Author: Mitch

Title: Operation: Humbug

Series: Prologue

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Clark/Lex

Spoilers: None that I can think of. If you find any, I'm sure they're vague.

Feedback: Let me know if I should post further chapters! Oh, who am I kidding? I'll post them whether you like it or not. Bwahahahaha!

Author's Note: This is in response to the Ditch the Logical Christmas challenge, which you can find here: http://www.ditchthelogical.com/contest2.htm It was going to be a one shot story, but before I knew it, I had eight pages and I hadn't even written Clark into the plot yet! Plus, it's always fun to make everyone wait for the good stuff. :evil grin:

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December 7, 2002

3:00PM

Exhausted beyond the point of lunacy, aching in places previously undiscovered by man, and ready to drop kick a little thing called "The Holidays", Lex continued to dig through the stack of mail on his desk.

It was only 3:00 in the afternoon and he felt like it was midnight. Normally, he would push a trivial task like opening mail onto an assistant. But not now, not during The Holidays.

'Tis the fucking season, he thought.

Every year around the end of November, his desk started to disappear inch by inch, buried in envelopes and small packages, Christmas cards and homemade treats from the wives of business associates who cared even less about him than he did about them. The problem was, The Holidays were also his busiest time of year for valid, legitimate business letters, important enough for Lex to have to look at himself. Those corporate goons talked tough, but every year they worked themselves into a frenzy trying to finish early so they could spend a nice quiet Christmas with the wife and kids.

But again, Lex didn't care much for The Holidays. In fact, thanks to these bastards, he hated The Holidays, so opening envelopes from now until 4:00 AM on New Year's Day was not an impossibility.

At the moment, however, his eyes felt like jelly and his lower back was in flames. Tossing what had to be the fiftieth Anne Geddes card into the already overflowing waste basket, he put his head down on the desk and took a deep breath of peppermint and stale gingerbread.

As he lifted his arms to the desk to pillow his stress-wrinkled forehead, the stack of envelopes shifted, sending a few of them fluttering to the ground. But he felt the first intoxicating licks of desperately needed sleep and decided to worry about them later, after he rested his eyes. About two seconds into his rest, he heard a soft thump as a package fell onto the floor on the other side of the desk.

Curious, he got up to see what it was. Against the cool marble of the floor, he saw a small nondescript box wrapped in brown paper with nothing but his own name and address typed onto the side. It was the very essence of a 'plain package.'

I don't remember ordering any porn, he thought with a smirk.

He knelt down to pick it up and with a seize of his back ended up flat on his ass.

Undaunted, he pulled the small box into his lap and started to unwrap it, almost positive it was another assortment of cookies or fudge squares with less flavor than the cardboard enclosing them. But he was intrigued enough to at least open it before throwing it away.

Inside the brown paper was a red box, just as plain except for a short message written in gold ink: "A little something to brighten up that cold and lonely dungeon of yours."

More than a little confused, he opened the box, where he found a picture frame. But not just any picture frame.

It was 8 x 10 inches of expertly cut wood. A few curves here, a few dips there, and Christmas tree outlines cut all the way through the corners. All around the frame were hand-painted candy canes, gingerbread men, stars, Santas, and just about every other seasonal icon in existence, backed by a foundation of festive green.

But in spite of the striking detail and excellent craftsmanship, what Lex couldn't take his eyes away from was what the frame held. In the place of a picture was a black piece of paper with another gold message: "Love, Your Secret Santa."

"You've got to be shitting me," he said aloud.