AN: The correct formatting of the title is: Baby Just Say Yes (The Juliet Remix) This is the same story as This Isn't A Love Story (And You're No Romeo), but told from Clark's POV.
You buzz with excitement as you walk down the castle hallway toward Lex's study. Today is going to be the day, you're sure of it. Of course, that's what you thought the last time you saw Lex, and there's an at least passably good chance it's what you're going to be thinking the next time you see him too. That doesn't bother you as much as someone might think it would, though. Because every day that passes with nothing happening between the two of you, makes you more sure that it will happen eventually. There's way so much tension, of the best kind, in the air that something has to give sooner or later.
The doors are open when you walk up and Lex's head is somewhere a million miles away, giving you a few surreptitious moments to just look at him. You love looking at him and just absorbing in his inherent Lex-ness, which you know isn't a word, but there isn't a word that exists that can really fully describe him. You only look for a second or two, though, because the best part is yet to come.
"Hey Lex," you say, and Lex just brightens. It's not a hugely visible change, a small relaxation in the shoulders, a new warmth in his eyes, and the slight curve of a smile. It possible that someone else wouldn't even notice the difference, but he's your Lex – well not yours yet, but soon – and you make a point to notice as much about him as possible. "Whatcha thinking about?"
"Romeo was a moron." It's one of his candid answers that he says without thinking and that you love, because they're proof that he doesn't have to be on his guard around you.
"Like Romeo and Juliet? I didn't think he was a moron," you say. True, you would have rather have not had to read it, but that was more about the confusing language. The actual story itself you had liked just fine.
"English class?" Lex asks.
"English class," you agree, smiling a little because when else would you have read it?
"Trust me Clark, he's a moron. He kills himself for a girl he probably doesn't even love, given the way he moons over Rosaline in the beginning and then completely forgets about her as soon as Juliet shows up."
You can't help but wince a little internally at that. "That doesn't mean he doesn't love Juliet, just that he didn't love Rosaline. Maybe he just thought he loved her and then, when he met Juliet, he realized that he had never actually loved Rosaline because he didn't understand what love really was before that moment." God knows you went on about how much you loved Lana, to Lex's face even, in the years gone by. And you do love her, and probably always will, in a way, it's just not the romantic, together forever, we need to be kissing right now love that you thought it was. It wasn't, in short, the way you feel about Lex.
"They still kill themselves," he says, apparently conceding the point, much to your delight.
Though he does seem to be missing the main thing that Romeo and Juliet was really going for. Because it's well and good to go around as half of a whole when you don't realize that you're living your life just waiting for someone else, but how are you supposed to go on after you find that missing piece and lose it again? Granted, you hadn't killed yourself when Lex had been declared dead, but back then you a) didn't fully realize how you felt about Lex – and hadn't until he appeared before you again whole, and healthy, and miraculously and amazingly alive – b) didn't know for a hundred percent certain that he really was dead, and c) were high out of your mind on Red K. If Lex were to die now… you don't know what you'd do. "It's supposed to be romantic; they can't live without each other," you tell him. And then, smiling to take any possible sting out of the words, you say, "I think you're just being a cynic."
"I am not cynic," he retorts and he's totally lying through his teeth on that one. "And Romeo and Juliet is not romantic, it's maudlin."
"You are such a cynic," you repeat, shaking your head at him because he knows it's true. "I bet you don't think fairy tales are romantic either."
Lex raised his eyebrows in challenge. "Have you ever actually read the original version of those fairy tales? Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid is gruesome."
You roll your eyes. Of course when you say fairy tales, the first thing Lex thinks of are the creepy Grimm versions of the stories. "Not the original versions. The revamped, family friendly ones that parents read to their kids at bedtime."
"I don't know, Clark. Think about it," Lex says to you with just enough of a smirk to make it clear he's messing with you, but not so much as to imply he doesn't actually mean what he's saying. "Cinderella dances with the prince for one evening and suddenly she's ready to marry him? And The Little Mermaid is the same, but worse. Because she doesn't even get to talk to the guy before she gives up her family and her throne and her old world just for a chance to possibly win him over. Seems more stupid than romantic."
Yeah, well trying to help the guy you're (hopefully) in love with win over the town princess because that's what you think he wants is pretty stupid too, but you still think it's romantic in its own Lexian way. "I think being stupid is part of being romantic," you say. "Besides, don't you believe in love at first sight?"
He pauses for a moment, giving you an almost hungry look, and you really hope he's remembering the first time the two of you met too. Not that you fell in love with him right then, but there definitely had been something there. Though, technically, that had been your second meeting, but from what your mom tells you, your actual first meeting had been just as auspicious, if slightly lacking in the lip-on-lip action. "No I don't," he finally replies. "Love is about knowing everything about the other person and accepting them for everything they are and everything they aren't."
And that's what gets you every time. Because while you're at least ninety-five percent that he has feelings for you too, that pesky five percent always comes up and nags at the back of your mind, and continually keeps today from being the day. Lex doesn't know your secret, and what's worse, he knows that he doesn't know, and you aren't sure that he could really let himself love you without that knowledge. "Do you really think you have to know everything about someone before you can love them?" you ask him beseechingly. "Can't you just, I don't know, trust that they are the person that they say they are, even if you don't know all their secrets?"
"I suppose there's always room for new discovery. You can love a person for what you do know about them and trust the things they aren't sharing won't change that. But if it's a really big secret, you still need to tell the other person eventually. She deserves to know and you deserve someone who loves you for all of you, not just the pieces you're willing to show."
You search his face, trying to see if Lex is giving you the honest truth, or just trying to give you some encouragement in pursuing Lana. (You hadn't missed his use of "she," even if it seems like there's a lot that Lex is missing.) The mingling of hope and resignation in his eyes confirms it for you, and you nod. You can do that. You want to tell Lex, you honestly do, but you just haven't quite gotten to the place where you're comfortable sharing with anyone, especially not after the way Pete reacted when you first told him. But if you can just have some time, you know you can get there.
You smile at him so wide it feels like your face is going to split in half. "Thanks, Lex." Then you let your expression take on a mischievous tint and add, "But I still don't forgive you for trashing fairy tales and trying to ruin my childhood memories."
"I have not yet begun to ruin your childhood, Clark," Lex says, returning your smile. "Did you know that in the original Sleeping Beauty-"
"If you don't stop, I'll make you stop," you threaten, knowing full well it will just egg him on.
"- the Prince doesn't actually kiss the princess. Instead-"
You kiss him. Really it's more out of relief and joy that Lex finally cleared you from the one thing that had been worrying you, but the shutting him up thing makes a nice excuse. It's also working fairly well on that front because, once he got past his frozen state of shock (he really had no idea, had he?), he starts kissing you back like he's trying to devour you. Much better than talking.
You're definitely going to be the stuff of legends; Romeo and Juliet won't have anything on the two of you by the time you're done.