that at their own homes. Plus, they wouldn’t get to do much actual ‘partying’ and relaxing afterwards once they were done, and some of his less-than-super-strong friends might end up sore the next day.
“Yes, and even if we did manage it, a normal tree is just too small for the size of the rooms at the mansion. I’d have to special order one that wouldn’t be dwarfed by the room it was in. And getting a tree large enough to be used as a proper decoration at the mansion into the mansion and set up requires a great deal more work than just a few capable hands,” Lex warned him.
“Well, we don’t have to do everything as all set up already, or all done during the party,” Clark noted. “There are some things that just you and I could do, and different stuff that we could all do as, um, party activities?” Clark suggested. “If we want to set up a tree for the party, we could decorate most of the tree with lights and tinsel beforehand, and then everybody could make or paint ornaments and hang them on some of the lower branches later.” Then he frowned. “Wait. How much do big trees like that cost?” Some of the nicer ones even on Fordman’s lot were enough to break his party budget, and they weren’t huge.
“If it’s something that needs to be ‘mansion-sized’, like a tree, I’ll be happy to pay for it,” Lex told him.
“Yeah, but..." Clark bit his lip, thinking about what his dad would have to say about that. “Maybe we could just pick smaller rooms? The ballroom super-fancy, and way too big for stuff like this kind of party,” now that he thought about it. “And so is the foyer,” which was really just a big open space, and it had really high ceilings. It was also going to be cold, if that was where people were going to be entering and leaving. So, out of the rooms that Lex had first offered, that only left the hallways and the library. Clark thought they could still decorate the hallways pretty easily, with tinsel hanging off of the chandeliers and Santa hats on the suits of armor, but they couldn’t just have the party in a corridor. And, even though it was a mansion, the main hallway wasn’t that wide. “And I’m not sure about the library.” It’d be easier to just have the party in the library and maybe decorate a little where they were planning on doing other stuff, like the kitchen, but, well, that was still Lex’s library.
“There aren’t many in-between-sized rooms in the mansion, Clark.” Lex didn’t sound very happy with him. “I’d only have a little difficulty in convincing my cook to let us play in her kitchen, but we can’t have the entire party in there, and all of the nearby rooms are for storage.” He let out a slow breath and sat back on the couch. “There are some larger bedrooms in the mansion, but decorating and using any of those would send entirely the wrong message. The next smallest room is the solarium, but most of the floor space is full of plants -- it isn’t really made for events,” Lex told him with a frown. It was clear that he didn’t want to disrupt that space without a good reason, and Clark couldn’t blame him. There wouldn’t really be anyplace to move the plants to without the risk of them dying. “The dining room is smaller than the ballrooms are, but the ceilings are just as high. The entertainment room is cozy, but low-lit; it isn’t set up to entertain multiple guests who aren’t in there for the purpose of wanting to sit, relax, and watch a movie or two. The library is the next-smallest space, unless you want to have this party outdoors.” The last was not quite a question.
Clark shook his head. “It’s too cold to have it outside,” which was why he’d been planning to have it in the farmhouse, instead of the much-larger barn. “I really don’t think that it’s such a good idea to take over your library, though,” Clark told him. “That’s your room. You work there, and play there, and relax there. When I come over to the mansion to see you, you’re always in there.” Clark slouched a little. “Maybe we should just have it at my house like I was thinking of before, and we find a better excuse to decorate the mansion?” he tried.
“Is your house really big enough to hold everyone?” Lex asked dubiously.
“We’ve done it before,” Clark shrugged. It might be a little tight, sure, but it’d be okay.
Lex looked vaguely put out. “I really don’t mind having it at the mansion,” he tried again.
“I know,” Clark said consolingly. “But it’ll be easier to have... this kind of party here, instead of at your place,” Clark managed to say a little more diplomatically this time.
“I suppose.” Lex gave him a long look, thinking. “...You’ll have to come up with a very good excuse for me to decorate the mansion, though,” Lex said, deathly serious but for the light in his eyes that belied his censuring tones.
Clark was happy to rise to that challenge. “I bet I can think of something.”
Lex smiled.
~*~*~*~*~*~
END